Footprint
A Return to Roots and a Look to the Future in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., has long been a part of Cravath's history, with the Firm having maintained an office there from 1924 to 1946. Re-establishing a presence in the capital almost a century later is as much a nod to tradition as it is an eye to the future.
In 2017, before his nomination to the Federal Trade Commission, Cravath’s Noah Joshua Phillips met with then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to speak about the role. Looking at Noah’s resume, he remarked, “Cravath, huh?”
“I thought, ‘You’re in the White House.’ This is the chief legal adviser to the president of the United States. And the thing he opens with is, ‘Oh, you were a Cravath associate’—not where I worked currently, not the last seven years of my career,” says Noah, who spent four years in Cravath’s New York office (2006 to 2010) before moving to Washington, where he would serve as U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to his appointment as an FTC Commissioner.
Cravath, Noah says, prepared him for a career at the highest levels of government—and throughout his time in Washington, he saw how well regarded the Firm was in the capital, even despite the lack of an “official” presence there. So when he had the opportunity to return as one of the founding partners of the D.C. office in 2022, Noah recalls that he couldn’t say ”yes” fast enough.
Noah is now part of a team of lawyers who has each served in top leadership positions across key federal regulatory agencies: D.C. office Managing Partner Jelena McWilliams is the former Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Elad Roisman is a former Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jennifer Leete is a former Associate Director of Enforcement at the SEC. Jeff Dinwoodie held senior positions at the SEC and the Treasury Department. And Jeff Rosen, who joined Cravath most recently, in 2023, served as the former Acting Attorney General of the United States.
With their depth of experience across multiple sectors—among them antitrust, banking, investigations and securities—Cravath has positioned its founding partners of the Washington office, and the Firm at large, to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex regulatory system. In this regard, its re-established presence in D.C. is a strategic next step in the Firm’s evolution. Prior to the opening of the D.C. office, Cravath operated from only one U.S. location—New York—and an office in London, which opened in 1973. The Firm is no stranger to the capital, having maintained a D.C. office from 1924 to 1946. Several lawyers from this first iteration would found Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, maintaining close ties to Cravath throughout their tenure.
Like everything the Firm has done in its more than 200-year history, the decision to return to D.C. involved a deliberate examination of client needs and a carefully calibrated response.
Laying New Foundations
Located at 16th and K, the new office is blocks from the White House. Upon entering, the Cravath logo—gold lettering in high relief against a navy wall—welcomes visitors into an office with sleek furnishings and minimalist design. In a corner conference room, sunlight streams through large windows offering a view of the Washington Monument.
In the board room, a series of pop art portraits of George Washington lines one wall, with the first president’s image set on backdrops of vibrant colors and bold textures. The room offers a fitting juxtaposition of tradition and modernity.
Despite the fresh environment, the Firm’s sense of collegiality feels lived in, with the new partners enjoying an easy familiarity right from their start. It helps that they have some shared history. Jelena and Elad worked together on the Senate Banking Committee, where their offices were so close that they kept their doors open so they could speak to one another without leaving their desks.
Similarly, Jennifer and Elad were colleagues at the SEC before they both joined Cravath. Jennifer jumped at the chance to work with Elad again—and to meet Jelena, too, after hearing Elad sing her praises. They all say that the respect for one another is mutual.
Noah and Jelena, meanwhile, became acquainted when he worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee and she was a lawyer on the Senate Banking Committee. Jelena was so impressed by his knowledge and intellect that she immediately placed him in an important category: someone she wanted to play Trivial Pursuit with.
There is no confirmation on whether that game has been played, but true to the Cravath ethos of preparing for all outcomes, a Trivial Pursuit game is ready for takers—the box sits prominently displayed by the entrance of a conference room.
The founding partners of Cravath’s Washington, D.C. office: Jelena McWilliams, Jennifer Leete, Elad Roisman and Noah Phillips. (Photo: Eli Meir Kaplan/Lawdragon)
Retreading Familiar Paths
Among the current D.C. partners, Noah is unique in that he started his career as a Cravath associate. For his part, he is happy to serve as the de facto Firm ambassador to his colleagues. He recalls enjoying the benefit of Cravath’s strong profile in the nation’s capital as a young lawyer after he left New York, and he quickly found a deep and collegial network of former associates and other friends of the Firm.
“I was a Capitol Hill staffer, but also a former Cravath person,” he says. “My relationships at the Firm had been so formative and that made returning a really attractive prospect.”
So while the office and the city may differ from his associate experience, for Noah, it feels like a homecoming. He is glad to be resuming his antitrust work with Cravath colleagues he knows both from his time at the Firm and on Capitol Hill.
“I’m blessed to have colleagues who are nice people and really smart and really good at what they do,” he says. “They came here in part because they’re drawn by all the things that make Cravath great. They want to work with these associates who produce great work. They want to work with partners who are wise and experienced and the best in what they do.”
He especially feels a connection with the young lawyers in the Washington office, noting their shared histories. “I have a sense of what it means to do Cravath-level associate work. There is a lot of work. There are high expectations. And they’re working on matters that matter. Matters of consequence, which is really exciting,” Noah says. “It’s good to be back.”
