The Unstoppable Combination for Success in Law

Key Economic Insight

The success of leading New York lawyers, including Joe Flom and the partners of the elite Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz firm, is not a random act but stems from a predictable combination of circumstances and opportunities. While intelligence, ambition, and hard work are prerequisites, the true blueprint involves three specific advantages: being Jewish, being born in a demographic trough, and having parents engaged in meaningful work, particularly within the garment industry. This intersection created an 'unstoppable combination' for legal triumphs.

A 'perfect New York lawyer' would be Jewish, consequently locked out of traditional 'white-shoe' firms and thus driven to specialize in emerging, undervalued areas like litigation and hostile takeovers. This individual would ideally have been born around 1930, benefiting from a small generation's access to excellent public schools and less competitive college admissions and job markets. Such a birthdate would also make them approximately forty years old in 1970, precisely when the corporate takeover revolution began, allowing them fifteen years to hone their expertise in this field while traditional firms remained disengaged. Crucially, their parents would have performed meaningful, entrepreneurial work, often in the garment business, thereby instilling vital lessons in autonomy, complexity, and the direct connection between effort and reward.

This predictive model is exemplified by the founders of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz. Herbert Wachtell (born 1931), Martin Lipton (born 1931), Leonard Rosen (born 1930), and George Katz (born 1931) all fit this profile. They were Jewish, grew up in modest circumstances (e.g., Amalgamated Clothing Workers union housing, near Yankee Stadium, one-bedroom apartment), often with parents or grandparents in the garment trade (ladies' undergarment business, presser, sewer doing piecework). They attended New York City public schools in the 1940s, then City College or similar institutions, and New York University Law School. Their collective background, culture, generation, and family history provided them with unique opportunities that ultimately propelled them to the pinnacle of the legal profession, demonstrating that these seemingly disadvantageous origins were, in fact, powerful advantages.