Paul Drennan Cravath

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Paul D. Cravath
LLB)
OccupationLawyer
Known forThe Cravath System
Height6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
SpouseAgnes Huntington (1892–1940)
ChildrenVera Agnes Huntington Cravath
RelativesRev. Erastus Milo Cravath (father)
Georgia Laura White (cousin)
Signature

Paul Drennan Cravath (July 14, 1861 – July 1, 1940) was a prominent American corporate

partner of the New York law firm known today as Cravath, Swaine & Moore.[1][2] At the firm, he devised and implemented the Cravath System
which has come to define the structure and practice of most large American firms.

Cravath was a leader in the American Atlanticist movement and was a founding member and director of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Early life and education

Paul Drennan Cravath was born on July 14, 1861 in

Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. When his family visited Europe, he enrolled in boarding school in Geneva and toured Germany with this father.[4]

Cravath graduated from

A.M. degree in 1887.[5][4]

After graduation, Cravath embarked on the study of law in

Quaker relatives. Cravath graduated cum laude from Columbia in 1886 and was awarded the school's first Municipal Law prize.[5] While at Columbia, Cravath was a law student with the firm of Martin & Smith.[5]

Legal career

Cravath was admitted to the

George Wickersham. In 1887, Hornblower and Byrne broke with Carter and asked Cravath to join their new firm; he refused and remained with Carter, with their firm rechristened Carter, Hughes & Cravath. They opened their first office in the New York Life Building on January 1, 1888.[6]

One of Cravath's first clients was George Westinghouse, whom he represented in connection with disputes against Thomas Edison.[7][8][9] Cravath defended Westinghouse against hundreds of claims of patent infringement, primarily by stalling until Edison's patent on the incandescent light bulb expired in 1894.[9] While the patent litigation provided Cravath a steady stream of income into the 1890s which allowed him to leave Carter to start his own firm in 1891, Cravath also gained a large public profile through the so-called "war of the currents," a full-scale commercial dispute for the market for electrical power transmission with billions of dollars at stake. The war pitted Westinghouse's alternating current based transmission system against Edison's direct current system. Cravath defended Westinghouse in court and in the press during suits brought against the firm over unsafe AC power lines, gaining a reputation as the chief spokesman for Westinghouse and the alternating current system. Cravath, working with Charles Evans Hughes, lost most of the court cases.[9]

In 1899, Cravath joined the law firm of Blatchford, Seward & Griswold in 1899, then led by William Dameron Guthrie.[9] He was made a named partner on January 1, 1901 when the firm became Guthrie, Cravath & Henderson.[9]

His

E. R. Squibb & Sons, Columbia Gas & Electric, and Studebaker Corp.[10] His name was added to the firm's moniker in 1901.[11]

Cravath was the authoritative head of the firm from 1906 until his death in 1940, and his formal statement of his conceptions of proper management of a law office still controls its operations.[12] Cravath, Swaine & Moore endures as a leading law firm, and celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2019.[13]

Cravath System

Main article: Cravath System

His law firm growth and operating structure remains widely known today as the Cravath System. White Shoe author John Oller credits the Cravath System as the model adopted by virtually all white-shoe law firms in the early 20th century, 50 years before the phrase white shoe came into use.[14] The Cravath System has been partially adopted by most large law firms.[15][16]

Foreign policy

See also: Preparedness Movement

As a leader of the

First World War served as an epiphany, building a deep concern with foreign policy that dominated his remaining career. Fiercely Anglophile, he demanded American intervention in the war against Germany. His goal was to build close Anglo-American cooperation that would be the guiding principle of postwar international organization.[17]

He was one of the founding officers of the

Davis Polk & Wardwell
, while Cravath served as the inaugural vice-president.

Cravath was awarded the

Legion of Honor by the French government, which also honored Cravath with a "special war cross".[19]

Personal life

Paul Drennan Cravath with daughter Vera circa 1913
August Belmont Jr. (right) and Paul Drennan Cravath in 1913

In 1892, he married the opera singer Agnes Huntington. Their daughter, Vera Agnes Huntington Cravath (1895–1985), was born on August 28, 1895.[20] The couple legally separated in 1926. Their daughter, then separated from her first husband, moved in with her father until her second marriage the following year.[21][20]

Vera Cravath married at least twice: to Lt. James Satterthwaite Larkin, about 1917, with whom she had a son, Adrian Cravath Larkin (who died in 2014, aged 94), then to William Francis Gibbs, in 1927, with whom she had two sons.[22] She died in Rockport, Massachusetts, in July 1985.[20]

Cravath served as a member and chairman of the Fisk University Board of Trustees for over 30 years.

Juilliard School of Music and became chairman of the Metropolitan Opera in 1931 and was subsequently profiled by The New Yorker in its first January 1932 issue.[24][25]

Cravath died in 1940.[10]

In popular culture

A fictionalized Cravath (name unchanged) is the protagonist in Graham Moore's 2016 historical novel The Last Days of Night, which received generally positive reviews,[26][27] As of 2016, a cinematic adaptation of the "historical thriller"[28] was in development, starring Eddie Redmayne as Cravath.[29][30]

References

  1. ^ "Presiding Partners 1906-1940".
  2. ^ Richard E. Mendales (July 1, 2001). "Paul Drennan Cravath". American National Biography. Retrieved September 16, 2008.
  3. ISBN 0-8173-0015-5
  4. ^ a b c Oller 2019, p. 5.
  5. ^ a b c The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors, 1819-1947, by Robert T. Swaine, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 1978, pages 585-586.
  6. ^ Oller 2019, p. 6.
  7. ^ Blair, Rebecca (August 15, 2016). "Cravath Lawyer Spotlighted in Book, Movie with Eddie Redmayne". Law.com. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  8. ^ Dewey, Katrina (August 29, 2016). "Consider The Lawyer: How A Young Paul Cravath Took On Edison". Lawdragon. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  9. ^ a b c d e Oller 2019, pp. 9–16.
  10. ^
    Time magazine. July 8, 1940. Archived from the original
    on February 9, 2009. Retrieved December 8, 2008.
  11. ^ "Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 28, 2006.
  12. ^ Robert Taylor Swaine, The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors (New York: Ad Press, 1946-48) Archived 2008-05-09 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ Two Centuries of the Law: Cravath, Swaine & Moore exhibit, New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, March 22 – June 9, 2019. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  14. ^ Levinson, Marc (March 20, 2019). "White Shoe Review: Lawyering Up the 20th Century (book review)". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  15. SSRN 1121238
    .
  16. ^ Henderson, Bill. "How most law firms misapply the "Cravath system"". Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  17. ^
    ISSN 0004-9522
  18. ^ "The Hall of Valor Project" Military Times, Sightline Media. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  19. ^ Oller 2019, p. 263.
  20. ^ a b c "Vera Cravath Gibbs, 89, Dies; Was Active in Opera Groups". The New York Times. July 30, 1985. Retrieved November 30, 2009.
  21. ^ "PAUL D. CRAVATH AND WIFE SEPARATE" The New York Times, July 10, 1026, pages 1 and 3. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
  22. ^ "LARKIN, ADRIAN CRAVATH" The New York Times, June 13, 2014. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
  23. ^ Opportunity, Volumes 5-6, National Urban League, 1969, page 18.
  24. ^ "Cravath, Swaine & Moore The Early Cravath Firm: 1906-45" Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
  25. ^ "Public Man" by The New Yorker, January 2, 1932. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  26. ^ Hawley, Noah, "Fighting for the Light", The New York Times (September 4, 2016), p. BR7.
  27. ^ Anderson, Patrick, "The Last Days of Night: The flaws of Thomas Edison, both real and imagined", The Washington Post (August 22, 2016)
  28. ^ "Eddie Redmayne to star in 'The Last Days of Night'", Business Standard, July 31, 2016.
  29. ^ Nolfi, Joey (July 25, 2016). "Last Days of Night: Eddie Redmayne to star in big screen adaptation of Graham Moore novel". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  30. ^ "The Last Days of Night - IMDb". IMDB. Retrieved October 9, 2018.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul Drennan Cravath.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Drennan_Cravath&oldid=1220970204"