Katherine Forrest

Making partner at a law firm, the old saying goes, is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie.

But there are some obvious off-ramps to glory. You can become general counsel of a company, which in my imagination means flitting off to the Hamptons for the weekend while your outside counsel slaves away on a brief.

Or—even more elusive—you can be appointed as a federal judge. Not only do you get a robe and gavel and everyone has to call you “Your Honor” and stand when you walk into court—but you are (in the words of George W. Bush) The Decider.  

You apply the law and call it like you see it. Sometimes you even make new law. You answer to almost no one, except maybe the court of appeals (and even then, it's not as if they can fire you). Long after you're gone, people will cite your opinions.

But what if what you really want is more pie?

On Wednesday, Cravath, Swaine & Moore announced that Katherine Forrest is rejoining the firm as a partner. In July, Forrest said she was retiring from the Southern District of New York, where she had been a judge since 2011.

“Retiring” in her case seems a bit misleading though, since she is 54.

In July, Colby Hamilton writing for The New York Law Journal reported that Forrest told colleagues in an email that she was leaving the bench for “personal” reasons.

In a statement on Wednesday, Forrest said, “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a member of the federal judiciary and to have served our justice system. I am thrilled to be coming home to begin the next phase of my career at Cravath, where I was trained and will have the opportunity to continue making a difference in the courtroom alongside a tremendous team.”

Which is nice, but I still wonder why someone gives up what is often viewed as the brass ring of the profession.

Might it be money? After all, a U.S. district court judge currently makes $208,000 a year—or just a hair more than a second-year associate at Cravath. Partners at the firm last year raked in an average of $4 million.

But Above the Law's David Lat pointed out in 2011, Forrest in her Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire revealed that she's entitled to payments of $380,000 a year from Cravath until 2021. That would certainly help make ends meet on a judge's salary.

Forrest told The Wall Street Journal's Sara Randazzo  that one reason she was leaving the bench is because she is going through a divorce. She was married to Sean Baldwin, a partner at Selendy & Gay (and former partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan). 

Another clue for Forrest's move might be this phrase in her statement: “alongside a tremendous team.” Because being a district court judge is a rather solitary job.

Sure, a judge has clerks and court staff, and there are other judges in neighboring chambers to chat with. But as a litigator, you work with junior and senior lawyers and staff within your firm, in-house counsel, witnesses, experts, perhaps co-counsel—plus there's opposing counsel to spar with. It's a far more sociable, team-oriented occupation.

Judges can also face disquieting reactions to their decisions.

In 2015, Forrest sentenced Ross Ulbricht to life in prison without parole for his role in the Silk Road online black market. Even now, when you search her name you can easily find vitriolic, profanity-laden threats (I refuse to link to them) that also mention her two children and a “bounty for anyone who can get info on them.”

To be sure, Forrest isn't the only federal judge to go back to a law firm.

But more often, the move comes after many years as a judge, a sort of bookend to a legal career. Think Barbara S. Jones to Bracewell or John Gleeson to Debevoise & Plimpton or Shira Scheindlin to Stroock & Stroock & Lavan or Jorge Solis to Katten Muchin Rosenman or Leonard Davis to Fish & Richardson.

Less common are those who, like Forrest, leave during the prime of their career after just a few years on the bench.

Hausfeld partner Walter Kelley Jr. spent less than four years as a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia before he resigned in 2008. “I don't so much enjoy the day-to-day drugs and guns and immigration cases that make up much of our docket,” he told the Virginian-Pilot when he quit to join Jones Day. “Other people enjoy it and don't like what I like—the big, complicated cases.”

As a top litigator at Cravath, Forrest is all but guaranteed a steady diet of big, complicated cases. In other words, enjoy the pie.

For more, see Ex-SDNY Judge Katherine Forrest Returns to Cravath

Note: this post was updated to include information from The Wall Street Journal

 

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