What with the “War for Talent” and all, it can be easy to breeze past the fact that the Great Recession—and all the financial disruption that came with it—shaped the careers of a whole generation of lawyers. 

We were reminded of that fact as we dug into the responses some of the new litigation partners gave to questions from our Law.com colleagues as part of the “How I Made It” Q&A series. We’ve already highlighted some of the insights that new partners at firms in both the top and bottom half of the Am Law 100 shared from their career journeys over the past year. This morning we’re going to spend some time with five litigators recently elevated to partner at litigation boutiques and mid-size firms—Nicholas Maxwell of Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna, Daniel Horowitz of Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, Phillip Smith Jr. of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial, Clarissa Collier of Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell, and Caleb Seeley of Seeger Weiss.