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Our departments serve as home bases from which our individual lawyers conduct their practices. New associates generally join a department when they complete their first year with the firm. As practices evolve, some lawyers change departments or become involved in projects in another department. In addition, because the complex legal issues we handle often call upon multiple disciplines, special teams often form across practice areas to meet our clients' needs.

 
Corporate partner Raj Marphatia regularly works with associates Mike Sartor, left, (Washington & Lee University School of Law '05) and Dasha Tcherniakovskaia, center, (Suffolk University Law School '06).

Our 2009 submission to NALP reports the following information as to the allocation of our 1025 lawyers among the firm's eight departments and six offices (note that unassigned lawyers are shown in the department(s) in which they principally practice, and lawyers splitting between departments are shown in both departments):

Practice Areas No. Partners
No. Associates &
Other Lawyers
  Corporate 145 427
  Litigation 74 262
  Intellectual Property 73 140
  Tax & Benefits 23 58
  Health Care 21 60
  Private Client Group 12 13
  Bankruptcy & Business Restructuring 10 21
  Labor & Employment 5 13

Our firm has grown steadily across all departments. In recent years, for example, associates have become partner in each of our eight departments. Our overall success rate to partnership — since 1995, approximately 16% of the associates who originally comprised the classes considered for partnership in that period have been made partners in the firm — is exceptional among top-tier firms.

 
Michael Lee and Carl Marcellino are two of the twelve Ropes & Gray associates who were promoted to partner in November 2008. Michael practices in the Boston office, and Carl practices in the New York office.