How to Bill 27 Hours in One Day

From the WSJ Law Blog:

How does this hearken back to the Disco era? In 1969, the Justice Department filed suit claiming IBM maintained an illegal monopoly in computers. The suit spanned the Seventies, before the Justice Department under Reagan finally dropped the suit in 1982.

The Obama administration appears eager to crank up the dial on antitrust enforcement, according to WSJ, which cites investigations of Google in connection with its foray into the digital books market and Intel's dominant position in sales of microprocessorchips.

Cravath defended IBM in the earlier case, and many firm lawyers, including one David Boies, came of age logging interminable hours fending off the government watchdogs.
For a detailed look at Cravath's work in the IBM case check out the James B. Stewart 1983 book "The Partners," which still ranks as one of the more comprehensive and entertaining accounts of life insider corporate law firms.

Here is a long-ago review of the book by former Times editor Christopher Lehman-Haupt, who highlighted this anecdote from The Partners:
One young man working on the I.B.M. case for Cravath, Swaine succeeded in establishing a company record by billing 24 hours of work in a single day; one of his rivals promptly flew to California and, by exploiting the time difference, managed to bill 27 hours.

Ah, what associates would do now for that kind of billable output.