America's leading black law firms - Cover Story

Black Enterprise, August, 1993

Clients - from DuPont, General Motors, Amtrak and the Southern California Rapid Transit District- look to them for matters such as insurance defense, wrongful termination and products liability. A twist? Many of their high-profile corporate clients actually prefer defending their names in court rather than settling. With such big reputations-and multimillion dollar verdicts - at stake, Wilson & Becks is kept busy: since opening its doors in 1975, the firm has tried 125 jury cases of 85% them successfully. "We were the first black firm to aggressively pursue the corporate work in Los Angeles," claims Becks. Their biggest case to date: Representing DuPont in a $2 million products liability case, in which the firm convinced a jury to award nil.

Roommates during their undergrad days at Stanford University, Wilson and Becks discuss train-derailment cases and their vitaes (law degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively) with equal aplomb. "Clients appreciate our technical understanding,- says Wilson, who can expound on the complexities of a back injury with the authority of an M.D.

While trial law remains the firm's forte, Wilson & Becks also dabbles in high-stakes bond work. The firm was recently tapped as co-bond counsel for Los Angeles' department of airports, in an issuance worth $255 million.

As in most other cities, legal success hinges on being plugged into the political circuit. Ifs no surprise, then, that the partners have turned networking into a high art, and consider every contact to be as crucial as a client. Becks is a former attorney for the County of Los Angeles, and his wife is a superior courtjudge. Still, the partners haven't let such ins, not even their acquaintance with mayor Tom Bradley, go to their heads. Says Becks: "We still have to hustle."

WOOD, WILLIAMS, RAFALSKY & HARRIS,

New York

New York City is a tough place to build a black law firm - or any law firm. It's exorbitantly expensive, cruelly competitive, and, before David Dinkins became mayor, not big on inclusiveness.

It was onto this less-than-friendly turf that Wood, Williams, Rafalsky & Harris sprang in 1984. Almost a decade later, with 23 lawyers, its clients mirror the diversity of its home base: Sprinkled in with names such as Bear Stearns & Co. and Chemical Bank are Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church and the Arthur Ashe AIDS Foundation. Fees from such clients enabled Wood, williams to begin 1993 on a high note - as occupants of 22,000 square feet of new, high-tech office space in the Wall Street Tower, smack in the hub of the nation's financial playground.

Answering the call to specialize, Wood, Williams has developed five roughly defined practice areas: litigation, bank finance/general corporate, real estate, public finance and government relations. While its members-mostly Ivy League veterans of major national firms-have been chasing corporate and institutional clients in all of these areas since the beginning, Wood, Williams' real coups have come in the public finance arena. In the first quarter of 1993 alone, Wood, Williams acted as sole bond counsel on more than $2 billion worth of new municipal issues transactions.