The inner core of Boston's power structure includes the major downtown law firms. Their clients include the banks and large corporations, whose boards the law firms' senior partners are frequently asked to join.

Lawyers not only provide expertise on business matters (such as mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, labor relations, issuance of new securities), but also represent corporations in their dealings with government agencies. Each major firm also has a few senior partners active in partisan politics—as campaign advisors and fundraisers, as appointees to a variety of blue-ribbon commissions, and occasionally as candidates for office.  

About 15 law firms dominate Boston's corporate world, with two of them—Ropes & Gray and Hale & Dorr—at the pinnacle of power. In Boston business and political circles, these firms wield enormous influence, helping the powerful preserve their privilege.  

Despite the fact that Boston has one lawyer for every 96 people, access to legal advice is very maldistributed. There are over 6,000 lawyers, and hundreds of law firms in Boston alone, but the corporate firms occupy a special niche. They are off limits to all but the very rich—primarily large corporations. They draw most of their lawyers from the Ivy League law schools, particularly Harvard.  

Most of Boston's top echelon law firms have their origins in the late 1800's. Their first clients were the old Yankee manufacturing companies, banking and investment firms, and family trusts. The law firms have had to adjust to Boston's postwar economic transformation. Although much of the banking and investment interests remain, they have been joined by the high technology companies and the marked growth in the health care industries.

Postwar urban renewal and downtown development also spawned a multitude of architectural and real estate firms needing legal counsel and government liaisons in order to prosper. The older large law firms expanded their practices to attract these new clients, while a few newer firms made it into the inner circle.

Ropes & Gray, founded in 1865, is the epitome of the old-line Boston law firm. Its senior partners include some of the most influential men in the region. Francis Burr is a director of Raytheon, American Airlines, State Street Investment Trust, Equitable Life Assurance, New England Electric System and Corning Glass Works. Burr is a member of the Bank of Boston's trust board, and a trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital. For many years he was on Harvard's Board of Overseers.  

Edward Hanify, until recently, was a director of Boston Edison (which he often represented in cases before the state Dept. of Public Utilities), State Street Bank, and AT&T, and he still sits on the board of John Hancock and the John F. Kennedy Library. He was Edward Kennedy's lawyer for the inquest at Chappaquiddick.

Ernest Sargent handles much of Harvard University's legal work and is a director of the Morse Shoe Company. F. Douglass Cochrane handles securities and bonds for Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates, and is a director of the YMCA and United South End Settlements.  

Thomas O'Donnell, formerly a member of the Vault, is labor counsel to CBS, WHDH, General Cinema, Westinghouse, and three Boston area hospitals. O'Donnell serves on the boards of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.  

Ropes & Gray partners sit on a wide range of boards (in addition to the ones listed above), including Fiduciary Trust Co., Dunkin' Donuts, Cambridge Savings Bank, Winchester Savings Bank, Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation, Millipore Corp., Boston Atheneum, Museum of Fine Arts, Mount Auburn Hospital, Middlesex School, Longy School of Music, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Museum of Science, Belmont Hill School, Buckingham Schools, Pine Manor College, Family Counseling and Guidance Centers, American Cancer Society, the New England Medical Center Hospital, and Harvard Medical Center.

The firm's alumni included Archibald Cox, Elliot Richardson (former U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of Defense, Commerce, and HEW), and James Vorenberg (Dean of Harvard Law School).  

Public service also means involvement with government. Corporate lawyers are often called upon to serve as high level policy-makers in the federal government under both Republican and Democratic regimes. Roger Moore, a Ropes & Gray lawyer, was named general counsel for Ronald Reagan's 1980 election campaign, and was named to the same position for Reagan's 1984 re-election effort; in between, he served as general counsel for the Republican National Committee. He is also chairman of The National Review, William Buckley's right-wing magazine.  

Most prominent lawyers use their law firm business connections to influence government. Very few run for office. Big-time lawyers prefer appointed positions and behind-the-scenes roles. There are, of course, exceptions, such as Elliot Richardson of Ropes & Gray (who started his political career as state Lt. Governor).

Once considered a gentlemen's profession, law is now a big business. The larger firms are often referred to as “legal factories.” The Boston firms have expanded rapidly in the past decade (growing 33% from 1977 to 1981 alone) adding many new lawyers. The expansion is necessary, they say, to have enough specialist lawyers to handle the complex, technical cases in such areas as high tech, health care, environment and cable TV.  

Like many of Boston's other powerful institutions, the major law firms have only recently opened up their doors to non-Yankees.

  The common denominator for all the top firms, however, is a Harvard law degree. Approximately half the lawyers in these firms attended Harvard. There are, of course, some upper-class Brahmins among the top firms, men like Francis Burr (Ropes & Gray), Francis Lowell Coolidge (Ropes & Gray). But there simply aren't enough Yankees to fill all the slots in these large and expanding firms.  

The upper-echelon law firms, despite competing for clients, form a close-knit fraternity. There are, among them, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, as well as differences in social, ethnic, and class backgrounds. But there is, in general, a common allegiance to the status quo, reinforced by their overlapping presence on corporate and civic boards, their membership in the same small circle of social clubs, and the actions of the Boston and Massachusetts Bar Associations.  

[A reader suggested that The Bridge post the above excerpt from the Boston Urban Study Group's 1984 pamphlet, Who Rules Boston? A Citizen's Guide to Reclaiming the City, since Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick's wife has been a partner in the politically influential corporate law firm of Ropes & Gray in recent years. Thanks to B. F.]