Novelists portrayal of upper-echelon lawyers at the top of the professional pecking order, see: Louis Auchincloss, Diary of a Yuppie (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986); Louis Auchincloss, The Great World and Timothy Colt (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987); John Jay Osborn, The Associates (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979).

James B. Stewart, in The Partners: Inside America's Most Powerful Law Firms (New York: Warner Books, 1983), describes elite law firms as having "an aura":

not quite duplicated anywhere else. It makes itself felt in the tastefully conservative, even faintly shabby, office decor; in the oil portraits of the long-dead founding partners; in the prestige addresses; in the polite but cool formality displayed by the lawyers in the firm, who invariably wear dark suits and dignified ties. The firms project an image of unshakable prosperity and security, of tradition and excellence, of permanence. It is the image of the old-line WASP financial establishment, one that is carefully burnished and maintained.

It is a world for which lawyers are well prepared at the country's most prestigious law schools. At nearly all of the elite corporate firms, many of the partners have been educated at Harvard Law School, itself a bastion of the kind of values reflected in the blue chip firms.

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The elite corporate firms are also old; their traditions have been handed down from one generation of lawyers to another, and they have deep roots in the business and financial communities they serve. Most were founded before the turn of the century, with established clients who took advantage of the boom in the American economy which ensued. No firm founded since the Second World War has managed to enter these elite ranks. . . . [15, 16]

Among other affectations of elite law firms, Arthur Blumberg suggests that, "[i]n the larger firms, the furnishings and office trappings will serve as the backdrop to help in impression management and client intimidation." [Arthur Blumberg, The Practice of Law as a Confidence Game, 1 Law & Soc. Rev. 15, __ (1967)]

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