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Venerable New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP is shifting the ranks of its senior leadership, installing a woman in its top position for the first time in its nearly 200-year history.

Cravath's partners on Wednesday elected top deal maker Faiza Saeed as the firm's new presiding partner. Ms. Saeed will take the reins in January from Allen Parker, who took over the role from litigator Evan Chesler at the start of 2013.

The transition comes at a time when Cravath continues to sit near the top of the country's law-firm hierarchy, as tepid demand for legal work and pressure on rates has created a bifurcation in the industry between the most profitable firms and everyone else. Firms can command high fees for work on merger deals—an area that Cravath and a small number of others dominate at a time when such activity is running near record levels.

Cravath has for decades enjoyed a more enviable reputation than most firms, known as longtime counsel to blue-chip clients such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., American Express Co., and International Business Machines Corp.

Its partners took home an average of $3.56 million each in profit last year,

according to the American Lawyer magazine, ranking sixth among U.S. firms. The firm, which has 470 lawyers in New York and London, took in $666.5 million, according to the American Lawyer.

Ms. Saeed will continue to represent clients once she becomes presiding partner. Over the years, Ms. Saeed, 50 years old, has played roles in orchestrating a host of multibillion-dollar deals involving big-name clients in media, pharmaceuticals, entertainment and other fields.

Recent deals include advising DreamWorks Animation in its pending roughly $4 billion acquisition by NBCUniversal; Precision Castparts Corp. in its $32 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway and InterMune Inc. in its $8.3 billion acquisition by Roche Holding AG. Since 2013, Ms. Saeed has served as the co-head of Cravath's vaunted mergers-and-acquisition practice.

Ms. Saeed is the first woman to lead Cravath, which traces its origins to 1819. She is also one of few women to lead a New York law firm, a group that also includes Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP chairwoman Candace Beinecke and former Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP head Valerie Ford Jacob, who has since left the firm.

Nationwide, fewer than 20 of the 200 largest law firms have a woman in a key leadership role, according to the Women in Law Empowerment Forum, a number that includes some positions just beneath top leaders.

"Look, of course every firm would like to see more diversity and more women," said Ms. Saeed. "We certainly feel that way. We've been very focused on it."

Ms. Saeed is known for her close relationships with such industry titans as Jeff Bewkes, Howard Schultz and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executives of Time Warner Inc., Starbucks Corp. and DreamWorks Animation, respectively. Other clients including Morgan Stanley and Hasbro Inc.

Mr. Bewkes said in a statement that he and Time Warner's board have relied on Ms. Saeed for 20 years for her "impeccable judgment, sound advice and strong presence in some of our most important strategic matters."

Ms. Saeed, who joined the firm in 1991 after graduating from Harvard Law School, said her partners approached her about taking over the role and "it felt right."

She said she will focus on keeping the firm's practice areas strong, noting the firm advised on $1 trillion in announced deals in the past year, worked on the public offerings of Ferrari and Evolent Health, and has a partner serving as the independent monitor to Takata Corp. in its air bag recall.

At age 61, Mr. Parker is two years from Cravath's mandated age cap for those presiding over the firm. Cravath is one of few law firms that continues to adhere to a "lockstep" system, which advances lawyers' salary and rank based on seniority rather than factors like the amount of work each lawyer brings into the firm.

Mr. Parker, who stepped back from practice to be more of a full-time manager, will resume his corporate advisory and finance practice once he steps down. Ms. Saeed said he better positioned the firm across the board, and focused on improving associate mentoring, training and satisfaction, a key task at a firm that hires large associate classes each year.

"She's a person of real character and integrity and will be a wonderful leader for the firm," Mr. Parker said.

A California native, Ms. Saeed majored in molecular biology and economics at University of California, Berkeley, before deciding that a career in law would help her explore both interests by advising companies across all sectors, something she said she has been able to do through her deal work.

Cravath last month sent the nation's law firms spinning with its decision to raise associate salaries for the first time in nearly a decade, setting starting wages at $180,000. The move triggered waves of copycats from other law firms, which cite keeping up with the pack as the primary driver for the business decision.

Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 13, 2016 20:55 ET (00:55 GMT)

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