Partners are the life blood of Biglaw. They are, you know, partnerships, and the rainmaking partners bring the clients to the firm that the rank and file bill. So, when a firms finds itself on the losing end of some poaching, it’s not a good thing.
When that happened to Paul Weiss in August 2023, when London-based partner Alvaro Membrillera departed for Kirkland, that left a pretty big hole in the firm’s London operations. But the firm responded in kind, hiring a bunch of lateral partners — largely from Kirkland. As reported by Bloomberg Law:
Paul Weiss quickly struck back, luring London rainmaker Neel Sachdev away from Kirkland to help lead the firm’s rebuilding office. Kirkland dealmaker Roger Johnson soon followed, joining as co-head of Paul Weiss’ global corporate practice and London co-head, together forming a London private equity, M&A and financing boutique for Paul Weiss.
UK debt finance partner Stefan Arnold-Soulby and IP and technology transactions partner John Patten also joined from Kirkland, among others.
As Paul Weiss’s Chair, Brad Karp, said, “For several years, we attempted to scale our London office and develop UK law capability to meet the increasing global needs of our large public company and PE clients, but were unable to find partners with the requisite talent who were also cultural fit. Last year, we were presented with a unique opportunity, which we seized.”
All told, the firm has picked up an additional 20+ partners in the mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice groups, geographically focused in the New York and London offices. Getting these superstars to jump firms can take big bucks — in the neighborhood of $20 million. As Mary K. Young, consultant at the Zeughauser Group, notes, “The amount firms are willing to pay talent has ratcheted up. The talent they’re paying for are able to generate a tremendous amount of work or, in some cases, are necessary to do a deal.”
In order to free up the cash to court the top lateral candidates, Paul Weiss has been making some changes to its partnership. The firm moved to a black box on partner pay to obscure partner compensation in order to minimize discontent and tensions within the partnership when top partners are taking down significantly larger sums of money. The firm also recently announced they’re adding an income partner tier to their partnership to allow them to remain competitive in the market.
“We’re operating in a ferociously competitive business where we need to provide our clients grappling with the most challenging, complex and existentially consequential matters with the very best talent to help solve their problems and achieve their business goals,” Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp said in an interview. “At the end of the day, there is no substitute for talent.”
These structural changes are allowing the firm to stay nimble and in the hunt for top talent. I don’t expect this is the end of Paul Weiss’s hiring spree.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
