The Cravath Shade Wasn’t A One-Off: Weil Insiders Line Up To Say Good Riddance

When Weil, Gotshal & Manges announced that corporate chair Michael Aiello was leaving for what it pointedly called “a smaller platform” (the platform in question being Cravath), it was tempting to read the line as a single flash of pique from a firm caught on the wrong end of a raid.

But it was not a one-off.

In the days since, Weil partners have lined up to make sure nobody mistakes this for a firm in mourning. Bloomberg Law reports people there are feeling something closer to relief.

As Weil suffers the loss of a practice head, some partners there feel relieved. Aiello as a business generator has few peers in Big Law. But as a leader whose influence at the firm exceeded his role commanding the corporate department, he was a divisive presence who stalled progress in the new directions Weil needed to go, some people at the firm said.

That is a remarkable thing to say about the man the firm’s own partners routinely called its most powerful and, by other reporting, its highest paid, at north of $20 million a year. Firms usually manage a gentler goodbye than this.

The specifics are where it gets uncomfortable. Per Bloomberg Law, Aiello was viewed as a roadblock to recruiting and territorial over his practice, and important partners have left in recent years over his skeptical view of growth. The cleanest example: one of his own longtime deputies, Sachin Kohli, wanted to move to California to build a West Coast public-company M&A practice and went to Aiello for his blessing. Aiello reportedly called the idea “disloyal.” Kohli decamped for Wilson Sonsini earlier this year. In another instance, Bloomberg reports, Aiello raised concerns about hiring an M&A partner from a top rival even as others in the process were enthusiastic, the partner went to a competitor instead, one that has since helped itself to a handful of other Weil lawyers.

And now the firm has a pitch for what comes next.

The firm should be bigger, with a broader transaction base, and Aiello’s departure is “a great opportunity to let Weil be Weil; to be entrepreneurial and grow,” said one person familiar with the firm.

Maybe all of that is true. Maybe partner and firm had simply grown out of sync, and the split is better for everyone — Weil billed $2 billion last year and is not going to want for work.

But this is unusually messy for Biglaw, an industry that leans heavily on graceful and noncontroversial sound bites. The standard-issue departure statement wishes the defector well, thanks him for his contributions, and says absolutely nothing. Weil insiders skipped all of that and went straight to briefing reporters on why it is better off without him.

Messy? You bet, but also a helluva lot more fun for the rest of us.