Weil, Gotshal & Manges

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Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Image:WGM Logo.jpg
Type	Limited liability partnership
Founded	1931
Headquarters	New York, NY
Industry	Law
Products	Legal services
Revenue	$1.146 billion
Employees	Approximately 1200 Attorneys
Website	www.weil.com

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP is one of the world's largest law firms. Founded in 1931, the firm's headquarters are in New York City's General Motors Building, with an additional 18 offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Weil Gotshal uses the expertise of its more than 1,200 lawyers across its practice areas to serve clients such as General Electric and CBS Broadcasting. The firm is structured along three primary departments: corporate, litigation/regulatory, and business finance & restructuring. Other practice areas include tax and trusts and estates. Weil Gotshal is particularly well known for its bankruptcy, antitrust, private equity, and intellectual property practices.

As of 2006, it was the 11th largest law firm in the world by revenue.

1 History
2 Recognition
3 Controversies
- 3.1 Misconduct ruling by federal judge
- 3.2 Malpractice
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] History

Founded in 1931 in New York City, in 1968, Weil Gotshal moved to the firm's current headquarters, the General Motors Building, overlooking New York City's Central Park on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. In 1975, the firm formally opened its first office outside of New York, in Washington DC. The Washington office has grown to roughly 80 lawyers in practices including antitrust, environmental law, international trade, public policy, corporate, banking, litigation/regulatory, real estate, securities and tax. A Miami office subsequently opened in 1981. The firm established has since opened Texas offices in Houston, Dallas and Austin, which together currently include a total of more than 120 lawyers.

In the 1990s, Weil Gotshal became the first national US law firm to open an office in Silicon Valley. Since then, the firm has opened offices in Boston and Providence.

Since the 1990s, Weil has opened several offices outside of the United States, including Brussels, Budapest, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Paris, Prague, Shanghai, Singapore and Warsaw. Weil Gotshal was one of the first major law firms to make a serious commitment to Central and Eastern Europe when these economies began to liberalize. In 2004, Weil continued its expansion in Asia with the addition of an office in Shanghai. In 2007, the firm announced that it would close its Brussels office that year. No comment has been made on the reasons for this decision. An office in Hong Kong is scheduled to open in August, 2007.

[edit] Recognition

Several of Weil's New York practices were ranked highly by Chambers, including private equity, intellectual property, general commercial litigation, and media & entertainment. Weil also has a strong structured finance/securitization practice.

Weil Gotshal was ranked 2nd on The American Lawyer’s A-List for 2007, the firm's fourth appearance on the five year old A-List, which includes only 20 of the AmLaw 200 firms. [1] The American Lawyer A-List ranks firms based on a formula that weighs economic success, pro bono achievement, associate satisfaction and workplace diversity.

In past years, the Vault has consistently ranked Weil Gotshal within the top ten on its "Top 100 Most Prestigious Firms", a survey which asks law firm associates to rank the prestige of various firms. [2] In the 2007 edition, The Vault survey also ranked several of Weil's individual practice areas among the nation's ten best, including Bankruptcy (1st), Intellectual Property (6th), and Corporate (10th). Further, in 2007 the Vault ranked Weil, one of the "Best 20 Firms to Work For," one of only three large New York-based firms to make the list. [3]

Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business honored 88 attorneys from Weil Gotshal in the 2006 edition. For practice areas, Weil Gotshal was listed in the #1 ranking tier for Antitrust (New York), Bankruptcy/Restructuring (New York), Intellectual Property (California), Private Equity: Buyouts & Venture Capital Investment (Massachusetts), and Wealth Management (National). [4] In 2004, Chambers Global named Weil Gotshal its U.S. Private Equity Law Firm of the Year.

On October 10, 2007, Weil Gotshal was included in a ranking of law firms by the national law student group Building a Better Legal Profession.^[1] ^[2] The organization ranked firms by billable hours, demographic diversity, and pro bono participation. The results can be found on the organization's website, http://www.betterlegalprofession.org.^[3]

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Misconduct ruling by federal judge

In 1994, Weil Gotshal was found to have "damaged its client ... by not disclosing several potential conflicts of interest"^[4] by Tina Brozman, a federal judge. The firm was fined over $1 million for the undisclosed conflict of interest after review of the report by an examiner appointed to investigate the allegations against Weil Gotshal in the bankruptcy of the Leslie Fay Companies in the Southern District of New York. Weil Gotshal, described by the New York Times as "one of the country's largest and richest law firms" publicly defended itself in a letter to the editor by their Executive Partner Stephen J. Dannhauser which stated: "The pertinent rules and standards on disclosure are anything but clear. They have presented a problem for all professionals in bankruptcy cases."^[5]

[edit] Malpractice

In 2003 pop singer Michael Bolton sued Weil, Gotshal & Manges for breach of fiduciary duty related to a conflict of interest involving the firm's simultaneous representation of opposing parties in the same matter, also alleging that the firm conspired with the opposition. Bolton's suit was settled and term were not disclosed.^[6] In 2006, a claim of malpractice against the firm was brought by a former client on the grounds that the firm failed to disclose its conflict of interest arising from having been hired by an affiliate of the opposing litigant. Senior lawyers at the firm had testified during the malpractice trial that they were not aware of the conflict until well into the original trial.^[7] Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe wrote that the conflict might "operate upon [the firm's lawyers] subtly in a manner likely to diminish the quality of their work."^[8] Weil, Gotshal & Manges settled just prior to the case going to the jury; payment terms were not disclosed.