David Lat

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@DavidLat

Lawyer turned writer, speaker, podcaster: Original Jurisdiction, davidlat.substack.com. Columnist, Bloomberg Law. Founding editor, AboveTheLaw/@ATLblog.

New Jersey, USA davidlat.com Joined April 2008

9.4K Following 105K Followers 34K Posts

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David Lat @DavidLat Oct 29

5 Takeaways From Weil Gotshal's Collapse

Weil, you were sleeping: the 95-year-old firm failed to keep up with the prodigious profitability growth of its peers, setting the stage for its downfall.

LINK: bit.ly/4eFBbFH

David Lat @DavidLat 1d

Why Weil Matters—And What Its Collapse Says About Biglaw’s Past, Present, And Future

Plus, how to explain the Weil collapse to folks who aren’t lawyers—and how to think about it in the context of the broader American economy.

LINK: bit.ly/4BQ6Az9

David Lat @DavidLat 6d

Great insights from @jaesunum on which firms are most likely to pick up which partner groups and practices from Weil Gotshal.👇

Jae S Um Verified account @jaesunum Nov 2

@edsohn80 🧵 31/x MY PICKS

🎲 Simpson Thacher, Gibson Dunn, Latham & Paul Weiss are most motivated to pick up Weil's restructuring bench
🏦 K&E & STB likely highest bidders for Ramona Nee & the Boston bench (long odds for Ropes & Gray)

👀 flowchart explains why + its own 🪡 later

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David Lat @DavidLat 6d

In "Judicial Notice (11.01.26): Who Killed Weil Gotshal?":

- laying the blame for Weil’s woes

- a federal judge fed up with DOJ

- a 9th Circuit case with lots of leading litigators

- a $17B deal involving a name you know

LINK: bit.ly/3UvHLrC

David Lat @DavidLat Oct 30

But don't clients want lawyers who think like businesspeople???

Noah Waisberg Verified account @nwaisb Oct 29

Amidst the Weil grimness, here's a more fun story

This is from a summer or two before I was there

Weil took its summers to a big Broadway musical every summer. I saw In the Heights during mine (wow - was excellent). I think you could even bring a date

A few summers had the idea to sell their tickets. They figured nobody would notice they weren't at the show, and they could just meet up with everyone afterwards and pretend they'd been there

The problem: Weil bought a big block of seats. So when a couple of random people showed up in the middle of all the Weil lawyers, the (high quality!) recruiting team noticed. And pretty quickly figured out whose tickets got scalped

Understandably, those summers didn't get offers

Weird knock-on effect: when I was going through recruiting, a rip on summering at Weil at my law school was that not all of their summers had gotten offers the year before. This was apparently why!
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