Musical Chairs: Paul Weiss Snags Corporate Partners from O'Melveny -- Along With a Top Client
The high-powered law firm of Paul Weiss has a legendary litigation practice. But their corporate department is strong too — they’re working on, for example, the big Warner Music deal — and it’s only getting stronger.
Yesterday corporate lawyers at Paul Weiss received an unusual email: “We would like to ask all counsel and associates to attend a meeting tomorrow morning at 11 to discuss some exciting developments affecting the Corporate Department. The meeting will be held in the concourse. Please make every effort to attend.”
The meeting took place earlier today. What was announced?
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UPDATE: Please note that several updates have been added to this post, after the jump.
Six to seven transactional partners are joining Paul Weiss from the New York office of O’Melveny & Myers. And they’re taking with them a prized client: Apollo Investment Corporation. PW already does some work for Apollo — see, e.g., this recent litigation victory — but now the firm will get a bigger piece of the transactional pie. One Paul Weiss source described the Apollo news as “huge.”
UPDATE (4:30 PM): Lawyers from Paul Weiss and O’Melveny are advising Apollo Global Management on its $510 million acquisition of U.S. entertainment company CKX. Query whether the OMM partners serving as finance counsel on the deal, Gregory Ezring and Monica Thurmond, are two of the crew joining Paul Weiss.
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Of the O’Melveny partners going to Paul Weiss, the breakdown is said to be three M&A lawyers and three to four financing lawyers. Word on the street is that some O’Melveny associates may follow the partners over to Paul Weiss in due course (perhaps 30 days or so).
And these may not be the last of OMM defections. Rumor has it that two more O’Melveny transactional partners are in talks to move to Weil Gotshal.
Paul Weiss, meanwhile, appears to be in expansion mode. The firm recently launched a Toronto office, with two top partners snagged from Shearman & Sterling. The Shearman hires, Christopher Cummings and Adam Givertz, are regarded as two of Canada’s leading M&A attorneys.
Congratulations to Paul Weiss on its new hires and new office. We’ll update this post with any additional information we obtain.
UPDATE (11 PM): More details about the O’Melveny departures are available over at Am Law Daily. Apparently OMM is losing seven partners to Paul Weiss, including Gregory Ezring, cochair of O’Melveny’s corporate finance/capital markets practice, and Brad Okun, head of O’Melveny’s tax practice. Six of these OMM partners will join Paul Weiss as partners, and one will join as counsel.
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Meanwhile, two O’Melveny partners are joining Weil, according to Am Law: “top private equity adviser Harvey Eisenberg, and M&A partner Douglas Ryder. Weil Gotshal confirmed the additions through a spokeswoman but declined to comment further.”
Paul Weiss Opens in Toronto with Shearman Hires [Am Law Daily via ABA Journal]
Paul Weiss, Debevoise Handling $3.3 Billion Sale of Warner Music [Am Law Daily]
Paul, Weiss Obtains Victory for Apollo Investment Corporation [Paul Weiss (press release)]
