Musical Chairs: Differing Views On A Prominent Partner's Move
Is this a big blow to Kirkland & Ellis, or is K&E glad to see her go?
On Monday, news broke of prominent private-equity partner Taurie Zeitzer taking her talents from Kirkland & Ellis to Paul Weiss. Zeitzer hadn’t been at K&E that long, having come over from Latham & Watkins a little over two years ago. Here is what Julie Triedman and Brian Baxter had to say about the high-profile lateral move over at Am Law Daily, which first reported on the story:
According to two sources with knowledge of her hire, Zeitzer had just completed a two-year guarantee at Kirkland that paid her $6 million to $7 million a year. That guarantee had recently been re-upped for another two years….
Zeitzer, 42, is among the top women M&A lawyers in New York and her loss comes as a big blow to Kirkland. In the past year, she has handled several big deals for New York-based private equity giant Apollo Global Management—a client she has built a relationship with over the past 15 years and with which Kirkland didn’t have a relationship until Zeitzer’s arrival from Latham in August 2012.
One fan of Zeitzer contacted us to claim that she has a $50 million book of business and that she’s the highest-paid private-equity M&A woman in Biglaw. Wow!
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But sources disagreed on the size of Zeitzer’s book and the significance of her move for Kirkland. “There are multiple pockets of strength in Kirkland’s PE practice, and in comparison to any of those Taurie’s practice was small to medium,” said Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting. “The idea that her departure was a crushing blow to Kirkland is laughable. I think this was driven by personality factors and the desire to elevate her role, which I have heard was part of the deal.”
Consistent with Kinney’s assessment, we’ve heard that the possibility of a greater leadership role helped lure Zeitzer over to Paul Weiss. One tipster tells us that she is a candidate to replace Robert Schumer as head of Paul Weiss’s corporate practice in 2016 or 2017.
In addition, we’ve received reports about “personality factors” contributing to the move. One source said to us, “Ask some K&E contacts about the latest partner departure. [Positive media coverage of Zeitzer] shouldn’t mask the real story. Good luck to those at PW.”
We did some digging with our Kirkland sources and then went back to our source: “We hear that Taurie Zeitzer couldn’t get along with a certain powerful Kirkland & Ellis partner and that her book of business isn’t as big as her cheerleaders claim.” Said the source, “Replace ‘certain powerful’ with ‘any.’ And ‘as big as her cheerleaders claim’ with ‘existent.'” This tipster also expressed the opinion that Zeitzer can be difficult to work with.
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This source might be right. But given Zeitzer’s status as a top woman rainmaker, her defenders will certainly raise this question: do attacks on Zeitzer, especially claims that she’s hard to work with, reflect sexism in the legal profession? As Staci Zaretsky mentioned earlier today, women who seek greater pay or power in the workplace often get branded with the b-word.
(Shameless — but topical — plug: the gendered nature of responses to ambition is a central theme of my new book, Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). For more on the novel’s treatment of this subject, see Megan Boyd’s book review on Ms. JD.)
So are criticisms of Taurie Zeitzer accurate and well founded, or sexist and sour grapes? It’s hard to tell from an outsider’s perspective; we’ll learn more as the years go by. If Taurie Zeitzer ends up staying at Paul Weiss for considerable time and working on major deals, then the criticisms are more likely to be sour grapes; if she ends up leaving for another firm in three years or less, then they’re more likely to be accurate.
(UPDATE (9:45 p.m.): This story quotes Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting. As you can see from our weekly list of advertisers, posted less than an hour before this story went up, Kinney is an ATL advertiser.)
(Flip to the next page for Taurie Zeitzer’s impressive Kirkland & Ellis bio, which will probably be removed soon. She’s not yet up on the Paul Weiss website.)