We've been reporting since November on Thacher Proffitt & Wood's need to thin its ranks. Prior coverage is collected here (scroll down). Originally, the firm was relying on voluntary departures, but in the last few months, it has resorted to layoffs.

The ABA Journal reports that 10 partners and 24 associates quit in the last six months, while 60 associates have been laid off. That's a good chunk of the firm. Profits are down due to the firm's focus on securitization work in a sagging economy.

Things are looking bleak there, though the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports that Thacher expects better in 2009:

Some former partners told the NLJ that firm profits are anticipated to slide substantially in 2008. Last year, Thacher Proffitt reported slightly more than $1 million in profits per partner, down about 22% from 2006, according to AmLaw. Other departing partners downplayed the significance of the firm's finances in their decisions.

Paul Tvetenstrand, the firm's managing partner, said the recent partner departures were unrelated to the layoffs. But he acknowledged that the total number of them was "a lot, for a short period of time."

"It's a tough marketplace to be in," he said. "I would fully expect in 2009 to bounce back to the levels we had beforehand. But I don't know what 2008 will be."

Partners fleeing is not a good sign for Thacher. As previously reported, the firm has pushed back its start date for non-litigation first years to October 20. Future Thacher-ites, we hope for your sakes that Tvetenstrand is right about a brighter future.

More than 30 Thacher Lawyers Quit in Last 6 Months [ABA Journal]
A Lawyer Hemorrhage at Thacher Proffitt: Ten Partners Walk [WSJ Law Blog]
Fleeing Thacher Proffitt lawyers cite bleak financial forecast [National Law Journal (subscription)]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Thacher Proffitt (scroll down)

O happy day! The AmLaw 100 rankings are out. For the rankings, click here; for commentary by Aric Press and John O'Connor, click here. (Note: registration / subscription may be required.)

We're surprised that the WSJ Law Blog's post on the release of the rankings has garnered so few comments (just four as of the time of this posting). The Am Law 100 is a big, big deal. As Ashby Jones explains:

The AmLaw 100, or the American Lawyer magazine’s annual list of the top-grossing law firms for the year previous, represents not only a boatload of work for AmLaw staffers. For law firm heads, it’s a report card of sorts. For law students and lawyers looking to move laterally, it’s a handy reference guide to who’s hot and who’s not. For GCs and other industry watchers, it’s a snapshot of BigLaw as a whole.

Membership in the Am Law 100 depends on a law firm's total revenue. The top five firms all chalked up double-digit increases in revenue, and the top two broke the $2 billion mark. Here are the top five (which are in the same rank order this year as last year):

Although the Am Law 100 firms are ranked by revenue, industry watchers generally pay more attention to the hallowed metric of "PPP," or "profits per partner." More data and discussion, about PPP and other subjects, after the jump.

Time for a shout-out to this writer's home state. Over in New York, Biglaw lawyers tend to look down upon their cousins across the river. Dismissive jokes about "Jersey firms" are commonplace.

But large-firm lawyers in New Jersey are doing just fine, thank you very much. From a tipster:

As a Jersey guy, you may find this interesting: According to the NJ Law Journal, Lowenstein Sandler just became the first NJ firm with profits per partner in the seven figures: $1,102,700. Average compensation per partner is not far behind, at $977,500.

And it's not just Lowenstein Sandler that had a good year. Although New Jersey firms slowed their hiring and trimmed equity partner ranks in 2007, showing signs of being affected by the dire economic times, they still did pretty well. From the New Jersey Law Journal (subscription):

Growth in total revenues and net profits [among the New Jersey Top 20 firms] thus slowed in 2007. Revenue rose by 7.67 percent to $1.53 billion from $1.42 billion in 2006, compared with a 9.6 percent hike in last year's survey.

Profit growth was even slower, up only 5.62 percent to $519.3 million from $491.6 million, compared with a 9.9 percent bump the prior year.

When fewer lawyers produce more revenue, it means each is working harder. Indeed, revenue per lawyer showed a pronounced spike: up 5 percent to $517,650, more than three times the 1.4 percent rise to $493,000 reported last year.

Likewise, since there were fewer equity partners sharing the bottom line, profits per partner growth enjoyed an eight-fold increase, rising 6.62 percent to $594,100, compared with a sluggish 0.8 percent to $557,200 in last year's survey.

By New York standards, PPP of $600K is small potatoes. But it's still a handsome income -- and grows more appealing if the hours, cost of living, taxes, and partnership prospects are better over in Jersey. [FN1]

Time for New Yorkers to think about jumping to the other side of the Hudson? Or time for another round of pay raises for Garden State associates?

[FN1] These matters are open to debate, of course. Some New Jersey firms, such as the super-profitable Lowenstein, have reputations as sweatshops for demanding a lot of their associates.

Streamlining for Austere Times [New Jersey Law Journal (subscription)]

We linked to it yesterday in passing, but thought we'd draw your attention to it in a dedicated post. Check out TheLawyer.com's report on the 2007 financial performance of the top 50 U.S. law firms (ranked by revenue):

The top 50 US firms last year generated a total of $46.8bn (£23.4bn) in revenue - an increase of more than 16 per cent on the 2006 total of $40.27bn (£20.14bn)....

2007 was one of the strongest on record for the majority of US firms, despite the turbulence that rocked the market in the summer and which continues to do so. The average profit per equity partner (PEP) at the leading group of US firms showed smaller, although still significant, growth. In 2006 the average PEP among the top 50 US firms was $1.55m (£842,391). Last year that rose by 11 per cent to $1.72m (£860,000).

Here's the discussion of one of the most closely watched metrics, profits per partner:

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft was second only to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in terms of posting the biggest fall in PEP. The former was down by 6.2 per cent, although despite this drop it hung on to its place in the top five best performers on PEP overall, with $2.72m (£1.36m). Here, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz remains out of reach of any other US firm with a PEP of $4.48m (£2.24m)

And what will this year look like? You already know the answer to that question:

Ward Bower of US legal market consultancy Altman Weil says the numbers confirm that 2007 was the best ever for top firms in terms of both productivity and profitability.

"Don't expect to see that in 2008," he added. "Some of those same firms are off 10 to 15 per cent on the revenue side for the first two months of this year."

For additional data, plus a table of the top 50 U.S. law firms and their 2007 financial results, see here.

US top 50's £46.8bn haul makes 2007 the best year ever [The Lawyer]
Magnificent '07: The Lawyer US Top 50 2007 [The Lawyer]

Debevoise & Plimpton has long been among New York's most prestigious law firms. It's also widely viewed as an excellent place to work.

In the past, Debevoise's prestige has arguably outpaced its profits. It's often ranked more highly on the Vault 100 than on the Am Law 100 (when ranked by profits per partner). In the most recent rankings, Debevoise was #13 on the Vault 100 and #20 on the Am Law 100 by PPP.

Perhaps that's about to change. From Legal Week (via Law.com):

Debevoise & Plimpton has unveiled stellar financial results for 2007, with the New York law firm seeing both partner profits and fees climb by more than 20 percent over the last 12 months.

Profits per equity partner (PEP) at Debevoise rose by 26.5 percent from $1.81 million last year to a new high of $2.29 million. Global revenue, meanwhile, was up by 23.4 percent from $575 million in 2006 to $709.54 million.

A source who passed along this news added: "Although not mentioned in the article, several large investigations are the driving force behind these numbers."

Of course, that's not surprising. Thanks in large part to former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, internal investigations have long been a mainstay of Debevoise's practice. They're long-running and lucrative, since no company in deep doo-doo wants to look like it's skimping on self-scrutiny. See, e.g., Siemens (aka Debevoise cash cow).

But how much cash will they get to keep? Discussion of a new tax proposal that will disproportionately affect partners at large law firms, after the jump.

No, seriously. Despite the perception of Biglaw partners as fat cats, some of them, at least in their early years, take home less than the senior associates who toil under them. From an article in the Legal Times by Nathan Carlile (whose work we've always admired, even before he wrote this nice profile of us):

[T]he most recent round of associate pay hikes has edged senior associates ever closer to junior partner pay rates. In fact, in some cases, senior associates can come out ahead of partners -- particularly if the firm has a nonequity tier.

Here's just one example: At Arent Fox, Chairman Marc Fleischaker says senior associates can earn as much as $280,000 in base salary and -- if they meet targets for generating business -- an additional $100,000 in bonuses. Total: $380,000. First-year nonequity partners start off with a pay rate of $310,000. But they subtract $20,000 to cover their own benefits. Their total: $290,000.

Additional excerpts and discussion, after the jump.

So far this month, over 1,500 of you have voted on who should receive two significant accolades.

Our Second Favorite Blog Of The Year After ATL survey, sponsored by ATL and Lateral Link, is still dominated by the Wall Street Journal. But the Volokh Conspiracy, Patently-O, and SCOTUSblog are putting up a fight, write-in candidate taxgirl is creeping up on write-in candidate TaxProf Blog, and added-because-we-love-him candidate ProfessorBainbridge.com is just crushing Likelihood of Confusion (whom we also love).

Meanwhile, nominations for ATL Lawyer of the Year have been dominated by Loyola 2L, Aaron Charney, and Barack Obama (which is probably the only time you'll see those folks on the same list). Hillary Clinton -- who's already Legal Diva of the Year, as far as we're concerned -- is close on Barack's heels, and there are a smattering of nods for others.

While both of those surveys remain open, today we reveal results from last month's ATL / Lateral Link survey about your potential prize: Will you make partner?

More than 1,600 of you responded to last month's survey, and, generally speaking, you're a pessimistic bunch. Only about 14% of you thought that you would definitely make partner at your current firm, with another 13.6% holding tentatively positive expectations. About 7% of respondents thought that they would make partner somewhere, but not at their current firms. The remaining two thirds of you either don't think you'll make partner, just don't know, or simply don't care. The most junior associates were the least likely to believe they'll make partner.

The good news is, those of you who don't make partner might still have jobs at the end of the day. Roughly 43% of you responded that your firms are not "up or out." Thirty percent, however, believe the axe will fall if they don't make partner. The rest of you simply don't know.

Some associates at Quinn Emanuel are a tad grumpy these days. But here are three items to cheer them up:

1. Profits per partner clear $3 million. As we previously reported in these pages, some QE associates were rather unhappy with their bonuses. But look on the bright side: stingy bonuses mean more money once you make partner.

As reported by Zusha Elinson in the Recorder:

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges continued its screaming ascent in 2007 with financial results that should put a scare into the most profitable New York firms.

The Los Angeles-based litigation shop reported that profits per partner hit the $3 million mark last year -- a height surpassed by only three firms on the Am Law 100 list for 2006.

"That's Wachtell country," said Ronald Beard, a law firm consultant with the Zeughauser Group, referring to the highly profitable New York deal shop Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Managing partner John Quinn offered a rebuttal to the bonus complaints:

The financial results didn't prevent some associates from complaining about their bonuses. Legal blog Above the Law reported griping that the firm unexpectedly drew the line for full year-end bonuses at 2,100 hours, 100 hours more than the previous year.

Quinn said that decisions about bonuses are made at the end of the year, not beforehand, and that 2,100 was "not necessarily" a bright line. He added that Quinn associates were given a special bonus this year on top of the normal ones, matching a move made by only a few elite New York firms.

"If [Quinn associates] are not the most highly paid, they're among the most highly paid in the country," Quinn said. "Any suggestion that the firm has done really, really well and the associates haven't shared is false."

We have a rebuttal to the rebuttal from a disgruntled associate. Check it out -- but caveat lector, this tipster may have an ax to grind -- after the jump.

Update: Note the many defenders of the firm in the comments. Not all associates are whiny bee-atches!

2. Susan Estrich is in da house. Quinn seems to have a weakness for high-powered litigatrices. Already home to former Stanford Law dean Kathleen Sullivan, the firm just added Susan Estrich, who joins as Of Counsel in the Los Angeles office. From one associate:

Susan Estrich just joined our firm. Classic.

Now when I watch Fox News at home, I'll hear plugs of work.

3. Retention bonuses: We're looking into reports of retention bonuses in the high five-figures, which vest in 18 months. In light of the dissatisfaction in the ranks, retention bonuses may be just what the doctor ordered.

Quinn Partner Profits Clear $3 Million [The Recorder via Law.com]

Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch: A Few More Updates

The idea of pitying people taking home seven figures sounds dubious. But check out this great article, by the American Lawyer's Vivia Chen (who's not doing too badly herself, at least based on her magnificent mink coat). Here's the fantastic, rather literary lede:

The prize was a home-cooked dinner for eight, prepared by a parent-one of New York's most celebrated chefs and a perennial on the Food Network. The bidding started at $3,000-a fabulous bargain. Nearly two dozen paddles shot up in the air. The bidders were the usual suspects-Wall Streeters, big-firm lawyers, a sprinkling of doctors, a few people with money but no visible means of support.

Nursed by a steady stream of champagne cocktails, the bidders were a competitive lot. At $7,000, the doctors dropped out of the game; at $10,000, most of the other professionals were gone; at $15,000, the lawyers and the trust fund babies bit the dust. With only the financial titans in the game, the bidding got intense: $20,000, $25,000, $30,000. Sold for $40,000! The winner: the wife of a 30-something hedge fund manager.

There's nothing like a fund-raiser at a private school in Manhattan to define your social station. Time was, lawyers were near the top of the heap. Investment bankers and other finance types have long eclipsed them, but the difference used to be one of degree. Then came private equity investors and hedge-funders, and lawyers nose-dived on the socioeconomic ladder.

"Face it, we have no status," says an Am Law 100 partner of the pecking order at his sons' private school. "We go to these school functions, and this well-heeled group looks right through you. They won't give you the time of day. You're just one step ahead of the doorman."

Biglaw partners, "one step ahead of the doorman"? Killer quote. Fabulous work, Vivia.

More after the jump.

From a piece in the American Lawyer, summarizing the (fairly gloomy) responses of Am Law 200 law firms to the magazine's annual survey about the state of the law biz:

[T]he credit crunch is only part of the story, several managing partners say. The current market worries are exacerbating a more general sense that firms' resources have already been stretched to the limit. As the chair of one firm put it: "We can't beat the donkeys any harder."

This law firm chair decided to remain anonymous. So we can't give him (or her) props for being a lovably candid a**hole, in the Ari Gold mold.

If you are a donkey, feel free to opine on whether or not you can be beaten any harder, in the comments.

Am Law 200 Managing Partners Issue Fog Advisory for 2008 [American Lawyer]

Law school can be thought of as a Harry Potter-style "sorting hat" for law students (as Dave Hoffman suggests). Similarly, the recent round of pay raises can be thought of as a sorting hat for law firms.

Nathan Carlile has this excellent article in the current issue of the Legal Times:

Call it a near miss.

Earlier this year, New York’s Simpson Thacher & Bartlett raised starting salaries for first-year associates to $160,000. In the competition to recruit top talent, the tactic was similar to one used by Kenyan marathon runners: a midrace burst to separate elite competitors from the pack of pretenders.

But while Simpson’s bump momentarily opened up a $25,000 gap between top-end New York firms and their Washington counterparts, the pack soon matched the move. Eight months later, starting salaries for first-years at most of the 200 largest firms nationwide remain bunched at $160,000.

More discussion -- including rumors of Skadden leading a new round of pay raises in New York City -- after the jump.

Okay, that's a bit of an understatement. Check out this interesting study, authored by Steven N. Kaplan and Joshua D. Rauh.

Here's a money quote (hehe) from their paper (p. 31):

"[T]he representation of top corporate lawyers in the top 0.5% and top 0.1% AGI [adjusted gross income] brackets has increased substantially over time."

Translation: Biglaw partners are taking up more and more space among the ranks of the rich.

What is happening to the pay of law partners? [Volokh Conspiracy]

Related: Sally Struthers Asks: 'What About the Children Partners?'

We're more or less done with our series of posts profiling various "secondary" legal markets. We thought about putting up the Portsmouth thread that some trolls commenters have been demanding, but we decided against it after reading this.

So now we're going to loop back to a city that we previously covered, to wit, Miami. We have a news hook for this post: a recent story, from the Daily Business Review, about how 2006 treated South Florida's top law firms.

More details about this market, after the jump.

On the list of law firms that have moved their associates up to the $160K pay scale, one of the most conspicuous omissions is Jenner & Block. As we wondered in a prior post: "What's Up With Jenner & Block?"

As it turns out, "About twenty equity partners. Toe-up." From today's National Law Journal:

Jenner & Block, a litigation-focused firm, is shifting between 15 and 20 of its equity partners to nonequity status this year with some being asked to leave the firm and a smaller number moving voluntarily toward retirement, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The firm's management last month began to move forward with the plan to cut some of the equity partners during the next year or two, the sources said.

Jenner has never before taken such a step that affected so many equity partners, they said. The firm has 185 equity partners, according to a list of the highest-grossing law firms published last month by The American Lawyer, an NLJ affiliate.

Lots of Jenner associates have been clamoring for a pay raise. But in light of the partner de-equitizations, is this a case of "Be careful for what you wish for, you might just get it"? Could raising associate salaries exacerbate the problems that led Jenner to steal a page from the Mayer Brown playbook?

On the other hand, the partner purge could be viewed more charitably. Is Jenner & Block dumping deadweight partners to pave the way financially for raising associate salaries? In a recent memo, the firm hinted at "changes in our associate compensation structure."

We'll have more about Jenner in a subsequent post, focused on the plight of associates rather than partners. If you have anything you'd like to contribute, please email us (subject line: "Jenner and Block"). Thanks.

Jenner & Block Will De-Equitize Partners [National Law Journal via Law.com]

Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: What's Up With Jenner & Block?
Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: A Jenner & Block Memo

The latest Biglaw combination brings together more "L"s than you can shake a stick at. From the Texas Lawyer:

Locke Liddell & Sapp, based in Houston and Dallas, and Chicago-based Lord, Bissell & Brook have agreed to merge, and will form a 700-lawyer firm named Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell.

Hmm, that's a mouthful -- the marketing people might want to rethink things. The alliteration and internal rhyme make the firm name far too "busy."

Correction: Based on the comments, it appears that we're wrong about the internal rhyme. But we still think the new firm name is unwieldy.

Some reactions to more substantive aspects of the deal, after the jump.

Earlier this week, we reported on the unexpected early promotions of four corporate associates at Cahill Gordon. According to various comments, the four soon-to-be partners, whose promotions will take effect in July, are Doug Horowitz, Corey Wright, Bill Miller, and Jonathan Frankel.

As some speculated, this quartet was promoted early to prevent them from leaving for greener pastures. Here are more details:

The way it apparently went down is that all 7th and 8th year litigators were sat down individually by a partner and told, a week or so ago, that 7th and 8th year corporate associates -- corporate associates only -- were going to be voted on this summer. The given reason was to prevent these people from leaving to go to i-banks.

Litigators were apparently told that they should not consider this to be a negative commentary on their value to the firm, and that they would be considered in the normal course, either end of this year (8th years) or end of next (7th years). Their chances of making it were described as "the same as they were yesterday."

It's my understanding that there is a growing rift between corporate and litigation at the firm. Each group -- partners included -- increasingly resenting the other. Corpies think litigators are lazy, don't have to work nearly as hard for the same amount of money. Litigators resent being treated as second-class citizens.

Very interesting. Some food for thought:

1. Several top law firms have struggled to deal with the problem of star associates leaving for investment banks, hedge funds, and other opportunities in the world of finance. Will other Biglaw shops start employing this strategy of early promotion to retain their best associates? Could we be witnessing the start of a trend?

2. According to conventional wisdom, corporate lawyers generally have "better" -- or at least more lucrative -- exit opportunities than litigators. As a result, law firms face more outside competition for them. Could we eventually see a system in which partnership tracks are shorter for corporate associates than for litigation colleagues, in reflection of the different markets for the two practice areas?

Please feel free to discuss in the comments.

Earlier: Some Premature Promotions at Cahill Gordon?

With apologies for the lack of details -- if you have more to share, please email us -- we've learned of some interesting news at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel:

1. The firm, which usually announces partnership decisions in January, just announced the promotion of four lawyers to the partnership.

2. All four are in the corporate department.

3. Two of the four new partners are seventh-years, which makes their promotions very early -- a year and a half ahead of schedule. The firm historically has had an eight-year partnership track.

ATL congratulates this quartet of soon-to-be millionaires. A Cahill Gordon partnership is quite a nice prize. According to the recently released AmLaw 100 rankings, Cahill is the sixth most profitable law firm in the country, with profits per partner (PPP) of $2,575,000.

As noted above, if you have more info -- e.g., the names of the new partners, why Cahill promoted them ahead of time, etc. -- please email us (subject line: "Cahill Gordon"). Thanks!

Update: More information is available here.

We're all very familiar with the average profits-per-partner figures that are published as part of the AmLaw 100 law firm rankings. But since they're just averages, they do raise some obvious questions:

-- What's the average take-home pay for a typical Biglaw partner?

-- How much do newly minted, junior partners earn, compared to the most senior or most highly compensated partners of a large law firm?

-- How much can superstars with enormous books of business rake in?

Information that goes a significant way towards answering such questions appears in this fascinating article, by Andrew Longstreth for the American Lawyer. You should read the whole thing for yourself; it's socioeconomic voyeurism at its best.

A few excerpts, and some quick thoughts from us, appear after the jump.

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin. The AmLaw 100 rankings -- The American Lawyer's closely watched, annual listing of the hundred largest law firms in the United States, ranked by revenue -- are now available.

We'll have more to say on the rankings later. Their release is a big story, deserving of multiple posts. They're like the U.S. News and World Report law school rankings, but for the world of Biglaw, and they can be viewed from many different angles. Although the firms are ranked by revenue, the rankings are accompanied by other juicy data -- including information about profits per partner.

For the time being, here's the "money quote," quite literally, from the WSJ Law Blog:

Wiley Rein broke the record for the highest profits per partner ever recorded by the magazine — $4.4 million. Why? The Washington, D.C., law firm represented patent-holding company NTP in its nearly five-year legal battle with RIM, and earned more than $200 million in fees from the case. It received approximately one-third of the $612.5 million settlement that RIM agreed to pay NTP to avert a potential court-ordered BlackBerry shutdown. The firm also shortened its name from Wiley Rein & Fielding after Fred Fielding left the firm to become White House counsel.

So New York's Wachtell Lipton, which has sat atop the profits-per-partner rankings for many years, has been displaced. Interestingly enough, though, Wiley Rein didn't beat Wachtell by THAT much, considering the massive contingency fee it received from the RIM-BlackBerry settlement. Wiley Rein had PPP of $4,435,000; Wachtell Lipton had PPP of $3,975,000.

(And if you look at the chart for Compensation -- All Partners (subscription), WLRK still comes out on top, with $3.975 million per partner. Wiley Rein has a two-tier partnership, so its Compensation Per Partner figure, which reflects compensation paid to non-equity as well as equity partners, is only -- only! -- $2.7 million.)

The Wiley Rein windfall reminds of when Robins Kaplan got that huge, one-time payout for its tobacco-related work. In the AmLaw 100 rankings for 2000, based on 1999 revenue and profit figures, the Minneapolis-based firm boasted profits per partner of over $3 million -- beating Cravath and all the other New York shops that year, except for Wachtell.

Do you have any juicy, AmLaw 100-related gossip? Tales of shameless attempts to manipulate the rankings? Stories about unhappy partners ranting over their firm's placement over this morning's coffee? Please send 'em our way.

A table and links, after the jump.

We reported on the rumors last week -- and now the news is official. From the New York Law Journal:

Just as Weil, Gotshal & Manges welcomes back legendary bankruptcy partner Harvey Miller, the firm is saying goodbye to four other restructuring stars who are leaving to join a rival firm.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is set to announce today that it has recruited George A. Davis, Deryck A. Palmer, John J. Rapisardi and Andrew M. Troop as partners in New York. The move, involving four of Weil Gotshal's most prominent bankruptcy partners apart from Miller and practice co-heads Martin Bienenstock and Marcia Goldstein, points to a major realignment among elite bankruptcy practices.

In our post from last week, we had all of the names except for Troop.

Our tipster chalked up the move to the departing partners' desire "to swim in Bob Link's shark tank and make the big $$$." The NYLJ piece seems to confirm that:

[Deryck Palmer] praised Cadwalader's famously performance-driven culture, where top partners are rewarded handsomely and weaker ones are winnowed out.

"Cadwalader provides an environment where every lawyer can achieve their potential," said Palmer.

And their dream of a house in the Hamptons, too.

Earlier: Musical Chairs: Weil Gotshal -- In With the Old, Out With the New?