Weil Gotshal

A comparison of the recent financial performance of the top U.K. and New York law firms.

* When it comes to all of the same-sex marriage cases that are currently before the Sixth Circuit, the deciding vote could be cast by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a Republican appointee. [National Law Journal]

* Weil Gotshal snagged a partner from right under one of its largest competitor’s noses. Ray Shrock, formerly of Kirkland & Ellis, may someday co-chair Weil’s restructuring group. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “I got the reward that most volunteers get — which is I ended up having to read many, many hundreds of pages.” This Ogletree Deakins partner figured out how to undo Obamacare in his spare time, and all he got were these lousy bifocals. [Greenville News]

* On-campus interviewing season is almost upon us, so we’re going to give you all of the tips you can stomach. Here are a few more ways that you can hit all of your interviews out of the park. [The Careerist]

* Albany Law and the University at Albany are shockingly not already affiliated with each other, but they’re exploring an “operational alliance.” Will that mean fewer faculty buyouts, or…? [Albany Business Review]

Why is it such a big deal when law firms conduct layoffs?

Which firms enjoyed the most prestige back in 2008 and 1998? Let's go Back to the Future!

Which law firms came out on top in this year's Vault rankings of the nation's 100 most prestigious firms?

* As you may have heard, Apple is buying Beats Electronics for $3 billion. Apple is being represented by Weil, but don’t worry, no one forgot about Dre — he’s got Munger Tolles and Skadden Arps on his side. [Am Law Daily]

* Haynes and Boone will have a new managing partner as of January 1, 2015, and to make sure he fulfills the good old Texas stereotype of things being bigger, he wants to grow the hell out of the firm’s Houston office. [Dallas Business Journal]

* Stephanie Avakian, a WilmerHale partner in the New York office, was tapped by the Securities and Exchange Commission to become its deputy director of enforcement. Yay! [DealBook / New York Times]

* “We can’t turn law schools into graduate school for the study of law,” says a law prof who thinks legal education is straying from being professional education. Aww, write a paper about it. [Harvard Crimson]

* A Los Angeles couple has been accused in the hit-and-run death of Judge Dean Pregerson’s son. The judge isn’t “looking for blood,” but some jail time would probably help. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]

* Congrats are in order for David Barron. The Harvard Law professor was confirmed to the First Circuit in a close vote (53-45), despite his apparent allegiance to our new drone overlords. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Another one bites the dust: Weil’s London banking leader Stephen Lucas decamped for Kirkland & Ellis. The firm retorted by saying: “We have got 40 finance lawyers left.” Aww, yay for you. [The Lawyer]

* We already know that state prosecutors are very poorly paid, but let’s go one step further and see if women are paid less than men. Shockingly enough, women are getting the shaft in Texas. [Texas Tribune]

* Dean Jack Boger of UNC Law is stepping down, but he’s proud of keeping legal ed affordable. “[B]y relative standards, we’re still doing that,” he said. It’s ~$39K for out-of-state students. [Chapelboro.com]

* O.J. Simpson’s lawyers submitted a gigantic legal doc in an attempt to get him a new trial for his armed-robbery case. Court word limit: 14,000. Words in the Juice’s motion: 19,993. Rules: LOL. [NBC News]

This wedding looks like it’s going to rival the epic display of elegance and class that is the upcoming Kimye nuptials.

* The federal judiciary is hiring for staff and public defender positions lost during the government’s sequestration throughout the better part of last year. Ready, aim, fire those résumés! [Legal Times]

* New York Biglaw firms always manage to find their way to the top of the Am Law 100 rankings. When all’s said and done, being so close to Wall Street definitely has its perks. [Bloomberg Businessweek]

* Absolutely no one should be alarmed about the fact that Kasowitz Benson’s profits per partner have dropped by 15 percent — well, no one but the equity partners, that is. Have fun with that. [Am Law Daily]

* The managing partner of Jacoby & Meyers is worried people will think his personal injury firm is going under, not Jacoby & Meyers Bankruptcy. Either way, those commercials won’t die. [New York Law Journal]

* A professor at George Mason University Law was pepper sprayed IN THE FAAAAAACE by an unknown assailant in his classroom yesterday afternoon. We’ll obvious have more on this story later. [ARLNow]

* La Verne is the first law school to offer flat-rate tuition. There will be no scholarships and no discounts. Students will pay $25K/year, nothing more, nothing less. This is, dare we say, wise. [National Law Journal]

* “Passion over pension.” Mekka Don, the Weil Gotshal corporate lit attorney turned rapper, just released his first CD, and it’s all about leaving Biglaw to follow his dreams. Go buy it here (affiliate link). [MTV]

* Lawyers from top New York City firms like Skadden, Proskauer, Stikeman, Weil Gotshal, Kaye Scholer, and Bailey Duquette took to the ice to compete for the Lawyers’ Cup. The team with Canadian imports won, obviously. [Forbes]

* Andre Bouchard was nominated to replace Judge Leo Strine as Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery. We can only hope he’ll be as outspoken as his predecessor. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* UNC Law has been receiving fewer applications, and perhaps that’s the reason why its acceptance rates have gone up, up, up — from 36 percent to 45 percent — in the last year alone. Yikes. [Daily Tar Heel]

* A woman alleges her Uber driver “fondled [her] legs, groin area and breasts” as she tried to give him directions. That extra customer service is what makes it cost more during peak times. [Chicago Tribune]

* A watch repairman was so pissed about this Yelp review he sicced his lawyer on the man who handed out the two-star report. Of course his lawyer’s one-paragraph demand letter barely makes sense. [Gawker]

* “How many years would you put a TV pitchman in jail? 3 years? 5 years? Don’t answer yet…” [Sentencing Law and Policy] * So there’s a sex tape of Chris Christie. Except it isn’t him. They should have known Christie could never be a porn star. You can’t get far in the porn biz by saying, “This lane is closed.” [Gawker] * Dolt Duped By Date Sues OKCupid. [NY Post] * Patents are a terrible measure of innovation. Hold on, I defy you to besmirch the Anti-Drowning Hat. [Concurring Opinions] * Wage theft in fast food shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the role played by the franchise model in creating labor law violations is intriguing. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * A gathering of business development tips, including shout outs to Anonymous Partner and Mark Herrmann. [Corporette] * What better qualification to challenge for the Vegas DA’s job than to be prosecuted by that office days before the election? [Las Vegas Law Blog] * A Baltimore lawyer aggressively used the habeas process to release mentally ill girls to serve as personal slaves to the wealthy. [Slate] * Weil’s Business Finance & Restructuring team is putting together a March Madness bracket based on quotes from bankruptcy decisions. Let the excitement wash over you. Having not seen the bracket yet, I’m reserving judgment on what an awesome array of bankruptcy quotes would look like. [Bankruptcy Blog] * Kevin O’Keefe, who presented on my panel at our Attorney@Blog conference, left all of us touched with his tribute to Above the Law. [Real Lawyers Have Blogs]

Which partners, including a former office managing partner, are leaving Weil Gotshal now?

How much did Weil Gotshal suffer in 2013? Let's look at the numbers....

* It’s apparently time to pay your fair share. Obama wants to close the pesky tax loophole that’s allowed rich professionals, like lawyers, to get away with being rich professionals for so long. [Legal Times]

* On this episode of As the Weil Turns, we take a look at the firm’s tumbling gross revenue, profits per partner, revenue per lawyer, and headcount. Don’t worry, Weil’s just “repositioning.” [Am Law Daily]

* The American Bar Association released the dirt on 1L enrollment declines at law schools nationwide, and some schools got totally massacred. Pray yours wasn’t one of them. [National Law Journal]

* “[T]hey’d probably make the school year longer and bring the cost up for each year.” We sure hope these pre-law students aren’t right about the dubious cost factor behind the two-year law degree. [The Hoya]

* Who owns the copyright to the Oscar selfie? Does it belong to Ellen DeGeneres, or Bradley Cooper? If you want to get technical about it (and you do, you’re a lawyer), check out this legal round-up. [The Wire]

* What’s a good excuse for getting out of jury duty? Apparently not “having a heart attack RIGHT NOW!” [Lowering the Bar] * The hits from the CATO amicus brief keep on coming. They commit a footnote to mocking Chief Justice Roberts. [Election Law Blog] * The Attractive Convict is suing over the use of her mugshot in banner ads. Your redemption is coming, Scumbag Steve! [IT-Lex] * David Healey, formerly of Weil Gotshal and currently of Fish & Richardson, is filming a movie based on his earlier book. And it stars Sean Young! That’ll work well. [Times of Sicily] * Does a public-school donor’s request to thank God in an inscription constitute an Establishment Clause violation? [Chronicle of Higher Education] * Supreme Court will hear the case of the NC Dental Board’s efforts to limit the teeth-whitening industry to dentists. Will this ruling spell trouble for state bar associations applying a death grip to all legal services? [WRAL]

* Congrats to Weil Gotshal and Fenwick & West for getting in on Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, the biggest Internet deal in a decade. [The Recorder] * In South Carolina, you can get arrested for crimes that aren’t even things any more. Like “failure to return a VHS tape.” [Lowering the Bar] * Drunk lawyer at heart of alleged insider trading scheme. [Dealbreaker] * Did LBJ colossally screw up the Supreme Court? [Concurring Opinions] * Were you curious about who would be on the Mount Rushmore of Tax Law professors? No? Well, here they are anyway. [TaxProf Blog] * The so-called “trial penalty” is really a myth and empirical data confirms that defendants who reject plea deals and go to trial actually garner a “trial discount.” Yep, prosecutors aren’t overreaching at all. [PrawfsBlawg] * President Obama called for patent law reform in the State of the Union address. Now we have some insight into what he’s thinking about. [Patently-O] * Congratulations to Matthew Skinner, the next executive director of the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York! [LeGal]

Is the firm experiencing an unusual number of partner departures, and if so, why?

What do the incoming partner classes at 10 leading law firms reveal about the state of Biglaw?

* Man tried to rob a convenience store so he could go back to prison. And he almost screwed that up… [KMOV] * The CIA’s former lawyer explains how torture came to be a go-to national policy. According to John Rizzo, author of the forthcoming Company Man (affiliate link), George W. Bush basically had no conception of what was going on, which makes a lot of sense anyway. [The New Yorker] * Brooklyn Law’s Dean Nick Allard makes predictions for law schools in 2014. “[P]eople will look back at 2014 and say it marked the start of the new world of law: a renaissance where the respect and reputation of lawyers and law schools began to rise by measurable benchmarks.” Go ahead and laugh, I’ll wait. [TaxProf Blog] * Paul, Weiss picks up tax partner Scott Sontag from Weil Gotshal. (Congrats to both firms, by the way, on tying for the #9 spot in our list of top-ranked law firms for 2013.) [Paul, Weiss] * Nooooooooooooo! Judge Richard Kopf is ending his blog. [Hercules and the Umpire] * And the hits keep on coming. Professor Kyle Graham is also leaving the blogosphere. [Non Curat Lex] * The Ninth Circuit will start streaming all of its oral arguments next week. If you want to help them out, tune in. No promises that the panel will excoriate any prosecutors this time. [Ninth Circuit]

What were the 10 biggest stories about the legal profession in 2013, according to readers of Above the Law?