There comes a point in every Biglaw partner’s career when they look off the porch of their summer villa, allow their mind to wander to the army of junior associates they’ve kept at the office until 2 a.m. all week papering up deals, and ask themselves if there’s a less exploitative industry where they can work. Then, they tamp that notion down, sip their Louis XIII cognac, and fire off some emails about the “expectations” for the weekend.
But, Skadden partner David Eisman came to a different conclusion. After two decades at the firm, where he led the firm’s media and entertainment group, Eisman is decamping to become general counsel at OnlyFans.
Eisman on his first day:
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What could be a better fit for a website built on skimming profit off young women’s talent than the architect of Shamrock Capital’s purchase of Taylor Swift’s first six masters?
Eisman steps into a hectic environment. The site’s owner, Leonid Radvinsky, unexpectedly died in March, leaving a leadership vacuum right as OnlyFans is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that values the company at more than $3 billion. According to Bloomberg News, “OnlyFans declined to comment on a potential sale or any connection to the hiring of Eisman, who it said will start in the coming weeks.”
I assume they mean “in the next few weeks.”
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Snickering aside, Eisman is joining a financial juggernaut. The global sex-adjacent industry is booming. OnlyFans is a content-licensing-and-payments business that throws off enormous cash, has 4 million creators and 377 million users on its books, and — per The Economist’s recent breakdown of the global sex economy — sits inside a category that includes a $100 billion porn industry and an entire emerging “virtual companionship” subsector that nobody has figured out how to value yet. That’s before considering the implications of hyperrealistic AI — and the corresponding legal risks from deepfakes — and from a chief legal officer perspective, it is hard to think of a more interesting in-house seat in media.
Speaking of AI, Jane Genova, an executive coach who tracks the legal industry, flagged the Eisman move alongside The Economist’s reporting and made the blunt observation that the sex economy is a growth sector at the exact moment that traditional knowledge-worker pipelines are getting hollowed out by AI. She also noted, with what I can only describe as professional understatement, that “the majority of my forced-out white-collar clients regret their blind faith in traditional career paths.”
It’s hard to go less traditional than amateur-porn-site-that-assures-us-it’s-more-than-an-amateur-porn-site. But, from Eisman’s perspective, he departs Skadden, a firm that cut a $100 million deal with the Trump administration, to work with people who do less degrading stuff for money.
Nor is this the first time OnlyFans looked to Biglaw for talent. Management talent that is. Current CEO Keily Blair came from Orrick, a firm that has advised the company on privacy issues in the past. “David is a seasoned professional, respected across the tech, media and entertainment sector,” Blair told Bloomberg in a statement. “He will be a great addition to the OnlyFans team as we look to grow and enhance our business offering and footprint.”
Congratulations to their press team for making sure the CEO talks brought up foot stuff in an official statement.
OnlyFans looking to Biglaw for leadership is intriguing when you compare business models, where OnlyFans operates as a mirror image of Biglaw. The site takes 20 percent of creator earnings and lets the talent run the business. Skadden reported $2.3 million revenue per lawyer last year, meaning when you plug in the current salary and bonus scale, associates take home around 10-20 percent of what they’re bringing in. Just flip the pyramid and OnlyFans leaves 80 percent to the masses doing all the work, while Biglaw funnels 80 percent away from the masses at the bottom.
And OnlyFans models actually get to work from home.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.