Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

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Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Headquarters 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York, United States
No. of offices 9
No. of attorneys 1,020[1]
Major practice areas Antitrust, bankruptcy, corporate reorganization, communications, technology, employee benefits, executive compensation, entertainment, environmental, intellectual property, litigation, personal representation, private equity, real estate, tax
Key people Brad S. Karp, chairman
Revenue (gross revenue) $1,543,730,000 (2020)[1]
Date founded Predecessor firm founded in 1875
Company type Limited liability partnership
Website
paulweiss.com

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (known as Paul, Weiss) is an American multinational law firm headquartered on Sixth Avenue in New York City. The firm maintains an all-equity partnership, with approximately 150 partners.[2] By profits per equity partner, it is the fifth most profitable law firm in the world.[3]

History

Paul, Weiss's core practice areas are in litigation and corporate law.[4] In addition to its headquarters in New York, the firm has offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Wilmington, Delaware, Toronto, London, Tokyo, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

1875 - 1949

The firm that eventually became Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was started in New York in 1875 by Samuel William Weiss and Julius Frank as a general commercial practice.[5][6] In 1923, Samuel's son, Louis Weiss, started his own firm with John F. Wharton.[5] That firm later merged with Samuel's firm, and the new firm became Cohen, Cole, Weiss & Wharton.[6] In the 1930s, the firm represented one of the Scottsboro boys.[5] In 1946, Lloyd K. Garrison[7] and Randolph Paul joined the firm,[8] bringing the firm up to thirteen lawyers.[6] The name changed to Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison.[5]

In 1946, Paul, Weiss became the first major New York law firm to have a woman partner, Carolyn Agger.[9][6] Agger worked in the firm's Washington office, which was established the year she was hired.[6] Three years later, in 1949, the firm hired William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., a Black graduate of Harvard University Law School.[6] This was the first time that a major New York City law firm hired a person of color.[10] 1949 was also when the firm moved its headquarters to midtown Manhattan.[6]

1950 - 2000

In 1950, Simon Rifkind joined the firm and it became Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.[5] At the time, the firm had 12 partners, only one of whom did trial work;[5] Rifkind wanted to change that and started to grow the firm's litigation department.[6] Then, in 1957, Arthur Liman joined the firm.[11] He later served as chief counsel in the Senate investigation of the Iran-Contra affair in 1987.[12] In 1966, Rifkind recruited Theodore Sorensen who became the firm's first international lawyer.[6][13] He drafted a constitution for Tajikistan in 1993 when the nation emerged from the former Soviet Union.[14][6]

Controversies

In 2018, Paul Weiss was criticized when it released a photograph on its LinkedIn of recently promoted partners, all of whom were white.[15] Additionally, the photograph included only one woman partner who had been relegated to the bottom corner of the image.[16] Although Paul Weiss had a reputation for being more diverse than other elite big-law firms, the announcement drew criticisms that even "diverse" big-law firms still partook in racist and sexist methods of employment and promotion. The photograph served as a "lightning rod" for the growing frustration that elite law careers are still largely reserved for white men.[17]

A 2021 assessment singled out Paul, Weiss among law firms as engaging in the most litigation, lobbying and transactional work for fossil fuel companies.[18][19] The company received the lowest grade in a 2021 scorecard of law firms on climate change actions. The firm had represented fossil fuel companies in 30 cases over the five preceding years.[18] In January and February 2020, students at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, New York University School of Law, and the University of Michigan Law School protested the firm's recruitment events over its representation of Exxon Mobil Corporation.[20][21][22][23]

Notable representations

Pro bono

In 2018, Paul, Weiss worked pro bono to try and find over 400 parents who were separated from their families at the southern border of the United States and then deported.[38] The work was part of the federal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit, which was brought against the Trump administration over its family separation policy.[39] ACLU asked Paul, Weiss to head the committee that worked with three nonprofits to find the parents.[39] By November, almost all of the 400 deported parents had been found.[39]

In 2019, Pablo Fernandez was released from jail after being wrongfully convicted of murder.[40] He had served over twenty-four years in prison.[40] Lawyers from Paul, Weiss were his pro-bono defense team.[40]

Diversity

On October 10, 2007, Paul, Weiss was included in a ranking of Manhattan law firms by the national law student group Building a Better Legal Profession.[41][42] The organization ranked firms by billable hours, demographic diversity, and pro bono participation. For diversity among partner attorneys, the firm was ranked in the 61st to 80th percentile for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and LGBT categories. Paul, Weiss was also ranked number 52 out of the 74 firms evaluated, for opportunities for advancement for female attorneys.[43][41] In 2019, the nonprofit group Lawyers of Color reported that Paul, Weiss had the highest percentage of black lawyers of the 400 firms it ranked.[44] In 2020, women comprised 26% of Paul, Weiss’ partnership, all equity partners.[45] This is slightly higher than the average for law firms (23.6% as reported by the National Association for Law Placement).[45]

William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. was the first black lawyer hired at the firm. When he was hired in 1949, it was the first time ever that a major New York City law firm hired a person of color as an associate.[46][47] Pauli Murray, a civil rights and gender equality activist, was an associate at Paul, Weiss from 1956 to 1960.[48] Jeh Johnson, a lawyer and the fourth director and secretary of Homeland Security, was hired by Paul, Weiss in 1994 as the firm's first African-American partner.[49] After he stepped down from Homeland Security in 2017 he rejoined the firm's litigation department.[49] Loretta Lynch, the first black woman to serve as United States attorney general, joined Paul, Weiss in 2019 as a litigation partner.[44]

In 2020, Paul, Weiss said it wanted to unite law firms and public-interest organizations across the U.S. in a pro-bono effort to root out racism.[50] Attorney Jeh Johnson of Paul, Weiss was assigned to serve as New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore's Special Advisor on Equal Justice in the Courts.[51]

Affiliations

In 2022, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was a founding member of the Legal Alliance for Reproductive Rights, a coalition of United States law firms offering free legal services to people seeking and providing abortions in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade.[52]

Name partners

See also

References

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  20. Queen, Jack (February 12, 2020). "NYU Law Students Disrupt Paul Weiss Event Over Exxon Win," Law360.
  21. Pontecorvo, Emily (February 10, 2020). "Calls for law firm to #DropExxon go national with law student boycott," Grist.
  22. Irfan, Umair (January 16, 2020). "The surprising protest of Exxon’s law firm at Harvard Law," Vox.
  23. Schachinger, Julia (February 19, 2020). "University Law Students protest Paul, Weiss recruiting event in support of #DropExxon campaign," The Michigan Daily.
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  27. In Re China Medical Technologies, Inc., 522 B.R. 28 (2014), Leagle.com
  28. Ryan, Lisa (April 30, 2015). "Paul Weiss Fights Med. Co. Liquidator’s Bid For Docs," Law360.
  29. Scuria, Andrew (February 20, 2015). "Ch. 15 Liquidator Renews Push For Paul Weiss Docs," Law360.
  30. "China Medical Technologies, Inc. Announces the Substantial Completion of an Independent Internal Investigation," AngloChinese Investments, July 30, 2009.
  31. Coe, Abra (October 1, 2015). "Paul Weiss Must Pony Up Privileged Docs On Defunct Med Co.," Law360.
  32. Michaels, Margarita (September 30, 2015) "Paul Weiss ordered to reveal privileged information from investigation on behalf of bankrupt Chinese medical company," Global Restructuring Review.
  33. In Re: China Medical Technologies, Inc., Opinion and Order (S.D.N.Y. 2015).
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  41. 41.0 41.1 Amir Efrati, You Say You Want a Big-Law Revolution, Take II, "Wall Street Journal", October 10, 2007, https://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/10/10/you-say-you-want-a-big-law-revolution-take-ii/
  42. Adam Liptak, In Students’ Eyes, Look-Alike Lawyers Don’t Make the Grade, New York Times, October 29, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/us/29bar.html?em&ex=1193889600&en=4b0cd84261ffe5b4&ei=5087%0A
  43. Thomas Adcock and Zusha Elinson, Student Group Grades Firms On Diversity, Pro Bono Work, "New York Law Journal," October 19, 2007, [1]
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