Weil Gotshal hasn’t even finished turning off the lights, and Biglaw is already looking around the room wondering which will be the next firm to go dark.
Former Above the Law editor David Lat has a candidate. In a new post on his Substack, Original Jurisdiction, Lat asks whether Cahill Gordon & Reindel is the next Weil. He reports that, according to multiple sources with contacts in the partnership, Cahill may be acquired by another firm. Lat doesn’t name the suitor. He describes it as much larger and more stable than Cahill, although with significantly lower profits per partner. Cahill didn’t respond to his requests for comment.
Full disclosure: I worked at Cahill in the early aughts, so this one hits a little closer to home.
On paper, Cahill doesn’t look like a firm in trouble. Revenue came in at $502.5 million in 2025, up 8.4%, and profits per equity partner rose 7.3% to $5.7 million. As recently as September, managing partner Herbert Washer told Bloomberg Law the firm expected double-digit growth in 2026.
But on paper, Weil looked fine too.
Weil had no debt and few liabilities when it fell. Its problem was people walking out the door in groups, and that’s where Cahill’s numbers get uncomfortable. The firm has more than 300 lawyers but fewer than 80 partners, and it has lost eight of them this year, roughly 10% of the partnership. All eight are finance partners. In March, leveraged finance partner Michael Makhotin left for DLA Piper. In July, private credit co-head Peter Williams went to Paul Hastings, which has now taken a handful of Cahill partners since 2023. In September, leveraged finance partners Brian Kelleher, Stephen Harper, and Christopher Bevan went to Proskauer. In October, leveraged finance partners Ted Lacey, Anthony Wolfe, and Tristan Manley went to White & Case.
For a firm that has long dominated the high-yield and leveraged loan market, losing leveraged finance partners three at a time is… not ideal. It isn’t new, either. Cahill went through a wave of departures in 2023, which Washer told Bloomberg Law “woke us up to the realities of the legal market.” And Paul Hastings raiding Cahill’s leveraged finance bench is a genre old enough that we were chronicling it back in 2011.
Lat uses the same framework everyone reached for to explain Weil: the “partner run,” from Yale Law School professor John Morley’s study Why Law Firms Collapse. Once a few rainmakers leave, the partners who stay have every reason to go too. Lat calls Cahill’s situation less dramatic than Weil’s, and he thinks it could end better. Weil’s merger talks with Willkie Farr and Vinson & Elkins went nowhere, while Cahill, Lat writes, “might have found a rescuer.”
Then there’s the source who wants everyone to calm down. They told Lat:
While I do think Cahill’s collapse is inevitable at this point, the question of “who’s next” is misguided. We aren’t on the verge of some epidemic of law firms going out of business. Weil was the slow-moving train wreck that industry insiders saw from a mile away.
Cahill is different. Their entire business model is built on a small number of large institutionalized relationships. Those partners realized that instead of sharing that Bank of America relationship with the entire partnership, they can peel off one-third of the B of A work, bring it to Paul Hastings or White & Case, but split the origination credit between a few attorneys. The problem for Cahill is that there are only so many one-thirds to peel off before nothing is left. No other firm except Cahill has this business model.
Everyone needs to relax.
“Everyone needs to relax”? Maybe Weil won’t usher in a run on Biglaw collapses, but Biglaw is antsy. The rest of the industry is nervously asking how a firm that powerful came apart that fast, and whether it could happen to them. Weil’s partners have spent the last two weeks lining up for lifeboats, calling their lawyers, and moving to rivals by the dozen. Every managing partner in the Am Law 200 just watched how fast that happened.
Speculating about who’s next is a full-time sport in Biglaw right now. It has no off-season, and every partner departure memo counts as a scoring play. Telling the players to relax isn’t going to end the game.
Earlier: What Killed Weil? Rainmakers Who Left In Packs
Weil’s Lifeboats Have A Seating Chart, First-Years Worry They Aren’t On It
Former Weil Partners Lawyer Up As The Firm’s Wind-Down Turns Into A Fight Over What’s Left
Gibson Dunn Could Roll Out The Welcome Mat For Up To 120 Weil Lawyers
Weil Gotshal Is Now Discussing A Possible Wind-Down
Weil’s Incoming Leader Won’t Take The Job, And Might Take One At Simpson Thacher Instead
Weil’s Merger With Willkie Is Dead, But Its Partner Exodus Is Very Much Alive
Weil Gotshal Is Reportedly Negotiating A Merger, About A Month After Saying It Wasn’t In Merger Talks
Cravath And Weil Are Just Trading Partners At This Point
Weil’s Corporate Chair Decamps For Cravath, Which Weil Would Like You To Know Is ‘A Smaller Platform’
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Is Cahill Gordon The Next Weil? Partner Exits And Acquisition Talk Have Biglaw Guessing appeared first on Above the Law.
Weil Gotshal hasn’t even finished turning off the lights, and Biglaw is already looking around the room wondering which will be the next firm to go dark.
Former Above the Law editor David Lat has a candidate. In a new post on his Substack, Original Jurisdiction, Lat asks whether Cahill Gordon & Reindel is the next Weil. He reports that, according to multiple sources with contacts in the partnership, Cahill may be acquired by another firm. Lat doesn’t name the suitor. He describes it as much larger and more stable than Cahill, although with significantly lower profits per partner. Cahill didn’t respond to his requests for comment.
Full disclosure: I worked at Cahill in the early aughts, so this one hits a little closer to home.
On paper, Cahill doesn’t look like a firm in trouble. Revenue came in at $502.5 million in 2025, up 8.4%, and profits per equity partner rose 7.3% to $5.7 million. As recently as September, managing partner Herbert Washer told Bloomberg Law the firm expected double-digit growth in 2026.
But on paper, Weil looked fine too.
Weil had no debt and few liabilities when it fell. Its problem was people walking out the door in groups, and that’s where Cahill’s numbers get uncomfortable. The firm has more than 300 lawyers but fewer than 80 partners, and it has lost eight of them this year, roughly 10% of the partnership. All eight are finance partners. In March, leveraged finance partner Michael Makhotin left for DLA Piper. In July, private credit co-head Peter Williams went to Paul Hastings, which has now taken a handful of Cahill partners since 2023. In September, leveraged finance partners Brian Kelleher, Stephen Harper, and Christopher Bevan went to Proskauer. In October, leveraged finance partners Ted Lacey, Anthony Wolfe, and Tristan Manley went to White & Case.
For a firm that has long dominated the high-yield and leveraged loan market, losing leveraged finance partners three at a time is… not ideal. It isn’t new, either. Cahill went through a wave of departures in 2023, which Washer told Bloomberg Law “woke us up to the realities of the legal market.” And Paul Hastings raiding Cahill’s leveraged finance bench is a genre old enough that we were chronicling it back in 2011.
Lat uses the same framework everyone reached for to explain Weil: the “partner run,” from Yale Law School professor John Morley’s study Why Law Firms Collapse. Once a few rainmakers leave, the partners who stay have every reason to go too. Lat calls Cahill’s situation less dramatic than Weil’s, and he thinks it could end better. Weil’s merger talks with Willkie Farr and Vinson & Elkins went nowhere, while Cahill, Lat writes, “might have found a rescuer.”
Then there’s the source who wants everyone to calm down. They told Lat:
While I do think Cahill’s collapse is inevitable at this point, the question of “who’s next” is misguided. We aren’t on the verge of some epidemic of law firms going out of business. Weil was the slow-moving train wreck that industry insiders saw from a mile away.
Cahill is different. Their entire business model is built on a small number of large institutionalized relationships. Those partners realized that instead of sharing that Bank of America relationship with the entire partnership, they can peel off one-third of the B of A work, bring it to Paul Hastings or White & Case, but split the origination credit between a few attorneys. The problem for Cahill is that there are only so many one-thirds to peel off before nothing is left. No other firm except Cahill has this business model.
Everyone needs to relax.
“Everyone needs to relax”? Maybe Weil won’t usher in a run on Biglaw collapses, but Biglaw is antsy. The rest of the industry is nervously asking how a firm that powerful came apart that fast, and whether it could happen to them. Weil’s partners have spent the last two weeks lining up for lifeboats, calling their lawyers, and moving to rivals by the dozen. Every managing partner in the Am Law 200 just watched how fast that happened.
Speculating about who’s next is a full-time sport in Biglaw right now. It has no off-season, and every partner departure memo counts as a scoring play. Telling the players to relax isn’t going to end the game.
Earlier: What Killed Weil? Rainmakers Who Left In Packs
Weil’s Lifeboats Have A Seating Chart, First-Years Worry They Aren’t On It
Former Weil Partners Lawyer Up As The Firm’s Wind-Down Turns Into A Fight Over What’s Left
Gibson Dunn Could Roll Out The Welcome Mat For Up To 120 Weil Lawyers
Weil Gotshal Is Now Discussing A Possible Wind-Down
Weil’s Incoming Leader Won’t Take The Job, And Might Take One At Simpson Thacher Instead
Weil’s Merger With Willkie Is Dead, But Its Partner Exodus Is Very Much Alive
Weil Gotshal Is Reportedly Negotiating A Merger, About A Month After Saying It Wasn’t In Merger Talks
Cravath And Weil Are Just Trading Partners At This Point
Weil’s Corporate Chair Decamps For Cravath, Which Weil Would Like You To Know Is ‘A Smaller Platform’
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
