Last year, when news broke that Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was inking a deal with the Trump administration — and, more to the point, capitulating — it landed like a thunderclap. Not just because a major law firm’s whole deal is supposed to be defending the rule of law, not folding like a wet napkin the second things get uncomfortable, but because it was Paul, Weiss. This is a firm with a reputation for elite litigators who didn’t just talk a big game about standing up to power, they actually did it during the first Trump administration. Hell, for decades Paul, Weiss was thought of as the Biglaw firm where someone with progressive politics could find a home. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, that capitulation looks less like a one-off misstep and more like the first visible crack in a much deeper internal transformation.
Now there’s a new chair at the once-venerable Biglaw shop. And though the Trumpian deal was widely panned by those in the legal industry that was not the undoing of former chair Brad Karp. No, it was his repeated appearances in the Epstein files which revealed a much cozier relationship with the infamous pedophile than previously known. Now at the helm of Paul, Weiss is mergers & acquisitions partner Scott Barshay, who Karp crowed about wooing over from Cravath in 2016.
Barshay was reportedly a major internal cheerleader of the Trump deal, dressing up the cowardice as pragmatism. But as Above the Law readers know, that decision ruffled feathers and sent litigators packing. And more may be headed for the exits. As the Wall Street Journal reports, additional litigation partners are currently in talks to leave, while Barshay has been crisscrossing the country trying to reassure the troops that everything is totally fine, nothing to see here, please stop updating your LinkedIn.
Barshay has been steadily reshaping Paul, Weiss (pushing for the changes even before he took over as Chair) into something that looks a lot more like a hyper-corporatized profit machine than the legacy institution many of the partners thought they signed up for. The partner compensation system has been revamped to throw eye-watering sums at rainmakers. Associate staffing is now more tightly controlled, ending the firm’s generalist model and limiting who gets to work with whom in the name of client consistency. The firm’s partner meetings are reportedly more “subdued,” which is a nice way of saying the personality has been sanded down to corporate beige. And Barshay’s push to make the firm apolitical has sealed the transition from “litigation powerhouse with a conscience” to “M&A juggernaut with a carefully managed personality.”
But here’s the part that makes all of this deliciously complicated — the numbers are good. Like, really good. Revenue is up (23.8% to $3.26 billion) and profits per equity partner are up (14.5%). The money is flowing, and in Biglaw, that tends to function as the ultimate sedative. Barshay’s changes are working in a purely financial sense, but at some point, the people who came for something more than just a paycheck are going to look around and realize they’re working at a place they barely recognize.
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 Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
The post Scott Barshay’s Paul, Weiss Makeover: More Money, Less Soul? appeared first on Above the Law.
Last year, when news broke that Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was inking a deal with the Trump administration — and, more to the point, capitulating — it landed like a thunderclap. Not just because a major law firm’s whole deal is supposed to be defending the rule of law, not folding like a wet napkin the second things get uncomfortable, but because it was Paul, Weiss. This is a firm with a reputation for elite litigators who didn’t just talk a big game about standing up to power, they actually did it during the first Trump administration. Hell, for decades Paul, Weiss was thought of as the Biglaw firm where someone with progressive politics could find a home. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, that capitulation looks less like a one-off misstep and more like the first visible crack in a much deeper internal transformation.
Now there’s a new chair at the once-venerable Biglaw shop. And though the Trumpian deal was widely panned by those in the legal industry that was not the undoing of former chair Brad Karp. No, it was his repeated appearances in the Epstein files which revealed a much cozier relationship with the infamous pedophile than previously known. Now at the helm of Paul, Weiss is mergers & acquisitions partner Scott Barshay, who Karp crowed about wooing over from Cravath in 2016.
Barshay was reportedly a major internal cheerleader of the Trump deal, dressing up the cowardice as pragmatism. But as Above the Law readers know, that decision ruffled feathers and sent litigators packing. And more may be headed for the exits. As the Wall Street Journal reports, additional litigation partners are currently in talks to leave, while Barshay has been crisscrossing the country trying to reassure the troops that everything is totally fine, nothing to see here, please stop updating your LinkedIn.
Barshay has been steadily reshaping Paul, Weiss (pushing for the changes even before he took over as Chair) into something that looks a lot more like a hyper-corporatized profit machine than the legacy institution many of the partners thought they signed up for. The partner compensation system has been revamped to throw eye-watering sums at rainmakers. Associate staffing is now more tightly controlled, ending the firm’s generalist model and limiting who gets to work with whom in the name of client consistency. The firm’s partner meetings are reportedly more “subdued,” which is a nice way of saying the personality has been sanded down to corporate beige. And Barshay’s push to make the firm apolitical has sealed the transition from “litigation powerhouse with a conscience” to “M&A juggernaut with a carefully managed personality.”
But here’s the part that makes all of this deliciously complicated — the numbers are good. Like, really good. Revenue is up (23.8% to $3.26 billion) and profits per equity partner are up (14.5%). The money is flowing, and in Biglaw, that tends to function as the ultimate sedative. Barshay’s changes are working in a purely financial sense, but at some point, the people who came for something more than just a paycheck are going to look around and realize they’re working at a place they barely recognize.
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 Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
The post Scott Barshay’s Paul, Weiss Makeover: More Money, Less Soul? appeared first on Above the Law.
