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  M&A legal powerhouse Wachtell has taken on some hilarious reputational baggage. So far, it's not unraveling its business. But a good time is being had by all as tabloid media milk the story of Nathaniel Cullerton's very public kissyface encounter with a subordinate. My, my, such a seeming abuse of power. The New York Post  and the Daily Mail  are juicing the narrative which had been primarily an inside-legal-sector shock bit of gossip. Here was a junior partner, who should have been still a low-profile suck-up grinder, being so passionate on a park bench that the video-taker chastised him to "get a room." But the story broke out to the general public when it was disclosed that this partner 1) was slated to lateral to a plum position at Gibson Dunn and 2) was sidelined by the park-bench scandal.  Now, both Wachtell and Cullerton have become tabloid fare.  According to one run-through by ChatGPT Wachtell will hold up in client assignments, despite this and ...

  Thanks to FT and media such as Abovethelaw which ran with the story, we know that Wachtell partner Nathaniel Cullerton was slated to lateral to Gibson Dunn. He would join the pack of litigators exiting to with William Savitt. However, after being videoed on a park bench kissing with great passion Wachtell subordinate Kelsey Borenzweig that opportunity went poof.  This snippet of information might change the harsh opinion of Cullerton as having no judgment.  We could indeed reframe the situation as involving clever lawyer planning: How about being able to conduct a discrete affair with Borenzweig, given that they would be at different firms and no reporting relationship would be involved. Sure, he would still be married but that happens all the time in large elite law firms. Many partners do wind up divorcing and marrying associates.  Removed as an obstacle would be that she reported to him, as was the reality at Wachtell. In all reputable organizations that poten...

On July 16th of this year, there was World PR Day .  The meme was The Golden Age of Public Relations. Why the sector was entering another golden age was because, it claimed: The profession functioned as a type of "Human Operating System (OS)" for universal trust in an automated world. Overall, that might not be hyperbole. For decades I had created strategy and content for the industry. The tools leveraged have resulted in game-changers. For instance, Dove gave the blessing for all females, no matter their body type, to feel naturally beautiful. But, those power tools have to be used selectively. Sometimes they can worsen a situation. Often what is required is direct reform of the whatever, not public relations. Jump in, fix. Take the US Supreme Court. The latest Gallup puts the approval at 33%. A primary source of that negativity seems to be rulings allegedly tilted toward conservative ideology. Well, liberal member of the Court Elena Kagan (get that, too-clever-by-half cho...

  The smart thing for the successful along the Northeast Corridor to do was plan a financially safe retirement in the southwest. The specific city or town would be determined by availability of healthcare, cultural infrastructure and ease in developing new social networks. Oh! What an adventure. Such a different lifestyle.  Now - and it's urgent - what has to be added to the checklist are the supply and cost of water.  In cute tiny towns like Kearny, Arizona there may be no supply. Vulnerable in supply are all locations which depend on the drying-up Colorado River. According to ChatGPT those range from the Phoenix/Tucson, AZ region to Las Vegas and Denver.  As for cost, the monthly bill for a two-bedroom condo in Phoenix ranges from $25 to $45. But usually the fee for sewer is bundled in. That combo fee ranges from $70 to $120.  Those realities deterred me from returning to Tucson, where I had first relocated from the New York Metro area after I had aged out of ...

  Would red-haired 40-something Nathaniel Cullerton be so appealing to a 20-something if he hadn't been a partner in an elite law firm and she was an underling at that firm?  That's what most of the coverage of the kissing incident in Central Park by the two Wachtell lawyers doesn't touch. Here is the video by Tik Toker Jay Guapo of their romantic break in the day. It was foreign-policy expert Henry Kissinger who observed: "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."  Since then, organizations have recognized how that reality can create major problems in the workplace. Typically, those take the form of a manager type engaging in an intimate relationship with a subordinate or at least a person with less status. Another issue is that such arrangements can breed favoritism. The subordinate gets goodies others don't. The rest of the organization seethes in resentment.  In addition, it can also trigger penalties for "non-compliance." The subordinate resists th...

  Typical now is this kind of posting on professional anonymous networks (PANs) Reddit, Fishbowl, Glassdoor and Blind. This one is from Blind  and it's by a laid-off employee at Amazon: "This morning I opened my inbox and found out my role had been eliminated. There was reorgs but really no other warning from my manager. Also, no feeling that my team was in danger. Just an email." Forget the regrets about not seeing it coming. Businesses have become more opaque. Managers, more protective about their own jobs, have becoming less willing to alert their reports about possible reductions-in-force. Intersecting factors such as AI, cost-efficiency, offshoring, upstart competition, geopolitics are triggering exponential change. The issue is: Know it could be coming.  Preparation goes way beyond the financial matters such living below your income, building a financial reserve, not taking on new debt and rapidly paying off current debt including student loans. As responders on the...