Paul, Weiss' Rapid Global Expansion/Growing Pay Spread among Partners - A Hovering Ghost, Current Force Fields

 "What do you think about the Paul, Weiss global expansion? I don’t think I’ve seen a firm go on this much of a hiring spree in a long time. Shaking up the market is an understatement. Will it work?" - Reddit Big Law, May 29, 2024

Times change and strategies change also. 

One response on Reddit to this development at Paul, Weiss is a trip down memory lane. A lawyer who was there during the financial meltdown notes that the strategies were quite different. They report that Paul, Weiss chair Brad Karp, who had just been voted in, noted that the firm wasn't in the pickle its peers were. And, as everyone could see, it wasn't, like Latham, laying off. 

The two reasons were:

No expensive global expansion. Therefore, it wasn't shouldering that cost burden. 

Lockstep partner compensation. That helped create genteel relationships. It also locked in pay caps.

That was then. Or, is presented by the poster as what went down then.

Now is now. 

The issue isn't that the strategies have mutated. It's, as the headliner asks: Will it work?

The ghost hovering over discussions such as this one is the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Its ethos was growth at any cost, including providing guaranteed compensation to stars. We have all read James Stewart's The New Yorker 2013 article on what went so wrong. At Paul, Weiss the spread among the highest paid partners and the lower paid ones is large. So much for those supposed good relationships of the old lockstep days. 

Not a ghost but very much alive and successful, of course, is Kirkland & Ellis. If Paul, Weiss is grafting on major chunks of its model, can the organism it had been until recently survive and thrive? Recall how Jack Welch retrofitted GE to the extent that it eventually almost went kaput. A useful read is David Gelles' "The Man Who Broke Capitalism."

Also not a ghost is the possible impact of a key client like Apollo on how Paul, Weiss operates. Could the firm have been forced into too fast global expansion to accommodate Apollo? And/or could the firm simultaneously be transitioning to more general PE/M&A assignments in order to be less dependent on the Apollo business? Its vulnerability was obvious. Not a comfortable position to be in.

Meanwhile, other postings on professional anonymous networks introduce the matter of Paul, Weiss' ability to absorb all these changes. 

Myriad constituencies are watching Paul, Weiss. Karp's high-wire act is, in itself, is fascinating. It has the passion of performance art.  

Along with that is the question if such radical transformation is necessary to succeed in these crazy times. In my coaching, I guide clients to reflect that all they had assumed and put together in a career may be over. In whole sectors, ranging from media to Hollywood, professsionals have started the soul-wrenching journey of walking away. 

Limiting beliefs? Self-defeating? Stuck? Complimentary consultation with Coach/Tarot Reader Jane Genova (text/phone 203-468-8579, janegenova374@gmail.com)