The Cavalry Wasn't Even Headed Its Way: Should Paul Weiss Have Expected Solidarity in Sharp-Elbowed World of Transactional Lawyers?

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Another blockbuster article in The New York Times details the sharp-elbowed competition among law firms. It uses that as the angle to explain why those firms heavy in transactional practices didn't even consider sending out the cavalry when one of its own Paul Weiss got hit with the Executive Order. That could have destroyed the business, within days.

The fierce force field of competition might have taken shape when Paul Weiss mutated from primarily a Wall Street litigation firm to include a growing number of transactional practices in 2008. It poached in 2011 the team of lawyers at another firm who were handling the Apollo account. The pivot was:

The end of gentility in large law firms, and

The preoccupation from fighting government, as in litigation, to having to please it. Many agencies have to approve what goes on in transactions.

So, it should have been clear to Paul Weiss that:

No other transactional firm was going to support it during the EO crisis. They were rivals.

Those firms had to protect themselves from any government ire. At the time there could still have been hope that they wouldn't be targeted. 

So, isn't it peculiar that in that now-famous internal email Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp indicated initial expectation of support and disappointment instead that rivals were supposedly moving in to poach its rainmakers and clients. 

In contrast to those transactional firms, there has been some solidarity among litigators. There has been public support for firms such as Perkins Coie which filed lawsuits as resistance against EOs.

Currently as a result of the overall attack on law firms by the administration there seems to be developing as much a shift in their business, culture, autonomy, power and influence as in 2011. On Substack I detail that as the End of Big Law.

Of course, myriad other institutions, ranging from Harvard to government agencies, will never be the same. 

Of course, you need to earn a good living. Special expertise with transitions, reskilling and startups. Complimentary consultation with Intuitive Coach Jane Genova (Text 203-468-8579, janegenova374@gmail.com).


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