Firm Profiles

Law firm boasts more often fall under wishful thinking than fact, but when chair Brad Karp proclaimed Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison “the go–to firm for Wall Street litigation,” he may have been onto something.

Based in New York, the firm has won prestige, accolades, and—most importantly—cases for its work for the banking industry’s best known names. Chief among them: Citigroup Inc., the litigation practice’s biggest client.

Paul, Weiss was named The American Lawyer’s Litigation Department of the Year in 2006, was a finalist for that prize in 2010, and earned an honorable mention in 2012 largely for its work representing Citigroup—and helping it step through minefields in various credit crisis and subprime–related litigations. Citi is in good company, too: Other corporate titans that have reached out to Paul, Weiss trial lawyers include Pfizer Inc.; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Bank of America Corporation; Wells Fargo & Company; Morgan Stanley; HSBC Holdings plc; The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.

While there are larger firms around, few are as profitable. Indeed, on the 2011 profitability index, Paul Weiss came in second, and ranked fourth for average partner compensation and seventh in profits per partner. More important, Paul Weiss has appeared on The American Lawyer’s A–List since it was first published in 2003. The A–List ranks big law firms on a formula that measures revenue per lawyer, pro bono activity, and their scores on the magazine’s associate and diversity surveys. The top twenty firms in the Am Law 200 comprise the A–List.

Paul Weiss has eight offices but about 85 percent of its lawyers are in New York. Only Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has a bigger New York presence.

Paul Weiss is famous for its litigation department and pro bono record. But it also has strong lawyers in bankruptcy, employee benefits, executive compensation, real estate, and tax law. The firm brought in six lateral partners from O’Melveny & Myers to boost its private equity practice. And it remains a fixture in the music business and in the Broadway theatre, a practice that dates back to protecting Cole Porter’s copyrights.

—Updated as of 1/1/12