Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP - The Inside View

“The energy was different from Weil,” contemplated one junior when describing why the firm was their top pick to practice at. Rightfully so: few firms can boast of an equally storied legacy of having a hand in precedent-setting restructuring cases harkening all the way back to the 2008 financial crisis. It’s this very expertise which laid out the foundations for the firm’s well-deserved recognition to date; our colleagues over at Chambers USAconsistently recognize Weil’s restructuring practice as one of nation’s elites. Hand in hand with its renowned restructuring expertise is Weil’s securitiesregulation advisory practice which brings the same energy, adding further top medals to the firm’s transactional trophy case. Balancing out it’s breadth of offerings, the firm’s product liability and mass torts know-how also picks up gold stars. There’s plenty more triumphs to be told in Weil’s story, but you’ll have to head on over to chambers.com for the full picture.

Weil’s got a total of nine offices across the US; at the moment, the majority of the firm’s junior associates are based in New York, with the next largest groups situated in Silicon Valley and DC. Boston and Dallas are also home to a few, while the Houston, LosAngeles, San Francisco, and Miami offices also take on a handful. Further afield, six international offices make up the firm’s global footprint.

Strategy & Future

In 2024, Weil opened new offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Initially, these offices will focus on private equity, “but both will expand to becoming more fuller service offices,” according to Executive Partner Barry Wolf. More generally, “we’re in a significant build-out mode with our private equity and funds practices, which are both leaders in the marketplace,” says Wolf, emphasizing: “We’re not growing for growth’s sake but expanding them out.”

Departments give their associates quarterly updates on strategy and any recent developments, such as performance, goals, and new hires. For juniors, having meeting about future plans was appreciated: “It helps it feel like more of a team than ‘do as you’re told and keep chugging along.’”

Read more from Barry Wolf under the ‘Get Hired’ tab.

The Work

The firm operates a rotational summer program in New York, which summers are able to try out different practices. At the end of the summer, rookies are asked to rank their practice preferences. In other offices, they are hired into specific practice groups. Around half of the firm’s junior associate population are in the broad corporate department. Beyond this, around a third of juniors sat in the litigation group, while the rest were split between tax, benefits and executive compensation, and restructuring.

“…we’re not worrying about whether we’re busy enough.”

Once situated in a practice area, juniors are assigned work through a centralized staffing system, which juniors were particularly fond of. “We really appreciate it, because then we’re not worrying about whether we’re busy enough,” one mentioned. The staffing partner takes into account the types of assignments associates are working on to allow everyone to get the widest range of experience possible. Juniors can also approach partners directly to get involved with work, or indicate particular interests in assignments to the staffing partner.

Weil’s corporate department consists of M&A, private equity, private funds, public company advisory group, real estate, technology and IP transactions, banking and finance, capital markets, structured finance and regulatory. In the private equity realm, juniors’ tasks include “anything from managing diligence and conducting due diligence and crafting small ancillary agreements.” Working on ancillary documents is a big slice of the pie for associates at Weil, even during their first year. “As a junior, the smaller transactions are definitely where you get to have more substantive opportunities,” an associate explained,but newbies can still support seniors on larger transactions. Being on those smaller transactions is “a learning experience,” one noted; “I think it’s important to have that experience in order to move onto the bigger purchase agreements and things like that.” The group handles both the sell side and the buyer side, working on portfolio companies and general corporate matters, such as hiring C-suites and directors. For one insider, getting to “work closely” with a client on the sell side of a deal to help them prepare for a sale stood out as a highlight of their career so far.

Private equity clients: Apollo, Blackstone, Softbank. Represented The Home Depot in its $18 billion acquisition of SRS Distribution, a specialty trade distribution company.

Work within the technology and IP transactions (TIP) subgroup is split between intellectual property and privacy transactional work. The group often assists on larger M&A and private equity transactions: “We handle the private things there,” an insider noted. On the IP side, the team handles all the commercial documents for deal support, such as manufacturing and supply agreements and transition supply documents. For privacy, an associate explained: “We mainly do deal support work and counselling work, working one-on-one with a client on their privacy needs.” As one of the firm’s smaller groups, associates praised the early responsibility they were able to get their hands on. “I think we get a lot more substantive experience than some of the more generalist groups early on, primarily on the deal support work, so you really learn the ins and outs of a transaction,” said one.This means working on advisory documents and due diligence and coordinating with the TIP group and the M&A teams. Counselling work in particular was highlighted as providing the opportunity for “great interaction with the client as a junior.”

Technology and IP transactions clients: Eli Lilly, Goldman Sachs, The Kroger Company. Advised Cedar Fair, an owner of amusement parks, water parks, and resort accommodations, on the technology, data privacy, and IP aspects of its merger with Six Flags Entertainment Corporation.

“…it was as close to the movies as you’re gonna get in a real practice!”

Weil’s restructuring group handles both debtor and creditor work, though debtor cases form the larger part of the practice. One particular interviewee described working on a Chapter 11 debt case as “the most fun I’ve had in a long time! Maybe some people will think that’s sad,” they laughed, “I think it was as close to the movies as you’re gonna get in a real practice!” While juniors do also work on Chapter 15 cases, it’s not usually until their second year, as these teams usually only consist of counsel and a partner – and the junior associate. As associates become more senior, they work more on pitches and creditor-side matters, which tend to be staffed with leaner teams than debtor matters. Cross-office working was also seen as a perk of being in this group: “Weil’s restructuring is a one firm thing,” explained one insider, “I have worked with the Texas offices, the London office, the Paris office.” The firm occasionally brings all US restructuring attorneys together in New York “and put them up in a hotel so they can meet everyone.” Associates appreciated the opportunity to get to know their colleagues in other offices, so, during meetings, “it’s not just a zoom icon with their initials.”

Restructuring clients: Scandinavian Airlines System, Terraform Labs, Steward Health Care. Represented Softbank in connection with WeWork’s Chapter 11 cases.

Career Development

“From the top down, people are really invested in your learning and development,” shared one insider. “I’ve been really pleased with that aspect of it so far.” One element of this investment is the mentorship program. “We are doubling down and focusing on mentoring because that is something that is extremely important to every lawyer’s growth as a professional,” says Wolf.The firm has a hybrid working policy (more on that later), so “we’re making sure that when the lawyers are in the office, there is a real focus on the mentorship that happens better when people are physically together.” Juniors are assigned two mentors: a partner and a senior associate, which one newbie praised, “Sometimes you don’t feel so comfortable talking to partners about franker conversations but you do with associates, so I think that’s a really good way of overcoming that.” Associates have internal checklists for the goals they’re expected to meet ahead of their formal reviews which take place in January and July.

“The firm has a very entrepreneurial culture.”

Looking ahead to partnership prospects, a source noted: “The firm has a very entrepreneurial culture. If you want more career development that’s something you have to reach out for, rather than the firm feeding you that.” For example, associates can speak to career development coaches confidentially to discuss their career options.

Hours & Compensation

Billable hours: no requirement

There’s no formal billable hours requirement, as it depends on team, workflows and client needs. The “nice thing about Weil is no one talks about what your target is which helps alleviate some of the stress,” one junior told us. Our sources reckoned this relative lack of emphasis on billable hours was due to the firm’s use of a centralized staffing system, so it’s not up to associates to seek out work to boost their hours. Speaking of hours, associates are expected to be in the office from Monday to Thursday and can work from home on Fridays.

As for compensation, Weil follows a lockstep model and the firm matches market-rate increases – “every time!” Interviewees made clear, the bonus “isn’t hinged upon how many hours you bill,” instead, it’s “solely based on performance.”

Culture

The firm’s no billable target policy plays a huge role in the general culture. For example, associates noted this materializing in things like “peers getting you involved in assignments they know you’re interested in, or seniors spending more time giving you feedback after you’ve completed an assignment.” To sum it up, “If you show people you’re invested, they’ll want to continue helping you,” sources noted.

Of course, the reality of BigLaw is “it’s hard. It’s a lot of work,” insiders made clear. The caveat to this is that “they try their best to respect your vacations. I’ve taken multiple vacations where I was not only left alone but told, ‘Don’t you dare check your emails!’ But it’s up to us associates to set those boundaries.” In groups like restructuring, where the workload is more cyclical with busier and quieter periods, “you do get a small period where you can recoup,” juniors noted.

Pro Bono

Associates have a target of 50 hours of pro bono work annually, and sources noted, “Pretty much everyone hits that target.” As well as counting towards billable hour tallies, interviewees praised pro bono as “a good way to meet partners and colleagues from other departments.”

When it comes to opportunities available, the majority of first years are involved in work for the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization combatting wrongful convictions. Weil also works with organizations such as those “working with entrepreneurs from under-served communities and helping them get their business started and off the ground,” shared an insider. Corporate attorneys can get involved in litigation if they fancy: “that’s what’s nice about pro bono, you’re not focused to stay in your universe of transactional matters!” When doing this, they have supervision from a partner and senior associate in litigation who help them out with the unfamiliar parts of a litigation matter. The tech transactions group does quite a bit of pro bono specific to its area of expertise, which is “an opportunity for us to help out and give back and sharpen our skills on these pro bono deals.”

Pro bono hours

• For all (US) attorneys: 64,843
• Average per (US) attorney: 77

Inclusion

For many interviews, inclusion was “embedded” in the culture at Weil. In practice, this means championing inclusion for all “not just in terms of race and religion, but educational backgrounds, too,” an associate shared; “they don’t have the attitude that if you didn’t go to an Ivy League school, you’re not capable of being a great lawyer.”

The firm also has a well-being program to support its associates, which puts on activities like educational programs, panel discussions, and workshops. In 2022, Weil appointed a Chief Wellness Officer to lead its commitment to its employees’ mental and physical health and associates can get in contact with the firm’s Wellness Ambassadors to share any suggestions with the well-being team.

Get Hired 

Recruitment on and off campus: 

OCI applicants interviewed: Undisclosed 

Interviewees outside OCI: Undisclosed 

Weil interviews at several law schools and job fairs, and participates in resume collection programs at many additional law schools throughout the U.S. and Canada. Candidates are also encouraged to apply directly via the firm’s career site.  

“We’re looking to get to know the candidate and ascertain whether they have an interest in what we do. A key trait of a successful Weil associate is having a level of intellectual curiosity about what we do,” our hiring source at the firm tells us.  

Candidates interview with two partners and two associates. “Overall, the goal is to get a sense of each candidate’s motivations and professional interests,” our hiring source tells us. 

Questions are geared toward gauging candidates’ “readiness to commit to, and qualifications for, a career that is both demanding and rewarding.”  

There is no one “type” of Weil lawyer, our hiring source explains: “We’ve found that both introverts and extroverts can excel at the firm (and in interviews). When people are sincerely interested in a legal career at a top-notch firm, those interviews generally end up being fantastic.”  

Top tips for interviews:  

“The best interviews tend to be conversational. We want candidates to be prepared and ready to discuss their background, unique and informative experiences, and motivation for the future, as well as to ask questions that exhibit their interest in the industry and our firm in particular.” – Weil hiring source

“If you’re a well-rounded candidate, you’ll do great. If you’re prepared and serious about wanting to be a good lawyer, you’ll do well here.” – a junior associate 

“The most outstanding interviews tend to be with candidates who are comfortable with themselves and their resumes–those that come across as sincere, interested, and engaged.” – Weil hiring source

Summer program  

Offers: Undisclosed 

Acceptances: 133 

Our hiring source tells us that Weil’s summer program “gives summers a good sense of what life as a lawyer looks like here, and is a great introduction to networking and developing relationships that can last throughout a legal career.”  

Summer associates do “real work for clients in real-time, working closely with associates and partners throughout the firm. They get a sense of being on a team and being in the trenches on a matter.”  

Weil provides numerous opportunities to explore the firm’s culture through day-to-day interactions, casual lunches/dinners and planned social activities. There are shadowing engagements as well, where the summer is assigned to a partner in order to observe their routine on calls and in meetings: “The program gives our participants substantive experience, like what they would get as a first year associate at Weil.”  

Top tips for the program:  

“Summer associates succeed most when they do not have preconceived notions about their summer experience. Those who are ‘all-in,’ those who proactively explore many areas of the firm by working and interacting with our attorneys, and those who become part of a team that shares the common goal of client service and a sense of community do well here.” – Weil hiring source

And finally…  

Our hiring source tells us that in the end “talented individuals who want a seat at the table and an opportunity to tackle complex, challenging matters on behalf of world-class companies will find ample opportunities to shine.” 

Interview with Barry Wolf, executive partner and chair of the firm’s management committee

Chambers Associate: How would you define your firm’s current position and identity in the legal market? What differentiates your firm from your peer firms in the market?

Barry Wolf: In no particular order, clearly excellence in legal service and quality, excellence in client service, and simultaneously maintaining strong financial results while preserving the very important culture we’ve had here for the past century – that’s something very important to us. That culture includes our commitment to our people, enjoying working together, working as a team, giving back to the communities that we live and work in, fostering inclusion, and our intense focus on pro bono and philanthropy – all while doing cutting-edge work.

We have a balance in practice areas and geography. We want all of our departments to be destination places for clients; we want there to be a balanced work product, so whether there are good or challenging financial times, our firm will do well. That’s something we’ve built on for years.  We want to continue that strategy and not to be dominated by any one department, to have well-balanced practices both in the US and outside the US, given that economies around the world experience up and down cycles at different times. We’re focused on maintaining that balance.

CA: Have there been any developments at the firm over the past year that you’d like law students to know about?

Wolf: We opened up two new offices – one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco – both of which will start out with a focus on private equity but will expand into more full-service offices over time. That’s clearly an exciting development that occurred in 2024, as we have been in the process of building out those two offices. We just announced our new partner class, which included 18 partners from the associate and counsel class, representing seven offices around the world and twelve practice areas. We brought on 18 lateral partners this year as well. We look for laterals who fit in substantively and culturally. We spend a lot of time integrating our lateral partners, so they’re not seen as laterals within a short time. We’re in a significant build-out mode with our private equity and funds practices, which are both leaders in the marketplace. We’re not growing for growth’s sake but expanding these areas strategically.

CA: Are there any domestic or international events/trends that are affecting any of the firm’s practices at the moment? Are there any trends that you think are affecting the business of law firms more generally, and how is that playing out with your firm?

Wolf: Because of the economy and geopolitics, the industry, for the last two years, has seen less than robust activity on the transactional front. There continues to be uncertainty into 2025 and it is difficult to predict beyond that.  But a trend that has certainly been continuing is the amount of lateral activity. That is caused by the fact that today, unlike years ago, clients tend to hire individual lawyers and tend to follow them when they move; that’s a trend that’s likely to continue.

CA: What is your firm’s commercial strategy focusing on, and how do you expect the next year to unfold?

Wolf: Our firm is built upon the concept of balance, so we are prepared as a business for all different situations. In 2025, if the fluctuating economic tides lead to a recession, we will be well-situated from a business perspective, and the same is true if deal activity turns around – with our market-leading PE, Funds and M&A practices going into overdrive.

CA: We asked last year about your predictions for bankruptcy/restructuring in 2024, as it’s one of the firm’s leading practice areas and you predicted that activity would pick up if interest rates were to increase. So, when that happened, did you see the kind of activity you predicted and what do you think is likely to happen in this area in 2025?

Wolf: We did see the uptick in our restructuring activity in 2024, and our firm worked on several of the largest and highest-profile debtor cases.  In 2025, we will need to continue monitoring interest rates and if interest rates lower and capital markets pick up, as an industry matter, we would expect restructuring to decrease. The economic tides have been difficult to predict but our market share in the restructuring space should remain significant in any scenario..

CA: One thing that came up in interviews with associates was the idea that having a specific group for technology and intellectual property transactions makes Weil well positioned to take on work related to artificial intelligence. Do you expect this kind of work to be a significant area of growth in the coming years? And why or why not?

Wolf: What we refer to as our TIPT group – which is short for Technology and IP Transactions – is extremely well-suited for AI. As a matter of fact, we have a cross-disciplinary practice group that is focusing on AI. In the future, we expect there will be a boom but we don’t know when. I can’t sit here and predict that will happen in 2025 – I think that will definitely occur over time, but how quickly I do not know. People who are in the tech sector, not lawyers, would know better, but Weil is clearly well-positioned for it when the boom actually happens.

Inside the Firm

CA: How is the firm evolving to accommodate the needs/expectations of the next generation of lawyers?

Wolf: Clearly, we have policies that allow lawyers to work from home – not every day – but our lawyers have been very comfortable with the flexibility of our hybrid approach. At the same time, we are doubling down and focusing on mentoring because that is something that is extremely important to every lawyer’s growth as a professional. We’re making sure that when the lawyers are in the office, there is a real focus on the mentorship that happens better when people are physically together – and we are making sure that that happens. We have a very vibrant wellbeing program, as well.  We have a former partner who decided to transition from practicing law to focus on that wellbeing effort. We didn’t just hire someone on the administrative side but rather redeployed one of our lawyers. This is key because this person knows the firm and the various pressures that exist from being in a high-demand client service business.  There’s certainly more to be done, especially getting over some of the stigmas that exist in our society, but we have been able to provide both physical and emotional support to our lawyers.

The Legal Profession

CA: How do you predict the legal profession will change in the next five years? Are there any particular challenges the industry is facing?

Wolf: I think that we will see further stratification of the top of the market. We will continue to see the amount of lateral activity and that will probably accelerate as an industry matter, so the competition for clients and talent will remain intense and will continue to grow. We have already been seeing particular firms that are not necessarily in the top tier merging, and that trend will probably continue and accelerate.

The industry has, more and more, been moving away from traditional professional services toward operating and running more like businesses. At Weil, we’re focused on economic results because that is critical to our success and our brand, but we are also incredibly focused on all the things that are important about being a professional services partnership. This has been critical to the preservation and growth of our culture, which ultimately defines us as a firm and is why people choose to work here.  We’re making sure we keep all of those elements of what being a lawyer is about -- from collegiality to high-quality service to high-quality ethics -- we continue to focus on all these vital components as the industry trends more toward running like a business rather than functioning like a profession.

CA: How do you predict the rise in AI will affect the ways in which lawyers work? How will it affect the services law firms provide?

Wolf: There’s no doubt that AI will have an impact on the profession over time. It will differ depending on the nature of the work the law firm does. The top-tier firms are competing based on quality, not upon price; we’re being paid for our judgment, and our cutting-edge thinking. There will be some impact on the top tier, but less so than for firms that do more routine, commoditized work.

AI will clearly make some processes more efficient at the earlier stages of someone’s career, which will save some time for younger lawyers. But for the firms doing cutting-edge work, it will have that impact but will not change how we operate. The firms it will really affect are those doing typical real estate closings or drafting routine wills and other such documents – that, I think AI is going to have a dramatic impact on. So, some impact, yes.  How dramatic that impact is will depend on the nature of the work the firm is doing.

The Fun Bit

CA: What was the first car you owned?

Wolf: Buick Regal. I remember it well. The body was blue, and the top was white. I loved that car. When I was 17, I was into cars; I washed and waxed it by hand every weekend. It had a V8 engine which they don’t make anymore, so it was fast.

CA: What memory/moment has stuck with you from law school?

Wolf: The first time I got called on was by a professor using the Socratic method in the first year of law school – and the professor’s name was Francis Allen. I remember to this day getting called on and engaging in the Socratic back-and-forth method. For me, this is probably the thing that stands out the most – and then going out celebrating with friends afterwards. This was a tradition among my friends.

CA: Which actor/actress would you want to play you in a biopic about your life?

Surname: I was thinking of George Clooney or Richard Gere; let’s go with Richard Gere.