Teresa Martin

My thoughts on Weil-gate: 1- I have a fair number of former colleagues who decamped to Weil some years ago from Gibson. I have full confidence that the partners will be jusy fine. And I wish the very best for those who are still associates. They were and are great lawyers and I hope they land some place that will offer them long term stability. 2- At the risk of offending some of my former colleagues (but by no means do I intend any offense), my mentor at Gibson and the single best lawyer I've ever worked with, a man who I admire beyond description and to whom I owe much of my career, left Gibson for Weil in the group mentioned above. I have no doubt he will be just fine. But I say this to underscore, it is not the case that Weil was full of anything but really good attorneys. That isnt why it collapsed with such utter and shocking sudden essence. 3 - I count myself in the group of lawyers at my former firm who were admittedly and vocally unhappy with the direction my former firm chose to go in--a model focused on hyper-compensation to a few that undermines law firm culture. When I joined Gibson, no one left for another firm or essentially no one. It had a real identifiable culture. The shift killed thay culture or will kill it eventually. That said, it is hard to cast blame at my firm for doing whay it did. It read the tea leaves correctly and saw that hyper-mobility of top rainmakers was going to happen and if the firm wanted to continue it had to adapt. I don't like it, but that's life. Better to survive and thrive than not to. 4 - I do worry this trend will continue. Why make 15 million if you can make 16? What difference does it make if you are at X,Y,Z firm rather than A, B, C firm when they all have become fungible as firms, there is no real culture left but "the market" etc? It is not good and will continue the Private Equity takeover of law, the de-professionalization of law, the "law is just another business" view of law. Anyway, rant over. You might not have sympathy for people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars losing their jobs overnight because some people are greedy and want a couple million more than they make now. But those people have lives, debts, families, etc and now have to shift on a dime. Not a happy scenario to be in.