The Legal Cheek View
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is quite simply on a path of world domination. The New York headquartered firm sent shockwaves through the London legal market earlier this year when it raided the UK offices of top outfits such as (bear with us here…) Kirkland & Ellis, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Akin Gump, Freshfields, Simmons & Simmons, Macfarlanes, Ropes & Gray, and Slaughter and May, for their top talent. On top of all this, the firm has also announced its first-ever London training contract which will begin in 2026 and see a handful of select recruits net a market-topping £180,000 upon qualification!
The training programme will be overseen by Paul Weiss’ new senior recruitment manager, Paul Gascoyne, who led graduate recruitment at Shearman & Sterling prior to its merger with Allen & Overy. Anywhere between five to ten trainees are set to be taken on this autumn.
Paul Weiss started life on Broadway, as Frank & Weiss, in 1875. Investment banks, insurance firms, tobacco companies and real estate developers were some of PW’s earliest clientele but it wasn’t long before the firm had grown into one of the leading players on the US legal scene, becoming heavily involved in landmark US Supreme Court cases, such as Brown v Board of Education, and advising on the early-makings of America’s Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The firm counts multinationals such as Marvel Studios, Sony and Nintendo, as well as celebrities like Sigourney Weaver, Spike Lee and John McEnroe, amongst its clientele list.
Nowadays, Paul Weiss is recognised primarily for its market-leading practices in public M&A, private equity, litigation, white-collar, and restructuring practices. It also boasts strengths in IP, real estate and tax law and has recently grabbed headlines for being the leading law firm funding Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
In London, where the firm first opened in 2001, it is known less for its political lobbying and more for its private equity clientele. PW services some of the world’s leading PE funds through its transactional strengths in capital markets, antitrust, tax, finance and M&A, and handles some highly complex cross-border transactions which frequently means offering cross-pond advice to those back at base in the US. Recent demonstrations of this expertise include helping Apollo with its £2.7 billion acquisition of Evri and advising IRIS — one of the UK’s largest privately held software companies — on a market-leading refinancing of its existing senior facilities. Big-time deals need big-time lawyers and Paul Weiss is no stranger to either of these things. Its recent hiring spree has seen headcount in London more than triple in the past two years and the firm now boasts over 100 lawyers in the capital, with almost half of these being partners.
Firmwide, these numbers are much higher. PW has over 1,000 lawyers spanning its eleven hubs in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Wilmington, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Toronto and – the newest member of the pack – Brussels. The firm has also recently established a Latin American practice from its New York office and is rumoured to be contemplating a launch in Singapore.
As part of its major recruitment drive, Paul Weiss recently relocated to Twitter’s (now X’s) former London headquarters, situated on the edge of Soho and just a stone’s throw from upmarket Mayfair — home to a large number of the firm’s private equity clients. We understand major refurbishments are underway behind closed doors — more on that soon!
As you might’ve already guessed, Paul Weiss’ numbers are looking good. The firm reported an 11% increase in revenues last year, taking it over the $2 billion dollar mark (£1.6 billion) with profit per equity partner (PEP) up an even more impressive 15% to $6.5 million (£5.1 million). To put this into perspective, that’s more than double the PEP at any Magic Circle firm and, until recently, every partner at the firm was an equity partner!
Paul Weiss has a history of D&I. It was the first major New York City firm to hire a black associate, as well as the first to make a woman a partner. Lawyers at PW have been involved in landmark cases such as Roe v Wade and the Windsor case and the firm has historically represented Nelson Mandela through its pro bono work on behalf of the South Africa Free Election Fund.