Fatherhood x Law x Music x Life || #ThroughThisMind
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Joined April 2009
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Laz retweeted
being a lawyer is so cool, one of the biggest, most prominent law firms in the world just collapsed today and no one cares but us lmfao
Laz retweeted
it's going to be a race to a bottom of eat what you kill and then replacing the salaried lawyers w AI. before long, it'll be a few rainmakers, basically w some secretaries and engineers, advising lean in house counsel teams on the mega deals that they can't do on their own. the harnesses (i.e., stacks of precedent and preferences of the rainmakers) will be useful in the medium term but will be obviated by raw frontier models. considering Claude couldn't turn a complex doc 6 months ago, this could all happen in 5 years
I think the Weil fallout might point to the fact (which others have pointed out) that the traditional law firm partnership structure does not work anymore. The truth is a Biglaw firm is a rather commoditised support platform that serves rainmaking partners with back office operations, supply of labour from associates, counsels and service partners. Who controls the cash flow effectively controls the firm and if the rainmakers head for the door it leads to a bank run type scenario. In most firms the power has shifted majorly towards a few rainmakers particularly in PE and M&A and that creates a huge key person risk when they decide to pack their bags.
I’m not sure what the solution to this is but I imagine it’s only going to get worse when the platform that firms offer get even more commoditised by AI which will do more and more of what junior to mid-level lawyers are currently doing. Maybe the answer is building some real tech moat within your firm? Or just being able to predict market trends really well and investing correctly in the right practices like Kirkland.
Laz retweeted
It's confusing why a major multi billion dollar law firm is going bankrupt.
So I talked to a bunch of lawyer friends about why Weil could suddenly be insolvent.
Unintuitively, law firms are basically fixed-cost businesses. Revenue comes from a concentrated core group of rainmakers.
Those rainmakers carry the whole business, while the rest of the business basically drags ass. Junior partners are rainmakers-in-training--they can't yet bring in the huge load-bearing dollars.
Everyone else--associates, back office staff--comprises one gigantic fixed cost center. Not to mention basic overhead like offices, revolver interest (for cashflow timing needs), etc.
The problem with law firms in particular, as opposed to other advisory businesses like banking, consulting, accounting, is that the clients are inherently portable.
So any partner can take their team and clients and leave. Doing so deleverages the rest of the partnership, because a small number of partners carry most of the revenue while leaving behind fixed costs.
Once there's a crisis of confidence, it no longer makes sense for partners to stay, because they're now getting underpaid in profit share relative to their revenue potential.
If they were to leave for a megafirm like Kirkland, they'd be properly compensated for their earning potential instead of being saddled by rising fixed costs as a percent of revenue.
There's also not much IP or brand moat in a law firm. Clients follow partners, and the process of crafting exceptional judgment is mostly in partners' heads (versus for instance more regimented value delivery in consulting and banking, where there can be a branded firm process).
And lastly, the partners ARE the equity in the firm. Law firms have no terminal value, so when partners leave it's as if a huge chunk of the firm equity walks out the door.
tl;dr law firm bankruptcy is basically a crisis of partner confidence, and the resulting departure spiral saddles anyone remaining with the gigantic fixed overheads of running a billion-dollar business.
Laz retweeted
A cost of living crisis, a housing crisis, falling education standards and rising utility bills, yet £10bn for Ukraine, and they expect people to defend the pointless wars they start? Left or right, no one is happy. Given the state of affairs, UK politicians should pray their citizens don’t hand them over at the first opportunity.
Ahhh this is sad to see!
Breaking: Weil Gotshal & Manges plans to wind down its operations, its leaders told partners on Wednesday, according to a source briefed on the decision. news.bloomberglaw.com/busine…
I’m thinking of the secretaries who have been there for 10, 20yrs, business staff behind the scenes and trainees 1yrs in after years of waiting. Looking for work in this climate is hard enough.
Had to tell these neighbours kids off because once you step on my lines I’ll tell you about yourself
Solid solid album!!! 👏🏾👏🏾
Anderson .Paak and Cordae’s 'Heavy Is the Crown' will be the #1 best selling rap album this week in the US.
It’s expected to sell 33K album units this week.
I actually see Weil winding down out of ego than anything else. They cant see themselves being a shadow of itself or being sonned, so would rather close up and pay everyone else off.
Laz retweeted
Headlines I never expected to read…
To contextualise this, Weil in 2025 had the fifteenth-highest published revenue per lawyer *in the world*.
Laz retweeted
Everything just seems to be failing everywhere at the same time
Video shows the immediate aftermath of a deadly high-speed train collision in central Spain on Wednesday that killed at least 64 people and injured 80 others, authorities said.
The crash occurred in the province of Toledo when a high-speed train slammed into the back of another train that had stopped, derailing two cars. Both trains were traveling from Madrid to Seville, carrying a combined 544 passengers. The cause of the crash remains unknown.
Yeah, Weil is sadly done for. Once you lose any bargaining power with a potential merger, your people start to make moves. The market is already bad as it is, so to move now is going to be challenging
