Latest / Bloomberg Law / Can Democrats Change SCOTUS & Law Firm Collapse
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:08Speaker 2: With Democrats poised to hold a majority in the Senate
- 0:12Speaker 2: starting January 3rd, President Donald Trump has most likely appointed
- 0:17Speaker 2: his last U.S. Supreme Court justice. Democrats will have the
- 0:22Speaker 2: power and the motivation to stop Trump from filling any
- 0:26Speaker 2: vacancy that arises over the next two years. After all,
- 0:31Speaker 2: Democrats have watched Republicans play that game. In 2016, then-majority
- 0:37Speaker 2: leader Senator Mitch McConnell prevented a vote on President Obama's
- 0:42Speaker 2: nominee Merrick Garland, leaving the seat open for 14 months
- 0:47Speaker 2: until Trump ultimately filled it with Justice Neil Gorsuch. And
- 0:52Speaker 2: then in 2020, after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, rushing
- 0:57Speaker 2: to push through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett
- 1:01Speaker 2: just eight days before Trump lost the election. Joining me
- 1:06Speaker 2: is Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr. Greg, is there
- 1:09Speaker 2: going to be pressure on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel
- 1:14Speaker 2: Alito to retire now so perhaps a successor could be
- 1:18Speaker 2: confirmed during the lame duck congressional session?
- 1:21Speaker 3: There absolutely will be pressure, but there are zero signs
- 1:25Speaker 3: so far that either of.
- 1:27Speaker 4: Them is interested in doing that.
- 1:29Speaker 3: I had an interview with Justice Alito last month in
- 1:32Speaker 3: which I specifically asked him, if Democrats take over the Senate,
- 1:35Speaker 3: will you consider stepping down so that the lame duck
- 1:38Speaker 3: Republican-controlled Senate can confirm your successor?
- 1:41Speaker 4: And he said no.
- 1:43Speaker 3: Justice Thomas, people I've talked to who are close to him,
- 1:46Speaker 3: say he has no interest in retiring right now. And
- 1:49Speaker 3: even if either of them did, there is no guarantee
- 1:52Speaker 3: that Trump at this political moment would be able to
- 1:56Speaker 3: get a successor through the Senate, even though it will
- 1:59Speaker 3: stay in Republican hands for another two months.
- 2:02Speaker 2: Although Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in July that
- 2:06Speaker 2: it could be done if they wanted to.
- 2:08Speaker 3: He did say that. And, you know, he was being
- 2:11Speaker 3: a good Republican by saying that. But, you know, we
- 2:14Speaker 3: have this moment where Democrats are going to, the voters
- 2:18Speaker 3: have said, we want Democrats to control Congress, and it's
- 2:21Speaker 3: going to be a big Senate majority. And you have
- 2:24Speaker 3: a number of Republicans whose support, I'm not sure I
- 2:28Speaker 3: would take for granted if I were Donald Trump, or
- 2:30Speaker 3: for that matter, Sam Alito or Clarence Thomas thinking about retiring.
- 2:34Speaker 3: You have folks like Susan Collins, who's on her way
- 2:38Speaker 3: out having been defeated, Tom Tillis, who was sort of
- 2:40Speaker 3: pushed out by Donald Trump into retirement, Lisa Murkowski, who
- 2:44Speaker 3: was never a sure vote. And keep in mind that
- 2:48Speaker 3: one of those elections yesterday was a special election, Ohio.
- 2:52Speaker 3: So the Republican Senator John Husted is actually going to
- 2:55Speaker 3: be out of his seat on December 15th. So Republicans
- 2:58Speaker 3: are going to lose a vote at that moment. So
- 3:01Speaker 3: to the extent they have a majority now, it's not
- 3:04Speaker 3: the kind of majority where you can confidently say, oh,
- 3:06Speaker 3: they could absolutely confirm somebody before January 3rd.
- 3:10Speaker 2: Why would Republicans even want to push this? I mean,
- 3:13Speaker 2: they have this super majority right now. Isn't six enough?
- 3:18Speaker 3: Well, the question is extending that super majority over time.
- 3:21Speaker 3: So Justice Alito is 76.
- 3:24Speaker 4: Justice Thomas is 78.
- 3:25Speaker 3: They're not going to serve forever and if one of
- 3:29Speaker 3: them had retired say you know after the last term
- 3:33Speaker 3: and had a successor nominated and confirmed that person could
- 3:37Speaker 3: have served another you know 25 30 years and sort
- 3:40Speaker 3: of strengthening that republican majority over time now you have
- 3:45Speaker 3: the prospect that if democrats retain the senate say win
- 3:49Speaker 3: the white house in 2028 we're going to be wondering
- 3:52Speaker 3: will the conservative justices be able to stick around until
- 3:56Speaker 3: there's another moment like this? Or are they going to
- 3:59Speaker 3: leave the court one way or the other with Democrats
- 4:01Speaker 3: able to confirm a successor and potentially shift the court
- 4:04Speaker 3: back towards the middle?
- 4:06Speaker 2: Are people viewing that as a real possibility, moving the
- 4:09Speaker 2: court back to the middle?
- 4:11Speaker 3: People are absolutely talking about it. It's hard not to
- 4:14Speaker 3: think about it just when you look at the political
- 4:16Speaker 3: realities that we discovered are out there in this election.
- 4:21Speaker 3: With a majority of potentially four seats, five seats, six seats,
- 4:25Speaker 3: Democrats have a really good chance of maintaining control of
- 4:28Speaker 3: the Senate after the 2028 election, regardless of who wins
- 4:31Speaker 3: the White House. And so if Democrats win the White
- 4:34Speaker 3: House in 2028, there is this moment where they will
- 4:38Speaker 3: have the potential to change the composition of the Supreme
- 4:41Speaker 3: Court very likely. You know, look, we saw with Justice
- 4:45Speaker 3: Scalia dying, Justice Ginsburg dying, that justices can't always control
- 4:49Speaker 3: when they have to leave the court. Go back a
- 4:51Speaker 3: little further in time and you'll find justices who had
- 4:55Speaker 3: to leave because they were very, very ill, not necessarily
- 4:58Speaker 3: at a time of their choosing. Those things happen. That's
- 5:01Speaker 3: just the actuarial reality of the situation. So absolutely, people
- 5:06Speaker 3: on both sides are now confronting a world in which
- 5:09Speaker 3: This Republican supermajority or the conservative supermajority that we've imagined
- 5:14Speaker 3: might be there for a very, very long time now
- 5:17Speaker 3: might just be there for a few more years.
- 5:19Speaker 2: Explain how the conservative supermajority has made decisions that really
- 5:25Speaker 2: change the landscape in this country in many ways.
- 5:30Speaker 3: It's hard to overstate how important this conservative supermajority has been.
- 5:35Speaker 3: The most widely known decision, of course, was the Dobbs
- 5:38Speaker 3: abortion ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right
- 5:42Speaker 3: to abortion. But they have expanded gun rights. They have
- 5:45Speaker 3: expanded religious rights. They have backed Donald Trump's claims of
- 5:51Speaker 3: very broad presidential power and shielded the president to a
- 5:54Speaker 3: large degree from criminal prosecution for things that the president
- 5:59Speaker 3: does while in office. And the court has given every
- 6:02Speaker 3: sign that it wants to keep moving in that direction.
- 6:06Speaker 3: And this may be a moment where the court has
- 6:09Speaker 3: to take a little stock and say, where are we
- 6:12Speaker 3: going with this?
- 6:13Speaker 2: I'm wondering, will this sort of blue tsunami, I mean,
- 6:18Speaker 2: will it affect the justices in any way? The fact
- 6:22Speaker 2: that they see that President Trump is losing steam and power.
- 6:27Speaker 2: the next president may be a Democrat? So they've given
- 6:31Speaker 2: all these powers to a Republican president, but if the
- 6:34Speaker 2: next president's a Democrat?
- 6:36Speaker 3: That is a really good question, and it's really impossible
- 6:39Speaker 3: to answer at this point. You know, certainly these are
- 6:42Speaker 3: justices who believe they are applying constitutional principles and not
- 6:48Speaker 3: doing things because they necessarily like the person in the
- 6:52Speaker 3: White House or necessarily like the policies. They are believers in,
- 6:56Speaker 3: among other things, a strong president and a strong executive
- 7:00Speaker 3: branch of the government. Those decisions necessarily could cut the
- 7:05Speaker 3: other way if a Democrat is in the White House.
- 7:09Speaker 3: It will be fascinating to see the extent to which
- 7:13Speaker 3: we can sense that they are sort of looking ahead
- 7:16Speaker 3: to what the practical effect of their decisions might be
- 7:20Speaker 3: if and when a Democrat does go in the in
- 7:26Speaker 3: the cases they take up, the issues they choose to resolve.
- 7:30Speaker 3: They may ultimately come out the same way on these questions,
- 7:33Speaker 3: but they can slow down the pace at which they're
- 7:36Speaker 3: changing the law, recognizing that the implications of that at
- 7:40Speaker 3: this point seem pretty uncertain.
- 7:42Speaker 2: The Democrats are now going to control the House and
- 7:44Speaker 2: the Senate. A lot of these Democrats have talked about
- 7:48Speaker 2: reforming the court. Do you see a movement toward some
- 7:51Speaker 2: sort of reform on the court? Term limits seem the easiest.
- 7:54Speaker 3: Term limits are certainly easier than adding seats to the
- 7:57Speaker 3: Supreme Court. Undoubtedly, Democrats now have more votes to potentially
- 8:02Speaker 3: do that. There was already going to be more talk
- 8:05Speaker 3: of those sorts of structural changes on the Supreme Court
- 8:08Speaker 3: because Democrats were just vowing to make them more of
- 8:10Speaker 3: an issue. With that being said, if we end up
- 8:14Speaker 3: in a world where, let's say, Democrats do sweep the
- 8:18Speaker 3: 2028 elections and they end up getting a vacancy to
- 8:22Speaker 3: fill of a conservative justice. And we see the court
- 8:26Speaker 3: swing back a bit to the left. That might take
- 8:30Speaker 3: some wind out of the sails of the movement to
- 8:33Speaker 3: have these big structural reforms, at least the notion of
- 8:37Speaker 3: adding seats to the Supreme Court. So I think we're
- 8:40Speaker 3: going to be talking about this a lot in the
- 8:42Speaker 3: next few years. Term limits, especially if they're done in
- 8:46Speaker 3: a way that doesn't kind of obviously make the court
- 8:49Speaker 3: less conservative, say if it's not going into effect for
- 8:52Speaker 3: some time down the road, that may still be more
- 8:56Speaker 3: doable because there is some agreement across the ideological divide
- 9:02Speaker 3: that that might actually be a better way of appointing
- 9:04Speaker 3: Supreme Court justices to limit the amount of time and
- 9:07Speaker 3: to guarantee that each president will get at least a
- 9:09Speaker 3: couple of vacancies to fill.
- 9:11Speaker 2: As far as expanding the court, could that be done
- 9:15Speaker 2: by a president?
- 9:17Speaker 3: That would take an act of Congress to do it.
- 9:19Speaker 3: Congress absolutely has the power to add seats to the
- 9:22Speaker 3: Supreme Court. It has done it a number of times.
- 9:25Speaker 3: It just so happens that those number of times were
- 9:28Speaker 3: back in the 1700s and 1800s. It's not something that
- 9:32Speaker 3: has happened in the modern day. But no question, Congress
- 9:36Speaker 3: could do that with the president's signature or overriding a veto,
- 9:40Speaker 3: could do that on its own without a constitutional amendment.
- 9:43Speaker 2: By a simple majority?
- 9:44Speaker 4: Yes, it could do that by a simple majority.
- 9:47Speaker 2: And before I let you go, Greg, what's the next
- 9:49Speaker 2: big case coming up at the Supreme Court?
- 9:52Speaker 3: June, a very big case that people are going to
- 9:55Speaker 3: be watching closely is coming up in December when the
- 9:58Speaker 3: court hears the case of the challenges to state bans
- 10:01Speaker 3: on so-called assault weapons. There's a case out of Illinois
- 10:05Speaker 3: and a case out of Connecticut, which of course is
- 10:07Speaker 3: the place where the Sandy Hook, the horrific Sandy Hook
- 10:10Speaker 3: shooting took place. This is a court that has fairly
- 10:14Speaker 3: consistently bolstered gun rights. And so this could be a
- 10:17Speaker 3: significant change in the law if they say that states,
- 10:21Speaker 3: including Connecticut, cannot ban assault weapons.
- 10:24Speaker 2: Always great to talk to you, Greg. You have the
- 10:26Speaker 2: inside scoop at the court. That's Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter
- 10:31Speaker 2: Greg Storr. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show,
- 10:35Speaker 2: how a nearly century-old storied law firm careened to a
- 10:40Speaker 2: close in just days. a stunning downfall for a firm
- 10:44Speaker 2: that was once a powerhouse for corporate litigation and Wall
- 10:48Speaker 2: Street deals. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg.
- 10:55Speaker 2: It was a stunning downfall for a 95-year-old storied law
- 10:59Speaker 2: firm that was once a powerhouse for corporate litigation and
- 11:03Speaker 2: Wall Street deals. While Gottschall is winding down after a
- 11:08Speaker 2: long erosion of its competitive position, departures of key lawyers,
- 11:13Speaker 2: and failed merger talks. Joining me is Bloomberg Law Senior
- 11:17Speaker 2: Correspondent Roy Strom. Tell us about Wild God Shaw's history
- 11:22Speaker 2: and its presence in the legal field.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Yeah, Wild God Shaw was founded about 95 years ago.
- 11:30Speaker 1: It was founded by Jewish lawyers at the time who
- 11:33Speaker 1: weren't able to get jobs at other law firms, and
- 11:36Speaker 1: it grew to become a prominent Wall Street White Shoe
- 11:42Speaker 1: Law Firm became in the 70s known as the preeminent
- 11:49Speaker 1: firm for corporate bankruptcies, thanks to the work of a
- 11:52Speaker 1: partner named Harvey Miller, who basically created that practice inside
- 11:56Speaker 1: of large law firms. The firm went on to have
- 11:59Speaker 1: incredible success in that practice during the great financial crisis,
- 12:04Speaker 1: handling bankruptcies, the likes of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual.
- 12:09Speaker 1: And along the way, it built out a significant public
- 12:13Speaker 1: company M & A practice, as well as a private
- 12:15Speaker 1: equity practice that expanded into London. And at one point
- 12:19Speaker 1: in time, it was, I think, either the fifth or
- 12:21Speaker 1: the sixth largest law firm.
- 12:23Speaker 2: In the world. So what happened?
- 12:26Speaker 4: Well, we wrote a story.
- 12:27Speaker 1: In June that took a little bit of a broader
- 12:30Speaker 1: look at the firm. And I think the striking data
- 12:34Speaker 1: point that we pulled out was that Weil had grown
- 12:36Speaker 1: its revenue at half the annualized rate of its competitors
- 12:41Speaker 1: from 2008 to 2025, which is a really long time.
- 12:46Speaker 1: So I think that put pressure on firm leadership in
- 12:51Speaker 1: more recent years to be able to keep its highest
- 12:54Speaker 1: performing partners. And over the past two years, they began
- 13:00Speaker 1: to leave. And many of them were members of the
- 13:04Speaker 1: firm's management committee. They lost a vital bankruptcy partner. They
- 13:09Speaker 1: lost a big, I think, IP litigation group. They lost
- 13:14Speaker 1: private equity partners along the way. And they were still
- 13:18Speaker 1: very successful, very competitive law firm. And in the bankruptcy space,
- 13:23Speaker 1: they invented this, as lawyers would call it, technology of
- 13:29Speaker 1: liability management exercises and a deal called J.Crew. Those deals
- 13:33Speaker 1: went on to sort of almost completely reorient the bankruptcy practice.
- 13:40Speaker 1: And despite the fact Weil created them, there was another
- 13:42Speaker 1: law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, that really commercialized those very successfully.
- 13:47Speaker 1: And that was kind of one example of how the
- 13:49Speaker 1: firm had sort of been in markets that could have
- 13:52Speaker 1: really powered growth, but for one reason or another, didn't
- 13:56Speaker 1: seem to catch on, didn't seem to become the dominant
- 13:59Speaker 1: player in those spaces. And that was part of the
- 14:03Speaker 1: strategic challenge, I think, that the firm faced over a
- 14:07Speaker 1: longer time frame before this more recent episode that, of course,
- 14:13Speaker 1: last week ultimately ended up in this partner-run psychological phenomenon
- 14:18Speaker 1: that led to the firm's decision to wind down.
- 14:21Speaker 2: As of last year, according to the American Lawyer, it
- 14:24Speaker 2: still had nearly $ 2. 1 billion in revenue among the country's
- 14:28Speaker 2: 30 largest firms. So, I mean, why were partners, equity partners,
- 14:34Speaker 2: leaving at such a rapid pace?
- 14:37Speaker 1: It is true that the firm was financially healthy and
- 14:40Speaker 1: it was successful on its own rights. The challenge in
- 14:44Speaker 1: the big law environment, and it is increasingly a challenge,
- 14:48Speaker 1: is that partners and firm success come on a comparative basis.
- 14:53Speaker 4: It comes on a.
- 14:54Speaker 1: Relative basis to the peers, to the firms who could
- 14:58Speaker 1: pay any other firm's partners more money. So as Weill's
- 15:02Speaker 1: profits per partner grew to $ 5 million, which of course,
- 15:05Speaker 1: by any measure is a lot, there's other firms that
- 15:08Speaker 1: are at eight or 10. And so those firms are
- 15:11Speaker 1: able to provide basically a better economic deal for partners.
- 15:15Speaker 1: And I think the leadership at Weill viewed the law
- 15:18Speaker 1: firm as a family. They had a sense of loyalty
- 15:22Speaker 1: to the firm. And I think that's the type of
- 15:23Speaker 1: thing that people today maybe bemoan has gone away or miss.
- 15:28Speaker 1: But at Weill, it ultimately sort of was not enough
- 15:32Speaker 1: to keep these people in the fold. And there was
- 15:35Speaker 1: some internal divisions and internal disputes over the direction of
- 15:40Speaker 1: the firm. And I think real people got caught up
- 15:43Speaker 1: in those disputes. And it became a challenge to figure
- 15:47Speaker 1: out what exactly the firm was going to look like
- 15:50Speaker 1: going forward.
- 15:51Speaker 2: And you wrote that Wall Street firms are operating more
- 15:55Speaker 2: like investment banks and private equity firms. I mean, tell
- 16:00Speaker 2: us about that. Because the old law firm thing was, yeah,
- 16:02Speaker 2: you go to a law firm. If you're lucky enough
- 16:04Speaker 2: to become a partner, you stay at that law firm.
- 16:06Speaker 2: That's all changed.
- 16:08Speaker 1: That has changed over the past decade or so, ever
- 16:11Speaker 1: since law firms started being able to offer larger paychecks
- 16:16Speaker 1: to hire from the vaunted lockstep firms like the Cravats
- 16:21Speaker 1: and more recently like the Wachtels. And That just seems
- 16:26Speaker 1: to continue. I don't think that that is somehow slowing down.
- 16:29Speaker 1: But in terms of investment banks, I guess that's the
- 16:32Speaker 1: mode of competition, compensation.
- 16:35Speaker 2: Was it the departure of Mike Aiello, who was viewed
- 16:39Speaker 2: as the firm's most powerful partner, was it his departure
- 16:43Speaker 2: that sort of sealed the deal?
- 16:46Speaker 1: It would be very difficult for me to say that
- 16:47Speaker 1: any one single departure sealed the deal. I think Mike
- 16:51Speaker 1: Aiello had True that he was the biggest revenue generator
- 16:57Speaker 1: at the firm. It is true that he had significant
- 17:00Speaker 1: influence with the chair of the firm, a guy by
- 17:03Speaker 1: the name of Barry Wolf. When we interviewed Barry Wolf
- 17:07Speaker 1: in June alongside his would-be successor, Ramona Nee, Barry told
- 17:12Speaker 1: me that Mike Aiello was his closest friend in the firm.
- 17:16Speaker 1: We found that Mike was fond of saying, that he
- 17:21Speaker 1: would only stay at the law firm as long as
- 17:23Speaker 1: Barry was there. He'd been saying that for quite a
- 17:26Speaker 1: long time. It was unclear what exactly he meant by
- 17:30Speaker 1: saying that. And I think as time came closer to
- 17:34Speaker 1: Barry Wolf's planned retirement, which was he was going to
- 17:38Speaker 1: step down and hand over the reins to Ramona Nee,
- 17:41Speaker 1: who was a private equity partner on January 1st, I
- 17:44Speaker 1: think it became more important for the people inside, in
- 17:48Speaker 1: particular Barry, to understand how serious Mike was about this
- 17:53Speaker 1: thing he'd always said, which was that he would only
- 17:56Speaker 1: be at the firm as long as Barry Wolf was
- 17:58Speaker 1: the chair. And I think it turned out ultimately that
- 18:03Speaker 1: he had perhaps meant what he said all along. That
- 18:05Speaker 1: was his intention. And I think the two spoke on
- 18:09Speaker 1: September 8th. Barry was asking him if he would stay
- 18:12Speaker 1: past his retirement to help the firm get past some
- 18:16Speaker 1: of these recent departures. We reported it as unclear if
- 18:20Speaker 1: the two came to an agreement. And then two days later,
- 18:24Speaker 1: Mike Aiello's team tendered their resignations to Barry Wolf in
- 18:28Speaker 1: his office. And those two men have not spoken, or
- 18:32Speaker 1: at least had not when we wrote our story.
- 18:35Speaker 2: And tell us what happened with Ramona Nee, who was
- 18:38Speaker 2: supposed to take over as the executive partner.
- 18:42Speaker 1: Apparently, Ramona Nee informed a small group of the firm's
- 18:46Speaker 1: leaders that in August that she did not intend to
- 18:51Speaker 1: take the job. There is still some question about what
- 18:55Speaker 1: exactly happened there. After Mike left, Ramona was issuing press releases,
- 19:00Speaker 1: you know, sounding as if she'd taken this all in
- 19:02Speaker 1: stride and the firm was going to invest in its
- 19:05Speaker 1: people and bring on more hires. And they did make
- 19:08Speaker 1: some hires, including a private equity partner from Cravath. And
- 19:12Speaker 1: they were sort of trying to weather that storm. Ultimately,
- 19:16Speaker 1: more people decided to leave in the wake of Mike
- 19:20Speaker 1: Aiello's exit. I think a lot of people there relied
- 19:24Speaker 1: on him. And after those exits, and then the firm
- 19:29Speaker 1: tried to engage in a merger discussion with Wilkie Farr
- 19:33Speaker 1: and Gallagher, which is a roughly similarly sized New York
- 19:36Speaker 1: law firm. Those talks ultimately ended. I think they were
- 19:39Speaker 1: fairly brief. So once those discussions ended, I think people
- 19:44Speaker 1: became increasingly concerned inside the firm. You can imagine it's
- 19:48Speaker 1: a fairly disruptive moment, perhaps. Obviously, it can impact confidence.
- 19:53Speaker 1: And that's the entire point here. The partners need confidence
- 19:57Speaker 1: that the person next to them will stay at the firm.
- 20:00Speaker 1: And that's what a partner run is. It's when those
- 20:02Speaker 1: people lose that confidence and ultimately That's what happened. And
- 20:06Speaker 1: that is why the firm's leadership sat in a conference
- 20:09Speaker 1: room for days, basically, discussing all options to go forward.
- 20:15Speaker 1: And they could not come to agreement that if they
- 20:20Speaker 1: stayed and tried to weather this storm, that enough people
- 20:23Speaker 1: would stay such that they could. And that's the decision
- 20:27Speaker 1: to wind down the firm that I think was Just
- 20:30Speaker 1: incredibly emotionally difficult for the people in that room. I'm
- 20:34Speaker 1: told virtually every single one of them was crying that day.
- 20:37Speaker 1: And you can imagine why. This is a place that
- 20:40Speaker 1: these people cared about.
- 20:41Speaker 2: John Morley at Yale said there are legal reasons to
- 20:45Speaker 2: quickly wind down the firm, even if it seems financially healthy.
- 20:48Speaker 2: I mean, can you explain some of the legal reasons why?
- 20:52Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a handful of legal reasons why it makes
- 20:54Speaker 1: sense to be proactive about this. And I'm not a lawyer.
- 20:57Speaker 1: But as I understand it, if you are paid by
- 21:01Speaker 1: a law firm as an owner, and that law firm
- 21:04Speaker 1: subsequently files bankruptcy, the trustee of that bankruptcy can claw
- 21:09Speaker 1: back your compensation for some period of time. And so
- 21:12Speaker 1: it's financially costly. And that's a risk. And that is
- 21:17Speaker 1: what also influences the psychology of the partner run. And
- 21:21Speaker 1: so law firms actually are more sophisticated about financial planning
- 21:25Speaker 1: for distress scenarios. And so I think John Morley is
- 21:29Speaker 1: the one who said it. Paradoxically, it incentivizes more collapses
- 21:33Speaker 1: and more wind downs.
- 21:35Speaker 2: Are partners scrambling, are associates scrambling to find jobs, I imagine?
- 21:40Speaker 1: Yeah, the scramble to find jobs is on. At the
- 21:43Speaker 1: same time, these lawyers who are at Weill Gottschall are
- 21:46Speaker 1: still working for clients. There's a Weill Gottschall lawyer in
- 21:50Speaker 1: a courtroom somewhere today, I'm sure. And they continue to
- 21:53Speaker 1: work for clients while this process goes. The firm continues
- 21:58Speaker 1: to pay its lawyers and its staff. They've committed, I think,
- 22:01Speaker 1: to pay for 90 days. People who are still there
- 22:04Speaker 1: by the time their year-end bonuses would normally be paid
- 22:06Speaker 1: will get those. Ultimately, the hope is you get everybody
- 22:10Speaker 1: off this ship you deal with the remaining finances and
- 22:14Speaker 1: then somehow it's dissolved.
- 22:17Speaker 2: So is there a date for when it will be dissolved?
- 22:20Speaker 1: No, I don't think anybody could give you a date
- 22:22Speaker 1: for when it'll be dissolved. There was another wind down, um,
- 22:25Speaker 1: struck and Struck and Levon. That was a handful of
- 22:28Speaker 1: years ago. And I think they might have only formally
- 22:31Speaker 1: dissolved earlier this year. So it can be a pretty
- 22:34Speaker 1: drawn out process. But the idea is to get the
- 22:37Speaker 1: people out of the law firm sort of as quickly
- 22:40Speaker 1: as orderly as possible. And I think the firm's committed
- 22:43Speaker 1: to try to help people find their way to new
- 22:46Speaker 1: places as best they can. And the only thing I've
- 22:47Speaker 1: heard so far is that there's been a tremendous outpouring
- 22:51Speaker 1: of support across the legal industry for these people who've
- 22:55Speaker 1: been affected. You can go on LinkedIn and find like,
- 22:58Speaker 1: you know, second year law students who had been intending
- 23:03Speaker 1: to go there saying, you know, this is the predicament
- 23:06Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm humbly, you know, looking for a new job.
- 23:10Speaker 1: And it's actually kind of heartening to see that in
- 23:12Speaker 1: the comments, I've seen some of them like offered jobs
- 23:16Speaker 1: just through LinkedIn. I really think that at the end
- 23:20Speaker 1: of the day, this is a human story. And the
- 23:22Speaker 1: impact of it is felt on its youngest people. And
- 23:26Speaker 1: the most vulnerable, of course, are the staff, not the lawyers,
- 23:29Speaker 1: because the lawyers go and they follow their clients and
- 23:33Speaker 1: they do the work their clients will still need. But
- 23:35Speaker 1: those other professionals, I think it's a little bit more
- 23:37Speaker 1: challenging to pick up the pieces from this.
- 23:40Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Roy. That's Roy Strom of Bloomberg Law.
- 23:44Speaker 2: And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember,
- 23:47Speaker 2: you can always get the latest legal news on our
- 23:49Speaker 2: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
- 23:53Speaker 2: and at www.bloomberg.com slash podcast slash law. And remember to
- 23:59Speaker 2: tune into the Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at 10 p.m.
- 24:03Speaker 2: Wall Street time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg.