The elevation of two Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz lifers marks an organic transition for an elite law firm that has stuck to its unique brand in the face of competitive pressure.
Wachtell, unlike its New York rivals, has continued to operate out of just one office in midtown Manhattan that houses fewer than 300 lawyers. The firm’s relatively tiny partnership divides profits on a purely “lockstep” basis, a seniority-based model that has largely vanished industrywide in the last decade.
William Savitt and Andrew Nussbaum, who each have worked at the firm since the 1990s, became the newest chairs on Tuesday, marking the first leadership change since 2006. They’re now tasked with maintaining a brand that has made Wachtell among the most profitable in the world.
Savitt and Nussbaum, leaders in the litigation and corporate groups, were widely expected to take the reins at Wachtell, according to former attorney at the firm. They replace partners Daniel Neff and Edward Herlihy, who combined have more than 80 years of experience at the firm. They now lead a firm that still has namesake partners, Martin Lipton and Herbert Wachtell, coming to work.
“It’s still Wacthell,” said Alisa Levin, a New York legal recruiter. “It still has an outsized role in M&A. Everybody is worried after the first generation, ‘Is it going to survive?’ And it did with Ed and Dan.”
Herlihy, the PGA Tour policy’s board chairman, is a key business generator for the corporate transactions practice. The former leaders will remain on the firm’s executive committee.
The traditional law firm model that Neff and Herlihy grew up with has transformed. Rivals such as Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and Kirkland & Ellis have expanded their footprint dramatically, with locations across the world and practices designed to cover a business’s every need.
That has ushered in a more competitive recruiting environment, with firms increasingly shelling out greater sums to lure and keep star lawyers.
Wachtell’s brand, however, has remained largely unchanged, showing no sign of expanding beyond its core big transactions focus.
The firm “is in a position of great strength as we take on the responsibility of leadership,” Savitt and Nussbaum said in a joint statement. “We’re honored to have been asked to serve the partnership and will do our best to sustain its success.”
Wachtell did not make any partners available for interviews.
‘Natural Progression’
Since its founding in 1965, Wachtell has primarily focused on advising sell-side parties in major acquisitions, as well as defending companies in activist and bet-the-company litigation.
Lipton is credited with inventing the “poison pill” in the 1980s to thwart the hostile takeovers that began growing in frequency. The firm is no stranger to tiffs with billionaires such as Elon Musk and Carl Icahn.
Operating with an unusually lean 2-to-1associate-to-partner ratio, the firm uses fee arrangements that are more akin to an investment bank, with fixed fees typically based on successful outcomes. After Musk caved and acquired Twitter last year, Wachtell earned a $90 million “success” fee, which Musk is now challenging in court.
Savitt, who co-chairs the litigation practice, last year led the representation of Twitter as Musk initially tried to back out of his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform.
Wachtell has advised on 66 deals worth $250 billion this year, according to Bloomberg data. That includes representing Hess in the $53 billion acquisition by Chevron and the PGA Tour in Saudi-backed LIV Golf’s planned acquisition of the professional golf circuit.
The firm’s partnership has remained small, increasing by just 12 people to 89 members since 2002, according to American Lawyer data. Those attorneys earned $7.2 million on average in 2022, higher than every firm but Kirkland, which reported $7.5 million in profits per equity partner.
Kirkland usurped Wachtell following an aggressive, years-long push to expand its corporate and private equity practices. Among those hires were former Wachtell partner Edward Lee, a rare departure for the firm who in 2020 joined Kirkland’s New York practice.
Wachtell also this year lost executive compensation partner Andrea Wahlquist Brown to Paul Weiss and corporate partner Sabastian Niles to Salesforce, where he is the chief legal officer.
Wachtell, which rarely hires lateral attorneys, followed those moves with the hiring of Randall Jackson, a former federal prosecutor who chaired Willkie Farr & Gallagher’ white-collar defense group. It marked the firm’s first lateral hire since 2020, when Sarah Eddy rejoined the firm after a stint in the Manhattan US attorney’s office and Leo Strine, the former chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, came aboard.
The firm is still largely immune from the increasingly heated talent wars, said Jon Lindsey, the leader of legal search firm Major Lindsey & Africa’s New York office.
“It would be surprising” if the leadership change “marks a big pivot,” he said. “There’s a natural progression in firm management. At a certain point, it’s time to pass the baton.”
Ginsberg Clerks
Savitt and Nussbaum are regarded as affable, strong-credentialed lawyers. They each earned their undergraduate degrees in the mid-1980s, but their paths took different trajectories in the decades after.
Nussbaum became a Rhodes Scholar and clerked for then-DC Circuit judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Savitt took a shot at a career as an electric guitarist in New York.
“I’d had an indie band at Brown and we all came down here after graduation and started a new band, called Section 8,” he told Lawdragon in 2015.
He wouldn’t enter law school for another decade, later clerking for Justice Ginsburg. Savitt joined Wachtell in 1999, six years after Nussbaum, according to the firm’s website.
In addition to the lead role on the Twitter spat, Savitt is defending Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, in its fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether it is an unregistered securities exchange.
Nussbaum focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, with clients including Apollo Global Management, Salesforce and the celebrity Martha Stewart. In 2022, he worked on deals worth more than $50 billion, according to the American Lawyer.
—Roy Strom and Brian Baxter contributed to this report
