2022 DIVERSITY DATABASE UNDERWRITER Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

For almost 150 years, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—and its predecessor firms—has been a mainstay in the New York City legal market, initially as a general commercial practice. The firm began expanding its litigation practice in the 1950s and branched out into the international legal community more than 50 years ago. Paul, Weiss has represented some of the world’s largest companies, private equity firms, and financial institutions.

Groundbreaking Start

Paul, Weiss arose in pre-WWI New York, when Samuel William Weiss and partners opened a practice to handle commercial law matters for other members of the local Jewish business community. At the time, Jewish attorneys struggled to be accepted in non-Jewish firms. Weiss’ son Louis took a different approach and went into business with Columbia Law classmate John F. Wharton, who was a Protestant. The firm was the first major New York City firm to break down the barrier of Jews practicing with Gentiles. Eventually, Weiss & Wharton merged with the firm Samuel Weiss had helped start.

After World War II, Randolph Paul from the U.S. Treasury Department and Lloyd Garrison from the National War Labor Board joined the firm, making it a top-tier legal powerhouse. The last name partner to join the masthead was Judge Simon Rifkind, who came on board in 1950 after serving as a federal district court judge and working in the Roosevelt administration to craft New Deal legislation. He stayed with the firm until his death in 1995 and is credited with helping to establish the firm as a litigation heavyweight. The firm has seen alumni become a presidential nominee, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and advisors and appointees in presidential cabinets and federal agencies.

One of the Greats

Paul, Weiss is home to a panoply of preeminent, highly-regarded practice groups. Its M&A team offers expertise on matters that have defined core principles in the field, and has experience working across industries and in a range of practice specializations and disciplines—including tax, ERISA, real estate, IP, and environmental law. The team has executed deals for companies like Amazon, Chevron, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, and Qualcomm. In 2021 alone, the firm announced over $470 billion in M&A transactions and closed 74 deals valued at $348 billion. Group awards include Law360 M&A Practice Group of the Year (2019, 2021), the “Most Innovative Deal of the Year Award” at The Deal Awards (2020), and IFLR Awards Americas M&A Team of the Year (2022).

Paul, Weiss’ private equity group is equally vaunted, and was a pioneer in the area of leveraged buyouts. The PE transactional team regularly represents buyout and investment firms, including general partners, limited partners, co-investors, portfolio companies, and financial sponsor groups. Its fund formation group leads the charge for all types of asset managers, which include private equity funds, credit funds, hedge funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, hybrid funds, and family offices. Recently, the firm announced PE/PE portfolio company deals of over $30 billion for clients like Apollo, General Atlantic, Roark, Golden Gate, and others. Deals closed in 2021 were valued at over $107 billion.

But that’s not all; Paul, Weiss leads the market in other practice areas as well. Its litigation department has won cases for Amazon, Apple, Uber, and Goldman Sachs—this last one before the U.S. Supreme Court, no less—and was named the “Commercial Litigation Law Firm of the Year” by Chambers USA in 2022. Attorneys in the firm’s white collar & regulatory defense practice represent Fortune 50 clients, boards, and key executives in major government investigations and enforcement actions, Congressional hearings, and internal investigations. Members of Paul, Weiss’ restructuring department have represented Revlon, Diamond Offshore Drilling, and the Sears restructuring subcommittee in their chapter 11 cases. The group was chosen as Chambers USA’s “Bankruptcy Law Firm of the Year” in 2019 and was shortlisted for this award in 2022.

Pro Bono in the Blood

Civil rights work is part of the DNA of Paul, Weiss, from its work on the “Scottsboro Boys” trials and Brown v. Board of Education to challenging the Defense of Marriage Act through United States v. Windsor. Throughout its history, Paul, Weiss has been progressive in ideology and in practice, embracing matters of social consequence. The firm was the first to hire a Black associate, the first to hire a Black female associate, and the first to make a woman a partner. Today, the firm is active in racial justice efforts, reproductive rights, voter protection efforts, and immigrant rights. Its pro bono efforts have not gone unrecognized—the firm was named to the 2020 National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Hot List and was among the top 20 firms in Vault’s 2022 Pro Bono rankings and The American Lawyer’s 2022 Pro Bono Survey.

• Paul, Weiss secured the Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Windsor in 2013, which led to the recognition of the constitutional right of same-sex couples to be married.
• Paul, Weiss led the defense of the NFL in lawsuits by 5,000-plus former NFL players over alleged concussion-related injuries, obtaining a landmark settlement in 2013.
• Paul, Weiss lawyers helped free the Scottsboro Boys, nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women, winning reversal of their conviction in the Supreme Court in 1932.
• Paul, Weiss represented the special committee of the board of directors of CBS in its merger with Viacom to form a combined media company worth more than $40 billion

• Top 10 in “A-List,” recognizing revenue per lawyer, associate satisfaction, diversity, pro bono, and percentage of female equity partners, 2022–The American Lawyer
• “Commercial Litigation Firm of the Year,” 2022–Chambers
• Eight “Dealmakers of the Year” recognitions over the past five years, 2018-2022—The American Lawyer
• 13 “MVPs of the Year” across disciplines, 2022–Law360
• “White Collar Crime/Investigations West Coast Award,” 2022—Benchmark Litigation