Weil Gotshal Opening Up Not One, But Two New California Offices

The big in Biglaw keep getting bigger. Weil Gotshal — the firm that took in $1,829,486,000 in gross revenue last year, making it #26 on the Am Law 100 — recently announced they were opening two new California offices, in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both offices will be led by new private equity lateral partners scooped up from Latham, Tana Ryan in the LA office and Navneeta Rekhi in SF.

As Weil chair Barry Wolf told Law.com, the circumstances were just right for the expansion, “We were looking for a way to expand our market-leading private equity platform but expand it in a Weil Gotshal way. When we expand a practice or into a new geography, our goal is to find the right person, bring them on board and build around those people.”

To get these big-ticket partners to come to Weil, the firm’s recent changes to the way partners get paid played a role.

“The compensation changes, around the margins, helped,” Wolf said. “But we are of the mindset that we should not be paying lateral partners of value more than we are paying our existing partners. We have had lengthy discussions in our strategy meetings about this. We want to make sure we maintain our culture.”

But for co-head of the private equity practice, Kyle Krpata, it’s all worth it to get the right people in these roles. “The lateral market is crazy,” he said. “But we remain focused on getting the right people, which leads to a longer sales cycle. But it is very important for us to find people who will succeed on our platform.”

“With Tana, we could not have found a better person for LA,” Krpata said. “She really wants to build something, that was important to her. And here, there is no baggage, no overhead. We can build this group and office the way we want.”

Krpata added that Rekhi was also a perfect fit for Weil. “She has an impressive portfolio of deals, has spent her entire career in San Francisco and has great connections in the market,” he added.

With Biglaw firms across the board rapidly changing partner paydays, this is far from the last major lateral move we’ll see.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].