Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz


Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is a law firm which operates out of a single office in New York City. The firm is known for business law, regularly handling the largest and most complex transactions.

Timeline

The firm was founded in 1965 by Herbert Wachtell and Jerry Kern, who were shortly afterwards joined by Martin Lipton, Leonard Rosen, and George Katz. The four named partners met at New York University School of Law where they were editors on the New York University Law Review together. The firm rose to prominence on Wall Street when many brokers and investment bankers were launching small firms, but received little attention from established white-shoe law firms, such as Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
One of the founding partners, Martin Lipton, invented the so-called "poison pill defense" during the 1980s, to foil hostile takeovers. Working both sides of mergers and acquisitions, Wachtell Lipton has represented blue-chip clients such as AT&T, Pfizer, and JP Morgan Chase. It has had key roles in the resurrection of Chrysler in the 1970s, the acquisition of Getty Oil by Texaco, and the negotiation of the master development agreement for the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The firm is also known for its business litigation, and has represented clients in many of the precedent-setting Delaware corporate governance cases.

Firm Profile

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is considered to be one of the top firms in the country for major mergers and acquisitions, antitrust and shareholder litigation and corporate restructurings. While many peer law firms have grown and become international brands, Wachtell has only a single, Manhattan office. It is one of the smallest firms in the AmLaw 100, but has the highest per partner profits of any law firm and pays significantly above market rate for associates. The firm pays its partners through a lockstep system, meaning that compensation is tied to firm seniority, rather than hours billed or business brought in. The same is true for associate bonuses. This compensation model has led to the firm being called the "last true partnership."
The firm is known for its work in mergers and acquisitions and been ranked #1 in Vault's M&A rankings for more than a decade. Vault has also ranked it either #1 or #2 in the general Vault Law 100 for over fifteen years.
Along with rival Skadden, Arps, it was also cited in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Wachtell has been regarded as the "hardest firm in the U.S. to get a job in." As of 2020, the U.S. News and World Report has ranked Wachtell as a tier 1 law firm in national and regional rankings in several practice areas:

Notable alumni