More Goodies in Weil’s GM Filings

Who says bankruptcy filings are boring?

Just last week, we dove down on Weil Gotshal’s first fee petition on the GM bankruptcy and turned up some interesting information, like the pre-petition fees and two minor relationships between the firm and other parties, including that one partner’s son is a senior restructuring officer at Treasury (Ira and Jim Millstein), and another is married to a bankruptcy judge (Stuart and Andrea Bernstein).

The hits keep on coming. Another filing provided enough information to figure out another big chunk of fees the firm has earned on a completely unrelated matter, and the firm disclosed yet another connection to the government. After the jump.

First up, the fees. Even though it’s not technically a bankruptcy, the AIG debacle sure feels like one, what with the massive Weil Gotshal fees and all.

It was actually a GM bankruptcy filing that led to the extrapolation of how much the firm has gotten from AIG. Weil filed the affidavit of its disinterested-ness in the GM bankruptcy and reported that AIG accounted for 3.0% of the firm’s revenues for the preceding twelve months.

From there, the American Lawyer did a little creative math to figure out just how much that 3% was worth:

Exactly what dollar amount that equals is unclear. But back-of-the-envelope math suggests the fees are at least $25 million to $36 million, if not more.

Here’s the math. Weil’s filing says Lehman Brothers made up 6.6 percent of its revenue in the last year. Weil has already submitted a $55 million bill for its work on the Lehman case between September 15 to January 31. A little cross multiplication, then, would put its AIG fees easily in excess of $25 million.

And that’s erring on the low side since our calculation doesn’t factor in what Weil earned in the months before Lehman melted down or its work since February. (Weil will likely file its next quarterly fee request next month.)

It also ignores Weil’s 2008 revenues. Last year, it earned $1.23 billion, up 4.75 percent. Quick multiplication puts AIG fees at more than $36 million.

But again, that too likely undervalues the bill, since Weil’s bankruptcy work is booming and the firm will probably close the year with higher revenue. In a March memo obtained by The American Lawyer, Weil said its “overall level of business has remained strong and is expected to remain strong when the economy ‘normalizes’.”

Not bad at all, and a lot of that AIG money was earned by non-bankruptcy lawyers.

Meanwhile, Karotkin disclosed yet another tie to the government that he thought the court should know about:

In addition, a partner of WG&M formerly was Deputy Counsel to the President of the United States and, in that capacity, was involved on behalf of the White House in the selection, nomination, and confirmation of the Deputy Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”). In such capacity he also worked with several individuals at the United States Department of the Treasury on a number of matters, including setting up TARP and the transaction pursuant to which TARP funds were made available to GM. This partner has not and will not have any involvement in these chapter 11 cases.

That’s almost certainly Bill Burck (Yale BA ‘93, JD ‘98) who just joined the firm in February as a partner in the DC office doing Investigations & Criminal Defense. He’s had a busy career, having also done stints at the US Attorney’s Office (SDNY) and Sullivan & Cromwell. Oh, and he was EIC of the Yale Law Journal, then clerked for Kozinski then Kennedy. Is he for real? At least we did find one flaw – he pursued, but apparently never completed, a Ph.D. at Harvard.

By the way, Stephen Karotkin still has to do the menial work like preparing and filing the affidavits, but we all know Harvey Miller is in charge.

Related posts:

1. Weil Finally Getting Paid
2. Weil OWNS Bankruptcy
3. Lehman Fees Crack Half-Billion Mark
4. Weil’s Lehman Bill $63.75 Million and Counting
5. No Car Bailout; Time for Weil to Get in Gear