We recently wrote about the BigLaw veterans on the Delaware Chancery and Supreme Courts.
Little did we know, the bench’s loss would so soon be BigLaw’s gain.
Paul Weiss has just announced that Vice Chancellor Steven Lamb is joining the firm.
More about Lamb and his plans (and the firm he has forsaken), after the jump.
Lamb, whose 12-year tenure is coming to an end, joined the bench in 1997 from Skadden, which, as we pointed out, has a stranglehold on BigLaw in Delaware. Paul Weiss pointedly fails to identify Lamb’s old firm in the press release:
Before his appointment to the Court of Chancery, Vice Chancellor Lamb was well known in corporate litigation circles, and for 16 years was a corporate and securities litigation lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware, where his practice included corporate and commercial litigation in the Court of Chancery and numerous federal district courts.
It’s all the more curious, because his reason for joining Paul Weiss wasn’t anything about the “opportunity to build a Delaware practice” or something. Instead, he was even more generic:
“I am honored to join Paul, Weiss, which has a long tradition of delivering exceptional counsel and service to its world-class client base. As I considered a range of attractive options for my post-judicial career, I was drawn to the opportunity to collaborate with this exceptional team and its clients to build a fulfilling practice.”
Paul Weiss was founded in 1945, and Skadden was “only” founded in 1948, so maybe the three years made the difference in the “long tradition”? Ok, probably not. Skadden certainly has a “long tradition of delivering exceptional counsel and service to [a] world-class client base.” So does anyone know why he didn’t go back?
He’ll be splitting time between New York and a to-be-opened office in Wilmington.
Is this the beachhead of Paul Weiss’s invasion of the first state?
Related posts:
There is some family debate about Paul, Weiss's birthdate, but 1945 is not among the years in contention. In 1975, the partners held a 100th anniversary party on the claim that the firm traced its roots to one founded by Louis Weiss's father in 1875, some of whose clients (or descendants) the firm still represents today. In 1996, the partners held a 50th anniversary party — surely the only firm to hold a 50th years after holding a 100th — on the pretense that the modern firm began when Randolph Paul and Lloyd Garrison joined 1946. Yet its letterhead today and for many years suggests that 1927 is proper date, which is the year that Louis Weiss and John Wharton merged their two-person firm with Cohen, Cole & Weiss, the firm that Louis's father had founded. In 1945, the firm's name was Cohen, Cole, Weiss & Wharton.
That’s what we get for relying on wikipedia. Thanks for the info.