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One of Wachtell Lipton’s co-chairs is poised to exit the firm alongside a team of litigators, in the latest set of high-profile departures to hit the corporate law powerhouse.
Bill Savitt, one of the country’s most pre-eminent corporate trial lawyers who co-chairs Wachtell’s executive committee, is planning to leave the firm for rival Gibson Dunn alongside five other partners from Wachtell’s litigation department in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter.
The potential departures would mark a blow for the highly regarded Wall Street firm, which has endured more than half a dozen defections to rival firms including Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis since the beginning of last year.
Details of the hires were still being ironed out, but the moves were likely to be announced in the coming days provided they did not hit any last-minute snags, the people said.
Savitt was set to leave alongside litigation partners Ryan McLeod and Anitha Reddy, among others, for Gibson where the group had been offered a lucrative compensation package, the people said.
The group of defectors would have included Wachtell partner Nathaniel Cullerton, but his hiring was scrapped after he was filmed in a viral TikTok video in an apparent romantic embrace with a colleague last week. Cullerton had been placed on leave of absence pending further investigation, some of the people said.
The potential exits come amid a frenzied legal hiring market where top partners can command upwards of $20mn a year.
“Wachtell Lipton is performing at its highest level across every metric. The firm is having a record year, continues at the top of all the league tables and is as strong as it has ever been,” said a spokesperson for the firm.
“We remain steadfast in our commitment to the same standards of excellence and elite client service in each of our practice areas, including our premier litigation group, that have defined the firm for sixty years.”
Gibson, Savitt and Cullerton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this year, Savitt helped to secure victory for Wachtell clients Sam Altman and OpenAI after a US jury dismissed Tesla founder Elon Musk’s $150bn lawsuit following a three-week trial in which Savitt deposed the South African billionaire.
Savitt is best known as an expert in the corporate law of Delaware, where most American companies are incorporated. He has won several landmark cases in front of the Delaware Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court. Savitt also helped Twitter to force Musk to close his $44bn acquisition of the social network in 2022.
Musk is a key client of Gibson, which was one of two law firms advising on the SpaceX listing last month, the biggest initial public offering on record.
Wachtell generates most of its revenues from advising on corporate mergers and acquisitions, so the loss of several litigators was unlikely to adversely affect Wachtell’s financial performance, some of the people said.
Wachtell has advised on some of the most high-profile deals in recent years including video game maker Electronic Arts’ $55bn sale to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Warner Bros Discovery’s $111bn sale to Paramount Skydance.
Wachtell ranked as the world’s most profitable law firm per partner, according to last year’s AmLaw 100 rankings. In the first half of this year, Wachtell advised on more than $350bn of corporate mergers and acquisitions, the fourth-highest total of any firm worldwide, according to LSEG.
Savitt, who also co-chairs Wachtell’s litigation department, rose to the rank of the firm’s co-chair, a role akin to managing partner, in 2023. He serves in the role alongside corporate partner Andy Nussbaum.
