Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz

Updated on Jan 04, 2024

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Date founded 1965 No. of offices 1 Founded 1965		Company type General partnership No. of attorneys 260 Major practice areas General practice

Revenue (−0.9%) US$580 million (2010) Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Founders Martin Lipton, Herbert Wachtell, Leonard Rosen

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Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is a law firm which operates out of a single office in New York City.

Wachtell lipton rosen katz

History

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 firm rose to prominence during a time on Wall Street in which many brokers and investment bankers started their own small companies, but received little attention from established white-shoe law firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

The firm is known for its skill in mergers and acquisitions. 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 the mergers and acquisitions game, Wachtell Lipton has represented blue-chip clients like AT&T, Pfizer, and JP Morgan Chase. The firm is also known for its skill in business litigation, and has handled many of the precedent-setting Delaware corporate governance cases.

For many years, it has been the most profitable large law firm in the US on a per-partner basis according to the American Lawyer's annual AmLaw 100 Survey. The firm also ranks at the top of other various surveys, including the Vault.com Associates Survey, and was ranked as the Most Prestigious Law Firm to Work For by the AveryIndex.

Notable alumni

William T. Allen, of counsel — former Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery; NYU Law School professor

Allison Christians, associate — H. Heward Stikeman chair in Taxation: McGill University Faculty of Law

Miguel Estrada — attorney and former judicial nominee

Chaim Fortgang, partner & former Head of the bankruptcy department - "involved in almost every headline bankruptcy of the [1990s] and beyond

Glenn Greenwald, associate — political columnist and blogger

Lauryn P. Gouldin, associate — Syracuse University College of Law professor

Maura R. Grossman, of counsel — David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science professor at the University of Waterloo, and electronic discovery attorney

Elizabeth Holtzman, associate — former U.S. Representative and Brooklyn District Attorney

Robert J. Jackson, Jr., associate - Columbia Law School professor

David Lat, associate — blogger, Underneath Their Robes and Above the Law

Robert Morgenthau, of counsel - former New York County District Attorney

Bernard Nussbaum, partner — former White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton

George Postolos, associate — former President and CEO of Houston Rockets

Samuel Rascoff, associate —NYU Law School professor

Jed Rubenfeld, associate — Yale Law School professor

Andrew Schlafly, associate — founder of Conservapedia, General Counsel for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons