Wachtell compensation data points? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have a few datapoints: multiple people there told me they bill approx. 4000 hours a year. Even assuming a bonus that is 100% of base, that's worse per-hour pay than a typical big law firm. Do the math. Spare yourself.

A single attorney reporting to bill 4000 hours in one year is raising a justifiable inference of fraud or malpractice. That comes down to 11 billable hours per day for all 365 days of the year. Sorry, that’s just not happening. If it somehow is, the work product is crap. I refuse to believe anyone at Wachtell has ever billed 4000 hours unless someone provides proof.

Some of the super-high billers may be billing basically every minute they are in the office rather than just time on task. So if they were working on Matter X all day and were in the office from 9AM to 8PM they just record that as 11 hours on Matter X even though some of that time would have been breaks and chit chat.

Clients hiring Wachtell aren't cost sensitive (at least on the matters they've hired them for), so none of them are going to fight those numbers. I'm not sure it's still the case, but for a very long time Wachtell didn't do itemized bills. You just got a bill with a single line "for legal services rendered, $XX million." So there was no real way for a client to push back, and it also freed their lawyers from most of the administrative aspects of timekeeping.

AFAIK WLRK still bloc bills. All of their associate hours are inflated a good 10-20%, but the average associate is probably billing around 2500 "real hours."

[Anonymous User]

I'm not sure it's still the case, but for a very long time Wachtell didn't do itemized bills. You just got a bill with a single line "for legal services rendered, $XX million."

Is that particularly unusual though? V10 Finance, I thought that’s how corporate bills look generally (maybe with slightly more narrative but no entries).

[Anonymous User]

I'm not sure it's still the case, but for a very long time Wachtell didn't do itemized bills. You just got a bill with a single line "for legal services rendered, $XX million."

Is that particularly unusual though? V10 Finance, I thought that’s how corporate bills look generally (maybe with slightly more narrative but no entries).

That's what the invoice looks like but many clients also get the detailed statement, sometimes either before or (depending on when we actually get paid).

[Anonymous User]

WLRK often gets a flat fee (ie percentage of the deal) rather than hourly rates, so at least for a lot of corporate work, the hours billed mean nothing to client. No idea how they handle litigation billing.

[nealric]

I'm not sure it's still the case, but for a very long time Wachtell didn't do itemized bills. You just got a bill with a single line "for legal services rendered, $XX million."

Is that particularly unusual though? V10 Finance, I thought that’s how corporate bills look generally (maybe with slightly more narrative but no entries).

I've never seen a firm that still does things this way, although my company mostly hires more v50 range type firms unless it's a major corporate life event. I've always gotten an itemized description of each major task on a matter.

[Anonymous User]

Lot of information about Wachtell's billing practices in the new Musk suit.

“As we discussed, in engagements relating to pending transactions as to which a premium fee is contemplated, our Firm often receives a fee in the range of 60 to 80 percent of the fees paid to investment advisors.”

[Anonymous User]

The new lawsuit seems totally frivolous, right? Matt Levine's write-up pretty much spells it out...

[Anonymous User]

The new lawsuit seems totally frivolous, right? Matt Levine's write-up pretty much spells it out...

Not going to pretend to be an expert, but Levine’s article didn’t seem very convincing and didn’t address the claims. Wachtell did great work and Twitter shareholders were much better off with them winning, but that’s not what the lawsuit is about. The lawsuit is about whether the amending of engagement letter at the last minute to give Wachtell an extra $70 million with no consideration was illegal or not. Normally you would think a success fee would be included in the original engagement letter, and it normally comes with discounted billing rates.

Avika Cohen (currently suing Elon Musk on behalf of former Twitter employees), seems to think there is something here.

[Anonymous User]

The new lawsuit seems totally frivolous, right? Matt Levine's write-up pretty much spells it out...

Not going to pretend to be an expert, but Levine’s article didn’t seem very convincing and didn’t address the claims. Wachtell did great work and Twitter shareholders were much better off with them winning, but that’s not what the lawsuit is about. The lawsuit is about whether the amending of engagement letter at the last minute to give Wachtell an extra $70 million with no consideration was illegal or not. Normally you would think a success fee would be included in the original engagement letter, and it normally comes with discounted billing rates.

Avika Cohen (currently suing Elon Musk on behalf of former Twitter employees), seems to think there is something here.

I may end up regretting this take but I sincerely doubt that the chair of lit at wlrk somehow screwed up here.

Guessing that they had a separate retention letter signed that includes an express override to the master retention letter and referred to their success fee. Very surprised that a law firm would otherwise just accept a random company’s form engagement letter.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

The new lawsuit seems totally frivolous, right? Matt Levine's write-up pretty much spells it out...

Plaintiff Who Always Loses alleging that Defendant Who Always Wins openly and blatantly violated the merger agreement by taking excessive fees that were claimed to be payable to Defendant for suing to enforce the agreement that Plaintiff tried to weasel his way out of in bad faith.

Can't wait to see how it goes!