Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz - Katz Law Office

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

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 â€" former Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery; NYU Law School professor
• Allison Christians, associate â€" H. Heward Stikeman chair in Taxation: McGill University Faculty of Law
• Miguel Estrada â€" 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 â€" political columnist and blogger
• Lauryn P. Gouldin, associate â€" Syracuse University College of Law professor
• Maura R. Grossman, of counsel â€" David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science professor at the University of Waterloo, and electronic discovery attorney
• Elizabeth Holtzman, associate â€" former U.S. Representative and Brooklyn District Attorney
• Robert J. Jackson, Jr., associate - Columbia Law School professor
• David Lat, associate â€" blogger, Underneath Their Robes and Above the Law
• Robert Morgenthau, of counsel - former New York County District Attorney
• Bernard Nussbaum, partner â€" former White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton
• George Postolos, associate â€" former President and CEO of Houston Rockets
• Samuel Rascoff, associate â€"NYU Law School professor
• Jed Rubenfeld, associate â€" Yale Law School professor
• Andrew Schlafly, associate â€" founder of Conservapedia, General Counsel for Association of American Physicians and Surgeons