Academic

Robert Morganthau Joins Wachtell

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

Manhattan's uber DA has joined Wachtell Lipton - a weird fit, but one that underlines just how great the last 15 years have been for high end Manhattan prosecutors who want to go in house.  Morganthau (a distant relative in law, I suppose I should disclose) will join the WorldCom killer, David Anders, at Wachtell.  I think that it shows that the revolving door really revolves in Manhattan.  

In fact most federal prosecutors employed in Manhattan leave the government and collect big firm paychecks (that's firm paychecks, mind you - they don't, with the exeception of Robert Khuzami, join financial intermediaries).  And the firms they join are pretty well thought of - the two most active hirers of SDNY AUSAs of the turn of the century appear to be Dewey LeBouef and Quinn Emmanuel, with three such hires each.  And most of the other firms picked up someone who worked for the government around then, with a few exceptions (like Cravath and Boies Schiller).  I've been looking at this a bit systematically because I think that government service in Manhattan represents the revolving door at either its most or its least unobjectionable.  But at the very minimum, I can assure you that if what you really want to do is make money with your law degree, you could do worse than spending four years not making money at the SDNY.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on January 21, 2010 (boomark / email).