Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The firm was founded in New York City in 1931 by Frank Weil, Sylvan Gotshal, and Horace Manges. Since 1968, Weil has been headquartered in the General Motors building, overlooking Central Park, in New York City's Manhattan borough.^[5]

After its founding in 1931, the firm expanded its client base to include companies such as General Electric and General Motors, and becoming one of the largest law firms in the country.^[6] In 1975, the firm opened an office in Washington, D.C., its first outside New York City, followed in the 1980s by locations in Miami, Houston and Dallas. In 1991 Weil was the first global, non-California law firm to open a Silicon Valley office, in Redwood Shores, California. Later, the firm expanded its finance and private equity practice.^[7]

It established offices in Budapest^[8], Prague,^[9] and Warsaw in the early 1990s, followed by the establishment of offices in Frankfurt, London, Munich and Paris.

In the 21st century, the firm opened offices in Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai; it later closed Dubai (2017) and ended its mainland China presence—shutting Beijing on 31 December 2023 and Shanghai in August 2024—while consolidating Asia operations in Hong Kong.^{[10][11][12][13]}

In November 2023, amid a wave of antisemitic incidents at elite U.S. law schools, Weil, Gotshal & Manges was among a group of major law firms who sent a letter to top law school deans warning them that an escalation in incidents targeting Jewish students would have corporate hiring consequences. The letter said "We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses."^[14]

In July 2024, Weil opened new offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, bringing on private equity partners Tana Ryan and Navneet Rekhi from Latham & Watkins to lead the expansion.^[15]

Former Weil attorney Gabriel Gershowitz was indicted for insider trading, in January 2026, as part of a scheme orchestrated over decades by a lawyer network of former Yale classmates and indicted co-conspirators.^[16][17] That May, it was reported that Gershowitz had pleaded guilty, and that prosecutors in the case had described affected law firms as victimized by those charged.^[18]

In April 2026, the firm expanded its German practice with the addition of partners Ingo Brinker and Niklas Brueggemann.^[19]

Executive partner Barry Wolf is scheduled to retire in 2027; Weil, Gotshal & Manges exercises a mandatory retirement age of 68.^[20] 25-year firm veteran, co-managing partner Ramona Nee is to succeed Wolf.^[21]

• List of largest United States-based law firms by profits per partner
• List of companies based in New York City