Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (known as Paul, Weiss) is an American multinational white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City.
The firm historically focused on litigation, but shifted towards corporate law after Brad Karp became chairman in 2008. The firm has offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Wilmington, Houston, Toronto, London, Brussels, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
History Founding (1875–1949) The firm that eventually became Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was started in New York in 1875 by Samuel William Weiss and Julius Frank as a general commercial practice. In 1923, Samuel's son, Louis Weiss, started his own firm with John F. Wharton. That firm later merged with Samuel's firm, becoming Cohen, Cole, Weiss & Wharton. In the 1930s, the firm represented one of the Scottsboro boys. In 1946, Lloyd K. Garrison and Randolph Paul joined the firm, bringing the firm up to thirteen lawyers. The name changed to Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison. Corporate law expansion In the early 2010s, chair Brad Karp decided that Paul, Weiss needed to increase its exposure to the private equity industry so as to boost revenue. Apollo Global Management then became the most important firm client, paying more than $200 million annually in legal fees. Paul, Weiss revenue subsequently rose from less than $700 million in 2009 to more than $3 billion in 2025, while Karp became one of the highest-paid lawyers in the world. Its importance to the firm also led Karp to entangle himself in the personal affairs of Apollo's CEO and co-founder, Leon Black, and his representative, Jeffrey Epstein. Scott Barshay was recruited to lead and expand the mergers and acquisitions department in 2016.
Diversity In 1946, Paul, Weiss became the first major New York law firm to have a female partner, Carolyn Agger. William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. was the first black lawyer hired at the firm. When he was hired in 1949, it was the first time ever that a major New York City law firm hired a person of color as an associate.
On October10, 2007, Paul, Weiss was included in a ranking of Manhattan law firms by the national law student group Building a Better Legal Profession. The organization ranked firms by billable hours, demographic diversity, and pro bono participation. For diversity among partner attorneys, the firm was ranked in the 61st to 80th percentile for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and LGBT categories. Paul, Weiss was also ranked number 52 out of the 74 firms evaluated, for opportunities for advancement for female attorneys.Thomas Adcock and Zusha Elinson, Student Group Grades Firms On Diversity, Pro Bono Work, "New York Law Journal," October 19, 2007, In 2019, the nonprofit group Lawyers of Color reported that Paul, Weiss had the highest percentage of black lawyers of the 400 firms it ranked. In 2020, women comprised 26% of Paul, Weiss' partnership, all equity partners. This is slightly higher than the average for law firms (23.6% as reported by the National Association for Law Placement).
In 2018, the firm was criticized when it released a photograph on its LinkedIn of recently promoted partners, all of whom were white. The photograph also included only one woman. Although Paul, Weiss had a reputation for being more diverse than other elite big-law firms, the announcement drew criticisms that even "diverse" big-law firms still partook in racist and sexist methods of employment and promotion. The photograph served as a "lightning rod" for the growing frustration that elite law careers are still largely reserved for white men.
Loretta Lynch, the first black woman to serve as United States attorney general, joined Paul, Weiss in 2019 as a litigation partner.
In 2020, Paul, Weiss said it wanted to join law firms and public-interest organizations across the U.S. in a pro bono effort to root out racism.
In 2023, the firm made a $3.5 million deal with its first openly transgender partner, Lex Korberg, with whom Barshay clashed, in exchange for their agreement to not disparage or sue Paul, Weiss.
Representation of fossil fuel corporations Paul, Weiss has represented Exxon Mobil for over a decade in its attempts to dismiss U.S. cities' and states' cases seeking compensation for climate change harms. In 2025, the Supreme Court rejected Paul, Weiss' bid to throw out Honolulu's case before trial. Top-paid partners at Paul, Weiss such as Theodore V. Wells, Jr. tout this work battling climate change cases for Exxon. A 2021 assessment singled out Paul, Weiss among law firms as engaging in the most litigation, lobbying, and transactional work for fossil fuel companies, garnering many millions. The company received the lowest grade in a 2021 scorecard of law firms on climate change actions. The firm had represented fossil fuel companies in 30 cases over the five preceding years. In January and February 2020, students at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, New York University School of Law, and the University of Michigan Law School protested the firm's recruitment events over its representation of Exxon Mobil Corporation.Queen, Jack (February 12, 2020). "NYU Law Students Disrupt Paul Weiss Event Over Exxon Win," Law360.Pontecorvo, Emily (February 10, 2020). "Calls for law firm to #DropExxon go national with law student boycott," Grist.Irfan, Umair (January 16, 2020). "The surprising protest of Exxon's law firm at Harvard Law," Vox.Schachinger, Julia (February 19, 2020). "University Law Students protest Paul, Weiss recruiting event in support of #DropExxon campaign," The Michigan Daily.
In 2023, Paul, Weiss defended ExxonMobil in a long-running human rights abuse case involving the company's hiring of soldiers in Indonesia who allegedly committed murder and torture while working for Exxon. Indonesian villagers alleged that soldiers contracted by ExxonMobil committed sexual assault on pregnant women and electrically shocked and inflicted graffiti by knives on villagers' backs. In commenting on the case, Columbia law school lecturer Michael Paradis stated, "Exxon and its lawyers threw everything they could at them, and they overcame it." After Judge Lamberth ordered Exxon to pay around $289,000 in sanctions after finding that Alex Oh (while a partner at Paul, Weiss and enforcement director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) behaved improperly to opposing counsel during the case, Oh resigned as Securities and Exchange enforcement director.
Israel–Palestine conflict In November 2023, amid a wave of pro-Palestine protests on law school campuses, Paul, Weiss was among a group of major law firms who signed a joint letter to elite law school deans, urging them to not allow "antisemitic speech" on campus, including "criticism of the state of Israel."
EO 14237 and pro bono deal with Second Trump administration
In 2025, as part of a retaliatory campaign by U.S. president Donald Trump against law firms who had represented political opponents of his, the firm (along with Perkins Coie) was targeted by the Second Donald Trump administration. Executive order 14237 prohibited Paul, Weiss employees from entering government buildings, working for the government, or having security clearances, citing its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and the work of former partner Mark F. Pomerantz, who played a leading role in the investigation that ultimately led to Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York. On March19, Paul, Weiss told a judge in a New Jersey case that it had been fired by a client because of the order.
In contrast to Perkins Coie, which sued and obtained a temporary restraining order against the executive order, on March20, 2025, Paul, Weiss agreed that, in exchange for the order against them being lifted, the firm would commit $40million toward pro bono legal services in support of Trump administration goals and that they would no longer pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Pomerantz, who had been a firm partner until 2022, released a statement saying that he had done nothing wrong in his role as a prosecutor.
Later, the New York Times reported that the DEI provision of the deal was not in the text of the final agreement, but rather something Trump himself added and posted to social media. The White House also stated that Karp acknowledged wrongdoing on the part of Pomerantz, which was not true. Karp did not publicly rebut Trump's post or the statement.
The move by Paul, Weiss led other large law firms to sign similar deals with the Trump administration and was widely criticized. Over 140 firm alumni wrote a letter saying, "During the first Trump administration, Paul, Weiss lawyers, including many of us, fought to protect civil and human rights with the firm's support... That is why it came as a shock to find the firm at the very forefront of capitulation to the Trump administration's bullying tactics." J.Michael Luttig, a judge appointed by George W. Bush, wrote that "Paul, Weiss chose to cower before the powerful and sell out its firm and the nation's legal profession to the President."
According to a March 2025 report by The New Yorker on the negotiations between the Trump administration and Paul, Weiss, the firm's management believed that the price of surrendering to the Trump administration "was tolerable... fighting the order in court had good prospects of success—but Karp thought that any win would arrive too late." Two granddaughters of Simon Rifkind wrote to Paul, Weiss's managing partner criticizing the firm's decision.
In May 2025, partners Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson, Jessica Phillips, and Jeannie Rhee departed from Paul, Weiss to start their own firm, Dunn Isaacson Rhee. Partner Damian Williams left Paul, Weiss for Jenner & Block in June 2025.
Washington, DC-based analyst Nathan Tankus remarked that the "eagerness" shown by powerful law firms to concede to and enter into agreements with the US government is an "early sign" that American institutions are prepared to engage in "systematic appeasement towards Trump's second presidency."
In August 2025, The New York Times reported that Paul, Weiss was doing free legal work for the United States Department of Commerce.
In October 2025, Fabio Bertoni of The New Yorker opined that Paul, Weiss's decision to fold in response to Trump's "unlawful executive order" against the law firm was "shocking at the time, and was taken as a signal within the profession of where the 'smart money' was betting" helping to set a tone whereby other powerful institutions struggled to resist Trump's threats. Eight other law firms followed Paul Weiss's lead, making deals with the Trump Administration, totaling close to $1 billion in pro bono legal work, for causes supported by Trump.
A year later, Bloomberg Law reported, in March 2026, that the firm's agreement with the Trump administration had weakened its reputation, and that other law firms struggled to meet the needs of pro bono work no longer performed by Paul, Weiss.
As a result of its deal with the Trump Administration, the Department of Justice subpoenaed and is investigating Paul, Weiss, in its defense of the White House in the American Bar Association v. Executive Office of the President, filed in June 2025.
2026 resignation due to association of Brad Karp with Jeffrey Epstein