New York Post

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Weil-Perella split

- By KEVIN DUGAN kdugan@nypost.com

White-shoe law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges is bowing out of a long-running Wall Street employment lawsuit amid revelation­s of botched legal work, The Post has learned.

Lawyers for Weil Gotshal have asked a New York State Supreme Court judge to be removed as the lawyers for investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners in a 4year-old suit against two former bankers, according to court filings late Monday.

Weil told Perella “of the need to withdraw on Aug. 29, 2019 and at least twice since then,” Nicholas J. Pappas, a Weil lawyer representi­ng Perella, wrote in the Monday filing.

Judge O. Peter Sherwood is scheduled to approve the request on Oct. 4, according to the filing. Lawyers for Boies Schiller Flexner, the cocounsel, are expected to take over the litigation, the filing said.

It’s the latest escalation in what has become a strained relationsh­ip between Weil and Perella since The Post reported last month that the law firm botched two former Perella bankers’ pay packages — and then left them in the dark about the error for years.

The bungled pay packages stand to complicate Perella’s lawsuit against the same two former bankers — Michael Kramer and Derron Slonecker — who left Perella in 2011 to start their own rival firm. Weil has been representi­ng Perella in the case since 2015.

As The Post reported in August, lawyers for Weil screwed up $10 million in deferred compensati­on packages for the dealmakers before they jumped ship — and only seemed to acknowledg­e the issue after it came up at a 2017 deposition in Perella’s employment case against the men.

The law firm’s top legal eagles knew about the screwup as early as 2015, when they fretted over the implicatio­ns of not disclosing it to Perella, according to contempora­neous notes from meetings obtained by The Post.

After The Post’s story emerged, Peter Weinberg, one of the investment bank’s founders, and partner Robert Steel told Weil that it could be fired, according to a person briefed on the conversati­on.

On Aug. 30 — the day after Weil gave notice of its need to withdraw as counsel — the law firm informed Perella that it was no longer welcome to use its corporate cafeteria, The Post reported last week.

Perella Weinberg, an investment bank that’s advised companies like AT&T and swanky luxury retailer Barneys, had started in the offices of Weil Gotshal more than 13 years ago, and was one of the law firm’s top clients, according to a person familiar with the relationsh­ip.

A spokeswoma­n for Perella declined to comment. A spokeswoma­n for Weil didn’t return a request for comment.

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