New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges is a major international law firm that is particularly well-known in bankruptcy and reorganization circles. The firm is counsel for the debtors-in-possession in both the Enron and MCI/WorldCom reorganization cases, which are two of the largest chapter 11 cases in history. Over the past 20 years, Weil has built upon its reorganization expertise to become a well-regarded and well-balanced full service firm.
However, the firm’s nickname within the legal profession — which is the title of this post — makes fun of the firm’s traditionally high fees charged to its clients, and this New York Sunday Times article reports on two pending lawsuits against the firm that reflect another image problem at Weil and other big law firms — i.e., that the firm is more incentivized to make money than to protect the interests of its clients:

Weil Gotshal is embroiled in two lawsuits by former clients who contend that the firm breached its duty to provide them with its undivided loyalty, as state rules on ethics require. The cases – one by the owners of a luxury shop, now defunct, in the Mall at Short Hills, N.J., and one by the pop singer Michael Bolton – stem from very different circumstances. But each case is a cautionary tale for big law firms, experts say.

The fashion boutique’s allegations against Weil are particularly troubling:

[The owners of] Fashion Boutique of Short Hills [are pursuing] their contention that the law firm represented them in a suit against the fashion house Fendi even as it also agreed to represent Prada in another case. A few months earlier, Prada had teamed up with LVMH Mˆet Hennessy Louis Vuitton to buy a 51 percent stake in Fendi.
Weil Gotshal did not tell the owners, Annette C. Fischer and her daughter, Randi Fischer, that it was also representing Fendi’s new owner until seven months after it started working with Prada; by then, a jury was already deliberating the Fischers’ contention that Fendi had used unfair business practices to run them out of business to protect its new flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In the case against Weil Gotshal, Fashion Boutique is seeking $15.5 million, an estimate of the value of lost business.

Despite these troubling allegations, Weil, Gotshal is not shying away from the fight — the firm has asserted a counterclaim against the firm’s former clients in the Fashion Boutique lawsuit for $2.7 million in unpaid attorneys’ fees.
And Mr. Bolton’s allegations against the firm stem from the firm’s attempt to represent the conflicting interests of co-defendants who have potential claims against each other if the claim against them is established:

Mr. Bolton . . . sued Weil Gotshal in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan last December, seeking $30 million. The firm had defended him, along with his publisher, Warner-Chappell Music Ltd. of Britain, and his record label, Sony Music Entertainment Inc., in a 1994 suit contending that Mr. Bolton had infringed someone else’s copyright with his 1991 hit “Love Is a Wonderful Thing.” When a jury found that the song was too much like a 1964 tune of the same name by the Isley Brothers, [Mr. Bolton and the other defendants] were ordered to pay more than $5 million in damages. Mr. Bolton, however, soon learned that he was personally responsible for the entire judgment because his contracts with both Warner-Chappell and Sony said that he would indemnify them in the event of a judgment of copyright infringement.

Expect both of these cases against Weil to be resolved or settled before trial. If Weil cannot resolve the cases through summary judgment, then the firm will not risk allowing a jury to tabulate the damages against the firm. Jurors tend to get out their calculators when assessing damages against a law firm defendant.