The Departing Skadden Partner, His Ex-Wife, And The Substance Of African-Americans

Yesterday, we brought you the story of Garrett Waltzer. The former Skadden partner sent around a thrilling departure memo explaining to his colleagues that he was leaving the firm to help the music career of his wife, R&B artist and near-reality show star TaQuita Thorns. If you missed yesterday’s story, I’ll wait here while you catch up.

Yeah, that happened.

So when I say former Skadden partner, boy do I mean “former.” Skadden has already removed his bio from their website. That firm doesn’t play.

But Waltzer is still talking. After yesterday’s story, he opened up a little bit about his personal life to Vivia Chen of The Careerist.

Oh, and I did I mention we’ve got a clip of TaQuita Thorns on her reality show?

Waltzer’s Careerist interview contains a couple of wonderful nuggets. The best, by far:

He said that he met his current wife, TaQuita, online “after my ex-wife fell in love with her personal trainer.”

Waltzer also says he’s had some serious health problems. You can read the full interview here.

Since yesterday’s story, a few Skadden people who know Waltzer have stepped up to say that he’s a really good guy. And they are, of course, applauding his decision to leave Skadden and live a healthier, happier life.

That’s to be expected. Let’s be clear, folks: Biglaw jobs, in general, are horrible. It’s grueling work at odd hours almost without end. Sure, Biglaw attorneys, especially partners, make a lot of money. But they don’t give you that money for free. There are few who’ve been through it who aren’t happy for somebody who manages to get out. Good job, Garrett Waltzer!

But… doesn’t this story sound like this story is coming to you from a mid-life crisis textbook? He had health problems, and then his wife started banging her personal trainer. So he found some young, wanna-be starlet, married her, and is now quitting the stable job he’s done for his entire life to “devote” himself to her dreams. When you show up at the crisis store and purchase the “new job” and “new wife” package, they throw in the sports car and male earring for free.

Perhaps in an effort to battle the perception that he is, kind of, “going through a phase,” Waltzer said something very curious to Chen:

“We are a unique couple, and we get a lot of attention. She’s younger and African American. But anyone who knows me knows that I am drawn to someone with substance.”

This sounds to me like Waltzer thinks the reason his relationship is getting a lot of attention is because it’s interracial. Worse, I take this quote as trying to counter some kind of perception that an old white guy would only be attracted to a young black woman in some kind of exoticized, Jungle Fever situation, by saying, “No no no, she has substance!” What, unlike all the other young black women that he’s not drawn to?

I don’t know, maybe some people do think like that. To me, the relationship isn’t attention-grabbing because he’s white and she’s black. The relationship is attention-grabbing because a partner at Skadden is married to a fledgling R&B singer who, as described in his departure memo, is “an energetic performer with a dazzling voice and stunning looks.”

That’s the head turner. Even though I imagine most second wives of Biglaw partners are “energetic performers” in one way or another, putting it into a departure memo is a bit odd. If he was married to an old white lady who wanted to “improve the world through music and, in the process, become a force in the music industry,” we’d be writing about it too.

BUT… since Waltzer opened the door to the “substance” question:

The only way this could get any better would be if Waltzer ended up actually being married to Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

I’m happy that Waltzer got out, and I sure hope he’s found the love of his life and is poised to have some happy and healthy golden years. I just can’t shake the feeling that I saw this plot on Mad Men and that Waltzer’s going to come home one day to a very uncomfortable performance of Zou Bisou Bisou.

Better Than Metrosexual

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New Partner Watch: Incoming Partner Classes at Ten Top Firms

Congratulations! You made it!

Few people are happier about the world’s surviving the Mayan Apocalypse than new partners at top law firms. Can you imagine slaving away in Biglaw for almost (or even over) a decade, finally winning election to the partnership in late 2012, and then having the world end before your hard-won partner status took effect?

Fortunately that didn’t happen. Heck, we didn’t even go over the fiscal cliff. But some people will have to pay higher taxes this year (and for many years to come).

Like these people: the talented and hardworking lawyers who, as of January 1, 2013, became partners of their respective law firms. Let’s find out who they are, so we can congratulate them….

We’re going to do what we did back in 2010 and look at the new partner classes at the top ten most prestigious law firms, as ranked by our friends at Vault. We’ve debated in these pages for and against prestige, but at least as of now, prestige still carries a lot of weight in the legal profession. We don’t have the time or resources to write about the new partners at every Vault 100 or Am Law 100 firm, so we’re drawing this admittedly arbitrary line.

(Of course, we are open to writing about new partner classes at firms outside the Vault 10 or “V10,” as long as there’s something interesting about the announcement. If you think you have possible fodder for us, please email us and explain what you view as the noteworthy partner news.)

Now, without further ado, let’s look at the partner classes. If you click on each firm’s hyperlinked name, you’ll be taken to the firm’s profile in the Above the Law Career Center (where the firms are assigned letter grades for their “Insider Rating” and “Industry Reputation”).

1. Wachtell Lipton: For most firms, you can go to the firm website, surf over to their collected press releases, and find the release announcing the new partners. Alas, the publicity-shy Wachtell Lipton doesn’t post news releases on its notoriously barebones website (despite recently improvements to the site). But luckily I received this email announcement as a former Wachtell Lipton associate:

As many of you may already know, Ronald C. Chen, Gordon S. Moodie, DongJu Song and Bradley R. Wilson will become members of the firm on January 1, 2012.

You could say of this quartet what you could say of WLRK lawyers generally: an impressive group, with glittering résumés, although a bit short on diversity. All four are male; all graduated from top law schools (Harvard for Chen and Moodie, Duke for Song, and Cornell for Wilson); and three out of four are corporate lawyers, with Wilson as the lone litigator. Yes, Chen and Song are Asian, but some folks don’t think that counts for diversity purposes.

2. Cravath, Swaine & Moore: We previously discussed the new CSM partners back in November (in the course of speculating — correctly, as it turned out — that the larger-than-usual partner class would be followed by larger-than-usual bonuses). There were five new Cravath partners in all, we observed: “Three male corporate lawyers, a tax guy, and a litigatrix. Sounds like a good group.”

3. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom: In the latest Vault rankings, Skadden traded places with Sullivan & Cromwell, with Skadden moving up to third place and S&C moving down to fourth. Unlike many other firms, Skadden names new partners in April of each year. In April 2012, the firm made eleven new partners:

Robert A. Fumerton – Litigation – New York
Alejandro Gonzalez Lazzeri – Corporate/Latin America – New York
Scott C. Hopkins – Corporate – London

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