Gibson Dunn Lands Weil’s 120-Lawyer Funds Team, the Senate Calls Jensen Huang and Howard Lutnick & SEC and CFTC Nominees Head to the Senate

From Minimum Competence · 7:22

Show by Andrew and Gina Leahey

This Day in Legal History: Browder v. GayleOn November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court decision in Browder v. Gayle, holding that segregation on the buses of Montgomery, Alabama, was unconstitutional. The case was brought by four Black women, Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and Susie McDonald, each of whom had been mistreated or arrested for refusing to give up their seats. Their lawyer, Fred Gray, filed it in federal court in February 1956, in the middle of the Montgomery bus boycott that had begun after Rosa Parks’s arrest the previous December.A three-judge federal court ruled for the plaintiffs that June, 2 to 1, holding that Brown v. Board of Education’s rejection of “separate but equal” applied beyond schools. The Supreme Court affirmed without a full opinion, in a one-line summary order. It denied rehearing in December, and on December 20, 1956, after the order was delivered to city officials, the boycott ended. Black riders returned to Montgomery’s buses after 381 days.The significance of November 13, 1956 is that a single-sentence order from the Supreme Court helped end segregation on public transportation, and with it one of the defining campaigns of the civil rights movement. The boycott showed the power of collective action; the lawsuit turned that pressure into a binding legal rule. It’s also a reminder, relevant to how much law this year has been made on the Court’s emergency docket, that short, unexplained orders can carry enormous consequences.Two weeks ago we covered the collapse of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Now its partners have approved a wind-down plan, and the biggest pieces of the firm are being picked up. Gibson Dunn is hiring Weil’s private funds practice, a team of about 120 lawyers, including 23 partners, across New York, Washington, and London. Among them is Jonathon Soler, one of Weil’s co-managing partners, along with the heads of its private funds practice in New York and London. Weil’s other co-managing partner, Ramona Nee, is moving to Kirkland & Ellis with a team of about 40 private equity and finance lawyers. These large group moves, sometimes called “lift-outs,” raise legal questions that are worth understanding. First, lawyers generally can’t be bound by non-compete agreements. Under the ethics rules, a law firm can’t restrict a lawyer’s right to practice after leaving, because clients have the right to choose their lawyers, and they can follow lawyers to their new firm. Second, departing partners still owe fiduciary duties to their current firm until they leave. That generally means they can prepare to leave, but they shouldn’t secretly solicit clients or colleagues in ways that harm the firm before they go, and clients have to be told about their options fairly. In an orderly wind-down approved by the partnership, many of those tensions ease, because the firm itself is helping its practices find new homes. But as we discussed, dissolutions often still lead to litigation over money: clawbacks of partner distributions, unpaid compensation, and fees from matters taken to new firms. Private funds work is valuable, recurring, and highly relationship-driven, so moving the whole team together makes sense for clients and for Gibson Dunn. It also shows how a firm’s value lives in its people and client relationships, which is why it can disappear so quickly.Gibson Dunn taps Weil co-managing partner Soler as part of 120-lawyer hire | Reuters · Legal Business · Global Legal PostSenate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has asked former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify before the committee. Huang recently stepped down as Nvidia’s chief executive after reports of a romantic relationship with a businesswoman whom U.S. authorities reportedly suspect of spying for the Chinese government. To be clear, these are reports, and no charges against anyone have been reported. Lutnick has faced criticism from lawmakers over the administration’s decision not to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key trade blacklist, and over its oversight of Nvidia’s chip exports to China. Scott wrote that “recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive US technology.” He said he’d consider a subpoena if Huang doesn’t appear voluntarily. A Lutnick spokesperson said he has agreed to appear, and the White House said the President has complete confidence in him. Reports differ on whether both hearings are set for December 3, or whether Lutnick is scheduled a week later. Here’s the legal setting. As we discussed after the election, congressional oversight is one of the powers that doesn’t require the President’s signature. Committees can hold hearings, demand documents, and issue subpoenas, and someone who defies a valid subpoena can be held in contempt. A former CEO can still invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination if there’s a risk of criminal exposure, and…

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