Wachtell lateral? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Wonder if billable hours at Wachtell matter at all. Aren’t they paid commissions like investment banks are. I would assume there is a lot of padding.

[Anonymous User]

What’s your source for those hours estimates? I heard directly from two Wachtell associates that 4000 is common, 3000 is floor, average can’t be much lower than 3500. They were terrified to speak on the subject. The firm goes to extraordinary lengths to conceal this information.

Someone billing 4,000 hours doesn’t have time to talk to other people unless it’s billable so not sure how you are talking to them.

[Anonymous User]

What’s your source for those hours estimates? I heard directly from two Wachtell associates that 4000 is common, 3000 is floor, average can’t be much lower than 3500. They were terrified to speak on the subject. The firm goes to extraordinary lengths to conceal this information.

Someone billing 4,000 hours doesn’t have time to talk to other people unless it’s billable so not sure how you are talking to them.

Ha. Well, these calls were difficult to schedule, and very short.

[Moneytrees]

Wonder if billable hours at Wachtell matter at all. Aren’t they paid commissions like investment banks are. I would assume there is a lot of padding.

100%. No one is ethically billing over 3,000 hours.

[Anonymous User]

Unsure why the 4,000 requirement was quoted--That is false. I know the Finance team are annualizing around 2,800 at the moment.

[Joachim2017]

Wonder if billable hours at Wachtell matter at all. Aren’t they paid commissions like investment banks are. I would assume there is a lot of padding.

100%. No one is ethically billing over 3,000 hours.

Pretty dumb take. 4,000 hours, sure, maybe. But 3,000 you can definitely ethically bill -- it's the people who aren't sitting around posting on TLS like you and me.

[Anonymous User]

To jump back here, any intel on if WLRK's bankruptcy/finance practice is hiring? I'm a midlevel at a peer firm (I don't know if they're really head-and-shoulders above everyone in public M&A, but they're definitely not in a league of their own in finance) and would be down for the money for a year or two before 9-5'ing it.

[Anonymous User]

Wonder if billable hours at Wachtell matter at all. Aren’t they paid commissions like investment banks are. I would assume there is a lot of padding.

100%. No one is ethically billing over 3,000 hours.

Pretty dumb take. 4,000 hours, sure, maybe. But 3,000 you can definitely ethically bill -- it's the people who aren't sitting around posting on TLS like you and me.

The point is not that it’s impossible to bill 3,000 ethically, but that billable hours prb don’t matter at Wachtell cus they get paid commissions not based on hours billed.