Tipsters tell Above the Law that an associate at New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges has been fired for lying about graduating law school and passing the bar.
Apparently, Weil Gotshal doesn’t know they have papers to prove that kind of thing.
According to multiple sources from both inside and outside Weil Gotshal, the firm recently fired an associate for failure to graduate from law school…
…Weil did not respond to our requests for comment. But we imagine that it is not unusual for firms to hire a summer based on 1L grades, make them an offer when the summer is over, and then never really look at a transcript again.
What we do know is that the associate “attended” NYU Law School. Tipsters report that he then did some study abroad and thought his credits would transfer back over to NYU. They did not. He never made them up, hence, no diploma, no graduation…
Having failed to actually graduate from an accredited law school, the associate (perhaps wisely) spared himself the pain of sitting through the Bar Exam. He simply didn’t take it…
But perhaps I’ve buried the [lede]. It looks like there is an opening at Weil for a junior associate. Just make sure you can “document” your J.D.
Via ATL.
I used to work at Weil Gotshal and they did indeed check up on these things with reminders early and often to provide them with documentation of passing the bar. But it takes some time to get everyone’s paperwork (and Bar results don’t even come out until a few months after associates start work, so obviously when you start you haven’t pass the Bar yet). Until you have all of your paperwork in good order, Weil does not allow you to do legal work on your own and all documents and e-mails with your name on them have to state that you are not yet admitted to the Bar. Obviously this person could not produce the proper paperwork Weil Gotshal asked him for and thus was found out. I don’t see how what Weil supposed did wrong based on what I’m reading here.