Weil Is Relieved To Lose Its Biggest Rainmaker. Cravath Is Thrilled To Get His ‘Values.’

Weil, Gotshal & Manges just lost its corporate chair. Its own partners called him the firm’s most powerful person, and a business generator who stands out in the industry. And yet… the prevailing mood inside the firm is closer to relief. Since Michael Aiello announced he was leaving for Cravath, the move Weil’s statement pointedly described as a jump to “a smaller platform,” partners have lined up to tell reporters the firm is better off without him.

That’s a strange thing to say about your biggest rainmaker.

Aiello was a polarizing figure, and nobody at Weil is pretending otherwise. Insiders describe a leader who was territorial over his practice, skeptical of growth, and a roadblock to recruiting. He reportedly called a longtime deputy “disloyal” for wanting to build a West Coast practice. And, despite the firm’s other notable departures, the vibe at Weil seems to be that getting rid of the friction Aiello brought to the table matters more than the hole his book of business leaves behind.

Then there’s Cravath’s side of the handshake. Presiding partner Faiza Saeed called Aiello and his team “a unique fit within our culture” who share “the values that have long defined Cravath.” Given what we know about Aiello’s work for Les Moonves, pointing to his “values” is, well, not where I would have gone with the statement.

Back in 2018, we wrote that Weil Gotshal had a big, big #MeToo problem, and Aiello was the reason. In January of that year, CBS’s independent directors wanted to know whether their CEO was exposed as #MeToo reporting swept through Hollywood, and they asked their M&A lawyer to look into it. According to New York attorney general’s report on CBS and Moonves, the resulting inquiry amounted to a single 20-minute phone call with Moonves, with Moonves’s own lawyer on the line, plus a request for his HR file. On that call, Moonves disclosed that a woman had filed a police complaint accusing him of sexual assault, and he described an encounter with an actress who, in his telling, ran out of the room. Aiello reportedly didn’t ask for names, and then told the board there had been some “rebuffed advances” in the distant past and that CBS had “nothing to worry about.” Neither the police complaint nor the actress made it into the briefing, and when the board pressed for details, Aiello said they “didn’t want to know” and that he “didn’t want to go there.”

None of this is a secret — Aiello’s role in the Moonves scandal was in the New York Times back in 2018. And yet, Cravath went with “values” anyway.

Which brings us to the Cravath of it all.

Aiello is a coup for a firm that badly needed one. Cravath has lost 28 partners since 2021, and it isn’t for lack of trying to keep them. In late 2021, the firm scrapped the lockstep compensation model it had used for nearly 50 years in favor of a modified lockstep meant to keep its rainmakers from wandering. But they’re wandering anyway. Davis Polk has taken six Cravath partners over that stretch. Freshfields has landed four directly, most recently Bethany Pfalzgraf this month, plus Keith Hallam by way of White & Case. And the exits have hit hard in 2026, with a dozen departures so far if you count Philip Boeckman, who heads to Liberty Media next month. These weren’t benchwarmers, either. The M&A co-head (George Schoen, to Martin Marietta), the chair of investigations (John Buretta, to Paul Hastings), a former FDIC chair (Jelena McWilliams, to Plaid), and last year, the private equity co-head (David Perkins, to Sidley).

It isn’t hard to see why. The lateral partner market is white hot, and firms are dangling eye-watering paydays to lure rainmakers across the street. Cravath has always sold something other than the biggest check. But it runs a much smaller partnership than most of its Biglaw peers, around 100ish partners, and at that size, losing roughly a fourth of them is significant. So bringing in Aiello and his team is a talent restock.

Weil got rid of the friction, and Cravath got the rainmaker. Time will tell which firm got the better end of that deal.

Earlier: The Cravath Shade Wasn’t A One-Off: Weil Insiders Line Up To Say Good Riddance
Weil’s Corporate Chair Decamps For Cravath, Which Weil Would Like You To Know Is ‘A Smaller Platform’
Cravath Is No Longer Immune To Partner Poaching
Weil Gotshal Has A Big, Big MeToo Problem