Ramona Nee, Weil’s executive partner in waiting, takes a 40-lawyer private equity and debt finance team to Kirkland & Ellis as her old firm winds down. But read Kirkland’s announcement and you would never know Weil, Gotshal & Manges existed. The firm’s name does not appear once.
Kirkland & Ellis has confirmed that 40 lawyers led by Ramona Nee will join the firm in January, in what is one of the largest single group moves out of Weil, Gotshal & Manges since Weil’s leadership recommended an orderly wind-down on 28 October.
Nee arrives with Boston private equity and M&A partners Jakub Wronski, Emily Willey and Michael Messina, plus New York debt finance partners Benton Lewis and Paul Overmyer, according to The Global Legal Post.
Kirkland’s own announcement describes them as PE/M&A and finance specialists with deep sponsor relationships. It does not mention where they are coming from.
The Law Leader who Never Took Office
In March, Weil named her as successor to Barry Wolf, who has run the firm for 16 years, with the handover set for 1 January 2027, but she never took office. A Weil ‘lifer’, until now, she co-heads its US private equity practice and serves as the firm’s co-managing partner.
Bloomberg Law reported that Nee told a small group of firm leaders in August she no longer intended to take the job. The decision became public in late October, after merger talks with Willkie Farr & Gallagher collapsed. LawFuel covered the fallout at the time. Within days, Weil’s management committee had recommended winding the firm down.
The Weil Team
| Lawyer | Practice | Base | Background |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ramona Nee | PE/M&A | Boston | 25+ years; Weil co-managing partner and US PE co-head |
| Jakub Wronski | PE/M&A | Boston | Co-managing partner of Weil’s Boston office |
| Emily Willey | PE/M&A | Boston | 2026 M&A Advisor Emerging Leader |
| Michael Messina | PE/M&A | Boston | Lawdragon 500 X Next Generation |
| Benton Lewis | Debt finance | New York | Acquisition, ABL, DIP and exit financings; 2024 Burton Award |
| Paul Overmyer | Debt finance | New York | 2025 IFLR1000 rising star, banking and finance |
Wronski co-managed Weil’s Boston office. Willey and Messina are younger partners from Weil’s Boston PE bench. Lewis and Overmyer give the group its own leveraged finance capability.
The headcount also grew in the telling. The American Lawyer reported a team of about 20 on 3 November. Bloomberg Law put it at 40 or more. The final number is 40. For scale, Weil’s entire Boston office had 39 lawyers, according to a Boston Business Journal survey, though Kirkland’s intake includes New York finance lawyers too.
What Kirkland said
Jon A. Ballis, (above) chairman of Kirkland’s executive committee, said each partner had built deep relationships with leading private equity sponsors and would be a terrific fit with the firm’s platform and clients.
Nee thanked Kirkland for its collegiality during what she called “this period.” Given the period in question involves her previous firm dissolving, that is a reasonable piece of understatement.
Weil’s collapse has been brutally fast. More than 30 partners left this year, Reuters reported, beginning with corporate chair Michael Aiello’s move to Cravath. Private equity partners then went to Simpson Thacher and Paul Weiss.
The firm brought in AlixPartners and Davis Polk restructuring counsel, and says it intends to wind down solvently and out of court.
Nee’s group was one of the last intact, high-performing PE units left at Weil. It is now going, whole, to the firm that already dominates sponsor-side work. Kirkland does not need another private equity practice but apparently it is very keen to have Advent’s and Providence’s lawyer, and a deeper Boston bench.
Weil chose a PE specialist as its next leader to compete with Kirkland and Latham, Bloomberg Law reported. The outcome is that Kirkland got the specialist. Firms whose private equity strategy rests on one or two rainmakers might want to carefully think about their firm structure and partnership agreements.
The team joins Kirkland in January. For Weil’s remaining associates and staff, who have been told they will be paid for 90 days and receive year-end bonuses, the new year will look less encouraging. And for major law firms, the lessons about firm failure show that the best teams do not scatter, but consolidate. Every PE partner at a firm with a wobbly succession plan has just been handed a very clear picture of where the exit door leads.
