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One of Wall Street’s highest paid lawyers is telling its outside law firms to end remote work and force their lawyers back to the office.
Morgan Stanley chief legal officer Eric Grossman on Thursday sent a note to law firms and legal service providers encouraging them to improve customer service by bringing lawyers and employees back to the office, according to a company official. . Grossman’s memo suggested that those who continued to operate remotely were risking their relationship with the financial services giant.
Grossman declined to comment on his missive, which comes as Big Law grapples with updated remote work policies stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Morgan Stanley has asked its own employees to plan to return to the office by Labor Day. In an earnings conference call Thursday with analysts, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said the best mentorship is looking at others in the workplace.
“I don’t think you can do this sitting at home on your own,” Gorman said. “I think there is a limit to the distance, as good as Zoom technology is, how far it can take you.”
Gorman, who was born in Australia and started his career as a lawyer working for a predecessor of DLA Piper, said his personal development had been “significantly” affected by his ability to hone his professional skills in the office.
Still, Gorman said Morgan Stanley would remain flexible for certain employees with health concerns or those caring for family members.
Morgan Stanley works with a number of outside law firms, including some of the largest in the United States
Shearman & Sterling; Greenberg Traurig; Morgan, Lewis and Bockius; Davis Polk & Wardwell; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison have collectively handled about 33% of Morgan Stanley’s federal litigation work in the United States over the past five years, according to data from Bloomberg Law.
Richard Rosenbaum, executive chairman of Greenberg Traurig, said in a statement to Bloomberg Law that “we have received the note from Mr. Grossman and deeply appreciate our long-term relationship with Morgan Stanley” and other clients “like” the both in the financial services space and elsewhere.
“Eric and several others have shown courage and leadership to speak out during these times and are uniquely positioned to influence the profession,” said Rosenbaum, who, along with other leaders at the firm, has traveled through the country as Greenberg Traurig brings back his lawyers. in the office.
Bradford Kaufman, co-chairman of Greenberg Traurig and partner in West Palm Beach, Florida, is the company’s partner with Morgan Stanley. Greenberg Traurig’s own chief legal counsel, Martin Kaminsky, is one of an eight-member group of the New York State Bar Association that has made recommendations to law firms about reopening their offices.
Rosenbaum, in his statement, said his company’s core values of trust, training, teamwork, personal respect, one-to-one relationships and customer service are best in an office environment. “Most of us recognize that these values are best served by being together and doing it in person as often as possible,” he said.
Grossman, a former partner at Davis Polk in New York, joined Morgan Stanley as Global Head of Litigation in 2006. The New York-based company promoted him to General Counsel in 2012, replacing Francis Barron, who only held this position for 18 months. after taking over from Gary Lynch in 2010.
Lynch, a former partner at Davis Polk, is now legal counsel to the firm after leaving Morgan Stanley in 2011. Over the next decade, Grossman became one of the highest paid lawyers in the financial services industry.
Bloomberg data shows Grossman currently owns nearly $ 27 million in Morgan Stanley shares. The company didn’t rank Grossman among its top five highest-paid executives in 2020, but he did receive a total salary valued at $ 11 million in 2019.
Morgan Stanley CEO Gorman earned $ 29.6 million in total compensation last year. About $ 9.4 million of that was in cash. Gorman currently owns more than $ 114 million in Morgan Stanley shares, according to Bloomberg data.
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