Here are pictures from O'Melveny's wild offsite partner meetings for the years 2015, 2016-1, 2016-2, 2017, 2018-1, 2018-2, 2019, and 2022. Lots of singing and dancing; they really know how to cut a rug.
If you scroll through 2022's pics, you'll see them celebrating that they were the only firm to not settle the Oklahoma opioid litigation, denying victims compensation.
You'll also see O'Melveny ridiculing former Allen & Overy head Wim Dejonghe, making it seem like they rejected him when their merger collapsed. They also criticize British beer and say their new address will be "No Movery Drive, Washington DC, 00000" (a play on "Overy.")
According to reports, the merger collapsed back in 2019 because O'Melveny demanded too much money, so I'm not sure why they're mocking him in 2022. Maybe he came back and asked to merge again? If so, this seems like a tasteless way to treat such an overture -- to make a whole presentation at your partner meeting mocking the guy? Any way, a year after these pictures were taken Allen & Overy merged with Shearman & Sterling, a more suitable partner. Sometimes things work out for the best.
Incidentally, the woman leading each year's performance is Catalina Vergara, the one who seemed to make it her mission to punish me after I naively wrote a memo to the firm -- about how our boss Brian Boyle had lied to a federal court, advocated for torture and criticized the Geneva Convention. The blond woman performing some years is Danielle Morris, who made partner after seemingly derailing the careers of about half a dozen associates. The guy dancing in white tights in 2016 is George Demos, discussed here. The redbone woman singing each year is Sabrina Strong, discussed here.
Even the other singer at these events, Marc Feinstein ... I just searched "Marc Feinstein O'Melveny" and there's a tweet accusing him of something, and his name pops up in this case accusing O'Melveny of bill padding. (I only met Marc once, and his first response after hellos was to make me run down my qualifications to show him why I'm worthy of practicing there.)
If you factor in lateral hires, promotions and attrition, O'Melveny had well over 200 partners during the years I wrote this blog, maybe 250. Offhand, ten(?) at the most fifteen of them had anything worth discussing here. As a student of correlations, it's interesting that the tiny minority of partners discussed in this blog turned out to be so correlated with the partners who took to the stage at partner offsites. Maybe a certain type of person seeks the limelight at these events.
[Addendum: There was another picture at the partner meetings, below, of the aforementioned Brian Boyle. I was thinking of turning this into a full post but I'll add it as an addendum to save me a few hours. In the picture, O'Melveny mocks Mr. Boyle as "Boyle the mohel" for giving clients discounts, analogizing it to cutting the skin off of penises. Imagine how naïve I was to think O'Melveny would care about the fact that he lied to a federal court, advocated for torture and criticized the Geneva Convention, when all they really cared about was that he was giving clients discounts. Hopefully you're more informed after reading this blog.
By the way, it appears the photographer removed the websites linked in the first paragraph. To be clear, these were public pictures, see e.g. these screen caps of a google search I just did; it takes google a few days to remove formerly public websites from its results page. It's a shame you can no longer see the full set as Mr. Rovner is good at capturing the vibe.]
