A revolt inside one of the nation’s most powerful law firms ended the 18-year reign of Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp after newly released emails revealed a deeper and more troubling relationship with Jeffrey Epstein than partners had previously understood.
Most notably: the revelation that Karp reviewed legal documents for Epstein months before the financier’s death, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The breaking point came Wednesday, when an elite group of roughly 10 senior partners who run Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP — known internally as the “Deciding Group” — met without Karp’s knowledge to debate whether he could remain as chairman.
The partners were responding to a fresh batch of Epstein emails that showed an association lasting years and extending into 2019, long after Epstein’s criminal history was widely known.
Of particular concern were emails from that year in which Karp appeared to review a draft court filing for Epstein during a plea-deal fight just months before Epstein died in federal custody.
By the end of the meeting, the group agreed Karp had become too much of a distraction to continue leading the firm. They selected Scott Barshay, a top corporate rainmaker Karp himself had recruited a decade earlier, to replace him.
Barshay met with Karp in person late Wednesday and delivered the news, telling him the group had concluded the Epstein ties were untenable and that he needed to step aside as chairman.
Barshay, 60, also told Karp he would be succeeding him.
Karp was stunned but said he wanted to do what was best for the firm. Leadership informed the broader partnership shortly afterward on a firmwide video call.
Karp, 66, plans to remain at Paul Weiss as a partner and retain his client work, the firm said. His clients include Apollo Global Management and the National Football League.
Karp is expected to move into a new office near Barshay’s when the firm relocates to a new Midtown Manhattan headquarters in coming years.
Until this week, Karp had been determined to weather the storm. As the latest Epstein files trickled out over the weekend, he signaled to colleagues that he believed the controversy would pass — much as he had survived a separate crisis less than a year earlier.
That earlier episode came after President Trump issued a series of executive orders targeting major law firms, threatening to restrict their access to federal buildings and jeopardize client government contracts.
After Paul Weiss received such an order, Karp personally negotiated with Trump for the firm to provide $40 million in pro bono legal work in exchange for relief.
The unprecedented agreement rattled the legal industry, with several other large firms later striking similar deals, collectively pledging nearly $1 billion in pro bono work.
The decision angered some clients and prompted the departure of several Paul Weiss partners, including high-profile litigators. Even so, partners said the firm posted a record year in 2025.
Karp’s second, Epstein-related crisis, however, proved fatal to his leadership.
The newly released emails show Karp’s relationship with Epstein included dinners at the disgraced financier’s Manhattan mansion and attendance by Karp’s family members at private Woody Allen movie screenings.
In another exchange, the late convicted sex offender asked Republican strategist Steve Bannon to help Karp gain membership at Augusta National Golf Club.
Paul Weiss has said the firm never represented Epstein.
In response to the emails, a spokesman said, “Mr. Karp never witnessed or participated in any misconduct. Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.”
Still, some partners said Karp’s long-recognized people-pleasing instinct — a trait that helped him win clients and consolidate power at the firm — ultimately worked against him. They said his eagerness to placate Epstein blinded him to reputational risks that later proved impossible to contain.
Karp had been scheduled to appear this week at the WSJ Invest Live conference in West Palm Beach, where he was to speak about leadership in uncertain times.
He traveled to Florida ahead of the event, while aides scrambled to prepare him for questions about Epstein. He withdrew late Monday night.
During his tenure, Karp transformed Paul Weiss into a corporate powerhouse.
A lifer at the firm who joined as a summer associate, he was instrumental in recruiting Barshay from Cravath in 2016 — a rare lateral move at the time — to build out a once-nascent mergers and acquisitions practice.
Barshay went on to advise clients including IBM and Merck and defend companies against activist investors such as Elliott Investment Management.
Barshay had long told colleagues he never wanted the chairman’s job.
Now, he inherits a firm still profitable but deeply shaken — and a legacy defined by how a leader who survived one storm could not survive another.
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