One late fall day in 1964, Herbert Wachtell called his law school friend Martin Lipton to ask what he was doing. As a junior partner at corporate boutique Seligson & Morris, Lipton often referred litigation work to Wachtell, who already had his own two-partner practice. As a matter of fact, Lipton said, he was planning to start a new firm with his partners Leonard Rosen and George Katz. The young Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz were all friends from the NYU Law Review of the early 1950s. Wachtell and Lipton, who remain sharp everyday practitioners at the ages of 84 and 83, respectively, remember the day well.
“I said, ‘Oh,’” recalls Wachtell. “Then Marty said, ‘Oh.’ And Marty said, ‘We’re going out to look at some space in midtown today. Would you like to come along?’”
