When the partners at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy gather with their spouses and significant others next week for their scheduled resort retreat, they will hear the annual state of the firm speech delivered by a new firm chair for the first time since 1996. Scott Edelman, 49, a litigator and the newly elected chair, will address his partners, replacing Mel Immergut, 66, the longest-serving head of any Am Law 100 firm in New York.
The transition, carefully planned and set in motion four years ago when Edelman was installed as vice-chairman, and Immergut declared him his designated successor, is meant to be seamless. “My hope is that I will walk out of the building and no one will notice that anything has changed,” says Immergut. But the handover marks the end of a remarkable run for one of the oldest firms in the city, a firm whose future was not guaranteed when Immergut, then a mid-career corporate lawyer with a business school education and a gift for client development, took the reins.
