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Revision as of 22:38, 23 December 2007

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Weil Gotshal is a highly reputable, ethical law firm that conducts thousands of high profile matters in a highly professional manner for satisfied clients. It seems to me that devoting nearly half of this article to misconduct and malpractice reflects a lack of balance. First, articles about other law firms do not commonly include such sections, even though all firms of this size deal with issues of misconduct and malpractice from time to time. Second, there is no mention of the scores of highly publicized, successful matters in which the firm was instrumental. Please note that I am a member of Weil Gotshal who merely wants the article on this fine firm to be accurate and balanced. Milleri (talk) 15:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Milleri, :Welcome to Misplaced Pages. Thank you for registering, it enables better communication. I've already got a fair amount of comments on my talk page (<- click to go there) regarding the periodic deletions of the misconduct section of the Weil, Gotshal & Manges article. Please see my talk page to see my full responce to your above comments. If you like, you can append your comment afterwards by editing the section. Note: it is preferred that people always sign their posts and I may likely delete any comment which is unsigned. It is easy to sign your posts, just but four tilde marks together "~". -- Knowsetfree (talk) 21:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I just stumbled on this article and I think that the first person posting may have a point. I am not intimately familiar with this law firm, but this article is short and there may be a WP:WEIGHT problem here because of the prominence given to the misconduct and malpractice sections. Question is, does this represent the available sourcing on this law firm from WP:RS sourches? If it does, there is no problem. If it does not, then there is a WEIGHT problem. I don't know the answer. I would suggest the person questioning the POV of this article provide additional information on the firm that can be considered in that regard.--Samiharris (talk) 21:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Samiharris. Thanks for joining the discussion. You "stumbling" upon the article here, you have missed the long history of edits to this article by anonymous users, which predates the recent admission by the "first person posting" Milleri that he/she is a member of the law firm. I would urge any editor to view all comments on this page in context with the more complete and verifiable history that is recorded here. You will see that Weil, Gotshal is not the only law firm which has anonymous users making deletions to misconduct section. Could you clarify what problem you have with the sources identified in the article? I'm surprised that you would bring it up, because clearly Milleri has identified himself as a member of the firm (belatedly) and Milleri does not dispute any of the facts. So, it is not clear to me if you are disputing the factual basis. As to balance, we are talking about a few sentences for each topic, so I don't see how weighting could be a potential problem. On the subject of weighting consider how much of the article is reporting positive informational facts and how much is reporting negative facts? Consider the broad range of articles on Misplaced Pages including George Bush, Martha Stewart, Michael Nifong, Barry Bonds, Pete Rose. Most article have pros and cons. In fact, Milleri's said that the controversies were normal for law firms of that size. We should not censure fact because it is unflattering. -- Knowsetfree (talk) 00:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't cut anything out, but as a preliminary fix I combined the two sections as one section with the less POV header "Controversies." My comments above still apply, as this section is approx. one third of the article, which seems somewhat large.--Samiharris (talk) 21:53, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Samiharris, The is a much more extensive history of edits to these two sections. The misconduct section and the malpractise section have nothing to do with each other. I could see including them under a section, but don't see the value of losing the distinctive sections. FYI, there are a number of other law firms with misconduct sections, so there is value in having a consistent section title. Furthermore, Milleri seemed to imply that there are a number of other law firms in a similar circumstance, or that firms of this size would be expected to have misconduct filings against them. I've asked Milleri to provide relevant references so we'll have to wait and see. -- Knowsetfree (talk) 00:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't reviewed the history of the edits. Personally, I don't think it matters in NPOV whether or not other firms have similar problems. The issue, I think, is solely whether the weight given to the malpractice/misconduct issues falls afoul of WP:WEIGHT, which reads in relevant part: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." One way of dealing with this dispute between yourself and Milleri is to ask for third opinions,or to post on the relevant board dealing with NPOV disputes. However, I think the thing to do is to bulk up the article generally, given the size and prominence of the firm. In an article of such limited size, it is untoward to have half of it taken up with criticism. Something tells me that this is how administrators would rule, if it came to that.--Samiharris (talk) 15:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is a neutral reference that may illuminate the situation: http://www.cobar.org/index.cfm/ID/156/subID/361/Consumer's-Guide-to-Legal-Malpractice-Insurance/. This reference says that "in any given year, a minimum of five to six insured lawyers out of every 100 in private practice will experience a malpractice claim". According to these data, it would be normal for a firm the size of Weil Gotshal to have over 60 claims per year, with or without merit. This is a tiny fraction of the number of matters the firm conducts each year. It seems to me that a balanced article on a firm of this type would be include issues of malpractice and misconduct in accurate proportion to its positive contributions. To the extent the material is factual, I don't object to its inclusion. It simply needs to be proportional. Milleri (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Milleri, glad you are still participating in the discussion. However, you have ignored my responces to your entry on my talk page. Not sure that I could have made it any easier for you. There is a long history associated with this page and that is why it is saved on my talk page, and why I referred you there. Also, your being a member of the firm is really something special. Can you at least answer this from the discussion:

• "Please note that I am a member of Weil Gotshal" Is it ordinary for a lawyer of your firm to argue about the ethical practices and reputation of your firm anonymously? Wouldn't it be more ethical for a lawyer to identity himself/herself when trying to defend or promote a cause in the public domain? Particularly when that cause has to do with the reputation of your firm? For how many of the anonymous edits attempting to censor what you consider undesirable facts were you responsible?

-- Knowsetfree (talk) 20:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The material from cobar.org really beg the question as to whether excess emphasis is given to malpractice and malfeasance in this article. But I suspect that you are right in that it is out of proportion, given the prominence of the firm.--Samiharris (talk) 16:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Samiharris. Does the cobar.org material beg the question? Let's take a look at Milleri's own "neutral reference" and his stated argument. He claims that Weil Gotshal should have more than 60 malpractice claims against it every year. Why don't you ask Milleri to give us the case numbers for the more than 60 claims from last year. It would already be public information, every lawsuit is public. Just the 60+ lawsuits filed against the firm in 2006, it would take 30 seconds to print out from their case tracking software. Not to get too sarcastic, but perhaps Milleri was knowingly arguing a point which he knew to be false. If he did that in a court room, he/she could get a finding of misconduct against him/her by the judge.

-- Knowsetfree (talk) 20:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The issue is very simple: is the "controversies" section excessively large, in light of the WP:RS sourcing available? No one has yet made the claim that the press coverage of this firm is quite as negative as is implied in this entry, which is one-third devoted to malpractice suits and wrongdoing. Can someone shed some light on this, one way or the other? --Samiharris (talk) 21:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, just to show you how open my mind is on this subject, I did a Google News check , and I found that yes, malpractice suits against the firm are indeed prominently featured. However, I still have my WEIGHT doubts and have asked an uninvolved administrator to take a look at this article. From skimming the Google News list, I see that there is a Refco suit that nobody has mentioned. Bottom line: this article needs considerable work and expansion on both positive and negative aspects. --Samiharris (talk) 22:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

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