Crosby, a Two-Year-Old AI Law Firm, Wants to Buy the Weil Gotshal Name: A Wall Street Giant Is Falling Apart and a Startup Is After the Brand

It sounds like a season of "Suits": Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a renowned Wall Street law firm with 1,200 lawyers, is preparing to vote on its own dissolution. The legal world has talked about nothing else this week. And right now, Silicon Valley walks on stage.

Crosby, a law firm built around artificial intelligence and just two years old, has reportedly bid for part of Weil Gotshal's assets: the trademark, the brand and some unspecified internal data. At the same time it is trying to hire some of its lawyers. The terms of the offer have not been published and there's no guarantee Crosby will succeed.

Let's be clear: robots did not bring down Weil Gotshal. Nobody so far has pointed to the rise of legal AI as the cause of the collapse. According to the American press, the man seen as the firm's future leader turned the job down, some of the lawyers who brought in the most work left, and a planned merger with rival Willkie Farr & Gallagher was shelved. The firm's fall is an entirely human affair. AI only turned up when it was time to divide the inheritance.

Unlike Harvey and Legora, which sell AI tools to existing firms, Crosby is itself a law firm. Using its own technology, it offers legal services at a speed which, according to the startup, wasn't possible before. It has raised around 85 million dollars (around 76 million euros), including 60 million dollars in March, in a round led by Lux and Index, with Sequoia taking part. It came out of stealth in 2025 with 5.8 million dollars in seed money.

If the bid goes through, the Weil Gotshal name will live on in a firm offering legal services through artificial intelligence. But a law firm's name is only worth what the people behind it are worth. If they scatter, what is Crosby actually buying - the reputation, or just the label?