Legal giant Paul Weiss is getting a new chairman for the first time in nearly two decades, but this transition is definitely not happening in a planned, orderly fashion.

Brad Karp stepped down from the role yesterday after the latest tranche of Justice Department documents showed he had surprisingly close ties to disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—far closer than what Paul Weiss had originally indicated.

On this special episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law editor Chris Opfer talks about what happened at this elite law firm and about the informal work Karp did for Epstein shortly before his death. Opfer also talks about why the firm's profits may not actually suffer that much from this abrupt change in leadership.

"Long gone are the days of Paul Weiss being this, sort of, large litigation boutique," Opfer said. "It's much more a corporate-focused mega-firm."

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