• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

The Next Big I.P.O. Scramble?

Fifty years ago, DLJ changed Wall Street forever by altering the conventional wisdom as the first private investment bank to go public in an I.P.O. It set off a tidal wave of followers. Now, is Big Law ready for its moment?

Is the day approaching when some of the most prestigious Wall Street law firms—Cravath, Wachtell, Weil Gotshal or Paul Weiss, for example—go public?
Is the day fast approaching when some of the most prestigious Wall Street law firms—Cravath or Wachtell or Weil Gotshal, for example—go public? Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
March 8, 2023

On the afternoon of May 22, 1969, Dan Lufkin, the 36-year-old investment banker and co-founder of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a small research-focused investment banking and brokerage firm, or DLJ as it was known, walked into his first board of governors meeting at the august New York Stock Exchange. He was carrying with him a copy of a document that he had filed two hours earlier with the Securities and Exchange Commision. It was the first step in the process that would transform DLJ from a 10-year-old private partnership, with its stock owned by the firm’s partners and their friends, into a public company with shares that could be bought or sold by anyone willing to do so.