After a white-shoe lawyer was caught canoodling in Central Park with a junior associate last month, yet more gossip is spilling out about attorneys at his powerhouse firm, The Post has learned.
As exclusively reported by The Post on Monday, Nathaniel Cullerton, a 45-year-old partner at Wachtell Lipton, is being forced out of the firm after he was caught in a viral TikTok smooching 29-year-old Kelsey Borenzweig on a park bench.
Meanwhile, The Post has learned that Cullerton’s old boss Bill Savitt — the 63-year-old litigator who recently grilled Elon Musk on the witness stand on behalf of OpenAI in a blockbuster California trial — landed in more than one episode that set tongues wagging for years inside the elite law firm.
Last month, The Post revealed Savitt’s romantic relationship with fellow Wachtell partner Sarah Eddy, a 50-year-old star litigator who is following him to rival law firm Gibson Dunn as part of a lucrative defection of multiple attorneys from Wachtell that was led by Savitt.
Now, The Post has learned that there was also years of chatter at Wachtell about Savitt and another lawyer who is following him to Gibson Dunn – 46-year-old Anitha Reddy — after colleagues witnessed a pair of eyebrow-raising hotel sightings involving the two, sources told The Post.
On one occasion in 2018, Reddy – a Stanford-educated attorney then in her late-30s – was seen entering Savitt’s hotel room around dinnertime while the two were on a business trip in California, sources with knowledge of the situation told The Post.
During a separate trial in Wilmington, Delaware, Reddy was staying on a different floor from Savitt when several Wachtell associates encountered her late at night getting on an elevator headed toward the floor where Savitt was staying, a former Wachtell lawyer told The Post.
The lawyer did not witness the Delaware encounter firsthand, but said colleagues believed Reddy was headed to Savitt’s room.
The sightings at the hotels fueled years of chatter about Savitt and Reddy inside Wachtell, sources told The Post.
“There was definitely a vibe between them,” a source with knowledge of the situation told The Post.
“You could probably find cases where they worked it together — I believe and am told that most if not all of her cases were with Bill.”
Savitt and Reddy did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Reddy, who clerked for late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she became a Wachtell partner on Jan. 1, 2018, is one of five partners who followed Savitt to Gibson Dunn in the six-lawyer defection.
Also among them had been Cullerton, who lost out on the lucrative move after he was caught on the park bench.
Reddy became a partner before she was spotted entering Savitt’s hotel room in California, according to sources.
Sources told The Post that Savitt’s relationship with Eddy began after Savitt separated from his wife, interior designer Nazak Savitt, and did not violate Wachtell policy because the firm had no rule prohibiting consensual relationships between colleagues.
Savitt and his wife separated more than three years ago and filed for divorce more than a year ago, a source familiar with the situation told The Post.
Eddy, who had been divorced for about a decade, was a Wachtell partner and was not Savitt’s subordinate, sources with knowledge of the situation told The Post.
Savitt and Eddy’s relationship ended late last month right around the time that they left Wachtell, sources familiar with the situation told The Post.
Legal sources told The Post that Gibson guaranteed Savitt a staggering $96 million – or $32 million a year over three years — to lure him away from Wachtell. That figure has been fiercely disputed by Savitt’s new firm.
Gibson Dunn scrapped Cullerton’s planned hiring after a viral TikTok showed him kissing Borenzweig, sources told The Post. Sources with knowledge of the situation told The Post that the issue was not simply the viral clip, but the professional hierarchy it exposed.
Cullerton was a partner while Borenzweig was an associate in the same litigation department.
Cullerton was subsequently placed on leave from Wachtell pending an investigation, sources told The Post. The firm is currently in the process forcing Cullerton out, according to sources.