Weil Gotshal’s Collapse Puts Its 37,379-Sq.-Ft. Back Bay Office in Limbo

Four and a half months after it opened a bigger Weil Gotshal Boston office at Lyrik Back Bay, the law firm is planning to shut down altogether. That leaves about 37,000 square feet of freshly built-out space at 1001 Boylston St. with an uncertain future, at a moment when Boston’s market for subleased offices has been shrinking.

37,379 sq. ft. Weil’s new Boston office · 39 Boston lawyers · about 1,200 lawyers firmwide · 90 days of pay promised to associates and staff

What Weil Gotshal announced

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the New York-based firm founded in 1931, plans an orderly wind-down outside of bankruptcy, Reuters reported on Oct. 28. The firm has hired the consulting firm AlixPartners to advise on the dissolution, and associates and staff were told they would be paid for 90 days and receive year-end bonuses, according to a person familiar with the plan cited by Reuters.

The decision followed a wave of partner departures this year and merger talks with Willkie Farr & Gallagher that fell apart, Reuters reported. Weil had about 1,200 lawyers and brought in more than $2 billion in revenue last year, with profits per equity partner of roughly $5.4 million, according to figures from The American Lawyer cited in a Reuters explainer on what comes next.

A Back Bay office that just opened

The timing stings in Boston. On June 15, Weil announced its move to Suite 300 at 1001 Boylston St., part of the Lyrik Back Bay development over the Massachusetts Turnpike. The firm said the new office grew from 28,174 to 37,379 square feet, about a third larger than its old space, across two floors with a patio. It also said it had secured additional room in the building with a phased expansion planned. CarGurus and LEGO are also tenants there, according to the firm’s release.

Weil had been in Boston since 2002 and said it had added seven partners in the city since January 2025, with private equity clients including Advent International, Providence Equity and PSG. The office had 39 lawyers, the Boston Business Journal has reported, and the paper said separately that more than 50 Boston lawyers and staff were looking for new jobs. Harvard and Boston College law schools are helping affected students and graduates, according to the Business Journal.

The Business Journal reported on Monday that the lease began in May, and that the firm’s demise will test the city’s sublease market if the space is put up for sublease or handed back to the landlord. Weil has not publicly said what it plans to do with the Boylston Street lease.

By the numbers: where Back Bay stands

Back Bay is one of the healthier parts of downtown Boston’s office market, which matters for whoever ends up filling Weil’s floors. Total vacancy in Back Bay was 18.3% in the third quarter of 2026, compared with 23.2% across the central business district, according to the Newmark 3Q26 Boston Office Market Report. Back Bay has absorbed a net 84,225 square feet so far this year, while the district as a whole has lost a net 430,102 square feet.

The newest high-rise space is doing best. Newmark said Back Bay high-rise floors would post a vacancy rate of just 0.2% if treated as their own submarket, while low-rise vacancy there jumped 670 basis points after Northeastern University vacated 177 Huntington Ave. Weil’s office sits in a new building, which puts it closer to the in-demand end of that split.

Sublease supply is also turning. Newmark said sublease space rose to 14.8% of all available space in the district, up from 13.5% the quarter before, after Amazon listed about half of its new building at 1 Boston Wharf Rd. in the Seaport. Weil’s 37,379 square feet would be about 0.6% of the 6.6 million square feet of sublease space available across Greater Boston, by TBR calculations. That is small for the region but sizable for a single new Back Bay block.

Our Take

This section is analysis. A dissolving law firm is an unusual sublease seller: it cannot wait out a slow market the way a growing company can, so the space may be priced to move. That could give a mid-size firm a quick, ready-made Back Bay office. It also comes as Boston law firms have been trading up to top-floor space at record rents, so demand for new towers is real. The bigger risk is to the wider market narrative. With Greater Boston office vacancy at a record 24% and big blocks like 100 Summer Street changing hands at a discount, every new sublease listing pushes against the recent sign that the overhang was shrinking.

What to watch

The next markers are whether Weil or its landlord lists the space, how many Boston partners land at other firms, and whether Newmark’s fourth-quarter numbers show the sublease share rising again. For more on the city’s companies and commercial real estate, follow our Boston business news coverage.

Sources

• Reuters: Weil Gotshal law firm plans to dissolve (Oct. 28, 2026)
• Reuters: What’s next for Weil Gotshal as it plans dissolution
• Weil: Weil strengthens Boston presence with move to Lyrik Back Bay (June 15, 2026)
• Boston Business Journal: Weil Gotshal’s demise and the Boston sublease market (Nov. 2, 2026)
• Newmark: 3Q26 Boston Office Market Report (PDF)