Sony Pictures General Counsel Leah Weil to Step Down

Pictures Entertainment General Counsel Leah Weil is stepping down and transitioning to an advisory role after nearly 30 years with the company to focus on family, friends and other personal priorities that she’s pushed aside because of the non stop nature of her job, she announced in a memo to staff on Tuesday.

“After more than three decades of making difficult decisions on a daily basis, I have recently made the most difficult one of my professional career,” Weil wrote. “[A]fter thinking about my job and my life, I realized that after almost 28 years of an SPE career that has required a 24/7 commitment, what I wanted more is the stress free ability to focus on some personal priorities, to reconnect with friends, spend quality time with family, and to embark on adventures with my husband.” Weil, who received ‘s Raising the Bar Award in 2010, has been with Sony Pictures since 1996.

During her time with the company, Weil guided SPE through its acquisition of Marvel’s intellectual property rights in Spider Man — still the studio’s most valuable IP — as well as the 2014 email hack, a spate of acquisitions, and its guild negotiations. In addition to legal matters for SPE’s divisions across the globe, Weil oversaw ethics and compliance, government affairs, corporate social responsibility, labor relations and more.

Sony Pictures chair Tony Vinciquerra also wrote to staff on Tuesday to praise Weil’s decades of work. “During her time as GC, she transformed the entire legal operation into a fully integrated and essential part of our overall business,” Vinciquerra wrote. “Leah really has seen it all. From leading our efforts on historic and transformative deals, having a key role in hundreds of projects and strategic initiatives, playing an integral part of the studio’s transformation into the digital age, to guiding SPE through challenging crises such as the 2014 cyber attack and the global COVID pandemic, to leading our efforts in the historic and extraordinarily challenging WGA and SAG AFTRA negotiations this year, to overseeing and executing the myriad day to day transactions that are critical to keeping all our businesses thriving.” Weil will remain in the role in the coming months during the search for her successor and will then transition into an advisory position.

“I am truly lucky to be able to say that I struggled with this decision,” Weil wrote. “While there has never really been a ‘good’ time to leave it does feel like the right time in my life to make this transition. I will deeply miss being an active part of the community we have built, but I am excited about the future and having the time to turn my attention back to things and relationships that have so often been pushed aside while I have been focused on the press of work.” THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.