http://abovethelaw.com/2012/05/dewey-have-anyone-left-to-turn-out-the-lights/
Dewey Have Anyone Left To Turn Out the Lights?
By DAVID LAT
That’s the question the WSJ Law Blog just asked about the [pick your favorite adjective: beleaguered / collapsing / flailing / troubled] law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Today brings big, bad news for Dewey: bankruptcy superstar Martin Bienenstock is taking his practice to Proskauer Rose. He’s moving with five other partners — Philip Abelson, Irena Goldstein, Timothy Karcher, Michael Kessler, Judy Liu — and nine associates.
http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202553146329&Partner_Departures_Continue_at_Dewey__LeBoeuf
and.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/dewey-idUSL1E8GAJWO20120510
and......
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/05/dewey-have-underfunded-pension-plans-feds-say-yes-stepping-in-to-pay-the-shortfall/
We have previously discussed the subject of pensions at the deeply troubled law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Right now it’s looking quite likely that the firm will wind up in dissolution or bankruptcy. If the firm does go down that path, what will happen to the retirement benefits of current and former employees?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/a-dewey-bond-offering-made-no-mention-of-partner-guarantees/
and....
Brendan Smialowski/Getty ImagesJeffrey Kessler, right, with DeMaurice Smith, center, head of the N.F.L. players’ union.
Partner departures from the rapidly sinking Dewey & LeBoeuf have reached a point where it’s difficult to track them in real time. We’ll focus our coverage on the biggest defections. There are multiple other resources for monitoring all the moves, the latest being the Wall Street Journal’s interactive graphic. (Similar trackers are available from Am Law Daily and Thomson Reuters.)
- BANKRUPTCY, BIGLAW, BLOOMBERG, BRACEWELL & GIULIANI, DEWEY & LEBOEUF,DISSOLUTION, LATERAL MOVES, MEDIA AND JOURNALISM, ORRICK HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE, PARTNER ISSUES, PARTNER PROFITS, PROSKAUER ROSE, SECURITIES LAW, VIDEOS, YOUTUBE
Dewey Have Anyone Left To Turn Out the Lights?
(Plus an actual lawsuit, a possible lawsuit, and a partner’s theory of blame.)
By DAVID LATThat’s the question the WSJ Law Blog just asked about the [pick your favorite adjective: beleaguered / collapsing / flailing / troubled] law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Today brings big, bad news for Dewey: bankruptcy superstar Martin Bienenstock is taking his practice to Proskauer Rose. He’s moving with five other partners — Philip Abelson, Irena Goldstein, Timothy Karcher, Michael Kessler, Judy Liu — and nine associates.
Dewey’s loss is Proskauer’s gain. “He is absolutely the crown jewel over there, a fantastic lawyer who will be a great partner,” a current Proskauer partner told us. “This is going to vault us into the company of Kirkland and Weil, giving us one of the top bankruptcy practices in the country. We are really thrilled.”
As you may recall, Bienenstock was a member of the five-person Office of the Chairman at Dewey. As my colleague Staci Zaretsky wondered earlier today, “Dewey seriously have one chairman again?” With Bienenstock to Proskauer, Jeffrey Kessler to Winston & Strawn, Richard Shutran to O’Melveny & Myers, and Steve Davis off to who knows where, only Charles Landgraf remains in the chairman’s office. (Note thatLandgraf’s bio is still on the Dewey website.)
Bienenstock’s departure doesn’t mark the end of Dewey’s difficulties. Let’s review the latest news….
Of course we’ve added UPDATES, after the jump.
1. A federal takeover of pension plans. As we reported last night, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has stepped in to take over three D&L pension plans covering almost 1,800 people. The plans were underfunded by more than $80 million.
2. A WARN Act lawsuit. We suspected this was coming. As we also mentioned last night (see the update to this post), Dewey has been hit with its first lawsuit alleging that it violated the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act, which requires employers to provide employees with advance notice of mass layoffs.
The complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court (S.D.N.Y.) by Vittoria Conn, a document specialist at Dewey. Conn is being represented by Jack Raisner of Outten & Golden — who was, as you may recall, one of the first lawyers to comment publicly on Dewey’s WARN Act issues. You can read more about the suit at theWSJ Law Blog, which has a copy of the complaint, and at Bloomberg and Am Law Daily (reg. req.).
3. A possible Securities Act lawsuit. As we previously discussed, some industry observers wonder whether the offering memorandum for Dewey’s $125 million private placement of bonds could give rise to litigation. The issue is discussed over at DealBook, which has a copy of the 58-page document. (We’re going to be returning to the offering memo later; if you have interesting observations about it, feel free to email us.)
4. Continued partner departures. Martin Bienenstock and his bankruptcy colleagues aren’t the only departing Dewey lawyers. For example, Orrick recently picked up two D&L partners, Dmitry Gubarev and Leo Batalov, in Moscow. Earlier this week, Bracewell & Giuliani added five Dewey energy partners to its ranks: John Klauberg and Frederick Lark in New York, Catherine McCarthy and David Poe in Washington, and Charles Vandenburgh in Connecticut. These are just selected lateral moves; feel free to mention others in the comments.
UPDATE (10:25 AM): There’s a long and detailed round-up of the latest Dewey partner hires in this Am Law Daily story. As we’ve mentioned before, Dewey partner trackers are available from Thomson Reuters, Am Law, and the Wall Street Journal.
So how did it come to this? One former Dewey partner has a theory….
http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202553146329&Partner_Departures_Continue_at_Dewey__LeBoeuf
Partner Departures Continue at Dewey & LeBoeuf
New York Law Journal
May 11, 2012
As the leadership of Dewey & LeBoeuf huddles behind closed doors, partners continued yesterday to leave the firm. Among the moves:
• William Lamb and Michael Didriksen joined Baker Botts' energy practice in New York, while Thomas Moore joined Baker's Houston office. Lamb was a co-chair of Dewey's utilities, power and pipelines global industry sector. Didriksen was in Dewey's U.S. energy and utilities practice, representing energy companies and other corporate clients. Moore served as co-chair of the energy M&A practice at Dewey.
• Mayer Brown added Barbara Goodstein as a partner in the banking and finance practice.
• Henry Ricardo became a partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. He focuses on financial services litigation and general commercial, bankruptcy and IP disputes.
• Securities litigator Robert Myers moved to Clifford Chance as senior counsel in the litigation department.
Meanwhile, Dewey's management continues to talk with other firms, meeting with lenders and "trying to work out deals with creditors" while getting advice, said Bill Brandt, a consultant who often advises bankrupt law firms and their estates. His firm was hired to consult with Dewey. Brandt said on May 9 that Dewey is still operating with a "core group" of attorneys and is planning for a $5 million payroll on May 15. Administrative staff were reportedly told their last day is today, while the last day for some associates is May 15.
The firm has "begun some reductions in force to reflect the fact that some practice areas have changed," Brandt said. "We've tried to adjust our headcount to focus on living within our means and to be productive." No dissolution vote has been scheduled, and no one at the firm is planning on bankruptcy, he said. Brandt didn't discount the idea of a merger, even after talks failed between Dewey and Greenberg Traurig. He also said "large silos" or small groups of attorneys could go to other firms, while other law firms may be interested in a "marquee New York office." He added, "Dewey as a standalone firm is a longshot. We'll see where these transactions will go."
and.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/dewey-idUSL1E8GAJWO20120510
UPDATE 1-Dewey fires 450 people in New York -lawsuit
By Nate Raymond
May 10 (Reuters) - Dewey & LeBoeuf has terminated about 450 people at its New York office effective Friday, according to a lawsuit filed by an employee who complained the law firm failed to give her adequate notice.
The employees received notice of the layoffs on Monday, according to the lawsuit. Angelo Kakolyris, a spokesman for Dewey, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The layoffs could be a death blow for Dewey, once one of the biggest law firms in the United States. The firm has been struggling for weeks with partner defections and debt, and it warned employees on May 4 that it could close its doors.
Thursday's lawsuit was filed by Vittoria Conn, a worker in Dewey's document production department, who said the company owes her 60 days of pay because it failed to give adequate notice.
The action was brought in federal court in New York under federal and state laws that require employers to give 60 to 90 days' notice before mass layoffs. Conn said she was notified Monday that her last day would be Friday.
The lawsuit sought class-action status for others laid off by the company. Dewey "terminated approximately 450 employees at its Facility on or about May 7, 2012, effective on or about May 11," the lawsuit said.
In a letter sent to employees on May 4, Dewey's management said it was "possible that adverse developments could ultimately result in the closure of the firm, which would result in the termination of your employment."
Separately on Thursday, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation said it would take over three pension plans covering 1,800 people sponsored by Dewey. The plans were underfunded by more than $80 million, the federal agency said.
and......
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/05/dewey-have-underfunded-pension-plans-feds-say-yes-stepping-in-to-pay-the-shortfall/
- BANKRUPTCY, BIGLAW, DEWEY & LEBOEUF, DEWEY BALLANTINE, DISSOLUTION,ERISA, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, LEBOEUF LAMB, OLD PEOPLE, PARTNER ISSUES
Dewey Have Underfunded Pension Plans? Feds Say Yes, Stepping In To Pay the Shortfall
By DAVID LATWe have previously discussed the subject of pensions at the deeply troubled law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Right now it’s looking quite likely that the firm will wind up in dissolution or bankruptcy. If the firm does go down that path, what will happen to the retirement benefits of current and former employees?
Today we have some news on that front….
In our prior discussion of pension benefits at Dewey & LeBoeuf, we quoted an ERISA lawyer who provided the following information:
and about that Dewey bond offering .......You asked what would happen to the D&L pension plan. I expect if it is a regular defined benefit plan, then DL will terminate it using a “distress termination” and the PBGC will take over the plan. Once the PBGC takes over the plan, benefits are guaranteed but only up to certain limits. The participants in the plan will end up with some retirement benefit, but, depending on the underfunding, not up to the level of benefit that they were originally promised. You can read more about distress terminations on the PBGC website.I should add that if the partners participate in a nonqualified plan, their benefits under that plan have no level of guarantee and are subject to the claims of the firm’s creditors – in other words, they are not likely to see anything.
seems that this ERISA hottie’s prediction has come to pass. The PBGC just issued a press release:
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will take responsibility for three pension plans that cover nearly 1,800 people sponsored by Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, a law firm based in New York City.PBGC is stepping in to secure its ability to collect against the firm’s affiliates that share funding responsibility for the pension plans.Collectively, the plans are underfunded by more than $80 million. The agency will pay the shortfall, up to limits set by law.Eighty million dollars is quite a chunk of change — even more than Morton Pierce claims he’s owed by the firm. Dewey must be relieved to pass that buck on to the federal government. But before you start complaining about D&L partners saddling the American taxpayer with what should be their liabilities, please note: “PBGC receives no funds from general tax revenues. Operations are financed by insurance premiums set by Congress and paid by sponsors of defined benefit plans, investment income, assets from pension plans trusteed by PBGC, and recoveries from the companies formerly responsible for the plans.”Back to the PBGC’s Dewey press release:PBGC has determined that Dewey & LeBoeuf’s pension plans should end on May 11, 2012. PBGC will pay guaranteed benefits up to about $56,000 a year for a 65-year-old retiree.Those receiving benefits will continue to do so without interruption. Future retirees will get their pensions when eligible.
That must be a relief for current and former Dewey employees entitled to pension benefits. Also, I have to say: a defined benefit pension plan paying $56K a year is pretty sweet. Many of us have defined contribution plans, which are often less generous and more risky than defined benefit plans. Defined contribution plans are alsonot insured (because they are always “fully funded”).Of course, not everyone is going to get $56K a year. Benefits will depend upon several factors, including how long the employee worked at the firm, vesting schedules, etc. From a former LeBoeuf Lamb lawyer:Although tiny in the scheme of things, legacy LeBoeuf did have a pension plan for associates in the 80’s, in which associates could accrue and vest up to a max of $1000/month when they turned 65. Vesting occurred in $200/month increments per year of service. While LeBoeuf stopped vesting sometime in the early 90’s (maybe 92), they didn’t take away previously vested amounts.While the $600/month I was supposed to get won’t do much except pay for coffee, assuming it isn’t either funded or guaranteed, it will be a shame to see it go.But will it go? Perhaps not, thanks to the PBGC coming to the rescue.So that’s some good news about Dewey & LeBoeuf. We’ll return to the bad news — and yes, there is more bad news out there to report — tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to check out the full PBGC press release, reprinted in full on the next page.
PBGC MOVES TO PROTECT BENEFITS AT DEWEY & LEBOEUF — PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 10, 2012WASHINGTON — The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will take responsibility for three pension plans that cover nearly1,800 people sponsored by Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, a law firm based in New York City.PBGC is stepping in to secure its ability to collect against the firm’s affiliates that share funding responsibility for the pension plans.Collectively, the plans are underfunded by more than $80 million. The agency will pay the shortfall, up to limits set by law.PBGC has determined that Dewey & LeBoeuf’s pension plans should end on May 11, 2012.PBGC will pay guaranteed benefits up to about $56,000 a year for a 65-year-old retiree.Those receiving benefits will continue to do so without interruption. Future retirees will get their pensions when eligible.About PBGCPBGC protects the pension benefits of 44 million Americans in 27,500 private-sector pension plans. The agency is directly responsible for paying the benefits of more than 1.5 million people in failed pension plans. PBGC receives no taxpayer dollars and never has. Its operations are financed by insurance premiums and with assets and recoveries from failed plans.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/a-dewey-bond-offering-made-no-mention-of-partner-guarantees/
A Dewey Bond Offering Made No Mention of Partner Guarantees
BY PETER LATTMAN
A bond offering by Dewey & LeBoeuf did not disclose the extensive guarantees that it gave to partners, an omission that could subject the law firm to litigation, securities lawyers say.
In March 2010, Dewey raised $125 million in a private bond offering, an unusual move by a law firm. The offering document, which was obtained by DealBook, paints a rosy picture of Dewey, even as cracks in the firm’s finances were starting to show.
The 58-page document trumpets Dewey’s “global footprint,” “exceptionally diverse client base,” and “strong financial condition and conservative debt profile.”
Now, however, Dewey, which at its peak in 2007 employed 1,300 lawyers, has effectively shut down amid a partner exodus. On Thursday, federal regulators moved to take over the firm’s pension plan, saying it was underfunded by about $80 million.
At the core of Dewey’s financial problems were the multiyear, multimillion-dollar pay contracts it gave existing top lawyers and star recruits. Beginning in 2008, the firm fell short of its projections and started accumulating millions of dollars owed to its partners. Those continued to pile up until things came to a head after the firm posted disappointing results last year and asked the partners to take substantial salary cuts.
Legal-industry experts have also blamed Dewey’s heavy debt load as a major factor in its problems.
Several securities lawyers said that it was rare for a private bond offering like Dewey’s to contain no “risk factors,” which are typically included in an offering to warn investors about potential issues with a company’s financial condition.
“It is highly unusual to see no risk factors in a securities offering,” said Andrew Stoltman, a securities lawyer in Chicago.
“And it also seems to me that these big contracts that the Dewey partners had and weren’t getting paid on would be material information to a potential investor,” Mr. Stoltman said.
A spokesman for Dewey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, which served as the placement agent on the offering, declined to comment. As placement agent, JPMorgan is not responsible for the risk disclosures.
Dewey has said that its debt levels were not excessive. In addition to the $125 million bond issued to refinance older bank loans, the firm had $75 million drawn on a credit line. Large law firms rarely raise outside debt, typically using bank credit lines and partners’ capital to run the firm.
Because Dewey’s bond issue was a private placement, the offering was limited to sophisticated investors capable of fending for themselves. Large insurance companies bought the largest pieces of the Dewey bond issue, including Hartford Financial and the British insurer Aviva, according to people with direct knowledge of the deal.
Spokesmen for Hartford and Aviva declined to comment.
Spokesmen for Hartford and Aviva declined to comment.
The Dewey bonds, some of which matures next year, are trading at deeply distressed levels and are in an “apparent death spiral,” according to a research note from CRT Capital Group last week.
When Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae merged in October 2007, the firms’ lawyers joked that “LeBoeuf married up, and Dewey married rich.” In other words, LeBoeuf was gaining the prestige of the storied Dewey name, while a financially weakened Dewey was gaining LeBoeuf’s solid balance sheet.
Dewey’s bond offering document highlights just how much the Dewey firm had been struggling in the period leading up to its combination with LeBoeuf.
The document shows that Dewey’s net income had dropped from $134 million in the 12 months ending September 2006 to $54 million in the next 12 months, a 60 percent decrease in earnings.
LeBoeuf, by comparison, had steady earnings, reporting $174 million in net income in 2006 and $275 million in 2007. (The 2007 net income number includes three months of Dewey Ballantine’s performance.)
The combined firm’s financial woes came largely from the pay guarantees given to Dewey’s partners. At a partnership meeting last October, the firm’s roughly 300 partners learned that about one-third of them had multiyear contracts. Collectively, they were due tens of millions of dollars in back pay. This led to dissension among the partners and an eventual mass defection.
“We knew there were guarantees but I don’t think anyone imagined that it was 100,” a former Dewey partner, Stuart Saft, said in a television interview with Bloomberg Law on Thursday. “We thought it was 20 to 25. I was shocked when I learned how many there were.”
and....
Dewey’s Jeffrey Kessler Heading to Winston & Strawn
BY PETER LATTMANBrendan Smialowski/Getty ImagesJeffrey Kessler, right, with DeMaurice Smith, center, head of the N.F.L. players’ union.
1:49 p.m. | Updated
One of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s four members of its office of the chairman is departing for a rival, the latest sign that the firm is on the brink of collapse.
Jeffrey Kessler, who headed Dewey & LeBoeuf’s litigation department and is a top sports-industry lawyer, is leaving to join Winston & Strawn, according to a person with direct knowledge of his decision.
Mr. Kessler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As recently as last week, Mr. Kessler maintained that the firm had no plans to close in mid-May or to seek bankruptcy protection.
A spokesman for Winston & Strawn did not immediately respond for comment. Mr. Kessler’s planned move was earlier reported by the Above the Law blogA number of Dewey partners are expected to join him at Winston, this person said, including Seth Farber and Harvey Kurzweil.
Mr. Farber and Mr. Kurzweil are the two Dewey partners who are conducting an internal investigation of Steven H. Davis, the former Dewey chairman. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has also opened an inquiry into Mr. Davis’s conduct as head of the firm. Mr. Davis has denied any wrongdoing.
Mr. Kessler was one of four Dewey partners who ousted Mr. Davis from his leadership post late last month as they tried to save the firm.
Winston & Strawn, an old-line Chicago firm with about 900 lawyers, is perhaps best known for its litigation practice. Its chairman, Dan K. Webb, is considered one of the country’s leading trial lawyers.
Dewey & LeBoeuf, which has been devastated by partner defections and financial woes, has effectively ceased operations as large groups of partners leave the firm each day. Dewey’s junior lawyers were told on Tuesday that Monday would be their last day at the firm.
A Brooklyn native, Mr. Kessler earned his college and law degrees from Columbia University. As one of the country’s leading sports-industry lawyers, Mr. Kessler has represented all four major sports leagues players’ unions and numerous star athletes individually, including the basketball player Lattrell Sprewell and the football player Terrell Owens.
Mr. Kessler, who had a contract paying him $5.5 million a year at Dewey, was a vocal proponent of the firm’s star system of compensation that gave top producers outsize multiyear, multimillion-dollar contracts. Those contracts created obligations that Dewey, after posting disappointing financial results, could not meet, leading to a mass exodus of partners in recent weeksIn an interview in March, Mr. Kessler said there was immense pressure to pay big producers who brought in the clients, while the partners that did the grunt work were worth less and less. He analogized it to the sports world, where the salary spread has widened between star players and others on the team.
He observed that the pay spread between what the New York Yankees all-star Alex Rodriguez and the rest of the team today was far greater than that of the Yankees legend Mickey Mantle and his teammates in the 1950s. The dynamics in corporate law were the same, he said.
“The value for the stars has gone up, while the value of service partners has gone down,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, Richard Shutran, another member of the four-person office of the chairman, departed for O’Melveny & Myers. Mr. Shutran, a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, will join O’Melveny along with four other Dewey partners — Junaid H. Chida, Arthur V. Hazlitt, Mark Caterini and Dev R. Sen.
and......
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/05/dewey-know-where-the-firm-leaders-are-going-head-of-litigation-heads-for-the-exit/
- BIGLAW, DEWEY & LEBOEUF, GREENBERG TRAURIG, KING & SPALDING, LATERAL MOVES, LITIGATORS, MORRISON & FOERSTER, MUSICAL CHAIRS, O'MELVENY & MYERS, PARTNER ISSUES,UNITED KINGDOM / GREAT BRITAIN, WINSTON & STRAWN
Dewey Know Where the Firm Leaders Are Going? Heads of Departments Head for the Exits
By DAVID LATPartner departures from the rapidly sinking Dewey & LeBoeuf have reached a point where it’s difficult to track them in real time. We’ll focus our coverage on the biggest defections. There are multiple other resources for monitoring all the moves, the latest being the Wall Street Journal’s interactive graphic. (Similar trackers are available from Am Law Daily and Thomson Reuters.)
Last week, an internal memo gave Dewey partners the green light to consider “alternative opportunities” with other law firms. Many partners have availed themselves of that permission, with dozens of partners leaving the firm since the memo’s issuance. According to Thomson Reuters, about 150 of Dewey’s 300 partners have resigned since the start of 2012.
And now one of Dewey’s leaders — the chair of the firm’s Global Litigation Department, and a member of the multi-partner Office of the Chairman — is departing. Where is he going?
As usual, various UPDATES — including news of another departure by a department head and Chairman’s Office member, and additional details of litigators on the move — after the jump.
Jeffrey Kessler
Late last week, we reported that Jeffrey Kessler — head of litigation at Dewey, co-chair of its sports litigation practice, and most importantly, one of the four members of the Office of the Chairman — was looking for a new firm for himself and several of his colleagues. Interestingly enough, he was shopping himself and his group around despite publicly insisting to the media that “there is no plan [for Dewey] to close on May 15,” and no plans for a vote of dissolution.
In a story from yesterday, Am Law Daily reported that Kessler had narrowed his talks to a handful of firms:
Several sources familiar with one large group still at Dewey, a 60-lawyer litigation practice led by global department chair Kessler, say that it has held discussions with Greenberg Traurig, King & Spalding, Morrison & Foerster, and Winston & Strawn. One source told The Am Law Daily that Kessler was mulling several options, including keeping the group intact or spinning off different pieces to various firms in order to salvage as many associate jobs as possible. Kessler, who also co-chairs Dewey’s sports litigation practice, did not respond to a request for comment on where his group might land.
Above the Law can now report, based on multiple sources at Dewey, that Jeffrey Kessler is going to Winston & Strawn. The deal was finalized yesterday afternoon, and Kessler will be starting at Winston on Monday.
(Neither Kessler nor a Winston spokesperson responded to immediate requests for comment. If and when they do, we will update this post.)
We understand that Kessler will be moving from Dewey to Winston with a significant number of other partners — at least ten, possibly more. Partners we’ve heard mentioned as likely moving — but not confirmed, like Kessler — include, in alphabetical order, Suzanne Jaffe Bloom, Eva Cole, Seth Farber, David Feher, David Greenspan, Adam Kaiser, Harvey Kurzweil, and Paul Victor.
We also hear that some associates and staff will be joining Winston with the partners, but we don’t yet know the number. It’s heartening to hear that some partners are bringing junior lawyers and support staff with them to their new homes.
Of course, not all partners have not been so loyal to their colleagues. As one Dewey source told us yesterday, “Some partners have been atrocious human beings — including telling their associates for years that they were forbidden to work on anyone else’s matters, but then abandoning those same associates to a sinking ship without so much as a ‘thank you for your hard work.’”
For Dewey lawyers and staffers who have not yet found new employment, check out this Facebook group, theDewey & LeBoeuf Job Share (via Am Law Daily). The group, which currently has 569 members, is a place for sharing potential job opportunities for D&L attorneys and staff.
UPDATE (11:25 AM): Here are some Dewey dispatches from around the world:
1. London: Remaining London associates aren’t guaranteed pay beyond May 31, according to The Lawyer (via the ABA Journal).
2. Rome and Milan: The Italian offices “will separate from Dewey and operate as a standalone firm under a name yet to be decided,” according to Legal Week (via Am Law Daily).
UPDATE (12:15 PM): We’re hearing reports, somewhat vague in nature, that the D.C., Boston, and Albany offices of Dewey may be going the way of the New York office (i.e., laying off staff and associates this month, in preparation for eventual closure).
UPDATE (12:35 PM): The California offices of D&L are scheduled to shut down by May 15.
UPDATE (12:55 PM): Here are reports on Jeff Kessler’s move from the New York Times (Peter Lattman) and the WSJ Law Blog (Ashby Jones). The NYT piece has this interesting background on Kessler:
A Brooklyn native, Mr. Kessler earned his college and law degrees from Columbia University. As one of the country’s leading sports-industry lawyers, Mr. Kessler has represented all four major sports leagues players’ unions and numerous star athletes individually, including the basketball player Lattrell Sprewell and the football player Terrell Owens.Mr. Kessler, who had a contract paying him $5.5 million a year at Dewey, was a vocal proponent of the firm’s star system of compensation that gave top producers outsize multiyear, multimillion-dollar contracts…. In an interview in March, Mr. Kessler said there was immense pressure to pay big producers who brought in the clients, while the partners that did the grunt work were worth less and less. He analogized it to the sports world, where the salary spread has widened between star players and others on the team….
“The value for the stars has gone up, while the value of service partners has gone down,” he said.
Read the full piece over at DealBook.
Richard ShutranThe WSJ also has this news of another major departure — that of Richard Shutran, also a member of the Office of the Chairman:Richard Shutran, the chair of Dewey’s corporate department is leaving for O’Melveny & Myers, according to a person familiar with the matter. Joining him are four other partners, including Junaid Chida, the co-chair of the firm’s renewable and clean energy practice, and Art Hazlitt, the chair of the firm’s tax department.Read more at the WSJ Law Blog.UPDATE (3:35 PM): The WSJ Law Blog has added this update to its post:[T]he move from Dewey to Winston & Strawn is more than just Jeff Kessler. Much much more.Winston will take 24 of Dewey’s litigation partners, and about 60 lawyers total, according to Dan Webb, Winston’s chairman. Some of the bold-faced names include Seth Farber, Susanne Jaffe Bloom, Paul Victor and Harvey Kurzweil. Webb said that while most of the litigators are in New York, lawyers in London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Chicago will be joining Winston.
It’s a happy day,” said Webb to the WSJ. “We’d been looking to build up our litigation, especially in New York, and this goes a long way to accomplishing that.”
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