With troubled US firm Dewey & LeBoeuf on the brink of collapse, a number of firms have already stepped in to boost their City offerings by providing homes to small groups of partners. Twenty-four of the firm’s 33 London partners had plans to leave the firm at press time.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has emerged as the most acquisitive firm in London, taking six former Dewey partners in the capital, including its former London managing partner Peter Sharp.
Finance duo Bruce Johnston and Amanda Jennings, alongside M&A partner Amy Comer, agreed to join Morgan Lewis in May, following litigation partners David Waldron and Nick Greenwood. Johnston chaired the bank and institutional finance practice at Dewey and co-chaired the firm’s European insolvency group.
Johnston, alongside Jennings, most recently acted for Spartan Capital on its E4.4bn leveraged buyout of Poland’s Polkomtel last year. The pair, who have worked closely together for a number of years, were also in talks to join Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in April.
Morgan Lewis London managing partner Charles Lubar said: ‘We are excited to enhance the array of services we offer. Our dramatic growth in the UK over the past year has seen us more than double our headcount in London.’
Dechert meanwhile, has taken three former Dewey partners, while Akin Gump, Vinson & Elkins, Willkie Farr & Gallagher and McDermott Will & Emery have each hired two new partners.
Steve Blakeley, Akin Gump’s London managing partner, told LB: ‘We have a simple and clear strategy to focus on those practice areas where we have a strong reputation globally. In that context, we are always on the look out and when we became aware of the situation at Dewey & LeBoeuf, we hired two great energy lawyers.’
‘We are excited to enhance the array of services we offer.’
Charles Lubar,
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
But perhaps Willkie Farr’s acquisition of a 12-partner global insurance team in March (which saw partners Joseph Ferraro and Nicholas Bugler join in London) can be seen as something of a tipping point for the Dewey departures, which have truly accelerated since then.
At the time LB went to press, more than a third of Dewey’s global partnership of 300 had announced they were leaving the firm.
When LB went to press the London office was poised to wind down its UK LLP, with five partners heading the discussions. Sharp and Johnston are both on the committee, alongside European restructuring chief Mark Fennessy, restructuring partner Hazel Miller and UK tax chief Judith Harger.
Associates in the firm’s London office are also understood to have been told by management that the firm could not pay them beyond May. This news comes after firmwide management notified all US employees a week prior to this that they could lose their jobs and that the firm could shut down.
Meanwhile, a number of rival firms have stepped up their recruitment drives outside of London, taking on eye watering numbers of new partners.
On 9 May, it was announced that Winston & Strawn was to take on 22 litigation partners and one energy partner across the firm’s US and UK offices. The mass departure includes litigation chief Jeffrey Kessler, who was also part of the firm’s newly formed management team. Fellow management member Richard Shutran has also left for O’Melveny & Myers, along with five other New York-based partners.
Other firms to do well out of the Dewey crisis include Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which took a team of Silicon Valley corporate partners, White & Case, DLA Piper and Cooley.