Former Dewey & LeBoeuf partner secures summary dismissal against Barclays in battle over capital loan

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As the fallout from the demise of Dewey & LeBoeuf continues, the High Court has just dismissed an application made by Barclays for a summary judgment over liability for a capital loan made against a former partner of the now-defunct US firm.

The ruling, published on 28 February, dealt with Barclays contention that former Dewey partner Charles Landgraf was liable for the repayment of a loan totalling $486,000 paid into the firm’s account to cover his capital contribution, plus interest. Continue reading “Former Dewey & LeBoeuf partner secures summary dismissal against Barclays in battle over capital loan”

Forget Dewey – in Wall Street star power is greater than ever

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I flew into Manhattan to The New Yorker chronicling the death of Big Law with a pacey dissection of the fall of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Three days later I flew out to The New York Times covering the fee bonanza for Wall Street lawyers generated by J.P. Morgan’s regulatory nightmare.

There you have it – Manhattan’s legal market remains as contradictory and seductive as ever. Eighteen months since Dewey collapsed, it’s not apparent that the world’s largest legal failure has had much impact at all. Certainly, there has been no discernible hard look in the mirror or serious questioning of the elevation of the star system that contributed – combined with a score of other failings – to Dewey’s final chapter.

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Former Dewey chairman to pay $500k mismanagement settlement

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Steve Davis, former chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf, has offered to pay over half a million dollars to settle claims against him following the firm’s collapse last year.

Davis has agreed to pay $511,145 in the form of a promissory note to the firm’s liquidation trust, after Dewey became the largest law firm in US history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last May.

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Global 100 – Dewey & LeBoeuf – Lessons from a downfall

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Dewey & LeBoeuf went from 26th in last year’s Global 100 to filing for bankruptcy in May this year. What can the Global 100 learn from the firm’s demise? 

Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey; Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison; Heller Ehrman; and Howrey, the US legal market has quite a track record when it comes to large law firm failures.

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Creditors draw battle lines over Dewey & LeBoeuf assets

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An intense and long-running battle is set to begin over the assets of Dewey & LeBoeuf which, as many observers had long predicted, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on 28 May.

The filing sets the stage for a struggle between creditors that experts predict could run for years in a process that one observer likened to ‘bear-baiting’.

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The reality gap and the Global 100

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There is a curious phenomenon that affects both the NHS and, now it seems, the legal sector. The reality gap. Ask a patient treated in hospital for a broken leg what their experience of the doctors and hospital was, and in the main it will be positive. But ask the same person what they think of the NHS on the whole, and usually they will say that the whole system is going to the dogs.

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Rival firms benefit from imminent Dewey collapse in City

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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.

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Throwing a lifeline from a sinking ship

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In early May, members of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s management team left the firm. One headed for the greener pastures of O’Melveny & Myers; one headed for a new home at Winston & Strawn; while the others went to Proskauer Rose and Arnold & Porter. Online message boards lit up like a Christmas tree, with commentators likening those moves to ‘rats fleeing a sinking ship’ and to Francesco Schettino, the captain who allegedly left the sinking Costa Cruise ship off the coast of Italy.

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Dewey management in denial as exits continue

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Management at Dewey & LeBoeuf has reacted defensively to widespread partner exits in 2012, contending the firm’s position is ‘strong’ and that it will ‘meet its financial targets for the year’.

Dewey has already seen a mass exodus of partners from its business since the start of the year, with almost 70 partners having departed – one of the highest number of partner departures in such a short timeframe.

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