Tags: Bankruptcy, Harvey Miller, Law firms, Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy: Weil Gotshal’s $55 million fee reimbursement application
On April - 16 - 2009
160 year old law firm Thacher Proffitt closing its doors
On December - 23 - 2008
Venerable law firm Thacher Profitt & Wood is now history, another victim of the subprime debt mess. Over half of its lawyers had abandoned ship for a competitor:
Tags: Credit Crunch, Law firms, Lawyers, Revolving Door
- Lehman Hardest Hit by Biggest Rise in Borrowing Cost Since 2000
- Einhorn awaits new distressed debt price falls
- Marshall Wace set to pursue financials
- European hedge fund launches fall to six-year low
- U.S. lawyers busy as hedge funds face scrutiny
Tags: Greenlight Capital, Hedge funds, Law firms, Legal, Lehman Brothers, Marshall Wace
Cityfile’s 59th & Fifth power grid
On July - 14 - 2008
Cool new site Cityfile.com has a great interactive 3D map where you can navigate around and see where the big money firms — like Icahn & Co, Paulson & Co, Och Ziff, Perry Capital, etc.– are located around 59th Street and Fifth Avenue. Above is a screen shot; the interactive tool is here.
Tags: Hedge funds, investment banking, Law firms
Law firms can’t escape the credit crunch either: Clifford Chance axes six structured finance associates even as bonuses at other firms are announced:
On November - 6 - 2007
In one of the first clear signs that
slumping credit markets are causing economic pain at law firms, Clifford Chance
on Monday laid off a group of associates in the structured finance area.John Christian, the partner in charge of the London-based firm’s U.S. personnel
committee, said the firm had made a difficult "business decision" to
lay off the six associates in a practice group that worked exclusively for
credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s. The lawyers in the group had
reviewed the documentation S&P used to rate mortgage-backed securities, the
market for which has collapsed in recent months."We concluded this work just wasn’t coming back," Christian said. He
declined to discuss the severance packages offered to the associates, but one of
those terminated said they were offered three months’ salary with no bonus.
Indeed, the associate said the timing of the layoffs seemed designed to deprive
the targeted associates, all of whom were relatively senior, of their bonuses.
Tags: Credit Crunch, Law firms, Lawyers, Revolving Door
Dewey Ballantine and LeBouef, Lamb get the urge to merge
On August - 27 - 2007
The combined firm will be known as Dewey
& LeBoeuf LLP and have more than 1,300 attorneys and annual revenue
approaching $1 billion. Steven Davis, LeBoeuf’s chairman, will lead the new
firm. The merger, which was agreed to late Friday, is expected to take effect
Oct. 1, with the firms’ partnerships voting on the deal in the coming weeks.While law-firm mergers have become
commonplace, combinations among the nation’s largest firms occur infrequently,
and marriages involving top New York law firms are rarer still.
Profits-per-partner at the two firms are virtually identical. In 2006, Dewey
partners earned an average of $1.45 million; LeBoeuf’s made $1.43 million,
according to the American Lawyer magazine.In an interview yesterday at Dewey’s
midtown Manhattan offices, both Mr. Davis and Morton Pierce, Dewey’s
co-chairman, cited the increasing globalization of the legal market as an
important reason for the combination. Though the firms already have sizable
presences outside the U.S. — 38% of Dewey’s lawyers and 35% of LeBoeuf’s
attorneys are based abroad — the deal allows the firms to accelerate their
international expansion, they said.
Dewey-LeBoeuf Merger Shows Trend Stressing Global Growth – Wall Street Journal
- Citadel Vet Cracks Whip
- Oaktree to Try A New Twist For Share Sale
- Cravath Adds a Bankruptcy Practice
Tags: Bankruptcy, Citadel, Distressed, Goldman Sachs, Hedge funds, Law firms, Lawyers
Did Larry Sonsini receive backdated Novell options?
On October - 3 - 2006
Larry Sonsini, chairman of law firm Wilson Sonsini, may himself have been the beneficiary of backdated options received at their lows from Novell when he was on that company’s board in 1999. That’s suggested by an article in the Recorder, a San Francisco legal publication. Good thing he hired white collar crime lawyer Michael Madigan of Akin Gump recently to represent him in the Hewlett Packard mess. He may want to keep him on retainer.
Sonsini…was on Novell Inc.’s board when the directors awarded themselves 50,000 stock options each in 1999 — at what turned out to be a 17-month low in the share price, according to the Recorder, a San Francisco-based legal publication.
The timing of Novell’s Oct. 26, 1999, grants raises questions about whether the options were issued when Novell said they were, the Recorder said Monday.
Tags: Backdating, Law firms, Lawyers
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Sullivan & Cromwell gets first half 2006 U.S. M&A crown
On August - 21 - 2006
Sullivan & Cromwell is the number one law firm for the first six months of 2006 in U.S. M&A activity with total deal value of $318 billion. Skadden Arps and Wachtell Lipton were two and three, with $302 billion and $251 billion respectively.
Sullivan unseats Simpson Thacher at top of US M&A deals table – TheLawyer.com
Tags: Law firms
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More law firm partners have to make do without equity
On August - 14 - 2006
Making partner at a law firm used to mean owning a piece of equity in the firm. These days, equity is harder to come by, with most new "partners" only in name only….
Tags: Law firms
Uncategorized
They giveth and they taketh away: Sullivan & Cromwell breaks rank and raises base pay by $20K, however…
On February - 7 - 2006
While big name NY law firms have largely ignored the pay increases being bestowed on associates in other parts of the U.S., most notably out on the west coast, Sullivan & Cromwell became the first elite NY law firm to give its worker bees a break by increasing base salaries. That’s the good news. The bad news is that bonuses could go down as a result….
Tags: Law firms
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New York law firms say ‘We don’t care what they do in La-La land; No pay raises for you!’
On January - 26 - 2006
While a pay war on the West Coast is forcing associates’ pay rates upward, tightwad New York law firms appear to be having none of it….
Tags: Law firms
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Sullivan & Cromwell top M&A Lawyers for 2nd year in a row
On December - 30 - 2005
For the 2nd year in a row, Sullivan & Cromwell was the top legal dog in M&A:
The New York-based firm advised on $330 billion in transactions this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News as of Dec. 28. Procter & Gamble Co.’s $57.3 billion purchase of razor maker Gillette Co. and Gas Natural SDG SA’s plan to buy Endesa SA for $51.4 billion was almost a third of the total.
“The level of activity has been building up the last month or two,” said Frank Aquila, a Sullivan & Cromwell partner. “We have a very strong pipeline headed into 2006, as do most of the M&A law firms and the investment banks.”
Law firms benefited from this year’s 31 percent surge in the value of all mergers and acquisitions to $2.58 trillion, behind only 1999 and a record $2.95 trillion in 2000. The value of deals Sullivan & Cromwell advised on rose 19 percent from last year. The No. 2 firm, London-based Clifford Chance, saw its total jump 78 percent to $328.3 billion.
Here are the rankings for 2005:
Top-Ranked M&A Law Firms for 2005
Firm Value of Deals (in billions)
Sullivan & Cromwell $330.3
Clifford Chance $328.3
Freshfields Bruckhaus $301.7
Linklaters $260.0
Jones Day $259.4
Simpson Thacher $253.8
Wachtell Lipton $248.0
Skadden Arps $237.5
Cleary Gottlieb $197.0
Osler Hoskin $195.4Based on data compiled as of Dec. 28, 2005
Sullivan & Cromwell Tops M&A Legal Adviser Rankings a 2nd Year – Bloomberg
Tags: Law firms
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Wall Street Law firm bonuses so far show little change from last year
On December - 14 - 2005
It looks like bonuses at Wall Street law firms won’t be keeping up with those expected to be heaped upon their Wall Street financial brethren. Associates’ bonuses will mostly be on a par with last year which is considered a major disappointment. Some firms have yet to announce including Simpson Thacher, Davis Polk, Paul Weiss and Cleary Gottlieb.
Last week Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy and Clifford Chance confirmed their 2005 bonus rates, which range from $30,000 (£17,300) to $60,000 (£34,600). The rates match the levels set by Sullivan & Cromwell and Cravath Swaine & Moore.
The static bonus rates are on top of the standard starting salary of $125,000 (£72,000), giving first-year associates a total remuneration package of $155,000 (£89,500).
The news has been met with a hostile reaction by New York associates, who had been hoping for sizeable increases in line with the US investment banking sector.
One Manhattan associate told Legal Week: "The announced bonuses are exactly the same as last year’s, despite rising business and profitability at law firms, so they represent a lower percentage of gross profits for law firms."
Bonus rates remain static as NY firms await spur – Legal Week
