This week we’ve seen two big bankruptcy-lawyer moves. On Friday, Bruce Zirinsky and John Bae left Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft (sometimes we use cadwalader.com and sometimes cwt.com – only difference is the color of the landing page, apparently) for Greenberg Traurig; yesterday, Michael Sage went from O’Melveny & Myers to Dechert. Both Zirinsky and Sage were the heads of their former firms’ bankruptcy groups and have taken on the same roles in their new firms.
As we mentioned earlier today, Cadwalader’s PEP plummeted 30% to $1.9 million. That’s still higher than Greenberg’s $1.3 million for 2007 – but Cadwalader may well be a sinking ship. Sage left O’Melveny’s $1.635 million for Dechert’s $2.35 million – that’s our kind of move.
This follows on the heels of several other moves in the area. As The American Lawyer reported,
plaintiffs firm Milberg kicked off its own bankruptcy practice by hiring Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s former practice co-head Jonathan Landers. Bankruptcy star James Sprayregen returned to Kirkland & Ellis in December after a two-year stint at Goldman Sachs. And in November, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker announced it hired Luc Despins from Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy.
Bankruptcy is clearly one of the very few hot practice areas these days. More on the movers and the bankruptcy market, after the jump.
Zirinsky (Cornell BS ’69, NYU JD ’72) was a “Dealmaker of the Year” for 2008, according to the American Lawyer. He is probably best known for his work representing Northwest Airlines in its Chapter 11, but he also lists Bear Sterns and Mirant among his notable cases. Zirinsky joined Cadwalader 10 years ago with M&A hotshot Dennis Block, when he made the big jump from Weil Gotshal. According to The Lawyer, Zirinsky had wanted a spot on Cadwalader’s management committee for years. It didn’t come with the ouster of former chair Bob Link in early 2008, but he was on the slate that stood for election today. Interesting timing.
Bae (SUNY Albany BA ’86, Hofstra JD ’89) is tagging along with Zirinsky. Our sources tell us that Bae is the bag man, doing the heavy lifting for Zirinsky and others. Bae lists the Drexel Burnham & Lambert bankruptcy on his brag sheet. We’ve been big fans of Drexel and Mike Milken for a long, long time now. It must have been one of Bae’s first deals – he graduated in ’89 and DBL went under in ’90. Query how gauche it is for a partner with a 20-year career to go back so far.
We also have it on good authority that for sure one brand-spanking new CWT partner and possibly some associates will be going to Greenberg with Zirinsky and Bae.
Sage (Vermont BA ’85, Emory JD ’88) is supposedly going alone, but
Sage has a history of moves, often with others coming along. He joined O’Melveny not long ago in May 2007 from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan with three partners in tow. He had joined Stroock in 2002 from Dewey & Ballantine with eight associates following him.
Why so many moves? The hopping bankruptcy wasn’t enough to save 131 jobs at Cadwalader last year – so did Zirinsky get tired of dragging the dead weight? It’s certainly no surprise that these guys are in high demand.
The National Law Journal reported last week on the optimism of a number of big bankruptcy lawyers. According to the article, lawyers from Weil, Sidley Austin, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden predict (not really going out on a limb here) a huge uptick in bankruptcy work this year. What was interesting, though, was that the firms indicated that they were either pretty well staffed, but willing to take opportunistic hires, or actively staffing up. Transactional lawyers should be re-working their resumes to highlight the bankruptcy components of deals they’ve worked on.
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