White & Case, which was the posterchild for the demise of BigLaw in a New York Times article about Law Shucks from earlier this year, has finally gotten around to giving London some representation on the firm’s executive committee.
Dimitrios Drivas, a New York IP partner, is stepping down for Oliver Brettle, managing partner of the London office (pictured).
More on the management shakeup, and the firm’s dreadful third-quarter distribution after the jump.
The London office has been glaringly omitted from the firm’s leadership since the end of the Hurlock regime (during which every office was equally bereft of a voice). That treatment was no small part of the reason Mike Goetz (who was sent from W&C NY to London in 2000) and Maurice Allen (a Brit who left Clifford Chance for Weil Gotshal for W&C around the same time) left for Freshfields last year.
In essence, well-informed outsiders said Allen and Goetz were sufficiently disenchanted with White & Case’s central management and the level of recognition the London office was receiving that they were looking to move and had held informal talks with Freshfields, Linklaters and Herbert Smith. Internal indications by February were that there were issues of concern, but such a move was still unlikely before the summer, with the hope being that various bones of contention could yet be resolved.
Allen and Goetz quit Freshfields this year, so maybe they aren’t going to find happiness anywhere, but it sure won’t be at White & Case. Capital markets partner Rachel Hatfield, who joined W&C from WGM with Allen, but didn’t go to Freshfields with him, recently up and quit W&C also. At least four other partners have also left London recently.
Finally putting Brettle on the executive committee, with chairman Hugh Verrier, NY partner Tony Kahn and Istanbul partner Asli Basgoz, gives the firm’s second-most important office a long-overdue voice.
We actually believe Verrier when he says that it doesn’t signal anything bad about the IP practice – this was pure scrambling to shore up London. Why they didn’t boot Kahn or Basgoz, though, is beyond us. The IP group has also suffered its own share of departures, going back to losing the head of the practice, Ed Filardi to Skadden 10 years ago, Bob Raskopf to Quinn Emanuel a few years ago, and more recently Jonathan Moskin to Foley & Lardner in August, and three IP litigators who just left for Cooley Godward.
Now The Lawyer reports that the firm’s third-quarter distribution was $25 million, compared to $35 million for the same period last year.
In an email sent to the firm’s partnership last week chairman Hugh Verrier said: “The amount of this distribution was based on: our financial results for the first eight months, our continued view that we should not allow the level of the firm’s debt to increase beyond the level at the same time last year.”
The firm held a full partner meeting this week to discuss financial management and answer any questions partners had about the drop in distributions.
A White & Case spokesman said: “We’ve communicated clearly to our partners our financial projections for the year. Our expectation is that the percentage decline in our total distributions for 2009 compared to 2008 will be modest and will be in line with the performance of our peer firms. Our quarterly distributions are just one of many components that comprise the aggregate annual amount to our partners.”
The firm has about 300 equity partners, so that’s just around $83,000 each for the quarter – which is more than they got in the first (~$50,000) and second quarters (~$67,000), by the way.
Tough times at the #1 firm for layoffs.
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