Biglaw

Working At This Defunct Biglaw Firm Isn't A Permanent Stain On Your Resume

Dewey know the career path of these attorneys?

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Hands of recruiter holding resume in front of candidate at deskBack in 2012 (hell, in 2013 too), all anyone in Biglaw wanted to talk about was the spectacular collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf. And it’s no wonder. Two historic firms — Dewey Ballentine and LeBoeuf Lamb — merged to create a mega firm, but all was not well. The collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf left thousands without jobs, generated multiple personal bankruptcies and criminal cases, and shook Biglaw to its core.

But as shocking as it was 11 years ago, according to a new study, it didn’t hurt the careers of the rank-and-file attorneys caught up in the scandal. As reported by Law.com:

For lawyers, at least, the experience didn’t appear to taint their careers. Associates who worked at Dewey in 2012 had the same odds of becoming a Big Law partner by 2022 compared to associates at peer firms with comparable partner profits, while former Dewey partners had the same odds of remaining partners at Am Law 100 firms as their peers as well.

“There is no statistically significant evidence to suggest that being at Dewey hurts people’s chances of becoming or remaining a partner at an Am Law 100 firm a decade out,” said Andrew Granato, a J.D.-Ph.D. candidate studying law and financial economics who recently presented his paper, “After the ‘Partner Run’: The Dewey & LeBoeuf Diaspora,” at the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies.

At least in the long run:

“The people whose relational capital within the profession was smaller and localized to their employer, associates, left private practice much more than established partners who were able to lateral and bring their clients along relatively easily,” Granato writes. “Long-term results, however, indicate that such effects do not last, despite the distinctiveness of the form of organizational failure of the partner run.”

Attorneys’ relative ease in getting back to the top of Biglaw surprised Granato, “A large part of making partner is managing reputational capital and being part of the law firm as a business entity and a social entity. If you shatter that unit and everyone scatters, I thought it would be a lot harder for them to become partner at a comparable Big Law firm.”

Firms that did the bulk of the scoop-up, hiring former Dewey attorneys at a notable clip, include Winston & Strawn (they got the most former Dewey attorneys immediately after the collapse), DLA Piper, Proskauer Rose, and Holland & Knight.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.

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