Biglaw

Stroock To Dissolve, Close Its Doors After Nearly 150 Years In Business

The firm knew of these plans since last week.

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Man holding cardboardAfter months upon months of failed merger talks, partners leaving the firm in droves, a round of layoffs, and reduced hours and pay for senior staffers, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan is calling it quits. The firm plans to dissolve.

The American Lawyer has the scoop:

In an email sent to the firm Monday evening and obtained by Law.com, firm co-chairs Jeff Keitelman and Alan Klinger said they anticipate the executive committee will soon implement an Oct. 24 vote of the partners authorizing the “committee to dissolve the firm at the appropriate time.”

“We plan to give you advance notice of that,” the email said.

Stroock has known of these plans to dissolve since last week on October 24. The firm’s co-chairs noted that their conversations with Hogan Lovells started in early September, and that a “large-scale lateral group acquisition, not a merger” was always on the table. Was this one of the “options” — a future dissolution rather than a merger — that led Stroock to step away from its talks with Pillsbury?

In their email, Keitelman and Klinger said they were “excited” that so many Stroock lawyers are headed to Hogan Lovells. “We are confident that this move will offer the best opportunities and growth potential for the most members of our firm,” they wrote.

We know that Stroock’s remaining partners are likely to do just fine, but what about its associates and staffers? We certainly hope that they will be able to move on to other firms without too much trouble. Stay tuned for coverage on what the anatomy of Stroock’s dissolution may look like.

Stroock Planning Dissolution [American Lawyer]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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