Only two months after news first emerged of financial problems at Dewey & LeBoeuf, the spectre of bankruptcy looms large over the US giant. Such a course would make Dewey on many measures the largest-ever law firm collapse, signalling the end of a practice that at its peak had more than 1,300 lawyers and revenues of over $800m (£493m).
That will inevitably trigger more analysis of Dewey’s fate, much of which will attempt to frame what happened in the context of a crisis facing the wider legal industry. That’s largely wide of the mark; the Dewey saga is less evidence that something is rotten in the legal industry and more that something is rotten in the US legal industry, which has over the last 10 years seen a breathtaking run of failures including Howrey, Heller Ehrman, Brobeck Phleger & Harrison and Coudert Brothers.
