Tag Archives: Ashby Jones

THE BIG LAW FIRM STORY OF 2012: DEWEY & LEBOEUF

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Question #14.A. in the Wall Street Journal’s year-end quiz on December 28, 2012:

“True or False:

Before law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP filed for bankruptcy in May, it was sued by a janitorial services company saying it was owed $299,000.”

Answer: True.”

This small item brought to mind reports of a January 2012 meeting where Dewey & LeBoeuf’s former chairman Steven H. Davis is said to have described the firm’s financial condition: profits in 2011 of $250 million, but more than half was already committed to pension obligations and IOUs to partners for shortfalls in prior years’ earnings. Together, partners would have to devise an action plan. “You have to own this problem,” he allegedly told them.

Who owns the problem now?

One simplistic narrative suggests that Davis himself should bear most of the blame for everything that went wrong with the firm. But in Dewey docket filing #654, his attorneys recently cautioned against such a rush to judgment.

For example, they assert that during the 12-month period immediately preceding the firm’s bankruptcy filing, “fifty-one partners received a higher distribution than Mr. Davis,” who, the say, got $1 million. Is that the behavior of a self-aggrandizing villain?

No names, please

The firm’s July 26, 2012 “Statement of Financial Affairs” (docket filing #294) identifies Dewey partners only by employee number, but it offers a window into some of those 51 highly paid partners. The dollars that some received as the firm imploded contrast sharply with Davis’s January admonition that they should “own the problem.”

For example, Dewey partner 06780 received more than $6 million in draws and distributions between May 31, 2011 and May 21, 2012. Starting in January 2012 alone, that partner received the following:

1/3/12:     $391,667,67 – Partner Distribution

1/3/12:       $25,000.00 – Partner Draw

1/11/12:    $250,000.00 – Partner Distribution

2/3/12:       $25,000.00 – Partner Draw

3/1/12:        $25,000.00 – Partner Draw

3/14/12:     $391,666.67 – Partner Distribution

4/4/12:       $264,166.67 – Partner Distribution

4/4/12:         $25,000.00 – Partner Draw

5/21/12:      $264,166.67 – Partner Distribution

5/21/12:       $25,000.00 – Partner Draw

The May 21 payments totaling $289,000 occurred shortly after the firm’s cleaning service had filed its complaint seeking approximately that amount for services rendered through April 30. A week later, Dewey filed for bankruptcy.

Dewey Partner 06512 received distributions of $2.8 million in January 2012 alone, accounting for a big chunk of the more than $6.5 million in draws and distributions that this partner received between May 31, 2011 and May 21, 2012.

Dewey Partner 86059 received $3.4 million in draws and distributions from May 30, 2011 to May 8, 2012, including more than $1 million after January 30, 2012.

Overall, 25 top Dewey partners received $21 million during the final five months of the firm’s existence. During the last seven months of 2011, the same group of 25 had already received another $49 million.

Stated another way, of the $234 million distributed to all partners during the 12 months preceding the firm’s bankruptcy, the top 25 (out of 300) received more than $70 million. Someday, we might learn how much this select group also received from the proceeds of the firm’s $150 million bond offering in April 2010.

Fungible money

Complementing the “Davis-as-sole-villain” narrative, another current theme is that the recently approved partner compensation plan proves that former partners are, in fact, “owning the problem.” That may be true for most of the more than 400 who will return a combined $71 million to the Dewey estate. But consider another set of facts.

Back in May, former Dewey partner Martin Bienenstock had just resigned from the firm when he gave a wide-ranging interview to the Wall Street Journal. Reporters Jennifer Smith and Ashby Jones asked him whether “it was safe to say that the firm used credit lines to pay partners, at least in part.”

Bienenstock answered: “Look, money is fungible. The $250 million in profits [for 2011] were real profits. Instead of using it to pay partners, a lot of it went to pay other things, like capital that other partners were due, and pension payments to retired LeBoeuf lawyers.”

In the same interview, Bienenstock said that at the end of December 2011 the firm had drawn down $30 million of its $100 million revolving bank credit line. As the firm disintegrated during the first five months of 2012, it tapped another $45 million.

You may be wondering whether any former Dewey partner’s contribution under the recently approved “clawback” plan may be, at least in part, simply returning money that the firm borrowed and then distributed to that partner as the firm collapsed. Perhaps one answer is Bienenstock’s retort that “money is fungible.”

Collateral damage

Another answer is that any time a bankrupt’s liabilities exceed its assets, the shortfall comes from somebody. Those victims wind up “owning the problem,” too. In addition to partners who lost their capital and didn’t receive a fair share of distributions in 2011 and 2012, unsecured creditors became involuntary lenders who will never be repaid in full.

Which takes us back to Dewey’s cleaning service. Even with their outstanding April invoice of $299,000, ABM Janitorial Services apparently kept working into May. According to Dewey’s July 26, 2012 “Schedule of Creditors Holding Unsecured Nonpriority Claims,” ABM’s claim had grown to $346,000 by May 28.

How much will ABM  recover? Dewey & LeBoeuf’s December 31, 2012 “Amended Confirmation Plan Disclosure Statement” predicts that general unsecured debtors will get between a nickel and 15 cents on the dollar.

The saga of Dewey & LeBoeuf isn’t over, but it’s the big law firm story of the year. And it’s a sad one.

BONUS TIME – 2012

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It’s always interesting when two respected legal writers approach the same story in different ways. That happened in the coverage of recently announced associate bonuses.

Ashby Jones at the Wall Street Journal penned an article in the November 27 print edition of the paper that ran under this headline:

“Cravath Sends Cheer — Law Firm Lifts Bonuses for Some Associates as Much as 60%”

As always, Jones accurately reports what is true, namely, that Cravath, Swaine & Moore led this year’s associate bonus announcements with an increase over last year’s base bonus levels. Five paragraphs in, he acknowledges that this significant bump still leaves associates well below the 2007 pay scale. The highest associate bonuses this year are $60,000, compared to $110,000 for combined regular and special bonuses in 2007.

Meanwhile, at the New York Times…

On the same day that Ashby Jones’s article ran in the WSJ, Peter Lattman at the New York Times was a bit more circumspect. In that paper’s print edition, the bold line that ran in the middle of the story reads:

“[Cravath’s] year-end awards set the bar for others, and the payouts are up a bit in 2012.”

Like Jones, Lattman observes that base bonus amounts are substantially higher than previously. But he correctly notes that “when spring bonuses are added to the equation, there has been little increase for Cravath’s associates over the last two years. The law firm did not award spring bonuses in 2012, but last year paid its associates a small stipend in addition to a year-end award. When 2011’s spring bonuses and year-end bonuses are added together, total bonus compensation actually exceeds this year’s level.”

Both Jones and Lattman report that Cravath had $3.1 million in average partner profits for 2011. For perspective, that’s slightly above the $3.05 average for 2006, and not all that far from the $3.3 million all-time high in 2007. Needless to say, associate bonuses haven’t enjoyed a similar recovery. But depending on what happens in the spring, they still could, which leads to a final point.

Who’s right?

The answer is Elie Mystal over at Above the Law. Mystal observes that spring bonuses more properly belong in the analysis of total compensation for the immediately preceding calendar year. That is, a bonus paid in early 2011 is really compensation for 2010.

The analysis is straightforward. Big law firms waiting for more complete information on how the fiscal year will end preserve flexibility by lowballing the November bonus numbers. Evidently, Cravath concluded that its $3.1 million average partner profits for 2011 were inadequate to justify any significant spring bonus for associates in early 2012.

The fate of the “special” bonus

The question now is whether spring bonuses are gone forever. After all, they first appeared as “special bonuses” — meaning that they came with this implied caveat: don’t build those dollars into next year’s expectations. Of course, that message has landed on deaf ears. But it gives firm leaders a way to convince themselves that it’s fair to leave associate compensation far below 2007 levels, even though average partner profits have recovered almost completely to those lofty heights. Indeed, some firms have even bested their pre-recession records.

In all of this, two things are working against associates who dream of a return to the good old days (of 2007). First, the glut of attorneys grows as the demand for new associates shrinks. Second, most law firm leaders are dealing with a revolution of rising expectations among senior equity partners. The potential loss of a rainmaker strikes fear in the hearts of many firm leaders.

But here’s a reason to hope. True visionaries seeking long-term institutional stability let such troublemakers walk. They promote cultural values that transcend the impact on the current year’s income statement. They let resulting gains in client service and attorney morale produce ample financial and non-financial rewards for all.

And all of this reveals itself in how partners at the top of a firm treat associates at the bottom — a place where too many seem to have forgotten that they themselves once stood.

IMPROVING PROSPECTS — BUT FOR WHOM?

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Life is just a matter of perspective. For example, here’s some apparently good news:

— The legal sector added 1,500 jobs in April.

— Ashby Jones at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog cited a recent article in The Guardian for the proposition that the U.K. might actually have a shortage of lawyers next year. Could the U.S. be far behind?

— NALP’s Executive Director James Leipold noted that, along with an overall attorney employment rate of 88.3% for the class of 2009, “the most recent recruitment cycle showed signs of a small bounce in the recruiting activity of law firms, a sign that better economic times likely lie ahead.”

Now consider each headline a bit differently:

— “Legal sector” isn’t limited to attorneys; more than 44,000 new law school graduates hit the market every year.

— The Guardian article relies solely on a report from the College of Law that has an interest in encouraging applications to its program for prospective solicitors. More than one comment to the initial report expressed angry skepticism about the College’s short-term motives. Where have I heard that before?

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, for the entire ten-year period from 2008 to 2018, net U.S. attorney employment will increase by only 100,000. Even if all aging attorneys retired as they turned 65, there aren’t enough of them to make room for all the newbies. In 1970, for example, law schools awarded only about one-third of the number of JDs conferred in 2010.

— To his credit, NALP’s Leipold went behind the 88% employment rate for the class of 2009. The resulting caveats are significant.

First, the percentage employed are graduates “for whom employment status was known.” Who’s excluded? Who knows?

Second, nearly 25 percent of all reported jobs were temporary; more than 10 percent were part-time.

Third, only 70 percent “held jobs for which a J.D. was required.” Unfortunately, law schools don’t offer tuition refunds (or relief from student loans) for education that was unnecessary for their graduates’ actual employment opportunities. That doesn’t surprise me. (See “Law School Deception.”)

Finally, more than 20 percent of employed graduates from the class of 2009 “were still looking for work.” Beneath the veneer of superficially good news — having a job — career dissatisfaction continues to eat away at too many of the profession’s best and brightest in yet another generation.

That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t go to law school. It means that they should think carefully about it first, starting with this question: why do I want to be a lawyer and will the reality of the job match my expectations?

Turning the employment subject toward big law leads to one more lesson on perspective.

A day after the Ashby Jones and James Leipold articles, the WSJ‘s Nathan Koppel summarized big law’s continuing job-shedding: the NLJ 250 lost another 3,000 in 2010, bringing their total decrease since 2008 to 9,500. They may be hiring some new associates, but they’re getting rid of many more.

NALP expects to release its 2010 employment data in May. But every big law leader knows that May’s true importance lies in a much more significant event: annual publication of the Am Law 100. For some partners, pre-release anxiety is palpable, if not paralyzing.

This year, average equity partner profits for the Am Law 100 went up by over 8% — to almost $1.4 million. For context, that surpasses 2007, which was the peak of an uninterrupted five-year PPP run-up. Pretty stunning for an economy that remains difficult for so many. Gross revenues increased as overall headcount dropped by almost 3%. More revenues from fewer attorneys meant more billables — mislabeled as higher “productivity” in big law terms — for the chosen. (See “The Misery Index.”) As jobs remained scarce and associate hours climbed, equity partner earnings continued their ascent.

How much is enough? For some people, the answer will always be more; short-term metrics that maximize current PPP guide their way. Life is easy when deceptively objective numbers make solutions simple, reflection unnecessary, and the long-term someone else’s problem. It’s just a matter of perspective.