Legal News

At Dechert ? and Elsewhere? ? Litigation Coming Back to Life

By Ashby Jones

Any Dechert lawyers out there fretting over the firm's possible exposure in the Fortress lawsuit filed on Tuesday?

Well, let us ease your fears – or at least try to – with news out of Philly that litigation-related work at the firm is starting to heat up. And that just may bode well for litigators all across the country.

According to this story from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Revenue from the firm’s sprawling litigation department is tracking even with last year, and there are signs, said Robert Heim, the department chairman, that clients were loosening their purse strings again to fund legal actions that, while not essential to survival, could benefit a company’s bottom line.

In a recession, litigation practices are typically hit by counterveiling forces. On the one hand, as revenues dwindle, companies are often quicker to draw swords to protect their market shares. Other types of litigation, like of the employment-related variety, steps up as well. At the same time, however, so-called "discretionary" litigation gets put off until conditions improve. In the current downturn, at many companies, the latter type basically dried up completely.

But Heim says it's back. Kind of. “It has come back," he said to the Inquirer. "I don’t think it has come back to where it was before the economy kind of fell off the shelf,” Heim said. “But they are starting more of the discretionary litigation. And of course, the government has stepped up enforcement. There is no discretion in defending against those matters.”

Heim's thoughts seem to square with those released in Fulbright & Jaworski's annual survey, which was unveiled in October. Overall, the companies said they would spend more to sue competitors or defend themselves in lawsuits in 2010.

Dechert itself has been buoyed in part by its white-collar defense practice, led by bowtie-club member Andrew Levander. He is representing New York Ezra Merkin against allegations that he improperly funneled client investment money to Bernie Madoff.

Levander also represents former Merrill Lynch chief executive officer John Thain, who has come under the scrutiny of NY AG Andrew Cuomo.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).