Careers
The place are they now? Regulation scholar tracks attorneys from disbanded Dewey agency, finds no ‘scarlet letter’
The collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf was one of many high authorized information tales within the early 2010s. The legislation agency filed for chapter in 2012. Picture by Spencer Platt/Getty Photographs.
A legislation scholar who tracked attorneys from the disbanded legislation agency Dewey & LeBoeuf discovered little proof that the stigma was a “scarlet letter” harming their careers.
Yale Regulation College scholar Andrew Granato tracked the careers of 685 attorneys who labored at Dewey earlier than a associate exodus led to a 2012 implosion. He then in contrast 2022 outcomes for a “core pattern” of attorneys from Dewey and comparable companies who labored in New York Metropolis workplaces within the observe areas of mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, debt finance, white-collar protection or antitrust.
The proof means that former Dewey companions, after a decade, “are marginally much less wish to be companions at high legislation companies” than alumni of competitor companies, Granata writes in a paper posted on SSRN.
As well as, employment outcomes for former associates after a decade are “fairly related between alumni of Dewey and its rivals,” he wrote.
Law.com (through Above the Law) and Bloomberg Law have protection of the examine by Granato, who’s a candidate for a JD and a PhD.
Granato created an inventory of Dewey attorneys from the 2012 version of the Martindale-Hubbell Regulation Listing printed Dec. 1, 2011. To search out comparable attorneys outdoors Dewey, he additionally relied on Martindale-Hubbell and archived directories on agency web sites that he discovered utilizing the Web Archive’s Wayback Machine. He then tracked careers utilizing information stories, LinkedIn profiles, bar search instruments, agency web sites and different on-line data.
In 2022, 10 years after Dewey’s collapse, 16% of Dewey associates had been companions at a top-grossing Am Regulation 100 agency, Granato discovered. When evaluating core samples of associates after a decade, he discovered that 19% of the previous Dewey associates had been companions in Am Regulation 100 companies, in comparison with 26% of associates who started their careers at competitor companies.
Granato advised Bloomberg Regulation that the distinction isn’t statistically important.
“We will’t with any confidence say that having been a Dewey affiliate versus an affiliate at one in every of these management companies like Sidley Austin or Fried Frank led to a decrease chance of changing into a associate a decade later at an Am Regulation 100 agency,” he advised the publication.
Turning to companions, Granato discovered that 49% of Dewey companions had been companions at Am Regulation 100 companies 10 years later. Sixty-three p.c of ex-Dewey companions in core practices teams in New York Metropolis had been working at Am Regulation 100 companies after 10 years, in comparison with 73% of companions at competitor companies.
Breaking down the outcomes by gender, Granato discovered that 51.5% of male Dewey companions had been BigLaw companions after 10 years, in comparison with 38.5% of feminine companions. Amongst Dewey associates, 22% of the boys turned Am Regulation 100 companions, in comparison with 9.5% of the ladies. Feminine ex-Dewey associates had been considerably extra prone to work within the nonprofit sector.
Granato recommended that the gender variations “are illustrative of gender dynamics within the authorized trade
generally.”
Granato additionally discovered totally different outcomes for former Dewey associates based mostly on whether or not they landed in a BigLaw agency on their first job after leaving. Amongst former Dewey associates who didn’t work at an Am Regulation 100 agency of their first post-Dewey job, solely 6% turned Am Regulation 100 companions. Amongst those that stayed in BigLaw of their first job after Dewey, 26% later turned BigLaw companions.
For associates at main companies caught up in a associate exodus, “this can be very vital to remain in Biglaw following the run” in the event that they need to grow to be companions at high companies, Granato concluded.
Granato advised Regulation.com that he wasn’t in a position to monitor former Dewey workers members as a result of it was tougher to seek out publicly out there knowledge.
“I believe they had been the individuals who bore the best brunt of the harm from the associate run,” he stated.
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