30 lose jobs in partnership closure. (Up Front).About 30 attorneys and staff have been let go at the Los Angeles-office of Brobeck Phieger & Harrison LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol , which announced plans to shut down after 77 years in business. San Francisco-based Brobeck, a 500-attorney firm with up to $90 million in debt and plummeting profits, began dismissing attorneys and staff at the beginning of the month. Brobeck's L.A. office had 29 associates prior to the layoffs, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. its Web site. About 10 of the 18 L.A. partners at Brobeck may join Morgan Lewis People named Morgan Lewis include:
v. balked, balk·ing, balks v.intr. 1. To stop short and refuse to go on: The horse balked at the jump. 2. on negotiations to merge with Brobeck earlier this month. Morgan Lewis' partners will vote Feb. 10 on whether to hire more than 50 Brobeck partners, who will continue to negotiate with lenders on reducing the firm's debt. Among the senior partners slated to join Morgan Lewis is LA. partner Richard Odom, chairman of the firm who spearheaded the unsuccessful merger negotiations with Morgan Lewis. Calls to Odom were referred to firm spokesman John Pachtner in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . Pachtner said the firm does not have a date of closure and will be operating with a minimum staff after the end of February. He also said Brobeck is not filing for bankruptcy. "Bankruptcy is not a path we're pursuing at this moment," he said. "There are a number of options. I just can't comment on them now. We have a team of partners of the firm and senior staff who are negotiating with the banks." In addition to debt, Brobeck faces pending litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. that includes a lawsuit filed against two L.A. partners, William Fitzgerald For other persons named William Fitzgerald, see William Fitzgerald (disambiguation). William Fitzgerald was an American politician who represented Tennessee's At-large congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. and Debra Pole. That suit could potentially impose up to $45 million in judgments against all 150 partners. Fitzgerald and Pole were sued by the partners of a dissolved boutique law firm A boutique law firm is a collection of attorneys specializing in a very narrow area of the law. While a general practice law firm includes a variety of unrelated practice areas within a single firm, a boutique firm specializes in one or a select few niche practice areas. , Dickson Carlson & Campillo, after they left the firm with a major client to join Brobeck in 1995. The former partners of Dickson Carlson, which was forced to dissolve after losing the major client, sued for $26 million in profits they are owed from the client's business. A 2nd Appellate District judge in L.A. recently hired a forensic accountant to determine how much is owed the Dickson Carlson partners, which Murphy estimates to be in the $10 million to $15 million range. The Dickson Carlson partners also sued for $30 million in breach of contract claims, which will go to trial in April. Brobeck has denied owing anything to the Dickson Carlson partners. Calls to Fitzgerald and Pole were not returned. Calls to their attorney, John Keker of Keker & Van Nest LLP in San Francisco, were not returned. Paul Murphy Paul Murphy could refer to:
"It concerns me in the sense that it will make it less easy, but we'll get paid' Murphy said. "We have a right to go after every partner of Brobeck. These are people with a lot of money and big houses." |
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