Law firm's unraveling takes a toll on senior partner. (Up Front).

Pausing to gaze from his office window on the 47th floor of the Library Tower downtown, Jack McConaghy admits the past several months have been "stressful."

On Aug. 7, McConaghy and his partners gave in to months of defections and voted to dissolve Lyon & Lyon LLP, their 101-year-old intellectual property practice. Recalling how his firm quickly unraveled is a discomfiting experience. He speaks slowly and carefully, often pausing with long moments of silence.

Now a grandfather, McConaghy joined the firm in 1969 as a law clerk, became a senior partner and member of the executive committee. He never thought he'd look for another job.

"There's a sense of sadness here," he says. "But I am looking forward to the future. I'm very pleased with the fact that I hung in there and tried to make it work for the lawyers and the employees. I really feel that I tried everything I could, and it just was not meant to be."

Now, surrounded by white moving boxes in offices that Lyon & Lyon will vacate on Aug. 31, McConaghy says he is looking forward to his next job as a partner at Fulbright & Jaworski LLP, where he will start in early September.

But his current job isn't over.

Since the dissolution, McConaghy has been fielding phone calls, emails and media calls. He's been in meetings with partners and employees, working late at night and on the weekends.

He has contacted more than 70 clients, many with pending matters, and made sure the firm's thousands of current and former clients were told immediately of the dissolution. "It's just been excessive. I've put in a great deal of time," he says.

Speedy demise

When McConaghy joined the executive committee late last year, it had already seen the defection of dozens of attorneys from its San Diego office. By the end of the year the firm's. managing partner, Robert Dickerson, resigned. The executive committee adjusted by delegating more management responsibilities to its seven members, McConaghy said.

But in February, senior partner Robert Weiss left to join Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, a firm with which he had led failed merger discussions in early 2001. Weiss took with him other Lyon & Lyon attorneys, along with Mag Instrument Inc., a large client.

Losing Weiss' book of business left many Lyon & Lyon litigators without work, McConaghy says, and caused many to doubt the firm's future. Two members of the executive committee stepped down.

"I was optimistic until the spring of 2002," said Kenneth Ohriner, a former Lyon & Lyon partner who left to join Perkins Coie this month. "These were all lawyers I knew well. A lot of them were friends of mine and people I worked with a long time and really liked."

Even as more attorneys were lured by the "siren call of Jones Day," as McConaghy calls it, he had a core group of partners who still believed the firm could survive.

"There was glue," he says. "And that glue held the place together for quite a while."

Partners take sides

The partners turned to Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP as a potential merger candidate, but things came unstuck, after those discussions fell apart on July 26, he says. After that, McConaghy likens Lyon & Lyon's office to World War I, as attorneys began to form alliances and jump ship to other firms.

The firm had no option but to dissolve.

Smith McKeithen, senior vice president and general counsel of Cadence Design Systems Inc., a Lyon & Lyon client, says that the firm's partners have continued their representation despite the dissolution.

How Cadence deals with its legal matters in the coming weeks and months, however, remains up in the air.

"It's our choice as a client, but they've gone to great lengths to make sure they act as a virtual team, even if they're not under the umbrella of the same partnership," he said.

At the time it dissolved, Lyon & Lyon had 87 attorneys, including 31 partners. Many continue to wrap up work at the firm, while others have found new homes.

In addition to Jones Day and Perkins Coie, former Lyon & Lyon lawyers have gone to Fulbright and Holland & Knight LLP.

As the Aug. 31 deadline approaches, McConaghy and the other partners closing up the shop are left to deal with business matters like terminating the firm's lease, often a firm's largest liability.

McConaghy declined to talk about the specifics of Lyon & Lyon's lease negotiations, saying only that he is "trying to work with the landlord."

"We were fortunate that things precipitated as quickly as they did so that we didn't drain a lot of money but rather were able to satisfy all our creditors and have a soft landing," McConaghy says.

Looking back, McConaghy wouldn't recommend his experience to anyone. But he wouldn't have done things differently, either.

"You've got to do what you've go to do," he says. "But you can only do so much."