Dewey & LeBoeuf
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| Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP | |
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| Headquarters | New York City |
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| No. of Offices | 14 |
| No. of Attorneys | 1400 |
| Major Practice Areas | General practice |
| Key People | Steven H. Davis, Chairman Morton A. Pierce, Managing Partner |
| Date Founded | 2007 merger of Dewey Ballantine (founded 1909) and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae (founded 1929) |
| Company Type | Limited liability partnership |
| Website | www.deweyleboeuf.com |
Dewey & LeBoeuf is a major white shoe law firm which was formed in 2007 by the merger of Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. The firm has 29 offices in 14 countries, with the firm's largest office being in New York City.
A team headed by Dewey & LeBoeuf partners Jeffrey Kessler, Marco Consonni and David Feher are currently representing, on a pro bono basis, Oscar Pistorius, a South African double amputee runner who is seeking to qualify for the 400 m event at the 2008 Summer Olympics, but was banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from participating.[1]
In April, 2008, it was reported that the firm would be closing its Austin, Texas office when its lease expired in 2008. The office employed 16 attorneys focusing on intellectual property, commercial litigation and bankruptcy.[2]
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[edit] History
[edit] Dewey Ballantine
In 1909, three recent graduates of Harvard Law School - Grenville Clark, Francis W. Bird, and Elihu Root, Jr., son of New York Senator Elihu Root (who had previously served as United States Secretary of War (1899-1904) and as United States Secretary of State (1904-1909)), agreed to establish a law partnership on Wall Street, named Root, Clark & Bird. The young lawyers were able to capitalize on the senior Root's connections to gain an entry into high financial circles and soon had a thriving law practice. In 1913, the firm merged with the firm of Buckner & Howland (a firm which had recently been founded by Emory Buckner) to form Root, Clark, Buckner & Howland.
In the 1920s, Arthur A. Ballantine, who had become the Internal Revenue Service's first solicitor in 1918, joined the firm and ran the firm along with Emory Buckner throughout the 1920s and 1930s. During the Great Depression, the firm flourished by moving away from its traditional focus on litigation and to begin focusing on bankruptcy and reorganizations, and then by taking the advantage of the New Deal to built a thriving regulatory practice. The firm also built up a corporate practice, serving clients such as AT&T and Standard Oil. Overall, the firm expanded from 8 to 74 associates and opened a second office in Washington, D.C. Both Henry Friendly and John Marshall Harlan II worked at the firm during this period.
In 1946, six Root, Clark partners, including Henry Friendly, departed to found Cleary, Friendly, Gottlieb & Steen, the predecessor of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
In 1955, three-time governor of New York and failed presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey became a partner at the firm, which was renamed Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood. Under Dewey and Ballantine's leadership, the firm attracted new clients, such as General Motors, Morgan Stanley, and Mobil Oil.
In early 2007, Dewey Ballantine had approximately 500 attorneys in 12 offices around the world. Following a failed merger attempt with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in early 2007, on October 1, 2007, Dewey Ballantine merged with LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae.
[edit] LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae
LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae was founded in 1929 and merged with Dewey Ballantine in 2007. In early 2007, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae had approximately 650 attorneys in 19 offices around the world.
