Biglaw, Dewey Ballantine, Dewy Orifice, Law Firm Mergers

More on the Death of Dewey-Orrick

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Via the WSJ Law Blog, here’s the text of the two firms’ joint statement:

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Dewey Ballantine LLP have jointly decided to end merger discussions. Both firms are successful, global firms that saw great potential in a combination. However, a combination of this size and scope posed significant challenges. While both firms tried their best to work through these challenges, we were unable to bring the merger to completion. No one issue led us to this point, and each firm leaves this process with great respect for the leaders and partners of the other.

This is very bad news for Dewey. Uncertainty in the wake of the merger caused several of their top partners, including leading M&A lawyers, to leave for other firms. So Dewey is now worse off than it was before the announcement of the merger — and now without a merger partner.
At first we thought: Orrick is like a Lothario who seduced Dewey, gave her a loathsome disease, and then dumped her.
But then a Dewey tipster told us:

The word is that Orrick is unhappy with the M&A partners who have left. Mort [Pierce] asked [Ralph] Baxter to come up with a counter proposal, but Baxter [didn’t produce an adequate alternative].

So now we think: Orrick is like a Lothario who seduced Dewey, gave her a loathsome disease, and then dumped her. When Dewey asked Orrick, “Why are you dumping me?”, Orrick responded: “Why would I want you? You’re damaged goods. And you have a loathsome disease!”
Earlier: Prior coverage of the Dewey-Orrick merger (scroll down)

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