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Meltdown Roundup For Litigators

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 11:01 AM - By Elie Mystal

wall street bull backside.jpgWe have extensively covered the law firms shaking and baking thanks to the market collapse over the past few weeks. But the M&A and bankruptcy lawyers are only half of the clusterf&^%. Which litigators will get work as old Wall Street business models die spectacular deaths?

LegalTimes reports that O’Mel­veny & Myers is set up to have a huge litigation year:

[L]itigators at O’Mel­veny & Myers must be doing cartwheels in the hallways. Since Bank of America—a loyal client of O’Mel­veny’s litigation department—took over Countrywide earlier this year, O’Melveny has already begun to pick up extra work generated by the beleaguered mortgage company. With Merrill about to become part of Bank of America, O’Melveny might just be the best bet for out-of-work securities litigators looking for someplace to send their résumés.

More litigious winners after the jump.

Of course, you can’t talk “litigation” without mentioning Paul Weiss:

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is defending [Lehman] in 10 matters filed in state and federal courts in the last two years (and 32 since 2003), according to Westlaw. Paul, Weiss partners Moses Silverman and Brad Karp (when he gets a moment away from Citigroup) are working on Lehman’s derivative, auction-rate securities, and antitrust cases.

Other Biglaw litigation winners could be: Jones Day, Skadden, and Simpson Thacher.

But unlike deal work, litigation fees will be spread far and wide as most expect individual shareholder actions to start rolling in from smaller firms and litigation boutiques. Tex Parte Blog tells one story of a firm getting ready as investors lawyer up:

Over the past few days, investors seeing red ink due to the nation’s financial crisis have called Susman Godfrey’s New York City office, asking if the firm can help them recover their financial losses through litigation. As a result the firm formed a financial fraud task force at its New York office, and four partners from other offices were reporting there on Sept. 23 to help evaluate the claims.

Remember that a lot of big firms will be conflicted out of shareholder actions. If you are looking for this type of work as a litigator, you’d be wise to look beyond the Vault rankings.

Instead, read our comments thread! We’re sure that people working for smaller firms who want some of this plaintiff work will take an opportunity to pop their collar.

Financial Crisis Creates Lots of Legal Work [LegalTimes] (subscription)
Heading to NYC to look into financial-meltdown litigation [Tex Parte Blog]

Prior ATL coverage of the Wall Street Meltdown

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