Beware of Gifts from Dewey & LeBoeuf

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth - unless it comes from the stables of Dewey & LeBoeuf.

The story of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the once-great law firm that now finds itself in bankruptcy, continues to unfold — slowly, painfully, and sucked of suspense. We’ve highlighted the latest developments in Morning Docket. They include the hefty compensation paid to Stephen Horvath and Janis Meyer, the two Dewey lawyers involved in wind-down efforts; the $50 million insurance policy that might spell good news to creditors; and the pending revisions to the less-than-popular proposed settlement being offered to former partners of the firm.

That’s the hard news. Today we bring you two bits of color. These anecdotes raise the following question: Would you accept a “gift” from Dewey & LeBoeuf?

Here’s a story from a source (we have revised the wording slightly to preserve anonymity):

The firm gave out tickets to their legend suite seats at Yankee stadium and free parking as a “thank you” to employees on the “clean-up crew” for putting up with all that has been happening at the firm back in May. So one such employee came back to work after the weekend which they had tickets for and said that they went to the stadium and as they were going in, the tickets were scanned and they were stopped and told they had to go to the customer relations booth.

Turns out that the firm wound up cancelling the tickets, reprinting and giving the tickets away to someone else, without notifying the person they originally gave them to. So what should have been a free afternoon at the stadium with parking included wound up costing quite a bit, and they wound up watching the game from the bar.

Another fine example of how Dewey treats their faithful employees.

Of course, a ruined afternoon pales in comparison to the career and economic hardships that Dewey’s downfall inflicted upon hundreds of staffers and lawyers. But it’s yet another instance of the firm giving ex-employees the shaft.

To paraphrase Karl Marx, the Dewey story first played itself out as tragedy. Now it is turning into farce — which brings us to our next story of a D&L gift that didn’t turn out so well….

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