Biglaw, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Dewey Ballantine, Law Firm Names, LeBoeuf Lamb, Shopping, Technology

Dewey Have A Bargain For You! Defunct Law Firm's Domain Name Now Up For Auction

How much would it cost you to buy the former domain name of dearly departed Dewey & LeBoeuf?

onOctober 17, 2013 at 3:30 PMNovember 7, 2013 at 5:17 PM

This afternoon I received the following email, from a representative of Hilco Streambank (and not a Nigerian prince):

“My company has been retained by Dewey & LeBoeuf to sell their domain name (dl.com). I thought Above the Law might be interested in the opportunity since (1) dl.com is a pretty great domain name for a blog and (2) Above the Law might find the prospect of purchasing Dewey & Leboeuf’s domain name amusing. You can find out more about the auction at HilcoDomains.com. The Bid Deadline is October 31st. If you would like to learn more about the auction let me know.”

This definitely piqued my interest, since (1) my initials are “DL,” and (2) domain names can be quite revealing. Back in 2007, the purchase of the DeweyLeBoeuf.com domain name by Michael Groll, at the time a partner at LeBoeuf Lamb, helped us uncover the news of the (ultimately ill-fated) merger of Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb. In the end, presumably because few people can spell “LeBoeuf” correctly, the post-merger firm used the DL.com domain name for its website.

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So how much would it cost you to buy a piece of Biglaw history? Or, for people like me with the initials “DL,” a potentially useful domain name for a personal website?

The required minimum bid for DL.com is $200,000 — ouch. I’ll stick with DavidLat.com, thank you.

Will DL.com go for $200K or more? I have my doubts. If you’re a former Dewey lawyer looking for some memorabilia, there are better and less expensive options. For example, for $100,000 you could have purchased about 100 works of art once owned by the defunct firm.