Biglaw, Partner Issues

40 Lawyers -- Including 15 Partners -- Are Leaving This Biglaw Firm

The new year finds this firm shedding the pounds.

By  
on

Three businessmen wavingTwo big moves have left Sedgwick 40 lawyers lighter.

In the first, 23 lawyers in Sedgwick’s Texas office are packing their bags for Drinker Biddle, launching the latter’s entry into the Dallas market — Drinker is even expected to take over Sedgwick’s Dallas office space. As the American Lawyer reports:

Sedgwick partners Wayne Mason, Alan Vickery, W. Neil Rambin, E. Paul Cauley Jr., George McCall, Susan Egeland, Travis Gamble, Dawn Shawger McCord and Sondra Sylva are joining Drinker Biddle to launch the firm’s Dallas office, effective Feb. 1, along with two counsel and 12 associates.

Their practice areas include products liability, class actions, insurance coverage, business disputes and commercial litigation. The additions bring Drinker Biddle to more than 635 lawyers in 12 offices.

The second move impacts the Newark, New Jersey office, where some big players are launching their own firm, taking a total of 17 attorneys from Sedgwick. The new firm, Tanenbaum Keale is expected to have offices in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As Law360 notes:

A trio of Sedgwick partners, including a chair emeritus and head of its complex litigation team, is spinning off from the firm and launching a litigation boutique called Tanenbaum Keale LLP on Feb. 1 that will boast three other Sedgwick partners and 11 of its attorneys.

Veteran Sedgwick partners Michael A. Tanenbaum, James H. Keale and Thomas D. Robertson — longtime colleagues whose relationship predates their firm — announced the pending launch of the firm in a press release Wednesday, saying it will focus on pharmaceutical, medical device and environmental mass tort litigation and defense of product liability and catastrophic injury.

According to a statement by Sedgwick Chair Michael Healy, the firm plans to repopulate the picked-over offices. Indeed, Healy’s statement looks forward to a bright new future: “Our partnership – in fact, all of our lawyers – are bullish on the opportunities for Sedgwick in 2017. We will focus on our established competencies and serve our clients around the country and from our international offices.”

Healy seems to be conveying that all the lawyers leaving at the same time is just a curious coincidence, and not a harbinger of something more ominous. (See, e.g., Dewey & LeBoeuf or Kenyon & Kenyon.) Best of luck to the firm as it moves forward.

Sponsored

Drinker Enters Dallas as Sedgwick Sheds 40 Lawyers in Texas, New Jersey [American Lawyer]
Sedgwick Partners To Open Litigation Firm Tanenbaum Keale [Law360]

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Sponsored

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,