Font Size: 
Dewey to Shutter San Francisco Office, Keep Silicon Valley Presence
The Recorder
February 04, 2009
Dewey & LeBoeuf said Tuesday it is transferring all of its San Francisco attorneys and their staff to its East Palo Alto, Calif., office to "centralize" its Bay Area presence of nearly 30 lawyers.
No jobs will be eliminated, and the firm has not determined when the San Francisco office will fully close, a firm spokesman said in an e-mail. The firm provided no other comment beyond an official statement.
"The San Francisco office will remain open for the foreseeable future to support clients and attorneys currently conducting business in San Francisco," the statement said. "Once the office move is completed, Dewey & LeBoeuf will continue providing service to clients in the San Francisco metropolitan area from the Silicon Valley office."
Dewey & LeBoeuf is the result of a late 2007 marriage between two New York firms, Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. The firm cited slow business when it closed three offices in late 2008, in bank-heavy Charlotte, N.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Hartford, Conn. At that time, Dewey executive director Stephen DiCarmine said the firm plans to focus on international expansion. It opened an office in Doha, Qatar, in December and has plans to open an office in Abu Dhabi this year.
Carl Baier, a recruiter in Silicon Valley, said he's not surprised the firm is still consolidating offices, given the 2007 merger. Before the merger, the Silicon Valley office belonged to Dewey Ballantine, and the San Francisco outpost was LeBoeuf Lamb's.
If the firm were going to eliminate an office in the Bay Area, Baier said, it makes sense to shutter San Francisco.
"If you are going to say you are an international law firm that gets technology, it's awfully hard to explain why you don't have a presence in Silicon Valley," Baier said. Dewey is not currently a client of Baier's, but "they certainly have been interested in seeing what's available in Silicon Valley," he said.
A major piece of business for the East Palo Alto office is the Brocade backdating litigation, a factor that may have helped the office rebound after the firm struggled to maintain headcount following failed merger talks with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in January 2007. After a height of 25 lawyers, the office shrank to eight attorneys in mid-2007, with just one full-time partner. In 2008, the office brought three in-house lawyers on board as partners from biotech company Affymetrix.
The combined office should have about 28 lawyers, nine of them partners. On Tuesday, the firm's Web site listed 10 lawyers who spend all their time in Silicon Valley, four of them partners. It lists another three who split their time in San Francisco and one who splits time in New York. In San Francisco, the firm lists 13 resident lawyers and one who splits time in Moscow.
The move comes on the heels of a turbulent 2008 for the San Francisco legal business. To brace for 2009, large firms have laid off hundreds of associates and staff, instituted salary freezes and closed offices.
Bingham McCutchen said in late January it will downsize its Walnut Creek office, moving 19 out of 20 lawyers who worked there to San Francisco and laying off half the staff.
The layoffs add to a mounting toll of unemployed legal professionals in the Bay Area following the collapse of two big San Francisco firms in 2008, Heller Ehrman and Thelen.
Last week, Morrison & Foerster laid off 201 people, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Cooley Godward Kronish each laid off more than 100 people. Fenwick & West will cut 36 staff but no attorneys.
Last fall, Orrick cut 75. Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian cut at least eight associates, and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman recently acknowledged quiet layoffs in 2008.
Consulting firm Hildebrandt International and Citi Private Bank, which counts a large proportion of Am Law firms among its clients, issued a joint report on Monday predicting continuing challenges for the legal business in 2009.
Among other recommendations, the report urges firms to consider how well each office contributes to its long-term strategy.
"Firms should take a careful look at those office locations that are strategically important to their core practices and those that are not," the report says.
