The Philadelphia legal community was abuzz with talk this weekend about the future of Wolf Block.
Several sources have said members of the executive committee met Saturday to discuss a possible dissolution of the firm. The matter is said to be set for a full partnership vote as early as Monday. A decision to dissolve the firm would need to be approved by at least 75 percent of the partnership, one source said.
Calls to some members of the firm's executive committee, including Chairman Mark Alderman, were not immediately returned Sunday evening.
The potential disappearance of Wolf Block and its storied name was described by many in the community as a "sad" turn of events. The 300-attorney firm, once one of the largest and most prominent in the city, has been looking for a merger partner for more than two years.
It was unable to consummate an intra-city deal with Cozen O'Connor in early 2007 over difficulties in merging the partnership of Wolf Block with the public corporation of Cozen O'Connor. The two firms also had different fiscal years, with Cozen O'Connor working off of a calendar year and Wolf Block ending its year on Jan. 31.
Wolf Block began talks with Florida-based Akerman Senterfitt, another corporation, in early 2008, but those talks failed over what the firms said were conflicts between Wolf Block's health care practice and Akerman Senterfitt's insurance practice.
While Wolf Block had seen the departure of a few practice group leaders during the course of the merger attempts -- including litigation department head M. Norman Goldberger and six other partners who left in March 2008 for Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin -- the firm hasn't seen any major defections since its failed mergers.
The Legal did report last week, however, that 10 of the firm's 11 attorneys in the Wilmington, Del. office were in talks to move to the Delaware office of Drinker Biddle & Reath. Drinker Biddle said only last week that "it wouldn't be appropriate to comment at this time."
And on Friday, Warren Fusfeld, head of Wolf Block's employee benefits practice, and partner Melissa Kurtzman started work at national labor and employment boutique Littler Mendelson.
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Wolf Block to Take Dissolution Vote to Partnership, Sources Say
The Legal Intelligencer
March 23, 2009
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