Dewey Ballantine won’t have to double up its summer associates in Los Angeles this year. The New York firm’s L.A. outpost has plenty of extra space on its hands after a plan fizzled to snatch more than 30 real estate lawyers from Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker.
Thinking that it had secured a deal in February to bring in the megagroup, which included nine partners, Dewey leased more than 10,000 square feet of additional space in its downtown L.A. office tower. The firm, which has about 40 lawyers in L.A., even rented desks, chairs, and other furnishings for the recruits. By mid-March, however, only eight lawyers had made the move–although Dewey did manage to land Paul Walker, the head of Paul, Hastings’s real estate group.
