Bad management rather than the faltering global economy led Dewey & LeBoeuf to last week become the world’s largest legal collapse, according to a poll of senior commercial lawyers.
The latest Legal Week Big Question survey on the collapse of Dewey found a clear majority (79%) cited ‘bad management’ as a primary cause of the storied US law firm’s insolvency. With respondents asked to identify the two most important factors in Dewey’s collapse, ‘excessive debt’ was cited by 65%, with ‘lack of partner loyalty’ cited by 21%. Other options identified include ‘the recession/market conditions’ (18%) and the 2007 merger between Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae (11%).
