With its pure-play strategy in tatters, Cadwalader is struggling to shift focus, diversify and reinvent itself. Nate Raymond reports
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft’s annus horribilis began last summer with a phone call from a client in trouble. James Cayne, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Bear Stearns, was on the line for Dennis Block, his longtime outside counsel. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds were heading for bankruptcy, and Cayne wanted Block to help manage the fallout. What neither man knew was that this failure was the first death rattle for Bear Stearns and, even more important, a spark for the subprime mortgage inferno, a financial disaster that would undercut two of Cadwalader’s main businesses.
