SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers for the Howrey estate are still in hot pursuit of law firms who absorbed partners after the Washington, D.C., firm went bust, though the legal landscape may be turning against them.
At a hearing Tuesday morning, Howrey lawyer Andrew Ryan urged U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali not to cast aside the controversial bankruptcy doctrine that allows failed firms to recoup profits from work partners take with them. But a swarm of lawyers for the defendant firms clamored that the so-called unfinished-business doctrine has already been discredited. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled in June that the Heller Ehrman estate had no claim to such profits, a finding that was echoed by the New York Court of Appeals in the Coudert Brothers and Thelen bankruptcies in July.
