Bankruptcy Leader Jumps from Weil to Dewey
The co-head of the restructuring practice at pre-eminent bankruptcy firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges has jumped to Dewey & LeBoeuf.
The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) calls the move by New York attorney Martin Bienenstock “a major shake-up in the bankruptcy world.” Bienenstock told the newspaper he accepted the offer so he could build a department that handles both bankruptcy and corporate-governance matters.
“We’ll build a multidisciplinary department that we’ll call business solutions, because it’s as much about avoiding bankruptcy as dealing with it,” he said.
Bienenstock is taking with him partner Judy Liu and associate Timothy Karcher, who will become a partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf.
It’s not the first high-profile loss for Weil Gotshal, which lost four partners in March to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the New York Law Journal reports. Weil Gotshal chairman Stephen Dannhauser told the legal publication that raids on lawyers go with the territory of being a practice-area leader.
“As other firms try to build practices, they’re always going to look at the firm that wrote the playbook,” he said.
