Dewey Bankruptcy Heavyweight Bennett Moves to Jones Day

Update, 5/14/2012, 5:30 p.m. EDT: The story has been updated to include news of Greenberg Traurig hiring a 50-lawyer Warsaw-based team from Dewey and additional Dewey departures in New York.

Bruce Bennett, the bankruptcy heavyweight who had been serving as the leader of Dewey & LeBoeuf‘s Los Angeles office, has finally joined the ranks of the Dewey departed.

As of Monday, Bennett is a Jones Day partner, having joined the firm with fellow former Dewey partners Sidney Levinson, James Johnston, and Joshua Mester, and former Dewey of counsel Monika Weiner. Virtually all other members of Bennett’s core group are expected to join him at Jones Day shortly, according to a spokesman working for Bennett.

Bennett joined Dewey in February 2011 with nine other lawyers from the bankruptcy firm he cofounded, Hennigan Bennett & Dorman. What remained of that boutique, known from that point on as Hennigan Dorman, merged with McKool Smith in September. (Others from the boutique who accompanied Bennett to Dewey but have not yet joined Jones Day include Los Angeles–based Dewey partner Bennett Murphy and San Francisco–based Dewey counsel Joshua Morse).

Bennett has worked on some of Southern California’s biggest bankruptcies over the past decade, including Orange County’s 1995 municipal bankruptcy and the recent Chapter 11 case involving Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers that ultimately saw the storied franchise team sold for an eye-popping $2.15 billion to a team of investors including former Los Angeles Lakers star Earvin “Magic” Johnson in late March. (Dewey’s Dodgers deal team also included Levinson and Mesters, as well as former Dewey M&A partner Richard Climan, who jumped to Weil, Gotshal & Manges last week.)

At the time of the Dodgers sale, Bennett told The Am Law Daily that Dewey’s recent woes, which have put it on the brink of closure, had not affected his work for the baseball team. (Through February of this year, Dewey billed $10.2 million in fees and expenses to the Dodgers estate, according to court filings). Bennett could not be immediately reached for comment Monday. In an interview with sibling publication The Recorder, Bennett says he didn’t even have time to look for a new firm until about 12 days ago because of work on cases including the Dodgers bankruptcy. Once he began looking, he tells The Recorder, “We only talked to people who reached out to us because we wanted to join a firm that was enthusiastic about our practice and our people.”

Bennett was one of the last big-name partners left at Dewey. So far, virtually every member of the firm’s management team has found new professional homes amid a flood of defections that has cost the firm nearly two-thirds of the roughly 300 partners it had when the year began. Bankruptcy specialist Martin Bienenstock—a former member of Dewey’s office of the chairman who himself just abandoned the foundering firm for Proskauer Rose—told The Wall Street Journal over the weekend that despite the wave of departures and other signs that Dewey has essentially ceased operations, there are no plans to vote to dissolve the firm or to file for bankruptcy protection.

Partners still at Dewey for now include newly appointed executive partner Stephen Horvath, vice-chair and regulatory and corporate governance partner Ralph Ferrara; global private equity chair Joseph Smith; and office of the chair member and Washington, D.C. head L. Charles Landgraf.

In other departures Monday, corporate securities group and Latin America practice chair Michael Fitzgerald has joined Paul Hastings along with Taisa Markus, Joy Gallup, and Arturo Carrillo. Fitzgerald, who could not be reached Monday, joined Dewey with his team in June of last year from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Paul Hastings spokesman Allan Whitescarver confirmed the four lawyers have arrived in the New York office as of counsel pending a formal vote by Paul Hastings partners to add them to the partnership.