New Jersey law firm Budd Larner, whose future became uncertain earlier this year amid mounting departures, has confirmed it will close its doors in July.

Executive committee members Peter Frazza and Susan Winters communicated the plans in an email Friday to the Law Journal.

“We are sad to announce that after 85 years of servicing clients and contributing towards shaping New Jersey's legal landscape, Budd Larner will be ceasing operations in July. Many great relationships were forged by our attorneys and staff while at Budd Larner which we look forward to maintaining in the future,” their statement said.

They said they would not comment further.

The Law Journal previously reported that the firm was expected to close this summer.

Michael Sirota of Cole Schotz in Hackensack is representing Budd Larner, he previously told the Law Journal. Sirota, co-chair of his firm's bankruptcy and corporate restructuring department, couldn't immediately be reached by phone or email Friday.

Frazza and Winters are Budd Larner's two remaining members of what had been a five-person executive committee. Two other members, Andrew Miller and James Fitzsimmons, departed in April—in Miller's case, with a group of 15 lawyers from his intellectual property practice, which he brought to the Madison office of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf. The fifth member, Joseph Schiavone, brought his seven-lawyer insurance practice to Saiber in September 2018.

More recently, on May 1, Joshua Weiner, who had spent three years at Budd Larner and chaired the employment and labor law practice group at the firm, went to Coughlin Duffy in Morristown. He joined as a partner and was tasked with launching an employment and labor practice group at Coughlin Duffy. His father, Paul Weiner, joined him, coming to Coughlin Duffy as special counsel.

Joshua Weiner, reached by phone Friday, said he began looking to move his practice a few months before the April departures.

“I kind of saw where things were headed,” said Weiner, who is the last known lateral partner to have joined Budd Larner. He joined the firm in May 2016 after a brief time with Hill Wallack and about seven years with Weiner & Weiner. “In order to ensure that I could grow my practice, I thought it was the best [decision] for me and my clients.

“It was just unfortunate how the firm was managed … which was more as several different firms rather than one firm,” Weiner said of Budd Larner, noting what he saw as a lack of a succession plan. “That's not a recipe for continued longevity for the firm.”

(Frazza and Winters didn't respond to an email seeking comment on Weiner's statements about Budd Larner's management.)

At Coughlin Duffy, Weiner hopes to grow the labor and employment practice and presently is getting assistance from some firm attorneys who do such work as part of their practice, he said, noting that he represents small and midsize businesses in various industries—clients that came over in his move to the new firm.

Weiner called Budd Larner's impending closure “extremely unfortunate” and said the quality of the legal work at the firm had always been high in his experience.

“It was a good firm,” Weiner said. “It was a good group of lawyers there.”

The firm that would become known simply as Budd Larner in recent years started in 1934 as a small firm in Newark and grew to roughly 110 lawyers in the 1980s, though its head count would fluctuate over the years with rounds of defections and new hires. Budd Larner had as many as 75 lawyers about four years ago. The firm's website listed 28 lawyers as of Friday.

The firm transformed from an insurance defense firm to one offering a range of services, and came to be fueled by a national mass toxic tort litigation practice. Budd Larner became known for its involvement representing plaintiffs in the 1980s and 1990s in civil litigation against tobacco companies over their products' link to cancer in users.