32 Firms Line Up to Fight 'Unfinished Business' Doctrine at Calif. High Court
From Akin Gump to Wilson Sonsini, law firms are protesting the principle that bankruptcy trustees can claw back profits from client matters that partners take with them from defunct firms.
April 05, 2017 at 04:39 PM
83 minute read
SAN FRANCISCO — Akin Gump and Alston & Bird. Dechert and Dentons. Gibson Dunn, Goodwin Procter and Greenberg Traurig.
A group of 32 large law firms are asking the California Supreme Court to rule that dissolved law firms can't claw back profits derived from unfinished client matters that lawyers take with them to new firms.
The issue has bedeviled law firms that hired refugees from a wave of legal bankruptcies in the past 15 years, and the momentum has been shifting to the position—that, as the amicus brief puts it, a “law firm does not own its clients' legal matters. Clients do.”
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