| 6/26/2001 | ||
| Source: Bankruptcy Court Decisions: Weekly News & Comment | ||
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All the lawyers of the bankruptcy boutique Wynne Spiegel Itkin in Los Angeles have joined Kirkland & Ellis' Los Angeles office.
The addition of WSI's five attorneys will bring the number of lawyers in K&E's Los Angeles office to 80 and will add bankruptcy expertise to the firm's existing general commercial litigation, intellectual property, environmental, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, white collar criminal defense, and tax expertise. Internationally, K&E now has more than 50 attorneys in four offices who specialize in restructuring and bankruptcy.
"For us, it's a spectacular thing," said Richard L. Wynne, leader of the incoming bankruptcy group, whose well known boutique is co-counsel for the State of California in the energy crisis and counsel to the creditor's committee in the high profile Reed Slatkin bankruptcy. "So many of our clients have wanted us to do more for them in terms of broader coverage (legally and geographically), particularly the distressed investment funds that we've been representing."
Other members of the boutique who joined K&E are partners Bennett L. Spiegel, Robbin L. Itkin, Christopher W. Combs, associate Sharon M. Kopman and support staff.
"I've made no secret of my admiration for Rick and his team and the timing...could not be better," said bankruptcy group leader James Sprayregen. "With a burgeoning corporate practice in the West, the moment has arrived for us to join with Rick, Bennett, Robbin, and the rest of the group, to expand our ability to service clients nationwide, expand into more large debtor and creditor committee representations, and international cases."
The benefits of joining K&E were many, Wynne said. For starters, Kirkland has the biggest private equity fund practice in the country, which meshes well with Wynne's group, which has done quite a bit of distressed acquisition work for clients. Because of Kirkland's equity fund practice, Wynne said the firm has not become general counsel to major banks, which has helped the bankruptcy group avoid the conflicts common to many big firms. In addition, Kirkland can easily service WSI's East Coast clients while Wynne's group can service Kirkland's West Coast clients.
The decision to leave the boutique world, which Wynne said he has inhabited since 1985, was evolutionary. Wynne said more of his firm's clients wanted one stop shopping--litigation, corporate, securities and tax support--which his firm couldn't provide. Wynne, formerly of Levene & Eisenberg, said he has watched as more and more boutiques have joined larger firms as a result of this shift in the market.
"When this opportunity came up, we talked to some of our major clients and referral sources as a way of testing the water. We got an overwhelmingly strong reaction to the idea and, more specifically, to joining Kirkland. All our major clients knew of the firm and its reputation. I'd rather choose who would be the best firm to join then to (wait a few years and) say, 'Everyone has been acquired by someone good and we're on our own.'"
Wynne said his interest in K&E was sparked several years ago when he and Sprayregen worked together on the acquisition of Hamburger Hamlet, which was then in bankruptcy. Since that time, Wynne said he had brought K&E in on at least 10 of his firm's cases.
"We brought in their excellent white collar criminal lawyers to help advise the committee in Reed Slatkin," Wynne said. "Even though I have experience in criminal and bankruptcy law, we would have had to bring in criminal counsel and litigation counsel because there is so much overlap between the bankruptcy court and criminal investigations. This enables us to do the case in a more efficient way."
Wynne said he's already seeing the benefits of being part of a large firm.
"In two weeks, we have seen dramatic differences in Kirkland's ability to recruit versus ours. We're looking to hire three to five new people because the Los Angeles (job market) has been slow. Through maternity leaves, we had gone from nine or 10 lawyers to six. Now we need to go back up because business is really booming. Yesterday we saw two really terrific (lawyers) that Kirkland was able to recruit for us. We will be able to attract better young lawyers with Kirkland than we could on our own."
Reprinted with permission from Bankruptcy Court Decisions Weekly News & Comment. Copyright LRP Publications. Horsham, PA 19044. All rights reserved. For details on this or other related products, call toll-free 1-800-341-7874 or visit www.shoplrp.com/banking.html.
