Seven Partners Walk Out of Cadwalader London

The London office of New York’s Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft has been rocked by the unnanounced mass walkout of seven partners to Paul Hastings.

The partners leaving the firm are Karl Clowry, Conor Downey, Michelle Duncan, Justin Jowitt, Tom O’Riordan, Christian Parker and Charles Roberts.

Although no reasons have been given for the defections, two possible motives are (1) plummeting profits for America’s oldest law firm and (2) the BBC picked a 26-year-old nobody to play the new Doctor.

The defections leave  Cadwalader with just four partners in London. An insider told The Lawyer.com the move could prompt Cadwalader to shut down in London altogether:

It is understood that firm chairman Christopher White and former chairman Bob Link have flown to London from New York for crisis talks with the London partners.

Yesterday we reported Cadwalader’s 30% profit plunge, with profit per equity partner for 2008 dropping to an unliveable $1.88m.

If you have any inside info, please let us know. We’ll update this post as the situation develops.