Another Two Members of Dewey’s Five-member Management Jump Ship

After Morton Pierce left Dewey, Dewey’s five-member management committee had four members left. The situation, eerily similar to the nursery rhyme – five fat sausages frying in a pan, all of a sudden one went’ bang’- continued, and out of the four left, two went bang just now. Richard Shutran, the co-chair of Dewey’s corporate department is joining O’Melveny & Myers, while Jeffrey Kessler, the chair of Dewey’s litigation department is moving over to Winston & Strawn. They would be joined by more than two dozen Dewey attorneys and many associates and staff.

Harvey Kurzweil and Seth Faber, the two who had the task of conducting an internal investigation against former Chairman Steve Davis, are also leaving the firm and would be joining Winston & Strawn. Winston is absorbing around 60 lawyers from Dewey. O’Melveny would be hiring another four corporate partners from Dewey in addition to Shutran.

Bradley Butwin, the chair of O’Melveny said, “This is a great group of lawyers whose practices align nicely with our strategic priorities and who fit in well with our culture.”

The only two managing committee members left at Dewey are Martin Bienenstock and Charles Landgraf. Bienenstock may stay on to clean house as he is supposed to be a specialist in bankruptcy and Landgraf is a managing partner at the D.C. office. None of the two responded to requests for comments by the media.

The spokesman for Dewey who until this month had been insisting that all partner departures are according to plan and would have no adverse impacts on the finances of the firm remained stoically silent and refused to respond to the media.

While criminal investigations by the D.A.’s office is on, it still remains that on top of such a horrible financial situation, continuous official claims by Dewey throughout this year that the exodus of partners would have no financial impact, would have misled the shareholders of Dewey whose stock is now worth almost nothing.