Legal News

Baker to Latham; So What?s up at Skadden?

By Ashby Jones

First came last week’s news that M&A partners David Fox and Daniel Wolf were leaving legal juggernaut Skadden for Kirkland & Ellis. Last night, word broke (here and here) that heavyweight restructuring partner D.J. “Jan” Baker was leaving Skadden to join Latham & Watkins. (An aside: with a name like D.J. “Jan” Baker, we can’t help but think he does a little spinning and emceeing on the side — possibly with a tandem named the DIP Doctor and Easy Gene, the Second Lien Machine?)

So anyway, what’s up at Skadden? Executive partner Eric Friedman insists there’s nothing to see here, telling AmLaw that there’s no connection at all between the moves. Friedman’s explanation, essentially: Look, given our stature in the bankruptcy and restructuring world, of course our talent is going to get plucked away from time to time. “This is very typical of the industry,” he says. And it’s true: in recent years, there’s been a lot of churn among the highest-powered bankruptcy lawyers. Think Luc Despins, who left Milbank to join Paul Hastings, or Marty Bienenstock, who left Weil Gotshal in late 2007 to help build up Dewey & Leboeuf’s practice.

So. . . easy come, easy go? Not so fast. Lawyers of Baker’s stature don’t grow on trees. The NYT runs down the bankruptcies he’s handled, which include the American Pad and Paper Company, the Circle K Company, the HealthSouth Corporation, Owens Corning, the RCN Corporation, the Safety-Kleen Corporation and Spectrum Brands.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).