Posts from ‘April, 2009’

California’s top 25 firms are feeling more stable, but a sense of fragility remains. The firms pulled through 2008 in a variety of ways. Some large firms that were overexposed to capital markets, like Latham & Watkins and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, were forced to lay off hundreds of staff. Others, however, chose salary reductions over big layoffs. Countercyclical practices, like bankruptcy and litigation, took a while to kick in, but firms say they’ve started to see upticks in those areas.

About a decade ago, Blank Rome, under David Girard-diCarlo, was in merger talks with Cozen O’Connor that never went through. Last year, Girard-diCarlo retired as Blank Rome’s chairman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Austria, resigning at the end of the Bush administration. Now, he will be a partner in Cozen O’Connor’s Philadelphia office, serving on its advisory committee and implementing its strategic plan. Why not return to Blank Rome? The firm is moving in one direction, Girard-diCarlo said, and he in another.