Wolf Block lawyers find work elsewhere

Little more than two weeks after Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen L.L.P. said that it would go out of business, other Center City law firms are moving quickly to scoop up its most lucrative practice groups and biggest fee generators.

Two of the bigger moves were announced yesterday, with Duane Morris L.L.P. taking on 24 former Wolf Block lawyers and Cozen O'Connor picking up 28 lawyers from the firm's New York office.

Cozen O'Connor said that it had hired 65 Wolf Block lawyers in the past two weeks. The addition of the lawyers in New York will bring Cozen O'Connor's number of lawyers there to about 100.

Duane Morris said the lawyers that it hired focus on the gaming, energy, construction, financial-services and health-care industries, among others. The group includes New Jersey-based litigator Hersh Kozlov, who is active in senior Republican circles, and Alan Kessler, a prominent Democrat and supporter of Hillary Clinton's 2008 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It is the second time since December that Duane Morris has scooped up lawyers from a failing firm, even as the economy was declining. In December, the firm picked up 19 New York-based construction lawyers who had been with the defunct San Francisco firm of Thelen.

"Most firms are looking, frankly, to be adding and subtracting and doing so simultaneously, and we have, I think, as tight a focus as does any firm on the bottom line," said Duane Morris chairman John Soroko. "But at the same time, you cannot pass up an opportunity to add talent and clients, and that is what we are doing."

Other law firms that have been adding Wolf Block lawyers include Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P., which has added 10 litigation and real estate lawyers to its Wilmington office.

The firm also announced that it had formed a Delaware-based lobbying subsidiary headed by one of Wolf Block's former lobbyists.

Wolf Block partners voted overwhelmingly on March 23 to disband the law firm after 106 years in business following a series of partner defections and a decision by its banker, Wells Fargo, to tighten the terms of its credit line.

The 300-lawyer firm had long played a central role in Philadelphia's civic, legal, and governmental affairs, but an over-reliance on real estate work and a failure to adequately diversify its other practice areas undermined the firm's finances.

Even so, the firm continued to employ many top fee generators with long lists of lucrative clients, and the current fervor among Center City firms to recruit them would seem to attest to that.

"It's a great move for us because we got some great lawyers" said Cozen O'Connor president and CEO Thomas Decker. "There were tons of firms competing for these people."

Among the other Wolf Block lawyers who have been recruited in the past two weeks is transactional lawyer David Gitlin, who joined Center City's Blank Rome L.L.P. Gitlin, based in Philadelphia, brought with him two New York-based associates. Much of his work is international and fits Blank Rome's long-term strategy of boosting its legal work overseas, the firm said.