Myerson & Kuhn Law Firm Files for Chapter 11 : Attorneys: The firm has not matched the ambitions of its founders, litigator Harvey Myerson and Bowie Kuhn, former baseball commissioner.
Myerson & Kuhn, an elite law firm built last year when one of the nation’s largest firms went bankrupt, has itself filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Founded by flamboyant litigator Harvey Myerson and former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the firm one year ago boasted a staff of 160 lawyers, including big-name talent that it attracted with hefty salaries. But the firm’s receipts never matched its ambitions, and Myerson & Kuhn has been cited as an example of how today’s big firms can elude management control.
The firm sought bankruptcy court protection in a petition filed Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
Among the firm’s creditors was Marine Midland Bank, which was listed on the petition as being owed $3 million.
The firm and some of its remaining partners still face a sizable claim from a former client, the Shearson Lehman Hutton investment firm. In one of the heaviest blows to the firm, Shearson last year fired Myerson & Kuhn and then sued it for allegedly overbilling the brokerage by at least $2 million.
Shearson settled for $1.2 million last June. But this week the investment firm filed a new suit, claiming that the law firm still owed $488,000 of the settlement.
Myerson & Kuhn was organized by trial lawyer Myerson two months after the November, 1987, collapse of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Unterberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey, a law firm that was then the nation’s fourth largest.
Myerson launched the firm with a fanfare of publicity and a pledge that it would have first-year revenue of $50 million to $75 million. He described the organization as a “start-up superstar firm” with a client list that included Shearson, the Trump Organization and Weyerhaeuser Co.
But the firm never reached that revenue goal and had a falling out with Donald Trump, in addition to Shearson.
Among Myerson & Kuhn’s original hires were such widely recognized names as Faith Ryan Whittlesey, a former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, and Gerald Eppner, a top corporate lawyer.
During much of this year, Myerson & Kuhn saw a stream of defections from its offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Philadelphia.
In Los Angeles, the firm’s office fell from a peak of 19 lawyers to 12.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles lawyers broke away from the home office and set up shop under a new name, Cooper & Dempsey, according to partner Michael D. Dempsey.
Still unclear at this point is exactly what will happen to the leases on the Los Angeles group’s office space and equipment, which are held under the Myerson & Kuhn name and are thus included in the bankruptcy proceeding. “For the moment, we’re stuck in this,” Dempsey said.
Myerson is now forming a firm of his own in New York, while Kuhn, 62, is reportedly considering retiring.
