"Dewey’s Former Chairman Lawyers Up"

This story has been getting a lot of attention, including at the WSJ Law Blog.

For several years now, insurance companies have been pitching law firms to buy D&O type insurance to cover lawsuits and legal fees that don't arise from the practice of law. The coverage might kick in, for example, when the management shuts down a branch office and gets sued by the de-equitized partners. We've also seen various theories of management liability asserted against the board of directors and key officers when a nearly bankrupt corporate entity finally passes over the fatal threshold into insolvency. Both trends seem all the more relevant to law firm management in an era when law firms are becoming increasing "brittle," to borrow a phrase from a recent paper by David McGowan and Bernie Burk.