Law Firms
37 lawyers from this BigLaw firm are joining Orrick
Thirty-seven lawyers have jumped to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. (Photo from Shutterstock)
Thirty-seven lawyers have jumped to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
The group, which includes 10 incoming partners, has expertise in collateralized loan obligations and asset-backed lending, report Law.com, Bloomberg Law, Law360 and an Oct. 6 press release from Orrick.
The lawyers will join a new office in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Orrick offices in London; Washington, D.C.; and New York.
Bloomberg Law reported on a “lawyer exodus” from Cadwalader on Sept. 29 in a prior article based partly on anonymous sources. The publication counted 33 partners who left the law firm since the beginning of the year for new positions or for retirement.
The tally included eight of the partners departures announced by Orrick on Monday. Two of the other lawyers joining Orrick as partners listed their Cadwalader position as special counsel on LinkedIn.
Law360 reports that there were at least 23 partner defections at Cadwalader this year. Its numbers don’t include retirements.
Some partners are leaving for firms that provide a wider range of services, said Sabina Lippman, global managing partner at the CenterPeak recruiting company, in an interview with Bloomberg Law.
“When you see groups going to Orrick or Proskauer or Sidley, they’re going to firms that have a much more efficient cross selling platform,” she said.
After the partner losses, Bloomberg said, Cadwalader faces “a stark choice: Stay the course and risk losing ground to competitors, or shake up the business model and possibly even consider a merger.”
Cadwalader has lagged behind other firms in terms of revenue growth. Cadwalader was ranked No. 39 for revenue in 2007, but it fell to No. 85 by the end of 2024, Bloomberg said.
Part of the reason for the decrease in ranking is that Cadwalader’s “bread-and-butter capital markets and finance practices” are sensitive to interest rate changes and “macroeconomic trends,” the article says. Even a small decrease in profitability can spur partners to jump to other firms.
On the positive side are profits per equity partner, which averaged $3.7 million in 2024.
Another positive: Cadwalader has a strong brand, said Mike Parrillo, a New York-based partner recruiter for BigLaw.
“The talent at the firm, especially in the capital markets and finance teams, continues to be highly desirable across the industry,” he told Bloomberg Law.
The Bloomberg Law article concluded that Cadwalader appears to be opting for “the shake-up path.” The article pointed to the addition of a second managing partner, Wesley Misson, who will share the position with managing partner Patrick Quinn. The firm is also adding lawyers to bolster core practices.
Even after new hires, however, Cadwalader has lost nearly a fifth of its partnership this year, Bloomberg Law said.
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