Heller's legacy

On Sept. 26, Heller Ehrman, one of San Francisco's oldest law firms, disbanded and almost 600 lawyers were left to find new work. But not for long. Law firms have been descending upon Heller Ehrman alumni like summer associates at a dinner buffet.

Cooley Godward Kronish LLP added 15 partners from Heller, including 10 in Silicon Valley; Goodwin Procter LLP scooped up five, including Stephen Davis, co-chair of Heller's corporate/venture capital law group; and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP took 27 partners and one senior counsel. The San Francisco firm's haul included three former Heller chairmen--Barry Levin, Robert Rosenfeld and Larry Popofsky--and eight former Heller practice group leaders.

"We have a long term strategy we've been pursuing for decades and Heller was a great firm," says Orrick chairman and CEO Ralph Baxter. "We examined Heller to the extent partners would fit our strategy and our culture and economics. In the end we found a large number would."

Baxter says Orrick called Heller Ehrman within hours of learning that it might close its doors. "We moved very quickly to identify the right people. It wasn't as simple as let's go grab some lawyers," he says. "We knew Heller, we knew a lot about who the great partners were, and we knew where the fits were."

Orrick handpicked Heller attorneys for businesses areas where the firm predicts the most growth: antitrust, where it made the most hires, including Stephen Bomse, chairman of Heller's global competition practice and Rosenfeld, chairman of its antitrust and trade regulation practice; intellectual property and insurance recovery.

Heller, founded in 1890, tackled headliner cases from the 1906 earthquake to the financing of the Golden Gate Bridge and the overturn of California's ban on same-sex marriages. The law firm reportedly folded under a slowdown of litigation cases coinciding with cases that were settled. Some of Heller's major clients, including Washington Mutual Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., met their demise with the financial crisis.