New York legal powerhouse Dewey & LeBoeuf, a dedicated contributor to Democratic candidates in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, filed for bankruptcy last night.
Bloomberg reports:
Dewey, based in New York, listed debt of $245 million and assets of $193 million in a Chapter 11 filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
The firm, which had more than 1,300 attorneys in 12 countries after the 2007 merger of Dewey Ballantine LLP and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & McRae LLP, now has 150 employees in the U.S. to wind it down, Jonathan A. Mitchell, the firm’s restructuring officer, said in court papers. Dewey will be liquidated, he said.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Dewey & LeBoeuf PAC raised nearly $140,000 in 2008, 76 percent of which was donated to Democratic candidates, and over $110,000 in 2010, 68 percent of which went to Democrats.
Dewey & LeBoeuf, the product of a 2007 merger between two top New York law firms with almost $1 billion in combined annual revenue, is the latest Democratic donor to collapse. Other Democratic backers, such as Oprah Winfrey, Chesapeake Energy chief Aubrey McClendon, and telecom mogul Philip Falcone, have bled hundreds of millions of dollars in recent months as Obama struggles to raise cash from once-dependable donors.