Baker Hostetler’s #69 ranking on the 2010 AmLaw 100 list—up from #85 in 2009—caps off a year of significant growth and success for the firm. The May 2011 issue of The American Lawyer, where the list is published, notes that the firm’s gross revenue jumped 17 percent between 2009 and 2010—the third highest percentage increase for any AmLaw firm. Also in the issue, the article “Silver Lining” profiles the firm’s role in the BLMIS Liquidation Trusteeship, and takes an in-depth look at the firm’s accomplishments, growth and long-term outlook. “Largely because of the Madoff work, Baker Hostetler’s presence in New York has doubled since December 2008; the firm now has roughly 150 lawyers at its office at 45 Rockefeller Plaza,” the article states. The reporter goes on to describe many of the firm’s recent successes, including: expansions in Chicago and Washington; new lateral partner recruitments in several practice areas including mergers and acquisitions, healthcare and intellectual property; the addition of the seventeen attorneys formerly with Howrey; as well as continued increases in corporate and litigation work. “We would have had a good 2010 in any event,” explained National Executive Partner Steven Kestner in the article, when asked about the impact of the BLMIS Liquidation Trusteeship & Counsel Engagement and the firm’s overall achievements during the year. The article profiles New York partner David Sheehan, chief counsel to the Trustee, New York partner Irving Picard, for the BLMIS Liquidation. Through interesting details and vignettes, the reporter describes how the case leadership has contributed to the firm’s success in what the article calls “the splashiest, most spectacular, and most lucrative case” in the firm’s history. Regarding Sheehan’s pivotal role in the management of this complex and unprecedented case, the writer quotes Kestner, who says Sheehan is “a master at keeping all the trains running on time and moving in the right direction.”
The feature also takes a deeper look at the infrastructure created by the team at Baker Hostetler to manage this extensive case, with a focus on the areas of e-Discovery and communication/management technology. As the article points out, with up to 25 million documents to be organized and shared among a team of hundreds of attorneys and professional staff and consultants, the firm developed a custom intranet—a project driven by the Chief Information Officer Bob Craig, who leads the firm’s IT team and New York Partner Judy Selby, who leads the firm’s BLMIS discovery management team. New York Partner Oren Warshavksy and New York Counsel Timothy Pfeifer were also quoted in the piece, describing their experiences working with David Sheehan and the development and management of the case.
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