Seyfarth Shaw has poached a pair of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner corporate partners to launch a restructuring and insolvency group following a year in which corporate bankruptcies surged.
The Chicago-founded firm is launching the practice with Jason DeJonker, an ex-leader in Bryan Cave’s finance transactions group, and Scott Olson, Seyfarth Shaw said in a Wednesday statement.
Total bankruptcy filings spiked to 445,186 in 2023, representing an 18% year-over-year increase, according to a report from bankruptcy data provider Epiq AACER. The direction the economy is heading in is also creating more demand for issues tied to “distressed clients and assets,” said Seyfarth Shaw corporate department chair Steve Meier.
“There’s room for us to grow in that space,” said Meier. He noted the work will likely consist of debtor and creditor representation in bankruptcies, as well as advising financial institutions in transactions taking place in corporate restructurings.
DeJonker will chair the new practice from Chicago. The lawyer’s experience includes advising AcuSport Corp. in a bankruptcy filed in 2018. His other clients have included US Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas.
Seyfarth Shaw finished 2022 with gross revenue of $855.9 million and profits per equity partner of $1.5 million, according to data from the American Lawyer. The profits represented a slight decline from the prior year as the firm expanded its partnership by nearly 7%.
Meier said that despite a broader slowdown in mergers and acquisitions, Seyfarth Shaw’s revenue across its corporate practices was higher than 2022. The firm has yet to release its overall financial results for the year.
Along with DeJonker and Olson, the firm also added former Bryan Cave partner Richard White to its special servicing practice. The moves come after Seyfarth Shaw in September hired two other Bryan Cave attorneys — Amy Simpson and Tricia Macaluso — to open an office in Dallas.
A prior version of this story was produced by Bloomberg Law Automation.
(Adds Meier comments starting in third paragraph.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Wise at jwise@bloombergindustry.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Hughes at jhughes@bloombergindustry.com
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