I wanted to share with you some very exciting news about my firm and practice. Yesterday, Cooley Godward announced that the firm will merge with Kronish Lieb Weiner & Hellman LLP, a premier 110-lawyer New York firm with highly ranked bankruptcy, tax and complex commercial and white collar litigation practices. The merger will create a 550-lawyer firm with a coast-to-coast, high-caliber litigation practice, extensive corporate transactional capabilities and a significant presence in New York. The merger will be effective October 1, 2006, and the new firm name will be Cooley Godward Kronish LLP. Click here if you’d like to read the full press release.

The combination brings together Kronish’s leading bankruptcy and restructuring practice, ranked #1 in The Deal’s Bankruptcy Insider league tables in 2006 for Top Unsecured Creditor Law Firms, with Cooley’s deep expertise representing creditors committees, debtors, and other clients in bankruptcy matters involving technology companies and intellectual property assets. The combined firm will have more than 20 bankruptcy and restructuring attorneys nationwide.

Kronish has represented scores of unsecured creditors committees in some of the nation’s largest and best-known bankruptcies and out-of-court workouts, including Montgomery Ward, Federated Department Stores, and Footstar. Kronish has also represented numerous employee and retiree committees including, most notably, the United Airlines ESOP Committee, the Enron Employee Related Issues Committee, the Bonwit Teller Retiree Committee and the LTV Retiree Committee. 

In addition, Kronish has served as reorganization counsel in significant debtor cases, including the $5 billion Metromedia Fiber Network Chapter 11 case and, together with Cooley, the $1.2 billion Old UGC Chapter 11 case. 

Having worked with Kronish’s bankruptcy attorneys on a number of matters over the past several years, I couldn’t be more delighted with the news and look forward to working with my new colleagues to serve our combined firm’s clients.