Thelen: it's all over but the suing

The 84-year-old Thelen LLP is circling the drain.  Things must be sad and strange at the firm if a spokesman sees fit to confirm that dissolution is imminent while the relevant partnership meeting  is still going.

Like Mike in The Sun Also Rises, Thelen went bust in two ways: “Gradually and then then suddenly.”  The 2006 merger between Thelen Reid & Priest and New York's Brown Raysman underachieved. Recent merger talks with Nixon Peabody went nowhere.  A steady string of partner defections culminated in late September with the Pillsbury Winthrop's poaching of Thelen’s entire China group.

Now, presumably, Thelen’s preeminent construction law group will the choicest target for acquisitive rivals.  Will it be Howrey?  Reports had firm chairman (and construction group head) Stephen O’Neal in talks with Howrey even as Thelen was entering its final throes. This did not endear him to the firm’s anxious rank & file.  Isn’t there a saying about fleeing a sinking ship?

                                                          -posted by brian