Seyfarth/D'Ancona merger
 

Yet another longstanding firm name bites the dust in this year of consolidation in the Chicago legal scene, as Seyfarth Shaw acquired D'Ancona and Pflaum this past week, creating another large-scale firm here (with about 270 lawyers)... Sounds like the attorneys lost in the shakeout of this deal will be minimal, but some staff will be cut loose.

For those keeping score, that's four well known Chicago firms that are no longer with us this year, including Peterson & Ross and Altheimer & Gray (dissolutions) and Ross & Hardies (merger with McGuire Woods)...

Who's next?? Will Bell Boyd or other midsize firms be back on the front burner for a merger or acquisition? Stay tuned.

Seyfarth/D'Ancona merger
 

When did Peterson Ross bite it? I guess I missed that one.

Tax(life in the 'burbs...I may as well be in Iowa)wonk

Seyfarth/D'Ancona merger
 

A few months back, before Altheimer, IIRC. Demise was mentioned in the Trib. article on Seyfarth.

Baseball Fever
 

The Sox are fucking killing me. I just TUIMM.

Baseball Fever
 

Between that and the Cubs' fans unwarranted and obnoxious optimism, it is pretty difficult to deal with...

Something in the water?
 

It's the Chicago winter... Don't forget H.H. Holmes, Gacy, Speck, Frank the Enforcer Nitti, Dillinger, whoever did the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, etc... We've had more than our share of ruthless killers and whackjobs over the decades...

Kind of creepy and morbid, but for better or worse it does give the town character. There literally is history on every corner here.

Something in the water?
 

Which is exactly why Chicago needs one or a hundred National Historic Battlefields and National Parks and National Historic Sites and National Historic Carwashes and National Historic Former Speakeasies and National Historic Former Sites of Great and Wondrous Debauchery. If I start a letter writing campaign to a Senator next year (as suggested by yummy burger from DC), which Senator should I ask, Durbin or Hynes?

Come to think of it, Hynes' family bought the old Whittingham place up in Michigan. Maybe I'll walk down the beach some day and stop in and ask Junior. If I'm really lucky, maybe the key Joyce will be visiting that some day; that way, I can go right to the source.

Some day when I'm not confronting hurricanes and a stack of files badder than Old King Kong, and meaner than a junk yard dog that is.

But when you see that campaign getting started, you'll know where it came from.


Hello

PS Me, just in case the reader doesn't know.

and so it begins, maybe
 

The Chicago Tribune reports the indictments of 7 people for shenanigans related to city contracts.

Mobs, government contracts, minorities, democrats, Daley.

Re: Patricia Green Duff, I gotta wonder if she is a Daley. That middle name is common to one (recent) branch of the Daley family.

Whenever I see one of these, I always wonder if the government is really going to do a knockout blow on the town one of these days. You know, city contracts today, McCormick Place indictments next monday, Navy Pier (no) bidding next Thursday,
a coupla aldermen in two weeks, and so on and so on?

That would just be dreamy.

Hello

and so it begins, maybe
 

Political corruption in Chicago? Stop the presses!

Seriously, this is about as close to Daley as this stuff has gotten, but of course he'll now claim he never met these people. Even when the reporters show him the autographed picture he had taken with them when he took their big check.

On the bright side, he'll probably go on one of his babbling, red-faced tirades on the news, which are always entertaining...

Miscellaneous Ramblings
 

Random musings for a Monday:

1. Not much exciting happening in legal news locally. Have noticed an uptick in recruiter calls and the job mobility of people I know in the business has increased, so I suppose that's good.

2. Trying to decide which smells worse, the Cubs fans who rolled in early this morning from celebrating the NLDS win or the overflowing dumpsters from the garbage strike.

I know Daley, Blagojevich (in order of power), et al., want to make nice with the Teamsters and everything, but they have to keep a short leash on this one. It's been almost a week and pretty soon we'll be talking a major health hazard. Not good for the tourists, either.

3. How did the Bears manage to win a game? Find a team more decrepit than they are? Nice win, but they'll still be lucky to win 3 or 4 this year...

Miscellaneous Ramblings
 

I've been getting a few calls and letters, but nothing local. Of course, I've been in-house long enough that that's what head hunters bring me, and with the number of Chicago firms closing or merging elsewhere, there isn't as big a pool locally.

I give it until Friday, then I'm going to rent a truck and dump my garbage in Waste Management's driveway.

ON any given day, a hundred drunken monkeys.......

Miscellaneous Ramblings
 

Not my area of law, but how hard would it be to just form a new company, hire some locals, and completely replace the strikers in, say, a suburb? Is there some restriction from doing that? Do the suburbs collectively bargain?

OTOH, I agree with ya about the short leash thing. And just when Daley is on a few of the ropes too. CTA fare increase, teacher's threatening a strike, lots of questions about expensive lakefront boondoggles, the Feds indicting his buddies.

Hello

Miscellaneous Ramblings
 

It wouldn't be that hard legally, but there are many practical problems:

why would some suburb hire you for that work with no experience in that business?;

the strike is pretty close to being over;

the Teamsters would break your knees;

it's not that easy to start a business from scratch on a short-time frame. Garbage trucks are expensive.

Uh oh (SABW)
 

Tribune reports the IRS is going after Sidley and Austin for J&G-type problems.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...i-business-hed

Hello

Uh oh (SABW)
 

yes, but it's the whores from Brown and Wood's tax department that got them in trouble.