Brother, Can You Spare a Credit Crisis Group?

What more immediate symbol of change than the veritable explosion of groups being established to address the financial state of the markets and the corresponding fallout? As has become apparent, painfully so on many fronts, the state of the economy has caused financial, market and multiple other tremors. And, naturally, the ripples have made their way into the legal arena. While the repercussions of the financial waves have understandably had a significant general impact on the legal scene, they have caused the quickest and most direct effect on the very nature of practice within law firms.

Please say hello to the newest of the practice area teams, the Credit Crisis Group. To distinguish one law firm group from the other, welcome also the groups whose names are formed from some combination of the following terms: financial, recovery, troubled asset, task force, advisory, subprime, financial services, response, etc.

To the credit of the many law firms that have taken the initiative to ensure that they are prepared to protect and represent their clients as fully as possible, between September 25 and October 14, 2008, press releases announced that 13 such teams or groups had been assembled in firms across the nation and internationally. The largest law firms are well represented among these.

Crisis blogs have also been introduced. These blogs focus on the changing legal and business issues related to the markets. The new financial task force-type teams primarily consist of lawyers currently with their respective firms. Many members of these groups are drawn from the firms’ bankruptcy, corporate, restructuring, corporate and government regulation sections.

But, of course, the greatest numbers of practitioners are drawn from a firm’s litigation section. As this article is being written, Forbes magazine has predicted that the current state of the market will lead to the “next great mega-litigation.” Forbes also indicates that the pace of securities class-action litigation has accelerated due to the financial crisis and that the numbers of such cases are expected to grow with increased bank failures.

Some of these new groups consist of veterans of the litigation and related work that grew out of the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s. Consequently, there are attorneys and other legal professionals who already have at least some of the experience required to successfully represent clients going forward. Others who are likely to have relevant experience come from the following practice areas:

• Complex litigation
• Government and corporate affairs
• Financial regulation
• Banking
• Hedge fund
• Broker-dealer
• Finance
• White-collar crime
• Securities

There will be firms and corporate legal departments without many or any attorneys or other legal professionals with this type of expertise. As 2008 closes and 2009 begins, there will be a premium on individuals with fluency in market crisis issues. Special Counsel can assist in your endeavors to identify personnel with backgrounds in any of these areas. In fact, it has several staff members who themselves have experience from the S&L litigation days, who can bring that expertise to bear in the search for appropriate staff on your behalf.