Bankrupt law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf may not be doling out legal advice anymore, but evidence of its once-mighty law practice can still be found in boxes of client files scattered around the globe.
Now the defunct New York firm wants to get rid of these records. But disputes over who should pay to destroy them are raising questions about a bankrupt law firm's ethical obligation to protect client data and its duty to save money for creditors.
Dewey estimates it has "hundreds of thousands of boxes" of documents, some in its own possession, many housed at third-party warehouses, including more than 100,000 at a facility in Brooklyn, New York.
The firm, which can trace its roots back more than a century, also said in court filings it is not sure where all its old files are or who they belong to. The firm had offices in 12 countries, including Italy, Russia and Poland.
A Dewey lawyer said at a bankruptcy court hearing this week that the firm already is about $500,000 behind on fees to warehouses and desperately needs to shed storage costs to help repay creditors. Dewey has proposed giving some 4,500 former clients about 75 days to collect their files and then destroying records that go unclaimed.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-dewey-files-idUSBRE86B1CG20120712
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