Howrey Bankruptcy Heating Up

The AmLaw Daily has an article on Allen Diamond, the Chapter 11 trustee of Howrey, the once large and respected firm that cratered last year and formally dissolved in March. Diamond says he’s been working on the bankruptcy “night and day” since being appointed to his position in October, as he sets a strategy to recovery as much money as possible. According to the article, the firm has more than $33M in unpaid bills, many of them old, and thus Diamond of Diamond McCarthy in Houston expects to file lawsuits to get them paid down.

Another possibility is Jewel v. Boxer claims in California that allow defunct firms to get some of the profits of work taken to other firms. Diamond also wants to liquidate Howrey’s art assets, worth about $1.2M. He has worked on other high-profile bankruptcies, including that of Dreier LLP, which went into bankrupcty after Marc Dreier’s investment-fraud scheme was discovered. He expects Howrey cases to be at least a few months away, saying "There are only so many things they can ask me to do in one day."