Nearly two years after Howrey went under, the trustee overseeing the defunct firm's chapter 11 case is ramping up his efforts to recover tens of millions of dollars from former partners and the firms they moved to, American Law Daily reported today. A total of 71 firms hired the 302 partners streaming out of Howrey in the months leading up to its March 2011 dissolution. Trustee Allan Diamond says that he is seeking about $100 million in clawback claims for money paid to former partners when the firm was likely insolvent, as well as an estimated up to $100 million more for "unfinished business" claims stemming from work those partners took with them to their new firms. Diamond says that he plans to take a new approach to reach settlements in the Howrey case by presenting law firms with a bundled settlement plan that includes both the claims against individual partners and the unfinished business claims against the firm. How the firm and its partners decide to divvy up the responsibility and pay the estate is up to them, he says. Also, unlike in the Dewey case, where the estate chose to recover money paid to partners only after January 2011, Diamond says that he does not plan to have a hard-and-fast date. Instead, he'll approach each settlement "with a rational model based upon the strength of my claim at various points in time."
