Dewey Ex-Partner: Headhunters and Media Tanked the Firm

May 10 (Bloomberg Law) -- Stuart Saft, the former head of the real estate group at Dewey & LeBoeuf, tells Bloomberg Law's Lee Pacchia that legal headhunters spread blog stories about the firm's financial problems to mainstream media reporters because it was in their financial interest to do so. The spread of those stories led to the firm's meltdown, he said. Some of his former partners asked the Manhattan District Attorney to investigate former Dewey chairman Steve Davis in an attempt to nix the firm's merger discussions with other firms, he said. "There'll be plenty of acrimony and anger still to come," he predicts. More than a third of the firm's 300-some partners have left since the beginning of the year. Saft, now head of the New York real estate practice group at Holland & Knight, is the first former Dewey partner to speak on camera since the firm's troubles began earlier this year.