Bankruptcy “Hot and Sexy”; Hildebrandt, CitiBank Scratching Heads
4:20 pm August 18, 2008 by Brian J. Ritchey · Leave a Comment
The ABA Journal posted an article describing bankruptcy as a “hot and sexy” field for Weil, Gotshal & Manges summer associates. Imagine that: bankruptcy a hot field during an economic downturn. This wouldn’t be news to me except for the fact that Hildebrandt and Citibank advised in their 2008 Client Advisory that the “perfect storm” was hitting the US shores, “in which finance, transactional, and litigation work have all trended downward at the same time, with no offsetting surge in work related to the economic downturn itself.” (p 2)
Apparently the cart was ahead of the horse on this. While bankruptcy filings may have not been hot in January, the prediction was pretty bold considering history and logic. Yet they had their reasons (spelled out in a More Partner Income post in January). This isn’t the first post to find holes in the Advisory’s predictions. I wrote in March regarding the market indicators showing great opportunities in bankruptcy and related litigation and in April regarding record foreclosure filings in Florida.
In Hildebrandt and Citibank’s defense it isn’t easy to predict the future (note to Global Warming Climate Change enthusiasts), but the tone of the Advisory appears almost hopeful. After all, they “ha[d] for some time been predicting that the legal market was perhaps overdue for a ‘correction’ and that the era of easy or widespread double digit annual growth in profitability could well be coming to an end.”
Perhaps the era of double digit annual growth is in suspension, but the “perfect storm” just didn’t pan out.