The more they stay the same.
Things are about to change at the DDLaw blog, but they will also remain the same. First, after more than nine years, Bexis is changing law firms. He’ll be leaving Dechert and joining Reed Smith (still in Philly) on May 14, 2012. The reasons for the change are his business alone, but the departure has been amicably handled on all sides. His new email will be jmbeck@reedsmith.com.
We like amicability because nobody (except the other side of the “v.”) would benefit from having the Blog and its 5+ year store of information, scorecards, and all the other good stuff go out of existence and become unavailable. Both Reed Smith and Dechert know what’s best for their clients, and for the rest of the industry – just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a win anywhere can help defendants everywhere. So the Blog will be returning to its roots.
As our long-time readership knows, when the Blog first started in 2006 it was an odd duck – a cooperative effort between two lawyers at different firms (Dechert and Jones Day) that otherwise competed for the same clients and business. We don’t know of any other legal blog that’s ever operated like that, but because the bloggers knew, liked, and trusted each other, it worked smoothly.
If it worked once, it can work again, as the same can be said for the current blogging team – everyone’s friendly with everyone else. In fact, in one way it will work better. We’ll be able to hand off again between firms and provide better commentary on cases involving the other firm’s cases than we sometimes can about our own cases, due to limitations on what either firm can say about its own litigation.
Thus, second, after Bexis joins Reed Smith, our remaining Dechert bloggers, John Sullivan, and Michelle Yeary, will continue blogging as they have, and Bexis will keep on doing his thing from Reed Smith. We all know how persuasive Bexis can be, so we expect him to recruit one or more additional Reed Smith bloggers (McConnell, that means you) to help him out.
In any event, we expect the Blog itself to remain essentially as it is, at the same location and with the same type of content. This blog has always been about substance – not marketing – so we hope and expect that nothing substantive will change as a result of Bexis’ firm change.