Defunct Law Firm Keeps Its Troubles Off the Softball Field

On a field of bright green turf, a group of men and women trotted about on Wednesday evening, catching and throwing, hitting, spitting and sliding. They were ballplayers, but in a sense, they were also ghosts, casualties of an immense corporate collapse, with the name of their defunct former employer emblazoned on their torsos: Dewey.

The softball team of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the behemoth law firm that went bankrupt this year, had come to play. And the curiosity of the situation was not lost on the opposing team.

“Guess they didn't lose the jerseys in the liquidation,” Dustin Mansoor said as he prepared to bat against the bygone firm.

In May, Dewey & LeBoeuf, which had been forged in one of the largest law firm mergers in history, went spectacularly out of business. The former chairman, Steven H. Davis, is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney's office for possible financial improprieties; the firm's creditors are owed more than $300 million; and in recent weeks, about half of its former partners agreed to hand over some $70 million in past compensation.

Dewey's partners, associates and staff members have scattered; many have found new homes at other firms, while others are still looking for work. The same goes for members of its softball team, and yet, out they come about once a week. And with a regular season record of 10 and 1, the reigning champions of the Lawyers Coed Softball League are actually quite good - at least for a bunch of lawyers. “We've had a lot of fun talking about whether to get T-shirts made: The Bankruptcy State of Dewey LeBoeuf,” said Chuck Burger, a 72-year-old LeBoeuf alumnus, now retired, who has been on some incarnation of the team for 49 seasons.

There have been technical difficulties of playing for a dissolving firm during the hurried exodus from the sinking ship: the team's equipment bag was temporarily misplaced, leaving the players with neither bases nor bats. But Mr. Burger said the season's travails had given the team a competitive edge.

“I think a lot of them loaded a lot of their frustrations onto this softball team,” he said.

Things began to come apart at Dewey just as the softball season got under way this spring. The day before their first scheduled softball game, Michael Didriksen, one of the team's co-captains, sent an e-mail to his players informing them that Dewey had declined to pay the team's $1,600 league dues. The team chipped in to cover the fee themselves.

When Mr. Didriksen left Dewey for his new home as a partner at Baker Botts, he sneaked the 2011 championship trophy out of the office with him.

(Before the 2007 merger between Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, both firms had strong team traditions. Even though some players still wear jerseys from before the merger, several of them said the softball team might have been the only firm entity that ever successfully jelled.)

Though the firm is not coming back, many of Dewey's players would like to keep the team together next season. And like good lawyers, they have begun to strategize, looking for loopholes that might allow them to play.

Richard I. Alvarez, a lawyer in private practice and the league commissioner, said he was unlikely to stand in their way if the team wanted to stick together, although, he added, “I suppose at some point it becomes a bit silly.”

On Wednesday's playoff game night, the team had an extra jolt of intensity. One of its stars, Jared Kanover, a Dewey alumnus who is now general counsel at a hedge fund, badly injured his left foot while rounding the bases (“It's broken,” he said with a smile after spending a few moments writhing on the ground), but he hobbled right back to the plate and hit a grand slam.

“The foot will heal, but I don't know if the team will be around next season,” Mr. Kanover said.

But it was Mr. Didriksen, the man who spearheaded efforts to keep them playing, who got to be the hero. In the bottom of the seventh and final inning, Mr. Didriksen batted with the bases loaded and his team a run behind. He drove a double into left field. Dewey won the game, 14-13.

On Thursday, however, the story came to a close. They lost to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, 6-4. After a long, hard year, Dewey & LeBoeuf went home.