{"id":36384,"date":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/uncategorized\/brown-amp-wood-thrives-as-other-firms-stumble-in-public.html"},"modified":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","modified_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","slug":"brown-amp-wood-thrives-as-other-firms-stumble-in-public","status":"publish","type":"corporate","link":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/litigation-disputes\/brown-amp-wood-thrives-as-other-firms-stumble-in-public.html","title":{"rendered":"Brown & Wood Thrives As Other Firms Stumble in Public Asset-backed and Mortgage Securities Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally appeared in:Asset-Backed Alert:<\/i> August 1, 19995 Marine View Plaza, Suite 301, Hoboken, NJ 07030201-659-1700Reprinted with permission.<\/p>

It's now becoming clear which structured-finance legal practices are weathering the contraction of the home-equity and subprime-mortgage business — and which ones aren't.<\/p>

In the public asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities markets, Brown & Wood<\/b> stands alone. The New York-based firm dominated first-half business, serving as underwriter counsel on 152 transactions, or nearly half of all public issues in the structured-finance arena. The firm is reaping the benefits of its strong ties to big issuers in the residential MBS market, which accounted for half of Brown & Wood's deal count in the first half.<\/p>

According to Asset-Backed Alert's<\/b> database, Stroock & Stroock<\/b> was a distant second, handling 42 underwriter-counsel assignments in the first half, followed by third-place Cadwalader Wickersham<\/b> (29 deals), fourth-place Thacher Proffitt<\/b> (21) and fifth-place Skadden Arps<\/b> (17).<\/p>

Brown & Wood also topped the midyear issuer-counsel ranking, but the competition is tighter in that category. Brown & Wood represented issuers on 40 public ABS\/MBS transactions in the first half. Next were Orrick Herrington<\/b> and Cadwalader Wickersham, with 37 deals each. Rounding out the top-five were Thacher Proffitt (32) and Cleary Gottlieb<\/b> (19).<\/p>

It's worth noting that Orrick Herrington would rank first among issuer counsel if volume were measured by the dollar amount of its assignments. It represented issuers on public ABS\/MBS deals with a face amount of $20.5 billion, exceeding the $18.2 billion handled by Brown & Wood. However, the deal count is widely considered a more relevant measure of a firm's performance because legal fees are usually tied to the complexity, rather than the size of a deal.<\/p>

Hit hard by the pull-back of home-equity and subprime-mortgage players were Dewey Ballantine<\/b> and Arter & Hadden<\/b>. Dewey, which has traditionally served as designated underwriter counsel on securitizations for struggling ContiMortgage<\/b> and Amresco<\/b> Residential, slipped to sixth place in the underwriter-counsel ranking, from third place a year ago. Its midyear deal count dropped to 12 from 24.<\/p>

Peter Humphreys<\/b>, a partner in Dewey's structured-finance practice, attributed the first-half decline to the fact that many of the firm's mortgage-related clients are funding themselves differently than they were a year ago. Rather than braving the highly selective public market, some are selling whole loans to commercial-paper conduits and others are tapping the private ABS market.<\/p>

Meanwhile, Arter & Hadden fell to 18th place among issuer counsel at midyear from sixth a year ago. The firm represented issuers on only three public ABS\/MBS issues, versus 15 a year ago. The downturn for clients such as Industry Mortgage<\/b> and Amresco has taken a severe toll on Arter & Hadden's public-market business.<\/p>

Stroock & Stroock also felt the effects of the home-equity market crunch. Although it was able to hold on to second place among underwriter counsel, its deal count dropped to 42 from 61 a year earlier.<\/p>

Ed Fine<\/b>, who oversees Brown & Wood's dominant structured-finance practice, warned against judging law firms by short-terms moves in the standings. "In fairness," Fine said, "what you have to do is consider the staying power of a firm because there will always be ups and downs and clients who are doing well or not doing well or being merged out of existence."<\/p>

He said Brown & Wood remains in the "growth mode." He expressed particular interest in collateralized loan obligations, which command higher legal fees because they are so labor intensive from a legal standpoint. Asset-Backed Alert's public-market ranking doesn't factor in legal work done on CLOs or collateralized bond obligations because those transactions are conducted as traditional private placements or Rule-144A offerings.<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared in:Asset-Backed Alert: August 1, 19995 Marine View Plaza, Suite 301, Hoboken, NJ 07030201-659-1700Reprinted with permission. It’s now becoming clear which structured-finance legal practices are weathering the contraction of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false},"corporate_categories":[6529,6520,6530,6532],"class_list":["post-36384","corporate","type-corporate","status-publish","hentry","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__criminal-litigation","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__criminal-litigation__other-business-crime","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__other-litigation-disputes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate\/36384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/corporate"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"corporate_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate_categories?post=36384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}