Monroe, a past president of AMP and former chairman of the NCPA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did Best, an NCPA board member who also once chaired AMP.
Former Howrey litigation partner Robert Green Jr., who is now retired after serving as a member of the firm's dissolution committee, says that the "fee agreement will determine whether [the counties] have any obligations" to pay the bankrupt estate. Green, who is based in Washington, D.C., adds that he last spoke about the matter with representatives for Howrey's trustee in October 2011. He notes that it wouldn't be appropriate for him to comment publicly on what he thinks the municipalities should pay.
A phone call to former Howrey of counsel Kenneth Anderson, who along with Green took the lead on the firm's NCPA work, was not immediately returned. Anderson, who is semiretired in the Baltimore area, has not joined a new firm.
Diamond McCarthy litigation partners Jon Beatty, Andrea Kim, Stephen Loden, and Andrew Ryan are working with bankruptcy partners Eric Madden, Howard Ressler, and Jason Rudd in representing Diamond in his role as trustee in Howrey's bankruptcy case. Local counsel is being provided by Eric Nyberg and Chris Kuhner, name partners at Oakland-based bankruptcy boutique Kornfield, Nyberg, Bendes & Kuhner.
Montali, the judge overseeing the firm's Chapter 11 case, certified a class of former Howrey employees last week and appointed Blum Collins to serve as class counsel on behalf of lead plaintiffs Gail Adams and Rami Dalal, according to sibling publication The Recorder. Blum Collins beat out New York's Outten & Golden—which filed the first employment suit against Howrey in 2011—for the role. The Los Angeles–based firm has previously served as lead class counsel in class actions against defunct firms like Heller Ehrman and Thelen.
While it remains uncertain how much former employees might recover from bankrupt Howrey, the resolution this week of an ongoing antitrust suit against milk and dairy producer Dean Foods and several other defendants could bring millions more into the estate's coffers for potential payments to creditors, according to a report this week by The Am Law Litigation Daily.
Last week Howrey was also named in a report released by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison that examined some of the legal ties between the firm and the leadership of the National Basketball Players Association.
Additional reporting by Sara Randazzo.
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The headline would have been cleverer, and the joke less strained, reading "No. Country" rather than "North Country."
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