[Photo:  Bloomberg.com]

Boies Schiller & Flexner is winding down its 20-lawyer corporate practice; five partners - Robert Leung, Mike Huang, Stefan dePozsgay, Jason Hill, and Russell Franklin – have joined Paul Hastings. David Boise founded the 300-lawyer litigation law firm in 1997.

According to David Boies, the decision came down to the overwhelming challenges of this ‘boutique corporate practice’ to compete against larger competitors. David Boies had been in discussions with son Chris, who heads the corporate group, about these issues. One of the options for the corporate group to solve its lack of scale was to rapidly expand through lateral hires and poaching from competitors. Ultimately, it was decided that the corporate practice would be better off seeking to join another law firm.

“You need to have a scope and scale that offers clients a broad spectrum of corporate expertise at the highest level.” - - Boies.

Chris Boies joined the firm in 1997 from Credit Suisse, where he was an investment banker. While Chris has not mentioned his future plans, it’s expected that he will join a client and return to the business side.

Seth Zachary, chair of Paul Hastings, said in a statement that the addition from Boies Schiller “reflects increasing client demand for help with large and complex cross-border transactions and capital flows.”