A large group of Wolf Block lawyers are talking to Cozen O’Connor about joining the firm. Wolf Block and Cozen held merger talks two years ago.
A proposed merger with Florida’s Akerman Senterfitt in 2008 also fell through after lengthy negotiations.
The 300-lawyer Wolf Block was formed in 1903 by Morris Wolf and Horace Stern, two Jewish lawyers who could not get work at Philadelphia’s elite law firms. The firm rose in prominence during the first half of the 20th Century along with the local Jewish business community. It was able to attract some of the nation’s top Jewish law school graduates until other firms changed their hiring practices in the late 1960s.
Last fall, Wolf Block announced it was delaying the start dates for its first-year associates from September to November. And in December, the firm laid off 15 lawyers and staff and then made more cuts earlier this year.