Boston midsize firm Burns & Levinson is closing down, following raids by Am Law 100 rivals. 

Managing partner Paul Mastracola confirmed the closure in a statement published on the firm’s website last Friday (27 September), saying it would “continue in the short term and then will engage in an orderly wind down of its operations”.

Burns & Levinson has lost 60% of its lawyers in the past six months, according to publicly available data tracked by Pirical, leaving its headcount at around 50. 

The exodus began in April when ArentFox Schiff hired away four automotive partners, later also picking up a 13-lawyer IP and litigation group from the firm. Other defectors include the 25-lawyer corporate and finance team that left to launch Blank Rome’s Boston office and the five-lawyer environmental team that moved over to New England regional firm Verrill in August. 

Burns & Levinson began merger talks with other firms amid the exits to “meet the obligations left to those of us who chose to remain together and to give [the firm] a chance at another chapter”, Mastracola said in the statement. 

“Unfortunately, after exhaustive analysis, we have determined that the economics, the timeline and the complexity of deals offered would not work for the remaining partners as a group and for our wonderfully varied practices,” Mastracola said. “As a partnership, we have decided that it is better for our attorneys to move on to different firms where each of our practices can thrive and our clients can – and will – be well served.”

Regional firm Barclay Damon has hired around 10 lawyers from Burns & Levinson’s IP, real estate, corporate and finance groups, firm chair John Langan said. 

Barclay Damon had initially been in talks with Burns & Levinson for a full merger, though Langan told GLP that some of the lawyers the firm had hoped to recruit as part of the deal had decided to go elsewhere and that “we could not make a full firm-to-firm combination work”.

McCarter & English confirmed today (30 September) that it has hired a group of 10 lawyers, including eight partners, and nine professional staff members from Burns & Levinson in Boston to strengthen its trusts, estates and private client practice. Another group of six private client lawyers is set to move over to New York-based firm Darrow Everett. 

Mastrocola’s statement noted that Burns & Levinson had brought in record revenue in 2023 and that over the years the firm, which was founded 64 years ago, had “repeatedly declined to pursue inquiries from national firms” about possible mergers.

Last year had “brought important – if uncomfortable for some – discussions about governance, compensation and support”, Mastracola said. “These inflection moments are not new to legal partnerships; sometimes they are weathered and sometimes they are not. It was in this context and amidst the fast‐moving law firm environment in the Boston market that things changed for the firm in 2024.”