Law Firms Are Worried About Their Money, Ability To Close Deals Thanks To Historic Bank Failures

// Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

I think that any law firm has to be concerned about whether or not their wires are going to go through, and what happens to the escrow accounts — are they given ready access to escrow to complete transactions? We have an erosion of confidence in the banking system, in particular in smaller, regional banks. What we don’t need now is an erosion of confidence in commercial parties, in their law firms, in being able to close their transactions. That would be the worst thing.

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I don’t think we’re done yet. I think this is round one, to stop the bleeding. There’s gonna be a round two, which maybe requires some longer-term operation.

— Joseph Cioffi, chair of the insolvency and finance practice at Davis+Gilbert, in comments given to the American Lawyer on how Signature Bank’s failure, the third-largest bank failure in history, is affecting law firms, and what may happen in the future thanks to its regulatory shutdown, the second bank to face the same fate within a week.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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ATL Finance, Banking Law, Biglaw, Finance, Finance Docket, Quote of the Day, Signature Bank