Dewey Ballantine LLP was a corporate law firm headquartered in New York City. In 2007, Dewey Ballantine merged with LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae to form Dewey & LeBoeuf. Dewey Ballantine underwent numerous name changes throughout its history as partners left to serve in government positions or form new firms. History Founding In 1909, three recent Harvard Law School graduates created a law partnership on Wall Street. The founding partners were Francis W. Bird, Grenville Clark, and Elihu Root, Jr., and named the firm Root, Clark & Bird. The firm took advantages of Root's connections through his father, Elihu Root, a former Senator and Cabinet member. This gave them entry to high financial circles, establishing a thriving law practice. Name changes In 1913, the firm merged with the firm of Buckner & Howland (recently founded by Emory Buckner) to form Root, Clark, Buckner & Howland. In 1919, Arthur A. Ballantine, the Internal Revenue Service's first solicitor, joined the firm. He and Emory Buckner ran the firm throughout the 1920s and 1930s. During the Great Depression, the firm flourished by moving away from its traditional focus on litigation and to begin focusing on bankruptcy and reorganizations, and then by taking advantage of the New Deal to build a thriving regulatory practice. The firm also built up a corporate practice, serving clients such as AT&T and Standard Oil. Overall, the firm expanded from 8 to 74 associates and opened a second office in Washington, D.C. Both Henry Friendly and John Marshall Harlan II worked at the firm during this period. The firm weathered many name changes from its founding through 1955, as named partners left the firm for periods of time to serve in a number of important government positions. Among them was Emory Buckner, who left to become United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and is often credited with remaking that office into a professional prosecutorial office by declining to appoint Assistants based on party affiliation. Partner Grenville Clark served as United States Postmaster General. Later generations of partners included John Marshall Harlan II, who left the firm when appointed to serve as a Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and who later became an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court; Henry J. Friendly, who left with several partners to form the firm of Cleary, Friendly, Gottlieb & Steen (now Cleary Gottlieb Steen