Press Room

NEW YORK – March 6, 2013 – Julie Triedman, a senior writer with The American Lawyer, has been named the winner of the 2013 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity, a prestigious honor from trade association American Business Media (ABM) that recognizes a business journalist whose work displays courage, integrity and passion.

Triedman was honored for her relentless 2012 coverage of the collapse of the Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm, the largest law firm bankruptcy in U.S. history. In the spring of 2012, she went to extraordinary lengths to get the true 2010 and 2011 fiscal results for the firm — after firm leaders initially disclosed misleading numbers to her, which were published in a March 2012 story in The Am Law Daily. After learning of inaccuracies in those numbers, Triedman worked her contacts and an array of sources inside and outside the firm. In the end, she obtained copies of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s official audited 2010 and 2011 results, writing a second story in April 2012 for The Am Law Daily that restated the initial financial results.

Those much weaker numbers were a surprise to many firm partners and staffers. At the same time she was doing her reporting, Dewey managers were aggressively trying to discredit her efforts as well as the methodology behind the entire Am Law 200 financial reporting process (the Am Law 200 is The American Lawyer’s signature annual survey of law firm results.). Triedman and The Am Law Daily reporting team subsequently chronicled the rapid collapse of Dewey, which culminated in the closing of the firm’s doors in May 2012. A number of legal industry observers point to Triedman’s tireless reporting, and unusual editorial courage to publicly correct inaccurate reports in her own publication based on her follow-up reporting, as among the key developments that led to the departure of many Dewey partners and the firm’s subsequent dissolution.

“In the face of relentless pressure from Dewey management, Julie persevered to get to the truth of the firm’s financials. Her courage, shoe-leather reporting and dogged work ethic are a true inspiration,” said The American Lawyer’s Editor in Chief, Robin Sparkman.

The Timothy White Award was established to acknowledge the daily challenges and pressures that editors face. Named after the longtime editor of Billboard magazine who succumbed to a heart attack in June 2002, the award is given to an editor whose work displays courage, integrity and passion. Recipients of the Timothy White Award serve as the conscience of their publication and fearlessly support important industry causes. They stand up
to outside pressures — whether from advertisers, industry executives or upper management — that threaten to interfere with the goal of placing readers first and maintaining independent, honest and ethical journalism.

Triedman will be honored at the 59^th Annual Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards, which are presented annually by ABM and are regarded as the business-to-business industry’s most prestigious and sought-after editorial honors. The 2013 awards will be presented on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, at Pier Sixty in New York City.

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