The Next Big I.P.O. Scramble?

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When Dan Lufkin walked into the NYSE, five decades ago, carrying a sheet of paper that established his brokerage firm as a publicly traded company—the first to do so—he set off an avalanche of I.P.O.s that forever changed the game on Wall Street. Now, Big Law might be approaching a similar moment. But will a series of bizarre institutional barriers get in the way?

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The Next Big I.P.O. Scramble?

Fifty years ago, DLJ changed Wall Street forever by altering the conventional wisdom as the first private investment bank to go public in an I.P.O. It set off a tidal wave of followers. Now, is Big Law ready for its moment?

WILLIAM D. COHAN

On the afternoon of May 22, 1969, Dan Lufkin, the 36-year-old investment banker and co-founder of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a small research-focused investment banking and brokerage firm, or DLJ as it was known, walked into his first board of governors meeting at the august New York Stock Exchange. He was carrying with him a copy of a document that he had filed two hours earlier with the Securities and Exchange Commision. It was the first step in the process that would transform DLJ from a 10-year-old private partnership, with its stock owned by the firm’s partners and their friends, into a public company with shares that could be bought or sold by anyone willing to do so...

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