[ by Melanie Gretchen ] Dewey & LeBoeuf is considering bankruptcy, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.  Following earlier attempts at an out-of-court liquidation, buyers of distressed debt who have acquired Dewey's debt at a discount on the secondary market are more open to seeing the firm wound down in bankruptcy court rather than out of it, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information was not public. Restructuring. As new creditors have entered the picture – currently featuring a mass exodus surrounding compensation concerns and a $225 million in bank loans and bond debt – Dewey replaced restructuring adviser Development Specialists Inc. with competitor Zolfo Cooper last week.  Now Joff Mitchell, a senior managing director at Zolfo, is Dewey's chief restructuring officer, two people familiar with the situation said, confirmed by Bill Brandt, chief executive of DSI: "Our firm is transitioning out. We've been replaced by Zolfo at the insistence of the debt holders.  It now becomes a creditor-driven case." Status Report. Although a bankruptcy filing is not certain, the firm has been consulting with restructuring lawyers since April at the latest, and has retained bankruptcy attorney Albert Togut of law firm Togut Segal & Segal.  As of March 12, Martin Bienenstock, a bankruptcy partner and 1 of 4 members of Dewey's top management team, the office of the chairman, told the Wall Street Journal that the firm had "no plan to file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy."  At the time, he said, "We've had a completely non-adversarial relationship with our lenders, and right now the cash we're using is the lender's collateral. Since then, Mr. Bienenstock has left for Proskauer Rose and the firm has laid off 433 of 533 employees in New York, according to the New York State Labor Department.  For their part, debtholders have been selling their stakes during the firm's downfall: as of May 3, Dewey's $150 million in notes privately placed following a 2010 bond offering were trading at between 45¢ and 55¢ on the dollar on the secondary market, according to bankruptcy analyst Kevin Starke of CRT Capital Group. From the Outside Looking In. On Wednesday of last week, Annette Jarvis of Dorsey & Whitney, a bankruptcy lawyer who represents a group of 51 retired pension partners at Dewey predecessor LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae, said that in her view the firm "has to be put into a bankruptcy." For further details, go to [Reuters, 5/18/12].