NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - A former partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf sued members of its management on Tuesday, claiming that they misrepresented the law firm's finances prior to its bankruptcy filing last month.

Henry Bunsow, an intellectual-property lawyer in San Francisco, said members of Dewey management that included former chairman Steven Davis sought to misrepresent Dewey's financial performance and stability in support of efforts to recruit partners at other firms. Management was "running a Ponzi scheme in order to enrich themselves and select members" of Dewey, Bunsow said in his complaint.

Bunsow's case, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, marks the first publicly filed lawsuit by a former partner against Dewey or its management in the wake of the firm's collapse. Formerly one of the largest law firms in the United States, Dewey filed for bankruptcy last month amid a high debt load and a raft of partner defections.

Several Dewey partners have retained lawyers both in anticipation of being sued by the firm's bankruptcy estate and to consider bringing their own claims against Dewey and its principals.

News of Bunsow's suit came as Dewey & LeBoeuf separately reached a deal on Wednesday with lenders on a budget to fund the law firm's bankruptcy through July. Dewey's lead restructuring lawyer, Albert Togut, said the primary task now for the parties was to seek a global settlement under which hundreds of former partners would pay Dewey varying amounts to contribute to creditor paybacks.

Dewey can spend as much as $10.5 million of its cash through July 31 on administrative tasks like recovering accounts receivable, Togut said at a hearing on Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The budget also reserves $8.3 million for fees for lawyers and other professionals representing Dewey, its creditors' committee and a committee of former partners, Togut said.

The defendants named in Bunsow's suit include Davis; Jeffrey Kessler, the head of litigation and a member of Dewey's top leadership team in its last months; Joel Sanders, the firm's chief financial officer; Stephen DiCarmine, its former executive director; and James Woods, a one-time executive committee member who helped recruit Bunsow.

Kessler, who is now a partner at Winston & Strawn, said in an email that the allegations in the lawsuit about himself were "outrageous, untrue and without the slightest bit of merit."

"It is sad that Mr. Bunsow, who received more of his compensation for 2011 than I did, would lash out with such false allegations against me," Kessler said in the email.

Most of the allegations in the lawsuit were directed at others, Kessler said, and were about alleged events which he had no knowledge of or involvement in.

Ronald Souza, a lawyer for Bunsow at Lynch, Gilardi & Grummer, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ned Bassen, a lawyer for DiCarmine, declined comment. The other defendants or their representatives, including Davis, did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit was first reported by The American Lawyer.

Davis is separately the focus of an ongoing investigation by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance into allegations of wrongdoing related to his management of Dewey. Davis has denied wrongdoing.

Bunsow had been vice chairman at Howrey, a law firm that filed for bankruptcy in 2011. In his complaint, he said Dewey's management lured him to join their firm in January 2011 with a promise of $5 million a year in guaranteed compensation.

But he said Davis and others in leadership positions at Dewey "knew they would be unable to keep that promised guarantee in view of the huge debt of guaranteed income then owed to prior partners."

Bunsow said that during conversations before joining Dewey, members of Dewey's management assured him about the firm's financial condition, with Davis stating he expected its profits per partner to hit $2 million for 2011. But he said the defendants misrepresented Dewey's financial picture.

Among other facts, Bunsow said Davis did not disclose that financial numbers for Dewey & LeBoeuf published in an annual survey of law firm financials by the trade magazine The American Lawyer were false. Bunsow said Davis had told him that the magazine's reports were accurate and that he expected Dewey to have $2 million in profits per partner in 2011.

The American Lawyer said in April it would revise its published financial results for Dewey, following news reports that contradicted the magazine's prior reporting. While Dewey had initially told The American Lawyer it had grossed $935 million in 2011, the magazine said it had grossed only $782 million. Profits per partner were about $1 million, $700,000 less than initially reported, the magazine said.

The lawsuit describes a Jan 27 meeting where Davis told partners Dewey earned only $280 million in profit in 2011 and that about half of those funds had been used to pay debts to partners for prior years.

At a meeting in April, Dewey's management told partners that it had hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to review its compensation distributions in 2011 and 2012. According to the lawsuit, PwC said Dewey had not been making distributions in accordance with its partnership agreement and that 83 percent of its profits had been used "for fraudulent and improper payments" to various "privileged partners."

Bunsow said he suffered $7.55 million in damages as a result of losing capital he invested in the firm and not being paid owed guaranteed compensation and other benefits.

Bunsow's case is Bunsow v. Davis, Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco, No CHC-12-521540.

The bankruptcy case is In re Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No 12-12321.

For Bunsow: Ronald Souza and Arif Virji of Lynch, Gilardi & Grummer.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Nick Brown)

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