Squire Sanders partners on May 23 were voting on the firm’s proposed merger with Patton Boggs — hours after the former abruptly halted the vote. The hiatus came amid a push in the Southern District of New York to scuttle Patton’s settlement with Chevron Corp. to end the Lago Agria toxic tort litigation, a case that once posed a major obstacle to its merger hopes.

Earlier, Patton agreed to walk away from the litigation and pay $15 million to Chevron. Steven Donziger, a lead advocate for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, last week moved to intervene in that settlement and persuade the trial judge to reconsider it. The effort to intervene had the effect of putting the merger impediment back in place, at least temporarily, though Donziger said through a spokeswoman that was not his goal. “While we did not take this action to block the merger, our concern is about the plight of the Ecuadorians and their unfair treatment by Chevron in U.S. court, not about the future of two law firms,” the spokeswoman said.