Biglaw, Media and Journalism, Money, Partner Profits

Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw-ling: Getting Too Far in Front of the Story?

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UPDATE / CORRECTION: The premise of this post — that Mayer Brown intentionally tried to “get out in front of” this story — is incorrect. Our facts were correct, but our interpretation of them was erroneous.
It is factually accurate to state that the Chicago Tribune story hit the web before Mayer Brown sent out the announcement email to its associates. It is also true that Mayer Brown representatives spoke with the Chicago Tribune about this news before the firm-wide email went out.
But there’s a backstory here that needs to be explained. We’ll have more to add in a subsequent post.
FURTHER UPDATE: The subsequent post describing what actually happened appears here.
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One of the rules of so-called “crisis management” is to “get out in front of” bad news. The reasoning is that if you try to cover up bad news, you’ll just make matters worse. So you should just announce the bad news, take your lumps, and try to move on as quickly as possible.
Mayer Brown tried to get out in front of the news that it was axing 45 equity partners, which it announced earlier this afternoon — a Friday afternoon, which is when such things get announced. It apparently told the Chicago Tribune about the news before making a firm-wide announcement to its associates.
This may have taken “getting out in front of bad news” too far. It can be demoralizing for your employees to hear about something that affects them after (or even through?) the news media.
But this was clearly an announcement that was made with the media in mind. The internal memo that was sent around at Mayer Brown even included contact information for the firm’s communications team.
If Mayer Brown was going to be so forthright about this news, and basically throw open its kimono, why didn’t it just “go all the way” — and post a news story or press release on its website?

You handed a bunch of unprofitable geezers their walking papers. So what? That’s the way the Biglaw works in this day and age. You don’t attain profits per partner in excess of a million by coddling the useless.
Own it, people — own it!!!
Mayer Brown cuts 45 partners in restructuring [Chicago Tribune]
Mayer Brown Purging 45 Partners [WSJ Law Blog]
Earlier: Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw-ling: Firm Drops Ax on 45 Equity Partners

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