FYI - The Foodtown on Sunset Avenue in Wanamassa also closed - fear not however as the adjoining liquor store remains open. Additionally, all the employees were transferred up to the Rt. 35 store so its really a win win all around.

does wilmer hale have rats???

This is all bullshit. I billed 2000 hours last year, and this year I'll probably bill about the same. It's not a billable hours "hell." And lots of firm management is from the Wilmer side of things - Boston is not running the whole show. There just happen to be some people who are unhappy with a larger firm, the should get over it or get out.

Does this refer to all the offices? Or just DC?

I interviewed for WH in dc and they tazed me for no reason. not cool at all.

11:11 - you were tased for a reason.

11:09: Can you confirm the Baltimore office closing?

$1,200 in 1930 is about $136,000 in 2006 dollars, adjusted for inflation. I would gladly work 1500/year for $136,000, wouldn't you?

I shit billable hours.

I too heard the B-more office was closing. Only 11 attorneys, so does it really matter?

11:14- no seriously, i was tazed for no reason. I walked in for my first callback interview with a partner on the hiring committee and he just takes out a tazer and starts waving it at me. I tried to open the door and run out of his office but he tazed me in the back and I collapsed and he kept tazing me. Cruel and heartless.

As a former WH Associate, I've gotta say this post is a little over the top. After the merger the firm definitely did start paying closer attention to billables, but not anymore than every other firm in its league. I billed approximately 2100 hours every year I was at the firm and never had any problem taking vacation, etc. All of my evaluations were positive and I never heard of anyone else getting talked to about hours as long as they were around 2000.

In short, WH post merger is more like most firms but hardly worse. I mean come on, what do people expect when they go to ANY big firm.

As far as Baltimore goes, the impression I had while at the firm was that that office existed primarily to benefit a small handful of partners who lived out that way. It was never a real asset and the only surprise is that they took this long to close it.

Nice to see that disgruntled support staff have found ATL. That should really improve the accuracy of ATL reports. Support staff NEVER have an axe to grind with their employers, and the firm's reputation GREATLY affects their lives.

Right. I heard the Baltimore office had been opened specifically for a big-shot corporate partner whom WCP wooed from a Baltimore firm. (I've forgotten his name.) He eventually left to go in-house (at Deutsche Bank, maybe?), and I expected the Baltimore office to close then. It just took a few extra years. It doesn't signify anything about the overall firm's health.

That being said, I've heard plenty about other sorts of post-merger problems at WH. It's too bad -- I really loved WCP.

Don't tase me, bro!

I'm calling shenanigans on 11:16.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, $1,200 in 1930 dollars is worth just less than $15,000 in today's dollars.

You mean to tell me that summer associates get treated better than support staff at WH!?!? The horrors.

And this is somehow a newsworthy topic for this website?

What's the next ATL thread...."Man Lands on Moon"?

Yeah, the inflation math is wrong:

What cost $1200 in 1930 would cost $13,670.04 in 2006.

According to the "inflation calculator" here:
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

post-crash 1930's, I'd take 15k. beats starving...

Wilmer Hale to bread lines!

The only explanation for this incredibly stupid post is that that a Wilmer Hale partner shot Lat down in an airport bathroom.

Lat, if you want to provide a forum for support staff to b*tch about their firms, start belowthelaw.com. Otherwise, don't waste our time with this crap.

The recent post about WH definitely struck a chord with me. Although I know no specifics about the supposed staff member who has cancer, I find the claims completely believable. I used to work as a staff member at WH and left, largely due to staff mistreatment and incredibly low morale (especially among staff members), and the nonchalant attitude the firm took toward both. People know WH for their great lawyers and the good work they do. What goes unnoticed are the "behind the scenes" people -- the staff members -- that support all the lawyers and make the good work possible. Please notice that staff members at WH need to be valued and respected as competent individuals, and recognized as experts in their own right (even though they may not have a JD on their resume).

Wilmer Hale to the gulags!

Oh stop whining about wanting to feel valued. If you need affirmation, go see a shrink. If you dont like your job, quit. We're all fungible, including associates and partners. Support staff are particularly fungible.

You said what about fungi?

WH staff to lobster dinners

"WH is a billable hours hell, however the summer associates get wined and dined all summer, boat trips, KenCen, pool parties at partners' houses, free lunches, breakfast sessions, receptions, goodie bags full of WH items. You name it."

I know this is off topic but who cares about boat trips, kennedy center, parter-sponsered events. Those suck...the goodie bags are the only true incentive. Does any really look forward to going on a boat trip with the people they will work for? This is crazy.

I think Lat is pretty open about why he doesn't like WH very much:

"Once again, the firm [ignored us] did not respond to our request for comment (which we, like Robert Novak, don't like very much)."

Lat is a BLOGGER, not an "objective" journalist. If he wants to trash firms that don't play ball with him, that's his right.

what a baby..."WH is a billable hours hell."

What did you expect? That they would pay you $160,000 a year plus bonus for 9-5pm? You should be thanking your lucky stars that you are not in some samll firm requiring 19000 billables for $55,000......

11:09 Obviously Boston is running the whole show--look at all the deadweight they're bringing on board in that office while closing the one in beautiful Baltimore.

hell yes i'd work 30 hours a week with a month vacation for the adjusted equivalent

To all staffers on this site:

My coffee is getting cold. Get me a fresh cup.

Oh, and next time I catch you playing cards online, I'll fire your lazy ass myself.

quit crying,

Shut up. There is a big difference betweeen 9 to 5 and 2400.

"I'm calling shenanigans on 11:16.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, $1,200 in 1930 dollars is worth just less than $15,000 in today's dollars."

The government does NOT accurately track inflation.

Look to see how much a nice home cost in 1930. About $3k-5k. How much does a comparable home cost today? Exactly.

"I'm calling shenanigans on 11:16.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, $1,200 in 1930 dollars is worth just less than $15,000 in today's dollars."

The government does NOT accurately track inflation.

Look to see how much a nice home cost in 1930. About $3k-5k. How much does a comparable home cost today as a percentage of salary? Exactly.

The anonymous trolls are having a field day with this one. Morale is everybody's problem, so keep your arrogant snarky comments out of this. Suppose you had to work for several days, a week, maybe a month without support staff. No mail room, no admin. assistant, no billing people in Accounting. Who would cut your expense checks? Who would enter your time, answer your phones, enter stuff on your calendar? Who would do your rush FedEx labels at 4:59 when you knew you needed one at 10:00? Who would get your supplies, do your copies, pdf every damned thing you wanted, put together your preparation binders, call IT for computer problems, schedule conference rooms, get batteries for your dictating equipment, keep track of expenses, or keep track of your files? Could you do it ALL yourself? No. You'd need somebody to blame when something goes wrong. I wouldn't want to be a lawyer. I can go home at 5:00 to my knitting bag, piano, and DVD player. No working on weekends, no all nighters, no closed door meetings telling me I won't make partner. We choose our own hell, and I wouldn't trade places with a JD for all the tea in china.

It's not true that WH is completely hours driven. When I was there, no one pressured me to work more hours. What they did do was load you up with these massive doc reviews and internal investigations are completely consume your life. So no, no pressure to bill, just pressure to staff these massive, mindless cases. But, that happens everywhere. What is different at WH is that they are so reluctant to use staff and contract attorneys that their pedigreed associates (minus the few non-Ivies that sneak in) are doing the grunt work for years and years. But, as one poster said, they're being paid for it. So, people start to leave for the government or smaller firms. From what I understand, the attrition is getting pretty bad. The firm won't change, so long as the big securities cases keep bringing in the money.

I can say that the Baltimore office was a great place to work. It wasn't really integrated with the rest of the firm, but there were outstanding people there doing great work. It's a shame its closing, but I can't say its completely unexpected.

Closing the Baltimore office? Does this mean that WH will close other branch offices like NYC and Palo Alto?

Dear Minion,

The "anonymous trolls" should "keep...arrogant snarky comments" to themselves? So "Minion" is your real name, there, my friend? What, Minion Smith? Minion Thompson? Gotta love someone who can be sanctimonious and hypocritical in the same gripe-laden paragraph.

As you say, you get to go home at 5pm, don't work weekends, get paid to do the ridiculously easy work that you mention above, allowing attorneys to spend their time doing the hard stuff, aren't saddled down with $100K plus of debt, and don't get booted out just because you've been around for more than 7-10 years.

[ed. note: some support staff - i.e. paralegals - do, in fact, work long hours and weekends, and shouldn't be lumped in with the Minions of the world]

So why go on ATL and bitch? Do your job (better, please, we're constantly finding careless errors that mean nothing to you but cause us problems - often leading to night and weekend work) and leave us to our Chinese tea.

Sincerely,
Minion Jones, Jr.
Attorney at Law

1:58

"The government does NOT accurately track inflation.

Look to see how much a nice home cost in 1930. About $3k-5k. How much does a comparable home cost today? Exactly."

I hate to lecture in economics on a law-talker message board, but you've given me little other choice.

Leaving aside the conspiracy theories about the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, inflation isn't tracked by looking at the price of a single good, like the price of housing, it's calculated by looking at the theoretical basket of goods. I personally trust the Federal Reserve to track this information more than some random message board poster, but that's only tangentially relevant to the main point - you can't look at just the price of housing in determining the rate of inflation.

Even assuming you could judge it just by the price of housing, and taking your $3-5,000 assertion as true on its face, inflation hasn't resulted in a 100-fold increase in the cost of housing. There are only a handful of locations in this country where $500K won't buy you a really, really nice house, which is incomparable to anything but mansions built in the 1930s. Leaving aside the granite countertops, zero degree freezers and other luxuries one expects in this market now that were unheard of in the 1930s, the price of land is the biggest driver of housing costs and most other markets don't suffer the same resource scarcity as the market for real estate. In areas where real estate isn't scarce and luxuries aren't expected in new housing, you haven't seen anything close to a 100-fold increase in the cost of housing and you can find scores of houses for under $100,000.

I'll stick with the government numbers, thanks.

I was a minion at WHNY and yes, several years post-merger, everyone is still whining that HD/Boston controls everything, even though it looked to me like the firm was bending over backwards trying to keep everyone from both sides happy. And unlike other NY BigLaw firms I've worked at, the place clears out at 5:30. They have 2 or 3 night staffers. Overtime is non-existent. Other comparably sized firms have at least 25 night staff, with unhappy attorneys everywhere you look at all hours. This was bad for me since I wanted more OT, but I can't blame the place for just being more efficient. Frankly the work was so easy (mostly b/c they have everything automated amazingly well), maybe no one has anything better to do but come up with reasons their job sucks. I'll bet if Baltimore is closing, those people will still be offered the opportunity to transfer to DC along with a nice travel allowance or else a large severance. WH is definitely a merger done right.

1:21, I'll be happy to get you coffee all day long for my $70k. Good luck getting that FedEx out the door by 9:00 -- all I had to do was type the label and I'm done.

Wilmer started its slide downhill starting about eight years before the merger. The firm, which had always prided itself on its special culture (which was bookish, cordial and reflective), began to hire many more lateral partners. Some were good (many of the SEC recruits) and others, sadly, were not. A much more bottom-line mentality took over.

The firm, at the direction of the management committee, hired managers to effect their goals. Many of these managers were and are hilariously incompetent and ineffective (think an Applebees manager on a good day); yet they are permitted to stay in their positions because they carry the water.

These managers were and are generally uncaring in their treatment of support staff. So long as the management committee is happy, the managers stay.

The firm also pushed out many old school Wilmer partners who made the place what it was.

The bottom line: Wilmer, which used to be nearly at the pinnacle of the Washington bar, has really dropped in prestige. It may be as highly ranked on Vault as it used to be, but don't let that fool you: the cerebral, charmingly dorky culture is gone and a eat what you kill mentality prevails.

9:30--you made 70 thousand as a secretary at WH NY? I am shocked because the managing partner is not known for his munificence, to say the least.

Anon 9:49pm, you have very accurately described the descent of wilmer cutler & pickering. kudos to you.

That's all great, but what about the offices that aren't in DC? The former Hale & Dorr in Boston? The WH NY hybrid? Enquiring minds want to know.

WH is all about DC and Boston. The people in NY are the lucky ones, that are there just so the firm can say they have a NY office. All they need is DC for the SEC work and Boston for the Capital/Investment management.

9:30- I highly doubt you were at 70k without any overtime. I was at WH DC and cracked 70k because I bent over for 3 trials and a couple investigations worth of OT.

Thanks, also a minion. So the NY ppl are at least nominally less miserable than Boston or DC?

11:07- much less miserable, but you really have to know someone to get hired there. Most associates end up there because they started on a case in Boston/DC and the case moved.

The NY office also exists as a temp office for the Boston/DC partners to meet with clients. There were some days where the visitor list was longer than the permanent list. You could probably say the same of the Palo Alto office.

You do not have to know someone to get hired to the NY office. I got hired and I knew no one. NY is not a temp office, we have over 150 attorneys and lots of work. I've never gotten the impression that Boston associates are miserable, it's just DC.

WH offices closed in the past year or so:

Munich
Oxford
NoVa
Baltimore

Yup, merger is going well.

Interesting 11:49 - in light of these office closures listed by 12:16, is WH-NY is secure place to work? With all this focus on DC/Boston, I wonder if NY has enough clout to sustain a viable career.

Does the work done there originate from NY based clients, or is the work just doled out from DC/Boston?

But also keep in mind that post-merger WH has opened Palo Alto and LA offices.

I think most of the discontent resides in the DC Securities dept, most other offices/departments seem good.

1:23- Of course it is a secure place to work. There will always be clients in NY, but neither Wilmer nor Hale ever had a big presence there. It is true that a lot of the work done there comes from off-shoots of DC/Boston cases. A lot of NY people end up doing document collection for clients based in NY, but for SEC cases that are actually run out of DC.

2:54- That is correct, however, there are really only two main practice groups: Securities and IP Litigation. If you're VERY lucky, you may get put on a wonky policy case that lasts a couple weeks.

3:08 - thanks, you're very helpful. One last question - what practice areas in WH-NY are the best (ie most robust, best opportunities, best ppl, etc)?

Half of WH-NY's work is corporate and financial institutions. Think internal affairs and insurance companies though, not M&A and ibanks. They are definitely further down the client food-chain in the NY Market, but there's an off chance you would work on some appellate or pro bono work.

The other half is from SEC cases, mostly internal investigations of clients based in NY.

So there you have it- its a gamble, for sure. The hours are less brutal than other NY firms, but you don't have the cream-of-the-crop work.

It's a secure place to work because they are dedicated to growing the office to at least 250 attorneys and maintaining a presence in NY, and because it is a very good, well-managed firm. NY also has work in areas like IP, IP lit, white collar crime, commercial litigation, international arbitration, corporate, bankruptcy and real estate. WH IS a GP firm after all.

4:21---

That was all taken from the WH website. Anyone who actually works at WH knows that the bulk of NY work is in Lit and Corp. The Real Estate and International groups are tiny!

Though I will agree with the growth. WH NY is much more classic WCP, and haven't lost a lot of people.

Yes base as secy was 70k. 70 was just top of the NY market when I left - now top is more like 80. Any job site will verify. They will only pay top if you have BigLaw already on your resume to back it up. Your next job should pay you top since you have WH on your resume. No OTat all - maybe 10 hrs/yr- and spread out as an hour here or there, not even in a lump sum. At current firm where there is opportunity to "work" as much as you want, my comp will exceed 125k. I couldn't resist - if you have exp bending over, send resume to S&C stat.

Right then...you go to WHNY, or for that matter WHDC, for what it is: a fairly crack firm, with fairly good work, whose hours are not bad and with a pretty good work environment (for lawyers, at least). It's not a top shop, but a law student from a good school will still be chuffed indeed to get an offer there. Now, it will never compete with WLRK in the U.S. or S&C internationally (it's never going to get big M&A deals or even the bread and butter securities work) but not every graduate demands that experience, do they mate?

What is it like working in the general lit group in DC but doing IP litigation?

How many hours are associates in this area working and what are the partners like?

Is there much attrition in IP litigation in DC?

9:30 Minion- I applaud you for being "career legal secretary"... it must have taken you years of bending over to get up to 70k... but hey, someone's gotta do it for more than a year before law school, right?

1:12- IP Lit is intense no matter where you go. The partners in IP at WH DC are probably closer to the original WCP. Kind of nerdy, socially awkward, but really nice people. You do know what IP lit entails...? An enormous amount of doc review, with non-traditional documents and a lot of technical issues. Even the partners on IP cases bill around the clock.

Any differences in IP lit between the DC/Boston/NYC offices?

None that I've heard of. I think it depends more on the case- what court and what kind of client. I've heard ITC cases can be brutal, and there are more of them based in DC. The LA/Palo Alto office may take in more IP cases as it grows, leaving less IP cases on the east coast.

Is it better to do IP lit from the IP group or from the litigation group at Wilmer DC?

How many billable hours do they work in IP lit?

I always thought that IP lit was officially part of the lit group, while the "IP Group" was mostly prosecution. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

11:58 is correct. Its similar to how SEC work gets divided in to lit, investigation, prosecution, and special committee work. That being said, I think the prosecution cases tend to cram more hours in to shorter trial times, whereas lit cases can be year-long marathons. The advantage of lit is that you can move more easily between SEC and IP cases- always a good thing.

Prosecution doesn't involve trials at all - it's just patent office practice. What do you mean about shorter trial times?

5:30 - You're right - I think "also a minion" has just proven himself to be a fraud...