Mayer Brown is pure C-L-A-S-S, with a silent C-L.

Someone have more specific bonus information for MB?

Like actual numbers?

waa waa waa.. I want a huge market bonus for billing the minimum regardless of whether I enter my hours on-time or have good performance reviews. Any firm that doesn't offer this should be on the list of shame.

i heard they were going out of business (chapter 11, bankruptcy protection). any truth to that?

Mayer Brown to 155!

I heard that there are stealth lay-offs at Mayer Brown! Way to go!

Oh boy.

The bankruptcy stuff has to be a nasty rumor. Right?

its going around chicago. big announcement expected tomorrow.

Given the fact that the firm carries no debt and has almost no liabilities, I sincerely doubt that bankruptcy rumors are even close to true. There do seem to be issues though, it seems that partner distributions were announced a week late and were substantially lower than anticipated. Of course, that is primarily because the firm refuses to borrow any money, even to do move offices, which is just stupid.

It is 100% true. I know a guy who knows a guy who says he has inside information from a confidential, but highly placed, source. Bank on it.

you know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy. right. ever played telephone buddy? your info is hardly reliable.

2:42

I know a guy who [told me he] knows a guy [hearsay] who says [the third guy told him that] he has inside information [double hearsay] from a confidential, but highly placed, source.

You're right, you're 2 for 2...on hearsay!

@2:42,

Apparently, the humor of 2:36's post was lost on you.

You may want to read 2:36's post again. Comes across as a joke, does it not?

Um, whose side is Lat on? Why is acting as a shill, predicting this as a "growing trend..." In the most egregious cases, I might be open to agreeing on this point, but not as a routine matter.

any actual bonus numbers?

2:33,

It may not carry debt but MB certainly has liabilities. For one, that new lease in Chicago has to be hefty one . The new digs on Wacker are A+ office space. And overspending on space has led to bankruptcy before. Remember Altheimer? Not saying that will happen to Mayer though. They are far larger and stronger than Altheimer was.

I'll tell you why -- he's trying to position himself to win favor in the eyes of law firm management that might read this blog, in the hopes that they'll be more open to providing comment to him when he contacts them about various issues.

I for one fully agree with the policy of docking the bonus of those attorneys who consistently fail to heed the firm's clear, long-standing, reasonable policy on timesheets.

Lots of firms have performance requirements for getting a bonus (like minimum billables). Why not add one more? Consistent time entry means that the firm recovers more of its fees, and everyone benefits.

Milbank has been doing this for years! And they are laying people off left and right! Why is Lat not covering this?

When I worked for a big firm, I also had trouble entering my time at the end of the day. (And I had lots of hours, although I never did figure out whether time spent after midnight ought to be for the "previous" day or the "next" day. I just tried to be consistent.)

Why was it hard to enter the hours? It wasn't the five minutes extra of time it would take. It was that spending that those five minutes required you to really reflect on just how much of your life you had just given the firm. Those five minutes per day magnified the emotional toll. Rolling time entry up to a once-a-month project lets you work away in blissful ignorance much longer.

docking for bad time entry = OK; provided that prior notice was given. Docking for bad time entry without prior notice = firm management scre-wing associates.

Not sure why time entry is such a hard proposition. It takes 5-10 minutes each day if you are accurately keeping track of your time, and the time used to input it can be logged under an administrative, non-billable client, if the firm has such a category.

3:07,

The Chicago office market is week enough where most decent sized Chicago firms haven't had to pay rent for their first year in new digs (Kirkland, Seyfarth and others), which is what I assume Mayer is able to do for at least this year. From what I've seen of Mayer's financials, their off-balance sheet liabilities are very much in line with the industry standards from lease expenses as a percentage of revenues.

4:04, they're been in their new offices since 2005, and they are certainly paying much more for them than they would have been had they stayed at 190 S. La Salle. Add the 150% over budget (i.e. 250% of budget) build-out and move, and the decision to change offices probably cost them $100 million or more when you consider the costs to move, costs to build out, increased rent, etc. But it was necessary, because the old offices sucked. Most of those costs are old news, though. And, despite what you believe about their "off-balance sheet liabilities being in line with the industry standards from lease expenses as a percentage of revenue," they've been accruing reserves for their litigation liabilities for the past several years, because they are large and uncertain. So, no offense, but I can't put much faith in "[what you have] seen of Mayer's financials."

However, all this stuff about them failing is just the fantasy of some fools who have an axe to grind.

"Those five minutes per day magnified the emotional toll. Rolling time entry up to a once-a-month project lets you work away in blissful ignorance much longer."

That's not the dumbest thing I've heard this month, but it's definitely in the top five. If accurately noting how much time you're working and for whom takes an emotional toll on you, you're in the wrong business. For crying out loud, TIME ENTRY IS PART OF YOUR JOB. It's how the firm gets paid. It's often necessary for accounting to run a snapshot of time billed to-date for a client on a given matter - if your time isn't there, it screws the whole thing up. Seriously people, get over yourselves and enter your damned time. It's sad that firms have had to start docking bonuses, but clearly necessary. Sheesh.

"The second paragraph [of the memo] is a shock. We were never informed of financial ramifications for failing to enter our time."

So for this sad, clueless associate, how does a law firm make money and pay his/her salary? What a joke...

4:27,
Accrued reserves for future litigation liabilities are actually assets, not liabilities or off-balance sheet liabilites, so I'm not exactly sure what that has to do with anybody's credibility with regards to financial statements. Also, I cannot see anyway that the entire move cost Mayer more than $100MM even with being 150% over budget on costs for the build-out and move. This is especially true since in Chicago, a hefty portion of office build-out expenses have been absorbed by landlords for large law firms (usually between 25% and 50%). Of course, this trend started in late 2004 and early 2005, so Mayer may not have been taking advantage of it. Regardless, I've seen the work, and no way was the build out more expensive than Kirkland's.

My friend at their NY office said they actually had hired several associates in recent weeks...if there are actually "stealth layoffs" occurring, I would think that's the office they would start in.

A more sensible policy on time sheets is to set a due date (say 3 days post) and then dock on a daily, increasing basis for lateness. So, if you're one day late you get hit with 25 or 50 bucks. Two days, an extra 75 or hundred, and so on.

Unless they're trying to nail just one or two guys who have blown them off, I do not think that a big bright red line and significant penalty is the way to go on this.

And indeed, I can confirm that MB has been hiring in a couple of markets, and the people from there I've talked to recently have been very upbeat, etc. So, maybe the the ships about to sink, but if so, then they're hiding it very well.

Enough about the timesheet nonsense. Anybody got solid numbers for MB bonuses in CHI and other markets?

MB has major contingent liabilities on its books due to the Refco litigation (now totalling USD8bn in aggregate), various law suits from departing partners plus the amount still owing on the CFS law suit.

It has also borrowed money to fit out Lonon and Chicago and has now underwritten the profits of the Asian firm it bought out.

Partners continue to leave and take their capital with them, so the financial situation isn't pretty, as evidenced by the slow distributions to partners.

Chapter 11? Not likely, but who'd want to expose their capital to a firm with this much baggage?

Non-equity partners get their bonuses with associates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kind of proves the rumours that salaried partners at Mayer Brown are pretty much glorified senior associates and treated with zero respect.

What a bunch of d-bags.

4:40/5:01, the point is that they are accruing reserves (which of course are assets because they have the money sitting somewhere) to address significant liabilities that they expect to suffer (e.g., Refco, CFS, departing partners). If you are implying that MB's financial condition is rosy because "Mayer is able to [get free rent] for at least this year," then you really don't know what you're talking about. The amount they save pales in comparison to the amount they spent and the amounts that they may be liable for on all this billion-dollar litigation.

While there were significant concessions from Hyatt in order to induce MB to sign a significant lease and enable Hyatt to build the Hyatt Center, those concessions were eaten up and more by the expensive build-out, the expensive move and all the things that have happened since then. These things have been phenomenally expensive, as have the recent malpractice premiums because of MB's track record in managing to get sued for billions of dollars. Maybe you were just refuting 3:07, but the fact that the transition to 71 was so expensive is part of the reason that they are borrowing money now, and, in light of the other significant liabilities, I am sure that they all would like to have that money in their pockets now instead of a shiny legacy to Ty. That's my take, and I didn't even know that they had underwritten profits for the JSM deal.

I'm hearing rumours that Milbank is also suffering financially. Any truth to this?

Milbank has been "trimming the fat" quietly, but seems to be otherwise alright. Once they finish up with layoffs, all should be well.

What would be the bigger story, Brobeck or Mayer?

1.28 - MB would be the largest ever law firm to go bust, so it would be the bigger story.

If Collins is found guilty of fraud in Refco, then expect their liability insurers to refuse cover on the various law suits against them, in which case they're toast as a stand alone business. NB - the UK partnership of MB has taken seperate counsel (and defenses) on the various law suits and the Asian firm didn't sign up to the US firm when they "merged" and stayed as a stand alone entity. What does that tell you about the confidence of the UK and Asian franchises in the US law suits?