Thacher Proffitt & Wood

Nationwide Layoff Watch: Thacher Proffitt Follow-Up

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We’ll be posting an update on the Dechert situation sometime soon. We’ve received some interesting tips that we’d like to pass along.
In the meantime, we have some news about Thacher Proffitt & Wood. The firm’s official position is that they haven’t laid off anyone; they’ve simply had lots of voluntary departures, some spurred by buyout offers. But that position seems harder and harder to maintain, in light of what we’ve been hearing. Even if there might be a difference in form, there isn’t much of a difference in substance between (1) getting laid off and (2) taking a buyout and/or leaving the firm, after being told that if you stay, you’ll be laid off.
Here are the latest things we’ve been hearing about TPW:

1. “[A] large part, if not all, of the people who had taken the buyout in NY, but were still staying on until May, were told to leave on Friday (buyout still intact).”

2. “Thacher is pushing harder for people to leave. Associates, especially the young ones, that were guaranteed steady work (and jobs) when this first broke last fall have been consistently billing less than 100 hours (as low as 50 hours) per month since. The slowdown is worse than the partners had initially anticipated.”

3. “About another 40 laid off and partner Ollie Armas has left with the entire Mexico City Office.”

We presented the foregoing information to the firm, which responded as follows:

To reiterate our recent statement, Thacher Proffitt has increased our efforts to provide associates with outplacement in practice areas that have been most affected by current market conditions. Other areas, such as litigation, bankruptcy and banking are very busy.

We’ll keep you posted. If you have layoff news, especially if it’s about a firm not previously mentioned in these pages, please email us. Thanks.
Update: Although Ollie Armas still appears on the TPW website, we’ve confirmed that he and an unspecified number of other TPW lawyers in Mexico City are moving over to Chadbourne & Parke.
Further Update: Perhaps the Mexico City group was no great loss. From a TPW tipster:

Two practice groups left: ’40 act team (3-4 lawyers) and Latin America team (along with entire Mexico City Office). Word is the latter were loss leaders and were cut loose. Both went to join Am Law 100 firms.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Thacher Proffitt (scroll down)

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