Biglaw, Blogging, Layoffs, Media and Journalism, Sonnenschein, Summer Associates

Still More on Sonnenschein: Portnoy's Complaints

By  
on

Earlier today, in the wake of yesterday’s post about troubles in the Charlotte office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, firm chairman Elliott Portnoy sent around an irate email:

From: Portnoy, Elliott I.
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:40 PM
To: #Attorneys-All
Subject: Rumors Regarding Charlotte and Summer Program

Many of you have recently heard claims regarding our Charlotte office that have emanated from certain blogs frequented by law students. I write today to let you know the facts, not rumor or speculation. Firmwide, we will have more than 50 Summer Associates joining us over the coming few months, and we plan to have 24 first-years joining us this Fall across the firm.

First, this fine website, while certainly “frequented by law students,” is also read by many other folks – e.g., law professors; associates, partners, and recruiting personnel at top law firms; in-house and government lawyers; law clerks and judges; and legal reporters and PR professionals.
Second, Portnoy attempts to draw a distinction between “facts” and “rumor.” But the core of what we reported – namely, that the firm has rescinded offers of summer and full-time employment in its Charlotte office – is a fact, acknowledged by Portnoy later on in his message.
Read the rest of that email message, with our running commentary, after the jump.


Portnoy’s message continues:

Last month, we made the difficult decision to rescind offers to two summer associates and two incoming first years in the Charlotte office. This action was taken solely because of the significant slowdown in our capital markets work in Charlotte, and it was limited to that office. In particular, these four candidates had interests in both a specific practice group and a specific geography, where the firm’s needs simply no longer matched their professional desires. This was a highly unusual situation for the firm, and, consistent with Sonnenschein’s culture, we made offers of compensation and career assistance to these individuals in order to help ease their transitions to other opportunities. Similarly, we have made the difficult decision to be very limited in our public statements about this decision. While it would be easy to respond to blogs, we believe this is a very personal and private matter for the four candidates, and we stand behind our decision.

Portnoy appears to be a “dead tree media” snob. Although the firm spokesperson refused to respond to our repeated emails and phone calls, the firm was perfectly happy to comment on this “very personal and private matter” to the Charlotte Observer. See here (and note the article’s subtitle, which might be an ATL shout-out: “Not Above the Laws of Economics”).
Stay classy, Sonnenschein.

The decisions about these four individuals were not made lightly. Jay Suhr (Managing Partner in Charlotte), Jana Barbe (Chair of the Real Estate Practice Group), and I (among others) were personally involved in this decision, which I shared with our Office Managing Partners and Practice Group Heads last month. As we contemplated this particular course of action, one of our gravest shared concerns was that this action would be misperceived as a lack of commitment to our Charlotte office. On this point, Jana, Jay and I are in complete accord — our commitment to the Charlotte office, our colleagues there, and the Charlotte market generally, is unwavering. In fact, our Charlotte office continues to grow — with the most recent additions being our new Chief Marketing Officer and a soon-to-be-announced Insurance Regulatory consultant. I was in Charlotte several weeks ago and met with our Charlotte associates to communicate our commitment to them and to the Charlotte market, and — coincidentally — Policy & Planning will be meeting in Charlotte next week as part of our rotating schedule of meetings in all Sonnenschein offices.

In addition, late last night and early this morning, a group of approximately 20 associates and partners at the firm received form-letter protest e-mails from two different individuals who frequent one of the blogs and who sometimes even purport to be incoming summer associates. I urge you to not respond to any e-mails that you receive from students or others outside the firm. Instead, all media inquiries should be directed to Linda Butler at xxxx.

Sponsored

Who will ignore them, as she did our emails and phone calls, both last week and this week.

I understand that rumors of this sort can sometimes take on a life of their own and generate unnecessary anxiety. As such, I encourage our Office Managing Partners and members of our Associates Committee to evaluate, on a local level, whether any additional actions need to be taken to address any lingering concerns that these recent rumors may have created.

As always, I stand ready to answer any questions or concerns any of you may have.

Elliott

Okay, Elliott, we’ll bite. Why do you persist in referring to facts – facts that you and your firm have confirmed, in internal and external communications – as “rumors”? Is there any information in our prior coverage that you would like corrected? We are more than happy to fix anything that’s erroneous. Just let us know.
ATL readers: If you have more info about Sonnenschein that you’d like to share, whether related to Charlotte or any other office, please feel free to email us. We are eager to receive your tips. Thanks.
P.S. Kirsten Valle’s Charlotte Observer article helpfully surveys the lawyer layoff landscape down in CLT:

Nationwide, about 100 attorneys have lost their jobs or been offered buyouts during the current downturn, the [Legal Intelligencer] reported last month. In Charlotte, the affected firms include:

• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, which laid off nine global finance and capital markets attorneys in January, part of a wave of layoffs across the New York-based firm.

• Dechert, which issued layoff notices in February to three finance and real estate associates and 10 others across the firm. Later, the Philadelphia-based firm offered those attorneys positions in divisions that handle other kinds of law, the Legal Intelligencer reported.

• Kennedy Covington, one of Charlotte’s oldest firms, which laid off about a dozen support staff after larger firms hired away many of its lawyers, the firm said in February.

• Winston-Salem’s Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, which laid off four or five staff members recently, officials there said.

(Some readers had emailed us earlier requesting info about layoffs at Womble Carlyle. There’s your answer.)
Charlotte law firms feeling the downturn [Charlotte Observer]
Law Firms Lured by Charlotte’s Banking Culture Find It’s Cooled Down [National Law Journal]
Earlier: What’s Going On At Sonnenschein?
Update: What’s Going on at Sonnenschein – CLT? (And a discussion of the Charlotte market in general.)

Sponsored

Topics