FIRSTY FIRST FIRST FIRST

First?

5:13(2). You're SECONDY SECOND SECOND SECOND. I was "Firsty."

Information re LA Litigation is not accurate. There was no instruction to take December off and most people in LA Lit received bonuses.

first?

pay off your loans
get an inhouse job
and fucking leave your firm in the lurch next time a project comes in

Its not just Paul Hastings who does on the low lay offs...so many do...proskauer rose has been cleaning house ever so quietly making subtle and not so subtle changes firm wide.

layoffs? This is a miscarriage of justice.

5:14(3) is a liar!!!

Saying low hours is poor performance is crap.
Yes, if you suck no one will want to give you work.
Yes, if you turn down work or leave at 6 you won't get hours.
BUT when there is no work to be had. When PARTNERS AREN'T DOING THEIR JOB and bringing in work, then low ours is NOT poor performance.
The economy sucks. Maybe it is not the partners fault, but it is not the associates fault by far. Associates do work. Partners generate work. Low hours is a crap excuse to fire someone who is ready, willing and able to do work but is just putting in facetime because partners and the economy suck.

Also, there is NO WAY only 10-20% of LIT associates hit there hours firmwide or in LA. Firmwide, litigation hours were significantly in excess of budget. If this statement is just about SF, I don't know if it is true or false, but -- in any case -- that should be clarified. Frankly, I think there may be serious inaccuracies in what is set forth above. I think you should have multiple sources before publishing. I cannot imagine you do.

Lots and lots of firms are doing stealth layoffs. If you think the NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and 2 or 3 or 4 month packages are unqiue to PH you are clearly a 2L or don't have your ear to the street.
I can name 15 firms in the Vault 60 who are right now doing stealth layoffs.

5:20 --- I am not a liar. I have specific, factual knowledge. The claims here are not true.

sidley austin has let go off several attorneys in litigation in its chicago office...Latman needs to be more proactive about this, so that once things become better, law students and attorneys which firm are the real TTTs...

5:24 - why tease? Just name them already.

For every firm like Thelen that is open about lay-offs there are five or six firms like Paul Hastings who are doing it on the fly. Thank god I'm at a boutique firm with a stable practice instead of a full service firm that is descending into the valley of death.

well...who are the 15 firms??

"You could have been my son, but you're not. Remember that. We'll do business, but you're not family."

Il était une fois quand Papa Partner spoke to young Michel.

5:25 = PH Partner

herpes.

5:24,

just go ahead and name the firms. Then Lat can follow up with them.

what about atlanta?

Stuff like this never happens at... oh... never mind.

5:35
All due respect, but...
Are you a fucking moron? "Then Lat can follow up with them."
The firms pay 3 months salary and get NDAs go they can say, just as PH did, "we don't comment on internal matters"
Why would a firm admit to layoffs? THEY KNOW is it horrible PR. So they pay so naive law students who are beginning their summers really believe "oh, she left to move to another city with her husband" or "some people find out the law isn't for them" etc. etc. "We have an open door policy" "No screamers" "Yeah, sometime I come in on the weekends, but it is a good balance and no face time." etc. etc.
And really - Lat follows up? With whom? You think that the NYC office knows what the LA office does? Or the people doing Exxon/Florio have a clue about Secured Loans billable hours? Some 23 yrold PR flack in the head office doesn't know jack shit and if she did she wouldn't say.
Bro, enjoy the sushi lunches this summer. Try to hold on to the memories.

How's this for a sob story. My wife, kids, entire extended family and every close friend I have ever known all simultaneously died in an unfortunate Ski Doo accident.

When I returned to work still bawling a partner kindly handed me a tissue. At first I appreciated his gesture but upon closer examination realized that it had the words "You've Just Been Shit-Canned" scrawled onto it .

Needless to say I was none too happy about this

Bingham has done stealth layoffs recently.

--Not 5:24

Lat is not the MSM--which is why we all read this blog. If he had to confirm with multiple sources everything he published, then we'd never get any information. If Lat's information is incorrect, then let PH say so.

5:14 / 5:23

Please come forward with specific info to correct Lat. Most law firms have a cult(ure) of stinginess with information. There are costs and benefits. False or incomplete rumors are one of the costs.

Blaming ATL, a legal *tabloid* that trucks in gossip, is just silly.

Have any firms removed Internet?

5:52 = @assclown

Serious question: how can the release agreement say that it "is" a resignation and will be classified as such? Is there any way that this isn't an outright lie? Do people really do this???

Any word on Schulte layoffs?

Where is the rush to Four Months severance as market? Sullivan & Cromwell to 1 Year! NY to 2 Years!!!

5:58 -- you're asking for "specific information"? I don't know what I can give you w/o compromising my anonymity. I know for a fact that statements cited above are false. While some people did not make budget, most did. I think the average person in litigation billed 2025 or 2050 last year, which is totally fine. More importantly, bonuses were very good and -- best I can tell -- above LA-based firms, other than Latham. This place is not perfect, but it seems unfair that it would be singled out on the basis of false information or for functioning just like its competitors (or -- for that matter -- on the unsubstantiated and self-serving statements of one associate).

Finally, I have no information about people being laid off or fired. But, I will say that the numbers of people cited above -- even if true -- are very small for a firm of some 1200 lawyers. The numbers at least suggest to me that there were legitimate, performance-based reasons for the terminations.

6:11, don't they offer their resignation in exchange for the severance package? If they refused, then they'd be fired. Right?

Lat, great job!!! This is the kind of gossip that starts the summer off right!!! Which firm will be next to TTT?!?! NY to 190, time to kick em while they're on the ground!

I think I speak for many (if not all) biglaw associates when I say:

David, you are doing us a tremendous service by keeping a careful eye on situations such as these. Thank you for airing some very filthy laundry.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3887407.ece

ATL Readers to Unionized!!!

Why does a firm that doesn't even have enough work for its associates bother with a summer program?

NY to 4 months' severance!

I think I speak for all biglaw partners when I say:

David, you are doing us a tremendous service by creating an echo chamber for all the malcontents and morons so that they don't infect the many excellent associates working with us.

6:23, thanks and I agree it's good to have some perspective on the numbers. All ATL's dramatic layoff stories must seem laughable to people in other industries. Still, most firms are very opaque so it's understandable if people fear the worst. 5:58

I love reading the comments because of the ignorant kids in law school who don't understand that associates are a fixed cost creating variable income for partners. Kids who ask 'how can they call it a resignation? Isn't that a lie?'
Kids whose parents told them to study hard and get into an Ivy and think because the rocked a 174 and 3.82 that an Autistic partner at CWT who went to Nova law would ever value their opinion on a deal or the election or diversity when the are just cogs in a wheel, monkeys in a barrel, fungible billing units.
Yeah, your Columbia degree and United Colours of Benny face look good on the website, but that is just superficial window dressing. End of the day, Ira's got an ex-wife, a Co-op fee, his own rent and NYC private school tuition to pay for - so your fancy degree ain't worth the price you paid for the frame.
Hell, a Brooklyn law grad can do your job at min 85% capacity if the economy ever gets hot again.

Can someone please explain how the "baggage" of a poor performance review hurts you in getting another job? Obviously the interviewing firms don't get to see the performance review, and if they call the old firm they'll just say you resigned, per the agreement.

Is it just because the layoff wasn't publicly known?

How can PH agree to classify departures as resignations, and then go ahead and tell the world that these same departures were performance based? Isn't that a clear breach of their agreement (even though they don't name names)? Particularly since now every employer out there will now believe that these former PH associates performed poorly.

@6:31 : PR. Plus summers are cheap - even with baseball tickets and michelin star lunches, they don't get healthcare or work more than 12 no 11 no 10 no make that 8 weeks hahaha. As said before, a whole summer class costs less than two or three associates. And the summers won't be drawing real salaries until Fall 2009 anyway. Rescind the offers like Sonny Charlotte did if the economy isn't better by then.

@6:37 : Um, CWT, Mckee, and TPW layed off 10-30% of their associates. That's not an immaterial number.

A friend at PH told me the associate who was fired right after the miscarriage was told months before that she was being terminated, and when. That seems more believeable and less horrible than suddenly deciding to fire someone 6 days after a miscarriage, and makes her screed, which seems to be a bit of a hysterical tantrum anyway, reflect more poorly on her.

I am not apologizing for PH's retroactively deciding that there were performance issues, if that happened. That kind of stuff is bullshit.

I'm just saying if she knew this was coming for months, PH is not to blame for the timing. And extending the time before her firing would not be a realistic option in my eyes, b/c who wants to stick around a place from which you have been fired?

And no, I am neither a partner nor a PH employee. I just think the reaction here is, while understandable, a little reactionary and out of proportion.

6:36 - I think I speak for all "excellent associates" when I say that you sound like a complete douchebag and that you are also clueless, since I'm sure the vast majority of your favorite associates read ATL all the time.

How does getting fired or resigning create baggage when interviewing with new firms?

6:46 - Because they know you are coming from PH, and PH is telling everyone that their layoffs were all performance based.

6:42(1)

"How can PH agree to classify departures as resignations, and then go ahead and tell the world that these same departures were performance based? Isn't that a clear breach of their agreement (even though they don't name names)? Particularly since now every employer out there will now believe that these former PH associates performed poorly."

They're not telling the world its performance based. If they did, then yes I think it woud be a breach. Also, I would say your last sentence is the opposite of true - shouldn't employers now think that these were just economic layoffs, in light of the recent incident?

6:50 - Here's a quote from the post above:

* As noted earlier, back in November, the firm reportedly laid off at least four associates in the real estate group: a junior associate, two midlevels, and one senior associate. A second-year associate in the employment group may have been laid off around this time as well. The firm tried to cast these departures as "performance-related" (just as it did for the author of the PH Farewell Email, who said she received a negative review this year, after receiving excellent ones in the past).

6:43 - if what you're saying is true then certainly it reflects very poorly on her. But for it to be true, she would have had to completely fabricate many of the details of her email, such as the fact that she was worried about getting laid off (you're not worried about getting laid off if alread told you're fired) and the part about the partner telling her husband how great she is, etc. Though you sound sincere, I highly doubt what you are saying.

PH Redacted'd email made no outlandish accusations. All it said was reasonable and, in my opinion true. At best PH thinks that the phony reviews were notice that she was getting fired.
They 'lucked' into the timing of Redacted's personal tragedy. They thought she'd take the 60K and shut her mouth. She's in Cali, so she took her 4 weeks vacation and told people the truth.
Partners reading - just admit you don't have the same book of biz you had 2 years ago and you don't feel like paying people to sit on their hands.
I figure Redacted was justifiably upset about the poor timing and the underhanded rationale for it. She didn't say any 'hysterical' or 'libelous' - she just told the sad, pathetic truth.

6:42 - "a whole summer class costs less than two or three associates" - how is that possible? Their salary alone is 30-40k a summer, and there's the parties, lunches, overhead costs, etc., not to mention the nonbillable time associates spend entertaining them. If a firm is firing that many associates, they should probably be saving the billable work for the attorneys they already have.

6:42 - "a whole summer class costs less than two or three associates" - how is that possible? Their salary alone is 30-40k a summer, and there's the parties, lunches, overhead costs, etc., not to mention the nonbillable time associates spend entertaining them. If a firm is firing that many associates, they should probably be saving the billable work for the attorneys they already have.

6:36--

What's your firm? Just wanted to know so I can make sure never to throw work your way.

Oy, it is NOT a good week to be a Paul Hastings partner, the press is terrible!

Silly law students think the firm is going to be their loving home. So silly.

The partners de-equitize their "friends" who have given blood and sweat and probably two marriages to the firm and some 25 y.o. thinks that they're going to nurture him?

6:37 your 10-30% number is pure fantasy...cadwalader laid off maybe 5% of their attorneys

6:43, some word choice issues:

hysterical -- not a good choice. In moderns usage, sounds sexist whenever used because of the widely known origin of the word. In a situations where women had miscarraige, the word choice becomes terrible.

reactionary -- this word does not mean "prone to reaction," as you use it, it means a political philosphy that promotes views perceived as old or passe.

Example:

"How did you get that bruise on your head?"

"oh, it was the chief of police of Malibu, a real reactionary."

7:05
3 associates at mid-level, with bonus, with staff support, with taxes and tech, etc. etc. cost 700-1MM dollars.
Summers overhead cost? that's a fixed cost. Your firm doesn't rent more office space in summer nor sublet it during winter. Again, no healthcare or 401k adminstrative costs or emergency childcare.
Non-billable time associates spend enteraining them? That's free. Associates get work assigned to them. They get it done. The extra work they do to entertain summers doesn't get them one dollar more. Depending on the firm it may count towards billables or admin hours or partially or not at all. But the time a 6th year spends with you costs the partner nothing and probably pisses the 6th year off (except that by taking you to lunch when he's not busy he gets an excuse to step outside the office and get a whopping $50 lunch for free. whoop-de-do).
So yes, Cravath's 160 summers is effing expensive. But having 25 summers getting 36K in salary (plus the social security costs) and lunchs runs the firm less money way less than 2 junior associates, 2 mid years, and one senior associate if the 'real' lawyers aren't billing anything.

Plus the summer's billables probably cover the lunches and Yankess tickets at a minimum if the firm has any decent clients...
Summers to Doc Review and State Law Surveys!

5:16(2): to what extent has Proskauer had stealth layoffs? All offices and practice areas or just certain underperformers?

6:37, funny story but the people actually running basically every biglaw firm apparently disagree with you. Really though, you should take the opportunity some time to explain to Wachtell's hiring partner why they should pass up the Law Review kids at Harvard for median Brooklyn grads at half wages. You know, cause it's all fungible, so why should they care?

7:22
You may be smart, but you sure ain't wise.
CWT specifically doesn't hire from Yale because they want people like Ira and not Lat.
Google it bro.

If someone walked in here and offered me a year of severance it would be like winning the lottery.

hammer these bastards.

i'll resign myself to being treated like a banker when i'm paid like a banker.

No claim to wisdom, but I know that about CWT, 7:28. I'm not headed there. Good firms do not operate that way. Yeah, as a junior associate at some V4 I'm still just below the paralegals, and no I won't be telling midlevels and partners my opinions on anything, but I'm still more valued and less fungible than my counterpart at CWT, whose best exit option is some PI hellhole on Long Island.

I'm a NYU 2L who did a callback with PH NY in October, and what struck me was how many empty offices there were as I was going from interview to interview.

Glad I turned them down.

7:22, the post was in reference to a Cadwalader SOB. CWT detests Yale and refuses to recruit there.

Based on the Vault 25, a lot of other firms have similar feelings about Yale grads, just not to CWT's extent.

7:40
Yes, you have value. And more than your coutnerpart at CWT.
But you are still very fungible. Are you at David Polk? 100 summers. 100 first years. Guessing your something like Columbia-HLS. Impressive. Yet...you will never make partner. If you last until 6th year you will get the 'hey, what are your long term plans' speech. You probably don't want to make partner even. Just do 3 and out. Pay off your loans. get an inhouse job that pays 150-200 in NYC, which isn't really that much in NYC. And will feel like a lot less as you will then have a family and kids and be used to making 300.
Just remember you may have value, but you are fungible. HLS/Yale/Stanford/Chicago/NYU/Columbia pump out 1000+ grads each year. You don't have a book of business and no time to develop one. And doc review ain't rocket science.

What is TTT?

You're not telling me anything I don't know, 7:51. Hopefully I stay employed there for a few years, get some decent exit options, and leave. I'm not looking for a fairy tale and wasn't giving up one outside of law either.

@7:55 Your alma mater and the law firm where you you work

8:00 ------ WTF?

6:43 --- I can't really comment on what your friend said. However, I do think that, when and if the truth comes out (and I expect that it will), people will have condemned Paul Hastings unfairly regarding this incident. A lack of skepticism is a bad trait in a lawyer. Most commentors on this site have not shown a great deal of skepticism regarding Redacted's comments. -- PH Assoc.

8:11 ------ WTF?

TTT = Third Tier Toilet

8:14...poor PH. Stop trying to make her look bad. It only hurts the firm more.

If this was the first time I saw PH behaving badly, I might be more skeptical. PH Associate...she is a great attorney... just not a push over like you. I heard more than 30 attorneys have been laid off. Why doesn't PH just say the economy is down instead of trying to make their attorneys (that they have trained and hired) look bad. It is a self-destructive approach.

@8:00(1)

I take back my earlier assessment about you not being wise. Good luck from this older passenger in the same boat.

Winston & Strawn is doing serious lay offs at all levels. Upwards of 20 capital partners have been asked to hit the road and even more associates and income partners. The firm is losing steam -- the 31 summer associates in DC (what a laugh!) should see the writing on the wall!!!

@7:40 - mad b/c trial lawyers actually have balls?

Not responding to other CWT chatter above, but at least they ripped off the Band-Aid and told everyone about it. It pains me to say it, but PH makes them look classy.

8:29 --- You are an overly credulous idiot. When a firm does a "layoff" of a few people it will typically ditch the weakest, lowest peforming associates.

If no one from PH can respond bc "it only hurts the firm more," then we are in a world where: (1) everything Redacted said is true; and (2) PH cannot defend itself and any inaccuracies will not be revealed. Catch 22, much?

8:32, same to you.

This news is not surprising. The litigation department in LA is moribund -- few, if any, partners have meaningful books of business. There are virtually no partnership prospects for litigation associates -- which is why some of the best ones have left.

Seriously, are you all idiots?? It isn't just in the best interest of a firm to keep its lay offs quiet - it also benefits those that have been laid off because they can still say they are employed by the firm for a certain amount of time, thus not raising any eyebrows when they are interviewing. If these lay offs really did happen, then right now you're hurting the victims of those lay offs in finding new jobs by conducting this witch hunt!

9:25 -- Some of the best one's have left, huh? ha ha ha. Who are you? That's pretty funny --- awesome that you were "one of the best." Or that you thought that you were. It is not true that there are "virtually no partnership prospects." There have been two up through the ranks partners in LA Lit in the past 3 years, which is actually a good rate by big firm standards and given the size of the dept. All indications are that several people in line have a decent shot -- again, by big firm standards. Partners w/o business are non-equity and close to retirement. That happens.

9:32, I agree. Nearly all layoffs are performance-based, because the firm picks people to retain and people to terminate and it usually does that based on performance. The exceptions are when there is a collapse of an industry -- as in structured finance. Then you have a real layoff that likely has nothing to do with performance. Making layoffs public hurts the kids who get laid off as much as it hurts the firms, because there is an implicit suggestion that the "laid off" persons were terminated for being subpar.

Is Northeastern Law TTT?

I agree with 9:32 and 9:48. Is this a witch hunt, Lat? It seems like one.

what about all the women PH doesn't promote? Are you saying all these associates/counsel who have billed up the whazoo for Mr. Paul and Mr. Hastngs are underperformers? I'd like to see stats on women partners, and more particularly, non She-bot women partners. My friend there told me there was a woman who was a named partner at a boutique firm that PH acquired. The man partner who was also name partner became a PH partner. She was made OC.
Nice!

10:25 -

You are correct. The woman name partner from the boutique wanted to be a parttime partner because of her family. PH said no.

TTT
Paul Hastings
TTT
Paul Hastings
TTT
Paul Hastings
TTT
Paul Hastings

10:33, then why didn;t woman walk? Why must these women take this firm or any other firm's terms? Women -- stand up for yourself. Talk with your feet!

10:25s --- I don't know the situation and can't comment, but I would guess there was a financial reason for the distinction. If you don't have a serious book of business, you won't lateral as a partner. Period. And there are no part-time partners at this firm. Guess what? If you want to be a partner at a firm with PPPs of ~$2 million, you have to work your ass off all the time. It is extremely difficult to become a partner. That's true whether you are a man or a woman. If you are only going to make 5-10 people partner, a lot of women will not get promoted. A lot of men won't either. If you don't like it, go to a firm with lower PPPs.

That said, there are are tons of top women lawyers at this firm, and tons of high profile openly gay partners and associates, and a growing number of minority partners. Every time they make partners, they increase the diversity of the partnership. To portray this firm as hostile to women or minorities is absurd. I've worked a number of places in and out of law and this is by far the best place re diversity, gay rights, etc. and fair treatment. These are things I presonally care a great deal about. I know several women who have received full, non-prorated bonuses and full salary even though they took 4-5 months off to have a kid. $250-300K for 8 months work and it's a shitty place for women?

Gents who think not telling people they are layoffs is better for the people let go,

While the business intuition of most attorneys never ceases to amuse me, as a talent & compensation consultant (i.e., I help companies figure out their hiring), I have to throw some paint on the picture you are painting and tell you that you are wrong. Layoffs are a part of the business cycle, are practiced in many industries, and are not considered to reflect poorly on the employee laid off. Caused-based firings of abrupt resignations when someone gets past the point where they should have received a promotion, on the other hand, do reflect poorly on the attorneys.

If PH - or any other law firm - wanted to help its attorneys, it would announce that they have a talented and hard-working group of associates, but that due to economic conditions, they have unfortunately had to let some of them go. People could bring that story to their future employer with no problem, and PH - or any other law firm doing what they are doing right now - could avoid the conflict and embarrassment that inevitably arises when one tries to convince a solid employee that they were fired for something which is not true.

As a general rule, employees should not be lied to - the truth almost always comes out, and the fact of lying hurts the lying company far more than telling the truth in the first place would have (see PH here). This is especially true when the employees in question are intelligent, argumentative, and are in a status conscious profession that has lots of gossip boards which potential future employees, current employees, and clients read.

Bottom-line, PH is probably being unfairly targeted in that other firms are probably doing something similar, but such a scandal is inevitable when a firm or group of firms deals with its employees as PH has done here.

comment #100. herpes.

9:32, 9:48 and 10:15 - under a different scenario you could be right, but I dont think your point applies to the facts here. PH is NOT letting people say they still work there. They're giving them bad reviews, and then firing them. And much to the firm's benefit (but nobody else's), until things went haywire on Monday.

For all you people who keep saying "everyone does this" and "PH is being unfairly targeted" - are you just pretending to live under a rock or do you actually?

McKee Nelson - laid people off, gave generous severance options, told the world that these are great associates and times are tough

Thacher Proffitt - slightly less generous than McKee, but still very open about the reason for the layoffs and even suggested they might hire some back if the market brightens up

CWT - not all that different from Thacher Profitt; very open about a slowdown being the cause

Clifford Chance - said that they laid off 6 associates ONLY after determining that the work would never come back

PH - decides to shed a lot of people, and apparently concocts a plan to make it look like they all suck

Gee....they all seem the same to me

If I were general counsel for a fortune 500 company, I would start questioning the outrageous billing rates of law firms across the board. Associates, partners, special counsel. All of them are overpaid for the service they provide. Why do corporations pay $500/hour for an attorney to handle a class action that the company already knows it will lose?

Damage control ain't worth a damn, not in the age of electronic discovery...

11:11 -- You are wrong on the facts. PH always allowed people time to find other jobs, while they were still nominally employees. Even in Redacted's case, the term of her employment would be three months from signing the document.

Is it completely naive to assume that these firms laying off associates will be able to make offers to around 100% of their summer classes? Are they cleaning house so that they can make offers to summers and avoid further negative PR? Or should 2008 summers be ready for a bloodbath?

@ 11:17 -- You're comparing apples and oranges. At least two of your examples (CWT and CC) were directly related to a slowdown in a specific industry. In those cases, it was more plausibly true that the firms are laying off the associates, through no fault of their own. But if you are one of three sixth year employment litigators at a firm who are asked to leave, then there is a strong inference that you were, ahem, the "weakest link." It seriously hurts an associate in such a situation for a layoff to be revealed, particularly before he or she has another job.

As to the recruiter, @ 11:05 other industries are somewhat different than law firms. Regular companies often down-size somewhat indiscriminately -- i.e., not always based on employee quality. In law firms, associate quality is the biggest factor in my experience in deciding who to lay off and who to keep, unless there is an industry slowdown (see CWT). That's why doing things on the q/t is best.

11:58 -- It will have no impact on summer offers, probably. An associate enterring in Fall 2009, is not "fungible" with a current third or tenth year. Firms constantly need new associates. That said, you may have to be flexible on practice area.

re 11:59 -- Sorry, meant to say "if you are one of three 6th year employment litigators at a firm, and they ask you (and not the others) to leave ..." Time for bed.

PH associate here: This "layoff" watch is pretty funny. This article amounts to "rumors" of 22 people being let go. In a firm of about 1200 attorneys, that is hardly a big deal. First, if it wasn't for other PH news this week, this thread wouldn't even exist. Second, let's get real, people are getting FIRED for not contributing like they should. When times are good, partners put up with associates who really don't deserve the salaries they are getting paid. They just need anyone to do the extra work. When things slow down a bit, people get fired because they really arn't worth the salaries they are getting paid. It is called trimming the fat. Firing 22 associates who didn't deserve to get paid $200K or $300K or more is just good business. I guarentee not one single associate that is actually valued by the firm is getting let go. Maybe it will happen later, but It sure hasnt' happened yet. The people getting FIRED are most likely just not good attorneys. In a firm our size, I would actually expect more people to get FIRED each year for their lack of performance.

11:59: I think that 12:20 proves my point of why it is better for the employee if the employer just admits it is laying people off. Likewise, I think the defensiveness of the PH employees (who correctly feel that they are under attack) shows why it would have been better for the firm to admit it as well.

Of course, a win-win scenario may not be what we're after - maybe PH is happy with how this has turned out - but attorneys aren't the only ones who roll their eyes when clients ignore their counsel.

-consultant at 11:05

12:20
I agree with most of what you say. I think it is generally true. I don't think it's fair to say that people forced out are "most likely" bad attorneys.
I've been around law firms enough to know that a lot of very good lawyers get canned for arbitrary reasons. One common situation is an example. This sirtuation occurs most often in small to medium sized practice groups in which a powerful partner has a protege and the protege has a peer who is very highly regarded. The partner views the peer as a threat to his protege. The partner waits for an opportunity and does something to get rid of the threat to his protege. Often when this happens, the peer doesn't even know what hit him. (I've seen this exact situation happen twice in seven years--at different firms.)
A lot of bad attorneys are fired too. But in my experience, they know it's coming. One partner told me about firing a real slacker. The slacker just laughed when they told him, in his fourth review, that he was fired. He wasn't surprised or even mad.
When the person is surprised, like this woman obviously was, there's usually something going on. That doesn't mean is was illegal discrimination. But I think it doesn't make it likely that she was a bad lawyer.
Even though she was taken by surprise, she shouldn't have sent the email. She should have taken a decent in-house job and enjoyed her evenings and weekends. That will be difficult now.

11:59,12:20
Only 2% of associates ever make partner at an AmLaw 100 firm. That means that at some point most associates will have to find somewhere else to work. There is only so much clients are willing to pay class of '98 associates to work on. Eventually many associates aren't worth their billable rate. Big Law has long been an up or out practice. Ideally firms would only cut the weakest links, but that assumes firms are well managed and we shouldn't assume that. Most partners practice law and that doesn't leave tremendous amounts of time for managing the business. How much time can they really devote to assessing associates? Certainly far less time than they spend on practice. Yes some attorneys who get the ax are bad attorneys, but there must be some number for whom the work has dried up or who work primarily for partners who may not have a book of business. Such associates aren't protected.
I know that it's difficult to accept that so much of our chosen profession is arbitrary or that we work for organizations that are inefficient, but you should allow room for the possibility. Many companies seem to function just fine after laying off massive amounts of their workforce (Merck apparently let go 33% of its work force at one point). That means there were a lot of extra bodies for a long time. Unlike the models we studied in microeconomics, very few businesses are efficient. Law firm profits per partner are through the roof primarily because law firms have significantly raised their rates over the years. Charging as much per associate as most big firms do allows a lot of inefficiency to take root. Get rid of attorneys who don't fit into the business model and get fresh faces to fill the gap. Rinse, repeat.
The problem many of the ATL readership has is that law firms bend over backwards not to explain the business model and the low likelihood that any of us will last past our 5th year. Worse yet, they actively misrepresent our prospects. Ever hear something like, just work hard and you have a great chance of making partner? We're all grown ups, yes, and we're very well compensated, but a little more directness from firm management on business realities would be a welcome change. As for good performers and underperformers, well it's not as though PH is headquarters to hundreds of Ted Wells or Ted Olsons. The firms lawyers have good pedigrees, and are almost all certainly book smart, but stop buying into this delusion that those that are kept on are brilliant lawyers who were retained without any regard for the realities of the amount of work available to them.

PH senior associate here.

Morale is horrible right now and the partners seem to think it will go away if they ignore it. The firm is run at the highest level by blowhards who are too caught up in their rhetoric to acknowledge the effect this is having on associates.

There is a right way and a wrong way to address this. Guess which way they have chosen.

12:41 points out one situation, another is where there is a partner who is the be-all end-all of his domain and hires new kids to do work for a little bit when he gets busy, and then forces them out bc he just doesn't really like working with people. We had a partner that is on his 5th new associate in the last four years. He never hired more than one at a time, and forced all of them out when he got tired with them by putting them on some assinine impossible task, or just making something up about their performance in general. Those people are unfairly tainted for life, bc they didn't know any better going into the job, and they can't seem to shake his stench off coming out.

GREAT POST LAT!!! Nice work.

12:20 = Dwight Schrute

12:41: I seem to be in this position right now. Are you talking about a PH partner? Location?

12:20 you are completely delusional. I know many of the associates let go in this recent wave of layoffs (ask me how). Most are very good attorneys with spotless performance reviews and records. You think the partners won't fire you if you're a good attorney? Think again. If they're not bringing in enough work and your outlandish billable rate (which they've set) threatens their ever-increasing PPP, you're screwed. PH SF litigation has been gutted at the senior and mid-level ranks. You think they all sucked? Wake up. PH has priced themselves out of a lot work due to Seth and Greg's unrealistic ambitions. Whether it's justified or not, clients don't see PH as in the same league as Latham--so why would they want to pay Latham rates for PH work? They don't, and it shows.

12:20: How?

how will this affect PH's vault ranking? when are the 2008 rankings released?

I think you are doing a great job reporting on this fiasco because it is underhanded and sleazy to attribute a layoff due to economic reasons on a concocted negative review. The simple truth is that the firm is apparently seeking to protect its image by casting economic terminations as performance based. I'm not sure its a general office policy to do things this way or whether it was in some way limited to the San Francisco office. I recognize that the odds are that the stealth layoffs are firm-wide, however. To the extent that this is a firm-wide policy, it demonstrates an undeniable lack of integrity when the chips are down -- and a willingness to sacrifice the reputation of their own lawyers to preserve the Firm's image. This trade-off causes long-term harm for short term gain in my mind.

I feel bad for the victims of the almighty PPP. Is this how Seth and Greg expect to take PH into AmLaw's Top 15? How short-sighted. Slimy. Very slimy.

I feel bad for the victims of the almighty PPP. Is this how Seth and Greg expect to take PH into AmLaw's Top 15? How short-sighted. Slimy. Very slimy.

A very reliable friend of mine who is a PH associate said that PH associates who have low billable hours have been told to look for work in other departments or do pro bono work. She also said that every department is slow. Given what I have read here, I foresee that this ridiculous "option" (which will not get associates to 2000 when there is already a work shortage in every department, and hence, no work in any one department for associates from another department) will be cover for later "performance-based" stealth-layoffs. "Even though our department was slow, you should have done more pro bono work or sought out more work in other departments. You're just not a team player when things are tough." Wait, no. They won't say "when things are tough," because that would be acknowledging the reality of the firm's short-term? economic situation, which the firm clearly is unwilling to do. Maybe this story will change things. I won't hold my breath.

re: 11:01: You are drinking the Kool Aid the alums discus. As a first person account, I can tell you that a few years back, I got a merit-based bonus from my dept. It, however, was prorated for the time I was on maternity leave. I didn;t understand this. An hours-based bonus I could understand, but if I get the one dept. bonus in the office, aren;t I meritorious all year. And moreover, aside from being new moms, many of us senior women lawyers WORK during maternity leave! I came in and met with clients, corresponded with clients, and worked on business development. I left my baby with my mom and went and recruited for the firm. So, PLEASE stop giving us this "you women arent fully committed, you don't deserve to be patners at PH crap that S & G have in the Kool Aid. Firm is diverse because they have foreign offices. Firm goes through women faster than John Mayer goes through Hollywood starlettes. I assure you I was not let go as an underperformer -- hence why I can talk talk talk all I want - no settlement agreement here. While I had some wonderful male mentors, there are a lot of dead weight partners there who have never helped promote associates because they are protecting their own a**** and in a minute would shed you to do the same.

Another PH Associate here. I agree with 12:20 - the handful of those asked to leave in the past six months were sub-par associates. Half were mediocre mid-levels who could survive in a good economy until they would be asked to leave around their 6th or 7th year. Other other half were total slackers or should have gotten fired long ago. The rest of us sat around wondering why they were still around when they weren't pulling their weight. This is not to say they wouldn't be great associates at regional or in-house gigs.

1:47 - Also agreed. Associate morale is low. I don't know how things are in SF, but I don't know why they aren't addressing the situation when this is plastered all over the place. PH used to be great about handling situations immediately. Lately there has been a lack of communication.

Every large firm in Atlanta is doing stealth layoffs.

7:23 - K&S, A&B, Troutman, Kilpatrick?

What, from a firm's perspective, is the point of inflating negative performance reviews right before firing an associate? I ask this as a serous firm management question. (Normally one would assume that managers have weighed the efficiency of a policy such as this - but the words 'efficient management' and 'law firm' are rarely seen together.) It seems to me that telling an associate you are letting them go because there is not enough demand for their services/business is slow/group size is being reduced etc. would not subject the firm to liability for wrongful termination. Further, it would create less bad blood between the terminated associate and the firm (likely resulting in fewer PR bombshell blog posts and less of a general reputation cost) and would also make it easier on the associate to find new work. Finally, it would have the added benefit of making performance reviews generally more credible - as if this practice is widespread - it seems it would further reduce the already dubious worth of a performance review as an indicator of an associate's value. I may be missing something here - and if so please let me know - but the 'fabricated negative review then firing' seems to be a horribly inefficient way of conducting business.

To 7:16 -

There is only one partner in the New York office who gets to the office at 7:16 AM in NYC and looks at ATL.

Nice try.

Associates do work. Partners provide work. If associates can't make hours when there is enough work coming in, they should be canned. If associates can't make hours when there isn't enough work coming in, partner should be de-equitized.

Kilpatrick, Sutherland, PoGo, McGuire, McKenna, Troutman, A&B (and senior associates told will not make non-equity partner this year).

Rumors K&S, Jones Day, PH (have not confirmed first -hand but obviously likely based on news)

Don't know about DLA, Hunton

BUT THEY WERE IN THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE!!!!!!!

You kids are so funny.

Firms do not fire people who make money for them.

Jones Smith

8:55 - The reason firms don't want to tell Associates they're being laid off due to poor economic circumstances is that they are concerned about their perception as a successful firm in their markets. They'd rather appear to be firing poor performers than appear not to be getting enough work. They do the balancing test, and come out on the side of preserving their reputation rather than their integrity.

9:29 - That makes sense theoretically and historically (especially in pre-ATL times) but hasn't that conception been substantially eroded by the fact that firms are generally outed for their real motivations if more than a minimal number of associates are fired in a given time frame? And what constituent group are they worried about in re their reputation. It doesn't seem like clients would care that 10% of X firms corporate practice was laid off. So if they are worried about their reputation in regard to their attractiveness to law students and lateral hires - who may already be largely aware of the use of BS performance reviews and will most certainly hear about the layoffs if over a certain # - why not just tell the truth and save the backlash?

9:39 - To the extent they actually are "outed", it's a relatively new phenomenon. It used to require a groundswell of associate to coordinate the stories they were given in order to figure out that there had been layoffs rather than performance-based firings (see 1990 when it turned out that Proskauer had only given 40% of their summer associates offers, when telling the press that 80% had gotten offers). That landscape has changed (see the effect that one associate's e-mail has had on the firm), but firms do not know how to handle this change. I don't know how they should handle this change. The way in which firms communicate with their associates has contracted, not expanded, for fear of winding up on ATL. This new availability of information and anonymous "sharing" of blowback is a double-edged sword for associates.

K&S Atlanta associate here. Haven't heard anything about any layoffs, and my group (a transactional group) has been reasonably busy. I'm on target to bill 2200 hours for the year as of right now, and we are usually much busier the second half of the year than the first half.

8:49 - How is Winston laying off capital partners? That doesn't even make sense.

12 20 is delusional. how can you fire someone for low hours when there's no work coming in? that doesn't make someone a subpar associate.

A list of 22 departures hardly seems like good evidence. Even scaled up 5x, it would look like normal attrition for a company of this size. This is the firing cycle, and in a few months here we'll be into the normal hiring cycle. Maybe this is a bit broader of a firing net than during a boom year, but I find the notion that a company - in professional services, that has a narrow funnel to partner - is suspect if it fires in the double digits, to be very poor logic!

As long as they're cutting from the bottom (which of course they are because any firm would retain its top performers and most promising partner candidates), it IS performance-based. All you're arguing is that they moved the bar up from, say, performing in the top 95% to performing in the top 85% of your class. If you're in the bottom 15% good sense would dictate that you have been worried all along. However, law as in most other highly educated professions is a business of egomaniacs.

Womble Carlyle has been de-equitizing partners, laying off senior associates and releasing office space for several months. They have the exact same "resignation agreement." Womble Carlyle has also lost several big name tobacco litigators since last Christmas.

Of course, to balance this out I would assume that we will all be complaining during boom times when the firms *hire* more people than would otherwise be qualified. If they're firing a handful in a department who are no longer needed and are the lowest profit contributors, it's all a matter of equilibrium.

6:13 - I don't know when you worked at the firm (I suspect it was years ago if at all), but all the people I know (myself included) got full market bonuses even though they were out for part of the year on maternity leave. I personally was out for five and a half months and still got a full bonus.

What you are saying, with regards to bonuses at least, is just false.

10:06 - 2200 is below average at most NYC shops.

10:59 a.m is just wrong. You think that a 10th year associate suddenly became a bad lawyer? Odds are that just wasn't the work for her anymore or, it appears, for many other associates in that office. It is naive to believe that a firm wont fire you just becase you're a good lawyer. When times are tough, there is an overabundance of good lawyers at these firms.

At any rate, if we are to judge firms on their performance, certainly PH is lacking. If you don't have enough work for your associates (which they obviously don't), you're not a stellar firm regardless of how you play with the numbers to inflate your PPP.

FYI -- I'm guessing that 12:20 is an employment lawyer with PH. I can tell by the incessant way she capitalizes firing throughout her post -- like she savors the word.

What the Paul Hastings associates got in exchange for signing the no suit agreement doesn't seem like much, IMHO. Did these agreements go out in late 2007? Still, that would mean getting paid for 7 months w/o working. Is that really such a good deal that you'd let go of your rights to sue? Especially for 9th circuit associates. It's not unheard of for large law firms to make some risky choices in massive layoffs, and I'd think laid off associates could get more than a few months pay out of the firm.
And if you want to continue practicing and a potential employer sees Paul Hastings on your resume, w/ a recent work date, is he or she really going to believe that you resigned? I'd think it would be better to own the layoff.

damn, lat is brutal. refuse to talk to him, he will bury you in an avalanche of negative slanted publicity. not sure if its ethical, but it sure is effective.

This was an awesome post, 12:49.

"Only 2% of associates ever make partner at an AmLaw 100 firm. That means that at some point most associates will have to find somewhere else to work. There is only so much clients are willing to pay class of '98 associates to work on. Eventually many associates aren't worth their billable rate. Big Law has long been an up or out practice. ...

Many companies seem to function just fine after laying off massive amounts of their workforce (Merck apparently let go 33% of its work force at one point). That means there were a lot of extra bodies for a long time. Unlike the models we studied in microeconomics, very few businesses are efficient. Law firm profits per partner are through the roof primarily because law firms have significantly raised their rates over the years. Charging as much per associate as most big firms do allows a lot of inefficiency to take root. Get rid of attorneys who don't fit into the business model and get fresh faces to fill the gap. Rinse, repeat."

When partners are busy, they pass on work to their associates. When partners aren't busy, they do a lot more of the work themselves (excluding document review duties). Associates don't have books of business to work on while the partners hoard the work. The associate's hours drop and then they're laid off because they have low hours. How exactly are associates supposed to be responsible for bringing in work to keep them busy? I don't know of any 5th year associates with multi-million dollar books of business.

11:14 You are using the faulty logic that a 10th year associate is worth a 10th year billing rate and performing well enough to advance, based on the fact that he did "well enough" as a 5-8 year associate. At some point, your billing rate probably outpaces your worth, performance and capabilities. What makes you a good foot soldier doesn't make you a good commander farther down the line.

I am another PH associate. The associates who were asked to leave were indeed subpar. Another associate (whose judgment I trust) worked with Redacted and said that there were serious work quality, efficiency and attitude issues. Layoffs are always "performance based."

I would love to see what the profit margin is on each of the employees fired v. the group not fired. This argument that firms are firing the good lawyers willy-nilly doesn't ring true to me, although it's got to make people who have been fired or in danger of being fired feel better.

11:20 -- I just take issue with the idea that she was somehow a bad attorney because she got laid off. If the firm doesn't have enough work there just isn't a need for more partners so it seems to me that even worthy candidates will get turned down and possibly asked to leave. In other words, if there is a real slowdown in work your prospects at the firm shrink regardless of your capability. Ultimately, you may survive through sheer luck of the draw -- for whatever reason, you got tasked on a project that is producing enough work to allow you to tread water -- while the other person's case settled.

11:27. It appears that what rankles is this thought that you, or someone whom you might become if you too are fired, is a "bad attorney." How about a "less good attorney than his colleagues in his department who were retained"?

What's the problem here? It's simple. Expectations change. The bar that defines good performance is not static. Expectations change as you advance in your career. The chhange according to the economy. They change according to your casework and your staffing levels, including if your staffing levels are low. Yeah, you can't control the part where you're not given enough work to bill a target number of hours. So you don't control 100% of the factors of your employment. You can control 80% of the factors. You can control as much of your factors as your lateral peers can.

Another PH associate here ---- I would just add a "philosophical" point. When if comes to a big, international firm, there is no such thing as "firm culture" or "firm/associate morale." Everyone's experience is guided by who they happen to work with. I don't doubt that some people in some offices or practice areas or who have to work for bad partners have poor morale -- like "Mr. Senior Associate" above --- but that just isn't generally the case at PH, from what I can tell.

@11:25 Will you stop being logical already, people are trying to be irrationally angry around here.

11:31 - I'd still have a hard time buying it, but I concede that they were deemed to be less valuable to the firm. I think its presumptuous to believe that being a good lawyer is enough to separate you from the pack, particularly as a junior associate. It shows a lack of regard for your colleagues. Anyway, decisions can be based on loyalty. If the choice is between a promising junior associate and a senior associate who has sweat blood for the firm and is in close with the partners, then many firms would let the junior go. The difference is that the truly elite firms, i.e., V5, don't ever have to make those types of decisions. PH just isn't in the same company. Unlike the truly elite firms, PH HAS to trim the ranks because they don't have enough work to go around.

Winston associate here -- I have heard capital partners are being asked to leave too. Not being laid off, 10:28, but being asked to leave the partnership. I thought it was strange when capital partners started sending out the old "this is my last day" emails in what seemed like droves. To add insult to injury, the firm has over 100 summer associates coming in -- to do what? Who knows!

I am constantly amazed by the spelling mistakes made by "elite" lawyers on this board. I'm talking about actually not knowing how to spell words, as opposed to speed-related typos. Example:

"Firm goes through women faster than John Mayer goes through Hollywood starlettes"

I have a question, WTF happened to Paul Hasting's Stamford, CT office?? It used to have about 70 attorneys, now "it's up and vanished like a fart in the wind!" SOME of the attorneys seem to have been relocated to NYC, but that CAN'T be a very good sign of how they are doing. Who is running the show over there, sounds like a Mudge Rose/ Donovan Leisure type of situation...

I have a question, WTF happened to Paul Hasting's Stamford, CT office?? It used to have about 70 attorneys, now "it's up and vanished like a fart in the wind!" SOME of the attorneys seem to have been relocated to NYC, but that CAN'T be a very good sign of how they are doing. Who is running the show over there, sounds like a Mudge Rose/ Donovan Leisure type of situation...

Folks, this whole debate comes down to misunderstanding of economics and probability by both sides. Efficient market theory is just that, a theory. It tells us that, on average, we should expect economic actors like big law big firms to act rationally in making hiring and firing decisions. It does not tell us that they will do so in every single case.
Both sides in this argument are right and wrong. It's true that on average, a lawyer asked to leave a firm is probably less good, profitable, effective, whatever, than a lawyer asked to stay. It is not true that the human beings making these decisions on behalf of firms always get things right.
In my experience, big law firms are probably average or slightly below when compared to other industries in terms of how effeciently and rationally they make personnel decisions. This leaves a lot of room for "bad" or "unfair" decisions w/r/t hiring and firing.
I can't ptove it, but think about it. Partners don't have a lot of time to properly assess the work of underlings. Also, lawyers are generally not trained to manage and assess people, and the HR losers law firms hire don't know much about the practice of law. This all indicates that law firms will have difficulty with hiring and firing decisions. The way law firms are paid (hourly billing) makes things even more complicated. A more efficient lawyer could actually be less profitable for a firm than a less efficient one. (Obviously there are limits to what a client will pay, but clients don't have good information about how long something should take either.)
Moral of the story, hope for fair treatment and work hard, but if you get a raw deal, accept it and move on.
I don't know if this unfortunate woman was a bad lawyer or not. Both sides are being dogmatic. The conservative types who place near complete faith in the fairness and rationality of law firms are more annoying to me, but that's just personal preference. Life's not always fair and neither are law firms, but that doesn't mean they're out to screw us either.

11:48, There is not a temendous (oops!) incentive to proof anaonymous postings. I proof my documents but not these postings. Get over it.

silly kids -- it's time to unionize...

When manufacturing companies do layoffs, they usually pinpoint the department that's going to be cut, and then they cut according to seniority. Last in, first out. It's transparent and everyone sees it coming, no ego involved.

When professional services companies do layoffs, cutbacks, whatever you call it - who cares about semantics, you people get hung up - they have to find some other decision metric because everyone who is vulnerable is at the same tenure level. In comes this idea of performance-based. It's perfectly logical and, frankly, whining that it's arbitrary and merely the Hammer of God, not performance-related at all, is not defensible.

Nobody likes to admit that they might have been actively chosen, *individually* chosen off of a list of people, to be cut. But if you're making $300,000 a year, it's legitimate to ask the question - what are you doing that justifies me paying you $300,000 a year? You can argue "it's not my fault" all you want; you can argue "you promised me I was worth it" all you want, but if you aren't doing enough to justify my paying you $300,000, I'm not going to keep paying it to me and call mea culpa.

11:25 writes: I would love to see what the profit margin is on each of the employees fired v. the group not fired. This argument that firms are firing the good lawyers willy-nilly doesn't ring true to me, although it's got to make people who have been fired or in danger of being fired feel better.

The better comparision would be to see how the profits of the partners for whom the fired associates worked stacked up against the profits of the partners who did not have to fire any associates. The concept of an "associates profit margin" does not capture the true economic relationship that allow law firms to survive. Rather, the essential question is that of a partner's profits margin. Partners pay a cost (associate pay and overhead) to acquire a good, associate output (legal work) that the partner then sells at a substantial mark-up to clients. Here, the the associates were fired likely because either (1) the partner could not sell the associates' output to clients at the price demanded, or (2) the partner found another associate(s) to supply the same labor output at a lower price. (I suspect it is the former in the case PH, but that is just speculation.) If it is the former, PH could presumably further improve is economic performance by eliminating the underperforming partner, too .

11:25 writes: I would love to see what the profit margin is on each of the employees fired v. the group not fired. This argument that firms are firing the good lawyers willy-nilly doesn't ring true to me, although it's got to make people who have been fired or in danger of being fired feel better.

The better comparision would be to see how the profits of the partners for whom the fired associates worked stacked up against the profits of the partners who did not have to fire any associates. The concept of an "associates profit margin" does not capture the true economic relationship that allow law firms to survive. Rather, the essential question is that of a partner's profits margin. Partners pay a cost (associate pay and overhead) to acquire a good, associate output (legal work) that the partner then sells at a substantial mark-up to clients. Here, the the associates were fired likely because either (1) the partner could not sell the associates' output to clients at the price demanded, or (2) the partner found another associate(s) to supply the same labor output at a lower price. (I suspect it is the former in the case PH, but that is just speculation.) If it is the former, PH could presumably further improve is economic performance by eliminating the underperforming partner, too .

12:31 The flaw in that logic is, quite obviously: if a partner (who is somewhat tenured, so to speak) is in bringing in a lesser book of business, he then no longer needs as much support staff to work for him. So you cut the support staff to match the caseload. Q.E.D.

PH recruiting has warned its summers that offers will not be plentiful this year, and has encouraged them to apply for clerkships in an effort to push their start dates back a year.

To the people talking about profit margins and efficient martket theory:
Thanks for pretending you have an MBA, You don't. You don't understand the law firm model. Partners don't usually understand the law firm model. You are probably too junior to have worked at more than one firm or in different economic cycles.
Yes, law firms usually fire the idiots first. Yes, a 10th year should be worried if her title is still Associate. But to even attempt to put objective benchmarks on performance fro most junior/mid level associates is garbarge.
Bonuses are based at most firms on hours. But Partners need to bring in the stuff to do in those hours. If no one gives associate Yo Yo Ma a cello, doesn't matter how well he could or couldn't play it.

12:54: that is a lie. i am a ph summer in a ca office and have heard nothing from them regarding the number of offers they plan to make, or suggesting i consider a clerkship.

Cravath is sending memos to staff telling them to cut back on unneccessary mailings, using fancy letterhead, etc. Associates are also sitting on their asses with nothing to do. There is no immunity by being V5.

12:31 writes: The flaw in that logic is, quite obviously: if a partner (who is somewhat tenured, so to speak) is in bringing in a lesser book of business, he then no longer needs as much support staff to work for him. So you cut the support staff to match the caseload. Q.E.D.

Not always the case, 12:35. If it were true that any partner with business added value to the firm as long as his or her associates support matched the partner's caseload, then we would see the growth of larger law firms than we presently see in the market. If your proposition was true, then Biglaw firms would add partners doing personal injury cases and other low value work (because, under your logic, even if the profit margin is low, it is still incremental to income). Rather, what is important is average partner profits. Here, if the PH partner is firing his/her associates because he or she cannot sell their labor to clients, it is likely that this partner is substantially less profitable than his peers, and perhaps unprofitable. Thus, a firm could ditch this partner and see its average profits per partner rise, and thereby be a firm more attractive to high performing partners at other firms that may be inclined to lateral. (It would also make it easier for the firm to retain current high performing partners that may be thinking of lateraling out) These high-performing lateral partners would bring more valuable books of business to the firm than what was possessed by the terminated partner. Even though the firm has lost a partner, that loss, in both profit and total income, is more than made up by the newly arriving high value lateral partners. In fact, when we look to the market, we see exactly this sort of behavior by law firms. When a firm becomes sufficiently profitable, it starts eliminating its less profitable practices and partners (e.g., trusts/estate, immigration, etc.). This is true even though those relatively low value practices may still be profitable. Thus, PH can likely ultimately improve both its profit margin and total income by eliminating the partners that have been forced to lay off associates. (Again, assuming that the layoffs were in fact caused by the partners inability to sell the fired associates' labor to clients).

Of course, this economic reality gives under-performing partners a strong incentive to first eliminate their associates in an attempt to remain just profitable enough that the low performing partner is not in turn eliminated by his more profitable fellow partners. How often this approach actually works in the long run (i.e., whether the low profit partner is able to remain at the firm), I don't know. My observation has been that (especially more recently) that when a partner is forced to fire his or her associates because of a lack of business, it is often the case that the same partner is either gone from his or her firm within a year or two, or at least has his or her compensation significantly reduced or is de-equitized.

11:24--Bullshit. I worked with Redacted--she was a very good attorney and I had no problems with her work or attitude.

If the affected attorneys were all subpar, why has PH SF litigation been gutted at the senior and mid-level ranks? Were they all subpar?

What people fail to recognize is that firms don't just look at performance when cutting associates. Billing rate and economic pressures rule. If there are fewer matters, partners handle cases directly instead of handing them off to seniors and mid-levels. That's why these ranks get cut, regardless of quality.

12:56 - Actually I do have an MBA. Message boards are amusing that way. AlsoI have both an excellent grasp of firm economics and grammar, things that seem to have escaped you.

1:13 - but you do have to admit, she sounded like an loose cannon nutcase in her email. Not a good grasp of cause and effect and the connectivity between events either.

12:56--duh, YoYo Ma is always going to be handed a cello. It's the less able cellists who aren't going to be tapped, when there's less to go around.

A&B Atlanta hasn't laid anyone off either.

1:18 I don't think she sounds like a nutcase at all. She was rightly upset that the firm tried to pin it on her performance instead of economic conditions. And they used her miscarriage as an opportunity to get rid of her. They couldn't dump her while she was pregnant, so as soon as she miscarried they pulled the trigger. This in itself is perfectly legal, but it was boneheadedly insensitive and now they're paying the price. Worth it? I don't think so.

1:13 -- There is obviously a dispute as to her capabilities. I never personally knew or worked with her and I have no idea if she was good or bad or mediocre, but I have also heard of problems.

Some people thought her email was really great, but I did not think it was particularly well-written or properly edited. If you are going to broadcast that you think you are a superb associate, you may want to do it without typos, subject-verb disagreements in the first sentence, or an unclear recitation of what happened. I am still unclear as to the timing of her pregnancy in relationship to the poor review, how many people knew about the pregnancy, miscarriage, etc. It may just be bad writing, but it also may be an intentional attempt to make things sound worse than they are. I have not heard anything about a "gutting" in SF -- above it says 2 associates were let go. Don't exaggerate.

The level for acceptable performance at any firm is dynamic. If a department is slow, people take a second look at associates who may have been acceptable in fatter times. There is always a performance factor in these terminations, and I think Redacted did a disservice to herself and others by broadcasting these supposed layoffs.

It is so much harder for a woman to make partner at BIGLAW. My heart goes out to this poor woman. PH is not any more or less evil than any other BIGLAW firm.

"disservice"? to what? to the firm's plan of trying to cover up their layoffs? oh the shame...

1:39 - you are retarded.

Another PH Associate here....totally agree with 12:20 a.m. This whole thread is ridiculous. I graduated in 2001, so I know what layoffs are and letting 22 associates go by a firm with 1200+ does not constitute layoffs. In addition, my hours were low last year because my practice group was slow. It was not a big deal at review time, in fact, it wasn't a factor at all. PH is a great place to work.

Agree with 1:13. When work is slow partners do more of their own work (excluding managing document review) that they would give to midlevels and senior associates when they're busy. Then those associates are short on hours and it's not like associates have million dollar books of business to rely on for hours. That doesn't mean they aren't good associates.

Where I work, a lot of partners do most of their own substantive work and farm out the less substantive work, like document review and legal research and drafting memos to contract attorneys and paralegals with law degrees. These partners have realized they can still make their large profits without leveraging multiple associates by using cheaper labor. Perhaps other firms will see utility in this model with the slow down of work too.

1:16
if you have an MBA, why are you at a law firm?
Why not make more money doing better work elsewhere?
Either a) you don't really have an MBA or b) You have an MBA from a TTT school.
There is no other explanation. Even if you are at Watchell, which you are not, you're making less and doing less sexy work than if you were at Goldman or Blackstone.
Suck it bitch!

These comments from "Paul Hastings associates" seem very suspicious to me. I have never seen such uniformity.

Can you say damage control?

This whole fiasco is an example of what not to do if this happens to you. She should have taken the opportunity they gave her and gone home and collected her thoughts. They gave her time to review the agreement before signing. She should have taken it. I bet she regrets sending that email now.

1:56 p.m.

Can you say, maybe associates at PH are actually happy?

1:21p.m.
"12:56--duh, YoYo Ma is always going to be handed a cello. It's the less able cellists who aren't going to be tapped, when there's less to go around."
How do you know who the YoYo Ma's are. Law firm's don't have skills assessments. X partner is a soft touch and a good mentor. She really brings up A associate and teaches A associate tons. Y partner is an ass and will tell his partners that B associate are pond scum if you used the word "clearly" in a brief as a summer associate. 2 associates whose fortunes are somewhat based on who they worked for most. Why is it so hard for people to grasp that sometimes, not all the time, people get shafted or that law firm performance is not objectively assessed?

2:06 and others-- do you really believe what you're saying, that there is NO WAY to know who's good and who's bad, it's all a great big mystery so when 1 out of 5 is cut it's just this arbitrary move, completely out of the blue and without basis in performance?

Lake Wobegon. Where all the associates are above average, all of them are gifted attorneys, and nobody is measurably better than any other.

1:39pm: Suggest that you re-read and properly conjugate first sentence of email. I'm not an elementary English teacher but no subject-verb disagreement there. Also, email presumably not intended for public at large so why should clear recitation of what happened be needed? However, you are correct on one thing: level for acceptable performance at any firm is dynamic.

2:12-
2:06 here. There's no need for hyperbole. I'm sure Chief Justice Roberts was an outstanding associate and was markedly better than many of his peers. But unlike a highschool math exam where everyone in class takes the same test, law firm assignments and therefore law firm assessments, cannot be uniform. Sometimes your boss doesn't like you. Sometimes your boss just isn't particularly interested in showing shepherding your career. C'est la vie, but it might mean that as between you and someone he likes better you'll get fired first even when it's not who is the better attorney. If I was for the position that it's a crap shoot in every case, I'd be wrong. Similarly, it's not all a careful assessment of associate skills either.

2:12 writes: do you really believe what you're saying, that there is NO WAY to know who's good and who's bad, it's all a great big mystery so when 1 out of 5 is cut it's just this arbitrary move, completely out of the blue and without basis in performance?

The unstated assumption, and flaw, in this comment is that the poster assumes that law firms are free market environments where associates can, at will, quit working for one partner and start working for another one. The reality is that many, and probably most Biglaw associates are, certainly by the time they are mid or senior level, assigned to work for one, maybe two partners largely exclusively. If those partners should become unprofitable because they cannot sell associate labor to thier clients, those associates will often have difficulty finding a post working for a more profitable partner. (As anyone who has ever worked at a law firm knows, switching what partners you work for can be difficult. In a similar vein, when a new partner joins a firm he or she will often bring his or her own associates rather than use unknown associates at the firm he or she is joining). Indeed, it is not unheard of to find that when a partner finds a good associate, the partner will often guard that associate to prevent other partners from using that associate.

There are also information costs to consider. In short, if know one else knows how good Yo-Yo Ma is, he may not always be given a cello to play. Fortunately for him, the information costs of sharing how good he is are very low (he simply does a concert and broadcasts how good he is for all to hear). For an associate, whose time may well be monopolized by one or two partners, it is much more difficut to "broadcast" how good you are. Thus, if that highly competent associate is stuck working for a suddenly unprofitable partner, that associate may well be more likely to be fired than a mediocre associate working for a highly profitable partner. (And its not like the PH partners can rely on their yearly associate evaluations to tell them who the good associates are, given how purportedly "over-inflated" they were in recent years!)

The lesson in this for junior attorneys is, when you are still new to the profession and relatively fungible: (1) find a very profitable partner to work for and stick with him or her, (2) hope that that partner stays profitable through your partnership year, and (3) hope that the partner has grown his or her business enough to justify making you a partner, too. Otherwise, you will probably be eventually asked to leave the firm. Also, tell everyone at the firm as often as you can what a great job you are doing!

2:40, I agree with the earlier poster. "Circumstances" is the subject, the verb should be have. "Departure" is not the subject. It is a good thing you are not an English teacher. The sentence also sucks -- it is awkward.

1:56 -- We still haven't received any official response from the firm to the email, and I don't know if we will. I think a lot of us associates feel that PH has been unfairly maligned by Redacted, ATL, and by a few disgruntled former employees. This really is a good place to work -- very good by Big Law standards. I'm not one to drink the Kool Aid or cheer-lead, but a lot of people are jumping to conclusions, calling for boycotts, etc. based on false and/or unsubstantiated information, ignorance of how law firms operate and what is/is not in the interests of a terminated employee. Keeping layoffs quiet may be in a firm's interests, but it is also definitely in the employee's interests in nearly all cases.

3:09 -- You make some good points and give good advice. To some extent, however, better associates can control for whom they work. People who remain busy tend to be better.

PH is a horrible place. I worked in their NY office a few years back, and they were firing people left and right. I started with 7 other first years in the real estate department, and within 1.5 years, ALL EXCEPT ONE WERE FIRED.

PH has no qualms at all about firing people, and will not hesitate to do so as soon as there is even the slightest downturn. It amazes me that people still accept offers there. I guess its the people who don't have any other options...

3:17pm - you are correct re: "Circumstances" is the subject, the verb should be have. And first sentence from email is as follows:

"The circumstances surrounding my departure from Paul Hastings have been deeply disappointing."

See the "have"? Thanks for playing. Now go get your eyes checked.

Yes, 3:33. Top 10% grads from Ivys accept positions at PH because they don't have any other options. You sound like a bitter associate who was fired.

3:33 p.m.
None of that is true and trust me- people here have plenty of options- you know that- your gross exaggerations are ridiculous.

Top 10% at Ivys taking jobs at PH? Seems bizzare to me. Why would anyone go to a TTT like PH ?

If you are top 10% at Ivys (or top 75% at Ivys, for that matter) and voluntarily choose to go to PH, you need to have your head examined!

Sorry you couldn't cut it at PH 4:30 p.m. Maybe if you had sent out a ranting email to the blogosphere when they canned you, you would have gotten all the anger out of your system. Tsk. Tsk.

The number of Fordham/Brooklyn/Cardozo/New York Law associates at PH far outweighs the number of Harvard/Columbia/NYU associates.

Somehow I don't think the same can be said for the real firms where top 10% of Ivys actually go.

4:03 - "Top 10% grads from Ivys accept positions at PH"??

Last time I checked, Fordham, Brooklyn and Cardozo weren't in the Ivy league.

New York Law School, isn't that the same as NYU? ;)

I was top quarter at at top 5 law school and I work at PH. I actually wish the firm dipped down lower in the class at top schools, but it seems to like strong performers, whether they attend NYU or Fordham.

"do you really believe what you're saying, that there is NO WAY to know who's good and who's bad, it's all a great big mystery so when 1 out of 5 is cut it's just this arbitrary move, completely out of the blue and without basis in performance?"

Well, when it's more like 4 out of 5, that's when you start to realize that performance is not the issue.

1:39: "I have not heard anything about a "gutting" in SF -- above it says 2 associates were let go. Don't exaggerate."

Well, then, you don't know enough to comment. At least 4 associates have been let go in the past few months. Look at their lineup in SF. Don't tell me that the majority of mid-levels and seniors were underperformers--PH recruiting must really suck if they managed to hire that many bad attorneys in a row.

Looks like the PH partners have descended here en masse. Shouldn't you be out finding more clients so you don't have to fire more associates?

4:07 --- The email sent to Paul Hastings associates and management begins with the following sentence, containing a glaring grammatical error:

"The circumstances surrounding my departure from Paul Hastings has been deeply disappointing. "

Thank YOU for playing. It is actually interesting that it somehow became corrected when it was placed on this website. It makes you wonder who forwarded the email to Lat or whether Lat corrected the mistake.

I don't think most partners even know about this website, 6:47....

"The number of Fordham/Brooklyn/Cardozo/New York Law associates at PH far outweighs the number of Harvard/Columbia/NYU associates."

Not true. Sorry. Bitter much?

Actually the place is a hang out for the middle of the road Penn Grads.

6:45 -- I don't see 4 people missing in SF.

There have been four if you count Redacted.

As someone else pointed out earlier, they recently closed an ENTIRE OFFICE (R.I.P. Stamford, Conn.)!! Are these poor desperate souls who are on here trying to bail water for this sinking ship going to deny that this happened?? How many attorney jobs were lost in that move? Does that speak to the viability of a firm when it shuts down an entire office and lays of scores of attorneys? Was that office somehow simultaneously suffering from "poor performance" reviews (after 25+ years of existence)?? Something is truly rotten in the kingdom of PHJW, and we are all now smelling it!

As someone else pointed out earlier, they recently closed an ENTIRE OFFICE (R.I.P. Stamford, Conn.)!! Are these poor desperate souls who are on here trying to bail water for this sinking ship going to deny that this happened?? How many attorney jobs were lost in that move? Does that speak to the viability of a firm when it shuts down an entire office and lays of scores of attorneys? Was that office somehow simultaneously suffering from "poor performance" reviews (after 25+ years of existence)?? Something is truly rotten in the kingdom of PHJW, and we are all now smelling it!

All Paul Hastings attorneys in the Stanford office were given the opportunity to relocate to the New York office. I think that all of us did. It is a very exciting office with a lot of great work.

I guess economic uncertainly is definitely that -- exciting! Good luck with that, always a good sign when offices are closed down. I'm sure 60 year old partners who have had a 20 minute suburban commute for the past 20 years are thrilled with the "exciting" chance to ride the train for an hour plus each way! There is no way that all of the Stamford attorneys relocated because I have worked with them on a few matters and there are several names missing. Guess you think the emperor is wearing a lovely suit as well -- ha ha! From TTT to R.I.P. sad but true

I guess economic uncertainly is definitely that -- exciting! Good luck with that, always a good sign when offices are closed down. I'm sure 60 year old partners who have had a 20 minute suburban commute for the past 20 years are thrilled with the "exciting" chance to ride the train for an hour plus each way! There is no way that all of the Stamford attorneys relocated because I have worked with them on a few matters and there are several names missing. Guess you think the emperor is wearing a lovely suit as well -- ha ha! From TTT to R.I.P. sad but true

I guess economic uncertainly is definitely that -- exciting! Good luck with that, always a good sign when offices are closed down. I'm sure 60 year old partners who have had a 20 minute suburban commute for the past 20 years are thrilled with the "exciting" chance to ride the train for an hour plus each way! There is no way that all of the Stamford attorneys relocated because I have worked with them on a few matters and there are several names missing. Guess you think the emperor is wearing a lovely suit as well -- ha ha! From TTT to R.I.P. sad but true

I guess economic uncertainly is definitely that -- exciting! Good luck with that, always a good sign when offices are closed down. I'm sure 60 year old partners who have had a 20 minute suburban commute for the past 20 years are thrilled with the "exciting" chance to ride the train into Manhattan for an hour plus each way! There is no way that all of the Stamford attorneys relocated because I have worked with them on a few matters and there are several names missing. Guess you think the emperor is wearing a lovely suit as well -- ha ha! From TTT to R.I.P. sad but true

Lay off the Refresh button dude, but seriously, with all of these bad signs, what decent credentialed law student would go to PH? Seriously, can it get any worse? Layoffs, office shutdowns, this place is imploding, when will the takeover rumors start to appear on these boards?

Redacted is "Redacted" no longer:

http://abovethelaw.com/2008/05/meet_shinyung_oh_of_paul_hasti.php

As someone else pointed out earlier, they recently closed an ENTIRE OFFICE (R.I.P. Stamford, Conn.)!! Are these poor desperate souls who are on here trying to bail water for this sinking ship going to deny that this happened?? How many attorney jobs were lost in that move? Does that speak to the viability of a firm when it shuts down an entire office and lays of scores of attorneys? Was that office somehow simultaneously suffering from "poor performance" reviews (after 25+ years of existence)?? Something is truly rotten in the kingdom of PHJW, and we are all now smelling it!

[quote]10:06 - 2200 is below average at most NYC shops.[/quote]

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? I was responding to the post that said there were rumors of layoffs at K&S Atlanta, among other shops in Atlanta. In Atlanta 2200 hours is not a bad year. In my group it would be slightly above average, with the average associate billing just enough to make bonus at 2050 hours.

Obviously firms expect NYC associates to bill more; you get paid more. An average 1st year at K&S Atlanta makes about $153k including bonus. An average 1st year at a big NYC shop would make closer to $180k+, right? So you have to bill a few hundred more hours to make up that extra compensation.

The firm says that is is not doing layoffs:

http://abovethelaw.com/2008/05/nationwide_layoff_watch_paul_h_1.php

I thought the firm didn't comment on personnel matters.

Oops!

I guess that only counts when it doesn't requires moral conviction.

I thought the firm didn't comment on personnel matters.

Oops!

I guess that only counts when it doesn't requires moral conviction.

The bottom line is Paul Hastings SUCKS. It has been going downhill for years. They are losing clients left and right due to their ridiculous billing rates (and questionable billing practices). Stay as far away as you can. The second Marty Edelman retires, say bye-bye to PH.

2:34 - I agree with you. I'm an associate in the NY office, and we're all afraid of further layoffs. I can think of a few totally worthless partners that should be canned before any more associates...

Eileen King, Global Director of Public Relations for Paul Hastings, is a liar. On May 12th she claimed publicly that Paul Hastings is not laying off associates. The truth is that Paul Hastings partners were advised at their annual partners’ retreat in Palm Beach on April 3rd and April 4th last month that they would be required to lay off senior associates in each of Paul Hastings’ offices worldwide in order to deal with slumping business in Paul Hastings corporate department. In addition, Paul Hastings began laying off corporate and real estate associates last fall and has thereafter continued to stealthily lay off associates, approximately two at a time, to avoid media attention.

Finally, what goes around comes around. The senior associates will be spending a lot more time on their knees now...better invest in some knee pads!