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.