Associate Life Survey: Precarious Positions
We received over 800 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on layoffs, and the results are not pretty.
About 30% of respondents reported at least some level of involuntary departures at their firms.
While only about 4% of respondents said that their firms were actually conducting public layoffs, another 18% accused their firms of conducting “stealth layoffs.”
Of course, it’s possible that some of these “stealth layoffs” are really based on performance, a standard which tends to get tougher in a tough economy. But less than 3.5% of respondents said that their firms had been asking people to leave solely based on their performance, suggesting that associates are much more likely to blame firm performance for any downsizings.
Survey Responses: Is your firm conducting layoffs?
| Yes, and they’re being public about it. | 4.20% |
| Yes, but they’re “stealth layoffs”. | 17.92% |
| People have been asked to leave, but it’s performance-related. | 3.46% |
| The firm is laying off support staff, paralegals or staff attorneys, but not associates. | 4.45% |
| No, but the firm is pushing back start dates. | 0.62% |
| No, but I’m afraid they’re coming. | 6.06% |
| No, everything’s fine. | 53.28% |
| I don’t know. | 10.01% |
See who’s getting hit where, after the jump.
The stealth layoffs were most widely reported in Atlanta and Philadelphia, by 30% of respondents in each city.
New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles were also a bit higher than the national average, with 21%, 22%, and 23% of respondents in those cities, respectively, reporting stealth layoffs.
Not surprisingly, respondents who reported layoffs at their firms said a number of transactional practices had been affected by the cuts, with 39% saying that general corporate practitioners had been affected, 23% reporting cuts in structured finance, 18% citing downsizing in M&A, and 15% describing job insecurity in securities. Another 35% said that the real estate teams had been affected.
But the litigators will help prop up the firm, right?
Right?
Well … see the photo above. 37% of respondents who reported layoffs said that cuts at their firms were affecting the litigators.
And even geek is becoming less chic at some firms. Surprisingly, even though the job market for patent attorneys remains quite robust — and several associates at IP-focused firms like Fish & Richardson and Finnegan Henderson reported that their firms are doing just fine — almost 8% of respondents who did report layoffs at their firms said that their patent groups had been affected. This is probably more likely for patent prosecutors at large multi-practice firms, where their work might be described as “traditionally less lucrative,” than it is for patent litigators.
So where’s the job security these days? Perversely, the combination of death and taxes is the safest bet. Less than 2% of respondents said that trusts and estates practices were affected by layoffs at their firms. Tax all by itself, however, fared a bit worse, with almost 8% of respondents reporting that tax attorneys at their firms had been let go.
—
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.
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Comments
Firsty McFirst First!
great pic, maybe the cat will fall and then ....and so no more cats
I hope this settles it once and for all. The cats STAY.
Their awesomeness cannot be denied.
White kitteh jus' found out Judge Halverson gunna eat em.
The oversupply of lawyers hits everyone. What you should be doing is protesting the ABA's attrocious management. They're about to add 10 new law schools.
My favorite was, "Amount of fluffy directly related to amount of happy." Or something like that.
Suckas... you all are nothing but a number to the partners. There are ten other dummies right behind you waiting for your job and they are willing to stab you in the back to get it.
7=SHAFT Wannabe
5 --
it is not the ABA, it is the DOJ.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2006/216804.htm
Why did you list staff attorneys with other staff? Since staff attorneys mainly work in doc review and litigation you should have asked about them in a separate category. When you list them with other staff it muddles the poll result.
If firms are laying off doc review attorneys it would be interesting info.
That 2006 DOJ doc was written by Monica I'm sure!
Who cares? Number one overall NFL draft pick Matt Ryan has been named in the AutoAdmit lawsuit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guys at my high school conducted stealth layoffs; it was no big deal.
That Autoadmit news is indeed amazing. Was Matt Ryan thinking of going to law school before he had his breakout season last year at BC?
All lateral link stories blow.
12:
Ryan was the 3rd pick overall. Get it right, man!
How much worse do partner defections make a situation like this?
Not the same Matt Ryan. The football player is Matthew Thomas Ryan while the complaint names a Matthew C. Ryan.
Matt Ryan was picked third because his BC pedigree was inferior to the Michigan and UVA men ahead of him, so it still mirrors the world of law.
The Martindale lists a Matthew C. Ryan in Austin, Texas. This guy is a partner at a construction law firm and a professor at UT. Surely not........
Are the Philly layoffs at D?
some philly layoffs were at W&W
some philly layoffs were at W&W
too many lawyers......too many law schools.......and too little work. many more layoffs to come, as well as firm shut downs and mergers. prob for the next several years.
I love the lolcats! :)
Comment 20 is correct in that the person named was not a lawyer, who incidentially has a fine reputation as a lawyer and academic, but rather undergraduate student.
It seemed that in an effort to express their disapproval of a cowardly anon. act, a number of people expressed their disapproval a cowardly anon. way to a person not involved in the matter.
No, not that Matthew C. Ryan
By Chuck Lindell | Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 05:19 PM
Austin lawyer Matthew C. Ryan telephoned to help us avoid confusion in a breaking story about a similarly named Austin man being sued for allegedly posting anonymous, defamatory comments on a web site.
The lawyer Ryan says he is not the Ryan named in the lawsuit, and he has an e-mail from the plaintiffs’ lawyer to prove it:
“We named Matthew C. Ryan, an undergraduate at the University of Texas, as a defendant in the AutoAdmit complaint. Please be aware that there are other Matthew C. Ryans in Austin, including an attorney, and that they are NOT the defendant in the AutoAdmit case.”
The e-mail is signed Mark Lemley, a Stanford University law professor who is representing the women in the lawsuit. (Lemley confirmed to me that the e-mail is genuine.)
Ryan, a 40-year-old construction attorney with Allensworth and Porter, and an adjunct UT professor in construction law, said he has received hate mail after his resume was posted with news of the lawsuit on Above the Law, a blog that bills itself as a legal tabloid.
He’s also received calls from the ABA Journal, Associated Press and other news outlets.
“You can see how important it is for me to maintain and preserve my reputation and my good name,” he said.
You bet.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2008/08/06/no_not_that_matthew_c_ryan.html
Haha. That kitty's in peril. I'll save you, kitty!
seriously, the cat thing has got to go.
We are monitoring the state of the Patent Law Profession at http://www.patentbuddy.com. Our latest number crunching shows evidence of stealth lay-offs of patent attorneys and agents. The movement of patent attorneys/agents from law firms to solo or no affiliation has doubled from 7% in Oct. to 13.6% in June. No corresponding increase has been seen in movers from corporations to solo.
We are monitoring the state of the Patent Law Profession at http://www.patentbuddy.com. Our latest number crunching shows evidence of stealth lay-offs of patent attorneys and agents. The movement of patent attorneys/agents from law firms to solo or no affiliation has doubled from 7% in Oct. to 13.6% in June. No corresponding increase has been seen in movers from corporations to solo.
We are monitoring the state of the Patent Law Profession at http://www.patentbuddy.com. Our latest number crunching shows evidence of stealth lay-offs of patent attorneys and agents. The movement of patent attorneys/agents from law firms to solo or no affiliation has doubled from 7% in Oct. to 13.6% in June.