Not in my Thelen Marrin days and not in the Thelen Reid and Priest days did I ever hear anyone call it anything but "Thelen"

Who?

Very sloppy for Thelen "LLP" to issue a press release talking about its "corporate" identity.

Also, I would've gone with "Thelen Reid LLP".

Everyone but Thelen's been laid off anyway, and he's dead.

4, I concur. I liked the Reid. Thelen sounds less dignified.

The real story is that this firm is experiencing hard times...perhaps the insiders can enlighten us?

Michelle Obama's speech: 8.7

10.0 start value.
0.1 point deduction for over-selling her roots. When two kids go Ivy, your family is not impoverished.
0.2 point deduction for letting her brother speak. She's barely qualified enough to headline a night of a major convention. Who the heck is he?
1.0 point deduction for not avoiding the "black dudes <3 basketball" stereotype.

--NEWS FLASH--

Thelen LLP to merge with Fetus LLP! The new name will be Thelen Fetus LLP.

Brown & Raysman used to be a great IP boutique. Too bad.

you had me at T(TT).

Insiders don't know much either. Firm management isn't saying much of anything, even to long-time partners, except that merger talks with two potential (large firm) suitors are progressing. People are getting their info piecemeal from blogs and personal contacts, not management. (A bad way to handle it in my opinion.)

Among associates and junior partners there is lots of uncertainty and gallows humor; some are very pissed at the departing partners, others are not. Basically seems like the Thelen Reid/Brown Raysman merger unraveled at the same time as (or maybe it was accelerated by) the economy. Seems like they never really consolidated the different cultures of the firms, and the collapse of the NY markets pushed things over the edge.

1. Thelen is a dumb branding name; people always either mispronounce it as "The LEN", or else ask, they work for The What? The Man?

2. Partners are decamping as fast as they can because of 2 major law suits against the firm: the IP malpractice suit and the suit involving a shady fee-splitting deal with an informant who wants a bigger cut of the payout. Either suit could cost the partnership lots of money. Will the last partner holding the bag please turn off thelights? If you're a junior, nonequity partner all of sudden offered full equity status, uhh, Just Say No...

3. NEWS FLASH: The heirs of Thelen have sued to have their name removed from the firm. Henceforth, the firm formerly known as Thelen will be identified just by an unpronounceable brownish logo.

It can call itself whatever it wants. Brown Raysman will still suck.

Thelenite (and former BRMFSer) here, so read the following with that in mind. 13 - nobody is leaving Thelen because of the two lawsuits, as far as I know; its not something that occasions much discussion around the firm, and nobody takes either suit particularly seriously.

Steiner's departure shocked absolutely nobody - it was rumored within the firm for months, almost a given. Frankly, Steiner was an egotist who couldn't have a conversation with associates without "casually" dropping in the size of his book of business (don't know about the rest of us, but I always laughed) and from what I understand had become a pure eat-what-you-kill partner with way, way, way too many people in his group (especially in this market). Lateralling was pretty much the only way he could trim his group enough to increase his own take (not that he was exactly hurting, I'm guessing), so he did.

Personally, I've always been happy with my work and responsibility at Thelen, and ecstatic about how I'm treated and the people I work with, so I'm riding this out. I know a number of people taking the same approach (including people who turned down offers to go to other v100 firms). Hopefully, there will be a merger that makes sense, or the economy will turn around, and life will go on. The fact that I have other options if this goes really south (and I don't think it will) makes it easier on me, but this isn't exactly the most comforting time to be a Thelen associate (or, I'd guess, partner). That said, I think it says a lot that so many of us are staying by choice, out of a connection to the firm and loyalty to the people they work with.

And 14? Bite me.

I interviewed with Thelen, but I still can't figure out how to pronounce it. Is it THAY-len?

THEE-len (soft "the", not old english "thee")

14 - guys at my old firm used to pray for a merger or a miraculous turnaround in the economy all the time. They were fuctards.

Because it hasn't been said yet, TTTThelen Brown Raysman sucks.

"The name change will . . . better reflect the firm's 80-year history as one of the world's premier law firms."

How?

I'm gellin' with Thelen.

these pretzels are making me where the hell is the morning docket.

18 - I'm guessing you meant that one for me (15). Thanks for the constructive comment and obvious concern for my wellbeing. It speaks well of you (where's an eyeroll smiley when you need one?). Like I said, I've got options if things don't work out, most of us do. But what I have here is good enough to make it worth the wait.

Somehow I'm guessing you'd be the first rat off the ship at the first sign of trouble (or the first one tossed overboard) wherever it is that you work, no? Tell me I'm wrong.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. By extension, Thelen Reid by any other name, would suck equally.

15: You sound like the last band playing on the Titanic. "Loyalty" HA!

Lipstick on a pig

"Personally, I've always been happy with my work and responsibility at Thelen, and ecstatic about how I'm treated and the people I work with"

No one is "ecstatic" about working at large lawfirm. PR shilling should really be a little bit more sophisticated than this.

While 15 may be right about the newer Brown Raysman side of the firm, he/she is dead wrong about the legacy Thelen side (assuming that a few stragglers remain in the NY office to maintain that 'legacy'). Moreover, the notion of any "loyalty" to or from Thelen is pure comedy. At Thelen, it was always every man for himself. Since I left not that long ago, there is not a single associate that I worked with that remains at that office, and only one partner that I worked with remains. The associate and partner layoffs and defections continue. In three years at the most, "Thelen LLP" will again have a new name because it will have been acquired by another firm, or it will be defunct.

Just ask that idiot that chose junior partner over going to proskauer. I bet he's loving life.

27 - not a PR shill, and not overplaying anything (people at Thelen have probably figured out which associate I am). I still remember walking out of the office to a car at 2:00am a few years ago and having the driver ask where I worked. When I told him, and asked why he wanted to know, he said "because I've picked up a lot of people from this building late at night, and it doesn't matter when I get here, they're always smiling. I don't see that anywhere else"

Maybe its just the department I'm in, or the office, or just the people I work closely with. But I really am ecstatic about the way I'm treated and about the people around me - and if that's not something you've experienced in your work life, that's a shame.

28 - I can tell you that its not just the legacy BRMFS people I know (though I'm closer with more of them, having known them for longer).

30, you're just making a spectacle of yourself now.

30: How does that Kool Aid taste?

You know what's sad? I've been visiting this blog since it started and the comments have continued to degenerate to something reminiscent of a bunch of adolescent boys in a pissing contest. You know what else is sad? The fact that commenters are still comparing what law school they went to or what firm they work for as some sort of attempt to prove to themselves (and I suppose the world...though it really doesn't care) that they are actually important. If 30 is "ecstatic" to work at Thelen, then that is great that he or she has found a job that he or she enjoys.

The Thelen LLP name won't last that long. It's going to be one of the following soon:

1.) Vinson Elkins Thelen
2.) King Spauling Thelen
3.) Bryan Cave Thelen

My personal preference would be for Kirkland Ellis Thelen. :-)

I'm not R30, but I also work at Thelen, and I, too, am in for the duration of the ride. If the firm merges, great; if we go back to being a regional firm, that's fine; and if my practice group were to go elsewhere, I'd be proud to go and to continue practicing with them. There's nothing I'd like better, though, than to see this firm pull through and succeed--and the colleagues with whom I've spoken feel the same way.

33:

That is Psych 101: People who work at v10, v20 (wherever you want to draw the line) firms need to justify the reason why they put up with the associate abuse that exist at such firms.

With regards to the comments been the same, well that is due to the fact that the “class” is not closed. You are growing older/becoming matured, while the immature law students and associates with grand sense of entitlement continue to join the class. So relax.

- Hugs

Actually, 35, its not that "if my practice group were to go elsewhere, I'd be proud to go and to continue practicing with them." Rather, its that you would be a fool not to go and practice with them if your group left. If you did not leave with your group, bereft of any support at Thelen, you would be at the top of the short list of which associates to fire next.

And, your willingness to leave with your practice group is exactly the type of "loyalty" that has put Thelen in the mess that it is. With not just individual attorneys but whole practice groups at the firm having left in droves in recent years, Thelen just can't hold on to partners with business long enough to be an attractive merger partner. (Heck, Thelen's been looking for a national merger partner for years now).
Going back to being a regional firm is the best outcome that Thelen can hope for now, and that would be a longshot. Get your resume ready.

Apparently, my loyalties aren't clear enough, so let me clarify, 37. The "practice group" example I mentioned was the post-doomsday scenario if the firm implodes and everyone's scattered to the winds. Had I no loyalty to these people or this firm, I'd have the resume out right now and would be looking to distance myself from them as fast and as far as I could. But I do not, and have no intention to--not while this firm exists.

I do agree, though, that the defections (and ensuing uncertainty) are what's put the firm where it is right now. It says an awful lot, and none of it good, that BR&S led their firm into this merger and then bailed out on their former partners and associates.

38 - 30 here. Agreed, although my sense is that B&R were pushed out rather than bailing. Steiner, on the other hand . . . well, I haven't had much interaction with him, but as far as I can tell from the little I have seen (not to mention his insistence that his name be on the marquis after the merger), Steiner is, and ever has been, only about one person.

"Agreed, although my sense is that B&R were pushed out rather than bailing."

You don't know jack. Thelen assumed tons of debt from the BRS guys, and then things went south because of that, and the BRS name partners left and left the debt with Thelen.

Thelen's only mistake was in merging with BRS considering how much debt BRS had.

excuse me - his reported insistence

40 - whatever else may have come in with BRMFS, B&R could have left and left that debt behind a long time ago. I doubt that either of them left because of debt. My understanding is that neither was adding overmuch to the firm's bottom line, neither was being particularly encouraged to stay, and both were being sidelined from a management perspective. I'm not sure if any of that is accurate, since its all rumor and innuendo, but that's the picture I'm getting. (For what its worth, I was never particularly attached to either of them, so I have no reason at all to defend them. This is just what I'm hearing)

40, It wasn't a mistake to merge with Brown Raysman. They had to do it. When Thelen merged with them, its NY office was (and is) on life support. It was losing partners weekly. Thelen needed a merger partner, and fast, to replace losses in NY, but could not find one other than BRS. BRS provided some short term relief in NY, but that is over now. The NY office is the walking dead. Absent another merger partner, which would have to be another firm in dire straits because no one else would take a piece of Thelen, Thelen won't survive in NY. Maybe it will end up as a SF construction firm, finally putting to rest its ill-planned dream of national reach first hatched with the '98 merger with Reid & Priest. On the other hand, maybe it will just go bust.

You know what's sad? I've been visiting this blog since it started and the comments have continued to degenerate to something reminiscent of a bunch of adolescent boys in a pissing contest.
__________________________________________

This is primarily because the rats deserting xoxo's sinking ship are all scurrying ower here. Once AutoAdmit is finally done for, this site will cease to have any value whatsoever to intelligent people.

BRMF&S was the best firm ever - so suck it

"Loyalty", "Options". You self-delusional fuctards, all. You are staying because you have no place to go. You've already sent out your resumes, and you haven't gotten a single interview (reason why you're at Thelen to begin with). Your departing partners didn't include you in their plans to leave, much less extend an offer for you to join them. Markets naturally work to separate out the cream from the crop.

You keep telling yourself that if it keeps your ego inflated, 46. Do what you gotta do.

Also, you might consider brushing up on your clichés. Your self-satisfaction isn't quite so impressive when you get them wrong.

46 - I am so tired of all the non-Thelen people who think they know everything. Reality is that you hate where you work and need to jusitfy it by attacking those who work at Thelen. If you were really better then the associates at Thelen then you wouldn't be on here. Truth is you have nothing better to do with your time then attempt to validate the long hours and shitty work you get by telling yourself somehow you're "better off" because you aren't at Thelen.

I am at Thelen, and am CHOOSING to stay because the pay is decent and the work is better then what you get. I can promise you that! The moment I want to leave, I'll leave. It has nothing to do with not being able to find another job (already had plenty of offers and frankly would rather work at a so called "sinking ship" then work at any other big firm in the area)

46 - I am so tired of all the non-Thelen people who think they know everything. Reality is that you hate where you work and need to jusitfy it by attacking those who work at Thelen. If you were really better then the associates at Thelen then you wouldn't be on here. Truth is you have nothing better to do with your time then attempt to validate the long hours and shitty work you get by telling yourself somehow you're "better off" because you aren't at Thelen.

I am at Thelen, and am CHOOSING to stay because the pay is decent and the work is better then what you get. I can promise you that! The moment I want to leave, I'll leave. It has nothing to do with not being able to find another job (already had plenty of offers and frankly would rather work at a so called "sinking ship" then work at any other big firm in the area)

first to say Bryan Cave & Thelen, LLP

I can see why some are still dedicated to Thelen. The hours are easy because the work is slow, and we are still getting paid. But people are silly to think that this can go on. Enjoy the easy money now, but get out before the ax falls. 26 fellow attorneys did not move on to greener pastures fast enough earlier this year, and look what it got them: Fired. It doesn't matter if you are fired because work is slow, your performance is supposedly subpar, or because the firm is sinking, you are still out of work.

46 - somehow I find myself unable to be jealous of or feel inferior to someone who uses the word "fuctards." For me, I've actually had and turned down those offers from departing partners, and I've been assured that those doors will stay open if I want to walk through them in a few months if I don't like where Thelen ends up and want to reconsider. I also know that other of the partners I work for would take me with them if they ever left the firm.

So yeah . . . loyalty. And options.

Things you obviously don't recognize. Which suggests to me that deep down you know you are valued too little by the people you work for to be able to pretend that you would have the same opportunities.

BTW, if you had a better grasp of the English language and its idioms, maybe the people you worked for would appreciate you more. There are classes for that - let me know if you need help using google to find one.

Arent Thelens the ones that Tom Cruise and the Sciennutjobs say are attached to our bodies?

47 & 52, you are embarrassing Thelen (not to mention yourselves) with your display of inferiority complex and schoolboy embrace of English idioms (in which, having read at Cambridge, I am well versed, thank you very much). "Cream of the crop" may well beyour beloved cliched expression, but it is also a dead metaphor, one that only some unimaginative lawyer (precisely the type one'd expect to find at Thelen) coud use without irony. In any case, you understood that you are not the cream, and that's all you needed to understand.

54 - The only person being embarrassed here is you…..“coud use”.....really….Mr. "having read at Cambridge"

54 - 'cream of the crop' may or may not be a dead metaphor, but suggesting that markets "separate the cream from the crop" while implying that you are the cream is certainly (unintentionally) ironic.

As for the rest . . . well, I certainly understood your opinion on my skills as a lawyer (one which you "intelligently" reached on the basis of the firm I work for, and nothing more). I'd be happy to disabuse you of those notions if you were ever across a courtroom from me, but given the display you've put on thus far, I'm fairly certain none of the partners you work for would ever let you anywhere near that type of substantive work. C'est la vie.

50 - Don't leave out King & Spaulding & Thelen LLP (but like Husch Blackwell Sanders acquisition of Welsh & Katz in Chicago and how it's known as Husch Blackwell Sanders Welsh & Katz in Chicago ONLY)

It will be known as King & Spauling & Thelen in SF and SV only, maybe LA, if they retain the office.

Nobody has addressed the elephant in the room, which is what will happen to the associates whose start dates were already deferred?

oh, and anyone who thinks Thelen partners will be loyal to the associates when its go time is delusional. A quick check of the website shows almost exclusively partner departures. This should show where partner loyalty lies, with their wallets.

anyone have advice for incoming deferred start date associates?

Yeah, start looking, or if you want to trust the thelen associate posting here, click your heels three times and pray.

One-word firm names with "th" sounds are impossible to understand over the telephone.

Start looking where? Most firms are too slow to absorb the first years they're already taking in this year.

Incoming first years have the very same options as current associates: to look elsewhere or to wait and see what happens. Unfortunately, 62 is right that the "elsewhere" option isn't much of an option right now, and "wait and see" isn't terribly reassuring.

Can you say rescinded?

No, not click your heels and pray. For the deferred start date associates, if you weren't already looking elsewhere then it's probably too late to have much hope to find something else now; if you were and are still worried, then you've been looking without luck. In either case, it doesn't seem like you're going to have too many options beyond hoping for the best.

But whether you started looking before or are just starting now, it's definitely the time to be playing on every contact you can reach (does your law school friend's brother's dad's golf buddy run a company that uses a firm . . .). Also, go to bar association events and start talking to people, send your resume around unsolicited and with a cover letter explaining the situation, etc. Odds are none of this will help - but in the position you're in now, you don't have much choice but to do the work anyway.

I think it's funny how everyone thinks that nobody will want to merge with Thelen. Thelen SF/SV have something to offer. That right there gives firms, especially those with little or no CA presence, an interest.

It's silly to think that Thelen has nothing to appeal to other firms. If they didn't, Thelen wouldn't be in serious discussions with about a half dozen to a dozen AMLAW 100 firms right now. Sure they have their problems, but I'm sure if a merger or acquisition happens, it won't be exactly the way Thelen wants it to go down (i.e., the other firm might take a pass on adding the underperforming offices to the merged entity).

66 is probably on the money, to the extent that he/she believes that cherry picking will occur. That is the only way parts of Thelen will survive. Nobody is going to make the same mistakes and take on BR's old debt that has not been retired.

Thelen has a lot to offer. Losing Steiner and all of the service partners that he is taking is no big loss. None of those partners had any work to do all year. Steiner is taking his huge ego and all of those partners and associates and has no work. DLA has no clue as to what they are getting. If they did, they would have only brought over 2 or 3 partners.

68, name me what Thelen has to offer other than partners with basically no business and decimated practice groups. About the only thing left is construction which has rates that are lower than many insurance defense shops.

67 - I agree on that too. Likely if someone wants Thelen, they really are saying they want Thelen SF, SV, and DC. Fuck the rest. Being that the powers that be for Thelen are in SF, they'll get to bring the Thelen name to the new merged firm. (King Spaulding Thelen, Bryan Cave Thelen, etc)

Thelen NY and Thelen LA (and possibly CT and N. NJ) would probably end up joining other firms (the partners join other firms, get to bring the other associates there too. Office space can be had too if those firms want it).

69 - Thelen's busiest office is SV and they don't do any construction. Mostly IP (Patent) Lit and Business Lit. In fact the IP lit there is growing substantially and very lucrative to prospective merger candidates.

Former BR associate here. While I wouldn't describe myself as "ecstatic" with my work experience, I agree with 15 that BR was an awesome place to work, with great people and interesting work. Ultimately I left because I was looking for stronger long term prospects, but it was definitely a difficult decision for me. My new firm is much more stable, but the working environment does not compare to BR. BR assembled a truly excellent group of people and it's too bad that this is happening.

I like it. I'm not dead yet!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxthelen

- Max Thelen