Biglaw

ATL Rumor Agency: Which Firms Are In Trouble?

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Based on popular demand, it is time to take a look at which firms may be struggling heading into bonus season. Would you like to share speculative information about stealth layoffs, declining profits, or an “everybody here is freaking out” environment? This thread’s for you.

Let’s get the ball rolling with a panicked message we received about Cahill Gordon:

I work at Cahill Gordon and we’re so f**ked. This junk bond market has collapsed … and representing underwriters of junk bonds makes up at least 75% of the revenues of our firm. Simply put, there’s not any work going on and no sign that it’s coming back. We’ve recently tried to diversify by adding a few litigation partners and a partner that focuses on representing telecom companies in regulatory matters, but, so far, these efforts aren’t coming close to replacing the revenue we’ve lost. I wouldn’t be surprised to see our profits per partner drop by 40%-50% this year – -there’s just no work. Now I understand why Roger Meltzer and his band of associates left [for DLA Piper].

Cahill declined to comment on this rumor, probably because a 50% drop in PPP is, frankly, “the sort of thing that Miggs would say.” But the junk bond market has collapsed, and we do know that Cahill did a lot of work in that area.

More speculation, after the jump.


Many people are reporting work slowdowns, including a tipster from Dewey & LeBoeuf:

We just got through our reviews, and all the juniors and mid-levels in our group got the same “everyone’s hours are low, but you should still be more aggressive in looking for work.” Even the pushy guy [in my department] was told to be more aggressive…. I haven’t heard anything in other groups…I still think they’d want to avoid any bad PR this early post-merger.

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(When we previously contacted Dewey about earlier rumors, the firm stated that “attrition is a feature of life for large law firms” and “[i]n fact, our associate numbers are up from last year.”)

One eagle-eyed tipster reports:

Do you know what’s up with Dewey’s D.C. office on F Street? Their name was replaced with the generic building name over the front door this week. … I think they have (had?) two offices since the merger. The one on F Street I think they built in anticipation of bringing Orrick over. Since that merger fell through, I think they might have just moved everyone to LeBoeuf’s D.C. office? I’m not sure, but all of a sudden their big bronze nameplate was gone.

In these troubled times, even a simple real estate swap can scare associates who need jobs.

This kind of information usually amounts to speculation full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But, as the saying goes, we’d rather post ten alarmist bits of conjecture than let one prescient tidbit go free. Or something like that. Have at it in the comments or email us here, and we’ll continue to separate the gossip from the intelligence.

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