Sidley Austin Shows Firms How to Deal With Associates During the End Days

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On Monday, Sidley Austin held an all-associates meeting in the New York Office. The stated goal was to provide information to attorneys living in constant fear for their jobs.

The most important news to come out of the meeting was that no layoffs are planned or expected at Sidley. That’s the good news. A tipster reports on further details:

[T]hey did mention that the standards for performance reviews would be less lenient than in years past. The firm addressed the NY offices Structured Finance department in some detail. The market for Securitizations has slowed but is not completely dry, and it has meant a drop in revenue firmwide. The NY office has been hit particularly hard, as we did a lot of this work related to Mortgage Backed Securities. … With the lack of demand from the I-banks for people with these skills, it may be 2-3 years before the job market for these associates picks up again.

Many people expected Sidley to be hard hit by the meltdown in the financial sector. When the firm is expecting that it’ll be years before financial services practices pick up again, it’s a good time for those lawyers to start showing that there are other things they can do.

More nuggets from the meeting, and a Sidley associate with the right attitude after the jump.


Another tipster reports that Sidley believes they are in much better shape than some other firms around the country:

The firm reiterated that it still has no debt, and thus we will not be facing the same crisis as our bretheren on the West Coast (Heller and Thelen RIP, we wish you all luck) …

Some associates inquired about possible severance, and the partners reiterated that if the unthinkable happens, that it would be a MINIMUM of 3 months, which has been the standard for those who have been laid off in the past.

There was also talk of replacing the office furniture in 2009. That plan has been pushed to 2010.

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Wait, associates asked questions and received answers from management? What kind of honest Abe angle is George Petrow trying to run out there?

Maybe the facts-based meeting had a desired and positive impact on associate morale. Listen to how one Sidley associate describes the feeling at the firm:

Everyone is a little nervous. You would be crazy not to be. … That said, we have a very diverse corporate practice, and work is flying in from other parts of the globe at all times. Securitization is but one of our practice areas, and it is up to all of us to step up and do what we can to allow the partners in the other departments to pick up the slack, or even grow their practices to make up for the short term loss of this type of work. Eventually, there will be new ways to package and sell debt, and we will just have to make sure we are ready to serve our clients when it does.

I emphasize that the above email did not come from a firm PR spokesperson. That was a front-line junior associate who said things like “pick up the slack” and “ready to serve our clients.” Something tells me that this tipster has a secure job, regardless of what happens to the firm as a whole.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that our positive tipster walks around with rose colored glasses and spits up Kool-Aid in his sleep. But at some level, good management manners produces happy warrior-associates.

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Hopefully this NYC meeting bodes well for Sidley NYC. We’ll report if we hear anything good coming out of Chicago.

Earlier: Sidley to Associates: Be Cool Boy

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