Cadwalader Wickersham Taft new logo CWT AboveTheLaw blog.jpgI’m not sure how you make a “Happy Holidays” e-card mildly insulting, but then again I’ve never been schooled in the dark arts practiced by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Over the weekend, CWT sent around an inspirational holiday greeting card. Check out the screenshot:

CWT holiday screenshot.jpg

Great! Lots of firms send out holiday greetings. But does every firm send out cards to the people they laid off a few months ago? Because that’s what CWT did.

Let’s explore how CWT messed up what should have been a great idea, after the jump.


According to CWT, the firm decided to go with e-cards and pass the savings along to charitable organizations like the American Cancer Society.

If you click on the “Thanks” link in the holiday e-card you are jumped to a series of “I’m thankful for” platitudes written by CWT employees. Most of these are nice: “I’m thankful for my puppy,” or “I’m thankful for the library staff.”

But do 96 people recently canned by Cadwalader really need to be informed of all the things that people who still have jobs are thankful for? This is a perfectly fine and even actively nice holiday message, but why can’t CWT just be smart about it and only send it to people currently employed by the firm? Or at least only the people who have found new jobs already?

Great thought by CWT, but really bad form.

Giving Thanks Holiday E-Card [Cadwalader]

Earlier: Cadwalader Says Goodbye to Bob Link

Breaking: Cadwalader Announces Layoffs of 96 Lawyers!

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