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Nationwide Pay Freeze Watch: Womble Carlyle Bows to Southeast Economy

Friday, December 12, 2008 11:44 AM - By Elie Mystal

economy freezes over.JPGWhile Southeastern United States Senators are busy making the world safe for Toyota, Southeastern law firms are busy just trying to survive.

The latest bad news comes the 132-year-old law firm Womble Carlyle. The North Carolina based firm has decided to freeze salary increases for all attorneys through the first half of 2009 at least:

In these times, prudent management requires that we minimize our expenses in order to retain the flexibility that is necessary to deal with unforeseen developments. Accordingly, in addition to a variety of expense cuts that are included in the budget, we have decided not to increase base salaries for salaried attorneys and staff at the beginning of 2009. As we approach the midpoint of the year, we will review the situation and decide whether to provide any increases for the balance of the year. The only exceptions are those attorneys who become salaried members or of counsel on January 1, 2009.

I imagine that if you are a lawyer that relies heavily on the disaster area of the Charlotte banking market, just having a job is reward enough. You don’t want to be laid off in North Carolina right now. Womble Carlyle hopes to avoid that worst case scenario after the jump.

Womble Carlyle hopes — but cannot promise — to avoid layoffs:

We intend to make every effort to avoid job cuts, and the 2009 budget does not contemplate such cuts. Given the economic uncertainty, we will of course develop a variety of contingency plans, but we will do our best at all times to preserve jobs. We very clearly understand that our talented attorneys and staff are our most valuable assets.

Notwithstanding the fact that Womble is freezing salaries, management included the “everything’s great, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” language that has become boilerplate when firms of all sizes announce bad news:

Like almost every other business and law firm, we will fall short of our 2008 budget, but we are stable, profitable and confident that in the long run we will emerge a stronger firm with an even stronger client base. …

Womble Carlyle is an outstanding firm which has endured other tumultuous times in its 132-year history. We are extremely optimistic about the future of the firm. Thanks for all that you do!

I suppose firm management can’t say “we really hope this works, otherwise we are totally screwed.” Still “extremely optimistic” and “no pay raises” seem like contradictory thoughts.

Expect to see additional salary freezes over the course of the winter.

Earlier: The Next Wave of Cost Cutting: The Pay Freeze

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Posted in: Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Money, Salary Freeze

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