FIRST.....to say DLA Piper sucks!

DLA Piper is to law firms as Wal-Mart is to department stores.

Like sheep flocking to the herd.

Who didn't see this coming when they outlawed non-equity partners?

Stop printing this sh*t - My firm can't decide it's "market" if they don't know what other firms are doing!

When is Mayer Chicago going to announce? Considering associates have already been told informally that bonuses will remain consissten with the past and that there will be no salary freezes what is the hold up? If this is the plan, why not just annouce and show-up the Sidley's, DLAP's, Latham's etc.?

5 is EXACTLY correct. The partnership probably would've revolted if they were the only ones taking the heat, when Latham and Orrick flung the door wide open for other firms.

Remember, kiddoes, Piper laid off a lot of people in 2001-2002.

Freeze applies to "associate salaries for 2009 in the U.S." Wonder what this does for expats in overseas offices whose salaries are based on NY scale. Also, if I were a DLA client, I'd make note to scrutinize rates in future invoices.

Let the half-assing begin!

When did Mayer say anything about not having salary freezes?

(1) Sidley hasn't officially "frozen" yet (though it wouldn't be surprising if it does, along with most firms in 2009) and (2) if, assuming Sidley does freeze, you can bet your britches that MB is going to freeze. (As will Winston, Jenner, etc.) If you're waiting for the current MB to be some sort of "market leader," I'm afraid you'll be waiting a while.

If there's going to be any "non-freeze" moves by Sidley, MB and most other leading firms in Chicago (and, for that matter, the entire country, including that city with the most museums and musicals and especially that state with the killer b-b-q, rodeo and low taxes), it's going to come in the form of individualized salary graduations for those who both made hours last year and are on track to do so this year.

2009 will come to be known as the year that the big boys were separated for the posers.

The boom of the past few years allowed well managed and not-so-well-managed firms alike to pay associates top dollars and provide "interesting" work.

Basically we had too much supply (i.e. billable work). Now that supply is limited, firms will compete vigorously for the available work. However, don’t assume that the available work will be equally distributed amongst all firms, though. Instead some firms, the well managed ones will snap up a much greater share. Call it flight to quality. Call it well managed firms. Call it whatever you want.

This will produce firms that can afford to pay top dollar and firms that cannot. Firms that insist on paying top dollar when they cannot afford to do so will pay dearly. They may have to take a hit on the PPP side for perhaps even go bankrupt.

In 2009, look for the current top-tier firms to split into two tiers: the real top-tier market and a secondary-tier market (a.k.a. poser-tier). Ask yourself which market your firm will be in.

13 - brilliant analysis. Douchtard.

Former mid-size firm law partner here (who started new firm). Let's be realistic. This is a way of partnerships ratcheting back overly inflated associate salaries---which are fine when times are good and everyone is coining money (but cannot be sustained when times are bad). As in the business world, companies pay a base salary and then a bonus for above average performance and/or exceptional profitability. This pay format allows the company flexibility when times are good and bad. If this bad economy continues, look for less "lock step" pay and a conversion to a merit-based/bonus-based system for junior associates (like everyone else in the business world.) There is no reason that associates in lower profitability practices ought to expect the same pay levels as those in higher profitability practices. Those with lower hours have no right to expect the same pay as those with higher hours (despite the fact that hours are often controlled by partners and their ability to supply business). Fair? No. But, the business world is not fair. It does not always reward merit or hard work---just ask your non-lawyer friends. Associates can command high salaries when times are good---but their leverage evaporates when times are bad. Their are a lot of smart kids out there with good grades from good schools and no jobs. They want your job. Just remember that.

The Walmart of BigLaw freezes pay.

Who dares to feign surprise?

Does this mean that DLA Piper (and Latham and Orrick) will not raise the billing rates of associates moving to the next class year? Will a Class of 2004 associate be billed at the same rate in 2009 and he was in 2008?

DLA = TTT firm = TTT pay

No surprise here.

Wait, shouldn't they have decided this before 2009? Isn't it a bit disingenuous to announce a pay freeze after the date someone should already be accruing more salary? Shouldn't any employee go to work knowing what they're earning?

MB associate here. I have heard management state that bonuses would be consistent with prior years. Never heard anything about raises continuing but I started hearing rumors the day of the layoffs that they are being frozen. I did miss the last associates' meeting, though, where they may have discussed salaries directly.

19 - not all firms adjust salaries on Jan 1. This should not even need to be explained.

15 - Outstanding point. If you don't like your pay, leave. There are plenty of highly qualified people lined up out the door waiting to take your job.

a partner wrote this?

"Their are a lot of smart kids..." -15

21 - then when does DLA adjust salaries?

I was told MB bonuses and salaries were discussed in the last associates' meeting. Story then was that bonuses would remain the same and that there is no plan to freeze salaries. Supposedly the firm knew this message would be communicated to associates so kinda odd if the firm back tracks, which would likely kill associate moral. If MB decides to freeze or pay lower bonuses, would have been much better to just be straight in the first place considering the firm could have just followed suit and blamed the economy instead of making promises it can't keep. Hopefully MB associates get what they were promised though. which would make MB the king in Chicago.

-Future MB first year

21 must be great at parties. I wonder if (s)he wears a monacle and a top hat?

For many firms, everything depended upon December collections. December was the crucible.

On Monday through Wednesday of this week, the financial health of some firms depended critically upon the size of incoming wire transfers.

Depending upon where you work, the partners today are either breathing a sigh of relief or, alternatively, are breathing fire.

DLA, I'm guessing, belongs in the latter camp.

There are rumors of PPP falling as much as 35% at one NY-based T10 firm. Most firms will be down 5% to 20%.

If you are at a firm where the fall will be greater than 10%, prepare to feel financial pain. Over 20%? You'd better hope that the equity partners are tight culturally. If not, buckle up and enjoy the ride to Hellerville.

Enjoy the weekend everyone...next week should be interesting.

24 -- DLA customarily adjusts salaries at the end of January, making what used to be a salary increase retroactive to January 1.

15 and 22 - Just remember your attitude now when you ask for and expect, but do not receive, loyalty later.

Associate salaries over the last decade rose at a dramatically slower pace than partner profits in BigLaw, so all this bitching and moaning about "overpaid associates" from partners making $1M plus is pretty transparently self-centered and biased.

That's fine - if you want to stand up and call it a cold hearted pure business decision, we can get away with cutting your pay in this market so we will, then you can hardly feign surprise when the average associate tenure at a firm falls to less than 3 years, and when your associates speak ill of the firm rather than well and decline to refer business to you after they leave. Loyalty is a two way street, and if you think of and treat your associates as commodities (as your attitude clearly reflects), you can hardly expect them to think of you as anything but the heartless fuck that you are.

Sooooo....salary freeze, on top of all the money the firm will save on associate bonuses (since only a fraction of the associates will hit the 2,000 hour requirement). In addition, there have been plenty of "performance-based" layoffs (at least 10 in my office over the past 6 months). Finally, last week the firm announced that it made only 13 new partners (out of 1,500 lawyers in the US) in 2009.

This is clearly a firm in trouble - I would be very worried coming here as a summer/first year or lateral associate.

25 -Actually, Skadden is the king of Chicago. HTH.

Billing rates are up -- way up -- this year. After a brief coffee room survey, it seems that the associates in my office are more concerned about the high rates than the pay freeze. There is little confidence that the partners will be able to bring in any substantial business in 2009.

I think it's BS when firms don't take care of high billing associates (who also provide quality). At my firm, there is a quite large disparity between associates in terms of billing (hours range from 1500-2500). My billable were in excess of 2400 in 2008, and to think that I will be paid the same as someone billing 1700 hours is hard to swallow. I know, I know..I am already making a good salary and will likely have a better reputation than an associate who slacked off because he/she could, but honestly, I can't see killing myself for hours next year to not benefit from it. Firms need to be wary of this and keep those willing to make sacrifices happy.

31 - MB will be king of Chicago based firms.

Keep dreaming, 6. ATL is not paving the way to help set the "market." I know for a fact that the MP of my V50 conferences on a regular basis with the MPs of other V100s on topics like recruiting, pay, bonuses, etc. The only thing ATL does is help to inform associates and non-decision-making partners.

lol at Mayer and Skadden trolls.

-Kirkland Associate

This would never happen in Texas.

Let the blood bath begin. There will be no such thing as new associates at Klgates. The low life scum partners that sit on their stinking asses and don't bring in clients and the ones they do don't pay. Ha. The big push to get attorney time in is useless. The Bush global economy has made sure of that. I scoff at you fools who keep thinking anything will get better. Can you not put 0+0 = 0! That is what you will be making after your greedy sick immoral partners decide to get rid of your bloated salary. Don't worry. You will have plenty of company. This economy is ruthless so you "capitalist" out there should expect the same as partners try but fail to save the shit bag palace they have created!

Interesting to see people posting repeatedly about firm leaders conferencing to collude on setting salaries and bonuses.

Employment and antitrust people - how is this not illegal? And if it is, first off, it seems like some enterprising associate getting ready to switch from BigLaw to plaintiff's bar might make a name for him/herself by proving this. Secondly, what are we to think about partners being all high and mighty about earning their money while committing illegal acts to do so? Why not steal from your firm if you know they are stealing from you?

39 - Shut your mouth.

I'm glad biglawyers are getting pwned.

You were overpaid any way.

29 - Word !!!

29--I don't know about litigation but in corporate practice, importance of loyalty from junior associates is way overrated. It only exists in junior associates' minds. Importance of loyalty from senior associates who are solid paper lawyers and can work the deals on behalf of rain-maker partners are real and recognized for the most part. Even in economic downturns and salary freezes, a rain maker partner who needs his team of service junior partners and senior associates will exert whatever influence he or she has with the management/compensation committee to take care of the team by way of "merit based" bonuses--which are always extremely discretionary. If you are a senior associate working for a rainmaker partner who is not taking care of you, you are either (1) not a critical asset to his/her team, (2) not working for a legitimate rainmaking partner or (3) working for a legitimate rainmaking partner who is a complete douchebag. In any event, if a senior associate in such a situation should keep an eye open and jump at the first "better" opportunity that may come along.

what's going on at MOFO?

Look if firms want to bil second year associates out at over $400 and partners at $850, firms cannot very well claim poverty? Given how much firm's profit-per-partners have gone up in the past 10 years, partners have no right to claim associates over paid. Especially when the cost of law school is $180,000 plus opportunity cost.

12 - From what I know about Jenner, I can't see them following suit and freezing associate salaries firm wide. They have individualized compensation after your first year, so the only people getting bonuses or full market raises are those that actually met billable hours. I feel like the only firms that should be freezing salaries across the board are the true lock-step firms that now realize they have half their associates billing less than 100 hours a month!

1) Fuck MOFO, they suck 2) guys at DLA Chicago love to suck cock

True lockstep firms are the firms advancing salaries in step with class year (Cravath, Paul Weiss, Shearman, S&C, Simpson, Willkie, Milbank, Debevoise, etc.) These firms are probably doing better than the Latham's and DLA Piper's of the world (the first is a little surprising, the second, not so much).

Funny, seems like all the NY based firms I have friends at have upped salaries in normal course (even if they had layoffs), and iother markets that are freezing salaries. Will this be the start of a return to the pre-Gunderson days, where NYC paid more than the rest?

36 - sorry about your tiny pink Half-Skadden/Kirkland bonus, bro.

if i had any regrets about turning down my DLA offer, they have certainly vanished now...

Will any of this compensation data be used by clients to negotiate price? Knowing that DLAP is cutting compensation costs, why wouldn't clients of DLAP (or any other salary freezing firm) push back on fees?

80 percent of the dudes I know at DLA Piper Chicago are gay. Now they are gay dudes with frozen salaries.

The correct analogy is: DLA Piper is the Long John Silver's of fast food restaurants.

the best run firms will likely follow the leaders here...good luck to all

If I were a big firm client and knew that a firm had implemented large scale pay cuts (call it what it is - it isn't a pay "freeze," it's holding people back in class year - this is a pay CUT, a demotion, not just a "freeze" - second years who've been practicing for 17 months are now making the same as first years who started a month ago) there is no way in hell I would accept a $30-50/hr increase in class-year-based billing rates for the same associates. The partners at many of the firms demoting associates are making over $100,000 a MONTH, these cries of poverty are utter BS for the huge majority of BigLaw shops.

Associate loyalty to the firm matters a lot. A large number of people who start at a V-20 firm end up in house, perhaps with a stop at a smaller firm or a V-50-100. Unless PPP takes a major hit (more than 20% after the freeze), if my firm freezes my salary this year I will: (a) stop pushing for partner (which is a 50/50 bet, at best), and, accordingly, immediately reducing my billables to the level of those of an "off-track" associate; (b) look to go in house sooner rather than later; and (c) feel significantly less loyalty to my former firm once I am in the position to select a firm for business.

There are a lot of good firms out there, and it will not hurt my future employer if I push business to a similar firm. As 15 noted, there is nothing "fair" about the business world. BUT, loyalty matters. If the partners I work for are not loyal enough to me to give me the raise that they know I have been counting on, I will feel significantly less loyal to them going forward.

The law firm business model depends on more associates sticking around and billing like crazy in hopes of making partner than can possibly make it. For me, the "f-you" of a salary freeze would do more damage than the actual loss of pay. Most of us mid and senior associates pushing for partner are already f'd by the obvious bait-and-switch. Is it too much to ask that you at least pay us as anticipated, along with the fake "there's a lot of competition, but you are doing great - keep at it!" talks that you give far too many of us?

It is very likely that all large firms will quickly follow suit here. There is simply no reason to piss money away on associates who have no lateral options in this bush depression.

Lets hope things finally improve under Obama.

57, all large firms? Many firms have already implemented the class year increases. It might be a little late for them.

DLA Piper is not in the same league as the NYC-based firms. Trust me, firms listed in the post above and others like them are not freezing salaries.

39, of course there are no antitrust experts here. The entire thread is people who took "law and flowers" classes and whine about what they expect and deserve and think is "fair" instead of thinking about market power and economic realities.

I second 56. It's really hard to be enthusiastic about the place (as a firm, versus other firms- I still like my job and my coworkers) when they're laying off your buddies and no longer leading in pay.

-Former Orrick kool-aid drinker

i would be surprised if DLA is still around by 2010

For what its worth, before Christmas Linklaters announced full Cravath scale bonuses for all US associates with no hours requirement AND normal salary increases on the previously announced scale. Linklaters had a good if not spectacular first half and fortunately its management isn't so short sighted as to think that they can hide behind the downturn and screw their associates now without any consequences in the future. Links has worked hard to build a reputation as a good firm to work for that cares about its associates and so far the partners don't seem interested in squandering that to pad this year's PPP.

I really hope an associate at one of these "freeze" firms goes bananas and busts a cap in a few of the partners' asses. It would serve them right, while also having the salutary effect of scaring other firms that might be contemplating enacting a freeze.

63, do you work in marketing or recruiting at Linklaters?

A lot of the male partners at DLA Chicago are into cock also. Fucked two of them in their office. Should have video taped it.

The silver lining to the Orrick pay freeze is that we still get full commission on vacuum sales over the base requirement of 20/year.

As an associate at DLA Piper, all I can say is...

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS FOR JOHN MCCAIN!

what a rancid toilet

I'm a midlevel at Sidley, and have been on the fence about whether to stick it out and take a run at partnership or jump to government. I generally bill 2100-2500 hours a year. The "freeze," which comes on top of bonuses that have lagged further behind its peers each year (and, tellingly, have become less transparent each year in an effort to hide that fact) have made my decision much easier. I am sending out resumes this year. And it's not just about the 20 grand, though I sure would love to have the fucking 20 grand. Sidley is simply a poorly and very secretly run firm, and not the type of place I would enjoy working at for a few decades. Even junior "partners" have no fucking clue how decisions are made. Jesus Fucking Christ. Only two months ago we had an associate "town-hall" meeting and were reassured that the firm was doing just swell financially, would miss revenue targets by single digits, at most, for the year, and would not need to take any drastic steps like layoffs. To freeze salaries two months later without further explanation means either (1) the firm tanked faster than anyone could imagine (i.e., shittily managed); or (2) partners saw an opportunity to grab money when Latham announced and took it. Fuck them.

Sure, they have every right to grab all the money they can get, and I have every right to go somewhere else. So I will, and they can hire a crappy lateral to go with all the crappy incoming associates they are going to get when they can no longer fleece quality recruits into choosing them over Kirkland and NY firms.

57 said "Lets hope things finally improve under Obama."

*Snort* Don't hold your breath, pal.

Ah yes, the old endless dream of most midlevel associates, to move in-house. You do realize most of you will be running used car lots in five years, right?

55 - You're wrong, it's not a pay cut. It's a pay freeze. If it was a pay cut, then they'd be announcing that starting today, first years will be making $140K base, and everybody else will be adjusted down accordingly.

43 - Loyalty is much more important in litigation than in corporate practice. When a case can can be running through the pipeline for five, six, seven, or more years, it's important to get people working on it that know the case and the law inside and out. When was the last time you knew of a corporate deal that took six years from start to finish?

Who cares... you all are a bunch of little bitches. You work hard, but are well paid and in the top 5% of all income earners in this country. Quit fucking crying about a pay freeze in a recession and focus on the important things in life, like your health, family, and friends. Losers.

74, wow, the extent to which you miss the point is astonishing.

First, corporate deals often revive themselves in amendments and additional financing for many years. Second, though associate loyalty matters to some extent while associates are employed at the firm (e.g. your "knowing the case" example), loyalty after associates leave the firm is probably more important. Associates who leave happy and loyal are likely to bring their business back to the firm, which leads to future profits, which hits home with partners' hearts.

Dear 25 and 31,

You are both wrong. Everyone knows that Abe Froman is the (sausage) king of Chicago. I'll leave it to cruder minds to make a joke involving sausage and the desires of Mayer Brown attorneys.

Smart associates wanting to find something else saw the economic writing on the wall and did it 6 months ago jackasses - the rest of you can bend over and take it like the bitches you know you are.

Firms should not be raising billing rates of those same associates whose salaries they are freezing. That is going to piss clients off far more than associate bonuses. No one thinks a senior associate should be billed out at $600 a hour.

75, we also have more debt and higher cost of living than 95% of the population. When you have $150,000 in debt and pay $2500 a month for studio you don't all of sudden become Bill Gates from making $160,000-$185,000 a year. You are either an obnoxious partner or someone no longer in biglaw. Please take your bitterness elsewhere.

17 and others. I think it makes total sense to go ahead and raise peoples "class year" on bills to clients after freezing salaries. As a client, you are getting the work of a person who has x months of experience. The firm should not pass on the discount to the clients. What "class" you are on the pay scale is like at Andover where 9th graders are called "juniors," It doesn't much matter to the outside world.

If a single Biglaw client of a firm that freezes reviews a bill, then asks the firm why X associate's rate has gone up if salaries are frozen....well, I'll eat my hat.

Why would ALL large firms jump on the pay freezing bandwagon? the assumption seems to be that if the market will support 160k for 2nd years, all large firms will pay 160k for second years. However, all firms have never paid the same salary. The obvious example is WLRK. What explains WLRK paying so much more than market year after year?

More relevant perhaps is the special bonus “innovation” we saw last year. Why do that when there was an established “market” salary and bonus? Is not like associates are negotiating higher bonuses with firms. Firm do this because they recognize that associate compensation is an important factor in distinguishing themselves in order to attract top talent. (Imagine, where would WLRK be if it paid “market” bonus? Probably still at the top, but would you think of WLRK differently?).

In other words, even in the current economic downturn, firm will seek to set salaries so as to distinguish themselves while at the same time trying not to pay more then management thinks the firm can afford. In other words, even if many firms rush to a pay freeze some firm will not follow suit because it is to their advantage not to do so. Heck even this season we’ve seen quite the range of bonus announcements. I expect the same will happen with freezing pay.

Apparently, Skadden, Kirkland and Jones Day are the only big boys in Chicago, being that they are the only firms in Chicago paying 2009 increases and bonuses (or bonus like increases for JD). I guess Skadden is the leader of the 3.

No, 84, the only big boy in Chicago is Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.

I got an idea, 85, repeat what 10 other people have said in the comments. It is funnier every time it is repeated.

86, your defective counting indicates that Count Layoffula should fuck you up the ass, putting a funny bone in your body. I see two Froman references (both of which were me).

where are all these open positions you guys/girls are going to lateral to? inquiring minds and all that....are they hiring at bakers?

75=Loyal2L, who is now working at Burger King.

DLA associate here. Equity partners must be straight cash-hoarding.

First, DLA lays off associates (mostly stealth, throughout all domestic offices).
Then, they require major cash infusions from income partners, up to $150,000 (this was public).
Next, the salary freeze.
Then, last week the firm announced that it made only 13 new U.S. partners (out of approximately 1500 US attorneys), which again will effectively lay off many, many associates (Note: this is a much, much lower rate for partner promotion than in years past).

The equity partners are ensuring they can lock up lots of profits at the expense of its own associates. They will probably also skimp on bonuses. Not a great way to engender loyalty from its peons.

64 sounds like a loose cannon, and if someone does do what he/she urged, expect the fibbies to come looking. what a stupid tool - nice discretion

many of the rest of you kill me - you make top 3% in world economy that is tanking, but you don't have to take a pay cut, or layoff, but are indignant that your employers don't raise all your salaries, regardless of how many quality hours you billed last year, and think you will stick it to them when you go "in house" making 40% less by turning business away from your former slavemasters.

Newsflash - this is America - you get where you want to go by working as hard (or not) as you want. You don't like BigLaw, try and hang a shingle if you had clients - drop your rate to 400 per hour, and take most ot that home for yourself.

Instead, you whine whine whine. And try to chisel your housekeeper or gardner who have the audactiy to ask for a slight raise from 15 to 16 per hour to wipe your neglected kids ass, or pick up your dog's shit.

84 - Mayer is yet to announce bonuses or 2009 compensation.

Oh i hear the smallest violin playing for all of you fools. You never know what you had until you LOSE it. Most of you will lose all of it and forced to live like the scum you detest. You will see your wages go poof like the stinking farts that have stained your fat gorging asses. I will celebrate each and every demise of each and every law firm I see go down..and they all will go down! Your stinky cunts and bloated asses will know what the real world is only the real world does not exist. You won't be able to find your fat stinking asses when you realize you have been marginalized and cut off from your worthless dollars. Ask yourself did Usama win?? You bet your worthless ass he did. You idiots supported Bush in a fake war and you will feel the most pain because you think you are rich. LOL. You are a surf in a new world order of dealing with a new Feudalistic State! You idiots will not be allowed past the mote. Lmao!!! Fools

93 - Osama. Serf.

Obama

ATL should post a list of firms that have announced that they will not be freezing salaries. I've read of several on these boards, but the lead story titles usually are of the firms freezing. Make it clear which firms aren't taking this route so that other firms don't see freezing as "market"!!!

94 - Guys in my high school used to serf all the time, it was no big deal.

Interesting that DLA froze 2009 salaries only for associates in the US. Wonder what happens to those in overseas offices whose salaries are based on NY rate, given that firm says that it will determine on market-by-market basis?

I have heard from a Sonnenschein associate that Sonnenschein has frozen associate salaries for 2009.

93, I take serious offense to your assertion that I voted for Bush. Call me what you will but do NOT call me a Busher, sir!

Oh yes - to prior notes re: "Obama" and "serf", I add "moat". I enjoyed your Dark/Middle Age references, despite spelling errors.

80 -- yeah, you have a lot of loans and a high cost of living. So do TTT'ers who get jobs out of law school doing personal injury for $40K / year. Just as much debt, in a city that costs just as much, yet they manage to get by on a quarter a Biglaw salary with no bonus. So quit whining.

76 -
Serious question here: Other than the tiny minority of Biglaw refugees who go in-house and have to pick a firm to do their work... why would former associates refer work back to their former firm? Why wouldn't they just, you know, *do it themselves* at their new firm?

102 - two things. One, remember that until very recently, associates also left to do the business side of things. Hedge funds, real estate, etc. And I'm not talking about third years....think senior associates - those who either know they aren't making partner or want to be a decision-maker in general and go somewhere that will allow them to do so. They refer a *lot* of business to firms. Second, the number of folks who leave firms to go in-house isn't *that* tiny.

Obviously people don't refer work to their former firm when they lateral to another firm. I would have thought that was obvious.

I hope that the editors of this site will keep this as the top story throughout Monday and maybe even beyond, as an F-U to DLAP for thinking they can bury the story by announcing this on the day after New Years (which, of course, this year fell on Friday) at 4 PM. DLAP management is obsessed with image and goes spastic over bad press. Yet they manage to botch these types of announcements routinely.

Guess what, DLAP management -- this will probably be one of the headlines in the Monday morning legal news. And it'll be one of the first things people see after not having paid attention to the news over the last few days because of the holidays.

What DLAP management was quite good at doing, however, was sweeping layoffs under the rug. It has not been reported on ATL or elsewhere, and obviously the firm didn't announce it... but the firm conducted widespread stealth layoffs in December. Associates were laid off in virtually every US office. It wasn't as widespread as many people thought it would be, but that probably just means they will lay off more associates in January.

As for the pay freeze -- this wasn't a difficult decision for the firm, resulting from an economic analysis of the firm's condition and finances. It was a quick decision by Frank and Lee, and I guess Terry, because they can get away with it. Other firm partners may have had some notice, but, as usual, they had little input.

So don't let DLAP let you believe this was a complicated financial analysis. They saw what a few other firms are doing and jumped on board when they figured no one would pay attention. Funny how they're never so quick to act/react when it comes to making a move that would actually benefit associates.

Texas associate here. Billed 2614 hrs. Got $120,000 bonus. Just bought a bigger house. Yeah, I know, it's Texas, not NY, and you can't walk down the street and see two men kissing and the streets don't smell like open sewers; but I like it.

102 & 103

other common reasons include (1) firms (large & small) being conflicted out of certain work for clients (happens a lot in industry-specific practices), (2) changing client needs (eg. change in work scope such that the former firm is better able to deal with unexpected new issue/matter or billing-scheme), and, in transactional work (3) one firm recommending to the client that it push to have the other firm retained, for example, as manager/underwriter's counsel.

DLA Piper Associate here. I can accept a salary freeze in light of the "difficult business environment," but the firm's management only seems to acknowledge this "difficult business environment" in the context of labor costs.

We're not a first-tier firm and we never will be. We have significantly increased billing rates each and every year I've been an Associate. I've been told that there will be "modest" increases this year.

These rates are particularly difficult to absorb for our Government Affairs practices, which frankly have no business billing out at the rates charged by Litigation and Corporate.

I hope DLA Piper clients will ask tough questions about our billing rates in light of the "difficult business environment." I don't question that times are tough. But increasing rates and billing out Associates as sixth years while paying them as fifth years would strike me as a slap in the face as a client.

92, True but isn't it suspicious that they are waiting this long to announce? Given that Mayer had layoffs recently it's hard to imagine they are going to top Latham, Sidley, and DLAP.

This announcement gives the green light to the other well managed firms to do the prudent thing and freeze salaries indefinitely.

The freeze will only be for a few years in all likelihood and by 2014 or so, things will be back to normal. In the meantime, just be prudent with purchases and try to find a spouse in the medical profession or something.

"DLA Piper is to law firms as Wal-Mart is to department stores."

More like K-Mart. Wal-Mart is a good company.

Didn't Latham do something similar? Or was that some other "vault 10" or whatever retarded metric, using online surveys filled out by fucking paralegals and law students, you fuctards like to gauge yourselves by....?

Word on the street is many other firms are going to do this next week....I'd hate to be the managing partner at a non-freeze firm trying to explain to a rainmaker why his/her draw is down when a painless freeze on otherwise unemployable associates was "market".....

"Well, it's only been an hour, but I think it's a terrible move. DLAP already has a reputation as a scrimper among the top-50 - this will not help."

DLA Piper does not have a reputation as being among the top 50.

109 says: "The freeze will only be for a few years in all likelihood and by 2014 or so, things will be back to normal. "

This is dreaming. The MA/structured finance explosian of the last 10 years or so was an abberation, not the norm. The law firms that had this as a huge part of their practice have been forever altered. It is foolish to think that the investment banks can disapper but somehow everything will be fine in a couple of years for firms that lived off them. The overall state of thelegal world might be fine in a couple years but the winners and losers then will likely be different than they are today. As an outsider, it sure looks like DLA has cash flow problems. Being "loyal" to the associates will not solve that problem; cutting expenses is all they can do. So they do it and hope they have a tomorrow .

several v100 firms have planned cuts for the next week. Some of these firms already made their associates aware their last day there would be next week since mid/ate december. Expect a tsunami of layoffs to begin again starting early 2009. One of these firms tried to disguise it as performance based cuts and let go of 1st years who had just turned into 2nd years whether or not ATL finds out will depend if associates out the firm - I wont... Another will involve cuts to kids who just started. The people who got let go early will be the lucky ones - the cadwaladers who got 6 or 9 months severance were the lucky ones - severance will be anywhere between 2-3 months. Nothing compared to the difficulty of finding a new job in this legal market.

104 is right - alot of stealth layoffs have happened in december - I know of one firm who did so after their holiday party - as in the same day after the holiday party event - classy!!!! But not mentioned by ATL. Under guise of performance - these associates wont talk out of fear of hurting their jobsearch oportunities but it wont matter come early Jan when they are out of the firms. Associates who work at these firms should out them.

115 - how do u know all this?

Which firms are the big m&a shops 114? As Skadden paid way, way above market bonus and did not freeze salaries, it is clear that they are not an m&a firm, but who is?

thank you for your wisdom as you are clearly someone who knows what he is talking about.

108 - suspicious indeed.

Obama don't surf

if these pay freezes and half-bonii keep up, i am just going to join an ibank or maybe start a hedge fund or something....this is the land of opportunity for smart people and the sky is the limit!

We need a list of firms that did not freeze....

90 - Your full of shit, man. What are you talking about? You bill for those fuckin' creeps and low-lifes and degenerates in the corner offices and you sell your little hours for peanuts?

Why don't you do something real for once - go out and practice on your own?

"I'd hate to be the managing partner at a non-freeze firm trying to explain to a rainmaker why his/her draw is down when a painless freeze on otherwise unemployable associates was "market"....."

Actually, not very difficult. I'd imagine it'll sound similar to what the rainmakers at WLRK are told. (Pay more for better talent, if you can afford it)

Here's something managing partners can explain to rainmakers: If my V20 firm freezes salaries (no word yet), I will no longer work weekends or holidays, and I will take every single day of vacation allotted to me. I may not even bill 2000 hours and I certainly won't bill a minute more. I'll delegate my work to junior associates with lower billing rates. They cut my salary (essentially) and I cut my billables. Seems fair, no?

I guess I can stomach a pay freeze given the economy, but can someone please explain why an incoming first year should still receive 160? Definitely sucks that a newbie is making only 10K less than what should be a third year.

true, seems strange that the first years (who arguably should be shown the least loyalty) are the only ones not being asked to sacrifice

Holland & Knight is going to lay a shitload of people off this week. Florida especially.

to 127,

they're probably the cheapest to keep. it's all about dollars man. loyalty isn't that important.

125, that will sound even more fair when they fire you for not working weekends or holidays. You cut your workload, and they will cut your "salary (essentially)" to zero. They can even legitimately claim the firing is performance-based.
Good luck with that. Or are you all talk and no action?

Don't worry, there are plenty of people, already at your firm or looking to be, who are willing to work on weekends and holidays to be in the top 5% by income of American households.

so don't hate 1st years. Hate the situation.

exactly, they'd be even cheaper to keep at 145K

NY times: "Some Forecasters See a Fast Economic Recovery "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/business/economy/03econ.html?_r=2&ref=business

Firms lose money on first years - anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand firm economics. We have clients who refuse to have first years staffed on their cases. Lots of first year time is written off. My bet would be that incoming first years in the fall of 2009 will not receive 160k in the firms where salaries are frozen.

125 here - I'm only working today because my firm has not frozen salaries. Come payday, I will not work another weekend if my check does not reflect a raise.

105 - okay, tell us your firm, you long-horned bastard.

Sonnenshine froze too - where is the post about it?

125, it's fair. It will also be fair when you get fired. Which you would.

i don't know, seems fair to me. bill your 2000 hrs or your firm's minimum, no shame in that. i think what 125 is saying is that he will not go above and beyond for a firm that may prove that it will not go the extra inch for him. i think i'd rather live a life with reasonable hours and reasonable bonus instead of absurd hrs for an extra 25K in bonus

I think its time for a list of firms who froze salaries and those who didn't. Anyone have one put together??

Stop using "freeze," this word is pure firm spin and anyone who uses it is letting partners who make a million dollars a year win the debate by control of the language.

A third year in 2009 is being paid LESS than a third year was being paid in 2008 at these firms. This is a PAY CUT, plain and simple.

The firms that are doing this are showing how much they really respect your contribution - ZERO. You are a commodity like the paper in the copiers, nothing more, nothing less.

A firm that values the best people will pay for them, and will give them a little cushion when times are slow to retain loyalty when things are NOT slow. Associates are thankful for this kind of treatment - they leave less often when things are good, and remember it when it's time to retain counsel for a deal or a litigation (or pass on work they can't take themselves) 10 years down the line. And that's the reason the firms that are REALLY at the top STAY at the top (e.g., Skadden, WLRK).

Latham is the worst of all offenders - they are making money hand over fist and still taking the opportunity to nickel and dime associates to the very end. Only a real dumbass who's done no research at all on a firm's past would accept an offer from these douchebags.

the pay freezes which will soon be taking place at most top firms are fair and very associate friendly.

Paying first years 180K a year sounds crazy to me. Paying them 115 is much more reasonable.

Someone making 115K a year is in the top one percent of all income earners in the world! By what right do you claim to be among the top one percent????

Elie, can we get an update on alternative careers with this market. What happened to Mekka Don?

For all the hating on Elie, he does keep it somewhat organized here: http://abovethelaw.com/salary_freeze/

Frooze:
Latham
Orrick
DLA
Reed Smith
Dorsey
Venable
Squire Sanders
Womble something

Partial:
Bryan Cave

Maybe:
Sidley
Arnold Porter
Sonnenshein ?

108 --- actually laying people off puts Mayer in a better position to pay bonuses and keep salaries in place. Moreover, the money will counter any bad morale that may arise from layoffs. It is Latham's non-layoff policy that is preventing them from keeping salaries in place.

The sense of entitlement here is breathtaking! Most of you did not even go to good schools, much less graduate at the top of your class.

I know I am very interested in working for the firms that have frozen and will tell tham as much at OCI this fall. A job - ANY JOB - is a God send in this Great Depression.

143 - use google

142 - What right do partners have to make ten times as much? Most of them got there by luck and sucking the right cocks! Hardly any more of an entitlement than an associate to 1/4 of the income she generates for those partners. Christ, by what "right" does anyone claim anything you unreasoning moron? You have only the "rights" you can defend, so talking about rights is a total non sequitur in this context.

145 - What is "preventing them from keeping salaries in place" is GREED, certainly not a "non-layoff policy" since we all know both that Latham has a long history of layoffs and that it's making more than enough money not to cut associate pay while still maintaining seven figure PPP.

Exactly 139.

141: It's a freeze so long as it might be reversed. It's a reduction in lock step pay if it becomes permanent.

I say if we must cut salaries, it should be for first through third years only -- keep everyone else at the scale they're already on. Midlevels are in higher demand than junior associates and also are more useful and bill out at higher rates.

149 is a dope.

Anyone who wants their Skadden bonus would be well advised to put their half-Skadden on Indy tonight.

All of the "you should be thankful that you have a job" folks are guilty of a logical fallacy (not to mention a very annoying degree of sanctimony).

It is true that associates in big law should be thankful that they have good-paying jobs in this shitty economy. Compared to many other Americans, we have it pretty good, even with smaller bonuses and pay cuts.

Of course, lower-paid or unemployed Americans should be thankful that they are not, say, sub-Saharan Africans. There is always somebody worse off than you, but that doesn't mean that you can never justifiably complain about your own situation.

The reason many associates are upset is that they feel they are not getting their fair share of a specific pot of money that they helped generate. In any given firm, if associates get less, the partners get more. So the only relevant comparison is associate salaries vs. partner profits. The fact that a public school teacher or a mechanic makes less than either associates or partners has nothing to do with it.

So please, people, quit with the sanctimonious bullshit, and stick to the issue at hand.

Wait a minute, 146...OCI this fall? So you're a 1L right now? Christ. Shut up and go study.

153 - I am on a well deserved break. Unlike most of you filthy poors, I attended an Ivy UG and am now at a top 30 Law School.

80 - I respectfully disagree. If you *start* at 160k per year, even with 160k in debt and 2500 (really, that high? You can find a cheaper studio in NYC that's still in a decent neighborhood), you still *take home* more than 95% of people take home. I'm around Biglaw associates all the time and I find your argument tired and a bit duplicitous. Debt or no debt, you are still rich compared to the rest of the country.

Top 30 lawschool? Are you really bragging about being at the University of Iowa or something. Stay on break, no one likes you.

148 is precious.

Partners have a right to make 10x you do because they are the reason you bill so many hours at such a high rate. And they run the firm. And you'll sit in your office, billing away anyways because you're a wuss with no other options.

the average big law firm associates is disgustingly wealthy by ANY standard!

Drop the useless first years down to $145 so senior associates can get their raises.

First years to unemployed! Last hired, first fired.

158, so what? Partners are even more disgustingly wealthy, and the money at issue is either going to the partners or to the associates.

Associates who complain about the pay cuts are not arguing that they are entitled to money that would otherwise go to widows and orphans. They are arguing that they are entitled to money that they were promised, that they helped generate, and that is now going to partners who already make literally millions of dollars a year.

You may find neither of those two groups particularly sympathetic, but that's what the debate is about. Random, sophomoric blather about associates being "disgustingly wealthy" is just irrelevant noise.

The partners have had their returns cut drastically by the Depression and, although no one blames the associates, what would you have the partners do?

162, is that true? If so, we'll see it when they announce PPP. I have a feeling at many of the firms that have cut associate pay, PPP will not be down that much.

Also, as business owners, the partners got the lion's share of the upside during good times, so should bear more of the downside now.

In any event, those associates who are still busy and productive should be rewarded for generating revenue even in a bad economy, not punished b/c other slackers are unable to do so.

The know-nothing associates who think that they some how bring value to the table are high. 20 to 25% of the associates -- at most -- in a class year are good; 40% or so are ok; the rest suck. Giving them all lock step raises is insane.

Let's go back to the 145K pay scale, because a class of 2005 grad would make more on that scale (190K) than with salaries frozen on the 160K scale (185K).

-- Class of 2005 grad who is annoyed that Class of 2005 gets most screwed by "frozen" salaries

The lack of sympathy for the partners is mindblowing! Once you get used to a few millie a year, every dollar less hurts. Can you all, just for ONCE, try to think about the needs and stop being greedy? Damn....this is a PROFESSION people, not some kind of money making BUSINESS

NY to 190!

The reason they won't cut the incoming first year salaries is they already committed that to them in their offer letters. Something like, "starting salary no less than $160,000 per year..." Seems like they would have an easier time cutting non-committed salary than worrying about possible contract issues cutting incoming ones.

PPP goes up to one, two million plus, associate salaries go up a couple tens of thousands. Partners at my biglaw firm are doing their own legal research, writing motions, reviewing documents, etc. - associate level work - at partner billing rates. And clients think it is the associates that are are bilking them? Clients need to wake up already.

154,

So you went to Cornell (where you didn't do well and got a 162) and now are at Fordham? Wait until grades come out and you realize you're destined for toilet law at 40k per year. A salary freeze at a TTT like DLA is the least of your problems. Good luck, champ.

146/154...top 30 law school..?? YOUR sense of entitlement is astounding - many posters on this board went to top 14 law schools and actually work at the top 100 biglaw firms. Good luck at whatever TTT 40k a year job you wind up at.

I know my offer letter reads something like, "We have not yet set 2009 salaries, but we antiticipate your annual salary to be $160,000." Sounds like it can be whatever the firm decides to pay.

139, maybe so. However, I feel its more important to be a top performer in times like these than in good times. And that's what I'm doing. Hand in damn good work product and be at the top of the hours curve. Layoffs are ALWAYS performance-based. Except when entire departments or entire classes are cut.

You can cruise in good times and still get a decent bonus and have job security. These are not good times.

169 is right. A partner at my firm did about 40 hours of doc review at close to $800 an hour on a case I was staffed on earlier this year. It was pathetic.

146, bad idea. You're right about the sense of entitlement. But don't tell firms you're happy to work here despite a freeze. Asinine to mention that at all in interviews.

Any firm that does a freeze should fire its entire incoming class, as it already has a first year class. No need to worry about offer letters in that case. Anyone who would bother to argue that stubs are "cheaper to keep" is an idiot or a law student (or both). Each class bills out at lets say approx $50/hr more than to previous class, so x2000 equals about $40,000 more profitable. No class earns more than 40k more than the previous, hence assocs get more profitable as they get older (assuming there is still 2000 per assoc to go around).

164,

You're right. It is probably insane to give lockstep raises at the TTT firm at which you managed to excel. At my firm, a V5, the vast majority of associates are considered at least "solid." Ironically, some of the worst associates are the ones w/ the best credentials b/c they are just biding their time before taking a govt job or teaching gig.

Sincerely,

A senior associate at a non-TTT with unfrozen salaries

At my firm, one of the partners is now learning how to use Concordance so she can do document review on a case that I am working on.

Given that she is not particularly bright, it is fairly slow going. However, she has learned how to use the "tag" function. Kind of.

Unfortunately, I don't see the firm's bills. I would love to know how much the client is being billed for her training. It might suck to be an associate but in sucks even more to be a partner with no skills.

175 again. By the way 146/154, 171 is right. You made a valid point about entitlement. But your sense of entitlement is worse than most here. Many posting here went to real elite top 10 law schools and are at elite law firms. You're not. And likely won't be.

I do hope you have the same humbleness if you don't make it to a top firm at all. And the salaries and bonuses being complained about here are mere pipe dreams for you.

171, your sense of entitlement is totally wicked. Top 14? Can you explain what makes the top 14 the dividing line, outside of the word of a large number of rhymeswithswoosh-bag losers?

Top 10 I at least get, our society is trained to go all metric-system on lists. But top 14? Come on.

172, mine read something like "highly-competitive starting salary no less than $160,000..." Even with the language in yours, at least it is in writing and you accepted your offer in reliance on it. Once already employed, we never have written expected salary increases.

"Firms lose money on first years - anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand firm economics. We have clients who refuse to have first years staffed on their cases. Lots of first year time is written off. My bet would be that incoming first years in the fall of 2009 will not receive 160k in the firms where salaries are frozen."

Rule or exception?

146/154... Where is Douche Patrol when you need him? Top 30??? Guess what? You have no prospect of even interviewing at DLA unless you are in the top 10% of your class, so have fun on your well-deserved break.

181... It is top 14 because it always goes down through Cornell for some reason. (Andy from The Office must come up with this stuff.) Technically, this year anything below 12 is TTT, since that is where Cornell landed.

GULP = perpetual 14

134, just keep buying into what the partners are telling you!

i don't know where you work, but at my firm (v100), major market office, my realization rate as a first year was over 95%. that means that 95% of my 2000 or so first-year hours were billed and paid by clients. my rate is ~$250 an hour. So... 2000x250 = 500000 *.95 = $475,000 in revenue on my head last year. Salary + benefits + overhead MIGHT, on a shitty day, be $350k. so...

point blank, firms make money on first years.

the only reason they can claim to lose money is because they take *all* their recruiting costs, divide them by the number of first years and make the first years shoulder those costs too.

I know all you top 13 law school students like to whine and moan about calling it the top 14, but GULC students place well in biglaw in NY and DC -- much better so than schools ranked 15, 16, 17, 18, etc. Hence the"top 14".

And I feel entitled to my sense of entitlement. I worked at two top 14 firms, did you? - 171

144, Reed Smith associate here, and I got a raise last week. No freeze ....

186, I think for an associate to be "profitable" nowadays to a biglaw firm, the partners making millions expect an associate to have a higher margin than the 125k you're describing. That margin is lower than your salary.

Ok, well no raise, but next week when the first series of associates are laid off ( and it's gonna be a big ONE) you will be grateful just to have your job.

Life's tough when your working for "the man".

The corporate machine cares not for your soul.

As an associate at Orrick, all I can say is...

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS FOR JOHN MCCAIN!

#190 -- I heard they are going to lay-off somewhere between 100-400 .

Sort of makes you realize that these big corporate machines are without any sense of humanity. But hey, that is what it is all about.

I wonder how long it will be before they have coin operated bathroom doors.

Perhaps we should organize a company wide call in sick day and let them know we are in charge...not them.

#190 -- I heard they are going to lay-off somewhere between 100-400 .

Sort of makes you realize that these big corporate machines are without any sense of humanity. But hey, that is what it is all about.

I wonder how long it will be before they have coin operated bathroom doors.

Perhaps we should organize a company wide call in sick day and let them know we are in charge...not them.

@189 You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

I never hated lawyers until I became one. Most of you are complete fucking assholes. Just for fun, compare this board to say "Dealbreaker", you don't see any of them bragging about what school they went too...some of the other lawyer blogs are so much worse than this one.

Do you think I really give a shit that you go to a "T14" school? I don't even know why we hire half of you fucking toddlers. None (well, very few) of you are going to make partner. We'll spit you out between year 3-7 and then you'll go work for one of our corporate clients and still send us business. You'll settle in some siddity-ass suburb with an unfaithful wife, your kids will hate you, and you'll probably die of a heart attack.

We don't give a fuck about your bonus, we really don't. If you're unhappy, quit, there are 10 more people who are willing to take your spot who are just as good and just as bright as you are. But most lawyers are big fucking Pussys when it comes down to it. Remember in grade school, when the bully used to beat the shit out of you? Partners are bullys, writ large.

-V100 Partner, not that it fucking matters at all.

@189 You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

I never hated lawyers until I became one. Most of you are complete fucking assholes. Just for fun, compare this board to say "Dealbreaker", you don't see any of them bragging about what school they went too...some of the other lawyer blogs are so much worse than this one.

Do you think I really give a shit that you go to a "T14" school? I don't even know why we hire half of you fucking toddlers. None (well, very few) of you are going to make partner. We'll spit you out between year 3-7 and then you'll go work for one of our corporate clients and still send us business. You'll settle in some siddity-ass suburb with an unfaithful wife, your kids will hate you, and you'll probably die of a heart attack.

We don't give a fuck about your bonus, we really don't. If you're unhappy, quit, there are 10 more people who are willing to take your spot who are just as good and just as bright as you are. But most lawyers are big fucking Pussys when it comes down to it. Remember in grade school, when the bully used to beat the shit out of you? Partners are bullys, writ large.

-V100 Partner, not that it fucking matters at all.

ATL, we need a feature story comparing increases in PPP at firms that froze associate salaries. Until we know the PPP numbers, the bitching about an associate salary freeze is completely premature.

I think associates have a bizarre sense of entitlement. I mean, I can see if you are in the top 80% of a vault 60 law school, but other than that, you should be grateful to have a job.

195 - Amen, brother. These whining fucktards haven't a clue about owning a business, and 99% of them will be on the street when year 7 approaches.
You are supposed to spend your first 6-7 years cultivating relationships with mentor partners and clients, get your own book, then make the cut. Spending all your time whining about how you got screwed by getting a $30k bonus on top of over $225k salary shows how worthless and weak these shitheads are.

@195 and 198, your wives are cheating on you and your sons are into cock.

CleMarsh 2L here (Cleveland State of the unitiated). I sort of wondered why D.A. Pipe didn't recruit at my school whereas the rest of the Chicago big boys did. I guess now I know- they're hurting so much they can't even reach out to the Cleveland market. So glad I still have Jonesday and Benesh offers.

It never made much sense for all large law firms to pay the same, aside from their aspirations to be "prestigious." Firms like DLA and Orrick recruited from the very bottom of my law school class, people who had little analytical ability. They certainly didn't need to offer 160k to attract these admissions errors.

201-
I'm not second-guessing your general point, but I want to make one observation - there are a lot of law students who "check out" sometime during 2L year. I am as smart as anybody at my school, but as soon as I got the biglaw offer, I stopped preparing for class, stopped shaving, stopped caring. I think I ramped up the studying before finals such that my grades won't have taken a huge it - and I also have next semester to bring them back up. But the point is that anyone in class with me for the past several months no doubt thinks that I am a huge slacker/scrub - they can't tell from outside appearances that 1) I went to a far superior undergrad institution than them, 2) I get far better law school grades, and 3) I have an offer from a far better firm

196 - PPP numbers don't come out until May. It's not really relevant to look at 2007 PPP numbers, so we'll have to wait. But there should definitely be a follow-up story then that looks closely at the numbers.

194/195 - is that you, Brett?

202 - nice post, hope the firm that you got an offer from is still around when you get out. I summered at a great firm but got screwed when the firm exploded the Monday after the Summer Program ended The group I wanted to join was jettisoned, and because I had done what you are doing - half-assed it because I "knew" I was going to make bank when I got out, I was doubly screwed when I had to start looking again. I figure I cost myself a couple hundred grand trying to claw my way back to where I wanted to be. Ditch the "I went to a far superior undergrad institute" and the "I have an offer from a far better firm" shit. Stay smart, but modest, and keep your eyes open for opportunities. If you don't, you will be rat-peckered.

202 -- What you say is true enough and in line with much of my own law school experience. Nevertheless, I was pretty shocked by how unintelligent so many of my law school classmates were, even though I went to a so-called "top" law school. Now, that doesn't come from a place of snobbery, because I also recognized that most people in my undergrad program were far superior to me intellectually and some seemed to me to be insane geniuses (as far as I could tell anyway, from my limited ability to comprehend their greatness). I'm sure the average income of my law school classmates is much higher than that of my undergrad program, which is kind of unjust in a way and messes with my worldview.

- 201

202 - You are the reason people hate lawyers. Not because you slack off in law school -- everybody does that -- but because you feel te need to point out your undergrad institution and grades as if that somehow validates you as a person. It's disgusting.

195, 198-It's interesting to see big law partners who by and large are champagne-socialists objecting to any "spreading of the wealth" and instead seem to believe in good times their billing rates and ppp should go up and in bad times their ppp should still go up and associates with huge law school debt should take the hit so biglaw partners can maintain second and third homes.

I would have no problem with this free-market based approach if the law firm dynamics really were a free market and if big-law partners weren't such self-professed egalitarians when it comes to pretty much... well everything except for dividing up law firm profits.

208 - what the fuck do you think happens when you make partner? you think making partner guarantees you a million a year? If you make partner (big if, since you are such a whiny fucktard) you then get to jockey for points with the other partners - whose "origination" numbers are legit - whose should be split, who is fully employing associates and staff, who is sitting on an equity position earned 20 years ago, with nothing recent to substantiate it. I worked my ass off to get where I am, and am still ticked that my comp isn't as fat as the top dogs. But I just keep on keeping on, and one day I wil get to where I am reasonably satisfied that I got all that I could. Remember, little one - PPP is averaged. For every partner pulling down 5 mill there are several other making 600k.

209 - I know who you are. I think it's hilarious that you're this pissed at your fellow partners. Hilarious, but not surprising. You're a complete tool, and a giant pain in the ass. No one likes working with you.

210 - suck me - I'm where I am and will be for a long time - and my partners would all say the same thing about how it sucks each year when we have to do the points dance. But we do it, and move on, and all in all itsall good, especially when I consider where I might be if not where I am. You are a piece of shit that I hope I interviewed and didn't send a "thanks but no thanks" letter

210 - suck me - I'm where I am and will be for a long time - and my partners would all say the same thing about how it sucks each year when we have to do the points dance. But we do it, and move on, and all in all itsall good, especially when I consider where I might be if not where I am. You are a piece of shit that I hope I interviewed and didn't send a "thanks but no thanks" letter

210 - suck me - I'm where I am and will be for a long time - and my partners would all say the same thing about how it sucks each year when we have to do the points dance. But we do it, and move on, and all in all itsall good, especially when I consider where I might be if not where I am. You are a piece of shit that I hope I interviewed and didn't send a "thanks but no thanks" letter

210 - suck me - I'm where I am and will be for a long time - and my partners would all say the same thing about how it sucks each year when we have to do the points dance. But we do it, and move on, and all in all itsall good, especially when I consider where I might be if not where I am. You are a piece of shit that I hope I interviewed and didn't send a "thanks but no thanks" letter

Wow. 211 et seq really needs a bj

215 - puter froze. my bad. I hate mulitple posts

some of you need hugs.

Or blowjobs!

181, the way it was explained to me is that the top 14 schools have historically occupied the top 10 positions. i.e. t-14 is really the t-10 accounting for long-term fluctuation.

I haven't bothered to check historical rankings, though.

Sonnenshein - 100 % salary freeze ask the 60 TPW attorneys.

218 - Sir Charles would agree

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475244,00.html

can't we all just get along?

115 here - i know people at these firms who were asked to leave or who have been told by seniors in the know that cuts will happen. This shouldnt be news. Its what we all expected its not a question of if its when ...

that and the ultra STINGY severances...

I'm a midlevel at a "top" DC firm (think Hogan, Covington, etc.) and I did a "top" fed dist clerkship (think SDNY, DDC, etc.). Most of the commenters on here sound like law students or stub years.

I really don't want firms to freeze salaries (I'm slated to make 225k this year), but I'm wondering if it's a foregone conclusion. On the bright side, I don't think Latham or Orick are big enough players to freeze the entire compensation market in large cities. On the not-so bright side, a lot of market-leading firms in NY and DC et al have been silent on the subject.

My best guess is by next week, a market leading firm or two will come out and clearly establish the compensation market. If these firms -- having the reputational "heft" to move the market one way or the other -- decide to stall salaries, pretty much no body will raise. But if, on the other hand, these market leading firms decide to raise, the firms wishing to signal that they are flourishing in this f-ed up economy will quickly fall in line behind them.

It's all conjecture, to be sure, but I think it's how things will shake out in the end.

** Firms "big" enough to set the compensation market in NY (Simpson, DPW, Skadden, Sull Crom, maybe Cravath, and a few others like Paul Weiss, etc.).

**Firms "big" enough to set the compensation market in DC (A&P, Akin, Hogan, Wilmer, Covington).

Stay tuned...

145 - if Mayer cared about the morale of those associates not laid off, wouldn't they have announced bonuses and salaries by now? I actually agree with your argument, but the timing doesn't smell right.

Any word on WSGR?

\counting the days until departure.

Instituting a pay freeze probably means that DLA is experiencing financial difficulty.

225- SASMF gave the raises. But, that didn't stop Cravath from Half-Skaddening the bonus market. If Cravath freezes, perhaps like the bonuses again all of NYC, minus Skadden, will follow.

True top firms intent on retaining their reputations and the loyalty of their talent will not cut pay. Period. If you chose a "kinder" firm than Skadden, and they're cutting pay & firing people now, how much "gentler" is that? Illusions are fragile.

BigLaw partners are mostly selfish, duplicitous, thieving mother fuckers who would shoot you for a dime if they weren't also complete pussies when half a millimeter out of their element. Know it going in and remember every day, and perhaps you'll make it out alive.

good grief 230

clients read this board.

associates at pay freeze firms would be well-served if the editors here did post (or a series of posts) asking whether the pay-freezers had increased billing rates on associates.

[answer of course yes, given that most firms would have already increased rates when stub years began, circa sept. 2008.]

As much as I hate to say it, 230 is completely on the money about the vast majority of Biglaw partners.

Biglaw 1st year

Clients don't give a shit about the ins and outs of Biglaw. They care about whether their work gets done correctly and on time, and what's on the bill. The only reason they could possibly give a flying fuck about salary freezes is if they think it will give them leverage to dicker with the bill.

234.

silly.

no increase in salaries, no increase in internal costs: much leverage for clients to reduce bills.

230 has got it right, in fact it is worth repeating:

BigLaw partners are mostly selfish, duplicitous, thieving mother fuckers who would shoot you for a dime if they weren't also complete pussies when half a millimeter out of their element. Know it going in and remember every day, and perhaps you'll make it out alive.

Agree with 104! I too hope that the editors of this site will keep this as the top story throughout Monday and maybe even beyond, as a punishment to DLA Piper for thinking they could bury the story by announcing this on the day after New Years (which, of course, this year fell on Friday) at 4 PM.

Come on, people, it's NOT a paycut! If anybody's gross pay per paycheck is smaller in the New Year than it was last year... that's a paycut. If you don't get a raise you thought you were entitled to, that's a pay freeze. Forget all this nonsense thinking about being a third year or a fourth year associate... you're an attorney who gets paid a certain wage. You expected to get a raise. You didn't. That's not a pay cut.

15 - may your firm go broke this year and may you not live to see your daughter's wedding, you fuck.

At the Notorious BiG; that's where.

Hey, 151 -- how did that big bet on the Colts work out for you?

Dumbass.

238=TTT Firm Partner

Guys in mh high school gave blowjobs for cocaine all the time. It was no big deal.

For anyone buying the "associate salaries have gotten so bloated" bullshit, see below - the top 25 firms by PPP for the past three years (starting with 2007 and working backward - NA indicates that firm wasn't in the top 25 of PPP for that year).

2007 Rank | 2007 PPP | 2006 PPP | 2005 PPP
1 Wachtell | $4,945,000 | $3,975,000 | $3,790,000
2 Cravath | $3,300,000 | $3,015,000 | $2,600,000
3 Boies, Schiller | $3,205,000 | $3,050,000 | $2,800,000
4 Sullivan & Cromwell | $3,055,000 | $2,820,000 | $2,410,000
5 Quinn Emanuel | $3,010,000 | $2,430,000 | $1,905,000
6 Simpson Thacher | $2,875,000 | $2,495,000 | $2,370,000
7 Cadwalader | $2,725,000 | $2,900,000 | $2,545,000
8 Cahill Gordon | $2,595,000 | $2,575,000 | $2,285,000
8 Paul, Weiss | $2,595,000 | $2,495,000 | $2,475,000
10 Milbank, Tweed | $2,525,000 | $2,165,000 |$2,020,000
11 Kirkland & Ellis | $2,475,000 | $2,270,000 | $2,120,000
12 Schulte Roth | $2,355,000 | $2,160,000 | $1,900,000
13 Dechert | $2,350,000 | $1,985,000 | $1,560,000
14 Davis Polk | $2,300,000 | $1,820,000 | $2,000,000
15 Debevoise & Plimpton | $2,290,000 | $1,805,000 | $1,675,000
16 Skadden | $2,280,000 | $2,090,000 | $1,910,000
17 Latham & Watkins | $2,270,000 | $1,855,000 | $1,600,000
18 Willkie Farr | $2,235,000 | $2,053,000 | $1,790,000
19 Cleary Gottlieb | $2,150,000 | $2,120,000 | $1,960,000
20 Weil, Gotshal | $2,115,000 | $1,900,000 | $1,830,000
21 Kasowitz, Benson | $1,945,000 | NA | $1,505,000
22 Paul, Hastings | $1,920,000 | NA | NA
23 Irell & Manella| $1,905,000 | $1,675,000 | $1,500,000
24 Gibson, Dunn | $1,900,000 | $1,750,000 | $1,635,000
25 Fragomen, Del Rey | $1,890,000 | $1,805,000 | NA

244 here. One more column - here's percent change from 2005 to 2007.

Wachtell...23.4
Cravath ...21.2
Boies, Schiller ...12.6
Sullivan & Cromwell ...21.1
Quinn Emanuel ...36.7
Simpson Thacher ...17.6
Cadwalader ...6.6
Cahill Gordon ...11.9
Paul, Weiss ...4.6
Milbank, Tweed ...20.0
Kirkland & Ellis ...14.3
Schulte Roth ...19.3
Dechert ...33.6
Davis Polk ...13.0
Debevoise & Plimpton ...26.9
Skadden ...16.2
Latham & Watkins ...29.5
Willkie Farr ...19.9
Cleary Gottlieb ...8.8
Weil, Gotshal ...22.6
Kasowitz, Benson ...NA
Paul, Hastings ...NA
Irell & Manella ...21.3
Gibson, Dunn ...13.9
Fragomen, Del Rey ...NA

So...double digit percentage increases over the past three years for all but a few firms.

244/245

It is 2009, not 2007. The I-Banks made a ton of cash in 2007 too (y'know, those guys going bankrupt, firing half their staff, paying no bonii..THOSE guys)

HTMFH you f*cking retard

146/154--Suck it.

Read 195 and 198 and then 230. For g-d's sake, the atmosphere in many BigLaw shops is just poisonous these days, and that produces neither good work, nor efficiency, nor happiness for anyone involved (with the possible exception of 195's wife, who is clearly doing the kid's soccer coach and not being sufficiently discrete about it).

230 - +1. If I ever have the opportunity to send business to my old firms, I surely won't, and will do what I can to start diverting business away from all big firms. This model is very, very broken, breeding contempt and dishonesty across the board, and needs to die. When the practice of law in these places changed from dignified professionalism to a billed hours factory built on abused and misled associates and padded bills, the big firm outlived its usefulness.

Respectfully,
Former V20 Associate, Now Fortune 500 In-House

225:

Hard to believe you're a fifth year talking about how firms are "silent" on not freezing pay. Pretty much every large NYC firm where I know people tell you your salary year over year without any sort of announcement. The only time salaries are announced is when there is an across the board raise.

The majority, if not all, of the NYC-based firms that have already announced bonuses have not frozen salaries.

Thanks 244/245 for posting the PPP numbers. Hopefully that will silence some of the "you should be thankful just to have a job" idiots.

Of course, if the 2008 numbers show a big decrease at Latham, DLA and the other pay cut firms, then perhaps the pay cuts are justified (even though, as business owners who enjoyed more of the upside during good times, partners should bear more of the downside now).

But if 2008 PPP at these firms follows the trend of year-over-year increases, it will be clear that the pay cuts are nothing more than a land grab by greedy partners who thought they could use the current economic turmoil as cover.

250 - Even if they don't show an increase, people making well into seven figures cutting the pay of people making 1/10 as much is pure opportunistic greed. 230 is right.

251 - feel free to find a new job if you don't like the pay.

Free market and all that, you prancing twat.

Most of these posts miss the point entirely. OF COURSE law firm partners are free to set associate compensation at whatever level they feel is appropriate. They own the business after all and we do live in a free market.

That said, freezing associate salaries while your PPP remains well north of 1 million dollars may turn out to have been a completely idiotic move in terms of the future strength of these firms' businesses. Law firms depend on a constant inflow of new talent AND on a stable base of associates willing to work long hours and meet the quality demands of law firm clients.

Pay freezes like Latham's destroy associate morale and do long term harm to firms' ability to recruit top law students. This is especially true where the firm's move was viewed by associates and law students as unnecessary - as it will be if the "freeze" firms come out with decent PPP numbers for 2008.

Firms can get away with this if all top firms follow, but it doesn't appear that that will happen (thankfully) this year. And don't be foolish enough to think that associate morale isn't important. It most certainly is. Work product suffers when associates hate their jobs, and clients stop getting the service levels and responsiveness that they require. If the deal market turns around within the next two years, Latham et al will have done themselves a HUGE disservice with this move. If the market doesn't turn around, well, then, we're all screwed anyway.

249, 225 here.

I have no clue how big NYC shops report compensation numbers from year to year, but I do know that (1) most have not made decisions yet (i.e., they're "silent") on whether they are going to freeze or not, and (2) at the biglaw DC shop where I work, salary increases from year to year are reported to us via envelopes which are delivered to our offices via inter office email reporting elevation in class rank and compensation level. (Sure, it's usually a formality that pay will increase with class year, but of course this year isn't normal.)

I don't quite get your point regarding my identity. Whether you believe me or not is immaterial. My identity doesn't make my admitted guess about what the market will end up doing more or less true. In other words, 249, whether I am a DC biglaw midlevel (which I am), or a lurking biglaw partner (which I'm not), or I'm a gunner 3L like you, we all are putting forth our best guesses about what will ultimately happen as regards associate pay.

I'll repeat my guess for the group. Latham, Orick and DLA Piper won't force the NYC, DC or LA markets to make a decision one way or the other on salaries. However, if the big deal firms in NYC, DC and, to a lesser extent, LA, come forward and decide to increase (or not), the rest will soon follow.

Our only hope as biglaw associates (and biglaw wannabe's like you 249) is that these market leaders will decide to raise to show the rest that they are financially viable despite the downturn, so that the other firms currently holding back (i.e., the "silent" firms) will react accordingly in order to be viewed as also financially viable.

Plainly put, raising associate salaries will be viewed as a badge of financial heath. And those firms that care about being viewed that way (and can afford to do so) will raise.

Fuck Latham. Cocksuckers.

the supply of new, eager and yes very intelligent and hardworking associates greatly exceeds demand. The free market demands salaries stay the same or even go down short term (till around 2016/2020 on my analysis). PPP has nothing to do with this. It is simply supply and demand and the partners who are freezing salaries are simply responding to market forces. I, for one, and simply grateful for a summer position next year and will work my butt off for whatever the pay is. Beats working at wal-mart, which is really about all one can do with a poly sci degree in this Depression.

+1 to 253. Of course partners have the "right" to cut salaries, just as associates have the "right" to look for other employment. That goes without saying and is not the topic of debate.

The issue, rather, is whether cutting (or "freezing") salaries is either (1) fair or (2) smart.

With respect to (1), if partners decide to grab a bigger share of the pie that associates helped create, using the economic downturn as cover, even though they are already making literally millions of dollars a year, well then, many of us think that is not fair.

With respect to (2), if by acting unfairly the partners harm associate morale and their firms' ability to recruit top talent once the bad times are over, well then, many of of think that is not smart.

Of course, anyone can disagree with either of the above points, but at least let's debate the real issues rather than throwing out these distracting "if you don't like it, just quit" and "just be thankful you have a job" comments.

"The issue, rather, is whether cutting (or "freezing") salaries is either (1) fair "

Are you a five year old? Fair? What does that possibly mean -- other than you dont like the decision to freeze.

Anyone who thinks the issue of how much associates should make is one of "fairness" is a fool.
Associates make whatever the market says they are worth. Because of the economy they are worth less today than they used to be worth. It has nothing to do with fairness. Just as what associates made before the downturn had nothing to do with fairness.

256, you may see the issue somewhat differently once you actually start to work as an associate. You will understand the sacrifices that you are asked to make, and how much your willingness to make those sacrifices depends on the amount of money the partners pay you. This is particularly true these days, when the chances of becoming a partner are very slim even for good associates, so a big salary is really the only concrete reward.

Also, you will need to improve your analytical skills if you want to succeed as a lawyer. You say that "PPP has nothing to do with this." But if PPP continues to rise, that means there is plenty of profitable legal work being done. If there is plenty of profitable legal work being done, that means there is a demand for good associates to do it. If there is demand for good associates, then there will be upward pressure on associate salaries. So PPP everything to do with this.

Of course, if PPP goes way down, that will be an indication that work is scarce due to the "depression," and perhaps salaries will stagnate or even decrease. But again, PPP is at the center of the analysis.

258, what are you -- a 2L who just learned about law & economics? In the real world, perceptions of fairness are central to the employer/employee relationship. Employees who think they are being treated unfairly do poor work, have low morale, and tend to leave at the first opportunity. Creating that kind of atmosphere is not good for a business, particularly a law firm where the costs of recruiting and training associates are so high. Your pseudo-tough economic "rationality" shows that you have little real-life work experience.

241 - i got the skadden, was just giving advice to those who didn't. not good advice in hindsight i suppose. oops

+1 to 248

The partners posting in this discussion are ample evidence of what a crooked and evil business BigLaw is, and I sure as hell will NEVER send one minute of work to my old firm. In fact, I truly hope I get a pitch call some day so that I can tell them to go fuck themselves.

In fact, I won't be donating to my T3 law school either - those bought off cocksuckers route all their grads to firms that will make their lives miserable! I can count the number of associates at my old firm that liked it on my fingers, and that's out of 100+. If they had spent a few minutes telling us how bad it would really be, exposed us to miserable associates and people who didn't make it after being led on until the very end and partners who lie to your face and stab you in the back, instead of putting BS smiley-face firm brochures in our mailboxes, the legal market would look dramatically different.

No 260 I am not a 2L. I stated some basic economic principles because you seem unaware of them. Every employee who does not give an employee a pay raise faces the prospect that the employee will be unhappy, do lousy work and/or quit. Do you think that this is some insight that only you with your real world expericence sees? Every one at the freeze firm's did not understand this? Only you. Of course, they understood this. They apparently decided that those risks were out weighed by the saving to be made by frezzing salaries. In fact, I bet many of those freeze firms would be happy if some associates walked in and quit on monday. I know this may sound like "pseudo-tough" economic rationality but law firms are businesses they make decisions on economic grounds not fairness.

263, you are stating the obvious. Of course the pay cut firms decided that the benefits of the pay cut outweighed the risks. The debate is about whether they are correct or not.

That depends, in part, on how strongly the associates feel they were treated unfairly, how long that perception lasts (and whether it gets communicated to future classes of law students/potential recruits), and how much it affects current associates' performance and loyalty.

Try to keep up.

263, the problem is that when things improve, the associates who leave will not be the shitty ones. It will be the good ones who have worthy opportunities and the will to take advantage of them.

Killing morale is shortsighted - maybe slightly more profitable in the short term, but bad for business in the long term, and of questionable effect in the medium term depending on length of the recession.

The associates who feel unfairly treated today will not send business in 10 years. Not a big deal if you're a 60 year old partner running a BigLaw shop now and retiring in 5 years anyway, but the young partners, the people who made it in the last decade, will have a harder time getting business than their predecessors did, because they fucked the associates oh-so-hard at every opportunity and created a whole generation of lawyers with bad blood.

264, I state the obvious because you need someone to do so since you missed the obvious with your silly talk of "fairness"

1 - 266 = TTT posers

The ad hominem attacks are stupid, partners are not evil, associates are not greedy, we are all just lawyers trying to make a buck for our families. What would be more compelling are sound business reasons why a salary freeze would actually hurt, and not help, the freezing firm's bottom line. I can think of at least a few. 1) Associates feel unfairly treated and subconsciously slow the pace of work, choosing to spend more time with their families(maybe there is no work at this firm, in which case it doesn't matter), 2) associates in in-demand practice areas start swiveling their heads for a better gig at a more "prestigious" firm that pays top of market (they thought they were at such a firm, until they realized they were not), some of said associates lateral out (unwise I'm sure in the partners' view) and cause transition costs (recruiters fees, relearning case materials, etc.), 3) mid-levels who were staying to make a bigger paycheck realize that their in-house peers are making almost as much as them and living the 9-6 life, taking 2wk vacations, not working on weekends, i.e., enjoying life as an educated professional rather than a semi-slave object that can be called at home on Sunday and pulled out of the shower for "a question re XYZ doc," and some of these guys will take that route (admittedly not a 5-lane highway, but still open to qualified candidates), which causes more transition cost. In short, a whole firm of associates with unsettled hearts causes productivity and profitability to drop. I know a lot of firms want attribition, but query whether the ones that leave will be the ones they want to leave? Isn't it a smarter business decision to cut who you want to cut and pay the remainder at the top of market (if you can afford to obviously)?

So is this place mostly law students accusing others of being law students? Fun!

269 Nailed it, for the most part. It's also associates who have no idea who the world works because they've only been working for no more than 3 years.
268 Only a pussy would hate ad hominem attacks. Only a BIG FUCKING PUSSY would use "ad hominem".

The bottom line is that my firm rocks, and your firm sucks cocks (and loves doing it).

270 = current law student, former paralegal, terminal douche

Can someone at Katten explain what Tuesday's firm-wide meeting concerns? Is it usual? TIA

THANKS SIDLEY. YOUR FIRM SUCKS COCK.

sidley is a pathetic cheap ass TTT. its not its fault if it has to pay associates below market salaries that are equivalent to docking them a class year.

sidley is a pathetic cheap ass TTT. its not its fault if it has to pay associates below market salaries that are equivalent to docking them a class year.

Philly Big Law associate here. GO E-A-G-L-E-S!!! Go #5!

Senior Wilmer associate here (i.e. not a law student and not a new associate, but yes, I think I deserve a raise). Wilmer may be big enough to set the market in DC, but it does not set market, it follows. No one will know what Wilmer is doing until closer to payday, which is January 23rd.

Really blows my mind how smug people can be about their perceived value. Like the partner below said, there are lots of folks out there who want your job. Get a grip, get over it and get to work -- unless of course, you prefer working for tips.

(This isn't 258, but I'm responding nonetheless.)

On the other hand 260, many of these economic checks that you mentioned in your prior post to employers' powers don't carry the same weight that they do in normal economic times because disgruntled associates don't have as money options to leave and go to rival firms, which are also suffering through bad times.

I'll concede that this is no way to do business longterm, but many of these firms aren't scrimping on bonuses and actually considering freezing associate pay so that equity partners can buy another beach house. They're doing it because they fear that they won't be able to stay afloat in the not so distant future without cutting costs.

I just hope that the ones who can afford to get buy without stalling associate pay will do so.

Right on 265! I totally agree. The older retiring partners may not give a crap about the effect of all this on morale/reputation, but the junior partners will get screwed by their former associates whose salaries/bonuses are being cut and/or frozen and felt they were treated unfairly. At this point I can't imagine that either I or my biglaw spouse would refer work to my firm when I leave...

277, the problem is that one of the big 5 in DC is going to have to come out and set the market or we're all screwed. You'll remember when DC went to the 160k scale, Hogan went one day, then Akin immediately followed, then A&P, Wilmer and Covington, then the rest.

Will Hogan come out and bravely declare to the world that it's doing well enough financially to raise associate pay? (I know my punk ass DC firm won't!)

The list of biglaw firms freezing salaries is not complete. Wonder how long it takes before someone tips off Elie to it.

282, name names.

Is there a chance that DC firms aren't freezing salary? I thought A&P had already decided it was?

What does TTT stand for?

278: There may be a lot of people who want my job, but I guarantee there are few who could do my job as well as I do.

KISS MY GRITS!

V10 partner here.

I would certainly be pissed off if I were an associate who'd worked my ass off for the first 9 months of the year, and then didn't get as much of a bonus as I'd expected; or if I suddenly learned that I wouldn't be getting a few extra hundred bucks in my January paycheck. Believe me, I remember how nice the annual bump felt (though I became a partner before the dot.com bonus wars, so can't relate so much to that). The annual salary step-up went to savings, to a vacation, to a car lease -- every January I felt like I'd earned something for sticking on through another miserable year.

I get it. I think 95% of the partners you work for get it.

Here's the thing. No matter what our PPP's are for 2008, and they won't be that bad, 2009 is the abyss.

If your firm is one of those that have frozen salaries, consider yourselves lucky. Cutting expenses in this environment is prudent.

Why's that? The expense side of a law firm's income statement has 2 major items: rent and associate salaries. Rent is a fixed cost -- it's immutable in the short term. As much as we'd like to think of associate salaries as as a fixed cost, in fact they are a variable cost.

If things don't pick up by March or April of 2009, every big firm in the country -- every firm in the V20 -- will have no choice -- absolutely no choice -- but to cut associate payrolls. This is not a question of firing associates in order to continue to make $2 or 3M per year in PPP. You pigs! (you shout) -- can't you fucking pigs get by on $2M a year?!?

Well, no. This is a question of firing associates in order to survive as a firm. While a $3M salary is great, and a $1M salary sounds great, a firm that is used to making $3M a year simply will not survive when its partners begin to make $1M a year.

Everything is relative. One ramps one's lifestyle up to what one can afford. Yes, point your finger at us and tell us how stupid we are and what bad managers we are. Guilty as charged. But you would have acted no differently had you been born in 1967 instead of 1977. Believe me.

288 makes some very good points. I do think, however, that associates would prefer to see cuts in expenses other than their salaries first. Cut the secretaries who do nothing. Cut the thick layer of non-lawyer non-MBA office and firm administrators whose jobs are a mystery (and make those who stay log their time every day to prove they are necessary). Stop giving gifts to the staff at the holidays. Cut back on some summer associate expenses. Cut back on free food given to associates at the various firm lunches. Stop buying new artwork. Stop paying for so many tables at so many benefit dinners. Before jumping to cut salaries, trim the fat that became commonplace when the market was strong. Maybe all of that won't amount to much and associate salaries will still be cut. But at least the firm will show that everyone is taking a cut, not just associates.

288, I understand your point, but don't the V20 firms need associates in order to sustain their 3million profits? Isn't the leverage of having lots of associates working on larger cases what sustains those profits?

286, if your job is to be a worthless fucking tool, no doubt you do it better than anyone dickface.

I am not a biglaw partner (I'm a mid-level) and everything 288 says is absolutely true. Look around folks. The firms that are getting heat for layoffs and/or salary freeze right now are actually the BETTER MANAGED firms. And those who bitch about PPP just don't understand how firms work. My firm has laid off (and may lay off again), but has not yet frozen salaries. Assuming they do, I will be pissed, no doubt about it. But I will understand.

But if Partners continue to support associate salaries/bonuses as they are without the business to support it, PPP will sink. If PPP goes down, top rainmakers leave. If top rainmakers leave, firm begins to unravel due to lack of business. Then pay freezes and layoffs will absolutely be implemented (en masse) and the possiblity of dissolution occurs (see e.g.. Heller, Thelan, Thacher, etc.).

Look - most Partners are business people, and they don't enjoy sticking it to associates (at least the helpful ones). Much better when everyone profited together - those days are over. But if you guys stopped commenting on blogs for a moment and look at your billables, 99% of you will notice that your billing has slowly started to decrease and will continue to decrease. Will a pay freeze and tiny bonus seem so bad when you've only billed 1500 this year? Because that's what will happen for most of you if the predictions hold true. I'll be happy every day I leave at 7 and still have a job.

288 - hit the nail on the head. no more to say

289, 290; 288 here.

We are making the cuts 289 describes. They are much less visible to you.

And 290 is correct: we need that leverage. But as many a hedge fund has learned, leverage magnifies both gains and losses. When you are in a loss mode, you try to reduce leverage.

289 here - I can guarantee my firm will cut associate salaries before they thin out administrators or secretaries and cut back on other expenses. It's disgraceful, especially for a firm that is so well run in other respects. I cannot believe the number of administrators we have in our New York office alone (which is a satellite office). I can think of 23 (without a law degree or MBA), and we have fewer than 200 attorneys in the office. Some are necessary, yes, but 23???

As for leverage, there is a formula to being properly leveraged. (read David Maister)

289 -- sorry, but why would we lay off administrators (whether or not they have MBAs) who have worked faithfully for us for many years rather than some 1st, 2d or 3d year associates? Remember, that because of the salary wars over the last few years, junior associates are being paid much more than they are worth (in the expectation that they will recoup this when they are older). Staff, by contrast, have not seen their salaries skyrocket like this. Those that have been with us for a few years are much more valuable to us than the generic third year who still can't even shepardize a case on his own.

296 - 289 here - it's not about laying off all administrators, it's about making firms more efficient overall, in response to the economic climate. Just because an administrator is "loyal" does not mean that administrator is justified as a business expense. When times are tough, cronyism and welfare for "loyal" administrators (who fail to make any profit for the firm0 should go out the window. Junior associates get paid too much, yes, I agree and always have. I thought I got paid too much as a first year, and that was long before $160,000 salaries. Firms should take this downturn in the economy as an opportunity to adjust expenses across the board (and also to implement more merit based pay structures for associates, but that is a different discussion).

288/294, that's all well and good, but how long do you think you can keep good associates working as hard as you want/need them to work if their salaries are shrinking and they have little chance of making it into your elite club of partners?

Many associates -- including the good, hard-working ones -- have accepted the fact that making partner these days is a long shot at best. The only reason they are willing to put in the nights and weekends, sacrifice time with their families, etc., is that they are paid pretty decent salaries and bonuses.

If the money goes away, and there is little chance of long-term reward in the form of making partner, a "regular job" starts to look a lot more attractive. And if you lose too many good associates to non-big-law employment, it may be hard to keep up the $3mil PPP in any event.

Of course, all of the above may seem a bit beside the point during the depths of the current economic turmoil, given that associates currently have fewer non-big-law opportunities. But as bad as the current situation is, things will get better eventually. The firms that don't screw their associates now will reap the reward in terms of performance and loyalty when that time comes.

I agree with 289. Ive worked at a couple biglaw firms and most secretaries are pretty useless. There's also redundant marketing, recruiting staff, etc. I also agree that there are ways to cut costs, including not buying new artwork, not paying for pricey summer lunches and events, not hiring 1Ls for summer positions, not paying summer associate salaries for summers the firm knows they can't hire, not buying recruiting "swag", not upgrading to new pricey office space, etc. Firms could also consider secondment before firing associates.

Here are some other cost cutting measures: eliminate firm or department retreats; reduce fancy suites for on campus recruiting; reduce amounts cut from bills; turn down the air conditioning a few degrees in the summer; stop upgrading blackberries every year; review library and newspaper subscriptions and eliminate those that are not needed/used; put in a minimum hours requirement for bonuses (even if it's only 1900); do away with lockstep promotion and require associates to master certain skills before being promoted; require first years to share offices; encourage associates in slow departments to take a reduced hours schedule (like 4 days a week); clean out the partnership ranks and get rid of those who aren't producing and/or billing. Firms should look at their pre-bubble expense sheets and their current expense sheets, identify the crazy stuff they've added over the years, and cut it.

298 is right. With a miniscule chance of making partner nowadays, why would someone work crazy hours and sacrifice time with friends and family and their youth to work at a firm if it wasn't for the money?? If it wasn't for the current salary differential between biglaw and other jobs, a lot more potential associates would go to clerk/teach, work in govt or smaller lifestyle firms, etc., i.e., do something more interesting or meaningful or that gives you a life.

Don't worry guys. Everything will be all right once Obama raises taxes on law firm partners and other business owners. Tax increases create jobs and raise salaries, right?

Yes We Can!

Managing partners need to decide who is important: rainmakers, or associates?

I think the firms should protect their future!

302 = some dumbass unaware that bush was in charge the past EIGHT years....dumbass

I had not heard that 284. Where's your confirmation? I didn't read it on ATL.

302 is a fool. When Obama lets the bush tax cut expire and equity partners owe another 40,000 to 60,000 in taxes , they will try to get back that money by cutting costs. Again, there number one cost is associate salaries. The associates who voted for O were idiots.

To freeze or not to freeze...
Firms that froze without warning the day before (or after) step up raises were expected to kick in, (raises that were likely promised or at least implied at year end evaluations), will pay the price down the line. No at will employee is entitled to be paid a sum certain. However, people expect to be treated fairly. People will leave as soon as they can. Once trust is broken it is hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

304 = some dumbass unaware that the stock market decline and other economic problems started in 2000, before the past EIGHT years....and further unaware that raising taxes during a recession does not lead to growth...dumbass

306, your sarcasm detector seems to be malfunctioning.

Ah, but 288, ***WHY*** is it that "While a $3M salary is great, and a $1M salary sounds great, a firm that is used to making $3M a year simply will not survive when its partners begin to make $1M a year."?

It's because 230 has got you dead to rights.

If the firm won't survive a temporary cut from $2M a year to $1M (and even that would be a 50% cut - not likely to be seen in many places), it's because the partners are such greedy cocksuckers that they would rather walk away from their so-called "partners" than live with even a short term income setback to slightly fewer millions a year. They would rather put first and second years in the street, not only sending them back to mom and dad for today, but for many permanently damaging their careers, than give up that fourth home or third SL600.

And that earns you not only every ounce of derision you get here, but the fact that in another 10 years, many of the associates who are living through this now will not send a fucking dime of business to you.

The consequences of the boundless greed of today's BigLaw partners may not come back to haunt the firms today, but will destroy many of them in the end just like they destroyed Heller, Thelen, and others before them.

BigLaw is consuming itself in an orgy of greed just like the banks, home builders and realtors, only it will take a bit longer to play out.

DLA's downfall is easy to chart:
1. Approx. 2 yrs. ago they decided that being "global" was the way to go. The firm expanded for the sake of expanding, and there was NO QUALITY CONTROL.

2. A little less than a year ago Amy Schulman (there #1 LARGEST RAINMAKER) left the firm.

3. Last summer they no-offered a ton of summer associates.

4. Then they laid off associates.

5. Then they cancelled the Christmas party.

6. Then they made non-equity partners pay up $150,000 or leave.

7. Then they instituted a pay freeze.

8. ?

Wow. What's next is anyone's guess. But this firm is obviously NOT headed in the right direction. If you've got another option, take it.

DLA's downfall is easy to chart:
1. Approx. 2 yrs. ago they decided that being "global" was the way to go. The firm expanded for the sake of expanding, and there was NO QUALITY CONTROL.

2. A little less than a year ago Amy Schulman (there #1 LARGEST RAINMAKER) left the firm.

3. Last summer they no-offered a ton of summer associates.

4. Then they laid off associates.

5. Then they cancelled the Christmas party.

6. Then they made non-equity partners pay up $150,000 or leave.

7. Then they instituted a pay freeze.

8. ?

Wow. What's next is anyone's guess. But this firm is obviously NOT headed in the right direction. If you've got another option, take it.

311, very well charted and said. I worked across the table from 2 DLA partners and got to know approx. 4 associates. I think you can also add to your list 1. stupid lawyers. Indeed, the problem starts with bad lawyers. How DLA gets clients to pay their rates is beyond me.

311, very well charted and said. I worked across the table from 2 DLA partners and got to know approx. 4 associates. I think you can also add to your list 1. stupid lawyers. Indeed, the problem starts with bad lawyers. How DLA gets clients to pay their rates is beyond me.

311, very well charted and said. I worked across the table from 2 DLA partners and got to know approx. 4 associates. I think you can also add to your list 1. stupid lawyers. Indeed, the problem starts with bad lawyers. How DLA gets clients to pay their rates is beyond me.

311, very well charted and said. I worked across the table from 2 DLA partners and got to know approx. 4 associates. I think you can also add to your list 1. stupid lawyers. Indeed, the problem starts with bad lawyers. How DLA gets clients to pay their rates is beyond me.

311 and 313--And in November, Frank the Tank stated in an ABA Journal article that the firm expected "record profits" for 2008. So they're still dishonest, high rate hacks.

210, big law partners today have the attitude that they worked hard and clawed their way to the top, so there is no reason now that they should make any sacrifice for associates who haven't yet paid their dues.

And there would be some justice to that attitude if the practice of law, and the track to partnership in particular, were like it was 10 years ago. Back then a good, dedicated, hardworking associate had a solid chance at making partner if s/he stuck it out and put in the time. So if you got beat up a little on the way up, at least you knew that there was a real possibility of long-term reward if you stuck it out.

But that's not how it is anymore. The current partners have climbed to the top and pulled the ladder up behind themselves. It is very difficult for even really good and hardworking associates to make partner now.

That means that the only sensible reason for putting in the work and hours it takes to be a valuable big law associate is that you get paid a decent salary and bonus. You will likely not make partner, but you'll be well-paid in the meantime. But if that goes away, I can't imagine good associates with other options will stick around and work the long hours just to make the partners richer and richer.

Even the rainmakers who, according to 288 couldn't possibly bear to see any reduction in their huge draws, should be able to see that screwing over the associates now just because they can is incredibly shortsighted.

310 - you're an idiot. Just as associates don't want to take hom e less, neither do partners. If a firm's PPP are cut in half, the firm is clearly not doing as well as it was - and so associate salaries that made sense when the firm was doing well no longer make sense. There has to be a balance between the two. Otherwise (1) it makes no economic sense and (2) partners will go to other firms. Once partners start leaving, the firm is dead in the water.

The point is, there has to be a balance. Firms should not cut salaries simply because other firms are doing it or because partners want more pay. And firms should not cut salaries without first cutting all the other fluff they've added over the last 8 years.

288, which associates do you cut first? What's the order? Assuming that the salary freezes aren't in place of lay offs? And are you better off disguising them as "performance based," even though everyone sees through that? Isn't it worse for the firms reputation to fire first years? Enlighten us.

310, this isn't a black or white discussion. Without the hyperbole, you're right in some ways - there are always going to be those high-seven and eight figure-book-of-business partners that want the absolute maximum $ for themselves without regard to the other partners (and then there are some very honorable people who often get ignored for how well they take care of those junior to them). What is missing here is that it is not only the associates who suffer, but all the non-big book partners who can easily find their draw reduced nearly to that of an associate when you factor in the cost of their paid-in capital and self-carried costs (health insurance, retirement, etc.) while also bearing the risk of malpractice. Sure, in a few of the top firms, partner comp is truly lockstep, but it is more the exception than the norm now. If the firm has PPP of $1.5M (lets use a profitable but not mega-profitable firm example), it is not unreasonable to have some partners with a $450K draw and others with $3.5M draw. If you cut the PPP to $1M, the $450K can easily be slashed to associate levels - even before paying the costs I listed above. When it comes down to it, it is not pure greed, but for many partners, it is survival - and not a second home version - to pay the school tuition for the kids, to pay the mortgage, to pay the interest on the capital contribution loan that was expected to yield an upside. Sure we could all be more frugal - but don't you know a lot of associates who bought the house they might have stretched on, the extra car, the vacation?

Also, on a different note, for those who claim that the freezers will be scorned, 2009 is a replay of the early 1990s in some ways - yet the same firms that fired associates immediately quickly became the most popular in the next boom - even though people knew their past layoff practices. Sad but realistic to say, all groups here - associates and partners alike - are in many cases drawn by the highest salary, the highest PPP, etc. at the time they make their decision. Maybe today there is a "blacklist" in some people's minds but in two years much if not all will be forgotten.

317, try to understand it is 2009, not 2008.

In other words, it is a different year.

Forward looking firms are going to be reducing associate headcount big time as the bush depression rolls on. If only Kerry had won in 2004 but that is what republicans do: kill the economy. Why do republicans hate America????

320 - I'm not 288, but I would argue that "performance based" cuts aren't necessarily layoffs in disguise. It may be that as work slows down, there is no longer a need for underperforming associates. Firms raise their standards, associates are fired. We all have a colleague or 10 who suck. Someone who turns down work, doesn't bill 2000 hours, can't read a case, can't write a brief, can't do anything efficiently. Time to get rid of the duds. Just drop the bottom 5-10% of associates across the board. Do the same with secretaries, paralegals, and staff attorneys.

Associate from the Illadelph-i here. Go E-A-G-L-E-S!! Go McNabb!!!

Associate from the Illadelph-i here. Go E-A-G-L-E-S!! Go McNabb!!!

"Even the rainmakers who, according to 288 couldn't possibly bear to see any reduction in their huge draws, should be able to see that screwing over the associates now just because they can is incredibly shortsighted."

this is nonsense. If frezzing salaries would realy hurt the firm in the long run, they would not do it. They cut because they think it makes sense to do so. No dumb ass associate on this board is in any position to say that this move does not make sense because they have no idea whatsoever what the firms expenses and costs look like. The winers on this board are a bunch of know-nothings.

I can understand performance based layoffs with midlevels....but really...when you're a first year, how exactly do you underperform? Are there levels of efficiency on Concordance? And when you're that junior, you get the work that's handed to you, right? Or one person may be lucky in that they're staffed on a busier case then the person down. That's why I was asking how justified it is to layoff first years? And by first year I mean just started working 2 months ago. I realize first years are probably the least valuable, but reputation wise, is it worse to lay THEM off opposed to others? I'm curious to hear from a partners point of view who gets axed, if it comes time?

A firm fires first years because it has too many of them and does not see any realistic hope that they will all be busy 9 to 12 months in the future.

A quick reality check for you...$160K 1st year associates are like bankers without the high upside--widgets who get fired when things turn down. Clients do not care about the vast majority of you, despite what you believe. You will get fired and business will generally stay with the partners.

In fact, the in-house lawyers who pay most of your bills will laugh a guilty laugh when you get fired believing that there is poetic justice in over-paid novices getting fired. Partners will feel bad for a week, then will be over it. Other than maybe Cadwalader (an awful place to work even before all their cuts), associates and partners will all forget about damage to "reputations" from cuts in a year. Just ask all the people who went to work at Silicon Valley firms in the past few years (who forgot about 2001-2003 layoffs in the blink of an eye), Latham, etc.

New associates will forget even more quickly this time because all firms will cut to some degree and how can a firm be to blame for "the worst economic crisis since the great Depressition that forced us to take these unprecedented actions". Clients never did care so will be indifferent as long as the firms they use don't blow up--or if they blow up that all the partners and files end up at the same place. Good luck to you.

Former AmLaw 50 partner

A quick reality check for you...$160K 1st year associates are like bankers without the high upside--widgets who get fired when things turn down. Clients do not care about the vast majority of you, despite what you believe. You will get fired and business will generally stay with the partners.

In fact, the in-house lawyers who pay most of your bills will laugh a guilty laugh when you get fired believing that there is poetic justice in over-paid novices getting fired. Partners will feel bad for a week, then will be over it. Other than maybe Cadwalader (an awful place to work even before all their cuts), associates and partners will all forget about damage to "reputations" from cuts in a year. Just ask all the people who went to work at Silicon Valley firms in the past few years (who forgot about 2001-2003 layoffs in the blink of an eye), Latham, etc.

New associates will forget even more quickly this time because all firms will cut to some degree and how can a firm be to blame for "the worst economic crisis since the great Depressition that forced us to take these unprecedented actions". Clients never did care so will be indifferent as long as the firms they use don't blow up--or if they blow up that all the partners and files end up at the same place. Good luck to you.

Former AmLaw 50 partner

326, the point is that the outrage of associates at being screwed over, as expressed in the comments on this forum, has the potential to manifest itself in ways that will hurt these firms in the long run -- e.g., lower productivity, higher attrition, and less loyalty when these same associates go in house in years to come.

Nobody doubts that the partners have made what they think is a rational economic decision when it comes to cutting salaries. What some of us believe, however, is that the partners are wrong, and that they have not fully accounted for the considerations described above.

Of course, only time will tell who is right, but your statement "if freezing salaries would really hurt the firm in the long run, they would not do it" merely begs the question. Of course partners would not freeze if they thought it would hurt the firm in the long run; the question is whether they are right or wrong in their calculations.

331, Freezing salaries will not hurt associate retention or productivity. The market is awful...associates are not going to go anywhere for the forseeable future. They are going to scratch and claw to keep their jobs. And when the market turns back up, associates all leave anyway. The hazard of massive turn-over every 5 years at most top firms means retention is irrelevant...Associates will be productive to keep their jobs and to earn their bonuses. If they are not productive, their firing suddenly becomes "performance based". Associates have few options to make what they make in the non-law firm world. What are they going to do to make comparable money--become bankers? hedge fund managers? In-house (ha)? 18 months ago associates were valuable, scarce resources, today they are expendable widgets

329/330 Former AmLaw 50 Partner now GC

Don't ever believe the PPP figures disclosed by firms. If partners across the board made that much $$ year in and year out, then most of them would quit after a few years and retire or try something else. Most are miserable and only in it for the money. Like associates, the pay is good, but not great. The money is enough that it is difficult to walk away from, but not so great that partners get rich and sail off into the sunset. There are a few partners per firm making big bucks. Most make well less than $1 mm -- after taxes, it is a good living but takes years to accumulate wealth. These firms are run by the few rainmakers in each firm and the rest of the partners are just highly paid bitches feeding at the rainmakers' teets. The non-rainmaking partners get paid enough to ensure they will come into work every morning but not enough for the rainmakers to every have to worry that they will lose their bitches.

Free advice for all you non-partners -- learn the law, but spend a significant amount of time, starting in your first year, networking and building your own client base. This is how you get power at a firm and make the money. If you build a book of business, you also decide who gets whacked in a bad economy, and don't have to worry about the rainmakers pull the rug out from under you. Networking can't start in your 8th year or you will not make partner and won't have any career options. The reality is that we are all a dime a dozen. The difference between a successful lawyer and a run of the mill lawyer is a book of business.

DLA, Sidley, Latham -- Its no coincidence that only the best firms are freezing. Tough, smart decisions = tough, smart lawyers

DLA, Sidley, Latham -- Its no coincidence that only the best firms are freezing. Tough, smart decisions = tough, smart lawyers

334, I hope you are being sarcastic. Latham is a quality firm, but DLA is a McDonalds shop and Sidley isn't what it used to be.

332, of course you are right with respect to current conditions. The question is whether firms that are perceived as having treated their associates unfairly during the bad times will pay the price when times are better (and, conversely, whether firms that treat their associates well now will reap the rewards in years to come).

I don't know the answer to that question, obviously. I can tell you that I still remember how my firm avoided layoffs and shuffled work around to keep associates busy and productive during the dot com crash (when I was a junior).

The perception that my firm looks out for its people during bad times stuck with me, and has kept me working hard (and not taking all of those headhunter calls) during the good times. I have also relayed that message to countless law students and summer associates in the course of recruiting. Multiply that by all of the other associates at my firm who have a similar perception, and I think that's worth something to the partners.

I hope that my firm will continue on the high road now, and will not cut salaries unless it is really necessary for the viability of the firm, but it remains to be seen.

323, is there ever a need for "underperforming associates" or associates "who suck? If not, then most associates are "performing," to greater and lesser degrees (across several difference variables) - it is difficult to imagine associates that fit your descriptions staying on at a firm, in good times or bad.

The wave of layoffs we are seeing throughout the profession is a result of the economy. With the economic slowdown, there simply isn't enough work to go around, no matter how good associates would be at undertaking it (excluding bringing in clients).

The term "stealth layoffs" by the way is a frequently misunderstood term on this websites. It does not refer to terminations done in secret, or without announcement. It properly refers to firings resulting from slowing firm business that are cast by partners (to protect their image) as resulting from an associates' allegedly poor performance.

225:

Most NYC based firms have not been "silent" on salaries, their associates know they are getting the raises one would expect year over year. That is, they're not freezing salaries. When things aren't any different then they were last year, there really isn't a need for a memo. And Jesus, you are sensitive.

249

What is TTT?

327: Here are some examples of how you fire first years. First year takes 24 billed hours to go through a box and a half of documents to determine whether the documents are privileged or not. First year researches an issue and provides a memo analyzing cases which makes it clear first year didn't understand the holdings of the cases. First year associate cannot write a grammatically correct sentence. First year associate often comes to work hungover or drinks at lunch and returns to the office drunk First year associate makes inappropriate comments at work. I have seen every single one of these situations.

It seems to me that instead of bitching and complaining day in and day out on this website, associates should leave their firms if they can do better elsewhere. If they can't do better elsewhere, then keep your heads down and do your work, and be thankful that the job and the pay you have are the best you can apparently get.

337, 332 here. I was at a firm that played fair during the dot com crash...tried to keep associates busy, but when they couldn't laid people off with as much honesty (no "performance based" terminations) and dignity as they could provide. I valued that the firm played fair and it kept me there through making partner. But the reality is that top tier firms have sub-10% retention rates over a 5-7 span by design. They need to keep the "keepers" and let others go, that is the business model.

It is also reality that almost every top firm has massively over-hired over the past 3 years. They believed the boom would last forever and it is over. The client landscape is different and smaller, law firms will need to downsize massively...Client's Lehmah and Bear don't exist, Merril's I-banking business will be a shadow of itself, General Growth (big REIT) and many other REITs will be lucky to avoid BK, lots of companies have gone BK already...big law firm profits and massive associate salaries mean associates will need to go, if firms do not they will get picked apart and die...just ask Heller, Thelen, etc....

Hey 313 -316, before you disparage an entire firm of 3,000 lawyers for being "stupid," based on the 6 lawyers you met, perhaps you should master the difficult skill of learning how to post.

To 331:

Sure we have options, even in this economy. A worthless sack of mediocrity like yourself managed to land a GC gig, so there's got to be hope for the rest of us. Trust me - when your company goes into BK in 2009, you will be one of the first people that gets thrown under the bus. I just hope to be the one driving it. BEEP! BEEP!

345, when you get laid off, hopefully you can get a job driving a bus. Keep kidding yourself that you have options.

Worthless sack of mediocrity

What is TTT?

327: My firm fires first years if they fail the bar twice (July and February)

I think TTT = Third Tier Toilet. But I'm not positive.

348, that's pretty standard and not relevant "performance" addressed by 327. Passing bar and getting admitted are basic requirements to practicing law - or in simpler terms, having a job as associate. Since wide spectrum of possible reasons, won't bother with what failing 2x says about a particular applicant to his/her firm.

341: Thanks for taking the time to lay out some examples for me. I understand that some first years suck, I already conceded this. I'm just wondering about how firing first years (with 2-3 months of experience and no time to receive reivews, to be given a chance to improve) woule be PERCEIVED and how it would effect firms in the future. I'm in a T-5 lawschool...and I know that a firm that conducts first year layoffs would be appalling and heavily discussed amongst classmates. But maybe law firms don't care so much about recruiting talent anymore?

341: Thanks for taking the time to lay out some examples for me. I understand that some first years suck, I already conceded this. I'm just wondering about how firing first years (with 2-3 months of experience and no time to receive reivews, to be given a chance to improve) woule be PERCEIVED and how it would effect firms in the future. I'm in a T-5 law school...and I know that a firm that conducts first year layoffs would be appalling and heavily discussed amongst classmates. But maybe law firms don't care so much about recruiting talent anymore?

LOL! Austin Klgates paralegals come and go as they please. Useless scum. Work on Weekends to get ot and then brag about how her ot put her daughter through school.
And you think any partner knows or cares.LOL she probably got a bonus. Like anyone who has a brain it is all political. She is fucking the lard ass magic man

350: Are you 327? If not, how do you know what 327 was asking? I think failing the bar is performance based. And, like any performance based reason, is a legitimate reason for firing someone.

350: Are you 327? If not, how do you know what 327 was asking? I think failing the bar is performance based. And, like any performance based reason, is a legitimate reason for firing someone.

349: you're correct.

Although an old post, I have to point out 121's utter ignorance of current affairs. News flash: "ibanks" no longer exist in US and more hedge funds are shutting down and/or laying off than starting up. And if you're a lawyer, easier for you to start a daycare center than a hedge fund. But a small part of me admires your boundless, anti-Chicken Little optimism. Ah, youth!

If you are a partner posting on this site:

1. You are pathetic. Either you are such a loser that you have no family, or you have a family but hate life so much that you would rather read a legal tabloid than spend time with your spouse (or kids).

2. If you weren't so greedy and blind, you would realize that your firm's future does depend on the associates. We do most of the work, and we have contact with clients.

3. If you actually gave a sh*t about your firm (and not only yourself), instead of freezing associate pay, you would take a tiny cut in PPP and keep associates happy. You already profit from us way too much.

4. Start evaluating which partners at your firm bring in work, and CUT the ones that don't. Support partners are WORTHLESS.

- Underpaid Associate

But then these bitches would be on this blog crying about a post that so-and-so has decided not to have a holiday party or so-and-so has put a cap on lunches for summers. You people are full of shit.

be happy if your salary is only being frozen

some firms are converting associates to staff attys and/or hiring a mix of staff and "regular" attys

Too many fucking income partner bitches making 350k+...fucking worthless pieces of shit

321, I hope you are wrong and will work to create that reality. Most partners I've met and worked with in BigLaw are scumbags, straight up. They all pretended to be nice when it suited them, and then didn't hesitate to screw you at the drop of a hat when it was even slightly more convenient. They also repeatedly made decisions that dramatically increased the bills without materially benefiting the client and without discussing it with them, committed egregious ethical lapses including both misleading the courts and misleading their own partners and clients, and were otherwise not people anyone with half a conscience could possibly bear to emulate.

And on top of all that, the vast majority were not providing anything close to value, not by a long shot. After working in a V20 firm since early this decade, I can say with confidence that only a sucker would hire a modern BigLaw shop - they should be called BigBills instead.

Wishing Pain and Pestilence to the Partners,
310

Thank you 359. According to these spoiled fucks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party portends doom and gloom. I've seen you piss ants cry about that on this blog. Now... "cut the fat".

Thank you 359. According to these spoiled fucks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party portends doom and gloom. I've seen you piss ants cry about that on this blog. Now... "cut the fat".

Thank you 359. According to these spoiled fucks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party portends doom and gloom. I've seen you piss ants cry about that on this blog. Now... "cut the fat".

Thank you 359. According to these spoiled fucks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party portends doom and gloom. I've seen you piss ants cry about that on this blog. Now... "cut the fat".

Thank you 359. According to these spoiled fucks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party portends doom and gloom. I've seen you piss ants cry about that on this blog. Now... "cut the fat".

357, partners read and post on this site because most lawyers are massively insecure. Even though very smart, successful lawyers must be a combination of self-assured (to give advice) and insecure (to suck it up and do whatever a client asks) that is very rare. Partners want to know what you think.

357 & 360, don't worry, income partners are getting cut too. Just wait. The year just started. You will see a lot of people "trying new opportunities", "taking some time off", "starting their own firm", and "going to a valued client" in the very near future.

362/363/364 - You partners apparently need us associates, as you don't even know how to post a simple message ONCE.

Not a partner, 368. is that all you have to come back with. Please address my point.

355, no, not 327 but if you actually followed 327's comments, questions centered on evaluation of 1st years based on work on firm matters. Bar exam is not a billable matter and performance result thereof is not work product - it's carryover from law school. Still wet behind the ears, eh? May want to work a little harder on separating the wheat from the chaff.

There was a point?

367, you forgot that partners are also reading because they do not have any client work to bill either and ATL often tells partners what is happening before most partners know. Most partners are in the dark about what their firms are doing.

You people seriously should do yourselves a big favor by:

1. Stop complaining about freezes;
2. Stop crying that you didn't get "Skadden" whatever the fuck that means;
3. Stop putting firms on blast for laying off staff, cutting back on perks, cancelling or scaling back a holiday party only to demand that firms do those things to save your overpaid punk asses.

You all are a bunch of cowards that talk shit behind a keyboard. Yes, be happy you have a job with a six-figure base salary and a possibility of a five-figure bonus in any economy. You ain't come up with the poison pill loser. You don't, as an associate, deserve the money you make.

355, 327 here, and 370 is right.... your bar exam remark was pretty irrelevant to what I was asking. I think failing the bar exam twice has always been an acceptable reason for letting a first year go (even in the happy days). Also, I was curious as to perceptions/consequences for firing first years. I don't think letting someone go for failing twice would effect a firm's reputation much, but what do I know. Thanks for your input anyway.

On another note, I will be working at a firm that recently froze salaries...and if that was done in place of layoffs, then I'm all about it.

341: Was a first year really fired for billing 24 hours to do a privilege review of some documents? As an associate who has sometimes seen bills before they're sent to clients, I've seen more egregious billing than that. Plus, I remember a privilege review I did as a first year that took a long time because the client changed his mind three times about what we should designate as privileged, and because there was extensive redacting that had to be done by hand.

the partners = rockstars

the associates = garage band wannabes

Is termination of an associate for failing the bar exam a decision resulting from a firm's business outlook (economic-based layoff) or from the individual associate's performance (performance-based layoff).

It depends. If a firm is experiencing a contraction in client work and did not have such a termination policy prior to the 2008 slowdown, it's probably economic based. However, all else being equal (or if the associate failed the bar on multiple occasions), this is probably more appropriately classified as performance based.

- 338

373 - unless you are a rainmaker, you don't, as a partner, deserve the money we associates make you. Get a life, you loser. Go schtup your wife - she needs it.

376, partners with book or partners at firms with such big names book follows being a partner (WLRK, S&C, Simpson, etc.) = rockstars

everyone else, including partners without book = hired help

244/245: nice work but you do understand the boom/bust cycle of the economy, right? and that past PPP figures are lagging indicators? also, biglaw starting salary going from 125k to 145k to 160k is @ 15% per increase. compare that to percentage increase in ppp.

The 15% increase in assoicate salaries lags behind the percent increases in PPP. So even as a lagging indicator, PPP advanced faster than associate compensation.

DLA's downfall is easy to chart:
1. Approx. 2 yrs. ago they decided that being "global" was the way to go. The firm expanded for the sake of expanding, and there was NO QUALITY CONTROL.

2. A little less than a year ago Amy Schulman (there #1 LARGEST RAINMAKER) left the firm.

3. Last summer they no-offered a ton of summer associates.

4. Then they laid off associates.

5. Then they cancelled the Christmas party.

6. Then they made non-equity partners pay up $150,000 or leave.

7. Then they instituted a pay freeze.

8. ?

Wow. What's next is anyone's guess. But this firm is obviously NOT headed in the right direction. If you've got another option, take it.

Here's the bottom line for me -- my firm sends me a stack of papers each month, neatly stapled, that tells me exactly how much money I make for it. Lately, times have been busy for me.

I'm thankful for having a good, high-paying job where I'm still needed in tough times, but when I know that I'm making WAY more money for the firm than I'm getting paid in total comp and that I can easily be paid a relatively small, course-of-dealing salary increase and still be wildly, wildly profitable for the firm, it's pretty damn hard to swallow the idea that I have to take a salary freeze for the team. Somehow I think if I were hopelessly slow, I'd be on the street right now looking for work.

And, that brings me to a larger point. As soon as associates set foot in firm hallways today, they're broken down into tiny little sub-specialties, so that they can become proficient billers in that area quickly. This track stifles professional development in the name of turning the practice of law into a profitable, commodity business. I have no subjective commentary on this state of affairs, but think that this situation is grossly out-of-step with the guild-like fantasy that all associate lawyers in the firm should be paid the same after the first year of practice. It's a throwback to a bygone era where the norm was for associates to stay and grow in one place for their entire careers. For whatever reason, those days are over, and the lockstep salary increases for all associates in enormous, worldwide firms with 50+ practice areas needs to end. I think this current economic climate presents firms with an excellent opportunity to discard this compensation structure into the ash bin of history and recognize the fact that a high-billing litigation associate in today's large law firm has absolutely no desire to take a financial hit for a corporate associate he's never met or spoken to and who probably lives thousands of miles away.

338/377: For some (most?) firms, no "it depends" about it. Can't pass after second try is grounds for immediate termination, irrespective of how good you were as an associate. There are other issues involved - malpractice insurance, your ability to continue work on matters, your ability to appear in court (rare for jrs but applicable), how you are billed out, etc. That's why those who have yet to pass/get admitted are initially "law clerks" at some firms.

381: Have you looked at 245's lovely work? Can you do basic math? Check again and assuming his/her figures are correct, you'll see that 1) not all firms had double-digit increase, and 2) only Quinn Em exceed 30%, with Latham close with 29.5%.

(now waiting for you to ask that question...)

383: amen. Well said.

14 firms had increases over 15%, so for those firms, PPP increased faster than associate salaries.

387: that you 381? try again and this time, notice that 245 started with "percent change from 2005 to 2007".

387, if 245 had done the math from 2002 to 2007 rather than 2005 to 2007, ALL of the firms on this list would have PPP increasing MUCH faster than associate salaries.

Partners/"Rockstars" - stop playing Rock Band on Wii and start getting more clients and more work for the firm.

Has anyone noticed how nasty kate hudson has got????

373, what you say makes sense under normal cirumstances, but then the circumstances under which we work -- the "we" being the 5% or so of all attorneys toiling away in biglaw -- aren't hardly normal.

In short, we deserve what the market will tolerate, taking into account the profits that our bosses, the partners, make, as well as the fees that our clients, mostly large corporations, pay. If we make too much, then they surely make and pay too much. If not, and it's all relative, then we are justified in agitating for our fair share -- even in tough economic times.

Look, I get it. We're highly paid in relation to the rest of America. I just take issue with your argument that we're overpaid.

373, what you say makes sense under normal cirumstances, but then the circumstances under which we work -- the "we" being the 5% or so of all attorneys toiling away in biglaw -- aren't hardly normal.

In short, we deserve what the market will tolerate, taking into account the profits that our bosses, the partners, make, as well as the fees that our clients, mostly large corporations, pay. If we make too much, then they surely make and pay too much. If not, and it's all relative, then we are justified in agitating for our fair share -- even in tough economic times.

Look, I get it. We're highly paid in relation to the rest of America. I just take issue with your argument that we're overpaid.

The homophobia displayed in a number of the posts here are really disgusting.

This little third-year kitty will just keep kneading biglaw momma's shriveling teats until the milk stops coming out. When she's dry, fuck it, on to the next episode.

394 - "is" really disgusting, fag. Come on, it's funny.

@394 Incognito homophobia is what makes the internet great, you friend of dorothy.

You know what's really funny? Count Layoffula fucking 86 in the ass.

128, do you have any details?

Yes, PPP at T50 are ridiculously high. But seriously, the sense of entitlement and self-importance is ridiculuos around here. I'm at a T50 that hasn't announced yet. Expect to see us on here any day now. But I'll be very, very happy to receive my 08 salary in 09! 145 is right - WE ARE LUCKY TO HAVE JOBS! And jobs that pay $165+? Are you kidding? Ever stop to think about how much money that is? Start living within your means and stop bitching. We have it better than 95% of the rest of the country.

Yes, PPP are ridiculously high. But seriously, the sense of entitlement and self-importance around here is ridiculous. I'm at a T50 that hasn't announced yet. Expect to see us on here any day now. But I'll be very, very happy to receive my 08 salary in 09! #145 is right - WE ARE LUCKY TO HAVE JOBS! And jobs that pay $165+? Are you kidding? Ever stop to think about how much money that is? Start living within your means and stop bitching. We have it better than 95% of the rest of the country.

What about firms with fiscal years that just ended 12/31 but haven't announced one way or another? Are they frozen? Or not?

Shut the fuck up, 400/401. Seriously, go be Pollyanna somewhere else. Some of us see nothing wrong with expecting to get paid for the mountains of very profitable work we do. If you do, work it out with a headhunter and your shrink. In the meantime, kindly step aside whilst you go fuck yourself.

Don't get so upset 403, 400/401 is clearly one of our partner posters just throwing out a little disinformation to make you doubt yourself. Don't.

There are two problems with associate comp

1. All biglaw firms pay the same base salaries and mostly the same bonuses and feel the need to match each other. But not all firms are equal. Look at PPP, selectivity, and revenue per lawyer. So when firms (Simpson raised to 160k) or paid higher bonuses (Cravath last year), some firms could barely afford to raise, but did so anyways, and those firms are now freezing or doing layoffs. Now when a few firms are cutting bonuses (Cravath this year), other firms, which are still very profitable (e.g. Weil, Kirkland, S&C), cut anyways since they can.

2. The lockstep system should be dead, at least for bonuses. There is a huge difference between good associates who want to make partner and bill 2500 hours of quality work and deadwood associates looking to pay off student loans and churn out 1500 hours of low quality work.

Basically pay should be more strongly correlated with merit. Good firms/pay should not be dragged down by bad firms/pay and bad firms/pay should not have to be forced up to match good firms/pay when it hurts them in the long-run. Similarly good associates should not be dragged down by bad associates, etc.

225, do most NYC salary memoranda contain a chart stating "2007/160k, 2006/170k, 2005/185k" etc.? Because if they do, staying silent means that a 2007 grad is still making 160k. Firms may vary in how and when they communicate an associate's actual raise, which up until now had been a formality. However, I don't know of any salary memos that promise to pay an associate based on years of experience, which increases every year, rather than by year of graduation, which does not change.

379: You mean (WLRK, Skadden). Or didn't you get the memo? Your half-Skadden bonus memo.

320 -- when we start cutting associates, we begin with the worst performing (regardless of year) -- the ones who bitch about getting an assignment on a Friday afternoon, the ones who aren't in at 10 on a Tuesday, the ones other associates don't want working for them on their cases, the ones who can't write a memo (when did they stop teaching that in law school?) -- the ones we know will never be partners. Let's hope we don't have to go beyond that rung, but if we do I suppose we'd move to the senior associates who aren't going to make partner.

DLA's downfall was getting rid of full names and switching to just DLA. Sounds like an airline, not a law firm.

ATL should do a post on which firms people expect to fold in 2009. Or perhaps an over/under on the number of V100 firm's that will go under. My prediction is 7.

Yup, DLA sucks donkey dong. I wish them and their faggy associates nothing but ill will. May it shatter into the thousand pieces from which it was assembled.

411 = no offer pwn3d or what?

And, word to the wise, the homophobia is not acceptable.

406,

None of the Big NYC-based firms that I know about have memos saying, "These are the new salaries for all classes." Typically you are told individually. As I said in my original post, the only time a salary memo comes out is when the scale changes. Therefore I see the "silence" as confirmation that they are not freezing salaries i.e. the scale is not changing. If anyone wants to name a firm that typically does send out a firm-wide memo on salaries every year, I'll be happy to stand corrrected.

Also, I've spoken to a number of people at NYC-based firms that have confirmed they are getting the expected bump in salary.

If I were an associate at a freeze firm, rather than complain and bitch about the freeze, I would be worried about ensuring that I have a job by getting as as many projects to work on as possible and doing first rate work. I know from my own firm and firm friends at other firms that the number of new projects that came in the door last quarter were way down from the prior quarters. Way done. The effect of this on billing will not really be seen until next quarter and quarter after, when existing projects are completed and there are far fewer new projects to turn to. At some of the very big firms, I thnk they are some where around 20% to 30% overstaffed if last quarter work flow contines. If you have 700 associates, 30% over is 200 associates. No employer can carry that number for very long.

Biglaw is looking at big layoffs in Q1 and Q2 I believe.

A salary freeze can prevent that but it seems the consensus from the vault 28 firm associates who post here is as follows: layoffs are fine, just don't reduce my raise next year!

#414 you are a tool of the man, a management flunky who can only rule through fear.

The true fact of the matter is these hard working men and women have been told ( in the 13th hour) they will see no increase in there well deserved salaries.

Furthermore, about 12 of them will hear today they have no job at all.

No matter how good you think you are, who you are sleeping with, who you daddy is you are expendable my friends.

Power to the People.

as number 414 says : " If I were an associate at a freeze firm, rather than complain and bitch about the freeze....... I say get even don't get mad. Sabotage early AND OFTEN. Before they take your keys and password away and escort you to the door.

sabotage -- that will do a lot for your legal career.

DLA's downfall is easy to chart:
1. Approx. 2 yrs. ago they decided that being "global" was the way to go. The firm expanded for the sake of expanding, and there was NO QUALITY CONTROL.

2. A little less than a year ago Amy Schulman (their #1 LARGEST RAINMAKER) left the firm.

3. Last summer they no-offered a ton of summer associates.

4. Then they laid off associates.

5. Then they cancelled the Christmas party.

6. Then they made non-equity partners pay up $150,000 or leave.

7. Then they instituted a pay freeze.

8. ?

Wow. What's next is anyone's guess. But this firm is obviously NOT headed in the right direction. If you've got another option, take it.

I am an associate at a firm that has been silent. I take this to mean I am making the same today as I made last fiscal year.

Hey 383, nice comment:

Hey 383, nice comment:

"a high-billing litigation associate in today's large law firm has absolutely no desire to take a financial hit for a corporate associate he's never met or spoken to"

Do you realize that the last two rounds of salary raises (i.e., $35k of your current salary) were to keep corporate associates from jumping ship to go in-house? Litigators have no high paying option to big law, so whatever the firms decide to pay is the best that you can get in the short run (though admittedly you can take some risks and join a contingency fee ambulance chasing firm and make more money in the long run if you are good and lucky). So the firms don't worry about you leaving and going anywhere else.
Really, you road the coat tails of the corporate associates for the last five years, it is okay for you to carry them for a year or two. That is what it means to have a firm with a diverse practice.

DLgAy

Hey 383, nice comment:

"a high-billing litigation associate in today's large law firm has absolutely no desire to take a financial hit for a corporate associate he's never met or spoken to"

Do you realize that the last two rounds of salary raises (i.e., $35k of your current salary) were to keep corporate associates from jumping ship to go in-house? Litigators have no high paying option to big law, so whatever the firms decide to pay is the best that you can get in the short run (though admittedly you can take some risks and join a contingency fee ambulance chasing firm and make more money in the long run if you are good and lucky). So the firms don't worry about you leaving and going anywhere else.
Really, you road the coat tails of the corporate associates for the last five years, it is okay for you to carry them for a year or two. That is what it means to have a firm with a diverse practice.

I am a DLA associate. I am updating my resume (yes, I have options). Nuff said.

286, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I take you at your word but you'd be a fool to think that there aren't lots of folks like you who thought the same. Lots of practices are going under and taking good attorneys along with them. When I woke up with a paycheck in my hand on January 1, I decided that now was not the time to throw my weight around. Maybe next year. And for all of the folks grousing about partner profits, it is there business and their money. One day, you'll MAYBE be in that position and let's see just how willing you will be to spread the wealth. Judging by the immaturity of many of these comments on this subject, I'm willing to guess not.

420-21, 423:
A generally good economic climate helped to raise associate salaries in the past few years, not high-billing, corporate attorneys carrying the bag for other areas that were slacking. Litigation associates bill a ton and their rates have gone updwards quickly of late. They deserved the raise as much as corporate people.

Regardless, the point isn't to make this into a corporate v. litigtion fight. If corporate attorneys are more valuable, then firms should pay them more. If the opposite happens to be true, then litigation associates should get more. I think 383's point was that compensation should be based on individual performance or at least some metric that more closely follows individual performance, like practice group performance.

286, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I take you at your word but you'd be a fool to think that there aren't lots of folks like you who thought the same. Lots of practices are going under and taking good attorneys along with them. When I woke up with a paycheck in my hand on January 1, I decided that now was not the time to throw my weight around. Maybe next year. And for all of the folks grousing about partner profits, it is there business and their money. One day, you'll MAYBE be in that position and let's see just how willing you will be to spread the wealth. Judging by the immaturity of many of these comments on this subject, I'm willing to guess not.

DLA associate here -- have been getting calls from recruiters almost daily for the past 3 months. Maybe I should have paid more attention. After a year of working my butt off and expecting a raise at year-end, I think it's ridiculous that the firm stiffed us.

DLA associate here -- have been getting calls from recruiters almost daily for the past 3 months. Maybe I should have paid more attention. After a year of working my butt off and expecting a raise at year-end, I think it's ridiculous that the firm stiffed us.

I'm pretty sick of all the fucking partners and non-BIGLAW douchebags on this board talking about how over paid I am.

I bill out at $510/hour. I've never missed my billing target. At 1950 billed, I bring in almost a million dollars in revenue to the firm. I did 260 in non-billable and pro bono last year.

Why the fuck should I take a $20,000 pay cut? There are plenty of firms out there that haven't cut salaries. I get calls from recruiters every week. I'll move in a second. Not because of the $20k, but because I don't want to work with partners who think that they can pull this kind of shit and get away with it.

430 -- Buh bye. There's twenty people lined up outside the front door waiting to take your spot. Don't let it hit you on the way out.

Basic economics dictate what can and can't be done to employees. If you can do better, then by all means, do so. The firm can also do better than you, for less money.

431 - You know nothing about law firms and are likely a first-year or a moron. Replacing a mid to senior level associate is never in the firm's interest. New associates get paid and can't bill while learning new cases. Recruiting is a waste of attorney time. Your "savings" of $20,000 is easily blown by going through the efforts of hiring a lateral.

If 430 is any good, the firm will miss him/her. If s/he's not any good the firm will likely be glad that s/he is leaving so they will have to layoff one less person. Any firm that's interested in cutting/freezing salaries is going to be doing layoffs of low performers too. That's a fact.

According to 244, Quinn is the worst firm to work for -- 2100 for a full half-skadden and they are pulling in how much PPP?

322-Your mastery of the calendar is impressive, surpassed only by your gullibility in believing Burch's bullshit that '08 was great and DLAP mgmt are simply out in front of a tight '09. Lee said he'd love to discuss selling you a certain bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.

430--Taking any clients with you? Didn't think so. STFU already.

Thanks Latham.

Latham & Watkins - leading the way in associate layoffs & pay cuts for two decades and boldly into the new millennium.

I remember when associates billing 2300-2400 were worried about being fired for low hours. It absolutely kills me to hear you kiddies whining about how "hard" you work, with your 1900-2000 hour years at large salaries. You really have no idea.

430-I'm sure the firm will fold without you. Where will they be without your big 1950 hours of billing? Slacker.

Hey 128: Any more information on Holland and Knights expected layoffs? Thanks for any help.

DLgAy

437 - BULLSHIT. No sane human would call 2300 hours "low" unless the firm standard was rampant and egregious padding. Then again, from the tone of your post, that sounds about right.

DLA SUCKS AND AM GLAD TO HAVE LEFT WHEN I DID.

Why doesnt somebody else comment on DLA Piper instead of just this one Guest?

smart biglaw partners and managment will start cutting associates by examining internet history. if an overpaid fat bloated associate is in the office 12 hours per day, and spending 3 hours on this site, but billing 15, they are fired. if a non-equity partner like that guy from Skadden know the data, then clients will sue and scalp.

DLA and other law firms following this line are acting prudently at this time. However, the same tactic being applied to Associates needs to be applied to all other levels in the firm, or DLA and other firms will be inviting great dissention within their firms. Partners must treat themselves as they treat everyone else. This is called "good management" in normal businesses.... Estaban Casa D'Aqua

Granted, I didnt go to your big fancy law skool-but really??? Quit bitching and moaning about only making in the low six figures...you all make me so sick!!
My annual salary is less than you bonus (think about that for a second) and I somehow can manage a happy life.
Your all just perpetuating this silent competition to see who has the biggest bank account cause most of you have no idea what to do with your dick!
Or maybe you have to pay for your wifes next breast enhancement. so that you can bear to look at one part of her body when you fuck her.
Figure it out. Life is more than your job.
You all need to meet up for one big wank off.

I worked at DLA Piper for six years. They treated me like trash...worked me like a dog then showed me the door for absolutely no reason other than they felt like it because I had become a woman with children. My reviews had always been stellar and the only thing that changed was that I had had given birth.

Please do not waste your time working at this cesspool. They have no desire to treat anyone, anywhere decently. Unless you have $5 million in business, they eventually won't want you. They will either not-so-subtly push you out the door or outright fire you. I could tell many, many stories about how attorneys were treated badly and paid badly.

If you are there now, please make your plans to get out in the next 6-12 months. I know that the job market is bad but better to leave on your terms than to wait for the axe (which will almost always come).