Top Biglaw Stories: #1 (Business)
Layoffs
Biglaw hasn’t exactly experienced Conquest, War, and Famine. But Bonus Reductions, Salary Freezes, and Dissolutions sure make one feel like a seal of whup-ass has been opened up on the legal community.
But the number one business story affecting the legal community in 2008 was the rash of Biglaw layoffs. Layoffs were the Shock and Awe campaign of Biglaw’s 2008.
The first shot across the bow was provided by Cadwalader. Way back on January 10th, 2008, we reported:
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft has confirmed to us that it will be laying off 35 attorneys. Please see the statement below, which we just received from Hill & Knowlton, the powerhouse public relations firm. When a law firm hires an outside PR / crisis management shop, you know they have something big on their hands.
Of course, that was just the start of CWT’s 2008 layoff party. By the end of July, Cadwalader was at it again:
Earlier this morning, we once again posed the question: “Is today Layoff Day at Cadwalader?” And once again, the firm has confirmed — this time to the WSJ Law Blog — that it will be laying off 96 lawyers, from counsel on down to first-year associates. The intelligence in our post from earlier this morning, which estimated the carnage at “as many as 100 attorneys, ranging from special counsel down to the current first-year associate class,” was essentially correct.
In July the economy looked bad. But few knew that it was actually heading off of a cliff. It turns out that Cadwalader was just the tip of a huge iceberg.
Biglaw lowers the boom on more attorneys after the jump.
Cadwalader set the standard for massive, announced layoffs. As the economy worsened, many big firms followed along. White & Case axed 70 associates. Orrick fired 40. Proskauer laid off 60 people, including first years.
But for every firm that got their layoffs done in an open manner, there seemed to be another shop that decided to conduct “stealth layoffs.” We’ll never know the full 2008 body count due to the economic crisis, because so many firms insisted that their attorney reductions were due to performance reasons.
Shearman & Sterling, Kaye Scholer, and Fried Frank are just a few of the firms that have let people go last year using various methods of “forced attrition.”
If you got into Biglaw looking for job security, 2008 was not your year.
And all of the pain suffered by Biglaw associates was also visited upon support staffs across the nation. Nothing highlights how difficult the market is for secretaries and paralegals quite like Dechert. Dechert fired 72 staffers a week before Christmas, and then announced market bonuses that can escalate to above market compensation for high billers five days later.
So much for Biglaw being recession proof.
Earlier: Breaking: Cadwalader Announces Layoffs of 35 Lawyers!
Breaking: Cadwalader Announces Layoffs of 96 Lawyers!
Nationwide Layoff Watch: White & Case Brings Layoffs into the Vault Top 20
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Orrick Lays Off Attorneys
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Proskauer Cuts 60 People
In This Market: Are You Getting Laid Off or Fired? A Kaye Scholer Case Study
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Fried Frank Stealth Layoff Update
Dechert Ices 72 Staff Positions
(46) 
Comments
foist?
FOIST!!!
TURD!
top five here
Ducktales check em out on xoxohth.com
666
te hee hee
te hee hee
The Glass Cock was robbed, I tell ya!
Wait, is there any news about layoffs at Cahill? I don't see anything in this post about that...
Screw support staff. They suck. Most of them need to be under a bridge somewhere, huddling together for warmth.
I'm a T14 poster! The posting equivalent of GULC.
CWT is changing for the better. Why does this site keep rehashing one isolated incident.
I swear the ATL editors have it out for CWT because of their success. Its not fair to the good people who work there and the great work they do.
Wait, there were layoffs at Cadwalader?
cahill dissolution? anyone?
all the layoffs are tracked at http://lawshucks.com. 1900 and counting. Plus no legal wedding watch / law school crap. Enjoy.
2008 on a whole just SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!
wgwag, a woo-oo
They also are having stealth layoffs at Stroock right now, but nobody's reporting that.
19 is right: the firm is down to a mere 4 Stroocks.
Please quit with these best of 2008 posts. 2008 has been over for forever and if wanted to read shit posted in 2008....
we could just use the search function.
Stop with the 2008 in review crap.
If we allow layoffs and no bonus, the terrorists win. Why do they hate our freedom?
STOP the 2008 shit. Your constant reminders of the shittinass of 2008 sucks balls, like you.
THESE BIG LAW #### ARE SUCH A WASTE OF TIME. STOP NOW AND PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR JOB. AND NO EXCUSES THAT THIS 2008 RECAP STUFF IS YOUR JOB.
Twenty six!!!
ALSTON is absolutely laying off lawyers--they just laid off several today in New York. Plus others have been laid off in DC. People are very scared.
I've been through these downturns before. Back in the 1980's I was the toast of Wall Street. I was having whiskey with Boesky and cookies with Milken.
The law of the business cycle hasn't been repealed. Any attorney who still has a job is making a steady (albeit frozen) or increasing salary while everything for sale in this country is getting a hell of a lot cheaper. Take a minute to appreciate the fact that you are one of the few in this country positioned to take advantage of this downcycle. Buy a pick-up, get one free. Buy a house for 30% off and a 4.5% mortgage. Become an expert bargain hunter and use your relatively safe job (compared to every other industry in the world) to leverage up your 401K and buy some assets. The economy will turn and the inflation rate will skyrocket (thanks to all that cheap money flooding the country).
Sleaze your way to the top 80s style.
Milbank layoffs coming
LAYOFFS? Don't talk about -- LAYOFFS? You kidding me? LAYOFFS?
28 nailed it.
When's CWT's financial info coming out?
I predict PPP down 40%
All hail Superjew!!! With his massive money-sniffing nose, he will find enough money to write off all the banks' bad debts and save us all!
Every time you see me...it's on the worst day of my life.
- ATL
What about all the Quinn Emanuel stealth layoffs!?!
Don't worry. Superjew will deal with Quinn Emanuel.
With his trusty sidekick Supernegro?
37 - naturally, Superjew has only two powers - to sniff out money with his massive money-sniffing nose and to pay Supernegro a wage below the minimum wage to do all his work.
- 36
Ha! Check out the big-brain on doom-monger 32.
PPP: down 13%
CWT Total Rev: down 30%
You can come out of your cave now little chicken, the sky appears to have postponed its falling.
http://www.legalweek.co.uk/
39 -
I think it's:
PPP: -30%
Rev: -13.8%
http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/01/numbers-cadwalader-profits-down-30.html
You must have MysTTTitis.
CWT's numbers are surprisingly good. Guess cutting tons of associates, and doing so early and often, IS a wise management tool.
Managing partners will be taking note and trimming the faTTT.
DPW is also "forcing attrition." At least half of the "above the line" associates in some groups. Almost exclusively laterals brought in within the last 24 months now are being told that they don't measure up to the "front door" associates.
Which groups 43?
44- I know that FIG and Credit mid-levels were hit hard. A few senior level associates were able to transition to other groups or were given an early warning but most found out during the end of year performance review.
Non-laterals have also been shown the door at DPW and word is that all classes are getting trimmed down.