you have to respect their honesty - all firms should be this classy

Yay class!

I wish I had a paid vacation for four months.

first years?

first years.

I wonder if Will Nelson went by "Willie" unitl that no-talent ass clown started winning Grammys.

I thought he went by "Bill Nelson."

Vacations are for pussies. And class is sexy.

http://anonymouscontractlawyer.blogspot.com

Mckee Nelson shot my Chimp in the ass!!

This firm makes all the other Big Laws look like used car salesmen.

Class and human dignity are very scarce these days.

Maybe the others will retro-actively follow suit---yeah right.

Although they appear to be kind-hearted about the layoffs, they really should have done them all at once back in November, if at all possible. Not much has changed in the past 3 months, so I'm sure management knew this was coming. Employees there will be living in fear for the rest of 2009 at least.

Were any first year associates laid off?

I'm sorry, maybe the gallows is getting to me but I suddently find it funny to learn that McKee is run by a tax expert named Will(ie) Nelson.

We like to spread the pain out in layers...like a layer cake...made with time and pain.

12 - Agreed. "Rounds" of layoffs destroy morale for some time. Either something else went wrong at Mckee Nelson since Nov. or the layoffs were mis-managed.

Very generous benefits packages, however.

Definitely a class act!

All firms should issue statements like this.

Man, I wish I could get laid off by McKee. It makes me feel all warm inside.

When I get laid off, I want to get laid off at McKee Nelson!

I was once told that I have a very generous package.

manbearpig

The federal government just passed legislation as part of the stimulus package to pay for 2/3 of COBRA costs for laid off employees for 9 months

Guys, I hate to interrupt this discussion but could someone please let me know how to get my CHODE out of the GARBAGE DISPOSAL?

Much appreciated.

good point 22 - So does that mean that McKee Nelson will only be paying for the other 1/3 of the premiums for 4 months? That's much less impressive. Still, 4 months pay is sweet.

12- if you're one of the people let go, getting a paycheck for those three extra months is kind of nice.

@23 -- Call up Ellie and he will eat it out of there for ya.

I'm classy. Right, Rick?

coke on a friday afternoon.

12, you're right. Nothing has changed since November. Then, when firms were laying people off, the Dow was at a "6-year" low. These days, when firms are laying people off, the Dow is at a 6-year low.

25 - I understand that many people live paycheck to paycheck, and I hope the firm's intention was to help people stay employed for as long as possible. I'm more cynical about law firms, so I think their intention was to avoid the negative publicity of a (more) massive layoff. I'm not familiar with the people running this firm, so maybe I'm wrong.

Either way, the newly laid off will have to get in line behind all of the other resumes of those laid off before them over the past few months. I would have preferred the three-month headstart back in november, if the partners knew I was being let go anyway.

-12

Great tax practice, rest of the firm is dead. If the economy doesn't turn around, they'll have another round of cuts by summer.

12: Isn't that the point? Nothing has changed (for the better), hence the additional layoffs. Would you rather have firms laying off the maximum number of employees when they decide they need to layoff any number of employees?

Firms like this are great to work for in good times, but not good to work for in bad times. In this economy, I'll definitely take job stability over quality of life.

Every firm has problems right now, but MN has always tried to take the high road, even when making painful practical decisions. I worked there for a few years and was better for the experience of seeing a firm that actually cares about people. I'm glad they have continued this practice, and wish them the best.

Responding to several comments - I think the bad press from multiple rounds of layoffs far exceeds the bad press from a single round of somewhat deeper cuts. MN is just doing the best it can to preserve employment for the folks still there.

32 - Most firms weren't expecting things to get better over the past three months. I would rather firms take as much time as necessary to layoff the correct number in one round. This may be wishful thinking, of course. However, what McKee Nelson did is not a slight adjustment to the projected layoffs in Nov. This is another 46 employees! (the first round was only 32). This is clearly a planned second round of layoffs. Who knows if there will be a third.

Great tax practice, rest of the firm is dead. Might be another round of layoffs by summer.

Every firm has problems right now, but MN has always tried to take the high road, even when making painful practical decisions. I worked there for a few years and was better for the experience of seeing a firm that actually cares about people. I'm glad they have continued this practice, and wish them the best.

Responding to several comments - I think the bad press from multiple rounds of layoffs far exceeds the bad press from a single round of somewhat deeper cuts. MN is just doing the best it can to preserve employment for the folks still there.

While it seems they took the high road, shouldn't we be chastising them (and every other firm doing layoffs) for mismanagement? Either they didn't hire well, didn't manage the business well, or they are overreacting now.

35: I agree that it is probably better for the morale of those left to have one guaranteed round of layoffs, but is it better for those who survived round 1 but not round 2? I see an extra 3 months of paychecks in a down economy. Also, even if your firm has one round of layoffs and says they will not fire anyone else, do you believe them?

- 32

LAYOFFS?!? Don't talk about -- LAYOFFS!? You kiddin' me? LAYOFFS??!??!

I can't believe people are being schnookered by one purportedly "classy" statement from MN about their layoffs. And DUH - off course the layoffs are performance based. Unless they are axing their ENTIRE securitization group, they are getting rid of their worst performers. Do you think they would lay off their best performers??? MN must be passing out some really strong kool-aid these days to fool the (usually vulture-like) posters above . . . .

39 - My firm did go through a mass layoff recently. I do believe that it was at least an attempt to get the numbers where they need to be to weather 2009. But, you are right, I don't feel completely safe for the year. Things are really bad, and could get worse. On the other hand, I do feel safer than I would at McKee Nelson.

35

Quarterly layoffs seem bad for morale.

41 - your comment seems more applicable to senior associates. at the junior levels, alot of big firm layoff victims are folks who are easily removed. at the junior level, they're pretty fungible, so the firm'll cut whoever's easiest to cut. when my firm did layoffs, a few people got axed just because they had the misfortune to have been staffed on big cases and deals that had just wrapped up - leaving them light on work and easily separated.

I have been laid off by classier firms.

16 - I agree. If you're going to lay off people, do it all at once, in one mass action.

First years were laid off . This firm practically invented asset securitization. Not surprising that their ship be sinkin...

The ship be sinking...

Given their core practices, I'm surprised McKee has made it this long.

Dear Ostriches:

Anybody who thinks nothing has changed since mid-November is smoking something. Since mid-November unemployment is way up, the stock-market just broke through the mid-November lows, lawfirms have now had over a month of 2009 to compare with the first month of 2008 and see how screwed they are, Chrysler and GM need kerblillions more to stay afloat, Iceland pretty much collapsed, industrial production has hit 25-year lows across much of the world, and people are realizing that as necessary as the stimulous is, it's not going to be enough to avert major pain; oh, and now Citibank and BofA are in much the same position that WaMu and Wachovia were in not so long ago. IF ONLY things were as great as they were in November, and whodda thunk anyone would ever be saying that???

People are waking up to the fact that the economy has continued to take on water and will sink further still.

New York and California are broke - the parasites killed off industry and innovation with regulation and taxation. The rust belt is only rustier. The Red states don't have enough ooomph to pull the rest of the country out of the ditch and anyway cheap money fueled a fair bit of their growth too - and it's gone forever.

When April 15 rolls around and partners don't get tax draws because no money will have come in and they have to borrow money to pay their taxes, well, there won't be room in the lifeboats for associates.

It's time to panic - the ship is starting to list. Few of you in steerage will survive.

Iceland? Who gives a flying fuck? shut up MN troll.

Agreed -- Severance/ COBRA for 4 months nicely handled, under the circumstances

Good job MN, would be good for the other firms to take note and make it a little easier those impacted .... (but they won't!)

Yes, good job MN. Keep laying people off every 3 months in order to increase PPP for 2009. bravo.

My sympathies to those who were let go. Things are very difficult these days. The economies in other countries are reportedly even worse off than the economy in the US.

If McKee Nelson had to let people go due to adverse economic developments, it is good that they provided them with separation payments and treated them with respect. That is better than many other firms have done, and reflects well on the professionalism, ethics and values of the firm and its partners.

For those of you who express envy of a "4-month vacation," I assure you this situation will not be experienced as a vacation by those facing the prospect of having to job-hunt in the current economy during and after that 4-month period. If you would like to see how easy this is, check out the following:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202426883846

http://www.law.com/jsp/law/careercenter/lawArticleCareerCenter.jsp?id=1202428425830

Time to stoke the fear fire some more just in time for the weekend.

Who is CitiCorpse's or Bank of Amerca's law firm? Time to worry if one of those is a major client of your law firm? I saw that Wells Fargo is starting to tank now, following in their footsteps.

Today:
The global economy may be deteriorating even faster than it did during the Great Depression, Paul Volcker, a top advisder to President Barack Obama, said on Friday.

'I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world,' Volcker said.

Yesterday:
Depression? That’s not even the half of it, according to billionaire George Soros.

"The size of the problem is even larger than it was in the 1930s," writes Soros on the Huffington Post Web site.

52 & 54 = morons

55-57 = MN partner.

Let it go fella. 4 months of pay is nice. Mass layoffs to salvage a few extra percentage points of PPP is not so nice. Are you trying to make more money or is the firm that far in the shitter?

Wake up, pepole. MN isn't being "classy" by firing people. Everyone at MN should be job hunting now. You are either working for extremely greedy partners, or the ship be sinking fast. There will be another round of layoffs in 3 months, if the firm doesn't fold first. Don't wait around for it. It won't matter how many months of severance pay they offer if the checks bounce ...

If layoffs = higher PPP do no associates = highest PPP?

stupids like 58 demonstrate we have too many idiots in this profession.

Wow, 59, new levels of stupidity from you. Seriously, that's retard talk. I hope you are not a lawyer. That's an argument a very old person or an office administrator would give to a 22 year old secretary. Most people on this site won't fall for that bullshit.

So, may I ask, what were the reasons for the layoffs? It all comes down to $$, right? Laying off a certain amount of people puts more money in the partners' pockets, right? Think "bell curve" (that thing you were on the ass end of in law school) not a direct proportion. If laying people off doesn't provide more money for the partners, then what are the reasons? I'm sure the employees would love to know....

MN is nearing the end. Get out while you can.