"Going gangbusters"? What, is this guy like 90 or something?

The ship be sinking...

you know what the midwest is
young and restless

UTLAW 4tw.

why is UT LAW THE BEST SCHOOL IN THE NATION?

solid Cowbell reference. Understated.

Husch Blackwell's clients have to be asking themselves whether the firm is (a) dishonest, or (b) completely inept in evaluating talent. And, if the firm is as incompetent in evaluating talent as it claims to be, is this a firm you would want representing you?

Hey, you lawyers are supposed to be so smart, right? That guy, John Yoo, figured out a way around the Constitution so that I could lock away American citizens indefinitely without charges or a trial, torture high value detainees, listen in on all of your telephone calls, and read all your emails. How come you guys couldn’t figure out a way so that I could’ve served a third term? Everything was so much better when I was President.

No matter how you slice it, firing a whole bunch of attorneys looks bad so this guy is kidding himself if he thinks otherwise.
Okay, Mr. Jackass, now I will assume that you guys can't manage your personnel properly or are really good at recruiting crappy attorneys -- how does that make you look?

LOYOLA 2L PLEASE COME BACK! YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN TEACH US HOW TO COPE.

Yeah, that's believeable Fenley. Latham, O'Melveny, and the rest are hurt by the worldwide recession, but Husch Douchebag & Schmuck of Flyover City, NebKanssouri, is just diligently reviewing its associates.

Do your clients appreciate it when you treat them like they have the mental capacity of brain-damaged prairie dogs?

GG 11, well said. And I'm in the Midwest.

WHERE, MYSTAL, IS THE REPORT ABOUT ANOTHER, YES ANOTHER, OBLAHMUH NOMINEE--SC's H.R. COHEN--WITHDRAWING HIS NOMINATION??!

I just blew a huge Husch all over my secretary.

12 - thanks, no offense to good Midwesterners, just looking for an additional way to rhetorically kick Fenley in the virtual balls. -- 11.

Who would have ever thought that a BigLaw blog would be citing the Kansas City Star?

I don't look upon this like it's the end, I look upon it like it's moving on you know. It's almost like my work here's done. I can't imagine Jesus going 'Oh, I've told a few people in Bethlehem I'm the son of God, can I just stay here with Mum and Dad now?' No. You gotta move on. You gotta spread the word. You gotta go to Nazareth, please. And that's, very much like... me. My world does not end within these four walls, Slough's a big place. And when I've finished with Slough, there's Reading, Aldershot, Bracknell, you know I've got to-Didcott, Yately. You know. My-Winersh, Taplow. Because I am my own boss, I can-Burfield. I can wake up one morning and go 'Ooh, I don't feel like working today, can I just stay in bed?' 'Ooh, don't know, better ask the boss.' 'David can I stay in bed all day?' 'Yes you can David.' Both me, that's not me in bed with another bloke called David.

This would suggest then that they do reviews every month. That cannot be the case.

Idea for a post: put together some quantitative charts and write some analysis about law firm expectations at the beginning of the economic bust.

Specifically, compare # of summers hired for this year / total headcount.

Ex (using last year's NALP numbers):

White & Case (NY)
114 SA / 472 Lawyers = 24%

Skadden (NY)
260 SA / 2134 Lawyers = 12%

How big are summer classes this year? Most firms will offer 60-70% at the end of this year. I predict a handful of firms have historically small summer classes, and will make 100% offers (even if they really, really want to offer 80-85%), just so they can be one of the 5 or 10 places that offered everybody in the eye of the storm.

title made me lol. Kudos Elie.

Husch should call a layoff a layoff. That said, I wouldn't expect them to be as effected by the slowdown as the much bigger firms on the coasts. Think about practice areas that have dried up - capital markets, securitization, lending work representing large banks, private equity buyouts, etc. - none of these are practice areas where Husch would really have any exposure. I'm sure their corporate and real estate groups are slower (hence the layoffs), but they can't have slowed down like the practice areas mentioned above that are dominated by bigger firms in bigger cities.

Well, if the firings really were performance-based and the firm is going "gangbusters," as Mr. Fenley puts it, that means there are job openings at Husch Blackwell for 17 atttorneys and 45 staff!

Let the interviewing and hiring begin!

Isn't working in Kansas City punishment enough!

You're welcome.

21. It's "affected" not "effected", you TTT.

fuckers

7, the answer to your question is (b). The Husch half of HBS hired a ton of 1Ls-- the idea was that they'd get the best talent by not competing with other firms for 2Ls. The problem is that one semester of grades and 3 hours of interviews correlate even less well with the successful practice of law than 2 semesters of grades and 3 hours of interviews... aiming for diversity rather than taking the most qualified candidates doesn't help either.

I think it is really funny how ATL always calls non-Chicago midwest firms "mid-size" even though they are larger than many of the NY, LA & Chicago firms regrularly reported as BigLaw.

Fenley can't call the firings today a layoff because if he did HBS would have to pay the COBRA subsidy called for under the Obama stimulus package for all these poor performers they fired today. It would cut into those increased profit levels cited in the article. HBS would rather kill the reputations of those let go today by calling them performance-related than do what is called for under the new regulations. So transparent it doesn't seem legal. HBS might look for better HR advice.

What he actually said was "gang's away", which is an old term from the 30's which means "we're fucked beyond belief."

If someone is going to do some kind of March Madness firm layoff head to head contest - I would give this firm first seed.

Missouri sucks. No one cares about your weak firm Mr. Fenley and you are a liar. Man up and admit to your layoffs. You're not doing your weak firm any favors by lying about your layoffs. I'm sure that your "going gangbusters" clients can see through your bs.

Most people don't realize that Husch is actually a large national firm- 650 attorneys. A lot larger than some New York firms reported on ATL. I am not quite sure what to think about the "non-layoff" layoffs. Since the firms did just merge, there were some double staff, but at the same time, I just wish they would own up to it.

I had a callback with Husch & Eppenberger (pre-merger) my 1L spring. This couldn't have happened to a better firm.

These are Dave Fenley's representative clients. Except for H&R, all real estate. Yup, like all real estate work going gangbusters - into the toilet. Wonder what the realization rate is on work for them.

Representative Clients

* H&R Block, Inc.
* Highwoods Properties, Inc.
* J.E. Dunn Construction Co.
* President Hotel, L.L.C.
* Zimmer Companies

33- Large? Yes. National? Hardly. Husch is a pretender. They think they buy their way to national promise, and they are wrong. Gobbling up Welsh & Katz, for instance, did NOT make them a big IP player.

36 here again... that should be national prominence, not national promise. Elie's terrible grammatical disease is apparently contagious.

33 Again- Husch is a "large" firm, especially for being spread through the midwest. They pride themselves on being a full service firm that can offer everything that east coast firms offer at half the price. Being from the midwest, there are not a lot of options when it comes to firms with a national presence.

I personally think Blackwell Sanders was better on its own than with Husch and Epp I don't know what they are thinking strategy wise when they decided to merge and buy a bunch of smaller firms.

Anyway, I don't think the layoff news is going to make the merged firm any better.

36, any background on why the merger with Welsh & Katz? It seems that the IP boutiques , which should be doing well are struggling. Here in NY, Kenyon had undergone some serious layoff at the beginning at 2007. They recovered, but still aren't what they used to be. There are tons of rumors about Darby & Darby not doing well. Not sure how Ward & Olivo is doing. In Chicago, obviously Bell Boyd & Lloyd threw in the towel.

So, what could Katz & Welch bring to the party and what does Hubsch bring to the party for them to merge?

TIA

39, 36 here (and I'll try to write a little better this time).

I'm not an insider by any means, but my sense is this: Husch wanted a piece of the Chicago pie and Husch wanted a piece of the IP pie. W&K gave them pieces of those two pies. Husch & Eppenberger had a decent IP lit practice in St. Louis prior to the Blackwell Sanders merger, but I don't think either firm did any prosecution.

The strategy at Husch seems to be growth for growth's sake-- the same sort of thing that has gotten various firms in trouble in Charlotte. Has that "strategy" worked for anyone?

How could anyone say that Busch Hot & Stinky is not a large firm? They are the largest firm in the 56th largest MSA in the U.S. They have PPP of at least $300K. They have a London office/broomcloset with 2 attorneys that were probably just made redundant. Come on haters.

Dreier LLP was on an acquisition binge, but that's a completely different story.

I wonder how much cross-work there is between IP in Chicago and somebody in Chattanooga (or wherever their other offices are). Most domestic IP is patent work from big corporations who dole out work from the R&D budget, while in-house legal has other priorities. Some guy in Chattanooga can find a patent agent to write an application and talk to the agent face to face. He doesn't need the prep and pros guy sitting 200 miles away. Foreign IP work just comes in to wherever and is even more divorced from legal - patent comes from R&D and TM comes form Marketing.

I agree these guys may be just on a growth trajectory without sense where they will go. Seriously, how much work from the midwest is there that requires a London office. Wouldn't it more efficient to have good UK contacts and get a guy in Scotland as you need him or someone in London, Birmingham, Sheffield as the need arises. This way, they are tied down to London even if the work is at the other end of the country.

33-

Husch is larger than most realize (post merger), but it's NOT really 'national'. It's still more a regional firm than anything else. Being solid in Missouri and Tennessee (plus an IP boutique practice in Chicago) does not translate to being a 'national' firm. A tiny presence in DC, London, and Denver doesn't really change the essential character of the firm either. Few outside the firm consider them national, just like few will believe Fenley's claims of 'performance-based' layoffs.

Having a higher headcount and more offices than the 'New York firms reported on ATL' doesn't make Husch an underrated firm. It gets about as much coverage as it deserves. Husch has three times as many lawyers and 13 times as many offices as WLRK, but that says absolutely nothing about the firms' relative standing in the legal community.

This Fenley character sounds like quite a gentleman

Even that replevin of a cow work must be slowing down

Hey Fenley, man. Fuck you. It's bad enough you laid all these people. Quit saying it was performance-related. It only related to the performance of your shit company.

Holy shit, check this Fenley asshole out:

http://www.huschblackwell.com/bio.aspx?id=1ada33a6-19d6-4731-8ae7-79ea849945bc&type=Firm

I'll bet he greases that hair with a palmful of phlegm every morning.

It's not tough to figure out, but these lay-offs were not "performance based." Staff had their evaluations in July. If they were so bad, then why take 8 months to lay them off? Associate evaluations are just about to take place, but again, associates have not been evaluated since the fall. (Those are done twice a year).

I think the buy-out of Welsh & Katz was to establish a Chicago presence.

17 or 31 of around 700 is not on the same scale as other firms. Some people do not make the cut.

#47 - Don't mock him. He is a Super Lawyer.

49 -- so this means that Husch is hiring, right? "Gangbusters" business, 17 associates and 45 staff let go at once; the firm must be really exploring the lateral market, huh?

Seriously, wake the f up and smell the f-ing coffee.

Seven years of Washburn "education" prepare Fenley for making such unbelievable statements.

It is nice to see real substantive comments to this story. Evidently the immature T-14 law students refuse to look at a story about this "TTT firm". This is why I appreciate Kansas City.

Wait . . . spoke to soon. -53

In response to an earlier post, the IP boutiques that are struggling are the ones that stupidly tried to escalate to the $160k pay scale (see Fish). Our IP boutique, which didnt, is doing great and is selectively hiring. I am in non-lit and have billed over 200 hours each month for the past 5 months and had to scuttle some of my docket to another person. We are getting a lot of work back from companies that left to go to large GP firms.

biglaw will contract to about half the size it is now, with a lot of people moving into midlaw to small law firms. micro and small boutiques will be popping up as inhouse departments slash their budgets and as recently fired lawyers open their own shops because they cannot find a position with a firm of their choice. of course, this pendulum will swing back to a time when biglaw is huge again because lawyers are the worst business people and we dont learn from past mistakes.

Who cares about firms in MO. Everyone knows the best doc reviewers are in NYC.

Bully

What the F is a "Washburn" and how do you get a degree out of one?

55, Welsh & Katz paid (and as far as I know, Husch still pays W & K people) 160k.

When I interviewed at Husch a few years back, I asked what distinguished them from other firms. I was told, "We pride ourselves on being the K-Mart of midwest law firms - low rate, high volume."

Nuff said about this TTT.

Husch is filled with dbags that weren't smart enough or socially adept enough to get jobs at Shook Hardy, Stinson, or Polsinelli. Dbaggiest firms in KC:

1. Husch
2. Sonnenscheinenschizzle
3. Kutak Rock (drunk dbags)

I interviewed with their Memphis office. Never seen a more miserable group.

When you lay peopel off its obvious you lay off the people you don't want and keep the people you want-so why deny these are layoffs? What's in it for the firm except the possiblity that it will hurt some of their former colleagues

24 -

A sincere thanks for making the "rich" suffer. It makes our lives a lot better.

Sincerely,
The Middle Class who used to work for The Rich

61 - Kutak Rock? I just threw up in my mouth.

PS - Replevin of a cow...I'm stealin that

61- not-so-subtle Stinson trolling

#48 "I think the buy-out of Welsh & Katz was to establish a Chicago presence." Consider that confirmed

I have no respect for Husch. I used to work for them and know how corrupt they really are. They need to be investigated for the way they allow their support staff to be treated. As long as an attorney brings in enough money, they will allow any kind of abusive behavior.