FIRST BITCHES!

nooooooooo

nooooooooo

Partner Emeritus, your comments please.

"The purging is at last at hand! The Day of Doom is here!"

What about the incoming first years?

Sheesh and I thought that the bloodletting at firms had begun to stabilize and slow down. Any information as to which practice groups and offices that have been affected?

Something going on at Saul Ewing?

Sheesh and I thought that the bloodletting at firms had begun to stabilize and slow down. Any information as to which practice groups and offices that have been affected?

Can ATL please put the HQ city of these firms next to the firm name so that I know whether to care? For example:

Baker & McKenzie (Houston) - meh

Baker & McKenzie (New York) - NOOOOOOOO!

Can we have a break-down of how many attorneys were fired in each office?

Elie really seems to be into Easter - he's mentioned the holidays a lot the last few days. Sure, he might be hyped for Passover, but I'm guessing it has more to do with the case of Cabury Creme Eggs under his desk.

Do I know anyone at Baker McKenzie?

This is just over 1% of Baker Mckenzie attys. Maybe things are slowing down a bit.

I'm talking to you 8.

38 is very small for Baker. that firm is huge.

For a firm that big, this is a surprisingly low number of associate layoffs.

In February Bakers also canned a whole lot of corporate associates on the West Coast. I believe all associates from the corporate group in San Diego got the boot, leaving only three miserable partners there without any work.

11 - I assume you're joking. How about Baker McKenzie (second largest law firm in the world - revenue and number of attorneys)? Would that help you place the name?

I will be brief in my side commentary about the news of B&M. By now most attorneys should realize that the landscape of the legal profession is drastically changing. The dour economy was the impetus needed to mobilize the implementation of new management policies to effectively end lockstep salary structures, limit summer associate programs and trim recruitment at American law schools. Many of you know that I advocate the business model of hiring foreign based attorneys or even sponsoring them to come here and earn an LLM. The foreign attorney would work as hard as an American educated law graduate while earning a significant fraction of the normal salary (I propose $65K as fair compensation for foreign attorneys). The additional benefit to the foreign attorney would be that the firm sponsor him/her through the H1B visa program. The foreign attorney with an LLM from an accredited ABA law school can then sit for the bar in NY, CA or North Carolina and work in those respective jurisdictions. The firm would sponsor pro hac vice motions for these attorneys to participate in legal matters throughout the continental United States. Within a few years, these attorneys would be eligible for admission in other jurisdictions via reciprocity. By adopting these measures, we will effectively be reducing our overhead while increasing our PPP. That is the bottom line of this business. We realize that many of you will be casualties of this restructuring effort; however, we are not in this business to worry about the insignificant adverse impact this will have on young lawyers or current law students. As you know, I believe these folks put themselves in terrible positions by making reckless decisions with their lives.

20 PE: I see you have no clue as to how the H1B visa program works. . .

Brandt: Mr. Lebowski is prepared to make a generous offer to you to act as courier, once we get instructions for the money.

The Dude: Why me, man?

Brandt: He believes the culprits might be the very people who, uh, soiled your rug, and you are in a unique position to confirm or disconfirm that suspicion.

The Dude: He thinks the carpet pissers did this?

Brandt: Well Dude, we just don't know.

Mark my words, the severance guy will have to buy a new blade by mid April. After Passover etc., many partners will not be available or willing to meet on firings, and its hard to give an associate the Talk when they are out of the office. Afteward, the Summers arrive, and decimating your ranks while blowing sunshine up the buttholes of recruits gets tricky---firms will be stuck until September with the lot they have. So this all has to be done very soon.

All will be well.

The Market will provide.

How many layoffs by office?

with all the qualified attorneys looking for work is there any reason to have the H1B visa program anymore?

This is bad news. Best wishes to all of those affected.

Your colleague,
Former Partner Emeritus

The ship be sinking...

I realize many East Coast attorneys do not believe there are law firms outside of Manhattan, DC, or London. However, a firm like Baker & McKenzie? You are ridiculously out of touch if you have never heard of it and need to expand just a bit outside of your Midtown comfort zone.

The Management Committee believes Partner Emeritus is misguided. There are plenty of good law graduates from fine schools in the United States that will work hard for far less than $65K and not require any special training or importation. Low hanging fruit friend...low hanging fruit.

How long until we can outsource partners to India, too?

I'm sure Raj would do the job for a smaller PPP than 7 digits, right Raj?

Nice. Right before the Easter and Passover holidays. Great timing, BM.

In keeping with Passover tradition, no associates who marked their office doors with sheep's blood were eliminated.

33 -- winner

This does not count stealth layoffs over the last 6 months...

31 - Partners have already outsourced their souls

35 - Also does not count attorneys who were given choice of reduced compensation

31,

Haa.

Raj

33 at least gets comment of the month, if not comment of the year.

Please moderate 33. Sheep references must not be tolerated.

40= anti-Semite (possible Pharaoh)

33 is good, but I don't know about best of the year. That one comment I had that one time was pretty rocking.

start dates for 1L's also pushed back to January 2010 for all North American offices, subject to change based on workload in each office.

sorry - I meant to say incoming first years, not "1L's"

Anyone cut from DC?

SF?

Kabul?

43/44- What is your source? Can anyone else confirm this. When will the firm officially announce?

First to say Baker & McKenzie is the Wal-Mart of law firms

I haven't heard anything about that, 43/44.

the bad news is thqt the Baker associates have lost their jobs in a bad market. The good news is that they no longer will work for this mediocre law firm.

20 = EPIC DEUCHE.

Hoping my amazing IU Law classmate in Chicago wasn't affected ...

4 cut in DC

52 is an idiot who doesn't know how to spell

Do you mean Baker Botts? I've never heard of this Baker McKinsey. Do you mean the consulting firm? Did McKinsey merge w/ Baker?

56, either you have a warped sense of humor (and some of us are losing our jobs, so not so funny), or you are uninformed. Lame either way.

No Attorneys in DC. 7 staff = 4 secretaries & 3 admin.

also 2 attorneys in DC. where's your info from, 58?

We were told 4 attnys in DC.

Yeah, 58, your data sounds messed up. In Chicago, we heard 4 DC lawyers got axed. Check your sources.

so many people just lying on this board. makes me think management is on it.

46, I'm in SF. just staff. so far.

46, I'm in SF. just staff. so far.

33 is an anti-semite

Dont worry the ONE will make everything better.

stfu, 66

Could this be related to the closing/consolidation of US offices that someone was posting about on an earlier thread? Anyone know if the layoffs disproportionately affected certain offices?

I though Wal-Mart was doing well in the recession?

By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, B&M associates shall be avenged.

56 - Baker botts McKinsey. You may have missed that. It was circa '06. We worked on the acquisition agreement. It was a tough negotiation. LBO financing with a 5 year tenor. Cov lite. Sounded good at the time, but the merged firm has significant refi risk. The consultant side garnered pay guarantees for 3 years, which in this market will hurt the combined firm.

23, I believe there were layoffs last summer. Not sure if preserving the image of the firm for the summers is a major concern for any firm that has already conducted layoffs and/or has shortened / rescinded summers.

I'm #70, I'm an overweight douche who can use words that non-lawyers don't know. People use to pay me the 'big bucks' to write these words, but now I'm pretty worthless as I sit in a fetal position in the smoking crater that once was the financial sector. Please, go back to jerking off to hermaphrodite porn and leave us alone.

65 is a Semite Supremacist.

Kinda new to ATL--- who the F is this PArtner Emeritus douchebag. Does he really think a few fancy words makes anyone think he has any clue what he is talking about?

$50 says that 99% of ATL posters are men. -- man

$50 says that 99% of ATL posters are men. -- man

$50 says that 99% of ATL posters are men. -- man

Dammit, Elie get on the GDC stealth layoffs. A few here and a few there are adding up. They are getting away with economic layoffs while taking neither the reputation hit or paying the severance its competitors have.

Can anybody confirm what severance was offerred to the affected associates?

8 lawyers in SF were axed, so were 6 secretaries and 3 paralegals -- this is in addition to what they did in January. People were let go in all U.S. offices today.

How many lawyers in Chicago?

80- is that SF only or SF/PA? Any info on which practice groups?

I agree with 78... There are quite a few firms, including GDC that are laying off quite a few associates and not reporting it. Does anyone know if ATL or another site that is keeping track of whether first years were including in any of the layoffs. That would be a very useful fact to know, especially for law students or laterals that may be lucky enough to get multiple offers.

I know a staff person at BM who got the boot. Wow, what a cold and heartless place that is.

I'm #72. I try to appreciate subtlety but sometimes I just don't understand. An ad hominem is a much more impressive response.

70, you fat fuck. I hate you. Miserable stupid fucktard.
Your post was clearly the Worst. Post. Ever.

Now, go eat a dick.

For the Palo Alto office, the worse part of the situation was how it was handled. The internal firm-wide email announcing the layoffs happened BEFORE the effected individuals in the Palo Alto office were even notified (note the email says "has informed 38 attorneys and 86 paralegals. . ."). Combined with the layoffs in the San Francisco and Palo Alto offices last January (5 attorneys), this seems to be a quarterly event at B&M. The firm has eliminated about 15% of the SF/PA associates so far in 2009.

86, i noticed you're getting a little pudgy as well. a little too much of mama's spanakopita, perhaps? perhaps.

36, you can build on this shtick... go get them champ

PE -- LL.M.s want as much as US-born associates who actually went to college for 4 yrs and l/s for 3 more years... they just want it after 1 yrs of law school. And I would actually rather enjoy these weak foreign souls dominate NY BigLaw -- Have you checked out Holidays and Time off in Europe lately? They expect nothing less than a 30 day "holiday"!!! Partner Emeratus obviously has never set foot outside Alabama...

first years were laid off. some arrangements for reduced salaries were made.

89, it doesnt matter where the LLMs come from. But Partner Emeritus is wrong as well. Some are brilliant, mastered English at an early age, and are every bit as competent as U.S. born attorneys.

However, some I remember some in my Barbri class struggling to order a sandwhich at Subway. It's no wonder that their failure rate on the Bar is so high.

92 =racist

ZERO attorneys fired in DC. Only staff.

8 attorneys in Chicago

All associates on track to bill under 2000 hours (May 08 to April 09) will have salaries reduced by 5-20%. Same for income partners under 1800 target. This was announced yesterday.

I think people expecting things to slow down are misreading the tea leaves. Firms have been trying to bite the bullet in the desperate hope that things turn around in time for the summer programs, where a nationwide class of students will be getting their first (or second) taste of life as a Big Law attorney.

The only reason April fires have thus far lagged is because May is going to be a freaking bloodbath. Firms will have held out hope for as long as they were able; the economy still hasn't picked up, etc.

Welcome, SAs, to the chop block.

NY to $65K!

33 -

Absolutely top shelf comment.

*golf clap*

33 -

Absolutely top shelf comment.

*golf clap*

in PA, associate salary/hours cut by up to 50% depending on group. first years laid off in multiple offices.

95 - where did hear that? Announced in an office meeting? If so, what office?

43 here
First year start date deferrals were announced in the NYC meeting. Said to be region-wide.

How many associates fired in NYC?

NYC
9 attorneys (not just associates though - also non-equity partners)

6 staff

43/102--any word on a stipend for those with deferred start dates?

105 - no details given

95: Not true across the board. That depended on office, department, etc.

@ 91, true some are very intelligent. But in addition to issues with English language you mention, I guarantee that the work ethic of most LL.M.s does not come close to that of U.S.-born junior associates. They expect long vacations and much more

(Btw, I am not hating on the LL.Ms who found a loop hope and are taking advantage of it, just want to point out an inconvenient truth that as a matter of BigLaw culture LL.M's could only work when they are a significant minority, and that our dear Partner Emeratus has no clue)

Baker & McKenzie has been laying off loads in their offices in Asia..Hk alone has about 15 lawyers and 30 staff gone, 10% pay cut across the board....

Baker & McKenzie has been laying off loads in their offices in Asia..Hk alone has about 15 lawyers and 30 staff gone, 10% pay cut across the board....

How many first-years in Chicago? Which departments?

Have any firms rescinded fall associate offers?

The title is misleading (but hey, it's a blog), this has been in the cards since at least the beginning of the year. Partners in some offices have had their take home cut and some associates have had their salaries cut as well. It sucks, especially for the associates, but it's better than a lay off.

Bakers has always been slammed as a franchise, putting the Mc in McLawFirm, etc. In some ways its true. But at times it helps because depending on the office the partners will go to greater lengths to protect associates.

Check lawshucks for a chart of law firm layoffs. Bakers is riding this out better than a lot of other firms but it is not immune. Hell, is anyone?

Btw, since when did ATL allow nutcases to turn comments into a free-for-all about the dirty Jews and the bloodthirsty Arabs? Get off your former AUSA ass Lat and protect the brand. Fuck's sake.

113 again, oops, I see Bakers is the Wal-Mart of law firms. My mistake. But Bakers doesn't lock its lawyers in to make them verk! Also, glad to see that Lat et al purged the ugly Israel-Palestine comments. Good on you.

Although Baker is a large firm and 38 associates in North America may not seem large, it is significant when you consider the proportion of associates laid off. Many Baker offices have a 1:1 ratio between partners and associates. NY has laid off around 20 associates, which is almost 30% of its associates.

Although Baker is a large firm and 38 associates in North America may not seem large, it is significant when you consider the proportion of associates laid off. Many Baker offices have a 1:1 ratio between partners and associates. NY has laid off around 20 associates, which is almost 30% of its associates.

More layoffs are coming...just wait and see.

several first years were laid off at Baker and Mackenzie. Add to list of firms who laid off first years.

In the NY office, out of 10 entering first years, 7 were laid off.

This megafirm got rid of a lot of young talent and loyal staff but kept on mediocre attorneys in Chicago.