Nationwide Layoff Watch: Bass Berry Lays Off 32 Employees
I guess the summer months aren’t a bar to firms laying off more associates and staff. The Nashville Post reports (subscription) that Bass Berry is going through a round of cuts:
In yet another sign that things in the economy need to get worse before they will get better, one of Nashville’s premier law firms has laid off 32 employees. Bass Berry & Sims has cut 10 associate attorneys and 22 staff members from its roster. The cuts represent 5 percent of the firm’s attorneys and 9 percent of non-attorney staffers. The layoffs affected the firm’s Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis offices.
Layoffs at Bass Berry? This would never happen at Jack Daniels!
Bass Berry might be a small, southern firm to a lot of ATL readers, but don’t forget that regional firms are dealing with all the pressures that big, coastal firms are struggling with. Often enough, those firms are coming to the same Biglaw conclusions:
Keith Simmons, managing partner of the firm, told NashvillePost.com that the decision to downsize was not made out of financial distress. “We are being asked to do more by our clients with less. This is an effort to get our cost structure in line with the market,” he said. “Big firms are going to have to look at their structure. We are staying close to the needs of our clients.”
A tipster called today’s move a “Bassacre”
Good luck, our Tennessee friends. I’ve been playing a solemn version of Rocky Top while writing this post.
Bass Berry lays off 32 [Nashville Post] (subscription)
(96) 
Comments
"Jack Daniels is good. I take shots while gambling away my paychecks. Even though Daniels is probably a white male."
-- SotomayOR!
First to say, sorry to those affected!!
First
This would never happen at Bendini, Lambert and Locke.
ATL has officially jumped the shark.
Thelen is hiring.
Baker & Botts DC is hiring, apparently.
If this is happening to Bass, then Wachtel must be fucked.
FINALLY! A peer firm for PE.
Fishsticks.
Does a Bass Berry taste fishy??
More time to volunteer with the little Lebowski urban achievers
You've been playing a "solemn version of Rocky Top?"
You have no class, and are an elitist racist.
I'm quite certain that in Tennessee and West VA, there's a Dingle Berry law firm somewhere.
Layoffs at Venable.
Nashville has law firms?
Rolling layoffs at Howrey.
Is the rumor true about Locke Lord Houston?
DEMONBREUN TO 110K!!!!
According to a leaker in the LA office, Paul Hastings is dangerously close to a covenant default on their line of credit. According to this person, any default will cause the creditor to ask for personal guarantees from the partnership. This can only result in a second "reduction in force" once the SAs leave.
LOL @ 20
19 = "Nashville Star" wannabe
17 -- is that like rolling blackouts?
I decline commenting on the tragedy that has touched this non-peer firm. I will only say that we should join in communal prayer and "hope" that God instills enough wisdom in President Obama so that he can "change" the economic downturn and make me "believe" in happy days again.
I didn’t know Sid Meier made a SIMS law firm.
Whoa there, 13. Elie may be a hefty racist who writes in what can only be described as kitty pidgen (Elie can haz a Cheezburger!), but he most certainly is not elite.
Newsflash: has-been blog flails with yet another attempt to pump ad revenue by posting alarmist but ultimately irrelevant articles
I WILL POUND YOUR BASS!!!!
25,
Sid Meier made Civ I-IV.
Will Wright created teh SIMS.
20
Really? It couldn't happen to nicer people. LMAO!!!
I would much rather go to a hellworld like Salusa Secundus and contend with the Sardaukar than to actually live and work in Nashville ("you shore have a purty mouf").
PH 50 is no more. What a joke.
29
I didn’t know Will Wright made a SIMS law firm either.
I bet all the associates have an Energy and Moral of 0.
FIRST to point out that it's "Jack Daniel's" and the person's name was Jack Daniel.
58 makes the best point thus far.
35 = mathematically innumerate
36
I think 35 meant 28, not 58.
Actually, 74 makes the best point thus far. My bad.
-- 35
Has Latham laid off any of the summers yet?
39
For that information, you'll have to go to 101.
-- 35
15 - recently? underneath summers' noses?
The ship be sinking...
Who?
"Bass Berry might be a small, southern firm to a lot of ATL readers...."
Ok sure, whatever you say...I thought it was a talking fish sold on late night TV.
Squisha squisha!!
What the f_ _ _ is Bass Berry? Is it related to Trout Melon? What about Cod Banana? Tuna Apple? Catfish Orange?
What the f_ _ _ is a Bass Berry? Is it related to Trout Melon? What about Cod Banana? Tuna Apple? Catfish Orange?
Slow news day? You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. Nobody's ever heard of this firm.
Guys at my high school used to fish for bass all the time. It was no big deal.
47 - It's well known and a big deal to a city of 1.5 million, douchebag.
If my firm invites me to a Phallus Phalanx this summer, should I be concerned?
Trogdor, you fascinate me.
49--
I bet less than 2 percent of the residents of Nashville can identify what Bass Booby or whatever the hell it's called is. Plus this is an insignificant flyover that nobody cares about.
49--
I bet less than 2 percent of the residents of Nashville can identify what Bass Booby or whatever the hell it's called is. Plus this is an insignificant flyover state that nobody cares about.
Where will students on the University of Tennessee Law Review and bottom quarter of Vanderbilt work now?
Is Nashville in Alabama?
I'm familiar with this firm and interviewed with them when I was in Law School. Good firm with a solid reputation throughout the region.
It is sad to hear that even Regional firms are hard hit in today's economy.
Give me that fish
18 - What is the rumor about Locke?
karma, baby. they rejected me after a callback.
53: Your point is crap. I bet far less than 2% of NYC residents could tell what "Skadden" is without referring to fecal matter.
54: I happen to be a former Vandy student in the top third of my class and an incoming associate at a V20 firm. Bass gave me the cold shoulder. Turns out that regional firms tend to care more about ties to the community than about academic excellence. This is an unfortunate event and it makes me a little sad to see the recession finally hit Nashvegas. Best of luck to those laid associates.
Nice reference to Rocky Top Mistel.........I'm impressed
Nice reference to Rocky Top Mistel.........I'm impressed
The hilarious/sad thing is that the only people with time to write substantial things on this site are 1) the laid off, or 2) clerks, whose positions returning to their firms are far from certain.
HEARING ABOUT LAWYER LAY-OFFS IS GREAT!!!!!!
The WESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW students who graduated thought that they were so cool with their good grades, JD degree and all that.
They MAY pass the bar, but even so, they are unlikely to get a good job, especially when even people from better law schools are getting laid off or can't get a job.
One time, this one student tried to "cut me down" by saying that he has better grades and know more about the law. Well, now we'll see how "impressive" he is to hot, emo chicks.
THIS IS WONDERFUL!
Bass is a very good firm in a great town, D-Bags. Unlike you overleveraged sheep who are barely hanging on to your short-term, crap jobs in overpriced cities that make you believe you are something important or impressive, most attorneys at a firm like Bass in a town like Nashville have satisfying lives. And, congratulations on the cheap tingle you got from writing anonymous comments about Nashville and a non-biglaw firm, but you know deep down that you want to be there, and not where you are. Go back to surfing the web, nerds; I know you are not doing anything important.
Why pick on Nashville, when you have Memphis and Knoxville in the article too? Elie forgets to mention that associate and staff salaries were frozen as well. As everyone knows, the music industry is suffering a serious downturn until the return of American Idol in the fall.
You uneducated, inexperienced (make that NO experienced) idiots, Bass Berry is a preeminent healthcare firm in the Southeast (where healthcare just happens to be a major industry, now, before and probably forever), but how would you know - you were born like less than 25 years ago so you don't really know anything about the long term life of any given industry or sector, or even what it means to work for a living).
There, I feel better now.
The lawyers at Bass Berry (like many regional firms) routinely counsel their clients, AND your hotshot -um, Biglaw - colleagues (or is that 'wannabe' colleagues) on major acquisitions and dispositions of entire healthcare systems, as well as the litigation that invariably falls out from those deals. And they do it at 'real world' rates, something you guys might think about coming to terms with, given your entitled attitude about 160k out of the box, when you are worth ZERO for at least a year. And you're never gonna see, BTW. So, STFU about Nashville and related academe.
Oh, and, Rocky Top is quite possibly the VERY BEST football fight song ever. And Vandy has ivy growing all over the place.
In short, don't talk if you don't know what you're talking about, and most of you don't.
-x's and o'sl from a Fla. biglaw partner who's been around the TN bar and lots of healthcare work.
You uneducated, inexperienced (make that NO experienced) idiots, Bass Berry is a preeminent healthcare firm in the Southeast (where healthcare just happens to be a major industry, now, before and probably forever), but how would you know - you were born like less than 25 years ago so you don't really know anything about the long term life of any given industry or sector, or even what it means to work for a living).
There, I feel better now.
The lawyers at Bass Berry (like many regional firms) routinely counsel their clients, AND your hotshot -um, Biglaw - colleagues (or is that 'wannabe' colleagues) on major acquisitions and dispositions of entire healthcare systems, as well as the litigation that invariably falls out from those deals. And they do it at 'real world' rates, something you guys might think about coming to terms with, given your entitled attitude about 160k out of the box, when you are worth ZERO for at least a year. And you're never gonna see, BTW. So, STFU about Nashville and related academe.
Oh, and, Rocky Top is quite possibly the VERY BEST football fight song ever. And Vandy has ivy growing all over the place.
In short, don't talk if you don't know what you're talking about, and most of you don't.
-x's and o'sl from a Fla. biglaw partner who's been around the TN bar and lots of healthcare work.
Tough to hear for the folks involved, but yeah Bass is HCA's regular counsel and does pretty well for a regional firm. The V-5 firms would give their right nut (assuming they are male) to have a client such as HCA.
Unfortunately, some of Bass' other clients aren't doing so well...not a unique event in regional markets, although these firms aren't losing much from the big NYC I-banks going down, when overall business suffers their clients suffer as well.
Today I left work at 4:00 because I didn't feel like reading a narrative some FBI gave me months ago. We don't have competition out there, so no biggie. I went home and worked on the chess set that I am whittling. My wife made baked beans. Layoffs sound like bad news when I think about it. But I don't often.
A few thoughts....
(A) Based on comments I've read on this site over the last 18 months or so, I would guess that the volume-weighted avg. level of practice of commenters would be about minus-one years, due to the volume of law students. Point being, most folks who comment here don't have much basis for insight into the TN market. Or any market. Or the practice of law generally. That's my impression.
(B) Bass Berry is a very, very good regional firm with old-school attitudes towards duties owed to employees. On that basis, its decision to lay folks off is news.
(C) No. 5, I suspect you have no idea what "jumped the shark" means and have just seen it used as disapproval on the internet. If you think you know what it means, hit Wikipedia again because it just doesn't make sense here.
(D) No. 52 (and doppelganger No. 53), if you live in a city where 2% of the population can identify or cares about ANY law firm, that sounds like an awful city. I'm guessing, however, that 100% of the people in any city would think it's funny that you get snarky about levels of sophistication in a comment and then post it twice in quick succession due to your own inability to successfully navigate a blog.
(E) This point (E) is purely for No. 52 (and doppelganger No. 53). In case you need a second look to take it all in, see the above. Read...it...slowly. Sound...out...the...words. Doppelganger is a tough one, especially without the umlaut, but you should be able to look it up.
(F) No. 24, I don't mind the PE voice, but I do mind the avatar image. It looks like you printed an internet image on colored construction paper and then scanned it on a low-resolution scanner. Surely your illustrious firm can do better than that?
(G) I went to UT undergrad and have, therefore, heard a LOT of versions of Rocky Top. None of them have been solemn, and I'm not sure you can have a solemn version of a song that contains the line "wild as a mink." With that said, the whole darn thing is about moonshine running and the second verse implies that some ATF folk get whacked in the narrative. It's ambiguous; you be the judge. If your imagination is fired, google "Popcorn Sutton". If you were to cast a moonshiner for the movies, you would turn this guy down as being too expected for the part.
In any event, take care. Good luck BBS folks and all of the rest of us.
71
excellent
63
Not entirely true. Some are fishing for information.
The dross percentage here is near 1, but just short, so a few minutes in a effort to reduce that percentage, while listening to some idiotic conference call on mute may be time well spent.
People think NY Big Law is still a bastion of WASP establishment, but nowadays most of the real old money can't meet the standards set by their more illustrious predecessors. Thus, NY is chock full of minorities and "working-class made good" ivy leaguers. Bass, on the other hand, is hilariously old money establishment, and thus > than wannabe NY social climbers
Three cheers for 67 / 68 for taking the cudgel to you knuckledragging, pretentious Biglaw posers. Come on over to TN and we'll show you how it's done. We actually try cases here and don't just shovel paper around to bill someone $500 per hour.
# 54, for your information, Bass, Berry & Sims gets people from the top of the class and on the Law Review at Vandy who turned down Biglaw offers in other cities. These are folks who want to do top-notch work in a livable city and have time for family and community activities.
# 54, for your information, Bass, Berry & Sims gets people from the top of the class and on the Law Review at Vandy who turned down Biglaw offers in other cities. These are folks who want to do top-notch work in a livable city and have time for family and community activities.
# 54, for your information, Bass, Berry & Sims gets people from the top of the class and on the Law Review at Vandy who turned down Biglaw offers in other cities. These are folks who want to do top-notch work in a livable city and have time for family and community activities.
76,77,78
1) Learn how to post.
2) Vandy is TTT garbage with biglaw offers from houston and dallas. All hail TX, the Wal-Mart of America.
///M STUD
74 - You don't know how great it was to learn that I am part of the old money establishment. I was so tickled I told Maw to put her teeth in and Paw to put the banjo down so we could celebrate with a fancy dinner down at the Cracker Barrel.
P.S. You are a douche. You're probably that moron at BABC who fell for the email scam.
#79, try DC and NY. I know it is difficult for you to imagine, but there is life beyond those markets.
#79, try DC and NY. I know it is difficult for you to imagine, but there is life beyond those markets.
I was top 25% at a top ten school and spent a summer at Bass Berry - did not get an offer, now work for a much better firm in a much bigger city (after federal clerkship). It's not true that they have "balanced" lives - they work at least as much as I do now, and on crappy regional cases where the clients nickel and dime every .1 billable. Plus, I feel fairly sure that I was not hired because 1) I am a woman and was interested in a practice group that had no women attorneys in Nashville, period and 2) I'm not from the south. I've never really felt discriminated against except during my time at Bass Berry. I feel sorry for associates there, but think there are better options out there for them - definitely.
81, 82
1) Learn how to post.
2) VanderbilTTT cannot compete with HYS grads. I'm sure your top grads made it to Locke Lorde and drive audi a4's. Also, your colleagues purchase suits from jOs A. BanK and Gentlemen's Wearhouse = fail
///M Purple Label STUD
65, 71, etc:
Your inferiority complex doesn't become you. Yes, many on this board that aspire to be or are a part of BigLaw in a real city will not make the cut -- but they have a shot and in the meantime they will get exposed to work and a network that a Bass Berry associate will never have anything close from which to benfit. But if they do get cast aside, most will have opportunities to continue at a higher level, then any Bass Berry associate will likely ever get. So yes, a Bass Berry associate may have a relatively decent lifestyle in a decent, but parochial town; however, they will never have a shot at the big leagues, because they didn't make the first cut. And oh yes, those bigger bonuses and paychecks get the loans paid off and allow you to start building wealth (check out what time and compounding interest achieves when you save 10K versus 1K) -- BigLaw allows you to start putting real money away...Good luck with your career path because it has already been limited by going to TN to a regional firm versus a AmLaw 50 in NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, etc....
Yeah here's an excerpt from the bio of a really unsuccessful non big league partner at Bass Berry....he could only dream of being a document drone for BigLaw so he could make it to the Big League.....:
American Bar Association (Chair, Coordinating Task Force on Financial Markets and Institutions, Business Law Section; Chair, National Task Force on Corporate Responsibility, 2002-2003; Chair, Section of Business Law, 1998-1999; Chairman, Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities, 1987-1991)
American Law Institute
Board of Advisors, Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society
Honors & Distinctions
Chairman, Legal Advisory Committee, New York Stock Exchange, 1989-1992
Chairman, Legal Advisory Board, National Association of Securities Dealers, 1996-1998
Chairman, San Diego Securities Institute, 2001—2004
Here's a perspective from someone who has visited Nashville on occassion:
If you enjoy live music (yes...there's even a good music scene beyond "pop/country"), good weather, smoking hot girls, no income tax, a decent city (with a university feel), and typical, regional market legal work, then Nashville is a great city.
If you want a TN city to shit on, go for Memphis...it's worthy of the criticism.
Love NYC, but if you value money, probably not the place to reside.
85 -- I feel very sorry for you -- perhaps more sorry than I do for the Bass Berry associates that were laid off.
Maybe God will make an exception for you and let you bring your "wealth" with you.
87 speaks the truth about Nashville and Memphis. Except on the regional matters - some firms litigate national matters as well (e.g., Neal & Harwell).
- Memphis resident
Jack Daniel's - the very smooth sippin whiskey that is easily consumed straight or on the rocks.
"Rocky Top" for purists- most (incl. U.T. fans) will never hear a true rendition; unless you know where
to go on a weekend night in the quite rural Cumberland to the Smokey Mts, bring your whittling
or knitting; sit around the potbellied stove and listen to
some of the most gifted banjo (and other instruments
most have never heard of) players play! They are the
real thing.
Nashville (before the Chamber of Commerce and a couple of politician decided we should be Music City)
The Athens of the South-and still is.
The major staging ground (very secretive) Where
Bobby Kennedy, Dr. King and many others met
to prepare to enter MS, AL. & GA to desegragate
the South.
Nashville first city to integrate lunch counters, etc
Three major Black institutions of higher education.
Until recently, most Black physicans were educated in Nashville
Some of the public Magnate schools are in the top
30 of all H.S. in the nation..
Peabody the number 1 Special Educ. program
at least since the 1930's when my Aunt went there,
Private for- profit Healthcare birth place and capitol of the world.
....and the list could go on.....but
The law, law firms, and lawyers.
We actually have (most are sole practitioners
or small pertnerships) some of the most well
reguarded nationally recognized experts and
specialist in U. S. law------ even NYC biglaw
calls on them. They also make a lot of case law.
0
Jack Daniel's - the very smooth sippin whiskey that is easily consumed straight or on the rocks.
"Rocky Top" for purists- most (incl. U.T. fans) will never hear a true rendition; unless you know where
to go on a weekend night in the quite rural Cumberland to the Smokey Mts, bring your whittling
or knitting; sit around the potbellied stove and listen to
some of the most gifted banjo (and other instruments
most have never heard of) players play! They are the
real thing.
Nashville (before the Chamber of Commerce and a couple of politician decided we should be Music City)
The Athens of the South-and still is.
The major staging ground (very secretive) Where
Bobby Kennedy, Dr. King and many others met
to prepare to enter MS, AL. & GA to desegragate
the South.
Nashville first city to integrate lunch counters, etc
Three major Black institutions of higher education.
Until recently, most Black physicans were educated in Nashville
Some of the public Magnate schools are in the top
30 of all H.S. in the nation..
Peabody the number 1 Special Educ. program
at least since the 1930's when my Aunt went there,
Private for- profit Healthcare birth place and capitol of the world.
....and the list could go on.....but
The law, law firms, and lawyers.
We actually have (most are sole practitioners
or small pertnerships) some of the most well
reguarded nationally recognized experts and
specialist in U. S. law------ even NYC biglaw
calls on them. They also make a lot of case law.
0
I took a class with Vice Chancellor Strine of the Delaware Chancery Court, David Katz of Wachtell Lipton, and Jim Cheek of Bass Berry Sims; Strine and Katz didn’t seem to mind sharing the podium with Cheek one bit, and if they did think less of his firm, town, or market they certainly kept it to themselves. The New York Stock Exchange also didn’t seem to mind that Bass Berry Sims is, as is clear from the comments here, a back-water ill-staffed and untalented collection of yokels when they hired Bass Berry over the whitest shoes in the Big Apple. And I’m pretty sure that it didn’t make Latham & Watkins feel any better that Bass Berry is a podunk waste-of-space law firm when Bass Berry licked them in Genesco v. Finish Line.
Also, the difference in market salary between Nashville and New York is more than washed by the difference in cost-of-living. The difference in rent alone would put a Nashville attorney way ahead of a comparable New York attorney on student loan payments.
In the end, who cares? What was missed here is that ten more attorneys have been laid off. I clerked at Bass Berry Sims; they are all talented attorneys and good, decent people to boot. I hope for nothing but the best for them.
86: you always need regional diversity on those circle jerk committees....How many HSR filings did they do last year or the year before.... 1, 2 maybe 5... thought so, b/c no one hired them in the boom to do their big deals that required a HSR
90: Marty Lipton and Joe Flom holding on line one wanting to know how to handle a hostile takeover... yeah right...
92: it was the polite thing to do ... I'm sure Mr. Cheek is a fine gentlemen... wow won a case against the big law firm- just perhaps the facts stunk and they just wanted to make them feel some pain in litigating- i seem to remember a bunch sheister PI firms made money suing big tobacco, doesn't mean they aren't sheisters.....NYSE: name the matter and size, if you can't (don't mean generically --let's see the press), if no press, then = scut work.
google perry march
At least the drones remaining will get to enjoy their brand new building that will be funded with the salaries they saved. The glass tower in the sky will reflect back on them.
A somber version of Rocky Top? There's practically no such thing. That song is 7 or 8 verses of a toe-tapping good time, and any true Tennesseean smiles at the mere thought of it, laid off or not.
Now, if you want something to mourn to, I recommend the Tennessee Waltz. There's a song that speaks your pain.