2nd?

LATHAM SECURE

Giving you the third

So what do all of the whimpering Latham alums [who enjoyed excellent severance pay] have to say now?

Skadden and Gibson are not Latham's peers. Cravath and S&C are Latham's peers.

6 = EPIC FAILURE IN LIFE AND COMMON SENSE.

LAtham = Latham (LA). Use this from now on.

I have an offer from Latham. Should I go there? Anything I need to know about the firm or its history?

9 = laid off Latham Associate.

Hope it happens.

Will the pay raise affect all associates or only the children of partners? Will you get a pay raise even if you did not pass the bar?

Plenty of questions left unanswered here, folks.

Well played, 12.

12 - motherfucker, get over it. If you dad was a Latham partner your ass would not be fired either. This is how life works douchebag. I don't know why this has come as such a shock.

PH is Latham's peer firm

Elie, this post is idiotic.

Why are you selling Layoff & Washout's PR for raises of unknown amount that it is speculated might happen at some point? After the firm was the first to freeze salaries and had layoffs of unprecedented size and scope? Jesus christ man, report it when they actually give someone a raise.

Latham to V5!!!!

"We’ve anticipated that one day firms would unfreeze associate salaries."

Elie, NO YOU HAVEN'T. Don't lie. Show me any record of you anticipating any good news!

When it looked like there would never again be good news, you were there cheer-leading the end of biglaw. Some of us said biglaw would remain in some familiar form.

Now that there is sporadic but increasing good news you say, "oh uh yeah, uh we knew that biglaw would uh be back uh better than ever. You remember, right?"

No we don't. You can't fucking have it both ways ATL. I'm not saying that the boom is on. I'm just saying that you and YOUR fear-mongering begs an apology. Do it now!

Latham DC is raising back to full market.

If that's not the office you had as your source, now you have two sources.

15 = PH Associate

Skadden and Gibson >>>>>>>>> Latham --- (clearly!!!)

Calm down, man! The raise will be 30 pieces of silver for all of your hard work and dedication through these trying times.

See how quickly a firm can rebound when it takes swift action by firing the worst performers, including dozens of incompetent first-years.

Well done Latham!

18 is right, ATL. You never once went on record "anticipat[ing] that one day firms would unfreeze associate salaries." Substantiate your statements or retract them and admit your money-hungry mistake.

Why do the commenters hijack every single post to talk about Latham?

14 clearly has an anger management problem, and no sense of humor whatsoever. Are you German by any chance?

Yours truly,

- 12

23--how can a firm that hires incompetent first years ever effect a recovery? If its hiring practices are bad, it probably fired the wrong people too.

Talking to our law firm clients, we also heard that many who previously froze are planning a one step increase in 2010.

And oh, if you aren't already using Chrometa, try a free trial today and see why it can help you track and organize your time in seconds and even recoup lost time!

http://www.chrometa.com

i hope students now realize that they have no power. you can say laTTTham all day long on your anonymous law blogs, but when it comes time to recruit, you'll line up around the block to work for a place like this, or omm, or orrick, or shearman, or white and case, or anybody else who made deep cuts.

Talking to the Chrometa (sick software btw) guys, they say their law firm clients who previously froze are planning a one step bump in 2010.

Keep the good news coming, Elie!

GIVE THE READERS WHAT THEY WANT!!

27 = 145 LSAT Score. Horrible reasoning.

Unfreezing salaries = the new "Lathaming"

Hopefully more firms will Latham their associates like this.

The sad reality is that there are enough unemployed lawyers seeking jobs right now that they will work at just about any salary. Personally, I spend many hours looking for a job each day, and when I'm not doing that I'm banging my rock hard girlfriend.

Latham is not equal to Gibson and Skadden -- hahaha. Latham's big clients no longer exist! Latham SUCKS

Latham says they're raising salaries?

Prepare for another round of layoffs! Everyone interrogate your parents and grandparents, you may have a Nepotism Lifeboat too!

LOL ^^^^^^^^^

32--explain what is so wrong. The assertion was that the firm fired incompetent first-years. They hired these people, vetted some of them for a summer and hired them after that. Then, suddenly they conclude they're incompetent? I think their ability to distinguish competence from incompetence is impaired.

34 - your girlfriend' brain must be a rock as well if she would stay with an unemployed deadbeat as yourself. Or are you talking about banging a mannequin? Must be a mannequin.

still a shithole

Great news for once! Hope it's true. Maybe we can avoid having salaries go to 145k if others follow latham in carving 160 in stone.

1-41 - you are morons. who cares about latham? it's not a NY firm.

Elie is a new man. Born anew. I know that he will be on the hunt for good news from this day forth.....

Time to turn the tides, Elie! And good luck with the student loan bailout - you have my full support.

34, she couldn't be too rock hard, given that I just finished fucking her up the ass for over an hour. I'd say she's loose, at least she was when I last saw her sitting on the crapper.

38 is dumb

Well so much for Latham having any recruiting troubles due to its "mistreatment" of a few underperforming first-year failures.

BLACK TACO!

Knowing Latham, they'll be raising salaries in January and firing 300 people in September.

This is the first time I've seen "Layoff and Washouts" used to describe LW. Surprised that nickname didn't come sooner.

34 and 44 - At what age did you start bangin' trannies?

29 is right. It really doesn't make any difference what people say about Latham or any other firm, there are enough law grads and unemployed lawyers out there that they will never run out of potential employees/victims.

They may have a little more trouble capturing the T14/snob crowd if/when the job market recovers, but so what? They will still have plenty of applicants.

38, it's true that the laid off Latham first years were so incompetent they never should have been hired in the first place. Latham probably should reform its summer program so associates that incompetent are never hired again. The missing step in your logic is that Latham has realized that it made a bunch of bad hires and has, hopefully, rectified the situation. The fact that so many Latham first years are still unemployed is pretty good evidence that they never should have been hired in the first place. If Latham made a mistake, it was in being overly generous with severance for rank incompetence.

All that was told to LW associates was that salaries will be "returning to market" at a state of the firm meeting at the Peninsula office.

"Return to market" could mean down. Clients in silicon valley who strive to shave a quarter penny of the cost of a microchip are starting to ask what on earth these people do that warrants $400/ hour.

High Tech companies are demanding flat fees rather than billed hours. This, combined with the recent ABA decision allowing legal work to be outsourced should have all Biglaw associates on their toes.

Partner Emeritus will cut 5 hard working and competent associates before his annual raise and bonus will be put into question.

Rumors out of Latham NY are that not only are salaries returning to the old 160k scale, but that the bonuses (for those lucky enough to bill the firm minimum) would compensate for the past year's lost compensation due to the ill-advised salary freeze.

So, if the base bonus is $17,500 -- according to this rumor -- the Latham bonus would be $17,500 *plus* whatever amount the associate missed out on this year by having his/her salary frozen.

DEAL FLOW IS BACK BABY

35, WTF are you talking about? Dumb law students just don't understand economics: clients don't give a shit about the "prestige" of a firm. Just go to google news and punch in latham & watkins. You will see that the firm is in on multiple billion dollar deals.

Thanks 49, glad someone noticed - it was more creative than anything I put in an agreement today.

-- 16

16, 49, 56 - underperforming

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/09/incisive_media_american_lawyer_media.php?show=comments#comment-1216337

56, this is 49. I never saw that thread but I maintain that Layoffs & Washouts >>> Layoffs & Wastebins. Both are pretty hysterical ways to refer to LW though.

totally true, lw ny was told this at a meeting this week.

51 FTW!!!

This "interblog", or whatever it is, is truly a piece of crap.

This "interblog", or whatever it is, is truly a piece of crap.

Latham rules - and it is absolutely clear that all of the losers that Latham had to terminate were simply substandard. Face the truth.

This "interblog", or whatever it is, is truly a piece of crap.

Evan here, writing from Hong Kong. The past week has been very busy, thus it has taken a couple of weeks to put up another post.

The number of US associate openings continues to increase in Asia, especially in Hong Kong and Greater China, and especially in now-busy capital markets groups. Two particularly special and urgent openings are for M&A 4th to 7th year associates for Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Skadden, Gibson =/= Latham. Sorry.

Skadden and Gibson didn't lay off 50% of their first years, didn't freeze salaries, and aren't generally terrible things.

52- the associates committee chairman confirmed a likely double raise for all domestic offices at a dc meeting a few weeks ago. He did not mention bonuses.

I should probably start one of these schticky characters on here and try to get a little ongoing joke going.

Each new shtick is less funny than the last. I don't know why these people think they're funny.

Fuck, Latham could go to 200k + full salary bonus for first years if they wanted to -- there's nobody left to pay.

Hey David, the Matthew Sheppard Act just cleared congress. Is this blog called "Above the Lawfrim" or "Ablove the Law?"

I never thought I'd say this, but I wish I were at Latham...

- Depressed at DLA

72 - I know about 190 other associates that feel the same way.

Now that Latham got rid of all of the douchebags and losers, I bet it is a pretty decent place to work.

74,

Yes, instead of dbags and losers, Latham will now be full of desperate idiots who couldn't get offers anywhere else.

Latham to $190k!!! Suck it bitches!!!

73 - are they all at DLA, or other firms too? I bet a lot of them are at MoFo.

75 - I think you're correct. Pretty sure Latham got crushed during OCI at my T14 school this year. I don't know a single person who accepted their offer if they had other firms' offers in hand. Salary freeze + mass layoffs = no appeal to law students with multiple offers.

Walrus,

Stop playing coy. Tell the people what they want to know - how does this information affect blacks, Hispanics, women, and the LBGT community?

Please impart your wisdom and expertise on this matter immediately.

I'm still not over the fact that 34 bragged about the fact that some girl he supposedly sleeps with is "rock hard."

What the hell? Are we in Opposite Village? Does apple sauce eat people? Do law schools teach law?

Maybe this is why the man is unemployed...

Ease up, 80, some of us like hard-body twat. There's nothing sexier than fucking some bitch whose chest is so hard that she feels like a male gymnast.

I'm popping a California redwood just thinking about it.

81 = tree humper.

81
Those are girls that have yet to reach puberty. You sir, are a pederass.

let's see how long we can keep this running joke about gibson going......

wait, wait.....they don't have any decent corporate clients???? their new york office has one partner who occasionaly gets "favors" from friends (keep up the ruse, sean!).

for the love of god, i dont give a shit about latham, but can we please stop pretending that either gibson or skadden is a decent firm?

No doubt, it sucked to be a Latham associate circa March 2009. But there really are not many (if any) firms that are better positioned going forward.

I'm sorry to interrupt the whine-fest about layoffs, but the reality is that Latham really is one of the best-managed law firms. As much as all of the risk-averse little bitches that can't cut it would like to think that law firms should abstain from firing anyone, the best business model is to leverage up in good times and scale back in poor times. Is this great for associates? Of course not. But it is the way of the business world, and if you can't handle it, you should get the fuck out.

85,

Yep, best managed firms lose many of their rainmakers to competing firms in just 8 short months. Unfreezing is a response to their worst than usual recruiting yield and inability to attract laterals and retain senior associates. While LW isn't worse than most other big firms, to call it one of the best managed firms is absolutely ridiculous.

"But it is the way of the business world, and if you can't handle it, you should get the fuck out."

Everyone is a tough-guy-bad-ass Biglaw associate like you until they are not.

It's called desperation. They are going to throw a bone to the people still working there because the morale is in the toilet and they all fear for their jobs. But, associates should know that when a firm makes less than 30 partners worldwide in a given year, their days are numbered. They should make sure that they have a comfy savings account cause they'll need it when LW unceremoniously tosses them out on their asses in a couple years.

The ship be ... floating?

LOL 85... Yeah, that's right 85, it only sucked in March, not for long, long before that due to large scale "stealth" layoffs, and I'm sure everything was hunky dory afterward... no morale problem here, move along, move along...

I do have to give you credit for truthfulness on one point though - unlike most of the Kool Aid drinking boosters, you come right out and admit that Latham's deliberate and conscious business model is to overhire during booms and then conduct mass firings in the following downturn. Folks, there you have it, item #1 of the L&W business philosophy. Thanks for your honesty.

Next week's lesson: Hire gullible frat boys who think you're just like them and won't see it coming.

First !

It's PUSSY FART time; bitches - let 'em RIP!!

The market is clearly bouncing back. Most corporate practices in NYC are very busy - and getting understaffed.

That should bode well for Bonus season. This crisis is over. Time for ATL to get it and get back on message.

Are corporate practices really busy in NYC? Because my office is still slow.

1. Latham raising salaries two bumps while everybody else may raise them just one bump is an example of desperation and bad management. It is a waste of money - pure and simple. Same as paying bonuses to people 3 weeks before laying them off and giving 6 months severance to 1st years and secretaries. Such drastic steps would not have been necessary if the firm has tried to balance their associate and staff count to begin with. What they are doing now is trying to cheaply buy themselves back into the rankings and into the graces of quality applicants.

2. Do you honestly believe that best people will go to a firm that pays 10K more but has laid off 45% of their NY office. Latham has laid off over 500 associates - that is the size of entire BigLaw firm. Please recall back when nobody good would go to Shearman regardless of their pay and they great summer program. In relatively good times, highly risk-averse people (which lawyers are), will not take a risk of getting laid off for extra 10k. They will go to places that appear to have laid off least people and appear most stable. Latham has for the 2nd time shown what their strategy is overhire, use and throw out. Half of the people at a formerly top firm could not all be incompetent - look around your mediocre firm - laid off people are better than your stars. It's a fool me once, full me twice deal. If you work for Latham and economy turns - you are 50% more likely to be out of a job.

3. Latham is a shitty place to work now because everybody who is left is there because of politics which means that they are suckups, douchebags and/or there due to nepotism. This kind of kills the whole Latham culture that used to exist - which was the biggest draw. Let me say it one more time - pleasant and collegial Latham culture is gone. Think worse than Skadden. Douches who are still there were forced to work 300 hours a month and they obviously are tired and want to be compensated because they will jump ship to a firm that pays same, higher ranked and there you have to bill 200. Extra 10k or even say 25k for extra 100 hours a month amounts to 2 dollars an hour - even illegals won't work for that wage.

4. Latham is not growing, but decaying. So for your extra 10k a year, you will never make partner and will be working for some hedge fund in-house after 8 years of billing 2500 a year. If you think long term, the extra 10k is not worth it.

5. Most importantly, can you trust anything that Latham management says? Their offers and promises aren't worth the recycled paper they are printed on. This is just one of those lies because they want you to work hard while the deal flow is there. If the deal flow dies down - they didn't promise you shit.

thanks for the analysis 94

The most bitter pill is still to come -- that is the fact the highest levels of L&W have realized that it will need more bodies to do the work. Firing so many people and not considering at least some of them for rehire will truly be unconscionable.

96 - Morally, re-hiring the attorneys they laid off sounds like the right thing to do, but from a business perspective it would be disasterous. By this point, the severance monies have been spent and the ex-Lathamites have zero love for their former employer. While many of them might jump at the offer to get a steady paycheck again, most of them will likely look to leave or sabotage Latham the second a better opportunity comes around.

94 - You obviously don't work here. Your numbers and assessment are hyperbolized beyond recognition (since when does a cut of 190 associates = 500?). Why so angrily bitter about news that is a) good for Latham, and b) good for other firms considering salary decisions?And if you do work here and you're that bitter, I can speak for a lot of us here: please leave. With your incredibly asstounding analytical skills, I'm sure you could work anywhere you wanted.

98 - You're failing to account for all the stealth layoffs (aka "counsel outs") that have happened since the beginning of the year. While I'm not sure if that number adds up to over 500 associate firings total, it's certainly a hell of a lot more than 190 associates.

94 is clearly a greedy partner at a competing firm who does not want to cough up the extra 10k per associate.

94 here,

190 included only one out of at least three layoffs. First, approximately 200 mid to junior people were laid off stealthly before March. In NY, these layoffs started in the fall and amounted to a total of 67 people on my last count while I was still at Latham and could check all those people one by one. Extrapolate that to the entire firm considering NY is only about 15% of the firm and you can easily come up with 200. Further, after March there were pretty massive layoffs of senior associates and counsel with the premise that if you don't make it this year, you are out. That was not the usual premise and people were given more time. That's about 40 more. Plus you have to consider all the behind the scenes layoffs in international offices that are never publicized - they are people and attorney too. So, 500 is a lowball number. It is likely higher.

Yes, you heard it here. Latham laid off 500 people, an entire Big law firm, and now they don't have enough people to do the work. Surely, this is a sign of a well-managed firm.

If a firm lays off 10% of associates, it is likely that they are underperformers. If a firm lays off 50%, the firm is the underperformer.

I think attorneys who are still there and have been working hard (like no other peer firm) under fear of layoffs should get a bonus and should get increase in salary...even though they are a bunch of suckups and fake billers. But please don't imagine that it is done to compensate you for your good work - it is done out of alterior motives to save Latham's reputation and out of fear of losing massive amounts of people once things turn around. It is basically paid to you so you stay next year when they expect to be busy. But what if their expectations are wrong (wouldn't be the first time)? You will be out on the street. If I had a chance to move to another higher ranked firm with a solid NY practice and presence and less work, I would take it. But there is no reason to listen to me since laid off means incompetent, stupid and lazy.

And for you junior associates who are trying to make partner starting from your 2nd year - you won't make partner at Latham because they are so bloated in their partner ranks and have not let any of them go. Further, the firm is decaying, thus deminishing partnership opportunities.

Lay off 94. I don't begrude Latham associates some good news, but it just seems odd and unwise in this continuously crappy market to start dangling cash. Logically, I think you only do this if you want laterals, becaase, obviously, incumbents at Latham are not going to be flying the coup. Latham will eventually recover, but as a potential lateral or partner hire, I would think twice, thrice, four times before jumping to a firm that was recently in such straits that it had to had to fork out millions to jettison a large share of its fee-earning work force. "Market" pay is not going to remove the stench of disaster that firm still emanates; in this market it's just money down the drain.

94- Firms that only raise one bump are not "unfreezing," they are failing to advance their associate ranks a class. If a firm is going to maintain their commitment to the lockstep structure of their unfrozen competitors, a double bump is the only thing that makes sense.

Here at Latham we still need someone to photocopy our balls.
We discovered it was unwise to self-ball-photocopy.
People with frozen salaries were starting to complain it was not on thier job description. Thus increase in pay, but you still gotta photocopy our balls.

It's not about starting salaries, it's about attracting experienced talent. I don't know many midlevels who would leave for another large firm and take a $20,000 pay cut. Maybe that makes sense to a law student who still buries his nose in vault rankings (oooh! this firm is 7 places higher in prestige!!), but to the rest of us it's stupid without very good reason.

Most NY law firms who use to be peer to Latham have not frozen salaries, thus to just be market to them Latham would have to double jump.

105, wouldn't the opposite be true. Many talented midlevels would not stay with Latham if Latham does not do a double jump since they would be paid 20k less.

106, yes that's true as well. I'm sure a lot have thought about jumping ship, but in this economy that's far too risky for most (assuming there are even lateral opportunities) because as a new lateral hire you can expect a higher probability of being a victim of layoffs. I think Latham is recognizing that if 2010 is a better year for the economy, they need to become competitive salary-wise again.

Houston to 190! Suck it haters.

I'm an associate at Latham. Word is they are going to do the double bump and in addition that they will compensate us for this past year's freeze. Rationale, I think, is that they were getting hammered in recruiting this year. In addition, they were starting to lose mid-levels to other firms.

109 - so you're going to get a check for, say, $20,000? Nice if true.

I don't work at Latham (though I often sign my posts Latham Secure for the irony), can someone shed some light on this "nepotism" allegation? What happened, someone kept their job through a layoff round because of family ties? Name names.

-Latham Secure

111 - You've got the story right. The only color I would add is that the partner's kid who kept his job supposedly failed the bar, which seriously calls into question the firm's decision to keep him employed. Either way, nepotism exists in all firms across all industries at all levels, so I don't know what the big deal is. I think people just enjoy piling on Latham since they've become Biglaw's whipping boy over the last year.

nepotism = caucasian affirmative action

Response to 9:

I was an Associate in DC's Envtl. Dep't from 2002 to 2006, and I have only good things to say about the people I worked with. Admittedly, times were better then, but I doubt an economic downturn would have changed what I liked about my time there. The quality of work we did was top-notch, I received great training, and (believe it or not) the attorneys in the Envtl. Dep't were genuinely nice to work with.

I'm sure my post will elicit accusations that I'm an insider posing as a former assoc. Believe what you will. Based on my experience at LW, I would not hesitate to recommend that you accept an offer. If you are going to practice in a big law firm, I doubt you can do better.

114, 9 was an obvious troll post, and your response shows the quick wit of the average Latham lawyer...

115, if anything, it shows my lack of familiarity with the types of people who post on this website. In any case, the post was meant for everyone to read. Whether or not 9 was an 'obvious troll post' has no bearing on what I meant to say.

Whil Latham returns to market, DLA will use their new salary structure to cut associate pay even further. Is Latham hiring laterals?

117

yes and they will have to recruit from DLA because laterals from good firms won't be considering them

112

4 first years at Latham NY failed the bar. 3 were fired. the one who stayed is the son of a practice group leader.

and no "that's just how it is" doesn't excuse latham's bad behavior. imagine being one of latham's clients and paying $400 an hour for this guy's work. i'd look for another firm.

LOL at Latham's peers being Gibson and Skadden. uh, no, gibson and skadden didn't dump half of their NY offices and did not layoffs huge numbers of first years throughout the firm.

Latham's peers are Proskauer, Clifford Chance, and Cadwalader, and that's being generous.

TTT in decline. they won't get top students and laterals anymore, the quality of services will decline, and they'll descened further into the abyss.

I can haz Latham job?

sinseerlie,

top 1/3 at Loyola

All of us at the firm saw the writing on the wall by the time February rolled around. Despite language any reasonable person would have interpreted as a “no-layoff” promise, coupled with discussions about how securely leveraged the firm was, it was still clear to all of us at the ground level that things were not going well. Whispers of impromptu partner meetings buzzed around the firm halls, cliques of young associates gathered together in offices to discuss the latest ATL gossip, chatter of suspiciously high rates of “counseled out” associates (i.e. stealth layoffs) spread like wildfire on the firm’s messaging system. It was the worst of times, and we all knew it.

When I was a summer associate, regular conversation fodder for our unnecessarily grandiose lunch and dinner hobnobbing events would be tales of the “hazing” that would ensue shortly after our firm life started. We heard stories of associates setting up cots in office corners, and of keeping pillows nearby to sneak a quick under-the-desk nap if an all-nighter had to be pulled. When it comes to”Big Law” clients do not wait, and why should they, they were paying “Big Bucks” for a reason. One summer associate dared to ask a partner point-blank about “work-life balance” at the firm. He said “honestly, how do you do it… do you find it hard to juggle a family, and life at the firm, because looking in it doesn’t seem easy to me.” The poor fellow did not get an offer (he was likely better off).

We all knew the firm was paying to own us, and we were for the most part, ok with that, it was the deal we were signing up for. At least for a few years until we were able to pay our debts and gain some valuable experience along the way. Enough experience to escape the grind, and go in-house or to a boutique with better hours. This very thinking is what firms count on and what forms the basis of Big Law economics. The attrition rate is the name of the game; it is the key statistic that all firms have to manage around. How much grain will fall through the cracks this year?

The higher the number of older seasoned associates who decide their time is up the more new Ivy League clay needs to be imported for firm molding. During times of firm success the attrition rate typically hovers around 50% at large firms for third to fifth year associates, these rates are even higher as seniority levels closer to partner are approached. Except during times of economic woe, or near woe, the attrition rate, not unsurprisingly, begins to approach zero. This attrition rate phenomenon, compounded with less new legal business being initiated by the partners in general, along with the fact that many of the firm’s regular steady clients just no longer existed, along with a completely misguided plan of aggressive firm growth, hatched somewhere around 2004-2005, that resulted in unnecessarily doubling and tripling of recruitment efforts each subsequent year, was a surefire recipe for massive layoffs (yes I realize that was a mouthful, and a run-on sentence, but that is just the best way to put it).

Let me give you a peek now at what it was like going to work in the underbelly of the sinking RSS ELF every day for four months. There were two orientation dates for our class of 60. Approximately, half started in September and half in October. Those who started first had a slight advantage over the rest of us, they had an extra month to entrench themselves into the firm’s politics and to position themselves to receive billable projects with less competition, then those joining in October would face.

The firm staffed cases through a central system, no one was supposed to go around the system (but everyone tried with little repercussion). Because there was so little work, projects that would come in would be assigned in a game show fast-buzzer style fashion. Those who read the e-mails quickest, were available at the time and had the fastest typing fingers secured the most work. An e-mail would go out from the central system “I need two attorneys to work on drafting a consumer credit agreement,” three seconds later… “thank you filled.” If you were on the phone, talking to your secretary, reading a case file, and for some reason didn’t see the e-mail the second it came in… consider yourself screwed. Relying on this system to get your work was guaranteed suicide and we all knew this. So instead most newer associates, while of course brushing up on their Mavis Beacon skills, sought other ways to keep busy.

The most popular option was to exploit a feature of the firm’s billing practices (devised in normal times) a feature that allowed for unlimited billable credit for pro bono work . The first years all knew this did not contribute to the firm’s profits, but it did contribute to our monthly hour totals. So each young associated loaded up on as much pro bono work as possible.

Sitting at lunch, we would often go around the table getting a recap of what everyone was working on. And the stories each week would be the same, “what are you working on” “nothing really, but whatever hours I am billing are all to the holocaust reparations program” or the “veterans appeals program” or the “immigration visa program” or the “crimstock program” or the “violence against women program.” We were all content with being busy with pro bono for a couple of reasons, 1) at least we were doing something, 2) it counted towards our required hours, 3) it felt good to help others and get paid Big Firm rates to do it, and 4) who knows, we were told if you do good work on a pro bono matter and network with the right senior associates and partners it could possibly lead to real billable work (hence going around the central system).

Despite our general desire to keep productive, all of us on the inside knew the played-up air of business was nothing but a Potemkin Village. But I fell victim to the pro bono fallacy as well; the consensus was as long as you’re doing pro-bono work you’re billing hours and you should be safe, because it would help keep you on track. This was a bizarre falsehood that no one really believed in the deeper they drilled down on it. Obviously no money was being brought into the firm from these endeavors, in fact– the firm often actually laid out all expenses for indigent clients. But it allowed a young associate to say “I did work today” when no actual billable work was in sight.

The ironic thing was although I kept a healthy stash of pro bono assignments at all times, as hard as I tried I couldn’t get as much as I wanted. I was e-mailing and calling public interest folks all around New York, offering to give my services away free of charge! Every other young associate at the firm had the same idea, and I’d venture to guess that many others at similarly situated Big Law firms did too. Needless to say in the world of Big Law pro bono work as insane as it sounds, supply exceeded demand. Of course all the internal pro bono was staffed immediately and there was not enough to keep 400+ lawyers busy for 8-10 hours a day. The only matters I could get my hands on from “firm approved” outside agencies were will drafting assignments, and when I brought this to the firm’s pro bono committee my request was denied because we didn’t have sufficient partners with expertise to supervise trust and estate matters. A second project, helping an educational company get goods back from their seized warehouse, was similarly denied because of the remote chance that a bank could have had a security interest in the goods and that bank could have at one time been a client of the firm (despite the case clearing conflicts). At one point I even tried to bring in my high school alma matter to incorporate a 501(c)(3) alumni club they had planned to start, which never panned out either.

My officemate, a Dartmouth Undergrad and Harvard Law School Alum (who was also negatively affected by the firm) had this to say about me when recommending me for a position with the federal government after the layoffs occurred:

“when the economy produced scarce billable work, some attorneys were content to wait at their desks until a new project was given to them; [Joblesslawyer] tirelessly sought out pro bono and practice development opportunities, both within and outside the firm.”

Looking back… a lot of good that did me.

Aside from pro-bono, the first year’s attended more CLE classes then most attorneys attend throughout an entire career. If there was an open program being offered it was attended by the first-years. From an hours perspective this was worse than pro-bono time because this was included in our time sheets as “non-billable attorney development.” But choosing between CLE credits or sitting in one’s office watching old episodes of Arrested Development on Hulu (yes this was done regularly by the 95% of associates that had vacant time), the former would usually win out. I left the firm with enough CLE credits for the entire year plus all allowable credits that could be applied to next year. If extras could be transfered to other attorneys, I could likely stay afloat financially just selling my unused but accrued CLE credits from all the firm events I attended. I have enough print outs of power-point slides to wallpaper the Russian Tea Room twice over. So much for showing how eager to learn I was. Although I don’t regret not watching Hulu more, because I now have all the time in the world for that.

The sixty or so first years, no doubt, spent more time organizing a mandatory holiday sing-a-long the two weeks leading up to Christmas than any client billable work up until that point. Those from my class know this is no exaggeration. The holiday party was treated for our purposes as the largest and most important firm client we had ever seen (we hadn’t seen many, but that’s besides the point). We had to take popular holiday songs, change their words to witty legal themed lyrics, practice them and perform them in front of the partners. One choice line was:

“I’m dreaming of a small jail cell… just like the one Bernie Madoff used to know.”

If this would have kept me my job I would have sung all day long, now it just seems embarrassing to even have spent so much time and effort on this. I now imagine the partners snickering to themselves saying “you see the small guy with the Santa hat… he’s a goner” and yes … the Santa hats were mandatory. Despite all the effort opening night was worse than a third grade recital, perhaps our performance played a role in the layoff calculus, since this was some of the most substantial work we engaged in at the firm.

The big picture for us was bleak, and as we were learning this together as a class. We came to hate the arbitrary staffing system because there was nothing we could do to assure work. Further, those getting work were getting it mostly from secret networks, that did not conform to firm protocol and were not available to the rest of us. Typical white shoe cronyism I guess, no surprises there.

This was why when I was staffed on a huge anti-trust case I felt as if I had won the lottery. I worked my butt off on this case. I put in twelve hour days working straight through weekends, and left the office regularly at 4am. Everyone on the project was working these hours, but the strangest thing was we were all ecstatic to do so. “Thank you sir may I have another” was our mantra. To us it was a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of a chance to avoid what we came to see as the inevitable.

Finally though, I was experiencing a little of what I had expected to be experiencing from day one. Things were looking up at least for those of us assigned on this incredible monster document review. If the firm was going to do layoffs they weren’t going to touch the busy people right? Document review rooms were “safe zones”, we came to say. At several points during the review I was even asked by my supervisors to change the “briefing book” to account for some inconsistencies in the documents I spotted during the review process. So naturally that made me more valuable to the firm, right?

Because we all felt lucky to have real work, the document review rooms were a bit more jovial in nature than the rest of the office (where morale was quite low). But there were still many who felt that the document review meant nothing as far as a firm commitment to job security. It turns out in hindsight, they were right. The older associates who knew they had no chance of making their hours, and had more work product to evaluate thought they were the prime targets for layoffs. Ominously they stated “first years are safe.” They would “never target the first years.” The document review room we were in became a group comedy room during breaks, where we would relieve our impending layoff anxiety by joking about them. We went around the table trying to name the best flavors of Ben and Jerry’s we could come up with for a new rescission ready ice cream line: “Pink Slip Peach,” “Strawberry Severance,” “Counseled Out Cobbler,” “Big Boot Blackberry,”… we had many more but I will leave it at that for now. We certainly did have a good laugh, unfortunately the firm had the last laugh.

We discussed at one point if a person could be fired if they could not be located? We thought of ways to either hide ourselves at the office or in the alternative, to wear creative disguises. I suggested wearing those thick black-rimmed glasses with the built in mustache and plastic nose. How could a partner look at you in the face and fire you when your wearing that?

The document review conveniently ended on a Wednesday two days before the layoffs were announced. I forgot my Groucho glasses that day, but something tells me they wouldn’t have mattered.

When I was let go, I asked how the firm decided which 35 of the 60 of us first years they were laying off. He responded it was a “coin flip” it was “not merit based in any way” he said. He said it was partially a matter of what projects you were staffed on (which were out of our control) and what role we played on them, at the time when the layoff decisions were made. I asked the partner if it had anything to do with my horrible golf game that he had to witness at the firm retreat, he assured me it didn’t (although I have serious doubts about that, I was God awful- at one point I tore up a divot bigger than the partner’s head, with his own club and at his country club).

Some of the associates that were kept made sense, there were the associates with Russian language skills, the associates that had been investment bankers in a previous life, those with advanced technical degrees for the IP department and of course a partner’s son. But some of the keeps didn’t make sense, and many of the layoffs didn’t either. I walked out that day with someone with a degree from just about every top law school in the country. As far as the people on my floor alone that were asked to go, one girl was from Columbia, one from NYU, one from Northwestern, one guy from Cornell and my officemate was from Harvard– and that is just one floor. I’m not suggesting these degrees entitle them to something that others who didn’t attend these school are not entitled to. Not at all (I know plenty of great lawyers from all types of schools). I’m simply using it to illustrate the level of legal talent and skill that left the firm that fateful day.

I was told I was being let go on a Friday, and that I had to have my office cleared and my matters wrapped up by the following Monday (i.e. within 3 days). This was a better arrangement than the staff got, who had to vacate the building the day of the layoffs and were not permitted back in, they had to have any personal items that belonged to them mailed, but not by much. When I arrived to work Monday I was not allowed to enter my own office to pack up. I had to be greeted in the lobby by someone from HR who would watch me pack up my personal effects and then escort me out of the building, just to make sure I wasn’t going to take a firm mouse pad, or possibly one of those vacuum packed granola bars they kept in the emergency kits and made such a big deal about replacing.

As I said earlier in the post it was no surprise that the firm was taking cost cutting measures. I just couldn’t understand the ruthlessness of their approach, especially after all the reassuring language we were indoctrinated with at firm events, retreats, and meetings. They went through such great lengths and expense to get us to where we were, and then they were willing to forget about those efforts in a blink of an eye. Attorneys who experienced “merit” based “counsel outs” were treated better. “Counsel Outs” are when attorneys are asked to leave the firm based on poor performance reviews, they are typically given three months to remain associated with the firm before ties are officially cut. During this time they can use the firm resources and say they are still employed by the firm. It allows this group to avoid the “damaged goods” stigma of a layoff! Yet those laid off the day I did got treated with less respect. (I do realize “Counsel Outs” can be used to dishonestly force people out, who during good economic times would never be asked to leave, I’m just using the process for comparison’s sake).

Other firms went through great lengths to offer public interest internships, pro bono fellowships, or other opportunities offering their attorneys half salary but the opportunity to have their employment re-evaluated at the end of the year. At least this shows some effort on the part of the firm to make good on their commitment. I suggested this approach in an e-mail to the managing partner of the New York Office, but he just said “we are keeping all options open” or something similarly vague. Just a month prior to D-day the managing partners had meetings with each class explaining that “layoffs” were a last resort and that the firm would do anything they could to avoid them– only this was not true. The firm cared more about being a “market leader” in severance pay than the future of their discarded, once heavily courted, ex-brethren.

Facing a job market where shockingly, beyond any reason or logic, gaps in a resume or the word “layoff” still welcomes a response worthy of Hester Prynne’s emblazoned “A,” those three months of staying connected with the firm, or similarly a re-evaluation program could have made all the difference for us. C’est la vie.

http://joblesslawyer.com/twas-the-night-before-layoffs-and-all-through-the-firm/

If Latham hires any laterals before rehiring all the laid-off people, they are truly an incredible shit box firm.

seeking out laterals without first re-hiring all the laid-off people will be another pr recruiting nightmare for latham.

yah guys, we fucked your career for nothing. now we're going to hire a bunch of TTTs (the only people willing to lateral to latham now) instead of undoing the damage to your career.

Latham should re-hire the laid-off first years. There's now a shortage of 08 grads because they laid off up to 60% of the first years in some offices. Also, Latham throwing so many first years out into the great depression is one of the major reasons it's taken the recruiting hit.

No one will be able to say "Latham NY laid off 60% of the first year class" anymore

122 - I share you pain. They took my work away on Wednesday as well. I honestly believe they left the worst type of people, not the best and highest performers as in other firms. Hand in there - at least those douches will get a high bonus and a double bump on us. Enjoy, rats of new york.

I also clearly recall David Gordon telling an associate at a public meeting that they will not do stealth layoffs and they always take care of their associates. Ironically, that guy was stealthly laid off.

122, I too share your pain. Different office, very similar experience.

126 - Dave Gordon is the most two-faced, back-stabbing liar around. Anyone at Latham should not trust a thing he says - it is likely to be a self-serving lie aimed at getting you to work harder and make him more money before he throws you out on the street like last night's trash.

FYI, BFPS was already a gunner. Now it seems like he feels paranoid persecuted and guilty because of all this nay-saying and has gunned even harder in effort to prove himself. He bills unspeakable hours and as a result will likely net a far above average bonus. Funny that bitter commenters may have contributed!

Latham to PRIVATE OFFICES

I agree that the best people were not retained, at least in my office. For instance, many first years that labored on a ridiculous doc review (and had weekly Friday afternoon "parties" complete with booze, while they were "reviewing docs" were saved, while many of those who were corporate-types were let go. The corporate-types were more competent, had more experience at "real lawyering" than the doc review cadre, but they didn't have the steady hours, so--out they went.

Although this is a problem in good times and bad, at Latham, in my office, the rampant overbillers (ie third-year associates that were doing paralegal work like closing set indices) and people that just outright took forever to do the simplest little thing were saved, while many an efficient (yet thorough) attorney was canned. It didn't surpise me after the fact to learn from a partner secretary that the partner had carefully "written up" (that is fraudulently inflated) the hours of the attorneys and staff working on his matters in order to run through retainers that clients had paid (so that LW got paid outright).

The real problem is that, with the exception of the LA office, you can't throw a group of partners together, tell them to play nice (and be honest) in the sandbox, and expect it to work out. It's a recipe for disaster.

And in my old Latham office, undoubtedly, he who billed the most (honest or not) was he who won. If I were a client, I'd run screaming the other way. And I will shout it from the rooftops forever. There is NEVER an excuse for dishonest billing. It runs to the very core of the atty-client relationship.