Akin Gump, Layoffs, No Offers, Staff Layoffs, Summer Associates

What's Going on at Akin Gump?(Some staff cuts, plus news on offer rates.)

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So what’s happening at Akin Gump these days? There has been some happy news — e.g., a thriving energy M&A practice, lawyers honored by the Washington Business Journal as top D.C. lawyers, and a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index of the Human Rights Campaign.
And there has been some less happy news. We’ve heard there have been a number of cuts to the staff ranks in Akin’s D.C. office in the past few weeks, as well as a few attorney dismissals here and there (not couched as “layoffs”).
Through a spokesperson, the firm confirmed some trimming of staff ranks, but declined to provide numbers:

While we do not discuss specific personnel matters, we continue to review and streamline our operations to fit the current size of the firm. This has resulted in a small number of staff reductions across the firm. We are not involved in a larger effort aimed at reducing our staff or lawyer workforce.

We hear the severance was around three months, although the firm would not confirm this.
The firm did, however, respond to our inquiry about offer rates.


Some of the rumors about offer rates at Akin Gump — e.g., on AutoAdmit — are incorrect. The Akin spokesperson reported a firm-wide offer rate of 65 percent, which is not fantastic, but certainly fair for 2009.
The spokesperson also confirmed what we had previously heard about the D.C. office: 11 out of 12 offers. This works out to a 92 percent offer rate, which is quite high — nice news for Washington, but perhaps less nice for other offices (which must have had significantly lower offer rates to reach a firm-wide offer rate of 65 percent).
Feel free to discuss offer rates in other Akin offices, or what you know about possible personnel reductions at the firm, in the comments.

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