We previously reported on Ropes & Gray hoarding Tamiflu for its employees. Reaction was mixed. Some people applauded Ropes looking out for the health of their employees and their families; others feared that Ropes was unwittingly contributing to a drug-resistant strain of the H1N1 virus.

But there are many ways to prevent an outbreak of piggy pestilence at a law firm near you. One of the most, dare I say rational, measures is to make sure that people who are sick aren’t coming into work.

That’s what they are doing at Akerman Senterfitt. The Washington Post reports (gavel bang: ABA Journal) that the firm is allowing people with the sickness to take time off of work, without counting it against their allotted leave time:

When Great Falls resident Carolyn Cuppernull’s 10-year-old daughter came down with swine flu, she didn’t have to take time off work to stay home with her.

Cuppernull is senior marketing manager of the Washington office of the law firm Akerman Senterfitt. Under the group’s former policy, she would have had to use paid leave to stay home if she or a relative got sick. But the firm recently updated its rules to allow employees to stay home with full pay — without using leave time — for H1N1-related absences.

Now that’s a way to make sure your office doesn’t suffer a swine flu outbreak without potentially contributing to the mutation of a global super virus.

Of course, there is a downside.

Some of you have been asking for layoff news. Be careful for what you wish for; you might just get it.

There’s not a lot going on these days in terms of lawyer layoffs. The rate of job loss in the broader economy is slowing, and perhaps the legal economy is getting better too.

But we do have a small amount of layoff news to report. In response to ATL inquiries, a spokesperson for the Florida-based firm of Akerman Senterfitt stated that it laid off five associates (out of more than 150 associates at the firm). We heard that first-year associates were affected; the firm confirmed that two out of the five were first-years.

If there’s layoff news at your firm that we’ve missed, please email us. Thanks.

Akerman Senterfitt is a Florida based firm, so — given the economy in Florida — it’s not all that surprising that the firm has decided to join the salary cutting party.

Multiple tipsters independently confirm that Akerman has instituted an across the board, 10% pay cut on all class years. Here is the internal email about the salary cuts obtained by Above the Law:

We are announcing today a 10% reduction in all associate salaries, effective immediately. This action is being taken in response to market conditions, which I know you are all aware of and which I need not belabor. I want to make it clear that our firm’s financial condition remains very strong, and even clearer as to how much we appreciate all your hard word and effort on behalf of the firm.

As previously announced, the associate bonus hours grid that we have used during the past few years has been eliminated. Instead, we will be carefully reviewing each associate’s performance at the end of this year as we consider paying merit-based discretionary bonuses to those meeting the established minimum qualitative and quantitative requirements.

As the email suggests, everybody is well aware of the terrible situation happening in the legal economy. But is the terrible economy forcing Akerman into this situation, or is the firm simply taking advantage of the difficult economic situation to roll back salaries?

After the jump, tipsters who have seen Akerman’s books claim that this is a salary cut of choice, not necessity.