Is it likely that the departure of 2 partners yesterday is connected to knowledge of the specific firm Heller is merging with? Or is the timing perhaps coincidental?

I'd rather if we just disintegrated piecemeal like Brobeck or Testa. Baker is truly an awful firm.

118 years of legal history. interesting thought.

Management needs to say something. The atmosphere is so tense. I realy think they are making it worse by keeping so quiet.

Yesterday's email regarding the departures was basically a bold face lie. At this point what can they really say? Unless they have something concrete to announce no one is going to believe it. We all know the firm is in trouble. We should all pray that this deal goes through.

Management is truly imcompetent. Larrabee and Hubbell ran a firm with real culture behind it into the ground by listening to "management consultants" whose only goal is to make us like any other law firm by advising us to hire a bunch of managers to manage lawyers, and who justify their fees by producing a couple of charts with arrows and spheres. Laughable!

I hate to say this, but the VLG people (at least on the corporate side) have taken over and ran the whole show now. They are only interested in doing the same crappy thing that ran VLG into the ground 5 years ago. Existing profitable practices were not supported. That is why a bunch of partners left.

I for one would not want to be in the same firm with these 2 incompetent clowns.

It seemed pretty obvious to me a long time ago that most of what management says is the opposite of the truth. "We are doing great." "This is just a temporary slow down." "The slow down is a result of our success" (How did he say that with a straight face?). You pretty much have to be a complete idiot to believe what these guys tell you. If I had more guts I would have said something--but I'm a short timer, so I left it to others.

Are any other names still being floated besides Baker?

I've always been puzzled about why Heller tried to pursue the big generalist firm strategy when it had such a great litigation practice that it could have built on.

12:39 -- agree wholeheartedly! Though I blame Levin as well, if not -- primarily. Bring back Rosenfeld!

It makes me feel sick to see what has happened to what used to be a wonderful firm. 118 years. Do you think the "Powers That Be" feel any sense of shame?

"Sense of shame"? Oh no...the people who drove this great firm off the cliff did so in their Bentleys. My guess is they're satisfied with their efforts -- what difference does 118 years make to their bottom line? Which is all that matters. To them.

Leave now or forever hold your peace. Things are much worse than you could ever know.

I wrote the last post. I was just venting. I don't know if things are bad. I am just frustrated. I am going to stop reading these comments. My apologies.

Levin wasn't the problem. Larrabee and Hubbell don't listen to anyone but themselves and, unfortunately, they have zero business sense and far too much ego. Plenty of managers knew things were going south, but L & H just ignored anything they didn't want to hear and pushed out anyone who would disagree with them.

Any news? Things got awfully quiet today.

Let's not judge them. Think of all the fat years thanks to the partners. They are smart enough to figure something out.

No news yet. No announcements, meetings, nada.

Cr*p. And my crystal ball is on the fritz.

Sould we start a pool on when the announcement will happen? I bet on the 11th, 5:00 pm PST, London will be home asleep, most of the folks back east will have already left the office, out west people leaving for the weekend, in Asia it is already the weekend.

Any other guesses?

Monday the 7th. What's with the financial system shutdown from the 1st through the 6th? Isn't that a long time to "upgrade" your financial software??

What better way to celebrate independence ...

I say it will be tomorrow, July 3 at 4:00 pm. Didn't someone say this was all supposed to take effect on July 4?

It would be lovely timing to see an announcement tomorrow some time after they have sent the majority of folks home early for the holiday. In tune with burying the story DC style.... don't know how that would play out in UK and Asia.

Hope the financial software upgrade was more than "we need to remove all of those about to be canned from the payroll"

Ugh...that last comment (8:44) gave me heartburn.

But on the timing of the announcement, I'll go with Monday the 7th. This isn't the sort of announcement you hide on a Friday or holiday. If management's theme is that you're excited about the merger and what it means for the firm, you lay that out for maximum news coverage--Monday. It ties in well with the lengthy financial services upgrade, which for outsiders has the practical effect of being a lock on all dispursements (although I'm not sure about payroll) for that one-week period.

sorry...disbursement, not dispursement.

Well, something firmwide has changed -- I didn't get my missed time DTE email at 12:30 last night (missing time entries happens more than I should admit).

The DTE deadline is suspended during the so-called upgrade.

Agree with 7:07's rationale on the timing. Also, I'm sure the, shall we call it acquiring firm, will want to tout the deal, not bury it.

Last one turn out the lights.

What are the layoff numbers going to be (new pool)?

No one wants to participate in the new pool huh?

If the merger goes through, it's unlikely that there will be any layoffs. You see, when two businesses merge, they have a ton of people doing the same job, and so they fire a bunch of them. With law firms, when two firms merge, it's only because firm A wants to have all those billable unit machines in firm B on its payroll. Another question is how many will be unsatisfied with the merger for whatever reason (such as conflicting out, different cultures, I always hated that guy in Abu Dhabi office, etc.) to leave on their own. But we shall see.

Anyone who didn't see this coming years ago wasn't paying attention. Still, it's a shame. It was a great place to work once. Join the expat community, we're all doing fine.

No merger with Baker. Heller is at a difficult time but is still doing well.

There is no reason to think that it wouldn't still be a great place to work post-merger, especially in the US where Heller will be at least as big as pre-merger Baker. And enough about the silence -- you can't negotiate anything the complicated with people on your back, and you can't announce anything until it is negotiated and there is something real (or not) to announce

So management finally speaks and all it says is "shut up" and "everything is gonna be all right" and "of course no lay offs are expected".

wow how much of this crap do we believe at this stage?

1:20 when did the management "finally speak"?

What if there isn't a merger, and no merger was ever planned? Would it make all of you feel silly about basically concluding that the merger is basically complete at this point on the basis of a couple of sketchy articles?

Rosenfeld was the tirst to set in motion the top-heavy middle management model, courtesy of Price Waterhouse. "Bring back Rosenfeld"?

Rosenfeld was the first to set in motion the top-heavy middle management model, courtesy of Price Waterhouse. "Bring back Rosenfeld"?

We have a great thing going at B&M. Ever think about the possibility that WE DON"T WANT YOU, ye olde Hellerites, to ruin OUR culture?

The internal memo about Goodwin's and Hobel's departure bordered between disingenous and a lie. It certainly was offensive. I supect that Rob Hubbell and Matt Larabee - who seem to talk only to each other or perhaps to others in the senior management who are runnng the firm into the ground - seem to have a constitutional impediment to admitting that something is not going well. Sometimes honesty is just the better game plan, even if it hurts. There isn't a sole inside Heller who believes Larrabee any more. Nice guy, but awful leader.

The internal memo about Goodwin's and Hobel's departure bordered between disingenous and a lie. It certainly was offensive. I supect that Rob Hubbell and Matt Larabee - who seem to talk only to each other or perhaps to others in the senior management who are runnng the firm into the ground - seem to have a constitutional impediment to admitting that something is not going well. Sometimes honesty is just the better game plan, even if it hurts. There isn't a sole inside Heller who believes Larrabee any more. Nice guy, but awful leader.

"There isn't a sole inside Heller who believes Larrabee any more. "

Fish have so much trouble trusting anyone, really.

I'm an ex-Hellerite, and it's sad to see the firm falling out of grace like this.

I always thought a merger was a good idea, but not with McFirm ... I thought merging with, say, Arnold & Porter made sense. Get strength on the east coast and stay competitive in antitrust. Or Covington, the other insurance coverage firm.

Sucks that the firm is doing badly. Glad I got out when I did.

I'm an ex-Hellerite, and it's sad to see the firm falling out of grace like this.

I always thought a merger was a good idea, but not with McFirm ... I thought merging with, say, Arnold & Porter made sense. Get strength on the east coast and stay competitive in antitrust. Or Covington, the other insurance coverage firm.

Sucks that the firm is doing badly. Glad I got out when I did.

Things seem quiet. Maybe too quiet.

mb