The Atlanta office of Paul Hastings suffered a tragedy last week. Jermaine Acevedo, a temp worker in Paul Hastings' record department, shot and killed Raven Buckley, a Paul Hastings secretary, and then killed himself. The murder-suicide happened Friday afternoon outside of Paul Hastings' building. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Buckley had worked as a legal secretary there for about a year. Both were working Friday, said police.

They dated at one point, but it wasn't clear to police if they were still dating when the confrontation took place Friday afternoon about 3:30 p.m.

According to police, Buckley was in the courtyard in front of the Bank of America Plaza with a friend on break when they believe Acevedo encountered her, though police don't know the exact circumstances.

At some point, according to police, Buckley and Acevedo were talking while sitting at a picnic table in the courtyard when their conversation escalated into an argument.

Buckley jumped up to leave, according to police. Acevedo grabbed her and held her down. He pulled out a handgun and shot her three times, at least once in the head. He then shot himself in the head.

On Friday night, law firm spokesperson Lapiano released a brief statement that the firm was "deeply saddened and shocked by this tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' family and friends. Please be assured that we are cooperating fully with local authorities on this ongoing investigation."

Lapiano said Saturday the firm planned to bring grief counselors in Monday to help the staff deal with the killings.

Acevedo was 30 and Buckley was just 25.

'Awful' tragedy: Law firm rocked by murder-suicide [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Paul Hastings Secretary Killed in Apparent Murder-Suicide Outside Atlanta Office [Law.com]

This week is chockful of holidays: Earth Day, Passover, and tomorrow, Administrative Professionals' Day. (We apologize for putting Passover in the same sentence as the other two.)

Many of you are wondering what to do for secretaries, administrative assistants, and/or paralegals:

Administrative Professional’s Day is coming up this Wednesday. I found your column on gifts for secretaries on Christmas to be invaluable. Could you run something similar for Administrative Professional’s Day?

According to Wikipedia, "the day is often 'celebrated' by giving one's assistant flowers, candy, small gifts, lunch at a restaurant, and time off."

This is an open thread to allow you to discuss your plans. Will you do gifts for your secretary? For your paralegals? What gift, and what price range, are you planning on?

As a side note, the best gift Kash received as a paralegal was a gift card for Banana Republic. Clothing gift cards are cooler than bookstore gift cards.

The rumor making the rounds of lawyer and staff layoffs at Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner is true. We just spoke to Thelen's co-chair, Stephen V. O'Neal, who provided confirmation and details.

The firm is in the process of laying off 26 associates and 85 staff members, on a firm-wide basis, "in response to recessionary pressures." (Unlike President Bush, Mr. O'Neal was not afraid to use the "r" word.) Thelen has approximately 600 lawyers, per its website, so the cuts amount to roughly 4 percent of total headcount.

With respect to the location of the affected lawyers, the cuts affected all major offices. With respect to seniority -- one source told us that some first- and second-year associates were fired -- Mr. O'Neal said that "some were fairly junior, and some more senior."

In terms of practice areas, Mr. O'Neal said the layoffs were spread out among groups, but with "some areas more impacted than others," including certain parts of capital markets and cap-markets-related real estate work. He noted that other practice areas are "thriving and increasing in scope," including renewable energy, cross-border M&A, China practice, litigation, and workouts / bankruptcy.

With respect to staff layoffs, Mr. O'Neal explained that they are due in part to the economic climate, but in part due to post-merger staff redundancies. The merger of Thelen Reid and Brown Raysman took place in late 2006, making the consolidated firm a little over a year old. But the firm did not do much cutting of staff in 2007.

Last year "was not a year when we tried to make deep cutbacks in anything, even though we had combined two good-sized firms," explained Mr. O'Neal. "It was a year of building, coordinating, and consolidating. We wanted to understand how best to organize this new entity." Now that the firm has a better understanding of its staffing needs, and is in the process of consolidating multiple offices in the same cities (e.g., New York), it is reducing staff redundancies.

As for associate severance packages, Mr. O'Neal stated that firm provided a "market-level" package. We floated three to four months as our understanding of market, and he said that the firm is "in that ballpark."

"We are anticipating a profitable 2008," said Mr. O'Neal. "We are being prudent businesspeople, and when you are dealing with recessionary pressures, you adjust your business so you will have -- and maintain -- a strong level of profitability, notwithstanding those pressures."

We thank the firm for the information and candor with respect to the layoffs (i.e., not casting these departures as "performance-based"). If you have more information, feel free to email us.

Updates: A few additional nuggets:

1. As noted in the comments, total headcount includes partners and counsel, so the percentage of associates laid off is higher than 4 percent. Some of you suggest it's around 10 percent.

2. We're a little annoyed at Legal Pad for the lack of an ATL shout-out -- in both the blogosphere and the MSM, it's proper form to credit and/or link to the source that breaks a story first (even if you were working on the same story too) -- but we'll link to them anyway.

They have more on the Thelen layoffs here. Much of the info in their post appeared previously in ours, but they do add that the firm "is also trimming its summer program from eleven to eight weeks and is pushing the start date for first-years from September to January."

3. A source at the firm tells us that the severance packages were in the two- to three-month range.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of layoffs (scroll down)

By collecting and disseminating compensation information, this site plays a role in the setting of associate salaries. By email, several of you have requested that we bring greater transparency to another market: holiday gifts for secretaries / administrative assistants.

In large law firms, it's customary during the holiday season for an associate to give a cash gift to his or her administrative assistant. Some people think of it as a "bonus" or a "tip," like what you might pay to your doorman or newspaper delivery person (although the most genteel formulation is to cast it as a holiday gift, accompanied with a nice card).

Many associate readers have written in to us for guidance in terms of how much they should give their secretary as a gift. For example:

"I was recently discussing secretary bonuses with a senior colleague of mine. It turns out he has been paying far more than me over the years (even though I thought I paid fairly generously). Can we generate some discussion as to the appropriate level for associates to tip their secretaries and paralegals?"

"Lots of time is spent talking about the bonuses that we'll be getting as associates, which we share with support staff as holiday tips or gifts. Is there any guidance on how much we should be giving our assistants and/or dedicated paralegals? Is there a scale based on class year?"

Reader, you're in luck. A table is making the rounds of one large New York law firm.

Check it out, after the jump.

We commend secretaries who don't just cover the phones, but show some initiative and entrepreneurial spirit. From the Chicago Tribune:

A receptionist for the Cook County public defender's office accepted delivery of almost 40 pounds of marijuana at her Loop office, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

At her bond hearing Wednesday, prosecutors said Lamour Holloway, 40, accompanied by two children, carted the drugs to her husband as he waited in a car behind the Cook County Administration Building at 69 W. Washington St....

"I think it's clear that not only is she committing a crime by accepting a package containing cannabis using the mail service, but as a public employee there is a sense of trust," said Assistant State's Atty Anna Demacopoulos. "She is an employee of the public defender's office, working in a public building, and she violated the sanctity of that public building."

Oh please. It's not like she worked in the prosecutor's office; she worked for the PD. If she wants to walk a mile in the shoes of a criminal defendant, like the ones her office represents, what's wrong with that?

Bail set at $80,000 in drug arrest at county building [Chicago Tribune]

During one of our darkest hours as a law firm associate, when we were at our most stressed and depressed, we tried to boost our morale by typing up a Word document entitled "Things I Like About My Job." Here's an excerpt:

-- My Blackberry and (free) cell phone.

-- My laptop.

-- Really good health insurance.

-- Having a secretary.

But in reality, we didn't use our secretary very much. Her primary duty was to assist us in printing out correspondence so that the text of letters fell below the sprawling firm letterhead.

We didn't know how to best utilize our secretary. And based on your emails, it seems we're not alone:

"You should do a post on secretaries. I have no idea what to do with mine other than expense reports. I think junior associates would appreciate it!"

"How about an open thread on what attorneys have their secretaries do? A lot of us first-year associates starting now have no idea how to use them. This applies to both transactional lawyers and litigators."

We're guessing our correspondents don't have this secretary.

Here are a few other topics to add to the mix:

"You really should do an ATL piece on secretaries. E.g., how many high-powered partners are run by their secretaries, with their secretaries as the gatekeepers; how many leading lawyers couldn't live without their secretaries, taking them from one position to the next."

So here's an open thread for discussion of Biglaw secretaries / administrative assistants. Any secretaries who are reading this site should feel free to chime in too -- we know you have a lot to say about your bosses. In fact, some of you could even fill a book with your gripes (see link below). Thanks.

The Diary of a Mad Legal Secretary [Amazon.com]