Voluntary Severance

Nationwide Layoff Watch: Voluntary Separations at Two Major Law Firms

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Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be legal secretaries. We’re hearing scattered and somewhat hard-to-confirm reports of lawyer layoffs at various firms — please email us or text us (646-820-8477) if you have news to share — but efforts to reduce the ranks of secretaries are open and notorious.

If you spin through our staff layoff coverage, you’ll see that numerous law firms have shrunk the size of their secretarial staffs. Some firms have done this the hard way, through layoffs, while others have taken the kinder and gentler route, through buyouts.

Today we can report that two leading law firms have jumped on the “voluntary separation” bandwagon. If you’re a recently displaced legal assistant looking for a new position, don’t bother applying to either of these places — one of which is shedding lawyers, too….

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Nationwide Layoff Watch: ‘Voluntary’ Departures at Latham

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In round one of our Above the Law March Madness bracket, aimed at finding the law firm with the brightest future, Davis Polk is up against (and currently beating) Latham & Watkins. I actually found that to be a pretty rough opening match-up; both Davis and Latham strike me as firms that should be in the Sweet 16, and maybe even the Elite Eight.

Thanks to its top talent, superb brand, and global footprint, Latham has a bright future as a firm. Of course, working there can be like riding a roller-coaster: it expands like crazy and mints money during good times, then conducts massive layoffs during bad times. But if you can stomach the ups and downs, LW can be a great place to work.

Alas, not everyone at the firm will get to keep working there….

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Nationwide Layoff Watch: Staff Stricken at Stroock

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Last month, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan named a new partner and special counsel. Congratulations to these five worthy lawyers on their promotions.

Alas, not all the news coming out of Stroock is this happy. We’ve just learned that the firm is planning to cut the ranks of its legal secretaries….

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A Law School Finally Does Something About Decreasing Applications And Starts Offering Voluntary Buyouts

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As we mentioned over Thanksgiving weekend, the number of people taking the October LSAT is at the lowest point since 1999.

It seems that people are finally, belatedly, getting the message. Going to law school is not a safe bet.

At least not for students. For faculty, teaching at a law school is one of the safest jobs you can have. The only people who lose their jobs at law schools are deans who anger the U.S. News gods, and even then those deans can usually still hang on as professors.

But the economics of running a law school might be turning. One law school has decided to downsize….

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Staff Layoff Watch: Are More Cuts Coming to Fulbright?
(And could a merger be in the works?)

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The law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski is a leader in many fields — at least 31 of them, according to the latest Chambers rankings. In addition to recognizing Fulbright as a leading firm in 31 categories, the influential Chambers guide also named 99 Fulbright lawyers as leading individuals in their practice areas.

Fulbright excels in other areas well — for example, social media. It is one of the few major law firms that knows how to use Twitter.

Alas, these days the firm is also a leader in a less appealing arena: staff layoffs. Last October, the firm laid off at least a dozen employees.

And now it seems that more reductions might be on the way. Could Fulbright be trying to slim itself down in advance of a merger with another firm?

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(And could a merger be in the works?)“

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