There were layoffs today at Womble Carlyle. We’re not yet able to confirm the overall numbers, but we understand that at least 20 people (associates and staff) have been let go.

But that is not the big news. The big news is that Womble, has decided to address the general retrenchment of the legal market in a very frank (and slightly terrifying) way. There’s nothing in here that people haven’t seen before, but reading the Womble’s internal memo about the cuts will make you queasy.

So Womble is officially marking the death of Biglaw (at least Biglaw as practiced by Womble). But the memo also states:

Why do I get the impression that “transformational changes” has nothing to do with having a significantly different vision of how much money law firm partners need to make in order to be satisfied?

The world has changed, and after the jump we see that Womble wants to be on the cutting edge.