Biglaw, Blind Item, Partner Issues, Partner Profits, Perks / Fringe Benefits, Real Estate

Biglaw Blind Item: Paradise Lost

For a Biglaw partner, is there anything more humiliating than being stripped of a corner office?

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Partnership has its privileges. Partners at major law firms enjoy glittering prestige and eye-popping profits. The retirement benefits are amazing; some partners take home seven-figure checks for years after leaving their firms. All of this filthy lucre allows some partners to snag beautiful mates — sexy Russian spies, ex-girlfriends of Hollywood celebrities, and former models from Brazil.

The real estate isn’t bad either. Many Biglaw partners own million-dollar homes, which we lovingly cover in Lawyerly Lairs. And law firm offices are paragons of elegance and comfort — which they ought to be, considering how much time the partners spend in them. (In New York, I’m particularly fond of Proskauer’s premises and Davis Polk’s digs.)

Partners with sufficient seniority enjoy coveted corner offices. Right?

Not necessarily. That brings us to our latest Biglaw blind item….

We get most of our tips by email or by text message (646-820-8477). But this tip came to us, charmingly enough, via snail mail (611 Broadway, Suite 907D, New York, NY 10012). Here it is:

With the never-ending stream of high-powered lateral partners, [this large global law firm] is running out of corner offices to satisfy the egos of its newly arrived prima donnas.

Recently [a longtime corporate securities partner] was unceremoniously told on a Friday afternoon that he was being moved out of his corner office over the weekend to make way for one of the newcomers. So that he would not be constantly embarrassed by having to confront his partners in his reduced circumstances, he was moved to a different floor, and now sits in [a non-corner] office recently vacated by a longtime tax partner who defected.

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And then they took him out back and shot him.

Okay, no, it wasn’t that bad — but it’s still pretty harsh. To a partner, a corner office is an entitlement as sacred as Social Security: once given, it can’t be taken away. Stripping a partner of his corner office is the real-estate version of de-equitization. It’s a total slap in the face, utterly humiliating.

This item isn’t as incendiary as some of our past blind items, so we’ll leave comments open. Do you know the firm in question? Feel free to make guesses if you like.

Earlier: Prior Above the Law blind items

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