Tracking COVID-19's effect on V100 associate pay/layoffs Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm around 665 billable and like 60 bonus eligible non-billable. I'm near the lower end of the top 1/3 for my firm, I'd say. Not liking it, but apparently there's far lower so...

[hereforcovid]

Has any firm that announced paycuts reversed them yet?

Cadwalader just announced that they are reversing their 25% paycut, effective August 1st. As a Cadwalader attorney, it gets a lot of well-deserved hate here, but I’m pleased that they restored salaries to normal.

Could you speak more as to the well-deserved hate? I know that they were the "market leaders" on salary cuts and are par for the course on biglaw cheapness, but I also get the sense that some of the ill will towards them occurs because they had screamer partners, huge layoffs, and generally poor morale circa the great recession and that they have markedly improved since then, especially in the past 5 years. What are some of the current bad aspects that make them deserve more hate than other firms with alleged reputational problems that are shit on a lot less (e.g., Jones Day, Paul Hastings, Goodwin Proctor)?

Ex-Cad Associate here (left over a year ago).
The firm has been notorious for layoffs in the past, has one of the highest associate-to-partner ratios (making it less stable than most firms), had significant financial issues during one of the most profitable periods, very much overly focused on structured finance (CLOs/CMBS, etc.), without much diversification (and structured fin absolutely sucks as work--so much rote changing of forms). There's enough stuff on this forum that this can easily searched. It's also just has a general low reputation among "elite" schools (so heavy reliance on lower-tier schools, take that fwiw, not commenting on whether good/bad, just is), summer class has been shrinking repeatedly over the past few years. The firm has kept its finances up by generally pushing people out (see above associate-partner ratio), making the firm look more profitable than it really was.

Things have supposed to have been turned around. But the mere fact that they were one of the first to cut pay is telling (but entirely unsurprising).

That said: I was there, stayed a while, left. QoL not great; not terrible, and enjoyed the people I worked with (have close friends there/from there still). Nonetheless, stability was my concern and Cad can be lacking there a bit. Didnt deal with screamers (think those left), but how much it has improved from the past practices is questionable. It's a bottom line place moreso than others. Was, is, and probably will be.

Agree with the general point here re: CWT's over-specialization on structured finance leading to high volatility in revenues and therefore instability. However, one minor quibble re: CWT having one of the "highest associate-to-partner ratios" : while CWT's ratio is not "low", it's not really particularly high anymore vs. other BigLaw firms. Chambers does a "partner-to-associate" ratio calculation for all firms, and on that metric CWT's is higher (i.e., their associate-to-partner ratio is lower) than Weil, Skadden, Milbank, S&C, Ropes, STB, Cleary, Paul Weiss and Davis Polk, among others. See: https://www.chambers-associate.com/law- ... e-leverage

Didnt look too closely but is that equity partners? CWT has like 55 equity and the rest are non. Also CWT is far less profitable than those firms, with significantly lower profit margins.

Much lower profit margins, but it's not much less profitable. In fact CWT is technically more profitable than Ropes. Profit can be gamed, which is why revenue per lawyer is so important, which at CWT is OK at 1.2m, which puts it below all of the above firms except for Cleary, which is its own separate shitshow. Also, if PPP is higher than at other firms because of Cadwalader's leverage, its RPL is lower than it would be if it were less leveraged because there are more lower billing associates and fewer higher billing partners. Maybe it's time to make Jones Day, a somehow Vault 20 firm faced with numerous discrimination lawsuits that doesn't pay on the Milbank scale and has an RPL of 830K, the most hated firm on the forum.

[Anonymous User]

I'm at around 1300 for the year and was feeling really bad about it until I read these last few posts.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

I'm at about 1000 billables, and it really is ridiculous how the months mapped onto coronavirus: 350, 200, 20, 30, 50, 150, 200. That said, my V10 has had a noticeable number of people departing for new opportunities. Query how many are voluntary vs. voluntold. I can only speculate, but the work and the teams seem to be consolidating at some sort of balance.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

WOW - that seems unfathomable to be honest.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

WOW - that seems unfathomable to be honest.

I'm at 1200. To the 1750 poster...what practice group are you in? Also, take care of yourself. This job is not worth your health.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

I'm at about 1000 billables, and it really is ridiculous how the months mapped onto coronavirus: 350, 200, 20, 30, 50, 150, 200. That said, my V10 has had a noticeable number of people departing for new opportunities. Query how many are voluntary vs. voluntold. I can only speculate, but the work and the teams seem to be consolidating at some sort of balance.

Yeah, lot of attrition recently for us too. A lot of it seems natural (but not all) - it’s that time of the year when people leave to clerk, and since nobody new is coming on board, that work gets redistributed.

[Anonymous User]

So how are people's hours these days? I'm at 1000 on the year (so, slow, I guess, but after billing a grand total of only 50 hours in Jan/Feb it's felt pretty busy since, including a couple of super-slammed weeks). Are people's hours generally lower or has everyone sort of recovered? Do we expect a huge slump around election season?

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

WOW - that seems unfathomable to be honest.

I'm at 1200. To the 1750 poster...what practice group are you in? Also, take care of yourself. This job is not worth your health.

1750 here. In restructuring/bankruptcy and those hours seem par for the course, given the current situation. I know people with even more than that.

[Anonymous User]

I'm under 900, so not good but probably not terrible given the circumstances.

I think I'm closer to like 650 billable, with a bunch of non billable.

I'm at like 825 billable and like 60 pro bono - I'm senior and my reviews were really good last year so I think I'm safe for now, but starting to worry that I may end up laid off if my hours don't improve soon.

At 1750 and it feels like my soul is escaping my body.

WOW - that seems unfathomable to be honest.

I'm at 1200. To the 1750 poster...what practice group are you in? Also, take care of yourself. This job is not worth your health.

1750 here. In restructuring/bankruptcy and those hours seem par for the course, given the current situation. I know people with even more than that.

I'm corp/M&A, also Nov. Fiscal year. Annualizing ~2200 at this point which is slight down from where I was pre-covid. Never was below 80hrs billable but back up to about 180-200 at this point. A number of departures over the past few months that I could tell, some non-voluntary, some no clue.

[Anonymous User]

1450 YTD - big law labor and employment lit midlevel

[Anonymous User]

Has any firm that announced paycuts reversed them yet?

Cadwalader just announced that they are reversing their 25% paycut, effective August 1st. As a Cadwalader attorney, it gets a lot of well-deserved hate here, but I’m pleased that they restored salaries to normal.

Could you speak more as to the well-deserved hate? I know that they were the "market leaders" on salary cuts and are par for the course on biglaw cheapness, but I also get the sense that some of the ill will towards them occurs because they had screamer partners, huge layoffs, and generally poor morale circa the great recession and that they have markedly improved since then, especially in the past 5 years. What are some of the current bad aspects that make them deserve more hate than other firms with alleged reputational problems that are shit on a lot less (e.g., Jones Day, Paul Hastings, Goodwin Proctor)?

Ex-Cad Associate here (left over a year ago).
The firm has been notorious for layoffs in the past, has one of the highest associate-to-partner ratios (making it less stable than most firms), had significant financial issues during one of the most profitable periods, very much overly focused on structured finance (CLOs/CMBS, etc.), without much diversification (and structured fin absolutely sucks as work--so much rote changing of forms). There's enough stuff on this forum that this can easily searched. It's also just has a general low reputation among "elite" schools (so heavy reliance on lower-tier schools, take that fwiw, not commenting on whether good/bad, just is), summer class has been shrinking repeatedly over the past few years. The firm has kept its finances up by generally pushing people out (see above associate-partner ratio), making the firm look more profitable than it really was.

Things have supposed to have been turned around. But the mere fact that they were one of the first to cut pay is telling (but entirely unsurprising).

That said: I was there, stayed a while, left. QoL not great; not terrible, and enjoyed the people I worked with (have close friends there/from there still). Nonetheless, stability was my concern and Cad can be lacking there a bit. Didnt deal with screamers (think those left), but how much it has improved from the past practices is questionable. It's a bottom line place moreso than others. Was, is, and probably will be.

Agree with the general point here re: CWT's over-specialization on structured finance leading to high volatility in revenues and therefore instability. However, one minor quibble re: CWT having one of the "highest associate-to-partner ratios" : while CWT's ratio is not "low", it's not really particularly high anymore vs. other BigLaw firms. Chambers does a "partner-to-associate" ratio calculation for all firms, and on that metric CWT's is higher (i.e., their associate-to-partner ratio is lower) than Weil, Skadden, Milbank, S&C, Ropes, STB, Cleary, Paul Weiss and Davis Polk, among others. See: https://www.chambers-associate.com/law- ... e-leverage

Didnt look too closely but is that equity partners? CWT has like 55 equity and the rest are non. Also CWT is far less profitable than those firms, with significantly lower profit margins.

Much lower profit margins, but it's not much less profitable. In fact CWT is technically more profitable than Ropes. Profit can be gamed, which is why revenue per lawyer is so important, which at CWT is OK at 1.2m, which puts it below all of the above firms except for Cleary, which is its own separate shitshow. Also, if PPP is higher than at other firms because of Cadwalader's leverage, its RPL is lower than it would be if it were less leveraged because there are more lower billing associates and fewer higher billing partners. Maybe it's time to make Jones Day, a somehow Vault 20 firm faced with numerous discrimination lawsuits that doesn't pay on the Milbank scale and has an RPL of 830K, the most hated firm on the forum.

You're right re: profitability. And yea, CWT still pays market generally and keeps up with bonuses as well. I don't get all the hate. That said, the firm's leverage is somewhat strategic since that's pretty much the model of how you make money on these structured fin deals. They are pretty exclusively flat fee, and they need to pump them out on a mass level to actually make it profitable. This means jacking up leverage. They are trying to implement software to "automate" more of the processes (especially with their most heinously cookie cutter transactions that basically recycle the same form ad nauseam) so that can maybe lower leverage in the long term. But for now, they really just need a lot of bodies churning them out.

[Anonymous User]

1450 YTD - big law labor and employment lit midlevel

1321 YTD, v50 niche transactional practice. The past three months have been much leaner than average (~170, 135, and 175), but some new things are coming down the pike, so things may be picking up.

[Anonymous User]

2nd year, 1200 in a niche finance group (our year stated Dec 1st tho).

[Anonymous User]

Cadwalader just announced that they are reversing their 25% paycut, effective August 1st. As a Cadwalader attorney, it gets a lot of well-deserved hate here, but I’m pleased that they restored salaries to normal.

Could you speak more as to the well-deserved hate? I know that they were the "market leaders" on salary cuts and are par for the course on biglaw cheapness, but I also get the sense that some of the ill will towards them occurs because they had screamer partners, huge layoffs, and generally poor morale circa the great recession and that they have markedly improved since then, especially in the past 5 years. What are some of the current bad aspects that make them deserve more hate than other firms with alleged reputational problems that are shit on a lot less (e.g., Jones Day, Paul Hastings, Goodwin Proctor)?

Ex-Cad Associate here (left over a year ago).
The firm has been notorious for layoffs in the past, has one of the highest associate-to-partner ratios (making it less stable than most firms), had significant financial issues during one of the most profitable periods, very much overly focused on structured finance (CLOs/CMBS, etc.), without much diversification (and structured fin absolutely sucks as work--so much rote changing of forms). There's enough stuff on this forum that this can easily searched. It's also just has a general low reputation among "elite" schools (so heavy reliance on lower-tier schools, take that fwiw, not commenting on whether good/bad, just is), summer class has been shrinking repeatedly over the past few years. The firm has kept its finances up by generally pushing people out (see above associate-partner ratio), making the firm look more profitable than it really was.

Things have supposed to have been turned around. But the mere fact that they were one of the first to cut pay is telling (but entirely unsurprising).

That said: I was there, stayed a while, left. QoL not great; not terrible, and enjoyed the people I worked with (have close friends there/from there still). Nonetheless, stability was my concern and Cad can be lacking there a bit. Didnt deal with screamers (think those left), but how much it has improved from the past practices is questionable. It's a bottom line place moreso than others. Was, is, and probably will be.

Agree with the general point here re: CWT's over-specialization on structured finance leading to high volatility in revenues and therefore instability. However, one minor quibble re: CWT having one of the "highest associate-to-partner ratios" : while CWT's ratio is not "low", it's not really particularly high anymore vs. other BigLaw firms. Chambers does a "partner-to-associate" ratio calculation for all firms, and on that metric CWT's is higher (i.e., their associate-to-partner ratio is lower) than Weil, Skadden, Milbank, S&C, Ropes, STB, Cleary, Paul Weiss and Davis Polk, among others. See: https://www.chambers-associate.com/law- ... e-leverage

Didnt look too closely but is that equity partners? CWT has like 55 equity and the rest are non. Also CWT is far less profitable than those firms, with significantly lower profit margins.

Much lower profit margins, but it's not much less profitable. In fact CWT is technically more profitable than Ropes. Profit can be gamed, which is why revenue per lawyer is so important, which at CWT is OK at 1.2m, which puts it below all of the above firms except for Cleary, which is its own separate shitshow. Also, if PPP is higher than at other firms because of Cadwalader's leverage, its RPL is lower than it would be if it were less leveraged because there are more lower billing associates and fewer higher billing partners. Maybe it's time to make Jones Day, a somehow Vault 20 firm faced with numerous discrimination lawsuits that doesn't pay on the Milbank scale and has an RPL of 830K, the most hated firm on the forum.

You're right re: profitability. And yea, CWT still pays market generally and keeps up with bonuses as well. I don't get all the hate. That said, the firm's leverage is somewhat strategic since that's pretty much the model of how you make money on these structured fin deals. They are pretty exclusively flat fee, and they need to pump them out on a mass level to actually make it profitable. This means jacking up leverage. They are trying to implement software to "automate" more of the processes (especially with their most heinously cookie cutter transactions that basically recycle the same form ad nauseam) so that can maybe lower leverage in the long term. But for now, they really just need a lot of bodies churning them out.

As a BigLaw Structured Finance attorney (which CWT calls "Capital Markets" for some reason) who is familiar with BigLaw Structured Finance billing practices and also some of the types of transactions that CWT' works on, I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence the only "flat fee" work they might be doing is Freddie Mac Multifamily "Agency CMBS" offerings, which are relatively cookie cutter and high volume so any changes to precedent deals are minor. However, my guess is that wouldn''t account for more than 20% of their revenues in a typical year. The vast majority of BigLaw structured finance transactions are actually pretty complex and hard, and in my experience CWT is regarded as "elite" in most of those as well.

What drags CWT down ultimately vs. peers is being mediocre or worse in pretty much every other practice that more prestigious NYC BigLaw firms live on, including having virtually no Buy-Side or Sell-Side M&A work. Also, fwiw, revenue per lawyer (RPL) is the only metric that comes close to approximating how "bespoke" or "high value" a typical associate's work is, and CWT's is fairly respectable at $2.1 mm. Given the state of the rest of the firm's practices, presumably their structured finance folks have an RPL way above that. JMTC.

[Anonymous User]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

[Anonymous User]

Same for PW.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I’ve got 1200 hours. Mid level in litigation at NYC V20.

[Sackboy]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

Oof, that's a bummer at both Cravath and PW. I'm sure it was some kid's dream to land at one of those two, clerk for a federal judge, and come back. Of course, they'll likely have many other great options, but I'm sure it's rough news for those folks.

[Joachim2017]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

Oof, that's a bummer at both Cravath and PW. I'm sure it was some kid's dream to land at one of those two, clerk for a federal judge, and come back. Of course, they'll likely have many other great options, but I'm sure it's rough news for those folks.

This is pretty surprising. I think we'd need to know more details to reach any conclusions though, such as whether it's single policy for all clerks that expected to return or a case-by-case thing, in which case it'd be less surprising/troubling. Both Cravath and PW had worse performing 2019s relative to their own recent pasts, but to not accept back clerks who had been at the firm..?

[cheaptilts]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

Oof, that's a bummer at both Cravath and PW. I'm sure it was some kid's dream to land at one of those two, clerk for a federal judge, and come back. Of course, they'll likely have many other great options, but I'm sure it's rough news for those folks.

This is pretty surprising. I think we'd need to know more details to reach any conclusions though, such as whether it's single policy for all clerks that expected to return or a case-by-case thing, in which case it'd be less surprising/troubling. Both Cravath and PW had worse performing 2019s relative to their own recent pasts, but to not accept back clerks who had been at the firm..?

I don't think the bolded is super important, actually. P,W and/or Cravath not taking back former clerks--whether 25% of their former clerks or 100%--is big news (and very surprising). That does not bode well at all for this class year of clerks.

[Joachim2017]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

Oof, that's a bummer at both Cravath and PW. I'm sure it was some kid's dream to land at one of those two, clerk for a federal judge, and come back. Of course, they'll likely have many other great options, but I'm sure it's rough news for those folks.

This is pretty surprising. I think we'd need to know more details to reach any conclusions though, such as whether it's single policy for all clerks that expected to return or a case-by-case thing, in which case it'd be less surprising/troubling. Both Cravath and PW had worse performing 2019s relative to their own recent pasts, but to not accept back clerks who had been at the firm..?

I don't think the bolded is super important, actually. P,W and/or Cravath not taking back former clerks--whether 25% of their former clerks or 100%--is big news (and very surprising). That does not bode well at all for this class year of clerks.

Yeah, maybe. My thinking there was that if this is a couple of people, the reasons could be specific to the individuals in some way. Someone was in one practice area and doesn't want to return to that area, the firm won't agree to move them to another area, the inverse, etc. That's definitely happened at places like S&C in the past. But yeah maybe even then it's not a good look just because of the potential in this climate for it to signal firm weakness.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Has any firm that announced paycuts reversed them yet?

Cadwalader just announced that they are reversing their 25% paycut, effective August 1st. As a Cadwalader attorney, it gets a lot of well-deserved hate here, but I’m pleased that they restored salaries to normal.

Could you speak more as to the well-deserved hate? I know that they were the "market leaders" on salary cuts and are par for the course on biglaw cheapness, but I also get the sense that some of the ill will towards them occurs because they had screamer partners, huge layoffs, and generally poor morale circa the great recession and that they have markedly improved since then, especially in the past 5 years. What are some of the current bad aspects that make them deserve more hate than other firms with alleged reputational problems that are shit on a lot less (e.g., Jones Day, Paul Hastings, Goodwin Proctor)?

Ex-Cad Associate here (left over a year ago).
The firm has been notorious for layoffs in the past, has one of the highest associate-to-partner ratios (making it less stable than most firms), had significant financial issues during one of the most profitable periods, very much overly focused on structured finance (CLOs/CMBS, etc.), without much diversification (and structured fin absolutely sucks as work--so much rote changing of forms). There's enough stuff on this forum that this can easily searched. It's also just has a general low reputation among "elite" schools (so heavy reliance on lower-tier schools, take that fwiw, not commenting on whether good/bad, just is), summer class has been shrinking repeatedly over the past few years. The firm has kept its finances up by generally pushing people out (see above associate-partner ratio), making the firm look more profitable than it really was.

Things have supposed to have been turned around. But the mere fact that they were one of the first to cut pay is telling (but entirely unsurprising).

That said: I was there, stayed a while, left. QoL not great; not terrible, and enjoyed the people I worked with (have close friends there/from there still). Nonetheless, stability was my concern and Cad can be lacking there a bit. Didnt deal with screamers (think those left), but how much it has improved from the past practices is questionable. It's a bottom line place moreso than others. Was, is, and probably will be.

Agree with the general point here re: CWT's over-specialization on structured finance leading to high volatility in revenues and therefore instability. However, one minor quibble re: CWT having one of the "highest associate-to-partner ratios" : while CWT's ratio is not "low", it's not really particularly high anymore vs. other BigLaw firms. Chambers does a "partner-to-associate" ratio calculation for all firms, and on that metric CWT's is higher (i.e., their associate-to-partner ratio is lower) than Weil, Skadden, Milbank, S&C, Ropes, STB, Cleary, Paul Weiss and Davis Polk, among others. See: https://www.chambers-associate.com/law- ... e-leverage

Didnt look too closely but is that equity partners? CWT has like 55 equity and the rest are non. Also CWT is far less profitable than those firms, with significantly lower profit margins.

Much lower profit margins, but it's not much less profitable. In fact CWT is technically more profitable than Ropes. Profit can be gamed, which is why revenue per lawyer is so important, which at CWT is OK at 1.2m, which puts it below all of the above firms except for Cleary, which is its own separate shitshow. Also, if PPP is higher than at other firms because of Cadwalader's leverage, its RPL is lower than it would be if it were less leveraged because there are more lower billing associates and fewer higher billing partners. Maybe it's time to make Jones Day, a somehow Vault 20 firm faced with numerous discrimination lawsuits that doesn't pay on the Milbank scale and has an RPL of 830K, the most hated firm on the forum.

I alluded to this upthread, but RPL can sometimes be misleading. Specifically, compared to its peers, CWT has a lot of non-equity partners, counsel and senior associates. Combined with their reputation as a sweatshop (no idea if that's any more true than anyone else), that structure tends to inflate RPL compared to one's peers. The flip side is that those people are more expensive and harder to replace. You can debate the degree to which that structure is motivated by their specialties (for example, CLO underwriter representation, one of their niches, doesn't lend itself to much junior work) versus the degree to which it's just a bad recruiting reputation or bad management. They're also uniquely concentrated in securitization (other major firms like Mayer Brown, Sidley, Dechert and Milbank all do a bunch of other stuff), and when you combine the highly cyclical nature of the work with the top-heavy structure, you get a business that's very profitable in boom times but absolutely starving during a recession. People should be wary of firms with profiles like CWT and Orrick (which is structured similarly and still hasn't brought salaries back); you bear more downside risk for no extra upside.

[Anonymous User]

Wanted to report that Cravath isn't taking back clerks (not sure if it applies to all clerks or some).

Oof, that's a bummer at both Cravath and PW. I'm sure it was some kid's dream to land at one of those two, clerk for a federal judge, and come back. Of course, they'll likely have many other great options, but I'm sure it's rough news for those folks.

This is pretty surprising. I think we'd need to know more details to reach any conclusions though, such as whether it's single policy for all clerks that expected to return or a case-by-case thing, in which case it'd be less surprising/troubling. Both Cravath and PW had worse performing 2019s relative to their own recent pasts, but to not accept back clerks who had been at the firm..?

I don't think the bolded is super important, actually. P,W and/or Cravath not taking back former clerks--whether 25% of their former clerks or 100%--is big news (and very surprising). That does not bode well at all for this class year of clerks.

Yeah, maybe. My thinking there was that if this is a couple of people, the reasons could be specific to the individuals in some way. Someone was in one practice area and doesn't want to return to that area, the firm won't agree to move them to another area, the inverse, etc. That's definitely happened at places like S&C in the past. But yeah maybe even then it's not a good look just because of the potential in this climate for it to signal firm weakness.

An fmr associate/clerk is coming back to my firm because they said the hiring market for clerks was awful and dried up with COVID. This person was loved by several partners so it is no surprise they received an offer to return, but this person wants to go elsewhere and just couldn't find anything...

[Anonymous User]

Rx associate at 2000 YTD.