Layoffs back? Weil cutting associates Forum

[peter2009]

bankruptcy work related to Lehman is done? isn't this a sign that the hangover from 2007 is over? shouldn't we be encouraged?

Lol. They are firing complex commericial lit people, not BK.

Bad sign bro.

This is actually not true. According to someone at Weil, several BK associates in NYC and almost everyone outside of NYC are gone.

WSJ said most of the associates were in litigation in Houston: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87410.html.

You seem to be saying most? were in bankruptcy?

[Anonymous User]

WSJ said most of the associates were in litigation in Houston: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87410.html.

You seem to be saying most? were in bankruptcy?

I'm not sure about the proportions, but there were several corporate and bankruptcy associates in NY let go, along with a significant number of staff. This is according to a friend at Weil.

Also, I am not the previous poster - independent data point.

[c3pO4]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

[jitsrenzo]

What does this mean for Restructuring groups at other firms?

[Anonymous User]

Sort of related question to this. Going into OCI, for bros interested in bankruptcy, should we worried enough to consider getting interested in some other practice area?

I would say no, but there is a bias there because I'm on my way into a major restructuring practice (not Weil, think Kirkland/Davis Polk/Jones Day). Restructuring has slowed somewhat, but it's not clear that the situation is any better in other practice areas, especially corporate. I suspect Weil's situation is somewhat anomalous because the size of Lehman's chapter 11 was completely unprecedented. It was also a long-lasting case. It must have really inflated the firm's ranks.

Serious question.... are law students ACTUALLY interested in bankruptcy/how the hell do you know you are interested in bankruptcy?

I knew I wanted to do bankruptcy. I have a finance background, read the financial news and understood the kind of deals that go on, worked in the practice area 1L and 2L year, took three bankruptcy courses in law school plus secured transactions, etc. There are people in law school that are reasonably tuned in to finance and business such that they can make an educated guess as to what practice area would suit them.

What does this mean for Restructuring groups at other firms?

Not much I hope, but we'll see.

[Anonymous User]

Entire lit department in Boston is gone from what I've heard

[hyakku]

This thread is making me sad.

[img]quote]

At least it's not right before your OCI -_-.

It's actually pretty good timing for you. Would you rather get this news:

1. Before OCI
2. During your summer at Weil
3. While waiting to start at Weil
4. As an associate at Weil

if you catch my drift. You're actually in a position to do something with this information.

[/quote]

Very true, shouldn't be complaining like I just lost my job. Good looking out providing some much needed perspective.

Edit: Also is it just me or are my words really small?

[timbs4339]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

[c3pO4]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

name a fortune 100 company that doesn't conduct layoffs of low performing groups and/or people at least once every couple years

[hyakku]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

name a fortune 100 company that doesn't conduct layoffs of low performing groups and/or people at least once every couple years

Not that I disagree with your premise, but America's two most successful (arguably) companies, Apple and Google, haven't conducted layoffs in years (I think Apple's last round was when they thought they were done for good in the late 90's). In Google's case, I don't think they've ever had mass layoffs. Their management structure makes it such that if a product that a team is developing is no longer profitable or doesn't succeed as planned, they can be reabsorbed.

[dixiecupdrinking]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

name a fortune 100 company that doesn't conduct layoffs of low performing groups and/or people at least once every couple years

Name a Fortune 100 company that is a partnership, performs exactly one service that only people with one particular educational background are qualified to do, only hires people en masse as a class once every year, and has a rigid up-or-out practice making the average employee tenure only three or four years. It's an asinine comparison.

[desertlaw]

There are tons of big firm associates on this forum. They know how busy their firms are. You get worried when you have super long stretches of time with no billable work (and I mean months on end).


At my firm, and I think this is true for a lot of other firms, transactional work was slow for the first 2-3 months this year, but it all picked up right back at around the end of March. Lots of big deals happening.

Someone above was talking about the fed increasing interest rates and that influencing deal flow because money will no longer be cheap. I guess that's true in a normal economy, but this economy isn't normal. Lot's of companies and funds sitting on mountains of cash and ready to do some M&A. To quote a very frequently mentioned phrase in the transactional world, there's a lot of dry powder but not that many acting on it.

Interest rates won't change that, really.

Biglaw is the best job if it's between 30-50 hours billed per week. Anything less and you're freaking out. Anything more and it's hell. The problem with M&A work is that it's rarely between 30-50.

[Anonymous User]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

At my firm we routinely lose 20%+ of our associates each year... please, tell me more about how law firms have insufficient turnover.

[timbs4339]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

name a fortune 100 company that doesn't conduct layoffs of low performing groups and/or people at least once every couple years

You have no evidence that the failure of the groups in Houston and Boston was caused by the associates. Perhaps Weil management made a mistake to grow too quickly in those areas. Not what I would call good management.

Law firms aren't publicly traded. They don't have to keep earnings up for the market. Several firms froze compensation during the recession rather than lay people off. Obviously, partners will flee the firm if they don't feel like they are being treated well enough, but it's probably not a good long-term business strategy to stock your company with people who are one foot out the door all the time.

[c3pO4]

i think the most interesting aspect of this is that in corporate america, regular layoffs are business as usual. law firms maybe moving from the 1970's to the 1980's and no longer retaining even low performers "just 'cause." this "new normal" is actually 30 years old in every other industry. i can't help but think firms adjusting to reflect longstanding structural changes is a welcome sight and long overdue. weil is probably accurate to say they are doing this from a position of strength and it will probably help them moving forward relative to all these other firms whose management doesn't know how to run a business and choose to stay willfully ignorant...

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

name a fortune 100 company that doesn't conduct layoffs of low performing groups and/or people at least once every couple years

You have no evidence that the failure of the groups in Houston and Boston was caused by the associates. Perhaps Weil management made a mistake to grow too quickly in those areas. Not what I would call good management.

Law firms aren't publicly traded. They don't have to keep earnings up for the market. Several firms froze compensation during the recession rather than lay people off. Obviously, partners will flee the firm if they don't feel like they are being treated well enough, but it's probably not a good long-term business strategy to stock your company with people who are one foot out the door all the time.

just saying - this is not really news... u guys sound mad?

[timbs4339]

just saying - this is not really news... u guys sound mad?

Of course we know this is happening- we've known for a long time now. But there's awareness, and then there's celebrations it because it's "long overdue" and it was "finally time those do-gooder corporate law firm partners realized that you should conduct layoffs every few years." Many people on this forum work for firms like Weil or have friends or SOs who work for firms like Weil, and coming into a thread proclaiming that this is just the greatest advancement in the legal profession since the Blackberry is a dick move.

There's really nothing that demands that biglaw firms operate the way they do except for corporate culture and the values of the boomers who are running these companies.

[rad lulz]

just saying - this is not really news... u guys sound mad?

Except that's not really what you said

[IAFG]

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

Sure, firms pay partners less, so rainmakers leave, and now all the associates are out of work instead of just some of them.

I fucking hate it when people say that.

[timbs4339]

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

Sure, firms pay partners less, so rainmakers leave, and now all the associates are out of work instead of just some of them.

I fucking hate it when people say that.

Nothing about "it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs" is inconsistent with that. There are firms where some rainmakers bring in much more business than their compensation would suggest, and those rainmakers do not flee en masse to firms with more flexible compensation structures. It's likely there are firms where partners have indeed taken lower draws in order to avoid layoffs, but nobody is putting that story in the WSJ.

[IAFG]

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

Sure, firms pay partners less, so rainmakers leave, and now all the associates are out of work instead of just some of them.

I fucking hate it when people say that.

Nothing about "it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs" is inconsistent with that. There are firms where some rainmakers bring in much more business than their compensation would suggest, and those rainmakers do not flee en masse to firms with more flexible compensation structures.

List of partners where this is the case.

[timbs4339]

This may come as a complete shock to you, but it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs, rather than spend a lot of money in order to hire midlevels and seniors if the market picks up again (perhaps at an increased pay rate). If not, attrition can thin the herd.

IIRC, Dewey and Howrey both claimed until the day they died that they were merely rightsizing. Weil won't go the way of those firms, but to say that cutting jobs means that management knows how to run a business is foolish. In fact, I read layoffs as an indication that management screwed up somewhere along the line.

Sure, firms pay partners less, so rainmakers leave, and now all the associates are out of work instead of just some of them.

I fucking hate it when people say that.

Nothing about "it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs" is inconsistent with that. There are firms where some rainmakers bring in much more business than their compensation would suggest, and those rainmakers do not flee en masse to firms with more flexible compensation structures.

List of partners where this is the case.

See Swaine and Moore, Cravath.

[IAFG]

See Swaine and Moore, Cravath.

Firms that pay partners lockstep generally get away with it because of institutional clients who aren't going to leave with the lawyer.

I am not saying every rainmaker is maximizing their pay, I am saying your suggestion for avoiding layoffs is mostly unworkable/not consistent with the reality of the biglaw business model.

[c3pO4]

Name a Fortune 100 company that is a partnership, performs exactly one service that only people with one particular educational background are qualified to do, only hires people en masse as a class once every year, and has a rigid up-or-out practice making the average employee tenure only three or four years. It's an asinine comparison.

ummm, all of these things sound like pretty terrible business practices. they should all change too, and eventually will one way or another. also, many of the high performance jobs in big F500 publicly traded companies do require fairly specialized education / career path (mba/career equivalent exp). law firms exist to make profit, just like any other business, even if they are a "partnership" instead of a C corp.

[Old Gregg]

Firms that pay partners lockstep generally get away with it because of institutional clients who aren't going to leave with the lawyer.

Nope, especially in this economy.

[imchuckbass58]

Nothing about "it is possible for the partners to take lower draws to preserve jobs" is inconsistent with that. There are firms where some rainmakers bring in much more business than their compensation would suggest, and those rainmakers do not flee en masse to firms with more flexible compensation structures.

List of partners where this is the case.

This is true at pretty much every firm with a lockstep partnership (Cravath, Wachtell, Cleary, DPW, Debevoise). Several of these firms deliberately took a PPP hit to not lay off associates during the recession. At each of these firms, there are superstar partners who could make many multiples of what they make if they moved to an eat what you kill firm. Yet these firms have some of the lowest partner turnover of any firms out there, because they retain partners not solely using money.

You think Evan Chesler couldn't have made more at Kirkland? Or that Mary Jo White couldn't have gotten a hefty compensation package from a non-lockstep firm instead of going back to Debevoise after being US Attorney, where she made the same as every other senior partner? At all of these firms, there are partners who are responsible for disproportionate shares of the firm's business, but they stick around.