Staff Layoff at Jones Day Forum

[thesealocust]

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[miamiman]

Staffer hiring and attorney hiring being correlated says absolutely nothing about staffer firing and attorney firing being correlated. If someone wants to assert that this laying off of this staff is a result of or precursor to laying off attorneys, the best evidence of that would be evidence that attorneys were laid off. There are numerous other explanations as to why support staff could be laid off without it having anything to do with attorney hiring.

I think you're looking at this too narrowly. Staffers are ultimately decent proxies for overall firm activity/workload. 1) Firms generally keep tight staff-to-attorney ratios. When a firm decides it needs fewer staff, they will, as a matter of basic math, layoff some attorneys to maintain that ratio. That's why you see staff layoffs/attorney layoffs at firms move together (again, consult LawShucks) 2) When large pieces of litigation or projects dry up, so, too, does the need for support staff. That's undeniably why these individuals were fired. These same projects, however, are generally the lifeblood of junior associates so that partners and senior attorneys can work on the more pressing/complicated aspects of the project.

To some small extent, this story (in conjunction with other stories from Jones Day) might actually be a decent proxy for how the firm and certain offices are performing ITE. It's just not a good proxy for how other firms, in different markets, and with different specialties are doing.

You're making shit up, 0L. I make shit up a lot too, but yeesh, I at least try to be right about it.

What is made up? That firms maintain tight staffer/attorney ratios? Or that staffer layoffs and attorney layoffs occur in tandem? Which part of what I just said is fictional?

Also, being a 1L privileges you with knowledge of this stuff anymore than the 0L who reads American Lawyer, ATL, and has a biglaw partner as a parent?

[thesealocust]

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[PLATONiC]

In light of the recent employment reports from the government, this isn't all that surprising... out of the 400,000+ or so jobs that were created, only about 10% of that dealt with private sector hiring growth...

[miamiman]

In light of the recent employment reports from the government, this isn't all that surprising... out of the 400,000+ or so jobs that were created, only about 10% of that dealt with private sector hiring growth...

Platonic, I adore you.

[PLATONiC]

Don't make me blush.. Professor Christopher Sprigman will forever be in my heart.

[romothesavior]

Well, it doesn't bode well for OCI, but I do not think it indicates at all that this year's OCI will be worse than last year's.

it doesn't bode well for secretary OCI.

Look out Fordham students.

True genius. 180

[clintonius]

Staffer layoffs are probably decently-well correlated with attorney layoffs; much the same way as staffer hiring is correlated with attorney hiring.

So, you're justifying speculation that asserts correlation in one form of behavior by providing evidence that totally different behavior is correlated to a result not relevant to the first behavior? In other words

A and B are correlated.
A is a behavior that shares the same class of actors as C.
B is a behavior that shares the same class of actors as D.
Therefore, C and D are correlated.
If you saw this assertion on the LSAT, you would recognize it as being illogical.


Staffer hiring and attorney hiring being correlated says absolutely nothing about staffer firing and attorney firing being correlated. If someone wants to assert that this laying off of this staff is a result of or precursor to laying off attorneys, the best evidence of that would be evidence that attorneys were laid off. There are numerous other explanations as to why support staff could be laid off without it having anything to do with attorney hiring.

You took the LSAT already, right? So you're done with it? So you can maybe not try to LSAT the shit out of something that's a little more real-world than a logic game?

I'm with the people who say that this is very clearly NOT a sign of the impending doom of OCI prospects or the careers of a bunch of associates at Jones Day. It's also very clearly not a non-issue. Law firms try to avoid laying off people in numbers that get press. That Jones Day felt the need to let this many people go speaks to a reduced demand for support staff, which is not a good sign. It could simply be that they're getting rid of chaff from the glory days. We don't know. Saying "well, if you took the LSAT, you would know that this does not NECESSARILY mean [whatever the fuck we're all afraid of]" isn't a perfectly honest response.

[rayiner]

Without taking a position either way, let me just say that trying to read chicken entrails would probably be a more effective method of predicting OCI 2010 than what OP is doing.

[thesealocust]

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[NYAssociate]

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