legends159 wrote:Not sure why this public info is posted anon
second, I doubt Latham's brand is hurt. Plenty of quality students will still pick them over more conservatively, better managed firms because of their prestige.
this is simply a matter of Milbank being a better banking firm and probably Latham NY not focusing enough on its banking dept to appease those partners.
Nah man. The consultants are saying Latham is in a weakened position and that their brand has been hurt. I know I wouldn't go there unless I didn't have options. Even their own people say large layoffs are built into their business model.
http://www.thelawyer.com/the-transatlan ... 98.article
One year on Latham stunned the market again, this time reporting a 21 per cent drop in average profit per equity partner to $1.8m (£1.23m) followed by the announcement it was laying off 440 employees across its global network, including 12 per cent of its associates.
“It’s a very, very serious management mistake which has to affect them adversely,” argues one legal market consultant of the layoffs, particularly those affecting first-year associates. “They’re taking the cynical view that culturally it doesn’t matter. But if you are one of the top law students at Oxbridge or Harvard now and you have offers from Latham and
slaughter and may, you’d be nuts to take Latham’s offer.”
http://www.chambers-associate.com/FirmFeature/3689/1
[Latham] has, however, been dogged by controversy and suffered greatly during the economic turmoil since 2008.
In 2008 gross revenue slipped to $2 billion and profits per equity partner were down by 21 percent, according to 2009 Am Law data. The initial response was a number of performance-related layoffs which was followed, in February 2009, by the laying off of another 190 associates and 250 support staff members. Such was the severity of the cuts that the expression “to be Lathamed” (which, by its most polite definition, means “to be laid off”) was coined.
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/how-did- ... r-layoffs/
But somehow Latham has taken a bigger public relations hit because of its layoffs than any other firm. The firm fell ten spots in last year’s Vault rankings. It’s been referenced in New York Times movie reviews in connection with lawyer layoffs. Hell, people turned Latham into a verb, and not a nice verb.
Now, the latest ignominy. The verb “Lathamed” isn’t just in Urban Dictionary; it’s in the Latham & Watkins firm description in the Chambers guide:
http://www.thelawyer.com/latham-salary- ... 81.article
The word in New York is that the pay rise is less of a signal that market conditions are improving and more a necessary step to stem a rising tide of junior lawyer exits.
“Latham is doing it because they’re desperate,” said one Manhattan recruitment consultant. “They’ve lost a whole bunch of good associates and, to the extent that there are jobs out there, Latham people are looking. Latham figures it’s the best way to show good faith with their associates, but it’s too little too late. They’re no longer drinking the Kool Aid.”
This is not exactly the spin that Latham will have been hoping for.