Ropes (NY) v. Milbank (NY) v. Latham (CA-not LA) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Any suggestions?

[sbalive]

Do you want to live in CA- not LA?

[Anonymous User]

Could be happy in any place. Prefer NYC slightly, but Latham is my favorite of the three places. Concerned about the layoffs though.

[RVP11]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I've heard that the Latham layoffs were concentrated in NYC, not in the much more well-established California offices.

[Anonymous User]

pretty sure many tears were shed in latham LA

[Anonymous User]

Could people provide reasons why they would take Latham after all the layoffs over the others?

[bwv812]

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[Anonymous User]

3) Latham only did one round of layoffs, and the process has presumably left them better equipped to deal with the present econcomy.

I'm not sure that layoffs alone tell us a lot. Doing multiple waves of layoffs is arguably worse, and those who did stealth layoffs or let associates bill a tiny number hours and get away with it have really just succeeded in masking any problems they have faced.

Isn't that a big presumption though? If they still aren't equipped to deal with the economy, wouldn't layoffs show they are willing to do the same if they need to? Other firms may be masking the problems, but they have shown they are committed to not letting go of junior attorneys and it feels safer at firms that haven't let people go.

[Anonymous User]

how long after your callback did you receive the offer at Ropes?

[bwv812]

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[Anonymous User]

I think there's layoffs and then there's layoffs. When the bomb dropped, some associates became risk-averse and decided not to pursue those coveted "exit options" and firms needed to compensate for what, under normal economic times, would have been voluntary attrition. Places like DPW still had more deals than they could accept even during 2008-9.

Then there are firms where deal flow dried up and were leveraged "to the hilt like some piss-poor South American country," and so they rather mercilessly fired people because they didn't need the extra mouths to feed.

The first group is fine. The second group is sketchy (if anything, it reflects on poor managerial decisions as to aggressive expansion of offices and service groups that cannot always bring in their own clients. Maybe the partnership has learned from these mistakes, if they are even mistakes from their POV -- it could perhaps be more profitable model to expand and contract rather than remain conservative throughout -- but maybe it hasn't.)

[NYAssociate]

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[Anonymous User]

I think there's layoffs and then there's layoffs. When the bomb dropped, some associates became risk-averse and decided not to pursue those coveted "exit options" and firms needed to compensate for what, under normal economic times, would have been voluntary attrition. Places like DPW still had more deals than they could accept even during 2008-9.

1) Work dried up at DPW too for some time. They also stealthed a bunch of people.
2) Those associates didn't "decide not to" pursue those exit options. There were no exit options at the time.

according to two buddies who worked in corporate, they were able to keep busy then, but maybe they're both lying or maybe they both got lucky. And "stealthing" just refers to covert forced attrition done in order to conform to the model already in place, pre-ite. Lathaming, on the other hand, is an overt correction of the leverage (shift in the structural model altogether) because there was a substantial reduction in work flow.

[NYAssociate]

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[Anonymous User]

Of Ropes and Latham, which would you say is more diversified? Also, how much should a person consider the fact that the office in which he/she is interested was somewhat removed from the layoffs that took place firm-wide in other offices? The layoffs definitely didn't mirror Latham LA or NY.

[NYAssociate]

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