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They only laid off 2 percent… of total headcount. They did, however, drop about 20 percent of their litigation associates — to the extent the firm’s website, which shows 101 total litigation associates, is to be believed. That’s a tremendous miss.

Anonymous User wrote:are they all general litigation associates? GP associate should have no problem to pick positions in lower rank firms.

KM2016 wrote: 'We aren’t concerned about it, we are happy about it,' he says. 'It’s our goal to help them get rid of that litigation.'" -Am Law

DELG wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:are they all general litigation associates? GP associate should have no problem to pick positions in lower rank firms.

looool

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

KM2016 wrote: 'We aren’t concerned about it, we are happy about it,' he says. 'It’s our goal to help them get rid of that litigation.'" -Am Law

lol

JohannDeMann wrote:That sucks for those associates. Most of them probably just had 2500+ hour years. Should at least let them work for a year with 1500 hours before axing them. Or wait for your firm profits to stop increasing at 5% a year.

rpupkin wrote:

JohannDeMann wrote:That sucks for those associates. Most of them probably just had 2500+ hour years. Should at least let them work for a year with 1500 hours before axing them. Or wait for your firm profits to stop increasing at 5% a year.

I kinda doubt that, actually. If you're concerned about your firm's profitability (as Goodwin clearly is), you generally don't lay off associates who are able and willing to bill 2,500+ hours.

rpupkin wrote:

JohannDeMann wrote:That sucks for those associates. Most of them probably just had 2500+ hour years. Should at least let them work for a year with 1500 hours before axing them. Or wait for your firm profits to stop increasing at 5% a year.

I kinda doubt that, actually. If you're concerned about your firm's profitability (as Goodwin clearly is), you generally don't lay off associates who are able and willing to bill 2,500+ hours.

JohannDeMann wrote:

rpupkin wrote: I kinda doubt that, actually. If you're concerned about your firm's profitability (as Goodwin clearly is), you generally don't lay off associates who are able and willing to bill 2,500+ hours.

Sounds like the firm preemptively acted knowing they didn't have work to goaround for them after they were staffed only on this BoA case. It's not unusual to bill 2500 in a year your case goes to litigation.

I would bet my entire life savings at least one of those people fired billed 2500. And it wouldnt surprise if over half billed 2500 on a major matter like that.

Jim Jones wrote:how often does this happen? a big firm has one super giant matter and when it settles they drop weight?

rpupkin wrote:

JohannDeMann wrote:

rpupkin wrote: I kinda doubt that, actually. If you're concerned about your firm's profitability (as Goodwin clearly is), you generally don't lay off associates who are able and willing to bill 2,500+ hours.

Sounds like the firm preemptively acted knowing they didn't have work to goaround for them after they were staffed only on this BoA case. It's not unusual to bill 2500 in a year your case goes to litigation.

Do you mean if your case goes to trial? I've worked at a big law firm office where a big case went to trial. And the associates working on that trial were billing 300+ hours a month. But just in my office alone (not to mention the entire firm) there were several litigation associates who weren't working on that case. And there are always a few associates billing under 2,000 hours for one reason or another, even when the firm is crazy busy. I bet it's those associates who were targeted for the layoffs at Goodwin.

I would bet my entire life savings at least one of those people fired billed 2500. And it wouldnt surprise if over half billed 2500 on a major matter like that.

Well, you're quite confident. I just don't think that's how big law firms make decisions. They laid off 14 associates, not 50. They wouldn't have had to cut into the 2,500+ hour associates. I guess it's possible they went by pure seniority and there were a couple of first years who had just billed 2,500+ hours and then got laid off. But I doubt it.

JohannDeMann wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

JohannDeMann wrote:

rpupkin wrote: I kinda doubt that, actually. If you're concerned about your firm's profitability (as Goodwin clearly is), you generally don't lay off associates who are able and willing to bill 2,500+ hours.

Sounds like the firm preemptively acted knowing they didn't have work to goaround for them after they were staffed only on this BoA case. It's not unusual to bill 2500 in a year your case goes to litigation.

Do you mean if your case goes to trial? I've worked at a big law firm office where a big case went to trial. And the associates working on that trial were billing 300+ hours a month. But just in my office alone (not to mention the entire firm) there were several litigation associates who weren't working on that case. And there are always a few associates billing under 2,000 hours for one reason or another, even when the firm is crazy busy. I bet it's those associates who were targeted for the layoffs at Goodwin.

I would bet my entire life savings at least one of those people fired billed 2500. And it wouldnt surprise if over half billed 2500 on a major matter like that.

Well, you're quite confident. I just don't think that's how big law firms make decisions. They laid off 14 associates, not 50. They wouldn't have had to cut into the 2,500+ hour associates. I guess it's possible they went by pure seniority and there were a couple of first years who had just billed 2,500+ hours and then got laid off. But I doubt it.

You mean from your summer associate days? I don't think you understand how this works. So people who are staffed on cases have work. So these 14 associates that were laid off were probably all exclusively staffed on BoA case. The case ends and the firm has a partners meeting about what to staff these 14 associates on that just spent their whole year billing almost exclusively to this one matter. The partners realize oh we don't have the incoming work to staff them on new cases and we don't have the need to staff them on currently pending matters. So you keep a couple of the best and then you scrap the rest because you don't have any cases to staff them on.
Since you "know" how this works from your "experience" why would a firm layoff people that have worked on an active case for a couple years and built up knowledge about the case while the case is still pending? It's almost a guarantee everyone that was laid off was working on the BoA case. Not that the firm assessed everyones hours and restaffed people from BoA to a pending matter and laid off the guy on the pending matter that had been on the pending matter for 2+ years.

As to Jim Jones, I don't know how common it is, but there was a 6th year at my firm who had worked on one case his entire time with the firm and primarily billed to that client. He dipped and took a class year cut to go to a new firm before trial because he was worried about the above. Maybe he was a little paranoid, but I don't think its unheard of to trim some fat (a person or two). This is just a lot more fat than is usually trimmed.

JohannDeMann wrote:Since you "know" how this works from your "experience" why would a firm layoff people that have worked on an active case for a couple years

Jim Jones wrote:i know who to not bid now

nickelanddime wrote:
It's not difficult to reassign associates to matters and in fact, happens all the time. We're in a high turnover industry and firms are used to this.

Jim Jones wrote:how often does this happen? a big firm has one super giant matter and when it settles they drop weight?

Jim Jones wrote:how often does this happen? a big firm has one super giant matter and when it settles they drop weight?

Desert Fox wrote:

Jim Jones wrote:how often does this happen? a big firm has one super giant matter and when it settles they drop weight?

normally they don't pwn people right away. But your hours slip, you get a shitty review, and then get ur walking papers.