Kirkland & Ellis Conducts Round of Layoffs Forum

[Anonymous User]

It's gotten picked up in the legal press and is also being discussed on social media:

https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2022 ... e-reviews/

https://abovethelaw.com/2022/11/stealth ... glaw-firm/

https://www.reddit.com/r/biglaw/comment ... st_biglaw/

Seems concentrated in Texas but I've also heard reports about layoffs in LA. In some ways this seems like exactly what everyone predicted, i.e., the firm leveraged up with rando associate hires when transactional was busy during COVID and is now peeling them away, but I wonder if this is a one and done or a sign of worse to come.

[Anonymous User]

What concerns me is whether it's really true -- as some associates are saying on Fishbowl and maybe other places too -- that these folks did not get any advance warning or sign or chance to improve before being fired.

Because if that's true, then that places almost ALL of us in this category: you're doing fine, billing ~1900 hrs/month, and then bam, a meeting is scheduled and you're politely but firmly told you have a few months to prepare to leave. THAT is terrifying to all of us not well-connected to powerful SPs in our respective offices.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

[Anonymous User]

What concerns me is whether it's really true -- as some associates are saying on Fishbowl and maybe other places too -- that these folks did not get any advance warning or sign or chance to improve before being fired.

Because if that's true, then that places almost ALL of us in this category: you're doing fine, billing ~1900 hrs/month, and then bam, a meeting is scheduled and you're politely but firmly told you have a few months to prepare to leave. THAT is terrifying to all of us not well-connected to powerful SPs in our respective offices.

if you were in a transactional practice last year and only came in w/ 1900 hrs annualized I am legit surprised you don’t realize how that could bite you in the ass when things slow down. not even at KE but turning in 1900 hrs for 2021 is dumb in light of how busy it was.

[Wanderingdrock]

What concerns me is whether it's really true -- as some associates are saying on Fishbowl and maybe other places too -- that these folks did not get any advance warning or sign or chance to improve before being fired.

Because if that's true, then that places almost ALL of us in this category: you're doing fine, billing ~1900 hrs/month, and then bam, a meeting is scheduled and you're politely but firmly told you have a few months to prepare to leave. THAT is terrifying to all of us not well-connected to powerful SPs in our respective offices.

if you were in a transactional practice last year and only came in w/ 1900 hrs annualized I am legit surprised you don’t realize how that could bite you in the ass when things slow down. not even at KE but turning in 1900 hrs for 2021 is dumb in light of how busy it was.

And if you're actually billing 1900 hrs/month, you're getting fired yesterday and you deserve it, cuz that's some dumb-a** blatant fraud right there.

[Anonymous User]

What concerns me is whether it's really true -- as some associates are saying on Fishbowl and maybe other places too -- that these folks did not get any advance warning or sign or chance to improve before being fired.

Because if that's true, then that places almost ALL of us in this category: you're doing fine, billing ~1900 hrs/month, and then bam, a meeting is scheduled and you're politely but firmly told you have a few months to prepare to leave. THAT is terrifying to all of us not well-connected to powerful SPs in our respective offices.

if you were in a transactional practice last year and only came in w/ 1900 hrs annualized I am legit surprised you don’t realize how that could bite you in the ass when things slow down. not even at KE but turning in 1900 hrs for 2021 is dumb in light of how busy it was.

so we know it's only transactional folks? 1900/year (which is obviously what was meant) for lit isn't that bad.

[Anonymous User]

Obnoxious to do it at the annual review like it’s related to associate performance and not a layoff.

[Anonymous User]

What concerns me is whether it's really true -- as some associates are saying on Fishbowl and maybe other places too -- that these folks did not get any advance warning or sign or chance to improve before being fired.

Because if that's true, then that places almost ALL of us in this category: you're doing fine, billing ~1900 hrs/month, and then bam, a meeting is scheduled and you're politely but firmly told you have a few months to prepare to leave. THAT is terrifying to all of us not well-connected to powerful SPs in our respective offices.

I don't have inside info about the specific people who were fired but from the context of everything I'm reading and hearing I don't see any suggestion that these were generally good associates billing ~1,900 hours annualized and were told to GTFO.

You get the impression that the Texas offices (and other parts of the firm) overloaded for transactional work in 2020, 2021 and then come 2022 as work dried up these people (many of whom weren't "superstars" but were just brought in to handle deal flow) were turning in 100 hour billed months (or worse). I'm guessing if you looked at a spreadsheet of hours of people terminated you're seeing a lot of 12 month: 1,000, 1,200, 1,400, 1,600. KE isn't firing someone billing close to 2k hours unless they've committed some egregious ethical breach.

[Anonymous User]

Obnoxious to do it at the annual review like it’s related to associate performance and not a layoff.

Serious ?: If you're billing 1,250 annualized because deal work has dried up when should you be told to leave? Isn't the whole point of the annual review process to give people a predictable window for those sort of conversations? I'd rather have it happen like that than the old Latham method of bringing 100 associates into a conference room on a random Wednesday in e.g., February and saying "you're done; pack your bags."

[Wanderingdrock]

so we know it's only transactional folks? 1900/year (which is obviously what was meant) for lit isn't that bad.

Lol yes, it is obvious, though I suppose my joke wasn't, apparently.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

it's almost certainly more than that. i know 2 affected people who worked in NY and i'm not a K&E alum.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

Yeah but context matters. If we are talking 25 corporate associates in Houston/Dallas, that is a 10% reduction.

Would love to hear some weigh in from folks in those offices.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

Yeah but context matters. If we are talking 25 corporate associates in Houston/Dallas, that is a 10% reduction.

Would love to hear some weigh in from folks in those offices.

I’m in the Houston office. It’s not 25 in one office, and I don’t understand why some people keep trying to insist that it is. It’s a handful in each office, not just in Texas but across the firm. I think they get the 20-25 estimate by taking the layoffs in Houston/Dallas and extrapolating that out across the other domestic offices.

Also, this is old news. We collectively discussed this over a month ago. ATL and Law.com are just really slow picking up the story.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

Yeah but context matters. If we are talking 25 corporate associates in Houston/Dallas, that is a 10% reduction.

Would love to hear some weigh in from folks in those offices.

I’m in the Houston office. It’s not 25 in one office, and I don’t understand why some people keep trying to insist that it is. It’s a handful in each office, not just in Texas but across the firm. I think they get the 20-25 estimate by taking the layoffs in Houston/Dallas and extrapolating that out across the other domestic offices.

Also, this is old news. We collectively discussed this over a month ago. ATL and Law.com are just really slow picking up the story.

If that is really the case, only 20-25 firmwide, it sounds like a non-story. Also sounds like all the news sources complete got it wrong.

Or you got it wrong.

One of the two.

[Anonymous User]

25 associates for a firm of over 3000 lawyers doesn't really constitute mass layoffs, imo.

"As many as 20 to 25 associates in Kirkland’s U.S. offices could have been affected by cuts in the last several weeks, according to one of the sources. Associates who were let go had reportedly been given warnings about low billable hours and other performance issues, sources said, adding they were offered several months’ severance for signing a nondisparagement agreement."

Yeah but context matters. If we are talking 25 corporate associates in Houston/Dallas, that is a 10% reduction.

Would love to hear some weigh in from folks in those offices.

I’m in the Houston office. It’s not 25 in one office, and I don’t understand why some people keep trying to insist that it is. It’s a handful in each office, not just in Texas but across the firm. I think they get the 20-25 estimate by taking the layoffs in Houston/Dallas and extrapolating that out across the other domestic offices.

Also, this is old news. We collectively discussed this over a month ago. ATL and Law.com are just really slow picking up the story.

If that is really the case, only 20-25 firmwide, it sounds like a non-story. Also sounds like all the news sources complete got it wrong.

Or you got it wrong.

One of the two.

The news sources also say 20-25 firmwide, go back and read it again. The news sources and I agree with each other. The only source of claims that it’s more than that is hypothesizing and rumors from internet randos.

Agreed that it’s a non-story.