"Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic" Forum

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DoveBodyWash

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by DoveBodyWash » Wed Apr 01, 2020 11:29 am

LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:At Kirkland -- I think we are somewhat better positioned than most huge firms because we have a large bankruptcy practice (and that practice spins off lawsuits that the litigators can handle, etc.). It's a significant difference between us and Latham.
This is a weird comment considering Latham’s bankruptcy group has been going gangbusters for the past year + and is now pretty firmly the #3 shop behind Weil/KE.
looooooooooool
lol what.

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 01, 2020 11:44 am

DoveBodyWash wrote:
LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:At Kirkland -- I think we are somewhat better positioned than most huge firms because we have a large bankruptcy practice (and that practice spins off lawsuits that the litigators can handle, etc.). It's a significant difference between us and Latham.
This is a weird comment considering Latham’s bankruptcy group has been going gangbusters for the past year + and is now pretty firmly the #3 shop behind Weil/KE.
looooooooooool
lol what.
Don’t really want to sidetrack this thread with this point, but I can assure you that as a midlevel in restructuring that has worked at two of these firms this is the case.

txhill

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by txhill » Wed Apr 01, 2020 12:22 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
DoveBodyWash wrote:
LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:At Kirkland -- I think we are somewhat better positioned than most huge firms because we have a large bankruptcy practice (and that practice spins off lawsuits that the litigators can handle, etc.). It's a significant difference between us and Latham.
This is a weird comment considering Latham’s bankruptcy group has been going gangbusters for the past year + and is now pretty firmly the #3 shop behind Weil/KE.
looooooooooool
lol what.
Don’t really want to sidetrack this thread with this point, but I can assure you that as a midlevel in restructuring that has worked at two of these firms this is the case.
Not even remotely true. https://www.wsj.com/graphics/bankruptcy-power-players/

JusticeSquee

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by JusticeSquee » Wed Apr 01, 2020 1:13 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
DoveBodyWash wrote:
LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:At Kirkland -- I think we are somewhat better positioned than most huge firms because we have a large bankruptcy practice (and that practice spins off lawsuits that the litigators can handle, etc.). It's a significant difference between us and Latham.
This is a weird comment considering Latham’s bankruptcy group has been going gangbusters for the past year + and is now pretty firmly the #3 shop behind Weil/KE.
looooooooooool
lol what.
Don’t really want to sidetrack this thread with this point, but I can assure you that as a midlevel in restructuring that has worked at two of these firms this is the case.
You are delusional. The WSJ article as well as a mountain of other evidence clearly show that Weil/KE are handling the vast majority of debtor-side work. Everyone else (including Latham lmao) is very far behind.
Last edited by QContinuum on Wed Apr 01, 2020 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Outed for anon abuse.

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Man from Nantucket

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by Man from Nantucket » Wed Apr 01, 2020 2:13 pm

txhill wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
DoveBodyWash wrote:
LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:At Kirkland -- I think we are somewhat better positioned than most huge firms because we have a large bankruptcy practice (and that practice spins off lawsuits that the litigators can handle, etc.). It's a significant difference between us and Latham.
This is a weird comment considering Latham’s bankruptcy group has been going gangbusters for the past year + and is now pretty firmly the #3 shop behind Weil/KE.
looooooooooool
lol what.
Don’t really want to sidetrack this thread with this point, but I can assure you that as a midlevel in restructuring that has worked at two of these firms this is the case.
Not even remotely true. https://www.wsj.com/graphics/bankruptcy-power-players/
The group is basically 2 years old so it isn’t particularly surprising that it isn’t a focus in an article examining bankruptcies over the past decade +. Latham has been performing very well on the debtor side including what I think was the second biggest filing of the pst year after PG&E.

FWIW: https://www.law360.com/articles/1232607 ... ear-latham

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Wild Card

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by Wild Card » Wed Apr 01, 2020 2:41 pm

No one old enough will ever forget that Latham massacred a generation of young associates and that accordingly it is a festering TTT in decline no matter how much money it makes and how many partners it buys.

TMJ2017

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by TMJ2017 » Wed Apr 01, 2020 4:35 pm

Wild Card wrote:No one old enough will ever forget that Latham massacred a generation of young associates and that accordingly it is a festering TTT in decline no matter how much money it makes and how many partners it buys.
This. Getting axed during publicly announced layoffs due to economic reasons is actually far less stigmatizing and confidence-draining for a young attorney than being gaslit with an out-of-the-blue performance review where you are suddenly told that it turns out you aren’t meeting expectations and that you need to find a job within 1-3 months if lucky (which is lol when there are literally no jobs and peeps in NYC can’t even leave their apartments.) The former also come with severance pay, whereas the latter do not. I expect most firms will go with stealthing because it keeps the bad press away and does minimal harm to a firm’s reputation among law students and therefore keeps the recruits coming.
Last edited by QContinuum on Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Outed for anon abuse.

thisismytlsuername

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by thisismytlsuername » Wed Apr 01, 2020 5:30 pm

Wild Card wrote:No one old enough will ever forget that Latham massacred a generation of young associates and that accordingly it is a festering TTT in decline no matter how much money it makes and how many partners it buys.
I suspect very few of the posters here are old enough to know what TTT even means.

QContinuum

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by QContinuum » Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:13 pm

TMJ2017 wrote:
Wild Card wrote:No one old enough will ever forget that Latham massacred a generation of young associates and that accordingly it is a festering TTT in decline no matter how much money it makes and how many partners it buys.
This. Getting axed during publicly announced layoffs due to economic reasons is actually far less stigmatizing and confidence-draining for a young attorney than being gaslit with an out-of-the-blue performance review where you are suddenly told that it turns out you aren’t meeting expectations and that you need to find a job within 1-3 months if lucky (which is lol when there are literally no jobs and peeps in NYC can’t even leave their apartments.) The former also come with severance pay, whereas the latter do not. I expect most firms will go with stealthing because it keeps the bad press away and does minimal harm to a firm’s reputation among law students and therefore keeps the recruits coming.
I like how you begin your post by pretending to agree with Wild Card, while the rest of the post actually disagrees 100%.

I fall on both sides of this. On the one hand, I agree that being publicly laid off due to economic reasons is (comparably) much less damaging, both psychologically and career-wise, than being "stealthed" for bogus performance reasons. On the other hand, (i) I seem to recall some reporting on ATL (which, to be clear, I have no firsthand knowledge of) that Latham also "stealthed" significant numbers of associates, both before and after the headline-grabbing layoff. And, (ii) again based on ATL reporting (with no firsthand knowledge on my part), the sheer number of associates laid off by Latham, as a fraction of their class year, was unusually high amongst its peer firms.

This kind of feeds back to CWT's salary cuts right now. If, in fact, CWT doesn't end up laying anyone off, then I totally agree the 25% salary cut is much preferable to laying off 25% of CWT's associates. As others have pointed out ITT, while it's probably pretty easy to identify, say, the lowest-performing 10% at any firm, and probably makes sense to let those go, there is a broad, mushy middle, and I've gotta think there'd be a significant amount of randomness and politics involved in identifying a full quarter of associates to cut.

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objctnyrhnr

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by objctnyrhnr » Wed Apr 01, 2020 8:38 pm

What % of its total US associates were actual axed during the infamous Latham lay-off?

PourMeTea

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by PourMeTea » Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:18 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:What % of its total US associates were actual axed during the infamous Latham lay-off?
12%, at least publicly https://abovethelaw.com/2009/02/nationw ... 250-staff/

Sackboy

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by Sackboy » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:14 pm

QContinuum wrote:
If, in fact, CWT doesn't end up laying anyone off, then I totally agree the 25% salary cut is much preferable to laying off 25% of CWT's associates.
I have a minor nitpick. Cutting 25% of associate salary saves the firm much less than laying off 25% of attorneys. If you lay off 25% of your attorneys, you also lose any healthcare and other benefit expenses that you subsidize for each attorney.

QContinuum

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Re: "Cadwalader Cuts Pay [By 25%] Across The Firm To Weather Pandemic"

Post by QContinuum » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:55 pm

Sackboy wrote:
QContinuum wrote:
If, in fact, CWT doesn't end up laying anyone off, then I totally agree the 25% salary cut is much preferable to laying off 25% of CWT's associates.
I have a minor nitpick. Cutting 25% of associate salary saves the firm much less than laying off 25% of attorneys. If you lay off 25% of your attorneys, you also lose any healthcare and other benefit expenses that you subsidize for each attorney.
While I agree there are some non-salary expenses, I don't think it's that significant. Maybe cutting 25% of associate salary = same savings as cutting 22% of associates? Salary is still by far the most significant expense - it's not like law firms match 401ks for associates, and many don't even subsidize medical coverage that much.

In addition, with a pay cut, the firm also gets the "insurance policy" of having manpower in place (not to mention saving on lateral recruiting and hiring expenses) should the economy come roaring back in relatively short order, which isn't impossible if, say, any of the myriad of drugs in clinical testing right now proves to be a miracle treatment that results in the lockdowns getting lifted in the next few weeks.

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