Originally published on February 16, 2009 in our free BigLaw newsletter.
Introduction
Large law firms don't lay people off, do they? Yes, Virginia, they do. And I remember the first time it happened.
Large firms usually let go of people in a manner so gentle as to go unnoticed — even by those who get the axe.
The most common scenario occurs nine years in when a partner walks into your office and suggests that you spend the next year looking for something else to do.
Nice work if you can get it because the paychecks keep rolling in but the work slows to trickle.
The more subtle large firm layoff occurs much earlier when you receive a middling performance review. You might foolishly believe that you can reverse your fortunes. Just don't say I didn't warn you when that ninth year rolls around.
A Massacre By Any Other Name …
Last week's already infamous Valentine's Day massacre has shocked everyone.
How quickly we forget.
A bull market fueled by junk debt financing results in massive hiring and salary inflation at America's largest law firms. When the corporate work dries up during the ensuing recession, law firms cut the most obvious cost — those inflated salaries. Sound familiar? That's what happened in the early 1990s.
This time around the cuts are deeper because the good times lasted much longer and the law firms grew much larger.
But in both cases, the unwritten rule governing tenure at large firms — a veritable pacta sunt servanda — gave way to a clausula rebus sic stantibus when the profits per partner began to plummet.
Of course, I prefer the English idiom. Life sucks, then you get laid off.
The Trappings of BigLaw …
The recession in the early nineties couldn't have been kinder to me. I enrolled in law school at UCLA when it began and graduated when it ended, landing a job at Willkie Far & Gallagher.
I started at Willkie on October 11, 1993. I worked the next 20 days straight before I finally got a day off, fittingly, on Halloween. The firm — or at least the senior associate for whom I was working, which to a first year represent a difference without distinction — would not permit me leave work on October 15th to let the movers into my apartment. My father came to my rescue as parents often do. I had never even seen my apartment until that night, having leased it from afar based on a faxed floor plan.
Was I depressed? Far from it. I was having a blast!
From my perspective, I had an office on the 47th floor overlooking New York City, got free dinner and car service every night, and became fast friends with several of my 40 fellow first years. Plus my first assignment was a Supreme Court petition for certiorari.
More subtle than the accompanying golden handcuffs, these and other trappings of large firm life make you feel more important than you actually are, and keep many young associates content for a while.
But not forever. Sooner or later, you lose your innocence and become jaded. For some, it happens after a month. For others, it can take, well, nine years.
If Gossip Is Information, and Information Is Knowledge …
The large firm trapping I most enjoyed was the gossip. Judging by the success of Above the Law, I'm not alone.
Just like those layoffs in the early nineties, nothing has changed. But good gossip never gets old.
There's all the sex of course. Associates and partners, associates and paralegals, even an associate and a janitor as I recall.
Some gossip makes its way to the press, but even in today's blog-happy world, much of it never leaves the firm, especially the stuff that really matters like a beauty contest win or a botched deposition.
Because we didn't have blogs like Above the Law, I started an underground email newsletter at Willkie. That experience eventually led to TechnoLawyer so it's only fitting that I come full circle back to my email newsletter roots.
And so today we launch BigLaw, a new email newsletter by large firm lawyers for large firm lawyers.
While we intend to dish the dirt, we will do so with the best of intentions.
We're not interested in embarrassing anyone so we'll anonymize all the gossip we receive. Instead, we want to transform this gossip into knowledge by drawing lessons from it — lessons for partners, associates, and heck, maybe even janitors.
You see, for all the knocks against large firms, they're undeniably successful enterprises. And the long hours and the psychopaths with whom you sometimes have to work make you keen and tough.
Nonetheless, large firms have serious problems and lots of room for improvement. Remember Mudge Rose? Brobeck? Thelen? Heller Ehrman? Even the largest firms can go up in smoke much faster than you would think possible.
Can this newsletter save your firm or your job? Hey, we're not miracle workers. But we will entertain and educate you. This much I promise. Pacta sunt servanda.
How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw goes deep undercover inside some of the country's biggest law firms. But we don't just dish up the dirt. We also mine it for best and worst practices and other nuggets of knowledge. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.
