Pic: U. Chicago
We’ve written previously about the inapropriateness of firms’ laying off first years, but now we’re tracking an even more-alarming trend. The “gentlemen’s agreement” of a stealth layoff (assuming you don’t think they’re repugnant in the first place, as we do) is that the firm maintains a public face both as to its own financial strength and the laid-off attorneys’ competence.
(For those laypersons who heard about us from Bloomberg, welcome! – FYI a “stealth layoff” is when firms lay off attorneys supposedly for performance reasons, but in fact are doing so by imposing arbitrarily tighter standards due to economic conditions. We think it’s disingenuous to say attorneys who would otherwise, in a normal market, be perfectly acceptable, should be branded inadequate when the firms are laying off people for their own ulterior motives.)
The stealth-layoff model only works when there are very few firms engaged in stealth layoffs. The data clearly indicate otherwise. Every recruiter and headhunter knows that someone would have to be completely insane to be leaving a firm voluntarily right now. So candidates are already guaranteed one strike. The difference is whether the strike is for being completely irrational in career choices or for being laid off for “performance” reasons. Neither makes for a good first impression.
The other component of the “gentlemen’s agreement” of stealth layoffs is the terms on which the departed wind up their affairs. Here’s how a stealth layoff is supposed to work. The attorneys are given use of their office and secretary, their work is promptly and fully shifted to other attorneys, the partners actively work the rolodex for the associates, career counseling and training services (interview skills, resume polishing, etc.) are provided, and warm recommendations are given.
All of this is designed to facilitate subsequent employment. Furthermore, when done right, it maintains the fiction that the firm doing the stealth layoff is actually viable, because (or so the thinking goes) its attorneys who are on the market are qualified and competent. In return, the associates don’t badmouth the firm (which is often self-destructive behavior anyway, but that’s a story for another day).
How the firms are breaking their side of the deal, after the jump.
The key component for the affected associates is the ability to focus full time, typically for a period of three months, on finding the next job. That’s a little difficult to do when you’re getting more work than ever before! According to one tipster (from one of the whitest-shod firms out there),
The worst part about the layoffs is that these associates are still expected to come to work and are even getting new assignments, which makes an active job search very difficult. Laid-off associates risk accusations of “unprofessional behavior” and poor recommendations to potential future employers if they were to turn down an assignment, and certain partners are using this fact to bully some laid-off associates. … I was also told that the firm would give me great flexibility to perform a job search. Since the first of the year, and after being asked to leave the firm, I have received two large new assignments and have worked more hours per week than I did at any time in 2008. I am puzzled how I can at the same time be not up to the standard that [my firm] expects but be critical to the first new work that the group has had in months.
We find this appalling. It puts associates in an untenable situation: focus on the job search at the risk of getting no support from the firm, or cram the job search in around the edges in a vain hope of winning back the job.
Despite the threat of bullying, I’d probably call their bluff. What are they going to do, fire you? I understand it’s a difficult decision, and the interpersonal dynamics of saying “fuck you” to the partners who trained you are daunting, but they’ve said “fuck you” to you already. Learn from their lesson: behave selfishly. They’ve already shown that they’re going to behave strictly in line with their own best interests, including by throwing you under the bus, so use every single resource they make available. Be polite about it, but be firm and aggressive. They’ve got contacts everywhere, make them use them.
At the end of the day, there is almost no chance that you’ll get your old job back and, even if you did, you’ll always know that you’re the first one they’ll get rid of the next time there’s some difficulty.
What say you?
