Orrick's Baxter
Just as Above the Law predicted (based on conference-room bookings and other anecdotes), Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has laid off 100 attorneys and 200 staffers. After laying off 40 lawyers and 35 staff in November, chairman Ralph Baxter (Stanford AB ’68, Catholic MA ’70, Virginia JD ’74) said, “this is the end, as far as we can see. Our intention is for this to be it.“
This brings Orrick’s total to 375, #3 on the Top Ten Overall list (bumping McDermott Will & Emery) and #6 on the Lawyers-Only list (just 3 behind Cadwalader). It also continues the trend of California firms’ laying people off.
California and UK firms are clearly not the place to be right now.
DLA Piper is laying off 20 lawyers and 34 staffers from various offices in Asia, brings its total to 279 – 101 attorneys, 178 staff – in four tranches going back to August.
DLA has a double whammy working against it. It’s a hybrid of London’s DLA and San Diego’s Gray Cary, with a dash of Baltimore’s Piper & Marbury, and Chicago’s Rudnick & Wolfe thrown in.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
The legal community needs one big sanitary napkin to staunch the blood flow – is there any end in sight. This is terrible. Orick should be in a shame cave for not having the foresight to handle this back in November . Instead 100 days after initial bloodletting, it is back to the well.
Interesting metaphor.
The legal community needs one big sanitary napkin to staunch the blood flow – is there any end in sight. This is terrible. Orick should be in a shame cave for not having the foresight to handle this back in November . Instead 100 days after initial bloodletting, it is back to the well.
Interesting metaphor.
maybe it is not appropriate but think about it – it works, in particular with Orrick. Management stinks for this misplay.
maybe it is not appropriate but think about it – it works, in particular with Orrick. Management stinks for this misplay.
I get it. I probably would have gone down the "tourniquet" path, but yours certainly conjures more of the revulsion angle.
As to the actual issue, though, there are arguably two factors mitigating Orrick's behavior (neither of which I buy): (1) in November the full year's receipts hadn't come in and on November 13, when Orrick announced, the S&P was at 850 (it closed under 700 today in case you somehow missed that tidbit), so they didn't know just how bad the long-term outlook was going to be; and (2) there has been a pretty substantial callus built up in the past few months for layoffs of ever-increasing size, so there was still a lot more concern about the PR hit at the time – now firms can get away with cutting as deep as necessary with less concern for the repercussions. Yes, the ballsy move would have been to just rip the bandage off, cut deep and tie up the ends as neatly as possible. But they were still in an environment where "look and see" by cutting as little as possible was the prevailing mentality (in which case you could rightly argue, "why cut at all?").
I get it. I probably would have gone down the "tourniquet" path, but yours certainly conjures more of the revulsion angle.
As to the actual issue, though, there are arguably two factors mitigating Orrick's behavior (neither of which I buy): (1) in November the full year's receipts hadn't come in and on November 13, when Orrick announced, the S&P was at 850 (it closed under 700 today in case you somehow missed that tidbit), so they didn't know just how bad the long-term outlook was going to be; and (2) there has been a pretty substantial callus built up in the past few months for layoffs of ever-increasing size, so there was still a lot more concern about the PR hit at the time – now firms can get away with cutting as deep as necessary with less concern for the repercussions. Yes, the ballsy move would have been to just rip the bandage off, cut deep and tie up the ends as neatly as possible. But they were still in an environment where "look and see" by cutting as little as possible was the prevailing mentality (in which case you could rightly argue, "why cut at all?").