And out came the wolves…
Yesterday, we ran through the Top 25 in the Vault Prestige rankings. Today, it’s the next tier, numbers 26-50.
These 25 firms have decimated their ranks, laying off twice as many people as their most-prestigious competition.
Lest there be any confusion, we know that there are numerous firms that appear not to have laid anyone off, but unless you provide us with solid information, we can’t count them.
Details after the jump.
If anything is going to show a correlation between prestige and layoffs, it’s the numbers put up by these firms.
Only six of the V25 confirmed laying off lawyers (although many others had reports of stealth layoffs); only six of the next 25 DIDN’T confirm attorney layoffs.
Not only did almost all of these firms lay people off, they did so in much greater numbers.
Only two firms were in both the Law Shucks Layoff Top 10 List and the V25 (Latham and White & Case). The second 25 are much more-widely represented, with six of the Top 10 firms by total layoffs in this quartile.
- DLA Piper, 554 layoffs (#2 overall) – V44
- Allen & Overy, 462 layoffs (#3) – V36
- Clifford Chance, 436 layoffs (#4) – V26
- Orrick Herrington, 375 layoffs (#6) – V41
- Linklaters, 350 layoffs (#7) – V29
- Baker & McKenzie, 323 layoffs (#8) – V42
Full disclosure, though: Vault ranks DLA Piper US and UK separately; we aggregate all of the layoffs.
As we’ve noted several times over the past year, the UK megafirms have been particularly aggressive with the layoffs, although with a June 30 calendar year-end, it wasn’t enough as they all reported pretty poor results. Will more cuts be coming?
Not only did these firms cut twice as many lawyers, they cut lawyers in greater percentages than either the V25 or the overall average.
All told, V26-50 account for:
4,117 of 13,232 total layoffs (31.11%)
1,746 of 5,190 attorney layoffs (33.64%)
2,371 of 8,042 staff layoffs (29.48%)
Previously: V1-25
Next: V51-76
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Are we supposed to believe that the ones with blanks had no layoffs? Boies did and I'm sure others went the "stealth" option as well. Kind of disingenuous to report it this way without being adequately informed.
Go back an reread the fourth paragraph.
Are we supposed to believe that the ones with blanks had no layoffs? Boies did and I'm sure others went the "stealth" option as well. Kind of disingenuous to report it this way without being adequately informed.