Over the summer, there was quite a to-do over an unidentified firm’s calling, mid-interview, an agency that specializes in assisting companies in laying people off – staff in particular.
Based on some scant evidence in the Washington Post piece and a fancy Venn diagram, we ultimately listed the three firms most-likely to have availed themselves of the Five O’Clock Club’s services.
One of our three best guesses recently had another round of layoffs. Did this blind squirrel find a nut?
Details after the jump.
To refresh your recollection, here’s what we had to go on:
“Five O’Clock Club, this is Kim,” she says. “How are you this morning?”
She rocks in her chair as she listens and scribbles notes: A law firm in Manhattan. Downsizing. Their third one this year. Twelve employees. Probably in August. More to come in October and November.
Based on those criteria, we figured Proskauer, Skadden Arps, and Akin Gump were the most-likely candidates. In fact, Proskauer and Skadden both met an additional criterion: they were on the company’s (since-removed) list of clients.
But it might have been the unnamed client who made the call that fateful day.
As we mentioned in last week’s This Week in Layoffs, Akin Gump has quietly laid off an undisclosed number of staff. Unfortunately, the tickle in the back of our brain didn’t make the connection until today.
It was a bit of a curveball, as the layoffs appear to have been in DC, but the call only identified a “law firm in Manhattan,” without ever specifying where the actual layoffs would take place. This was indeed Akin Gump’s third round of layoffs, following 65 staff in January, when spokeswoman Sheila Turner said, “there are no planned attorney layoffs.” Although she did hedge her bets, adding, “in these difficult times we of course expect to monitor the economy and staff the firm accordingly.” That constant monitoring led to a major layoff just three weeks later: 47 lawyers and 57 staff.
It’s also not clear whether there were other layoffs in August, or whether they were all included in the most-recent confirmation. The firm also denied being “involved in a larger effort aimed at reducing [its] staff or lawyer workforce.”
So what do you think, is Akin Gump the anonymous firm that made the call?
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That's a pretty good fake out, actually.