According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2,000 jobs were lost in the legal sector in August on a seasonally adjusted basis. That adjustment is particularly important at this time of year, because it takes out the effects of large firms’ summer programs, which would otherwise bring the total to 13,600. In a quirk of our industry, a significant portion of those are people who are returning to school.
Of course, not all of those were at major law firms, and those are net losses. In the law-firm world, September was almost three times worse than August.
The details and trends (including a chart of the worst day of the month for layoffs), after the jump.
First, the layoffs by month for the year to date. August was extremely quiet for a number of reasons, mostly due to a combination of partners’ vacations and imminent OCI. But that didn’t start a number of firms from laying people off right after Labor Day.
Of the seven firms that laid people off, the biggest by far was Eversheds, which laid off 117 people (22 lawyers, 95 staff) – the largest layoff in over two months. The second-largest was UK IP firm Marks & Clerk, which laid off 60 people as it consolidated offices and scaled back due to the downturn (in a story broken by us, thanks to tipsters).
The most layoffs by a US firm in September was at Kirkland & Ellis, which laid off approximately 50 lawyers in Chicago, New York, Washington, and San Francisco (see our methodology and our position on stealth layoffs). Winston & Strawn was #2 in the US division, laying off 45, of which 20 were lawyers. Arnold & Porter, Cooley Godward, and Sonnenschein also laid off lawyers and/or staff in September.
One trend that people found interesting was the lawyer:staff ratio. Staff constituted 58% of all layoffs in September, much closer to the typical breakdown, which is now at 61.86% staff.
We’ve previously shown that Thursdays are the worst day for layoffs. Following on that trend, we can show that layoffs are heavily skewed toward the first half of months.
58.75% of all layoffs have occurred during the first half of the months (days 1 through 15). The four worst days (the 12th, 4th, 3rd, and 9th) are all in the first half of the month.
The weekly summaries for September can be found here
- This Week in Layoffs – 10/2/09 (yes, we know that’s October, but for all intents and purposes, it was September)
- This Week in Layoffs – 9/25/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 9/18/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 9/11/09
All told, 371 people were laid off by major law firms in September, of which 156 were lawyers and 215 were staff.
11,732 people have been laid off by major law firms this year, 4,474 lawyers, 7,258 staff.
Related posts:
I am a recruiter working on legal staff positions, Billing Manager and A/R Director, in the metropolitan NY area (suburbs). Solid firm and good positions for persons with appropriate backgrounds. please contact me with more information at bgrossman@ppllc.net if you are interested or know anyone who might be suitable.