The Month in Layoffs – March 10

by lawshucks on April 3, 2010

March ’10 was a worse month for layoffs than February in almost all measures: more lawyers; more staff; more firms. The only metric that was better in March than February was average layoff size.

But we only have to look back a year to appreciate how much things have improved. Compared to the bloodbath that was March ’09, this year has been a walk in the park.

There have been fewer people laid off by major law firms in all of 2010 than were laid off in a single day in March last year (737 on March 9, 2009). We wrote more about that comparison in Blawg Review #255.

Still, we lost more than a handful this month.

Details after the jump.





All told, 164 people were reported as laid off from major law firms in March, of which 67 were attorneys and 97 staff. That’s almost a 50% increase compared to February.

Here are the past sixteen months (click to embiggen all charts):

Five firms laid people off in March, compared to three in February. But the average layoff size dropped slightly, to 32.8 from 36.7.

Considering the up-and-down numbers over the past seven months, it’s difficult to predict which way things will go. Most likely, we’ll continue to see up to a few hundred people laid off over the next few months as firms continue to rightsize. Summer associates arrive in just a few months and that can exacerbate the situation at any firm where juniors are still scrambling to stay busy.

Firms that had reports of layoffs in March:

More detail about the layoffs and the other cost-cutting measures firms have embraced can be found in the weekly analyses:

Also, don’t miss Layoffs Highest Among Top-School Grads for in-depth analysis on which groups were most affected by layoffs.

Tagged as: dewey & leboeuf, howrey, layoffs, lovells, mcdermott will, the month in layoffs

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