This site, and this page and its sub-pages in particular, tracks law firm layoffs, particularly since the beginning of the most-recent downturn in January, 2008.
Major law firms are turning out to be just as susceptible to general economic conditions as every other industry. Historically, layoffs by top-tier firms were kept quiet and were done on a one-off basis. We’re trying to shed a little light on the situation.
As of June 14, 2009, over
12,542 people have been laid off by major law firms (4,874 lawyers / 7,668 staff) since January 1, 2008
10,550 (3,944 / 6,606) people have been laid off from law firms in calendar 2009
308 (63 / 245) have been laid off in June.
Index
As traffic has increased, this page’s performance has diminished. In order to increase performance, we’ve moved many of the interactive historical charts to separate pages.
- Analysis
- Current and Prior Months
- Rolling 12 Months
- Top Ten Firms by Layoff Count
- Methodology
- Raw Data
- Credits
Analysis
We write monthly summaries of layoff activity.
We also write weekly summaries. That page is automatically updated to archive every post in the series as they go live.
Current and Prior Month
Law Shucks BigLaw Layoff Tracker – June 09
Weekly summaries for June:
Law Shucks BigLaw Layoff Tracker – May 09
Weekly summaries for May:
- This Week in Layoffs – 5/1/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 5/8/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 5/15/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 5/22/09
- This Week in Layoffs – 5/29/09
Charts for earlier periods:
- April 09
- March 09
- February 09
- January 09
- 4Q 08 (October-December 08)
- 3Q 08 (July-September 08)
- 2Q 08 (April-August 08)
- 1Q 08 (January-March 08)
12 Months’ Rolling Layoffs
See also:
Top ten by total layoffs
See also:
- All top ten lists
- Top ten by attorneys laid off
- Top ten by staff laid off
- Top ten by rounds of layoffs
- A number of events, like the Heller dissolution, aren’t included here because those are complete failures of a firm, not just selective layoffs.
- We treat layoffs of staff attorneys and contract attorneys as staff layoffs. Attorney counts are for associates, counsel, and partners.
- When a range is reported, we report the high end of the range and revise downward as warranted. Frankly, the total number is already understated due to “stealth” layoffs.
- We don’t exactly follow the AmLaw 100 or Vault rankings or anything else scientific. It’s purely our subjective assessment of what constitutes “BigLaw.” There are certainly firms toward the latter parts of those rankings that we just have never come across in our practice, so we don’t think of them as BigLaw. If you want a firm added to the list, just send us the source and if it’s reasonably close, we’ll add it.
- The data are attributed to the best of our knowledge; if you see any mistakes, let us know. We try to attribute to the first site to report, but often we just attribute to the easiest source for us to validate.
The table below includes all of the data we track. This is the source for the total number at the top of the page.
Many thanks to Above the Law, the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, and ALM’s American Lawyer Layoff List. We got the idea from TechCrunch’s tech industry layoff tracker (but have given up on icharts for now, in favor of zoho). For corrections and comments, please contact us.
