Layoffs

Toyota Whistle-Blower Lawyer Is Dogged and ‘Heavily Medicated’

Dimitrios Biller describes himself as an emotional guy. He says he sometimes cried for the plaintiffs who lost lawsuits he defended as an in-house lawyer for Toyota. But plaintiffs lawyers who opposed him in court had another description for him. “People thought on the plaintiff side that he was a…

Oct 22, 2009 3:34 PM CDT

Squire Sanders Indefinitely Defers Half Its Incoming Associates, Plans More Layoffs

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey is indefinitely deferring half of its incoming class of associates and planning to lay off an additional 20 to 25 timekeepers. A law firm statement provided to the ABA Journal says the law firm’s chairman, James Maiwurm, announced the cuts in a conference call with associates…

Oct 21, 2009 2:44 PM CDT

3rd Circuit Nixes Lawyer’s $14M Age Suit Despite ‘Younger & Cheaper’ Note

Even though his employment file at Moser Patterson & Sheridan contained a note “older & better paid/younger & cheaper,” attorney John Kelly’s age discrimination suit against the New Jersey law firm was properly dismissed on summary judgment, a federal appeals court has ruled. Kelly was 52 when he was fired…

Oct 15, 2009 9:10 PM CDT

Foley & Lardner Confirms Layoffs of 39 Lawyers

Foley & Lardner is laying off 39 lawyers throughout the firm’s 21 offices. Foley chief executive Ralf-Reinhard Boer confirmed the cuts in an interview Wednesday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We have never seen such a downturn ever in demand in the legal services industry,” Boer said. Tipsters told Above…

Oct 15, 2009 11:29 AM CDT

Law Firm Ponders 29 More Staff Cuts Following 76 Earlier Layoffs

After letting 76 lawyers and staff go earlier this year, a United Kingdom law firm is mulling another round of layoffs. This time Denton Wilde Sapte says it is launching redundancy consultations concerning 20 secretaries and 9 additional support staff, reports Legal Week. Most of the possible layoffs are expected…

Oct 13, 2009 5:43 PM CDT

See What These Lawyers Did With Their ‘Go Away Money’

Gordon Chin’s wish to become a successful interior designer came true with the help of an audition video he sent to HGTV and a few design-challenged friends. But most of his fellow attorneys probably would say he had already arrived in life—he was on track to make partner at a…

Oct 12, 2009 1:15 PM CDT

After a Year of Looking, Laid-Off Lawyer Finds a Job—and She Likes It!

Looking for another job was harder than running a marathon, Lynne Zagami says. But, after a year of searching, she has succeeded. Laid off last fall from a $170,000-a-year job as a third-year corporate associate in the Boston office of Brown Rudnick, she is now in her first week at…

Oct 8, 2009 8:58 PM CDT

Lawyer Loses Unemployment Cash Because of $1.30 in Daily Blog Income

The state of New York has cut off unemployment benefits for a 2008 law grad after she reported collecting $1.30 a day in advertising income from her blog. The lawyer, who allowed only her first name of Karin to be used, was laid off from her job at a New…

Oct 8, 2009 12:11 PM CDT

Microsoft Has Cut Legal Budget By 15%, Asked Outside Counsel to Trim Fees 10%

Over the past 18 months, amidst a global financial crisis, Microsoft has cut its legal budget by 15 percent, laying off 5 percent of its in-house employees in order to do so. Before the cuts, the software Goliath had an annual legal budget of $900 million and 1,050 employees in…

Oct 7, 2009 5:02 PM CDT

More Black than White Associates Report Too Little Work, Anxiety and Job Search

A survey of midlevel associates finds more African-Americans than whites are reporting light workloads and anxiety about the future. More than 20 percent of African-American associates said their workloads are too light, compared to a little more than 15 percent of Asian Americans and Hispanics, and 13 percent of whites,…

Oct 6, 2009 2:16 PM CDT

Legal Sector Lost 2,000 Jobs Last Month, 58 Jobs Last Week

The legal sector lost 2,000 jobs last month, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The decline was much higher when the numbers aren’t seasonally adjusted. In raw numbers, a total of 13,600 jobs were lost last month, likely because of summer associate programs ending, the…

Oct 5, 2009 11:44 AM CDT

Cooley Godward Lays Off 58 Staffers

Cooley Godward Kronish has laid off 58 staffers, most of them secretaries. Cooley chief operating officer Mark Pitchford told the Recorder that the layoffs amount to about 5 percent to 6 percent of the firm’s staff. They follow January cuts of 52 lawyers and 62 staffers. “This is not being…

Oct 2, 2009 11:37 AM CDT

What I Did with My ‘Go Away Money’

Once they were lawyers: Now meet the hacker, the designer, the beer pong impresario

Oct 2, 2009 1:40 AM CDT

Wildman Rescinds Offers to 10 of 14 Incoming Associates

There was bad news today for 10 of the 14 incoming first-year associates at Wildman Harrold Allen & Dixon. Although the Chicago-based firm will continue to pay the 2009 law graduates a stipend until their deferred start date in March 2010, they won’t have jobs at that point because Wildman…

Oct 1, 2009 11:09 PM CDT

Chadbourne Indefinitely Defers About 12 Incoming Associates, Will Pay $60K

Having already been told they would have to wait until January of 2010 to start work after graduating from law school in 2009, about half of the incoming class of first-year associates at Chadbourne & Parke has now had their start date deferred indefinitely. All 25 members of the class…

Sep 28, 2009 8:53 PM CDT