By Ameet Sachdev | Mayer Brown continues to hemorrhage lawyers, despite what the Chicago law firm says are “encouraging signs” for 2010.
The international firm said Thursday that laid off 28 lawyers in its U.S. offices, which represents 3 percent of the approximately 925 U.S. lawyers. The layoffs did not affect partners, only associates and lawyers known as “counsel” who are not on partnership track.
Mayer Brown also reduced its administrative staff by 47 people.
This is the third job reduction since November 2008 at Mayer Brown. The
two previous rounds affected at least 78 lawyers. The firm blamed the
previous downsizing on the recession, which cut demand for legal
services. It said Thursday that demand has bounced back but not enough.
In addition, voluntary attrition has dropped, meaning that the firm was
overstaffed compared to anticipated demand for legal services this year.
“Although most of our practices are performing well, overall demand for
legal services has not recovered fully, and in today’s tight legal job
market, voluntary lawyer departures have been significantly lower than
our normal levels,” Chairman Bert Krueger said in an e-mail to U.S.
offices. A Mayer spokesman provided a copy of the e-mail but declined
further comment.
The layoffs come as Mayer Brown partners are scheduled to gather in
Chicago later this month for the firm’s annual meeting.
While stating that the layoffs were necessary, Krueger ended his memo
touching on the firm’s financial performance. “Thus far, the year off to
a positive start.”
The pace of layoffs across major U.S. law firms has slowed down compared
to a year ago, when nearly every large firm resorted to job cuts to
save their bottom lines.
How many of the lawyers who were dismissed were African American or Hispanic?
In this ever litigious society, no one is upset with this news.
Pop the corks!
I was laid off about 6 months ago. And it was definitely a tough time in my life. I hadn’t been in the job market in many years – and now I found my self in a very competitive one.
I one piece of advice is to have your resume professionally done. It is what gets you in the door with hiring managers. There are a number of services out there. They range in prices from $40 to $150. I went with a service that charged $49 and was very happy – so you don’t have to spend and arm and leg to get this done. I do believe it was worth it to me. I am employed now and quite relieved! I wish the best for all others job hunting out there.
The service I used was ResumeSolutionsPro.com.
Best of luck you you all!
@Eddie Schwartz – really? The first thing you thought of when you read this article was what color the people were? That is pathetic. It’s people like you that think of race first (instead of the fact that there are now 75 more AMERICANS that are unemployed) that continue to drive a wedge between races. Racial hatred will continue as long as there are people like you around. YOU are the reason that people see things as whites vs. blacks, and YOU are the reason that we cannot just see people as simply AMERICANS. I truly feel sorry for you that you are so caught up in race instead of being concerned about your fellow AMERICAN. Pity to you.
@Rocco You must be White to not think about race, since every other race in America is obsessed with it. Chicago is home to AIPAC’s top guy, Luis Gutierres, Rev. Wright, Jesse, and Farrakhan. You are not very astute. PS when you hear the term “diversity” it means “less white males”, but never less Jewish males who are grossly overrepresented and never diversity-reduced.