Cadwalader Layoffs – Future Problems
There has been much coverage in the US over these redundancies and the problems that are being stored up for the future. Commenters in the States have noted that "memories are long when it comes to lawyer lay-offs. Prospective recruits will hold this against Cadwalader five years from now — assuming CWT is still around then — just as people still remember which firms laid off lawyers in the last downturn, in the early 2000s." Then of course there are …
There has been much coverage in the US over these redundancies and the problems that are being stored up for the future. Commenters in the States have noted that "memories are long when it comes to lawyer lay-offs. Prospective recruits will hold this against Cadwalader five years from now — assuming CWT is still around then — just as people still remember which firms laid off lawyers in the last downturn, in the early 2000s."
Then of course there are the current recruits to consider…
It was reported thaty yesterday afternoon, Cadwalader held a meeting for its summers (equivalent to second year trainees), led by chairman Chris White and hiring committee chair Paul Mourning. White stressed that the lay-offs were mostly in real estate finance and asset securitization). Mourning focused on issues particular to the summer class:
"the firm will continue to use the same evaluation criteria that it has used in the past" and that some people would get offers without knowing what exact practice group they will be in.
Apparently this was in contrast to Chris White explicitly saying in his opening day speech to the summers (after the previous lay-offs) that the firm expected to extend offers to all summer associates.
It is understood he also mentioned that the firm didn’t expect to rescind any offers to the incoming first-year class, the mere mention of which some found unnerving.
These reports have attracted a lot of discussion over in the States which, for the time being, seems to be taking a worse hammering in the current economic crisis than we are over here. If this is this a sign of things to come; what affect will these events have here on those looking for training contracts in the future? One suspects with the glut of current graduates coming into the profession, memories will be short. Amongst qualified junior fee earners however, it may be a different story.
Got a story? Contact team solicitr
August 1, 2008
oh dear…
August 1, 2008
another one bites the dust.
this is a pr nightmare for Cadwalader.
complete nightmare.
August 1, 2008
This does look bad. Suspect in the near term potential recruits will probably steer clear but there are so many law graduates these days vacancies will fill in future no prob…
August 1, 2008
CWT sucks. They should just shut down now.
August 1, 2008
“Shearman & Sterling laid off 10 percent of its associates when mergers and acquisitions plummeted in 2001, and the former Dewey Ballantine also had a number of layoffs.”
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1194257039275
August 1, 2008
Lat,
“Prospective recruits will hold this against Cadwalader five years from now — assuming CWT is still around then — just as people still remember which firms laid off lawyers in the last downturn, in the early 2000s.”
I’m going into interviews in a couple weeks and I have no idea who laid off in the early 2000s. Post a thread on this.
August 1, 2008
MY OPINION:
If the CWT downturn is limited to its “real estate finance and asset securitization” group (as they claim in various public statements), and the firm is otherwise robust, then why did not Cadwalader first offer to shift the unfortunate laid-off 135 (during 2008) to other practice groups instead of showing them the door?
Instead, they want to keep potential summers hanging (by NOT saying they have no realistic hope of working there) in the hopes of cherry picking some exceptional candidates out of the newist LS crop and/or keeping up appearances with competitors, clients, and lenders, at the expense of existing lawyers who got a envelope on their chair suggesting that they don’t let the door hit their laid off asses on the way out (and BTW, THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION.)
Where do I even begin here?
Let me just make 2 points:
1. Like the recent suitor in the news who got hit with a $150K judgment when he jilted his fiancé with a note on the bathroom mirror–Cadwalader HAS NO CLASS. You discuss such things face-to-face, and you do not MISLEAD in January by fibbing that there will be no mass lay-offs in July. ENRON did that kind of stuff. Shabby, just shabby.
2. Cadwalader continues to mislead potential summers and other job applicants, even though it knows full well it is not in hiring mode, and 99.9% will get no offers.
Cadwalader equity partners: Enjoy your profit distributions at year-end. You have earned them with the blood of decent, talented lawyers you recruited then mislead into staying, then stabbed in the back. Your 1872 founders must be turning in their graves.