CC and Linklaters – A Tale of Two Titans and Secrets of Survival
As expected the first full working week of the year was relatively light on legal news although it seems the news that was was big news. Linklaters started the year with bit of a bang, picking up work on the Waterford Wedgewood administration and topping the league for M&A in 2008. Whilst Clifford Chance (the world’s largest law firm lest one needs reminding) seems to be facing some tough times with £100,000 cash calls to partners totalling somewhere near …
As expected the first full working week of the year was relatively light on legal news although it seems the news that was was big news. Linklaters started the year with bit of a bang, picking up work on the Waterford Wedgewood administration and topping the league for M&A in 2008. Whilst Clifford Chance (the world’s largest law firm lest one needs reminding) seems to be facing some tough times with £100,000 cash calls to partners totalling somewhere near the £40m mark and yesterday’s announcement of a redundancy programme.
Individual CC partners received shares of profits ranging from £528,000 to £1.3 million in 2008 so one imagines that most should be able to deal with the cash call. On the redundancy front, it is the first of the magic circle firms in the UK to announce a consultation and, notably, trainee solicitors and partners will be excluded from redundancy. The program in CC’s London HQ will potentially cull 70-80 lawyers out of a total of about 1000 staff. Jeremy Sandelson, London managing partner for Clifford Chance said, “We haven’t taken this decision lightly.” According to the firm the two events are unrelated…
For more including Law Associates: Way too young to be survivors click over.
CC’s announcement is clearly a blow to the firm but it may give some consolation to the rafts of smaller firms who have already made such difficult decisions. Freeth Cartwright may have been the first example in 2009 but the gutters are still running with the blood of 2008.
In such difficult times, are the young ambitious souls who have set out on law or banking careers ready for such setbacks so early on? Law and More have some interesting ideas in their article:
Law Associates: Way too young to be survivors
"That’s new to these best and brightest who have only known affluence and the smug assumptions it creates. So, how to survive?"
A taster:
Tom Peters anticipated this sort of upheaval. In his book "Re-imagine!" – which has become the bible for survival in disruptive times – he mandates us to become "players" vs. loyal worker bees who follow directions. The latter mindset and way of behaving had been put together for a different kind of era. Players look for all the angles in order to look out for themselves."
January 9, 2009
CC are clearly in the ***t
January 9, 2009
Has Tom Peters not been inside a modern commercial law firm. If he had he would find that there are plenty of so-called ‘players’. i.e. self-serving, sycophantic back-stabbers.
January 9, 2009
Im a survivor!
until at least i enter into a dreaded ‘consultation’
January 9, 2009
To Mike – that may well be the case but there are still plently of worker bees who essentially good people that get shafted when things go wrong. A female associate friend of mine had worked hard, acheived her targets over the years and played things by the book but still got laid off from a large City practice recently.
January 9, 2009
Well its not as if large firms haven’t been jettisoning people on the sly for a while now but Clifford Chance have opened the door for more to do it openly. I think there will be plenty more to come. As Stephen Byers and co might have put it, it’s going to be a good year to bury bad news.
January 9, 2009
another classic case of ‘overstaffing’……
we all need Jesus.