Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The new normal hits Weil


Actual 0L

A little light reading from Bloomberg News.

"It's been going on at a number of firms all year, but Weil is a significant story because it's a New York firm and highly successful," Zeughauser said. "It's an indication of how pervasive the overcapacity in the industry is."

"It's not just that less is coming in," Zeughauser said, "It's a sign of the rising role of LPO's and contract attorneys that are filling a need that clients have been long demanding, which is they don’t want to pay these kind of prices for first to third year associates."

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is canning about seven percent of its staff, and encouraging deadwood to which it has contractual obligations, to leave. Assuming you're at a school where a V10 wouldn't unceremoniously discard your résumé, you might want to pay attention to what's going on. The rest of you are mostly screwed, but you already knew that. Enjoy your six-figure debt and JD-advantage job.

The reason Weil hit the news (and ATL) is the firm is being up front about layoffs and there are a lot of associates involved. That, and some large bankruptcies have wound down and their staffing cost can no longer be passed along, though it is also axing entire unrelated groups. Basically, this is a healthy firm that wants to keep its numbers up. Weil is a bellwether that demonstrates where the power lies along the legal employer-employee continuum.

The main thing TLS schmucks should take from Weil is that you are human cordwood.

1 comment:

  1. Expendable is the term that best describes JDs. You are a small, interchangeable part. Many companies don't even need you now. Who doesn't want to piss away three years of their lives - and incur an additional $130K+ in the process - to learn this truth?! Especially when you can figure that out for free with a Google search.

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