Legal News

Dechert Chairman Responds to Layoff Stories

By Dan Slater

This morning, a story from the Legal Intelligencer led with the following:

Rumors are swirling on the legal blog Above the Law about “stealth layoffs” at Dechert, with several posters to the site claiming associate layoffs ranging from 13 to 80 and even more across several months since March.But the firm’s chairman, Barton J. Winokur, has adamantly denied any layoffs took place and said the number of associates who have left the firm for any reason in the first nine months of the year was lower than in the same period in 2007.

We just received an e-mail from a Dechert spokeswoman with the following three thoughts attributed to firm chairman Bart Winokur:

1. Quite apart from any characterization as to reasons why associates might have been asked to leave and contrary to anonymous posts in abovethelaw.com, there were not 10, let alone 30, associates who were asked to leave in July with or without deadline.

2. Contrary to the implication in The Legal Intelligencer article, I do not believe that we are replacing “people with better people.” To clarify what I said to The Legal Intelligencer, as associates get more senior, they need to keep doing higher and higher levels of work, and not work that can be done by their juniors.

3. Additionally, in response to the slowdown in our structured finance practice, rather than lay-off associates, we assigned associates to full-time pro bono work, where they could continue to hone their legal skills while at the same time helping others. When the economy stabilizes and business picks up, it is our expectation that they will be part of the firm’s vibrant practices.

Just to clarify, Dechert has not remained untouched amid the financial downturn. In March, the firm gave layoff notices to 13 associates in the finance and real estate practice, but later that day told the group that while they were laid off from that practice, they could take opportunities in other practices. Winokur said the group was told Dechert couldn’t guarantee how long they would be reassigned to a different group. He said 12 of the 13 took the offer and a few left during the first month of the offer. Ultimately, there were nine or 10 associates from the original 13 who were laid off at the end of three months once their assignment concluded, Winokur said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).