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From our friends over at a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2008/12/dechert_ices_72_staff_position.php" target="_blank"Above The Law/a: We started getting reports this morning that Dechert let go a number
of secretaries and legal assistants. But the numbers from our tipsters
were low, very low. The Legal Intelligencer a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/index.jsp"just reported/a that Dechert has in fact laid off an amazing 72 staffers.
/pblockquotepA firm spokeswoman confirmed that Dechert has laid off 72
administrative staff across its U.S. offices. She wouldn't get into
details about which positions or how many in each office, but said the
cuts were basically proportionate across the firm's 11 U.S. offices.
/ppThe 72 administrative positions account for about 12.6 percent of
the firms 570 U.S. staff members. Dechert has around 1,045 attorneys
firmwide and the spokeswoman said there are no plans to cut any more
staff or any attorneys based on what they know at this time./p/blockquote
pAn attorney tipster moves straight to the problem associates at Dechert are all worried about:/p
blockquotep[I]t's not like we can have less secretaries unless there are less lawyers.../p/blockquote
pDechert has come to the layoff buffet early and often. In October, there was a lot of a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2008/10/update_dechert_ceo_winokur_ind.php"contention/a about how many attorneys Dechert has been stealthily getting rid of. At least the staff layoffs are being properly announced. /p
pBut then again, Dechert staff also got to feel a little bit of that
"Dechert style" on their way out the door. More after the jump./p
pa name="more"/a/ppAmazingly, Dechert still claims all is well:/p
blockquotepAccording the spokeswoman, the firm's attorney headcount is
about steady compared to this time last year. She confirmed that it is
still the firm's position that it may see declines in some of its key
financial indicators at the end of 2008, but would come out better than
most firms./p/blockquote
pAnybody else want to stipulate that Dechert will "come out better
than most firms?" What if we controlled for "firms that need to lay off
72 or more people," would that increase Dechert's chances of being
"better?" /p
pAttorneys started to find out that their secretaries had been axed
this morning. Not through formal firm-wide communication, but through
frantic calls from laid off colleagues. /p
pNice way to start a morning. /p
pThose tipsters report that the staff was given no notice before they
were fired, and a five-week severance package. As one tipster put it:/p
blockquotepThey did it in their typical Dechert way - the secretaries
just disappear and nobody gives anyone any explanation. None of the
attorneys even knew their secretaries were being fired. Morale is
really low right now. Management is so underhanded and it makes
everyone feel insecure./p/blockquote
pIn fact, Dechert wouldn't even give the departing staff the dignity
of tying the layoffs to the financial crisis. The Intelligencer a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/index.jsp"reports/a:/p
blockquotepShe wouldn't say specifically whether the cuts were
economic or performance based. She said only that the firm made cuts in
order to "operate more efficiently and address the overcapacity we
have" that she attributed to an increase in productivity that had led
to those hires. Dechert has had the overcapacity for a while, she said,
but now needs to look carefully at all facets of its management as it
moves into 2009./p/blockquote
pRead the full Intelligence report a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/index.jsp"here/a
(subscription). Good luck (former) Dechert employees. Good luck current
Dechert employees. When the market turns around, you know what to do. /p
