Goodwin Procter lays off lawyers and staffers, notes drop in demand for litigation services
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Goodwin Procter has laid off 21 lawyers and 17 staffers in its litigation department, but it will consider hiring laid off lawyers for open transactional positions.
The law firm blamed the layoffs on an overall decline in market demand for litigation services. Above the Law, the first to report the layoffs, and the Am Law Daily have stories.
“The legal industry continues to see a decline in demand for litigation services, driven by—among other factors—clients resolving cases more quickly and handling them in-house more frequently,” Goodwin Procter says in an announcement, posted here by Above the Law.
“While many of our practices are outperforming, some are contracting. The net effect is that–as a whole–our business is expanding, despite the overall market decrease in demand for litigation services.”
The layoffs amount to 2 percent of the firm’s lawyers and professional staffers.
Fourteen of the laid-off lawyers were associates and seven were professional-track attorneys, a category that includes counsel, senior attorneys, department attorneys and discovery attorneys, the Am Law Daily says.
