Hogan & Hartson Lays Off 93 Staff, Cuts Some Associates' Pay
Updated: After a February buyout offer failed to attract enough volunteers, Hogan & Hartson announced today that it is laying off 93 staff members in its United States offices.
Their last day will be tomorrow, the firm’s executive committee explains in an internal memo published by Above the Law.
“This is the darkest day of my 30-year legal career,” firm chairman J. Warren Gorrell Jr. tells the Blog of Legal Times. “For all of our employees, we did whatever we could to avoid layoffs and preserve jobs. But when we saw that only 28 people had accepted our buyout offer, we knew it didn’t solve the problem.”
“The ever-increasing integration of technology into the legal practice, combined with a diminished need for staff personnel growing out of current economic conditions, has resulted in our being overstaffed,” the firm memo explains.
In addition, the firm is also reducing compensation for associates who aren’t on track to meet the firm’s 1,950 annual billable hours expectation, the memo continues. They will be paid at a reduced level already established as part of a two-tier compensation track that, in better times, allowed associates to opt whether to bill 1,950 hours annually or 1,800.
While Hogan & Hartson hopes that this measure will make associate layoffs unnecessary, and that the pay cut can be rescinded in 2010, “there can be no assurance that will be the case or that we might not have to take other measures to address staffing/work levels for associates in the future,” the executive committee writes.
Additional coverage:
Above the Law: “Hogan & Hartson: ‘1800 Hours’ Track Follow Up”
Updated at 2:45 p.m. to include information from Blog of Legal Times and link to subsequent Above the Law post.
