Lots of Layoffs Translates to Lots of Work for Employment Lawyers
As employers in a broad array of industries lay off workers, business is up significantly among many of the lawyers and firms that advise these companies.
At the 24-attorney San Jose, Calif., office of employment firm Littler Mendelson, for instance, billings rose 20 percent in November and 23 percent in December, compared to the same months in 2007, the Recorder reports in a lengthy article about the California situation.
“All of a sudden, we really exploded in the latter part of the year,” said Dennis Brown, managing partner of the San Jose office, tells the legal publication.
A deluge of new laws and regulations, some already enacted and others expected under the new Obama administration in the White House, will only add to labor lawyers’ workload, observers predict.
However, other practitioners say they are seeing different work, rather than an increase in work, as a result of the national economic debacle.
A year ago, says partner Judith Keyes of the San Francisco office of Davis Wright Tremaine, her group was focusing on executive contracts, stock options and trade secrets concerns.
“Now Keyes is helping clients in the entertainment industry—such as Bay Area animation companies–figure out how to hold on to highly-skilled employees they can no longer afford but that they still want, while they wait for the next production contract to come along,” the Recorder recounts.
