Law Firms
Laid-Off Cadwalader Lawyers Got Little Notice, But Months of Severance Pay
Posted Jan 23, 2008, 11:50 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The 35 lawyers who learned Jan. 10 that they would be laid off from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft got little more than a week’s notice.
One laid-off associate, who said he was getting three months of severance pay, was worried about his job search, the New York Observer reports in a column by Above the Law’s David Lat.
“It’s like dating,” he told Lat. “When you’re with someone, everyone wants you; when you’re on your own, it’s that much harder.”
But some associates who took buyouts at Thacher Proffitt & Wood may be able to profit if they land a new job while still receiving their four months of severance pay.
“It’s an ironic twist, making out like a bandit because your firm is in trouble,” the article says. “But considering how unfamiliar layoffs are to the world of large law firms, ironies are inevitable.”
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Comments
Posted by Oren - 5 months, 1 week, 4 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes ago
This is a great sign that the financial crunch is hitting all sectors of the economy. Friends of mine at other firms were fortunate enough to be reassigned. I can’t imagine what it must be like to spend 18 hours of every day of your life for several years focusing on a highly specialized area of the law and then being told: sorry buddy, your expertise area’s crashed - no more work for you - time to find a new job and convince people that you know more than the one little thing you’ve been doing.