Law Firms
Silicon Valley’s Fenwick Axes 36 Staff, Freezes Associate Pay
Posted Jan 30, 2009, 02:34 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Another Silicon Valley-based tech firm laid off a significant number of legal staff yesterday and froze associate salaries.
However, Fenwick & West didn't ax any attorneys in its effort to cope with the disastrous national economy, reports the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, citing unnamed sources.
Its report of staff layoffs at 300-attorney Fenwick follows announcements within the past 10 days that two major Silicon Valley-based law firms, Cooley Godward Kronish and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, are each laying off approximately 50 lawyers and even larger numbers of staff members.
“We’re going to see more layoffs, and that’s because the aggregate demand for legal services is at very best flat but in most cases down,” legal consultant Ward Bower of Altman Weil Inc. tells the Business Journal. “It depends on where your are in the country. It’s terrible in places like New York and other financial centers.”
Earlier ABAJournal.com coverage:
January’s Carnage: 1,487 Law Layoffs