Sonnenschein Acknowledges Layoffs of 37 Lawyers, 87 Staffers

Layoffs

Sonnenschein Acknowledges Layoffs of 37 Lawyers, 87 Staffers

Posted May 28, 2008, 05:29 am CDT

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Updated: Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal is laying off 37 lawyers and 87 staff members, spread across practice groups and offices.

Twenty-seven of the lawyers are associates, six are partners and four are of counsel. The staffers asked to leave include 41 secretaries, 34 other support staffers, and 12 “timekeepers” such as paralegals.

Sonnenschein chairman Elliott Portnoy confirmed the layoffs in an interview with Above the Law. “We were not going to attempt to do this [reduction in force] below the radar,” he told the blog. “We were going to do this as openly and transparently as we could. We would not attempt to pass this off as performance-based."

He said real estate and litigation were the practices most directly affected, but since those are the firm’s biggest practice areas, “numerically this is not surprising."

“We concluded we had too many talented people for the level of work expected," he said.

Linda Butler, public relations manager for the law firm, told ABAJournal.com that lawyers are getting 60 days' notice and transition assistance. Staff members are getting severance packages based on length of service with the firm and outplacement assistance.

Updated at 8:30 a.m. to include information from Linda Butler.

More coverage:

Sonnenschein Layoffs Signal Sea Change in Law Firm PR Strategy

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Posted by associate - 3 months, 1 week, 1 day, 5 hours, 24 minutes ago

Well, at least they were honest about it. People tend to be a whole let less mad at you when you just tell them what’s going on.
Posted by Partner - 3 months, 6 days, 9 hours, 2 minutes ago

Actually, he is not being entirely truthful. Most were not given any sort of compensation on the layoffs. I wouldn’t trust anything he says at this point.
Posted by Iolanthe - 3 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 43 minutes ago

*snort* Maybe they could save some money by not employing a public relations manager.
Posted by Law Firm Outsider - 3 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 23 minutes ago

How can you lay off a partner? Don’t they share in the ownership of the firm? I guess I don’t know enough about how law firm partnership works . . .
Posted by Smarter than partner - 3 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes ago

No. 2 Partner, can you not read. Attorneys are being given two months with full office capacity, staff are getting severance based on tenure.
Posted by Legalease - 3 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 4 minutes ago

I’m not surprised. In the St. Louis, MO area, there have been many layoffs lately, including a reduction in force at Hepler Broom (fairly large metro east firm) around Feb or March & Rabbitt Pitzer Snodgrass downtown (10 or 11 people cut there - for the size of that firm, that’s a lot!) in mid-April, Bryan Cave (huge firm in St Louis), and a few others. The previous poster is right, though - get rid of the high paid PR/HR people & let people keep their jobs! In a market so oversaturated with attorneys & legal secretaries, the layoffs make it nearly impossible to find new work in that field (especially for the attorneys who are “too qualified” to work in other fields, yet not needed in their field). Way to go law firms! You’ve officially screwed how many families out of dinner tonight????
Posted by Know it for a fact - 3 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 2 minutes ago

Yeah, at Rabbitt Pitzer, the secretaries that were cut got 2 weeks severance and attorneys got 3 weeks...and it was paid on the regular pay schedule into May so those laid off couldn’t file for unemployment benefits until the end of May! 2 or 3 WEEKS pay, are you kidding me?! All layoff severances I’ve ever heard of included about 2 or 3 MONTHS pay!
Posted by Rooster - 3 months, 6 days, 53 minutes ago

Phelps Dunbar has had recent layoffs.
Posted by Insider - 3 months, 5 days, 22 hours, 33 minutes ago

Don’t be fooled. While these cuts were made based on department, law firms do not cut people loose that are better than those they are keeping. This clever PR of saying they have “too many talented people” is a joke. If they had excess talent compared to other firms, the layoffs would be elsewhere. This is a byproduct of the hubris Sonnenschein displayed two years ago in claiming it would double its profits while increasin in size 50% by the end of 2008
Posted by Litigator - 3 months, 5 days, 22 hours, 13 minutes ago

Those who have been against SNR in court know that they are a solid insurance defense firm. But for many years, they’ve relied on blockbuster cases for a material part of their revenues. Their loss in the World Trade Center case likely cost them some opportunities for high profile work, especially in New York, where there are so many outstanding trial and appellate practices.
Posted by ACC Fred - 3 months, 5 days, 21 hours, 50 minutes ago

I’m baffled by the quote from Portnoy, the firm’s chairman, that “we concluded we had too many talented people for the level of work expected.” What does that mean—they had too little work and too many smart attorneys? How can you have too many talented people, unless “talent” means “high-priced talent”? If this is an issue of pure economics and a desire for transparency as Portnoy claims, that quote appears either insensitive or inane.
Posted by Brad - 3 months, 5 days, 3 hours, 54 minutes ago

Took me 10 months to get a job out of law school, the market sucks in MANY places, especially the midwest. But at least these people should find employment since they are “sooo talented”. Its the jobs they are stealing from us mere mortals that you got to worry about.

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