Creative Ways to Increase Employee Departures

As we deal with a challenging economy, both law firms and companies are
not experiencing the expected annual departures from their ranks. Each
year, a law firm can count on a percentage of associates heading to
greener pastures. But, as there have been fewer opportunities for
associates this year, many have chosen to hunker down and ride out the economic storm at
their current firm. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really mesh well with
law firms’ business models. Imagine if no one left your firm and the
firm continued to bring in sizable summer classes? That would be a lot
of people on line in the lawyers’ dining room (a nod to my old firm and
its lovely cafeteria.)

The obvious way of forcing attrition is
layoffs. Many firms have utilized this method lately. But other law
firms and companies have become much more creative. For example:

1. Announce to your company’s employees that, at
some indefinite time in the next year, 53,000 of them will be without a
job. Citigroup announced this plan on November 17th, and a flood of
resumes hit the street.

2. Announce to your firm’s non-equity
partners that they must contribute a sum of money (rumored to be
$150,000) to the firm and become equity partners who generate business. DLA Piper announced this yesterday to a decidedly mixed response.

3. Announce to your firm’s associates that, not only are their bonuses for 2008 lower than they would like, but that they should not expect bonuses
for 2009. Cravath announced this tonight, and we’ll expect to see
resumes trickling out of Cravath in the next few months as management
no doubt hopes.

All of these are creative ways to cut headcount. I expect that we will see more creativity in the upcoming months!

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