Roundup: The Incredible Shrinking Thelen

Thelen’s name isn’t the only thing being trimmed.

As Above the Law reported yesterday, anonymous tipsters are going nuts with the news that the firm is forgoing interviewing for the 2009 summer associate program. We notice today that firm co-Chairman Julian Millstein’s title was shortened to chairman (of the technology and sourcing practice group), and we recently discovered that four of the 100 attorneys who have left the firm since early March (26 of them laid off) were sitting members of the firm’s now-12 member partnership council.

A firm spokesman ducked our calls for a good while, then said that if Thelen changed its mind on the 2009 summer associate program, it would interview 2Ls in spring.

Millstein became co-chairman with Stephen O’Neal, when Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner merged with Thelen Reid & Priest in December 2006 to form Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner. (The official change to just “Thelen” took effect yesterday.) Partners were notified of the change in Millstein’s title in an e-mail memo in the last month.

He now replaces former partner Richard Raysman, who headed the group under a slightly different name until he left last month.  Peter Brown and Jeffrey Steiner have also left the firm.

We can’t pinpoint the exact date of the change on the Web site, but cached copies place it within the last two weeks. 

In other news (also surfacing on ATL), NixonThelen.com was registered last Friday, a day after news of Nixon Peabody and Thelen talking merger was reported.  We’ve reported on similar registrations in the past and there’s no telling if this is the real deal, a squatter or just a big fan of the idea.

Anyone with thoughts (Thelen attorneys, I'm lookin' at you) on what's happening are invited to comment below or confidentially email me at their leisure.  Are we witnessing an irreversible implosion? A clever restructuring for the inevitable merger? A lot of uncontrolled flailing that will still lead to a rescue merger?

—  Niraj Chokshi