Those who were hoping litigation would be the silver lining in this economy, think again.
Litigation powerhouse Quinn Emmanuel said Wednesday it has conducted layoffs for “lack of work,” but Legal Pad was unable to confirm how many staff and attorneys were let go in which of Quinn’s seven offices.
The legal blog Above the Law first reported the layoffs after tips from readers. Firm Chairman John Quinn’s response to the blog: “A handful of people have been let go for lack of work. 25 is wildly inaccurate.”
Statistics, wild inaccuracies and a letter from John Quinn, after the jump.
In an email exchange with Legal Pad, Quinn answered in his signature succinct style — albeit with a departure from his usual no-capitals rule:
“We have let some people go for a variety of reasons,” he wrote.
That left us to puzzle out the numbers ourselves. The firm recently reported to our sister publication, The American Lawyer, that it had 400 fulltime-equivalent attorneys as of Aug. 31, 2008. Now, that could mean a higher actual headcount, but Quinn doesn’t strike us as the kind of lifestyle firm that’s rife with part-timers. And the firm has had a handful of highly touted laterals join in the past few months. (Quinn told NALP that its September class of new associates numbered 38, but we’ll assume none of them are listed yet on the firm’s site as attorneys.) Today, the firm lists 396 attorneys.
That left us with … pretty fuzzy math, really, but we tried to bounce it off Quinn, whose final reply noted that he’s in London, so he was shooting this off after 1 a.m.:
I dont know if your #'s are accurate. We do have part time people. We have contract lawyers whose numbers fluctuate substantially based on the amount of document review and similar work to be done. We have people who havent been admitted who arent listed on the website.
People leave firms for all kinds of reasons. Some leave voluntarily. Some leave involuntarily for performance issues. And recently a few have left involuntarily because we cldnt keep them busy. The idea that we have laid off 25 people for lack of work is wrong.
Quinn also said that the firm, which boasts a profit per partner of $3.35 million, but revenue per lawyer at a more mortal $1.1 million, is hiring right now, in New York of all places.
What specialty?
“Best available — no one skill set,” Quinn wrote.
— Amanda Royal
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