Quinn Emanuel has deferred eight incoming associates in its San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices until January, firm chairman John Quinn said Wednesday.
In an email, Quinn wrote that it was a “question of managing their absorption into the work flow of the firm.”
“the numbers were such that we feared we couldn't do a good job of it and there wouldn't be enuf work for all of them if they arrived at once,” Quinn wrote in his characteristic no-caps, shorthand style.
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The deferrals affected half the incoming class in the Northern California offices. Some volunteered to defer while others were told. None of the firm’s five other offices were affected, Quinn told Legal Pad.
The firm, where profits per partner were $3.335 million in 2008, is not paying a deferral stipend.
The news comes just two months before the associates were slated to start. Most firms that deferred incoming associates told them this spring, and many provided a $5,000-per-month stipend with an option to work at a public interest group in the interim.
“we should have made the decision sooner--we were hoping that the issue would go away,” Quinn wrote. “we will start paying them when they start work.”
The legal blog Above the Law first reported the news.
— Amanda Royal
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