has laid off six associates from its structured finance group in New York.
The lawyers worked in a practice group that worked exclusively for credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and the work for that group has stopped following the credit crisis.
A Clifford Chance spokesperson said: “This is a direct response to market conditions in a specialised product area and is in no way a reflection on the general health of the US capital markets practice. No further redundancies are anticipated.”
The lawyers were recruited as a team over the last 18 months to review the documentation S&P used to rate mortgage-backed securities.
The credit crisis has already accounted for the jobs of the Charles Prince, the chief executive of Citigroup, and Stan O’Neal, the chairman of Merrill Lynch.
Law firms have been relatively immune to the effects of the credit crisis so far with most reporting strong half-year figures.
poor business model
Pretty poor business model that has 6 senior associates working exclusively for one client. The structured finance / derivatives market has slowed down to sensible busyness levels in London & NY, not died completely (yet).