Dewey & LeBoeuf has overhauled its compensation system, cutting pay for more than 60 partners across the firm.
Up to 66 partners at the US firm have had their compensation reduced, in a number of cases by around 80 per cent. The cuts have left certain Dewey partners taking home around $10,000 in monthly draws, or $120,000 a year.
In an internal memo sent to all Dewey partners today, chairman Steve Davis defended the amended compensation, claiming that the merit-based remuneration was not based solely on revenue generation but incorporated a range of factors to measure contribution to the firm.
The move is thought to be a part of Dewey’s firm-wide strategy to improve performance within its partnership ranks.
Last year The Lawyer reported that Dewey had put monthly partner distributions on hold while the firm attempted to build up a substantial cash cushion to protect it against the economic downturn (3 Nov 2009).
Dewey has also embarked on a number of cost reduction measures during the downturn including five office closures across the US and a redundancy consultation in the UK.
Dewey
This just goes to show that nothing short of a 360 degree tangential shift will make any impact in the cuirrent market conditions.
“360 degree tangential shift”
Assuming 360 degrees is full circle which brings you back to where you were, how can it be a tangential shift? 90 or 180 degrees may be, but this is just an oxymoron. As you might have appreciated I am not busy either!
“360 degree tangential shift”
I just ran a search for this phrase on google and got no hits… was the person below trying to say that Dewey needs to try something new, that has never been tried before?
Dewey
It would be incredibly unfair if all the non-law grads took all the training contracts without giving law students a look in after all the non-lawyers are only fleeing to the legal sector cos the investment banks won’t take them
Tangential??
Anonymous – what planet are you on? Firstly, there is no law firm (or any other company, for that matter) with the name “Field Grieb” on the internet – and I have tried Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and MetaCrawler search engines.
Secondly, building bridges and pulling together?What is this, a group counseling session? Get a grip. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there in real lawyerland and no-one is going to help anyone out unless it helps them get ahead – especially in the current environment where competition for good mandates is tough enough. If you want to sing Koombaiya and have a group hug, go join the Girl Guides and leave the real world lawyering to the rest of us. As a wise man once said “Greed is Good”.
“360 degree tangential shift”
I don’t think the issue here is whether law graduates are better than non-law graduates. It’s generally been the case that those in their final year of a non-law degree apply to firms for training contracts in the first part of the academic/recruitment year (September-April, possibly beyond that), whereas second year law students don’t apply until the summer. Regardless of the discipline they happen to have, it wouldn’t be fair to restrict positions for these people who can’t apply until their second year exam results come out in June/July.
When I applied to firms (including Slaughters) last year as a final year non-lawyer, I made sure I got my applications in by Jan/Feb time at the latest, as it’s always been well known that positions fill up as the cycle goes on.
Odds are that Slaughters will still miss out on some top class candidates, but it is always the case – and sounds as if – they (will) have plenty of other outstanding ones to choose from.
Dewey
Anonymous – what planet are you on? Firstly, there is no law firm (or any other company, for that matter) with the name “Field Grieb” on the internet – and I have tried Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and MetaCrawler search engines.
Secondly, building bridges and pulling together?What is this, a group counseling session? Get a grip. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there in real lawyerland and no-one is going to help anyone out unless it helps them get ahead – especially in the current environment where competition for good mandates is tough enough. If you want to sing Koombaiya and have a group hug, go join the Girl Guides and leave the real world lawyering to the rest of us. As a wise man once said “Greed is Good”.
Newspeak
Have heard the rumours of Halliwells being skint and perhaps this lends some credence. Apparently they could not afford their shiny glass office in Manchester and sold it back to the developer to lease-back. They can’t even afford the lease and more redundancies are on the way. Lucky that they do so much work for that financially solid group, AIG….oh.
Dewey
I find the content of the majority of postings (the notable exception being the post at 14.29 on the 19th) rather surprising as it is clear they have miss read the article