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Day Pitney Makes More Cuts

29 layoffs bring year’s total to 115

By DOUGLAS S. MALAN

After several months of no layoff news in the Connecticut legal market, Day Pitney trimmed 11 state-based staff members from its ranks last week as part of a group of 29 let go firmwide.

The impact and meaning of that move is debatable, but it’s clear that the state’s largest firm, which is based in Hartford and has about 400 lawyers in nine offices in the Northeast, is adjusting its overhead costs as business clients continue to suffer in the recession.

“This is about planning for the future and being responsible,” said James Sicilian, Day Pitney’s co-managing partner. “Companies are downsizing and cutting costs of outside counsel. Those of us on the outside need to be attentive to our own costs.”

The Connecticut layoffs were spread among the firm’s offices in Hartford, Stamford, New Haven and West Hartford. They included people who worked in marketing, human resources and information technology and affected both administrative assistants and paralegals. The 29 layoffs represent 4 percent of the 725 non-lawyers who worked at the firm before the cutbacks, Sicilian said.

For Day Pitney, it’s the third round of layoffs that have been made public this year. In February, Day Pitney let go of 66 staff members firmwide, 31 of them in Connecticut. In May, the firm dropped seven associates from its Hartford and Stamford offices as a total of 20 lawyers were let go.

A firm spokesman said no other layoffs had occurred at the firm between May and November. “There won’t be anymore layoffs this year, and I don’t expect any” in early 2010, Sicilian said. “I view these layoffs as appropriate and responsible management in a somewhat shrinking market.”

No Other Answer

But some Day Pitney lawyers, speaking anonymously, disagree. The effect of laying off 115 people over the past 10 months has created a lot of anxiety within the firm.

“This is ugly,” said one Hartford attorney. “Morale has gone to s---.”

The attorney said colleagues are expecting more lawyers and staff to be forced out at the end of this year or early next year following the firm’s annual performance review process.

“The conventional wisdom is that it will be a bloodbath,” the attorney said. “Every time profits per partner go down, the reaction is to fire people. In fairness to the firm, no one else [in the legal marketplace] has an answer either.”

The attorney said some Day Pitney employees are so worried about their job security that informal support groups have formed. And many are taking on more work as positions are left open. “Everybody’s out looking” for a new job, the attorney said.

Not that there’s an abundance of options.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the legal industry lost 5,800 jobs last month. That followed a loss of 2,000 jobs in September.

Law firm layoffs among the country’s largest firms picked up again in October. Cooley Godward Kronish (58 staffers), Foley & Lardner (39 lawyers), Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (57 staffers) and Drinker Biddle & Reath (22 associates) are among the firms that also are cutting back.

Day Pitney, which ranked 125th in the American Lawyer’s annual rankings of law firms by gross revenue last year, is the first big Connecticut firm to announce layoffs since this spring. “I’m not surprised,” said Anna Savic, who is managing director of Response Legal Search, a legal recruiting company in Hartford. “I’ve been hearing that there still might be layoffs.

“It takes a long time for the economy to pick up and for hiring to increase,” Savic noted, “and we’re just not there yet.”

No Raises, Bonuses

Even so, Savic said many law firms are at least at the stage of thinking about cautiously hiring again. Sina Amarell, president of TR Grace legal staffing services, has noticed the same thing. But she also acknowledged that she had been hearing for the past couple of weeks that Day Pitney was on the verge of more layoffs.

“That’s not something we’ve been hearing about other law firms” in Connecticut, Amarell said. “We have heard recently about the end of the year going well for many law firms. I haven’t heard any doom and gloom from them.”

Janice Favreau, immediate past president of the Central Connecticut Paralegal Association, was surprised by the Day Pitney news because members of her association who had been out of work for several months recently landed paralegal jobs.

“We haven’t heard of any layoffs in a while,” Favreau noted. “I think people have been feeling more secure and they didn’t have the fear that they had earlier this year.”

Beyond the layoffs, Day Pitney has made other changes this year.

The firm announced that it is doing away with its traditional summer associate class, which always led to a high percentage of associates accepting job offers. The firm opted for an apprenticeship approach that emphasizes one-on-one training over individual assignments. And the 13 associates scheduled to join the firm this fall were deferred until January.

Sicilian, the firm’s co-managing partner, said those associates are still scheduled to start in January. Overall, he said, the firm is projecting revenues to be down about 3 percent compared to 2008.

Staff members are not scheduled to receive a raise or a bonus. Compensation for lawyers is still under review, though “raises and bonuses will be limited, if there are any at all,” Sicilian said. “These moves are modest and responsive to the market conditions,” he said. •

Senior Writer Thomas Scheffey contributed to this article.