After the way the firm hired layoffs last year, I am still left wondering what can be done to bring back the Latham culture that kept so many of us at the firm. Our vault ranking has dropped, and I suspect that the quality of our summer class this year will not be the same.

There is no easy answer to the problem. Sure we have been offered money if we bill hours, and promised that there are no more cuts. But I am still left wondering, will LW ever be the same? 13 people have commented. Add your voice...

Please. No comments yet. First post opportunity!

A number of my friends were laid off and I've seen the misery they've experienced over the past year. It makes me feel guilty that they're going through this and also afraid that the firm could do the same to me if the economy goes south again. My office has also become a really unhappy place because everyone's so stressed out and overworked. It seems that a lot of the pain could have been avoided if the firm's leadership had just had more consideration for the associates. It's during the hard times that you discover what someone is really made of and I don't like what I've seen from management. 1 person have commented. Add your voice...

The economy is going to recover and I find it hard to believe that we'll be getting the best people once it does. The layoffs have already hurt recruiting and unemployment is sky high right now.

Like it or not our layoffs got the most attention. We were a V10 and we laid off a LOT of people. The first year massacre especially was bound to hurt us because V10s don't do that.

Obliterating that class and all those people was good for short term profits, but in the long run it's just awful management. This is a service industry and our position is as a provider of high end services. That requires a strong recruiting position that frankly we don't have anymore. The partners behind this decision remind me of the bonus hopping bankers and I wonder if their own short term good was what they had in mind. We'll see how many partners leave in the next few years.

What are we going to do to attract the top people? Raise salaries? As we've seen in the past the market will just follow that and we won't be able to distinguish ourselves that way.

The culture was a recruiting tool but it's long gone and even if we got it back somehow it's not going to mean much when the firm wrecks careers in a down economy.

Latham had better find a way to retain people. Though as long as we use the Cravath model that just isn't going to do it.

Also, I wonder how much of that 5% decline in revenue was caused by the overfirings. In my office everyone was absolutely slammed and I can see the lack of capacity decreasing revenues.

Way to blow our competitive advantage Dell, Gordon, and the rest of you. 2 people have commented. Add your voice...

It's wrong to grossly overshoot your hiring needs due to your own poor economic predictions then take it out on the most vulnerable people at the firm who you've had the least opportunity to evaluate.

Take the hit to profits or at least offer deferrals. That's what the Vault 10 firms did. 2 people have commented. Add your voice...

What made Latham a great place to work was the fact that it created an environment for workers to become friends by having off-site academies and firm meetings. Many of our friends were laid off and the office has become a lonely place. There hasn't been any effort made to have those of us that remain feel associated with the others.

if you want to bring back culture, it's these intangibles that have been around for years and made latham a good place to work that need to be reinstated. If partners aren't willing to take the hit, I'd prefer to make $5,000 less and work with people I consider friends.

don't cheap out on the fringe benefits. No comments yet. First post opportunity!

The unassigned system hurts moral, increases turnover, and generally poisons associate/supervisor relations when unassigned associates are assigned to long-running projects that they can't possibly drop in areas in which they have no interest.

Unfortunately, I know of more than a few associates at Latham who aspired to do corporate or banking work, but were assigned to litigation projects early last year and still haven't been able to drop those projects. Many of these associates have spoken with their supervisors, tried to take on too much work to force a conflict, or even spoken with the billing partners or members of the associates committee about how to get restaffed. Almost none, however, have had any luck extricating themselves from the long-running projects.

Needless to say, few of these people are happy to go to work, and it's unlikely any of them are going the extra mile to take ownership of the projects they've sought to drop for months.

To greatly reduce this problem, Latham need only give unassigned associates some way to drop projects after they've worked on them for a few months (or several hundred billable hours). It need not allow whiners to say a project isn't working after a day, or to turn down work they've been offered on a Friday night. 1 person have commented. Add your voice...

I'm worried that we're not quite out of the woods yet in regards to the economy. The stimulus was a band-aid and I'm reading that China could be in trouble. I worry about what's going to happen within the next couple years. The two new offices are focused on cyclical practice groups so they're going to be a liability during a downturn. Also because they're new in their regions they're going to be particularly vulnerable if work begins to dry up.

I realize that strategically it may be beneficial to grow at the start of a recovery but I'm worried that the firm is taking too many risks. No comments yet. First post opportunity!