Corporate Associates are Again in Demand
The Recorder
By Adrienne Sanders
April 15, 2004
When the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, firms mowed their ranks. After years of frenzied hiring, recruitment has all but frozen for the past three years.
Transactional associates -- corporate and licensing -- were particularly hard hit. But beginning late last year, firms cautiously began refilling many of those spots as IPOs and M&A deals picked up again in the Valley. Major said demand for associates follows a camel-hump pattern, with fewer requests for the most junior and senior levels and more for mid-levels.
Silicon Valley-based Pillsbury Winthrop partner Ondine “Lior” Nuchi said his firm is among those putting out the “help wanted” sign.
“We're looking for several [associates] in the Valley -- some in corporate, some in licensing. We haven't been looking to hire in those groups in a long time. If you asked me three months ago, I wouldn't have believed it,” Nuchi said.
Pillsbury already hired two associates this month -- a third-year and a fourth-year -- and will continue to recruit junior to mid-level associates, Nuchi added.
“At first we were looking at people to increase our business, associates who really fit into where we wanted to build our practice. Now we're looking for people to do the work that we've got,” he said.
San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster partner Robert Townsend said his firm is searching for at least 10 corporate associates to handle work demands in its Bay Area, Southern California and New York offices.
Fenwick & West is also recruiting junior to mid-level corporate associates for a few slots in the Bay Area, according to Silicon Valley-based partner Jeffrey Vetter. The lower levels are thin, he said, because recent law school graduates have veered away from corporate work.
“We saw a lot less interest in corporate work from law students in campus interviews, even in the summer program. Everybody wanted to be a litigator, particularly an IP litigator,” Vetter said.
Summer associate classes, traditionally a way to train and recruit large numbers of associates, are smaller than they were during the dot-com heyday, Major said.
“Rather than, say, 30, firms will stick to 20 summer associates, and if the economy pace quickens substantially, they can stock higher in areas they need such as securitization or real estate finance.”
Major said most firms, still smarting from the layoffs of years past, are cautious not to overhire. Cooley Godward, for instance, had to lay off scads of corporate associates after the local economy tanked. The shop is now seeking associates, but at a much more measured pace.
Cooley began efforts to retain current corporate associates early this year by raising its mid- and upper-tier associates' salaries -- boosting fourth-year pay to $165,000, from $150,000, for instance -- bringing them in line with their peers in the Valley. But no one expects a bidding war for associates just yet.
Said Pillsbury's Nuchi, “We're not finding it too difficult to recruit.”
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Firms May Be Short Lawyers as Legal Economy Warms Up
The Recorder
By Adrienne Sanders
April 15, 2004
Bay Area law firms shed so many people during the recession they may not have enough people to handle a new wave of work as the economy warms up again, warns a law firm finance expert.
“They are going to be challenged to find enough talented people,” said Danilo DiPietro, head of the law firm group at Citigroup Private Bank.
DiPietro presented his annual economic outlook for 2004 at the Law Firm Leaders Forum Friday in San Francisco. He based his comments on Citigroup's national survey of 116 firms, including 11 from San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Firm revenue and profits per partner are looking stronger than they have in years, according to Citigroup's data.
In Northern California, profits per partner revealed a “nice rebound,” increasing nearly 11 percent in 2003 versus a 1.6 percent rise in 2002, according to DiPietro. Nationally, profits per partner grew at roughly the same rate -- 9 percent -- in both years.
Though Northern California's numbers lagged behind national figures, overall firm revenue growth in the region showed signs of vigor, jumping 5 percent in 2003 compared with a 2 percent drop in 2002. Nationally, firm revenue grew 9.3 percent in 2003 and 8.5 percent in 2002.
However, Bay Area lawyers are starting to work longer hours than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. DiPietro reported that the number of hours worked per lawyer increased 3 percent in Northern California in 2003, a healthy improvement from 2002's 0.7 percent dip. Nationally, firms decreased the number of hours worked per lawyer by 0.2 percent in 2003 and 1.2 percent in 2002.
“In the case of the rest of the country, management made a conscious decision to maintain excess capacity in anticipation of the industry coming back,” DiPietro said in an interview. But because the recession cut the Bay Area so deeply, he said, “Northern California firms couldn't afford to do that.”
DiPietro also sees improvement in what he calls a key economic indicator -- inventory levels of accounts receivable and work in progress. The current levels “suggest a strong start to ‘04,” DiPietro said at the law firm pow wow.
Mark Pitchford, chief operating officer at Cooley Godward, whose firm shed nearly 200 lawyers in 2001 and 2002, said his firm hasn't yet confronted a need to hire a significant number of people. However, if the economic uptick continues, the firm is unlikely to be as quick to hire a lot of lawyers.
Said Pitchford, “We're still mindful of lessons learned in terms of the large amounts of hiring that were done.”
Pemberton Gordon III
Career Agent
Legal Attorney Placement
IP and Corporate
StorEdge
33333 Bowers Ave
#130
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Phone (408) 654-9831
pgordon@storedgecorp.com
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