Am Law 100 announces layoffs and will put on hold some new partners

Bigelow

Layoffs continue apace at Biglaw companies across the country, and it shows no sign of stopping.

Leaders of Katten Muchin — a firm that had $742,885,000 in total revenue in 2022, placing it 67th on the latest Am Law 100 — have announced a series of layoffs among attorneys and staff. Less than 5% of lawyers were affected by these cuts.

Although the company’s total revenue and earnings per equity partner increased last year, its revenue per attorney declined 2%, possibly due to the company’s 6.2% increase in headcount. Now, unfortunately, the layoffs have arrived to take into account the company’s massive hiring practices amid the dire economic conditions of its clients.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Katten provided this statement on behalf of the company:

Like all companies, we must adapt to our customers’ needs. The rapidly changing economic conditions over the past two years have presented a challenge to many of our clients, which has recently resulted in a decrease in their demand for some of our legal services. After dealing with these terms for some time and carefully reviewing our business, we have made the difficult decision to address this excess capacity by parting ways with a small number of our attorneys and business support professionals. Where possible, we’ve reassigned team members to practice groups where demand exceeds capacity, and limited our cuts to groups where current and projected demand is waning. In line with these circumstances, we will be postponing part of our new semester until it starts on February 1st. The rest of our new partners will start working for the company as normal in October.

Parting with talented colleagues and good friends is not easy. Our actions do not reflect negatively on our colleagues or their contributions to our company. Rather, the decision reflects the reality of the business environment in which we find ourselves and our commitment to continually providing development opportunities that allow our employees to grow. Although difficult, we believe our decision will keep the company strong and well prepared to serve our customers and employees.

Good luck to those who have been abandoned from Katten.

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Staci Zaretsky She is a senior editor at Above the Law magazine, where she has worked since 2011. She would love to hear from you, so please feel free to contact us. e-mail her with any tips, questions, comments or criticisms. You can follow them Twitter And threads or contact her at linkedin.