Will Wall Street's lawyer layoffs slow down the number of CEO’s involved in financial crimes?
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Like many of you I’ve read the stories about lawyers being laid off in growing numbers. It got me wondering if these layoffs were perhaps a good thing. First the number of financial crimes in the news is disproportionately high to the number of CEO’s sitting in prison. Madoff sits in prison while the number of lawyers and accountants who assisted in creating and supporting the legal and accounting fraud simply hide from public view. Where are the prosecutions for their financial wrongdoing? Why haven’t more accountants and lawyers been brought to justice?
So here is what I’m left wondering: Will the number of Wall Street financial wrongdoings decrease as more lawyers are laid off? Imagine if the lawyers could turn whistleblowers on those stealing, cheating and defrauding the government?
Here is an article that tallies the carnage from Wall Street’s finest law firms. I wish I could say I felt sorry for them, but I don’t.
“2009’s Toll: More Than 10,000 Law Firm Layoffs and Lower Pay Trend
Posted May 28, 2009, 10:43 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The pace of law firm layoffs may be slowing, but the numbers continue to grow, hitting more than 10,000 this month for the year of 2009 alone.
At the end of last week, 3,881 lawyers and 6,282 staffers had been laid off since the beginning of the year by major U.S. law firms, the blog Law Shucks reported.
While layoffs are slowing, another trend appears to be gaining steam. Several law firms are cutting associate pay, including Reed Smith, DLA Piper, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Nixon Peabody and Seyfarth Shaw.
Lower pay for lawyers could be a lasting effect of the recession, according to recruiter Jerome Kowalski of Kowalski & Associates. "These meganumbers in terms of compensation are just going to disappear," he told the Legal Intelligencer last week.”
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “After Early March Mayhem, Law Firm Layoffs Slow: Month’s Total Nears 3,500”
ABAJournal.com: “February Free Fall: Major Law Firms Lay Off Another 2,000-Plus Attorneys and Staff”
ABAJournal.com: “January’s Carnage: 1,487 Law Layoffs”