Paul Hastings is a large firm with more than 1,800 lawyers and 18 separate offices. The firm holds the 15th spot in the 2007 Am Law 100 ranking. So Paul Hastings is "Big Law" in every sense of the expression.
Yet, as with other firms, work is slowing down. That means less income…which means layoffs. Layoffs are a fact of life at many companies. Yet you can do layoffs with tact and some sort of sympathy. Paul Hastings does a lot of employment law (it's one of the focal points of the firm), so it should be aware of this. Sadly, it was not.
In Paul Hastings's San Francisco office, there was a female associate of the firm who was let go. The reason appears to be simple: the economy. Business is slowing down, so Paul Hastings let her (and maybe others?) go. But the firm handled it horribly.
Here's what happened, according to the email: the associate had been with the firm for a while and had gotten consistently great performance reviews. In fact, the head of her department had personally expressed what a great future she had. A week before her next review, the same department head told her not to worry and her work was great.
Then her performance review was given to her, and she was labeled mediocre. No reason was given for this change, and there was no explanation of where she was deficient. Then she was told her previous reviews had been "over-inflated." Soon afterwards, apparently, she had a miscarriage, and within six days of that, the firm let her go, trying to pay the associate a large sum to keep quiet — plus not to sue.
The reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. While probably legal (there may be a question of pregnancy and discrimination), the firing is being widely decried for Paul Hastings's complete lack of decency and poor taste in handling the matter. Representative comments have included the following: "It's extremely poor taste to fire someone a mere six days after they have a miscarriage. It's also extremely poor taste to make a person think they're doing a good job, only to fire them and claim it's because they're doing a bad job."
Paul Hastings is suffering a massive blow to its reputation and for good reason. Who would want to work at a firm that goes out of its way to make up reasons to change good performance reviews to bad and shows such callousness as to fire people less than a week after they have a miscarriage?
The firm has declined to comment, but dozens of former associates have come out of the woodwork to agree with the now-fired associate. Apparently Paul Hastings does not treat its employees well, or at least there are not many defenders of the firm.
So if you are summering at or thinking of transferring to Paul Hastings, be aware that the firm apparently shows very little loyalty to its associates (assuming the woman's email is true).
And for those of you still at big law firms, ponder whether this could happen to you. Most likely, it could; more and more firms will be conducting "stealth layoffs." If it happens to you, LawCrossing.com has lots of jobs. And I hope you have better luck than this woman did.
