Duane Morris COO Pays Attention To The Corporate Brand

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Today I received the following e-mail, in part, from the COO of Duane Morris confirming their August 2008 staff cuts and correcting any misleading statement that may have been inferred regarding Duane Morris associate cuts, which do not exist. Duane Morris is really paying attention to their corporate brand, even to potentially inaccurate inferences. In reference to our original post, he opines:

" 'Here is a list of the larger firms, that have Nevada offices or ties, with recent cuts (I'll add to the list if you let me know):

· Confirmed (Media):
· Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll
· DLA Piper
· Duane Morris
· Greenberg Traurig'

This statement is so factually inaccurate that I demand a retraction. Duane Morris had very minimal staff cuts and no lawyer cuts in August of 2008, with no cuts since then. . ."

Charles J. O'Donnell, Chief Operating Officer, Duane Morris LLP"

Duane Morris was included in the list as having "recent cuts" because they have made significant "cuts" to their staff (over 10% of their marketing and business development team) within the last year, at least in our opinion that is recent and significant enough to assist us in evaluating some trends among large law firms. To the extent our factual claims inferred otherwise, we retract the same.

Interestingly enough, Ed Schechter, the chief marketing officer at Duane Morris, stated in an interview reported on Law.com, back in August 2008, that "cost-cutting was a 'secondary' consideration, with the firm primarily interested in building up a more experienced and leaner team." This may have actually been occurring over the last year at Duane Morris.

Duane Morris advertises that they now have more than 700 attorneys working for them in July 2009, when they were reported to have only had about 650 attorneys working for them in August 2008. So, someone has been hiring attorneys in the economic downturn. We will need a detailed breakdown from Mr. O'Donnell reporting who was hired in the last year, in order to provide further opinion as to whether Duane Morris is actually "leaner" or just "fatter", either way they are "bigger". Only time will tell if their strategy works.

Becoming "leaner" is exactly the strategy that Legally UnBound emphasized in yesterday's report. Law firms are being forced to embrace these leaner 'cuts' as a result of the economic downturn. Firms have been recognizing that they have to 'cut the fat' or make themselves "leaner", as stated by Mr. Schechter, so they can maintain a solid profit margin. Whether it is by an attorney cut or a staff cut, in our opinion, these changes will continue to occur for some time. This is the reason for the reporting, to point out the ongoing changes, not to upset the "more than 700 attorneys" at Duane Morris.

Legally UnBound actually thinks cuts are warranted in most law firms, especially amongst the associate ranks. Many firms appear to be very bloated and heavy on young associates these days. So, maybe all large law firms should consider an associate "cut"? We don't think it's a bad idea.

It was good to see the attention that Mr. O'Donnell is giving to his firm's brand, though. Taking the time to respond to our little report, although nit-picky, seemed warranted given the lack of specificity further clarified now.
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