According to David Sturgess, managing partner of Updike, Kelly & Spellacy in Hartford, ''Eliminating staff positions means that in some firms, each paralegal and support staff member will now be assisting more attorneys than before. Some firms have been tied to a two-to-one ratio of support staffers to lawyers, but many are now staffing at four-to-one ratio levels or higher.'' Despite Updike, Kelly & Spellacy’s lay-offs, the staff-attorney ratio is 3:1.
Sturgess explains that ''the effect of staff layoffs varies from firm to firm, based partly on how much work the firm asks its lawyers to perform on their own, such as document preparation and review.''
Sturgess adds, ''We've always looked closely at our staffing needs and how they fit with the workload of our lawyers, I don't think what we did will have an impact.''
According to Peter Giuliani, law firm management consultant, ''in general, administrative tasks likely will fall into young associates' laps when staffers are cut, but ''nine times out of 10, they're not cutting secretaries.'' Giuliani explains that the job cuts are in IT, billing or other areas that can be outsourced.
The effects of the job cuts have not gone unnoticed according to Janice Favreau, president of the Central Connecticut Paralegal Association. ''We have two board members who have suffered layoffs. It's hitting close to home, and it's pretty devastating that we're seeing it in our little corner of the world.''
Favreau is aware that some paralegals, due to recent lay-offs, will be required to support three to four attorneys as opposed to the previous working relationship of one to two attorneys resulting in an increased workload and higher stress levels. However, Favreau concludes that for the paralegals whose jobs were unaffected, they will ''be grateful to have a position and they'll have to put up with it.''
Favreau surmises that attorneys will have to pitch in and take on some of the tasks such as legal research, which were performed by other staff members. However, this can put law firms in a precarious situation because attorneys generally bill their time at a higher rate than paralegals and clients.
Favreau explains, ''Firms could be placed in a sticky situation if clients who are ever-vigilant of their bottom lines start complaining about inflated rates for that research.''
Favreau is not speculating on the fate of staff at CCPA, but predicts that the memberships to the association will decline because cash strapped law firms may continue to trim expenses and forego the association's $80 annual membership fee.
Lay-offs are not exclusive to newer paralegals or support staff, former CCPA president, Michael Wallace, was the victim of his firm’s job cuts due to a decline in work. Wallace was a high-ranking construction litigation paralegal and worked for the law firm of Pepe & Hazard for ten years.
According to Wallace, law firms ''seem to hold on to the associates and get rid of the support staff first. Associates always get a lot of paralegal work, especially in times like this, because they're making money. It was a business decision and I don't hold it against the firm.”
James Sicilian, co-managing partner of Day Pitney, acknowledges that ''recent layoffs affected nearly every type of support staffer, especially administrative assistants and employees who handled finances.'' Sicilian remarks ''that in the sinking economy, it was carrying too many people who stayed on after the firm was created from a 2006 merger of Day, Berry & Howard and New Jersey's Pitney Hardin. We were overstaffed and the workload of the people who left will be picked up by other administrative staff.''
Sicilian said that he would not be surprised by further cuts in the legal industry. ''In this economy, I don't think anything could really be surprising. Just based on what you see and the low level of business in a lot of areas, you'd expect everyone's looking at their operations.''
Although cuts in a legal firm’s support staff will have an effect on those left to continue the workload, the use of technology by the remaining attorneys to facilitate tasks such as typing and emails will be helpful. Furthermore, advances in technology have reduced the need for person-to-person dictation and other administrative tasks. According to Sicilian, Day Pitney’s use of ''More advanced financial systems software led to a need for fewer people to handle billing.''
Sturgess offers that ''Updike Kelly's staffing ratio is based on the firm's requirement that lawyers of all ages get comfortable with basic technology for communications rather than relying on support staff.''
Geoffrey Howard, managing partner of the Bingham McCutchen’s San Francisco office, reported to The Wall Street Journal in May, in response to the firm's announcement last year outlining staff cuts throughout various offices, that ''the cuts were tied to the manner in which people rely on electronic communications.''
Howard acknowledges that ''we don't send and receive nearly as many faxes as we did five years ago, and that has an impact on staffing and on how we organize ourselves.''
Law firm consultant, Giuliani says that the ''broad swath slashing of jobs can be dangerous if firms are too focused on making budget in one particular month without keeping an eye on the bigger picture.''
Giuliani concludes, ''The key thing is that at some point you have to realize that 2009 is going to be a down year for partners and you just have to hunker down. You're not going to shrink the firm.''
