Nationwide Salary Cut Watch: Mintz's Levy on Salaries

Nationwide Salary Cut Watch: Mintz's Levy on Salaries

Two weeks ago, Mintz Levin laid off 15 associates. But apparently those cuts were not deep enough. Above the Law has been able to confirm that Mintz Levin has cut associate salaries. A tipster explains it this way:

Salaries will be adjusted as follows (firm-wide, all departments) based on this 12-month period:

* Hours greater than 1635, salary reduced by 5%

* Hours between 1445-1635, salary reduced by 15%

* Hours between 1250-1444, salary reduced by 25%

* Hours less than 1250, salary reduced by 35%

Associates who were employed by the firm for the full fiscal years ended March 31, 2007 and 2008 and who met or exceeded target (i.e. 1925 hours) will have their salaries reduced by only 5%, regardless of their hours for the 12 month period (i.e. this safe harbor effectively only applies to 4th yr associates and above).

To make these cuts Mintz is looking at hours billed over the last 12 months. And we all know what has happened over the last 12 months:

[The cuts are] based on their utilization during the prior 12 months - August 1, 2008 through July 31, 2009. Why the arbitrary period? It's a snapshot of the recession at its height.

But the firm will make people whole and return the money at the end of the fiscal year if their projections are wrong. For people on track to make their hours in FY 2009 who nonetheless fall below the threshold if you count the entire recession against them, they will have an opportunity to get some of their money back. So they should consider it simply loaning money to the firm right now at a 0% interest rate.

Feel better? More details, including a statement from Mintz Levin, after the jump.

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Thanks to This Week's Advertisers

Thanks to This Week's Advertisers

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Notes from the Breadline: Alone, Alone, Alone

Notes from the Breadline: Alone, Alone, Alone

Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of "Notes from the Breadline," a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

On a drizzly Thursday morning, my friend Giovanna calls to invite me to lunch. "I have a window between a meeting and a conference call," she says, referring to concepts that are increasingly foreign to me. "Come and meet me."

"I don't know," I say guiltily, tallying the lunches, dinners, and coffees to which she has treated me in the past few months, "you just bought me dinner.'

"Don't be silly," she says cheerfully. "Consider it a public service, since you'll have to shower."

"Whoa!" I tell her, "let's not be rash."

"Take a shower," she says sternly. "I'll meet you downstairs at one."

A few hours later, we are sitting at a restaurant. Giovanna is dressed beautifully for work, her hair and makeup perfect. Although I have showered, I realize that I could easily be mistaken for her maid. We talk about her new colleagues, her most recent deposition, and my job search, before the conversation turns to what women invariably talk about when they talk to other women: men.

Sitting at the table -- hands wrapped around our coffee cups, voices lowered conspiratorially -- I am reminded of television commercials in which women confide sheepishly about unseemly problems, like occasional irregularity or embarrassing ring-around-the-collar. But, before a chipper paid spokesperson can appear, offering us laxative yogurt or assistance with our laundry woes, we identify the issue at hand: DWUI.

No, puzzled readers -- not that DWUI. Without diminishing, in any way, the seriousness of operating a motor vehicle after tossing back too many suds or hitting the pipe, let's be clear: we are talking about something entirely different. We're talking about the insidious problem of Dating While on Unemployment Insurance.

Read about the perils of DWUI, after the jump.

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Bad News for Lawyers....

Bad News for Lawyers....

And accountants, and investment bankers. Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) has introduced legislation that, if passed, would make it easier for investors to sue law firms, accountants and investment banks involved in perpetrating fraud. The law would effectively overrule Supreme Court precedent placing limits upon suits against parties with indirect involvement in fraud.

Read more -- and comment -- over at Going Concern (link below).

Arlen Specter Not Pandering to the Bean Counter Vote [Going Concern]

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