The firm also said that it was providing all terminated employees with severance benefits and services that would help them locate and transition into a new job, and that the total layoffs amounted to not more than 2% of its global workforce.
Two percent of Reed Smith in this case reportedly equated to 20 staff members and 30 lawyers.
Jennifer Henderson, who founded the legal recruitment firm Hatch Henderson Fivel, observed that Reed Smith’s announcement was surprising despite the ongoing trend of Biglaws laying off their lawyers because firms that fired were usually embedded in the tech industry – such as Silicon Valley-based Gunderson Dettmer, which made a name for itself advising start-ups before announcing last April that it was letting go of 10% of its staff – or had been one of those who liberally hired throughout 2021 and were only now beginning to feel the full disproportion between lawyer supply and demand.
Reed Smith fit neither of these descriptions, Fivel said. She concluded that the firm’s layoffs proved that law firms – rather than associates – now wielded the power.
BigLaw firm Cooley – a top hirer during the pandemic – laid off over 100 attorneys and staffs just across its U.S. offices in 2022, Bloomberg Law reported. Davis Wright Tremaine laid of over 20 employees in February, while Dechert laid off just under a hundred professional staff members last month.