O’Melveny & Myers today announced the layoffs of 10% of attorneys and 10% of staff. About 190 people will be affected.
From firm chairman AB Culvahouse:
I am writing to inform you about some very difficult and unprecedented decisions we have made affecting lawyers and staff. We will be reducing approximately 90 legal and 110 staff positions from our Firm. The majority of the positions are in the US, with some in Asia and a smaller number in London. Altogether the reduction will impact roughly 10% of our lawyer workforce and roughly 10% of our staff workforce.
On February 12th, Los Angeles-based O’Melveny announced that profits per partner were down more than 7% to $1.5 million. Gross revenues for 2008 were $908 million, an almost 3% drop from the prior year.
O’Melveny & Myers LLP is the 19th largest law firm in the world. It employs 1200 attorneys in 14 offices worldwide.