Skadden, which on Friday laid off an undisclosed number of staff attorneys and 50 support staffers, is introducing a litigation program for its incoming class.
From the memo:
… To address this issue, the relative underutilization of first year corporate associates, and with the firm belief that first year legal work should serve to set the groundwork for a set of skills that all lawyers need, we are introducing a litigation component to the program. In addition this will assist our litigation departments with their staffing needs.
Our first year program will now include a six month litigation component in which you will work under the direct supervision of lawyers from the general litigation, white collar, intellectual property/patent, antitrust and/or mass torts groups… In order to implement this program fairly, all corporate associates will participate in the litigation component. One group will rotate into litigation in early April while the others will proceed to their previously scheduled “second” corporate rotation. In October, the groups will switch and those who were in the litigation rotation will be rotated to their other corporate rotation and those who have completed their second corporate rotation will rotate into the litigation rotation. We anticipate final assignments will occur in May 2010.
We will offer litigation training at the start of each rotation…
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, founded in 1948, is a prominent law firm based in New York City. With over 2,000 attorneys, it is one of the largest and highest-grossing law firms in the world. Forbes magazine called Skadden “Wall Street’s most powerful law firm.”