Summary: After two years of not meetings its budget, Dentons law firm has ousted 20 U.S. partners since January.
Two years ago, Dentons made headlines for its aggressive global expansion, but now the megafirm is reportedly shrinking due to its failure to meet its 2016 budget. Since January, Dentons has reportedly cut up to 20 American partners, and it has also released 60 staff members.
Anonymous sources told Law.com that Dentons didn’t meet last year’s budget or projections. The budget problems could be due to the high cost of Dentons’ rapid expansion and the increased salaries of its lawyers. Sources said that Dentons missed its projection numbers because of poor revenue collection along with the operational costs.
“This year’s unhappiness was last year’s unhappiness compounded,” an unnamed lawyer said to The American Lawyer.
Some of the partners who were cut came from McKenna, Long & Aldridge, a law firm that merged with Dentons in 2015, according to Law.com. They, along with other culled partners, reportedly were blindsided when they were informed of their release during what they thought would be compensation meetings.
Dentons, which has 22 global locations and over 700 attorneys, told ABA Journal that they would not comment on partner terminations and that they were actually expanding.
“We do not comment on the specifics of our partner review process, though, as is the case with virtually every law firm, there is a regular review where the current and future needs of our clients are considered. We continue to grow, and in Q1 added more than two dozen lawyers in the U.S. to expand our client service capabilities. In addition, our U.S. revenue and profits per partner have increased each year,” a spokesperson said.
It is unclear what is next for most of the ousted partners, National Law Journal said, and sources inside the firm said that this information is unavailable due to Dentons size and decentralized structure. The lawyers who were asked to leave since January also declined to comment to the media, and some of their profiles are still listed on Dentons’ website.
To somewhat help ease the blow, Dentons has a 90 day departure period, which allows partners time to find another position. This policy may be helpful to the partners, but it also makes it impossible to tell what partners were asked to leave and which ones left voluntarily.
According to the The National Law Journal report, the U.S. partners who were terminated are in offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.
National Law Journal added that at least three of the partners who left since earlier this year have gone on to take in-house counsel jobs. These partners include Joseph Blanco and Lloyd Winans.
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