In the News

12 Percent Will Leave Brobeck
The departure of 84 associates does not ensure there will be no layoffs, a firm spokesman said.

By Erik Cummins
Daily Journal Staff Writer
S.F. Daily Journal
December 11, 2001

SAN FRANCISCO - Eighty-four associates out of the 130 eligible for the buyout plan at San Francisco's Brobeck Phleger & Harrison have taken it, firm managers said Monday.
Allan Whitescarver, a spokesman for Brobeck, said managers were "delighted" with the outcome of the voluntary severance plan, which was offered to associates Nov. 16. Associates who expected to bill 1,300 hours or less next year were offered full pay and health benefits through April 15 if they agreed to leave.

"While layoffs are not off the table, this goes a long way toward addressing our overcapacity," Whitescarver said.

He said the firm never expected all of those offered the severance package to take it. The associates who did so represent about 12 percent of the firm's current staff of 700 associates. That figure is equivalent to the number of associates laid off by other Bay Area firms in recent months, including Palo Alto's Fenwick & West and Cooley Godward.

Whitescarver said the buyouts will save an estimated $12 million, but he couldn't predict whether layoffs will occur. That decision will be made in the first quarter of the new year, when Brobeck has a clearer picture of its financial health.

One senior associate in Palo Alto, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the number of associates who took the severance package "seemed pretty good," perhaps enough to stave off layoffs.

San Francisco legal consultant Avis Caravello said she wasn't sure how many associates Brobeck really needed to pare from its ranks to avoid layoffs. That uncertainty had plagued associates trying to decide whether to take the buyout, she said.

"It was a shell game for associates," she said. "What is management thinking? If [Brobeck] didn't want 130 associates to leave, I don't think they would have offered 130 the package. Or, maybe management thought it needed 100 to take the package. ... Or, maybe management doesn't even know."

Caravello said she had fielded numerous calls from associates since the plan was offered.
"People didn't know what to do, and I didn't know how to advise them," she said.

The market for corporate associates is so bad, she said, that some felt they might not find work by the time their severance ran out in April.

The decision, she said, boiled down to, "Do I take the severance now and cross my fingers and hope the economy picks up? Or, do I stay here and hope other people take the severance and I remain employed?

"Basically, you're guessing, which is a hard place to be in."

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