EAP&D idles 2 local lawyers, 7 other staff

PROVIDENCE – Nine local workers, and 60 nationwide, were laid off this week by Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP, the law firm’s Providence office confirmed today.
“In Providence, two lawyers and seven staff members were affected,” Jennifer O’Leary Cathell, EAP&D’s marketing communications manager, told Providence Business News this afternoon. The layoffs affected about 2.7 percent of the 255 people who worked in the office before the layoffs: 2.3 percent of the 86 lawyers and 4.1 percent of the 169 support staff.
Nationwide, the firm laid off 25 lawyers, or about 0.5 percent of its U.S. legal staff, and 35 other employees. In addition, EAP&D announced it has postponed until March 2010 the hiring of a number of first-year associates who initially had been slated to start work this September.
Employees were notified by Walter G.D. Reed, the firm’s managing partner, who works out of the Providence office, and Jeffrey P. Hunter, EAP&D’s chief operating officer, in a memo yesterday and a conference call this morning.
“We, like our clients and many other law firms, are faced with unprecedented economic challenges,” Reed and Hunter wrote. “Indeed, our own firm’s challenges are driven primarily by what is happening to our clients: lower business levels and fewer transactions and other activities requiring our services. … After careful consultation with the firm’s department heads and governing committees, we have reached the difficult decision that the firm must reduce the size of its work force.
Affected workers will receive “severance arrangements similar to those offered by the many other firms that have also made these difficult decisions,” they wrote.
“The people who will be affected are our friends and trusted colleagues,” Hunter and Reed added. ”They will be missed and they will need your kindness and respect during this difficult time. We recognize, too, that it will also be a difficult period for those not leaving the firm.”
Therefore, they said, “to help everyone understand the reasons for this decision, and to describe the initiatives the firm is taking to promote its success when the economy recovers,” question-and-answer sessions are to be held in each U.S. office.
The latest round of cuts at EAP&D follows the layoffs last November of 53 support staff, none of them lawyers. (READ MORE) Several other local firms also announced cuts last fall.

Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge is an international law firm comprising Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP and Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge UK LLP. It has 600 lawyers at 11 offices: 10 in the United States, in Providence and Boston, plus Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Fla.; Hartford and Stamford, Conn.; Madison, N.J.; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, Del., and one U.K. office, in London. The firm also is associated with Lister Swartz in Hong Kong. Additional information is available at www.EAPDLaw.com.

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