Troutman Sanders won't say how many lawyers it has laid off, but data on the firm's Web site show that 28 fewer attorneys work there this week than six weeks ago. That is about a 4 percent contraction, though it's not known how many of those departures were prompted by layoffs, if any.

In a voicemail message, Robert W. Webb Jr., Troutman's chairman and managing partner, declined to reveal the number of lawyers and staff his firm has discharged, saying that information is "personal." He was meeting with clients on the West Coast and could not be reached for further comment by press time.

Mark Braykovich, Troutman's spokesman, would not confirm that the 28 lawyers missing from the firm's Web site listing of attorneys all were laid off. He said he did not know why those lawyers left, adding that the firm obtained a final count Monday of those leaving. That count comes nearly a month after Troutman's March 20 announcement that it would cut attorneys and staff. Troutman did not say at the time how many attorneys and staff it would cut. As of Thursday, the firm's Web site lists 750 lawyers firmwide, with 252 in Atlanta.

And apparently some departures are still to come.

One partner at the firm, W. Brinkley Dickerson, noted that he saw someone on the layoff list in the elevator Wednesday morning.

"There's some different active dates for this," Braykovich said. "I think they'll all be gone in the near future."

Asked why the layoff process took so long -- at most firms and companies, layoffs occur very quickly -- Braykovich said, "I think the process was made longer because we offered a voluntary buyout package to all of our staff, and because the firm underwent a significant reorganization designed to make it more efficient and profitable in the future, and those things take time."

He declined to discuss the firm's reorganization.

Dickerson, who said only a handful of people at Troutman know the total number of those asked to leave, said the mood at the firm was improving. "I believe [people] wish it would have occurred faster, so there was a very blue attitude before it took place," he said. "Now I think the attitude is upbeat. There's a perspective that this is behind us. We're seeing some really good signs in some of our practice groups."

For example, the energy practice has remained healthy, he said. Dickerson, who is in the firm's securities and corporate governance practice, acknowledged that the firm's transactional flow was way down. "We have a very, very stable client base. They simply are not as active in transactions as they were a year ago. … Clearly, things are slower than they should be," he said. "Sellers are still using pricing metrics that were valid 18 months ago and aren't valid today. That's a huge issue. I have significant deals that would be moving forward today if the seller's expectations were reasonable."

This and other practice slowdowns pushed the firm's billable hour count down, he said, and that was the clearest sign that Troutman had "excess capacity."

Excess capacity has two effects, he said: First, there's the cost of paying workers who aren't busy; second, the lack of work prevents associates from advancing their skill sets. "It was clear that excess capacity was going to be with us for more than the short term," he said.

Dickerson said he doesn't expect work to pick up until late this year.

Troutman, which also pushed the starting date for its incoming first-year associates to January 2010 and lopped two weeks off its 2009 summer associate program in each market, is hardly the only firm to make cutbacks.

Alston & Bird in January and April announced the layoffs of more than 20 associates, roughly 2 percent of its attorneys, and some 60 staff; King & Spalding in March said it cut 122 people, including 37 lawyers -- about 4 percent of its attorney ranks. Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker said in March that it would cut 44 associates, or about 6 percent of its associate head count, and 87 staff from its U.S. offices.

In February, Bryan Cave, known as Bryan Cave-Powell Goldstein in Atlanta, cut some 5 percent of its 1,200 lawyers firmwide; Holland & Knight bumped 243 employees, including 70 lawyers, or about 7 percent of the firm's lawyer ranks; and Epstein Becker & Green laid off more than 20 attorneys, or about 6 percent of its lawyers nationwide.

And those are just a few of the announced layoffs. Some firms here and around the country also have resorted to what's known as "stealth layoffs," handing associates their hats without publicly acknowledging that the cuts are the result of economic pressure rather than poor performance.

According to Layoff Tracker, a service of the Web site Lawshucks.com, as of March 31, nearly 8,000 people have been pink-slipped by major firms nationwide since the beginning of the year. About 3,150 of those are attorneys. According to the site, two of the top 10 firms that have riffed the most people have Atlanta offices: Holland & Knight and DLA Piper.

"I think [our] layoffs were very modest in the grand scheme of things," said Dickerson, the Troutman partner. But, he added, "If it's one, it's more than you want it to be."

Go to The Layoff List on AmericanLawyer.com.