You have to give Clifford Chance (CC) credit for not being cowed by the weight of general opinion. After all, the received wisdom in the US is that you simply do not lay off litigation associates in a downturn – not in a market that puts so much faith in dispute resolution.
So CC’s shock announcement on Tuesday (14 October) that it is to make 20 associates redundant in its US disputes group would not be without risk for any firm. But that goes double for a foreign outfit with CC’s baggage, picked up courtesy of an initially troubled union with Rogers & Wells and further burdened by ill-fated Californian ventures and associate memos; in the US a reputation for being quick to fire associates can dog a firm for years, and CC has already had to put up with more than its fair share of sniping.
