Exclusive: Jones Day demotes three partners in London
08 February 2013
Jones Day's London office has demoted at least three of its partners to Of Counsel roles.
The partners - in funds, M&A and employment - have all been demoted over the course of the last 18 months. This follows at least
five partners being demoted in 2009, so the firm has form for this behaviour.
Of course partners throughout the City get moved down (or even out of) the lockstep all the time for lots of reasons: they're not bringing enough money in, they've lost clients, they just don't want to work crippling hours any more. But generally they keep their partnership status, so the only people who know that they're on less wedge are their firms' remuneration committees. These unfortunates at Jones Day will have been given new business cards, new email signatures, and will have had to explain to their families, colleagues, friends and clients that they no longer merit being on the letterhead. Not so nice.
 |
|
Some former Jones Day partners, yesterday
|
It's not clear why the firm's management felt the need to do this, when simply dropping them down to salaried partner would surely have had the twin advantages of keeping profits high and not publicly humiliating their lawyers. Particularly as management seem to be doing a pretty good job otherwise - the firm's London office has had a good year, with a raft of
partners made up from the ranks, staff
payrises and
100% NQ retention.
A spokesman for the firm said that partners became counsel for "
several reasons", but he wouldn't comment on individual cases.