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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
It seems that there is no one left who thinks that there should be no mention of layoffs at all in the article. This makes sense as the layoffs were unprecented in size and for a top law firm. I propose the following text, which is from an earlier introduction which I edited to be something that I thought was more NPOV.
On February 27, 2009, several news sources reported mass layoffs at Latham, including 190 lawyers and 250 staff members. [1] [2] The Wall Street Journal affiliated blog, Legal Blog Watch described the layoffs as "the largest to date by a U.S.-based firm", [3] and the AmLaw Daily stated that the layoffs were "the most dramatic cuts announced so far by an Am Law 100 firm. [4]. In the subsequent Vault rankings, Latham dropped from seven to 17. [5]
Any comments? LedRush ( talk) 19:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Now we're cooking with gas. So, as part of a history section (to be built), how about the following:
I believe the second sentence is necessary because it shows that scope of the layoffs was important for such a prestigous firm, and the AmLaw is an important reporter in the legal world. LedRush ( talk) 20:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
If severance packages are relevant, then we need to discuss the fact that most of the laid-off lawyers accrued six figure student loan debt to get a large law firm job. Also, we would need to note that they lost out on their other offered biglaw jobs as a result. I don't really think either is relevant, but if you discuss severance packages, we need to make sure we're being fair by putting that into context. We want this article to be neither an advertisement nor an attack tool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HenryX999 ( talk • contribs) 00:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
I found a good source for what I wrote above about the Latham severance. Many legal consultants are saying that most of those laid off from large law firms will likely never get another large firm job again. The legal industry may be somewhat unique in that you only get one bite at the apple with large firm jobs, and if you lose it it's gone for good. Most people don't even get the one bite, given that maybe 10% of law school graduates are able to get large firm jobs in the first place. A layoff in this industry is really, really damaging for this reason. http://abovethelaw.com/2010/05/nalp-2010-nalp-executive-director-james-leipold-talks-to-the-lost-generation/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by HenryX999 ( talk • contribs) 00:46, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
ANALYSIS FROM NEUTRAL SOURCES
We need some neutral commentary on the reason for the layoffs and the effect of the layoffs. That way wiki will be including information both on the awards and the criticisms that Latham has received, making for a well balanced article.
I propose these two articles from a well respected publication that I have pasted below. In summary they say the reason for the layoffs was the failure of Latham management to predict demand for certain legal services and a poorly balanced mix of practice groups ie. number of corporate attorneys versus number of bankruptcy attorneys.
They also say the effect is a weakened firm that's losing good associates that has also to some extent lost its ability to recruit new high quality associates to replace them. For a provider of high end legal services, this is important information.
http://www.thelawyer.com/the-transatlantic-elite-2009-the-sweet-sixteen/1000698.article http://www.thelawyer.com/latham-salary-thaw-meets-with-hot-and-cold-reception/1003081.article
cut-and-paste removed per WP:COPYVIO - Wikidemon ( talk) 01:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HenryX999 ( talk • contribs) 22:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Not to add fuel to the pending layoff text fire, but Latham & Watkins also had a significant downsizing in August of 1991, when it laid of 43 associates (when the firm had 615 attorneys), as reported in the Los Angeles Times. [1] The layoffs were fairly significant in the eyes of the press at the time, as you can see from these (sorry, archived) stories from the Washington Post [2] [3], Chicago Tribune [4], and the Los Angeles Times [5] [6]. The December 2006 American Lawyer, archived on Latham & Watkins's own Web site, includes details of the 1991 layoffs as "controversial" but "needed." [7] Not sure everyone else's thoughts on this one, but given that they were proportionately about as large as the 2009 layoffs, I thought it might be worth adding. -- Abidjan227 ( talk) 02:02, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
When I read the passage where L & W is described as "Legal counsel to bookrunners and arrangers Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, Goldman Sachs International and Merrill Lynch International", I had to do a double-take. Yes my native dialect is American English, & yes "bookrunners" had a link to an article which explained that term, but those words convey to me that Deutsche Bank (& probably the other 2 companies) are crooked bookmakers. (For example, "arrangers" next to an unfamiliar word like "bookrunners" leads me inavoidably to conclude it means that they "fix" events to win bets.) Does anyone object to my changing the words describing them to "investment bankers"? (I assume that term is in common use in places with their own dialects of English.) -- llywrch ( talk) 21:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
So, is it ok to start editing this article again under normal wikipedia rules? That means that we would insert some of the text concerning the layoffs and allow constructive and editing and discussion on the topic. This also means that people who edit this article should remember the bigger picture. The sole purpose of this article is not to rehash the layoffs, as unprecedented and important as they are. We should strive to make the article more complete, to correct and improve citations, and to think about what information a reader would want to discover when s/he searches for this article. I plan to add a version of the layoff text similar to the one debated above, but I also want to leave some time so that other views can be heard before I insert it. However, no one should treat the insertion as a destination...an unchangeable agreement. Edit it as you will. But I hope we can all, including myself, keep the larger goal of this article in mind as we do so. LedRush ( talk) 20:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
So what are the thoughts about the term "Lathamed" ? I'm not really sure how you source something like this, but the fact that your company's name is synonymous with layoffs seems like it should be included in the article. Not including it is like having an article on WalMart that doesn't mention low prices. Nycbl1y ( talk) 05:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I just edited wiki to include "Lathamed" in the profile and was going to mention it here, but I see it's already being discussed. If there's any disagreement about the way it's been done please feel free to undo the change and everyone can discuss it I guess. It's minor though and I pretty much followed the language used by Chambers.
Chambers mentions a round of layoffs before the Feb 09 layoffs, so I've made a slight change to one sentence to include that. I wrote "an unknown number" since chambers and the news never reported the number. DanielLarusoMiddleAged ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:17, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
I note his article has been deleted some time back (I voted keep, FWIW). This would imply that he is not notable per WP standards, in and of himself, and should be thus be removed from the list here IMHO. ‒ Jaymax✍ 12:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I translated the article into German, as you can see from the new interwiki. However, I was unable to understand the Deutsche Bank case. Too much takeover lingo for me. -- Gnom ( talk) 20:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm adding back in the part about the verb "Lathamed." The inclusion of the verb "Lathamed" was discussed on here back in 2010 and we agreed that the creation of this term was significant. I don't see any discussion regarding why it's been deleted so I'm adding it back in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caylee3728 ( talk • contribs) 01:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
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The user below has a request that an edit be made to
Latham & Watkins/Archive 2. That user has an
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conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is high. Please be very patient. There are currently 167 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies. |
I work for Latham & Watkins, the subject of this article. I’d like to request an independent editor review various serious issues with the second paragraph of the lead. It should be removed. The paragraph is about a self-published 2020 report created by a law student advocacy group and it takes up almost half the lead. The paragraph reads:
By way of background Latham & Watkins is an 87-year old law firm, and was the second highest-grossing law firm in the world in 2020, Investopedia,with dozens of practice areas. |Latham Watkins. The firm has appeared in tens of thousands of press articles over the past nine decades. Cherry-picking this one recent ( WP: Recentism) self-published report for the lead is severely WP:Undue. The first sentence of this paragraph is also grossly inaccurate and not verifiable. The Law360 source about the report does not say LW engages in lobbying; (in fact LW does not do lobbying.) Nor does the source say LW is “known” for any activities related to climate change. This phrasing is WP:Weasel. In fact, the Law360 source, behind a paywall, only mentions Latham & Watkins one time, in a sentence listing several law firms. Also, the second sentence of the Wikipedia lead paragraph includes a direct quotation with analysis, and is solely sourced to the self-published rankings report, failing the criteria for WP:PRIMARY and WP:NPOV. DigitalMedia11 ( talk) 19:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
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A few hours ago, Quetstar undid my previous edit to change the timeframe of the autoarchive bot for this Talk page from 20 days to 360 days. As I explained the time, this bot was automatically removing active Request Edit templates from the official queue by archiving them after 20 days – a timeframe which, given that the official queue is months long, essentially makes a review of a Request Edit impossible. I have a COI, which I disclosed above, so I must use Request Edits to address egregious Wikipedia violations on this page.
Quetstar justified this Undo with statement in the Edit Summary: “You cannot unilaterally change the bot's archiving cycle, no matter the reason.” This is incorrect in many ways. The WP:AUTOARCHIVE policy says you cannot set up an auto-archive bot unilaterally on a Talk page. But Questar does not cite to a Talk discussion that reached consensus to set a 20-day period – and I doubt it exists because it would violate another key provision in WP:AUTOARCHIVE: “ongoing discussions and nearby sections they reference should generally be kept intact.”
The policy also says nothing about consensus being needed to adjust the time frame – given how short and disruptive this autoarchive time frame is, it is common-sense to edit to prevent active discussions from being terminated. Even if there were some technical interpretation of a policy that supported Questar (I doubt it), this would be a perfect case of WP:IAR to preserve the WP: FIVE PILLARS. You shouldn’t blindly follow rules WP:5P5 that prevent editors from seeking consensus and resolving actual substantive disputes on the Talk Page. WP:5P4.
This very discussion might not conclude in time to prevent a 20-day archive. A Request for Comment period is typically at least 30 days. For these reasons, and so we can actually have a discussion on this matter without fear of it being prematurely terminated by the bot, I have restored the 360 day cycle for auto-archiving. I’m interested in what other editors have to say. DigitalMedia11 ( talk) 00:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
I work for Latham & Watkins, the subject of this article. I’d like to request an independent editor review various serious issues with the second paragraph of the lead. It should be removed. The paragraph is about a self-published 2020 report created by a law student advocacy group and it takes up almost half the lead. The paragraph reads:
By way of background Latham & Watkins is an 87-year old law firm, and was the second highest-grossing law firm in the world in 2020, Investopedia,with dozens of practice areas. |Latham Watkins. The firm has appeared in tens of thousands of press articles over the past nine decades. Cherry-picking this one recent ( WP: Recentism) self-published report for the lead is severely WP:Undue. The first sentence of this paragraph is also grossly inaccurate and not verifiable. The Law360 source about the report does not say LW engages in lobbying; (in fact LW does not do lobbying.) Nor does the source say LW is “known” for any activities related to climate change. This phrasing is WP:Weasel. In fact, the Law360 source, behind a paywall, only mentions Latham & Watkins one time, in a sentence listing several law firms. Also, the second sentence of the Wikipedia lead paragraph includes a direct quotation with analysis, and is solely sourced to the self-published rankings report, failing the criteria for WP:PRIMARY and WP:NPOV.
Thank you for your consideration. DigitalMedia11 ( talk) 01:22, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
References
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cite web}}
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