Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel law firm offers buyouts
Law firm Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel LLP is offering a voluntary buyout program for 38 of its support staff in a bid to reduce its costs and operate more efficiently.
Eligible employees have until May 15 to choose to participate in the firm’s “voluntary separation” program, which offers “salary continuation” for a period of time depending on employees’ years of service. The firm has 60 full-time support staff employees, but will not allow more than 10 to take the buyout.
Firm executives are seeking to leverage technology in order to bring the ratio of attorneys to staff to as much as four to one, from its current level of as low as two to one. The firm has 58 attorneys in its Buffalo and Amherst offices.
“The practice of law has changed, between the advances in technology and just the way you communicate with clients and move things around and the ability of attorneys to do their own work at their computers,” managing partner Edward G. Piwowarczyk said in an interview.
The announcement by the full-service corporate law firm is part of its ongoing efforts to streamline operations by using technology and consolidating functions where possible.
Last year, the firm closed its Rochester office, bringing some of that work back to its Buffalo office. It also consolidated its intellectual property group into Buffalo earlier this year.
“Like most businesses, we are seeking ways to streamline operations wherever and whenever it makes sense to do so,” Piwowarczyk said in a press release.
He stressed, however, that the firm is still profitable, and said the reduction in staff will not affect “the high level of service provided to our clients.”
“We’ve got a core center of very strong business clients, and as long as they exist, we’ll exist,” he said.
This is the latest example of law firms locally and nationally cutting back because of the national recession. Clients are tightening their own spending and reducing the volume of legal work they need as they batten down the hatches. That, in turn, reduces profits for the law firms, which are usually run as partnerships owned by the attorneys.
Locally, Hodgson Russ in February laid off five attorneys and eight other employees in what may have been the first ever job cuts by the oldest law firm in Western New York.
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