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&lt;p&gt;Is Hugh Verrier, chairman of White &amp;amp; Case, happy he granted access to the &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt; for today&amp;#8217;s feature &lt;i&gt;Bleak Day at the Bar&lt;/i&gt;?* Hard to believe that he is. (And not merely because he is described as &#39;a husky man in pinstripes.&amp;#8217;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The case of White &amp;amp; Case is presented as emblematic of an industry &lt;s&gt;in its death throes &lt;/s&gt;confronting a &amp;#8216;paradigm shift.&amp;#8217; &amp;nbsp;A legal consultant compares White &amp;amp; Case to a terminal patient in ICU.&amp;nbsp; Anonymous &amp;#8216;top&amp;#8217; and &amp;#8216;longtime&amp;#8217; firm partners describe a climate of fear and deteriorating collegiality. White &amp;amp; Case&amp;#8217;s 2008 holiday party is described as &amp;#8216;depressive&amp;#8217; (whereas the previous year&amp;#8217;s was &amp;#8216;Neroesque&amp;#8217;). &amp;#8216;Shell-shocked&amp;#8217; lawyers now &amp;#8216;stroll&amp;#8217; to the bathroom rather than the &amp;#8216;scurry,&amp;#8217; as they did in the good old busy days.&amp;nbsp; Lawyers cower behind shut office doors hoping to avoid the &amp;#8216;man with the ax.&amp;#8217; And so on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s a grim read, backed by the familiar assemblage of ATL/Hildebrant/Zeughasuer/AmLaw stats and sound bites.&amp;nbsp; For the most part, there&amp;#8217;s little new here for anyone even vaguely aware of what&amp;#8217;s going on in BigLaw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But that&amp;#8217;s not to say there&amp;#8217;s nothing new. Presumably, Verrier agreed to speak to the paper in the hope of contextualizing or humanizing &amp;nbsp;the firm&amp;#8217;s &amp;#8216;gut-wrenching&amp;#8217; decision to undertake mass layoffs. It cannot be said that he succeeded.&amp;nbsp; The money quote:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Mr. Verrier said he saw the storm approaching shortly after he took control in 2007, and considered three options, in consultation with a group of core partners: Do nothing, which risked the firm&amp;#8217;s survival; couch layoffs as decisions based on poor performance; or own up to the crisis and bid large numbers of lawyers a harsh but needed goodbye.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wait a minute&amp;#8230;what was that middle one again?&amp;nbsp; &lt;i&gt;&amp;#8220;Couch layoffs as decisions based on poor performance.&amp;#8221; &lt;/i&gt;In other words, give laid-off lawyers (and the public) a false reason for their getting the ax.&amp;nbsp; In other words, smear a bunch of actually blameless attorneys with a trumped-up &amp;#8216;performance-based&amp;#8217; charge that they would have had to carry for the rest of the careers. In other words, &lt;i&gt;lie&lt;/i&gt;. Shinyung Oh, call your office!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is remarkable that the chairman of such a venerable firm so blithely acknowledges that he seriously considered (&amp;#8216;&lt;i&gt;in consultation with a group of core partners&amp;#8217;&lt;/i&gt;)&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;going the full-on BS CYA route.&amp;nbsp; As if he is to be congratulated for opting not to?&amp;nbsp; It appears the Newspaper of Record buried the lede.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, there is much of the usual blather in the piece about how &amp;#8220;The gentleman&amp;#8217;s profession of the law is becoming a vestige of the past.&amp;#8221; Becoming?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;-posted by brian&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*Online, the same article goes by the title &lt;i&gt;A Study in Why Major Law Firms Are Shrinking&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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