Is Paying Associates Not to Work a Smart Big Firm Move?

Not long ago I questioned the wisdom of big firms paying associates $80,000 not to work.  The Snark from the Fulton County Daily Report (on Law.com) couldn't have said it better:

Big Law finally gets it. The days of hiking Cog salaries, weeklong retreats to mountain spas and lunchtime golf outings are over. Firms can no longer leapfrog down the path of highest-paid first-years. It is time to get serious, trim the budget and show clients we aren't wasting their ever-decreasing fees on lavish perks.

So, instead of paying first-year associates record-setting salaries even before they know how to practice law, Big Law has decided to pay them not to work.

Brilliant!

Paying someone $5,000 a month not to come into the office -- now that's what I call budget-savvy.

Obviously, Big Firm economics are far too complex for my simple Cog brain. I vaguely understood the idea behind the crazy raises that were being thrown around back in the good ole days of 2007 -- something about demand for talent being high and the pool of available Cogs being too small to meet the needs of our insatiable appetites for top-tier, top-notch law grads. We needed to keep the machine churning out the billable hours.

And now that half of our clients can't afford our rates any more and the other half aren't doing the deals they once were, we must adjust, downsize and slow the money flow in the Cog pipeline. Makes sense to me that we need fewer Cogs -- especially new ones who are costing the firm big bucks.

But has Big Law really figured out the best way to do this? In other words, when are cutbacks not really cutbacks?

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