Law-firm support staff left behind

If the protracted and painful unraveling of defunct law firm Wolf Block were a film, its final chapter could easily track the plotlines of Titanic.

To be sure, there are no orchestra, no deck chairs, no winsome actors gliding about in tuxedos and eye-popping gowns. But there are hundreds of survivors, in this case lawyers who quickly and nimbly jumped ship along with some administrative staff to join other firms eager to provide lifeboats.

And then there are the workers left behind, mostly legal secretaries and technical staff struggling to wrap up the firm's business and find new employment while the big boat slowly lists and goes under.

"You can't imagine what it is like to see your family fall apart," said Ann Marie Dimino, Wolf Block's chief of human resources, who cried as she spoke about the phaseout during an interview in a conference room on the 22d floor of the office tower at 1650 Arch St.

The largely empty corridors of Wolf Block these days present a ghostly scene.

The tawny, modernist wood paneling remains, as does some furniture. But all of the firm's artwork has been taken down. Most of the offices are darkened and bare. Books and most computer equipment have vanished.

One discreetly placed bulletin board offers the opportunity to vent anonymously.

"Confucius say: 'Get out.' (No really, you gotta go)" is one offering. "Beer is proof that God loves us and really wants us to be happy. B. Franklin" is another.

Where there is activity it centers on Wolf Block's human resources, information technology, secretarial, and benefits departments, where most of the remaining administrative and support staff labor to shut the firm down.

Each day, Dimino, legal secretary recruiter Kathy Gallelli, secretarial and support services manager Deborah Margulies, and benefits manager Irene Bigby report to work and manage the melancholy process of dismantling a venerable institution.

"It was extremely difficult, on the day the furniture movers showed up," Margulies said. "It was like a divorce when all you are left with is the air mattress. It was extremely gut-wrenching to see offices emptied out."

Then there is the anxiety about where to find the next job.

"Obviously, you get caught up in the despair and fear about not having a job in the worst economic crisis certainly in my lifetime," Bigby said.

Since the March 23 announcement that the 106-year-old firm would dissolve - the victim of a collapsed real estate market and a decision by its bank to tighten credit terms - traces of the longtime civic, legal, and political powerhouse quickly disappeared. Of the 300 or so lawyers employed at Wolf Block at the time of the dissolution, only 20 or so have yet to find jobs.

Entire Wolf Block offices moved en masse to other firms. Cozen O'Connor picked up virtually all of the firm's New York practice group, and Duane Morris L.L.P. took on the firm's large Cherry Hill gaming and real estate practice, along with other lawyers.

Between them, the two firms, both based in Center City, have hired more than 100 lawyers and a number of secretarial staff.

Partners with big books of business and younger associates who typically are harder to place because they have no clients have found jobs.

But the administrative and support staff is having a tougher time.

It is one of the brutal realities of today's legal marketplace that firms first look to administrative and support staff to cut costs.

Although many firms were happy to pick up lawyers with robust practices and deep client lists, the legal secretaries, bookkeepers, mail-room workers, and other administrative and support personnel who made the firm run smoothly are viewed as costs that firms cannot afford in an ailing economy.

Of the 400 or so administrative staff at Wolf Block when the closing was announced, about 150 still are looking for jobs. There are apparently no villains in this part of the story. Many Wolf Block partners took as many secretaries as their new firms would allow when they moved. Wolf Block partners that have landed at Cozen, Duane Morris, and other places say they still are working the phones to find places for former colleagues.

But the iron rule of law firm economics, that new recruits must pay their own way, greatly limits their options.

All new partners must show the firms that hired them that they can bring in enough business to support them and whatever associate lawyers and administrative staff they choose to bring. If those numbers do not pan out, it is common practice in the world of Big Law to show partners the door.

"It was handled appropriately," Dimino said of the way practice groups moved from Wolf Block to other firms. "We know the secretaries feel that they have been left behind."

But, she added, "many of our fellow firms have had layoffs just as we have had, and if the situation were reversed, and I had just laid off a lot of Wolf Block secretaries, and here comes a group of people saying, 'Hire my secretaries,' it would not be very appropriate."

So Dimino and her fellow managers are trying to help staff find new homes.

"You basically become a counselor," said Gallelli, the recruiter for legal secretaries. "I hired them, so I basically want to help them find a job," she said. "They are so broken down that you have to build them up to let them know that, 'Yes, you are valuable. Just because the firm dissolved doesn't mean that you don't have talents and you won't be successful someplace else.'

"But they are so scared. It's kind of like their mother left them."