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Law360 (March 31, 2020, 10:08 PM EDT) -- Rivkin Radler LLP's roughly 200 attorneys and staffers are bracing to lose a fifth of their paychecks as part of the firm's response to the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, managing partner Evan Krinick confirmed Tuesday.
Shuttered courthouses and the economic tailspin posed by the global health crisis are to blame for the planned 20% pay cuts, Krinick told Law360 in an email. Partners haven't received any compensation for March, and all nonessential business expenses for the five-office firm have been "eliminated or substantially reduced," he said.
"In pure business terms, the reality is that the temporary closure of the courts has begun to slow down our workload in our litigation groups and the general economic downturn has created uncertainty as to future commercial transactions," Krinick wrote. "We have chosen to be prudent in light of the anticipated challenges and have taken these difficult measures now so that we can avoid more drastic measures if the crisis continues to impact our personal and professional lives."
The health and safety of the firm's families, colleagues and friends is "foremost in all of our minds," Krinick wrote.
The cost-cutting measures were first reported Tuesday by Above the Law.
The firm has 21 practices spanning the gamut of business law. Four of its five offices are in New York, the hardest-hit state in the U.S., with more than 75,000 cases and 1,500 deaths as of Tuesday, according to the state health department's website.
In addition to offices in Albany, Manhattan, Poughkeepsie and Uniondale, the firm has an outpost in Hackensack, New Jersey. The Garden State is a close second to New York in terms of the coronavirus' impact, with 18,696 positive cases and 267 deaths, per state health department figures Tuesday.
The pay cuts are the latest in a wave of belt-tightening for firms of all sizes as the health crisis unfolds.
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP also paused partner compensation and cut pay for associates and staff in recent days, while Reed Smith LLP announced it will slow partner cash distributions. Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin announced it was suspending its 4% employer match to employee 401(k) contributions from May through the end of 2020. And Womble Bond Dickinson and Goldberg Segalla LLP resorted to layoffs.
--Additional reporting by Aebra Coe. Editing by Alanna Weissman.
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