Lawyers' Separation Anxiety

Do lawyers speak English? Always a tough call.

Litigators like to say a witness will "dissemble" on cross-examination. Translation: The lawyer will catch him in a lie.

Put on the spot themselves, lawyers will often --- how should I say? --- prevaricate. Who but a law school graduate (Yale, class of 1973) would respond on whether or not he had "sexual relations" with a certain White House intern: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

Now Elliott I. Portnoy, the chairman of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, has given us another entry in the lexicon of lawyer euphemisms.

Speaking about reductions in the firm's staff, he told David Lat of the abovethelaw.com blog: "We separated 75 staff and 49 timekeepers,' said Mr. Portnoy. "Of the 75 staff, 41 are secretaries and 34 are other support staff. Of the 49 timekeepers, 37 are lawyers and 12 are non-lawyer timekeepers such as paralegals.'"

Separated? Does it feel better to be separated, rather than laid off or fired? And Portnoy actually said this, rather than penning it in an arch email. And then there's his gem about the "timekeepers." In other words, those who grind out the billable hours to keep the partners in clover.

Like Cadwalader before it, Sonnenschein expresses great pride in not trying to cut staff "below the radar" by masking it as a performance review, as some firms have.

"We would not attempt to pass this off as performance-based," he said. Very noble, indeed. "We were going to do this as openly and transparently as we could," he told Lat.

And as euphemistically. As in: "We believe the separation of 37 lawyers from the firm accomplishes the objectives we need to accomplish." And: "We will do everything we can to help the people we have separated to give them as much support and compassion as we are able to provide."

To wit, from one of the first comments to Lat's post: "We 'separated?' Sounds like they got decapitated," Followed another: "I hate attorney doublespeak."

Attorney doublespeak? Res ispas loquitur. A Latin phrase, learned in first-year torts class.

Translation? "The thing speaks for itself."

Karen Donovan