Corporate Activity Down, Associates Find Jobs Shuffled.

WHILE law firm layoffs these past few months have primarily centered in the Bay Area, L.A.'s major firms are not immune to the sudden setbacks in corporate transactional deals.

Particularly in the past month or so, the corporate departments of L.A.'s top law firms have seen deal flow slow significantly and are scrambling to find work for associates to do. Local lawyers and headhunters said many corporate department heads are sending e-mails to other departments in hopes of finding work for their associates. Some are even giving associates document production work from the litigation department -- work often delegated to paralegals or non-attorneys, according to sources.

"Certainly this year, the corporate finance practice and M&A aren't as busy as they've been in the past several years," said Greg Nitzkowski, managing partner at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP. "So we've used associates exclusively devoted to that area in other corporate areas."

Most local partners said shifting work from one department to the next is nothing new.

Nitzkowski said Paul Hastings shifted many of its real estate and employment attorneys to the corporate department last year, when deals were off the charts. Thomas Sadler, partner and chairman of Latham & Watkins, said the firm's first and second year associates aren't usually assigned to a department anyway and are therefore flexible.

But Michael Waldorf, president of search firm Waldorf Associates Inc. in L.A., said the re-tooling and re-assignments, which have steadily increased since Sept. 11, are notably different this time around.

"If real estate is strong and corporate is a little down, that goes hand-in-hand because deals in transactional work are simpler stuff in terms of the elements of a contract and how to negotiate. But when making the shift from transactional to litigation, which is quite different, that's a significant shift. Deal lawyers can be tough negotiators, but it isn't a win or lose thing."