When attorney Clem Glynn worked at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco, he arrived two hours before the law firm opened its doors at 8:30 a.m. And every morning, Martin Macy was already there. He always seemed to be there.
"The firm was his life,'' said Glynn, who is now at Glynn & Finley in Walnut Creek. Macy didn't marry or have children. He walked to work from his apartment on Battery Street.
You could hear his laugh all the way down the hall. Glynn would come up with off-color jokes just to hear Macy's distinctive uproarious laugh. Over the decades, as lawyers came and went, as the firm expanded and moved into ever-larger digs, Macy stayed on, his dark hair turning to gray, his sturdy frame softening with age and diabetes. He seemed as much a part of the firm as the nameplate on the door.
Macy wasn't a lawyer. He was a messenger, beginning in 1965 at the age of 17. He delivered the mail office to office, desk to desk. He did this for 41 years. He was a company man, an emblem of an era when businesses were local and the bosses stopped you in the hall to ask about your mother's cataracts.
Now he's an emblem of a new era.
Last week, at age 58, he was laid off by what is now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a firm with 16 offices around the world, 900 lawyers and $600 million in revenue.
Macy earned $34,000 a year.
I never worked at Pillsbury and don't know Mr. Macy, but he has my condolences. In P.R. terms, I think Pillsbury's little cost-saving move here is what the military would refer to as a "goat fuck." Unfortunately, it's indicative of what's becoming of our profession. Details here from the San Francisco Chronicle.