At least 73 law firms based in Chicago borrowed between $120-268 million from the federal government in an effort to keep lawyers and staff on the payrolls at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That money from the Paycheck Protection Program would safeguard at least 8,400 law firm jobs, according to the applications law firms filed with the U.S. Small Business Administration, which released information about the PPP recipients earlier this week.

The range of Chicago firms that received government assistance in April ranged from Am Law 200 contenders like Schiff Hardin to bet-the-company litigators at Bartlit Beck to influential, local personal-injury law firms that have set records with their court victories, like Corboy & Demetrio, Romanucci & Blandin and Power Rogers.

A number of Chicago-based law firms said they were able to stave off having to lay off or furlough employees because they received a PPP loan.

"We chose to utilize this PPP option to help us avoid layoffs, furloughs or reductions in salaries to those who would be impacted the most, our associates, paralegals and staff," said Gus Siller, the president of IP boutique Brinks Gilson Lione, in a statement. In applying for a loan worth between $5-10 million, Brinks Gilson said 178 jobs would be retained.

But similar to their counterparts on the Am Law 200, Brinks Gilson and others have cut salaries in addition to receiving multimillion-dollar PPP loans. Siller said the firm reduced compensation for its shareholders. Ditto for Freeborn & Peters—co-managing partner William Russell said the firm's owners and highest-paid employees took "substantial pay cuts and draw reductions for the benefit of the firm."

"As a result, Freeborn has avoided any furloughs or layoffs and is surviving the COVID environment successfully," Russell said in a statement.

Scott Fisher, the managing partner of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, expressed similar sentiments—he said the firm implemented a "myriad" of cost-cutting and austerity measures.

"These measures, coupled with the PPP funds, have helped to ensure that no NGE employee has been furloughed or laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic," Fisher said in a statement.

A PPP loan is structured in a way that discourages companies from laying off employees after they receive it. The SBA will forgive the entirety of the loan's principal if, eight weeks after receiving the money, a company keeps all employees on the payroll and the loan is used for compensation, rent, mortgage interest or utilities.

If a company does take the PPP loan and lays off employees anyway—or cuts their pay by more than 25%—then it will have to pay back a portion of the principal.

Chicago-based Schiff Hardin accepted a $5-10 million PPP loan April 6 to help retain 321 employees, according to the SBA. Ten days later, the firm announced it would be laying off a small number of staff, cut the salaries of most lawyers and staffers who make more than $100,000 by 15%, and then reduce a smaller cohort of attorneys' pay by 50%.

Schiff Hardin is one of at least nine Am Law 200 firms that received the million-dollar loans and cut jobs or salaries before or after they received the loans.

The Chicago legal market is going through the same turmoil the national market is going through, according to Kent Zimmermann, a Chicago-based law firm consultant with the Zeughauser Group. Outside of the highest-performing firms, Chicago firm leaders are projecting a 10-15% drop in revenue this year, he said.

Practice areas like bankruptcy and restructuring, white-collar work, class action litigation, intellectual property and privacy work are showing promise in Chicago and nationwide, Zimmermann said. Additionally, private equity work is also starting to come back for some firms, he added.

"Firms that were underperforming the market continue to underperform," Zimmermann said. "A small subset are so weak they could fail."

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Big Law Firms Got Millions of Dollars to Preserve Payroll. Some Made Cuts Anyway