It hasn't taken the legal blogosphere long—just barely over the weekend—but help is on the way In Re:  Decloaking Associates.  David Giacolone may or may not have been the first to suggest it, but as of this morning Kevin Heller at TechLawAdvisor has offered free server-space to any and all associates who want to be "de-cloaked."  According to Kevin's email:

"If you want to make yourself "available for hire" then please submit your information to me and I will post it on the Legal Jobs Blog under the title: Available: ....
If you simply want to have your contact information and biographical information listed then you can submit that and I will create a new directory entitled Decloaked Associates."

Monica Bay has also weighed in, "scolding" the firms for the mindset their actions reveal:

This is the stupidest move I've heard in a very long time. WHEN are law firm partners going to understand that you don't gain loyalty, commitment, and a sense of participation by treating people like second-class citizens.

Meanwhile, in separate private correspondence, I have heard from more than one recruiter that if firms are worried about associate attrition, the best way to call attention to themselves is to "cloak" their associates.  All the recruiters who mentioned this said they re-doubled their efforts at targeting associates at such firms, assuming the firm did it for a reason—i.e., that they had retention/attrition problems.

I will resist the temptation to dress this up as a morality tale, but I must observe that it is a serendipitous intersection of two of my favorite themes:  The power of the blogosphere combined with the always-potent law of unintended consequences.   Will it be long before there's a T-shirt:  "Free the Cloaked Associates!"