* Umm, is this really that surprising? Would be kinda scary if it were the opposite… [Jurist]
* No driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs: California Rule! [CNN]
* Alabama latest to say “our bad” on slavery. [ Fulton County Daily Report]
* Pakistani lesbian couple jailed for being gay perjury. [Jurist]
* CSI: Hollywood. [CNN]
May 2007
* Women’s unmentionables are pricey, but even the total value of 1,300 pairs of 100% cotton granny panties would amount to a felony. (Yeah, I hate the word “panty” too.) [ABC News (Denver)]
* The bad news is that you’ll never eat your greens again. The good news is that he is STD-free. [Daily Herald]
* I’d rather be jowl-free than Macacca’s kid. [Contact Music]
* The devil makes work for idle hands–I know this is Kansas, but doesn’t Phelps have something better to do? [KFDA]
It’s the Friday before a major holiday — and firms are scrambling to get their pay raise announcements out the door. It’s a nice way to send your bedraggled and overworked hardworking associates into a three-day weekend (assuming they don’t need to come in on Monday).
We’re about to sign off for the weekend, and we won’t be back until Wednesday. (Billy Merck, who has filled our shoes in the past, will be your guest editor on Tuesday.)
Before we go, here are the latest salary announcements that we’ve confirmed:
2. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (Hat Tip: Lateral Link)
But the Manatt “raise” has a catch. Its effective date? January 1, 2008.
HA. That’s kind of funny, in a sick sort of way — provided you’re not at Manatt.
Memos appear after the jump. And we’re out the door. Have a great holiday weekend!
Update (2:50 PM): We’ve verified the Pillsbury Winthrop raise news. Memo below.
Update (3:25 PM): Jeez, you’re going to make us miss our flight to Las Vegas. Memo from the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn, added after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: The Latest Announcements”
Here’s a development that has Colorado prosecutors saying “oh crap” — quite literally. From the Rocky Mountain News:
A former Democratic Party activist who left dog feces on the doorstep of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave’s Greeley office during last year’s 4th Congressional District campaign was found not guilty Wednesday of criminal use of a noxious substance.
So what happened? Did the prosecution fail to establish the element of noxiousness?
Ensz’s lawyers never denied that their client left a Musgrave campaign brochure full of feces at the front door of the congresswoman’s office. But they argued that Ensz was making a statement protected by free speech – the poop was a symbol of what she thought of Musgrave’s politics.
“Her only intention of going over there was to make a political statement that Marilyn Musgrave’s politics stink,” attorney Shannon D. Lyons said after the verdict.
Is feces flinging the flag burning of the future?
Woman acquitted of illegal poop use [Rocky Mountain News]
Okay, commenters, break it up. There’s no need to come to blows over the propriety of discussing clerkship bonuses in a salary post.
Here at ATL, there’s enough cyberspace for everyone. We’re putting an end to the turf wars, by giving you a new, dedicated thread for talking about clerkship bonuses.
We’ll kick things off with some news. First, a reader alerted us to a change made to Cahill Gordon’s website:
Sign-on Bonuses: The firm pays sign-on bonuses of $50,000 to judicial clerks and $15,000 to LL.M. (tax) graduates when they start at the firm.
Second, from a law clerk tipster, about Paul Weiss:
I’m clerking for two years. Paul Weiss just notified me, by phone, that they will be giving $70K bonuses to all two-year clerks. Hurray!
Congratulations, law clerks! Your Memorial Day holiday weekend is off to a good start.
Compensation & Benefits [Cahill Gordon & Reindel]
As promised, here’s the first installment in our series about infighting at America’s top law journal: the Harvard Law Review. Some HLR editors are unhappy with the Review’s new fearless leader, president Andrew Crespo, and have been expressing their concerns.
We’ve been leaked a number of HLR internal emails that some of you may find amusingly ridiculous. But we should warn you that they’re not for everyone. If you don’t share our appreciation for tempests in teapots, you may have a “So what?” reaction.
But if you do enjoy the hilarity of petty law school squabbles, then check out the emails — after the jump.
Continue reading “Gannett House Smackdown: Internecine Warfare at the Harvard Law Review (Part 1)”
It’s a busy morning, right before the big Memorial Day holiday weekend. There’s breaking news of associate pay raises from Sidley Austin, Arnold & Porter (hi James Sandman!!!), and Brown Rudnick.
The Sidley Austin memo appears after the jump. The raise to the $160K scale covers Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington. It’s retroactive to May 1.
The Arnold & Porter news was reported by The BLT: Blog of Legal Times. If you have the A&P memo, please email it to us.
We learned of the Brown Rudnick raise by email. We don’t have the memo, but our source sent us a salary table, which also appears below the fold.
Discuss.
Continue reading “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Sidley Austin, Arnold & Porter, Brown Rudnick”
- Alberto Gonzales, D. Kyle Sampson, Department of Justice, Fabulosity, House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, Politics, U.S. Attorneys Offices, You Go Girl
Monica Goodling: They Like Her, They Really Like Her
By David LatThose of you who read our extensive liveblogging of Monica Goodling’s testimony on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee know how deeply impressed we were.
Goodling was poised, intelligent, and articulate. She showed flashes of wit, as well as consistent honesty and forthrightness. She looked like a million bucks.
On a scale of 0 to 10, we’d score Monica Goodling’s performance on Capitol Hill as a 9.3. It wasn’t a perfect 10; Rep. Artur Davis landed a few punches in the eleventh round. But Monica “Hurts So” Goodling ultimately emerged victorious from the boxing ring of the Rayburn House Office Building, with barely a glove laid on her.
We weren’t alone in our assessment. Distinguished legal commentators, including law professors like Orin Kerr and Adam Gershowitz, also raved over La Goodling’s star turn.
And this morning, via Howard Bashman, we come across more praise of Goodling, from an unlikely source. Check out this great online essay (registration required), by Eve Fairbanks of The New Republic — no bastion of conservatism.
Discussion continues after the jump.
Continue reading “Monica Goodling: They Like Her, They Really Like Her”
Like ATL’s most recent Summer Associate of the Day, our latest honoree is also a hottie. And that’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a certified fact.
On the heels of yesterday’s Miss Connecticut International turned litigatrix, we learn of another beauty pageant winner who has turned in her tiara for a stack of BNA looseleafs. From a tipster:
This summer, the Miami office of Shook, Hardy, & Bacon is graced by the presence of a former Miss Pennsylvania, Victoria Bechtold Kush. She is currently a law student at Florida International University School of Law.
Check out her website. Needless to say, she is a bit of a distraction!
Very impressive. And Victoria Kush isn’t just beautiful; she’s also brainy. From her bio:
Victoria pursued her undergraduate degree at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, PA, where she obtained a B.S. degree in Business – Information Technology. As a member of the Honors College, she graduated as Valedictorian after completing her degree in 3 years while maintaining a cumulative 4.0 GPA.
WOW. So we’ll ask what you’re all thinking, but are too polite to say out loud: What the heck is she doing at FIU Law?
More after the jump.
Continue reading “Summer Associate of the Day: Victoria Bechtold Kush”
As you may recall (from yesterday’s Morning Docket), Eliot Disner is the McGuireWoods partner who criticized the settlement negotiated by his firm in an antitrust class action against Bar/Bri, the giant bar exam prep company.
Actually, make that “former McGuireWoods partner.” From today’s New York Law Journal:
Mr. Disner, who was a partner in the Los Angeles office of McGuireWoods, said the firm fired him May 23. “I was terminated because [McGuireWoods] said that my work on the BAR/BRI case had hurt the [firm's] reputation,” he said. His concerns about the proposed settlement with West Publishing Corp., which offers BAR/BRI bar review courses nationwide, surfaced in an objection to the class settlement that was filed last week by three lead plaintiffs (NYLJ, May 21)….
A hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real on whether the $49 million settlement will become final is scheduled for June 18. Mr. Disner’s brief, which was not supported by McGuireWoods, argues that the firm ought to press for at least $400 million from West Publishing, as well as for the breakup of BAR/BRI.
We titled an earlier post about the settlement You Are Probably $125 Richer Right Now. But if Eliot Disner is right, maybe another zero belongs on the end of that figure.
Study questions: Is the Bar/Bri settlement fair? Or has Bar/Bri screwed us yet again?
Law Firm Fires Partner Who Questioned BAR/BRI Settlement [New York Law Journal]
Bar/Bri Class-Action Objector is Fired [WSJ Law Blog]
The Intrigue Grows in Bar/Bri Class-Action [WSJ Law Blog]
Lawyer Who Sued BAR/BRI Now Questions the Settlement [American Lawyer]
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The evolution of relationships between the genders continues. Currently, in law firms, there is an interesting conundrum; balancing the desire for a gender-blind workplace where “the best lawyer gets the work and advances” and the reality of navigating the complicated maze created by the fact that, in general, men and women do possess differences in their work styles. These variations impact who they work with, how they work, how they build professional connections and how organizations ultimately leverage, reward and recognize the talents of all.
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How A Fictional Story Of Henry Ford Will Help You Stop Giving Business Away
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Henry Ford sat on his workbench and sighed. A year earlier, he had personally built 13,000 Model Ts with his own hands. Fashioning lugnuts and tie rods by hand, Ford was loath to ask for help. Sure, there were things about the car that he didn’t quite understand. This explains the lack of reliable navigation systems in the Model T. But Ford persevered because he knew that unless he did everything, he could not reliably call these cars his own.“Unless my own personal toil is responsible for it, it may as well be called a Hyundai,” Ford remarked at the time.
The preceding may sound unfamiliar because it is categorically untrue. And also monumentally stupid. Henry Ford didn’t build all those cars by hand. He had help and plenty of it. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, Henry Ford opened up the most technologically advanced assembly line the world had ever seen. Built on the premise that work can be chopped up into digestible pieces and completed by many men better than one, the line ushered in an age of unparalleled productivity.
Today, an attorney refers business because he can’t do everything the client asks of him.
There are three reasons why this is way dumber than a made-up Henry Ford story…
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Business Is Booming in Hong Kong and China and What It Means for U.S. Associate Lateral Hiring There
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: [email protected].
Since late last year, things have been booming in Hong Kong / China in cap markets, especially Hong Kong IPOs. M&A deal flow has recently been getting a bit stronger as well. Although one can’t predict such things with any certainty, all signs are pointing to a banner entire 2014 for the top end US corporate and cap markets practices in Hong Kong / China. This is not really new news, as its been the feeling most in the market have had for a few months now and things continue to look good.
The head of our Asia practice, Evan Jowers, has been in Hong Kong for about 10 days a month (with trips every other month to both Shanghai and Bejing) for the past 7 months, and spending most of his time there meeting with senior US hiring partners at just about all the major US and UK firms there, as well as prospective candidates at all associate levels and partner levels, and when in the US, Evan works Asia hours and is regularly on the phone with such persons, as our the other members of our Asia team. Our Yuliya Vinokurova is in Hong Kong every other month and Robert is there about 5 times a year as well. While we have a solid Asia team of recruiters, Evan Jowers will spend at least some time with all of our candidates for Asia position. We have had long standing relationships, and good friendships in some cases, with hiring partners and other senior US partners in Asia for 8 years now.
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