Archive for February 2008

Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Locke ‘n Loaded

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Jerry Clements Jerry K Clements Locke Liddell Sapp Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgHere is an update / correction to last week’s post about associate compensation at Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell. From Tex Parte Blog (via Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog):

Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell wants to make it clear that the firm has a single associate pay system, says Jerry Clements [pictured], chairwoman of the 721-lawyer firm that formed with the October 2007 merger of Texas’ Locke Liddell & Sapp and Chicago-based Lord, Bissell & Brook. Clements says she did send a 2008 compensation memo to former Locke Liddell associates on Feb. 5, but she also had sent one in late December 2007 to former Lord, Bissell associates.

“There is clearly one structure that applies to everybody,” she says, noting that the firm’s management is in the process of integrating the two associate compensation systems. “The thought that folks would think that we would have two different compensation structures within one firm would be a little bit amazing to me,” says Clements, a partner in Austin.

Clements says the firm sent two memos because Lord, Bissell associates were accustomed to receiving a salary memo in December, and Locke Liddell associates usually received one by early February. Clements says the February memo addressed to “Legacy LLS associates” was more detailed, however, because management had settled on a new deferred-compensation component by then. “What’s causing the blog upset is that the Lord memo did not include the deferred compensation piece because we had not decided on it yet,” says Clements, referring to a Feb. 12 posting on the Above the Law blog. Since Feb. 5, management has been tweaking the associate compensation system, Clements says. The firm sent an updated compensation memo to all 285 associates on Feb. 14, spokeswoman Julie Gilbert says. She declines to provide a copy, saying it’s confidential.

If you have a copy, send it our way, and we’ll post it. Thanks.
Locke Lord clarifies it is indeed a big tent [Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog]
One for all [Tex Parte Blog]

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Here’s an article about the semicolon; please discuss.

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Many ATL readers have a weakness for obscure debates about punctuation, grammar, usage, and style. See, e.g., here, here, and here. It makes sense; after all, lawyers are paid to worry about such things as proper comma placement.
So we weren’t surprised when several of you drew our attention to this interesting New York Times article, all about the semicolon. The piece, currently at the top of the Most Emailed Articles list, has a legal angle:

People have lost fortunes and even been put to death because of imprecise punctuation involving semicolons in legal papers. In 2004, a court in San Francisco rejected a conservative group’s challenge to a statute allowing gay marriage because the operative phrases were separated incorrectly by a semicolon instead of by the proper conjunction.

According to the Times, “whatever one’s personal feelings about semicolons, some people don’t use them because they never learned how.” Are you a member of that group?


Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location [New York Times]

Morning Docket: 02.20.08

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supreme court construction SCOTUS small Above the Law blog.jpg* Federal judge shuts down website devoted to posting leaked information and documents. We no likee. [New York Times]
* SCOTUS won’t hear wiretapping case. [How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* But they have picked up another case on the exclusionary rule. [New York Times]
* Government rebuttals in L’Affaire Scruggs. [WSJ Law Blog]
* A look at the colorful ex-spymaster under scrutiny in the CIA tapes inquiry. [New York Times]
* If you’ve been savaged by anonymous commenters on a blog or message board, don’t take it personally; it’s just something about the internets. (Also, note the nice shout-out to law prof Dan Solove.) [CNN]
* Ten consecutive victories for Obama over Clinton. [New York Times; Washington Post]
* “The Obama Delusion.” [Washington Post]

A Cross-Dressing Judge Hangs Up His Heels

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Robert Somma Bankruptcy Judge Robert Somma Above the Law blog.jpgOr at least his robes. A quick update on a recent Judge of the Day, from Robert Ambrogi over at Legal Blog Watch:

By all accounts, Robert Somma had been a top-notch U.S. bankruptcy judge since his appointment to the bench in 2004 and a top-notch bankruptcy practitioner for many years before that. The sense of many in the Boston area is that the 63-year-old’s retirement Friday from his $158,000-a-year bench seat is a tragedy….

A footnote to this story is that a legal-blogger may have contributed to the judge’s decision to resign.

No, not us! By the time we got to the story, it had been all over the news. Also, for the record, we fully support transvestism.
More after the jump.

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Non-Sequiturs: 02.19.08

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* A user’s guide to the snazzy new version of our sibling site, DealBreaker. The redesigned ATL, which will make its debut sometime in the next few weeks, will look similar. [DealBreaker]
* “There is basically a large sector of white workers with arts majors” — e.g., marriage counselors, therapists, and lawyers — “that would otherwise be unemployed were it not for the high rate of divorce.” [Stuff White People Like]
* Lawyers and law professors are suckers for rankings — like the Top 30 Law Prof Blogs, ranked by both visitors and page views. [TaxProf Blog]
* Speaking of law-prof bloggers, here is Ann Althouse’s photo essay about her experience voting today in Wisconsin. [Althouse]
* Oh, in case you’re wondering, she’s voting for Obama. [Instapundit]
* Seeing as we’re in Chicago this week — the ATL “happy hour” is tomorrow night, details here — we thought we’d give a shout-out to John Marshall Law School. From a tipster:

Since you’re in Chicago, I thought it might be appropriate to promote some Chicago schools while slamming Harvard.

John Marshall just got back from a national competition in Harvard and swept! They took first AND second place.

Congratulations to the JMLS Animal Law Society on its victory. You guys are animals in the courtroom!
Winners of the 2008 National Animal Advocacy Competitions [Lewis & Clark Law School]

Latham and Dewey Do… Dubai?
(And an open thread on Middle East opportunities.)

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burka burqa burkha burqha Dubai Doha UAE Qatar Above the Law blog.jpgSome time ago, we received this request by email:

Is there any way to do a posting or open thread about what COLA biglaw firms are handing out overseas? Specifically, I was interested in what associates are getting to go to Dubai.

At the time, we viewed the topic as rather obscure, of interest to just a handful of people. Why not do an open thread on, say, lawyers in Burkina Faso? (No offense to Burkina Faso.)
But maybe we underestimated the allure of the Middle East — which will, thanks to gushing oil revenues, own most of the U.S. soon anyway. On Sunday, we heard this from a tipster at Latham & Watkins:

Here’s an email that went out to the firm today [about LW opening offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha]. Why Sunday? No idea, but rumors were going around about it, so they probably wanted to make an announcement before it leaked out. [Update: A tipster tells us, "Sunday is the first day of the work week in Dubai. Friday is the day of rest, so the weekend is Fri-Sat, not Sat-Sun."]

Apparently, some Latham corporate associates have been asked if they would go to these new offices for a certain period of time. I have no details, but I hear they are getting handsome benefits and bonuses to go there. With domestic corporate/finance work slow, this is an opportunity for the firm to shore itself up by moving people there from slower offices.

And Latham isn’t the first major law firm to venture into the region in 2008. Late last month, Dewey & LeBoeuf announced the opening of a full-service Dubai office.
Check out the Latham memo, after the jump. And if you’d like to talk about legal job opportunities in the Middle East, please treat the comments to this post as an open thread (because who knows when we’ll post again about this part of the world). Thanks.

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(And an open thread on Middle East opportunities.)”

Beware of all legal job postings that require new clothes heavy lifting.

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bodybuilder weightlifter bodybuilding weightlifting Above the Law blog.jpgAn excerpt from an ad in the “legal jobs” section of the Denver craigslist:

The ideal candidate would be admitted to practice Colorado State Bar, and have at least 4 to 7 years experience. Experienced professional demeanor in client contact both in person and on the telephone is a must. Ability to work and adapt in a fast-paced environment is crucial. The candidate should have a very high level of proficiency with MS Word, Outlook, and Excel. Experience with TABS billing software is a plus. Must be able to lift up to 25 lbs. Compensation is commensurate with experience.

Are we witnessing the start of a trend, as the market for legal talent shifts from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market? This isn’t the first law firm advertisement we’ve seen requiring the ability to engage in heavy lifting (quite literally). See also this ad (applicants must have the ability to “carry[] loads of up to 35 pounds”).
Associate for Litigation Group [Denver craigslist]
Earlier: Definitely Not the Job of the Week

Featured Survey Results: Maternity Leave

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baby lawyer attorney Above the Law blog.jpgYesterday, we posted some preliminary results from last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on leave and part-time arrangements. Today, we’re going to get a little bit deeper into the maternity leave data.
We now have more than 600 responses, and roughly three-fifths of respondents have reported that their firms offer twelve weeks of paid maternity leave. Another 17% of respondents are at firms that have adopted an eighteen-week leave policy. Since some of you have been clamoring for charts (and others have been less enthusiastic), a chart showing the overall breakdown of responses is here.
Of course, the number of responses and the number of firms are different animals, so today we’re going to start a running table of firms’ paid maternity leave policies. Check it out, after the jump.

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  • 19 Feb 2008 at 12:55 PM
  • Sports

Sports and the Law: Marlins Stadium Subsidy Might Violate State Constitution

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Sports and the Law 3 Above the Law blog.jpgThe thirteen commissioners of Miami-Dade County are expected on Thursday to approve a proposal to spend $347 million in taxpayer money to build a new 37,000-seat, retractable roof stadium for the Florida Marlins. This proposal would not only provide a huge subsidy to the team’s much maligned owner, Jeffrey Loria, but it also might violate the Florida Constitution.
According to published reports, the Marlins stadium proposal would require Miami-Dade County to contribute roughly two-thirds of the cost for the new stadium, with the city of Miami contributing roughly 3% ($10 million), and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria contributing 30% ($155 million). According to Miami Today, Mr. Loria would then be allowed to sell the stadium’s naming rights to a third party, expected to fetch him more than $155 million.
A number of Miami-Dade County residents are unhappy about the idea of publicly funding a new stadium for Mr. Loria, who has never invested much of his own money in the Marlins ball club. Recently, on December 5, 2007, Mr. Loria traded away the Marlins’ two most productive players, Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis — a move that reduced team payroll to less than $25 million, the lowest in Major League Baseball. For purposes of comparison, the New York Yankees projected 2008 payroll is $213 million. The Yankees, incidentally, are privately financing their new stadium.
Read more, after the jump.

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Musical Chairs: Harvard Snags Sunstein from Chicago!

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Cass Sunstein Professor Cass R Sunstein Above the Law blog.jpgIf we knew anything about sports, we’d say this is the legal academic equivalent of Major Player X leaving Super-Elite Team Y for Super-Elite Team Z. But we don’t. So we’ll just say it’s one of the biggest law school hiring coups since Harvard Law School snatched half of Feldsuk from NYU.
HLS strikes again — but this time around, the victim of their poaching is U. Chicago (where we’ll be making an appearance later this week, by the way). From the Harvard Law School website:

Renowned legal scholar and political theorist Cass R. Sunstein ’78 has accepted an offer to join the Harvard Law School faculty, Dean Elena Kagan ’86 announced today. Sunstein, currently a tenured professor at the University of Chicago Law School, will begin teaching at HLS in the fall. He will also become director of the new Program on Risk Regulation.

“Cass Sunstein is the preeminent legal scholar of our time — the most wide-ranging, the most prolific, the most cited, and the most influential,” said Kagan. “His work in any one of the fields he pursues — administrative law and policy, constitutional law and theory, behavioral economics and law, environmental law, to name a non-exhaustive few — would put him in the very front ranks of legal scholars; the combination is singular and breathtaking….”

Some tipsters’ takes:

“I imagine a lot of Chicago alums will be annoyed at the least.”

“Yet another high-profile move to HLS. Dean Kagan has done an amazing job these past few years getting big names out to Cambridge. (I’m just annoyed because I decided to take Admin Law this semester.)”

“[W]e just learned that although Martha Nussbaum turned down Harvard and Brown last week, Cass Sunstein ACCEPTED his Harvard Law offer! I’m torn – HUGE get in Sunstein, proving Elena Kagan is unstoppable, but is this trouble for the power couple?”

In December, we attended Professor Sunstein’s 2007 Distinguished Lecture at AEI in Washington, DC (where we’re currently based). We were mighty impressed by the good professor, who wasn’t just brilliant and articulate, but also funny and self-effacing. Congrats to HLS and Dean Kagan on this latest addition to the Cambridge constellation of legal geniuses!
Update: Additional analysis of the Sunstein move from Professor Brian Leiter appears here. It seems that all is well in Sunstein-Nussbaum land. Per Professor Leiter:

[A]s Cass told me, he will be keeping his Chicago apartment and an office at the University of Chicago Law School, and he will also continue teaching part-time at Chicago as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor of Law (probably in the winter quarters).

Further Update / Correction: Uh, scratch that. As you may have surmised from some of the comments, Professors Nussbaum and Sunstein are no longer an item. Professor Sunstein has a new honey, Professor Samantha Power, of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He’s moving to Harvard in part because of this new romance. More details here.
Sunstein, Harvard, Chicago [Leiter's Law School Reports]
Nussbaum Declines Harvard, Brown Offers, and Will Remain at Chicago [Leiter's Law School Reports]
Sunstein to join Harvard Law School faculty [Harvard Law School]
Cass Sunstein bio [University of Chicago Law School]
2007 Distinguished Lecture: Extremism [American Enterprise Institute]

Career Potential for Staff Attorneys: Open Thread

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Here’s something from the ATL mailbag that we thought might be a good topic for discussion. It concerns the professional prospects of staff attorneys at large law firms:

up arrow elevator Above the Law blog.jpgI have a friend that is a staff attorney at a Vault 100 firm. He kind of keeps it a secret. He started at a tiny firm after being on the Law Review of a third tier school. Then he got this job almost two years ago.

I know he is hoping that if he busts his butt and does great work, they will wake up one day and realize: this guy should be an associate! I know from other mutual friends that he is aching to get that response, and would even start as a first-year associate at this place, or of course another Big Law firm, even though he is the equivalent of a third- or fourth-year associate by seniority.

So here is the topic I propose, for guys/gals like him: Is there any shot at his strategy working? Do Big Law firms ever allow or invite a particularly valuable and hard working staff attorney to become a “real associate”? Will the experience he has ever get him in the door at another Big Law firm?

Some of my peers think that once you are pegged as a staff attorney, that is all anyone will ever think of you as, whether at your current firm or other Vault 100 firms. For his sake, I hope that they do allow staff attorneys to become associates.

So, folks, what do you think? Our off-the-cuff reaction is that this strategy is a long shot, especially now that the economy is worsening and firms are tightening up on hiring (even of judicial law clerks, who tend to have superb academic credentials).
But that’s just our quick-and-dirty response, backed up by no research. If you have some opinions or, better yet, actual data (either systematic or anecdotal), please post in the comments — or feel free to email us, if you have an especially long and detailed response. Thanks.

Morning Docket: 02.19.08

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Fidel Castro Cuba Above the Law blog.jpg* Is that legal? Apparently so. The Clinton campaign may pursue Obama’s pledged delegates, who technically are not required to vote for Obama. [Politico]
* A portrait of radical Islam in the United States, based on analysis of court cases. [New York Times via How Appealing]
* Thomson Corp., aka the folks who bring you Westlaw, gets European regulatory approval to gobble up Reuters Group PLC. [AP]
* Dueling infringement lawsuits involving Motorola and RIM. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Government witness list in Pellicano case contains 244 names, many of them either legal world (Bert Fields) or “real world” celebs (Chris Rock, Sylvester Stallone). [Fox News via Drudge]
* Cuba Libre? Adios, Castro. (But don’t get your hopes up, cigar aficionados — the trade embargo will apparently remain in place, at least for now.) [New York Times]
* And it looks like Musharraf is out in Pakistan, too. [New York Times]
* Judge John Phillips and sports arbitrator Thomas Roberts, RIP. [WSJ Law Blog]