Cravath's Achilles Heel? Bedbugs!!!
Hiring partners and recruiting coordinators at Wachtell and S&C, it's time to break out the champagne:
CRAVATH HAS BEDBUGS!!!
Yes, that's right. The Worldwide Plaza headquarters of Cravath, Swaine & Moore -- perhaps the country's most prestigious law firm, and one of its most profitable -- has some unwelcome visitors. And no, 2L interview season ended months ago.
Here's what we've learned, from multiple sources at CSM:
1. An email was sent around Cravath last week about the presence of bed bugs at the firm.
2. A few bedbugs were found on two floors, the 21st floor and the 41st floor, which are being fumigated.
3. Two employees had bedbugs in their apartments and told the firm, which caused the firm to investigate.
4. The 21st floor is a paralegal / administration floor, but the 41st floor is a litigation floor -- which means that one of the two employees may be a lawyer.
6. Both of the employees are still with the firm (i.e., they have not been fired, like the poor soul at Cadwalader who, rumor has it, got canned after self-reporting).
7. The email about the bed bug problem was protected against forwarding or copying.
Apparently Cravath and Cadwalader have something in common other than the Bear Stearns deal. [FN1]
As you may recall, in June 2007, Cadwalader reported a bedbug problem. A few months later, they announced lawyer layoffs.
Are associate layoffs like bedbugs? Will they start off at relatively less prestigious firms -- we say "relatively," since Cadwalader is still plenty prestigious (#26 on the Vault 100) -- and move all the way to the top of the list? Will Rodge Cohen and Ed Herlihy be scratching themselves furiously as they negotiate the next big bank merger?
Words of wisdom to incoming Cravath summer associates: go to as many events as you can, and spend as little time as possible at the Death Star. May the force be with you.
We contacted Cravath, which declined comment through a spokesperson. If you have anything to add on the situation, please feel free to email us. Thanks.
[FN1] The bedbug email went around Cravath before the JP Morgan Chase / Bear Stearns deal was initiated. So there would be no merit to a conspiracy theory that Cadwalader gave the cooties to Cravath by sneaking them into a box shipment destined for Worldwide Plaza.
Earlier: Breaking: Cadwalader Overrun By Bed Bugs!!!
(26) Comments
First!!
Those must be among the smartest begbugs in the city; after all, they landed at Cravath.
Are the bedbugs also assigned to the same group for 18 months?
ARE BEDBUGS THAT RAMPANT IN NYC?
WHICH NEIGHBORHOODS?
AND HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THEM?
Damn that picture is gross...
1) why would Cadwalader have fired the person- unless they thought he/she brought the bugs in intentionally?
2) if the email was "was protected against forwarding or copying"- couldn't someone just print it out and later scan it, or hit "printscreen" and get a screenshot of it?
COME ON, Cravath associates, get a little proactive here!
Cravath to bed bugs!!
I'm waiting for a Cravath-spoof of South Park's "Licecapades" episode to appear on youtube.
Man, I am so bummed that I do not live in NYC where even the offices are hopelessly infested with blood sucking, disease breeding vermin. What kind of a third-rate operation has any kind of insects running around its office?
Apparently the type of operation that gets the economy into the mess that currently exists.
Maybe the big salaries and big billing rates are really not sustainable.
Even bed bugs cannot keep their positions in THIS ECONOMY
You know it's a slow newsday when the biggest story on ATL is about a couple of insects.
how do you protect an email from copying or forwarding?
12:18, it's easy, you just buy software that does this for you. A few moments on Google will point you to several programs you can download.
Happy St. Patty's Day!
Bloodsucker office sharing. Professional courtesy.
they could protect this email from being forwarded but not the one where the cravath guy sent around a phone-sex line dial-in?
It's silly to allege that the infestation came from either a litigator or a staff person. I'm sure they've been in the office for months dormant, and now spring is making them active.
And where did they come from? I'm sure that Cravath partner brought them back from that seedy hotsheets motel that he frequented with that young, black male "callboy."
JPM is a longstanding Cravath client, so they are going to jump BIGTIME in the league tables as advisor on a $236MM deal for Bear.
What a joke.
Do the bed bugs charge $600/hr?
After the exterminators have come and gone, will 3 bed bugs be remaining?
Wow, 12:00 is clearly working for a TTT firm (AMLAW 3000 anyone?) and is having a hard time taking his eyes off those sour grapes.
Yeah, 12:00 is probably at some southern TTT where they're too busy sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Besides, I heard at least 1 firm in Atlanta had a rat infestation a few years back. Lovely.
My office had ants...can I have a story on ATL?
There's always a way to disable the "copy prevention." And of course screen shots are a basic tactic for those who don't actually want to disable the feature.
If they're running Lotus Notes, try a little:
FIELD $KeepPrivate := "0";SELECT @All
to disable the "copy prevention" feature.
But do you really want to be the one to get fired for disabling a feature in order to send out an email that your company didn't want you to send?
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301-640-6841
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From everything I read, you can't really get rid of bed bugs. They will certainly outlast the associates there.