May 2008 is almost over, and it’s a month that Bingham McCutchen will probably be happy to put in the past. The month kicked off with Roofiegate. Then came this benchslap, reported by Legal Pad (in a post titled “Bingham Busted By Its Own Website”):

Almost every big law firm uses its website to tout its commitment to diversity and its global reach. For Bingham McCutchen, it may have cost the firm a bid for sanctions.

A Bingham employment law team including partner Wendy Lazerson and associates Jacqueline Bronson and Kristen Pezone was set to take a deposition in the wrongful termination case of Kim v. Poonsang Microtec Corp. on April 17. The day before the deposition, plaintiff’s attorney Frank Mayo of Los Altos served additional discovery, including some documents that were in Korean.

Bingham’s team insisted on postponing the deposition, saying they could not get the Korean documents translated in time. Mayo objected, saying his client had already flown up from Southern California. Things turned nasty and both sides moved for sanctions.

In a tentative order filed Thursday (see Page 31 of this pdf) , Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Socrates “Pete” Manoukian rejected both sides’ request for sanctions.

“This court finds it difficult to believe that no one in the office of [Bingham] is able to speak Korean, given that the Bingham web[site] has many referrals to its commitment to diversity and its ability to service, among others, Korean clients,” Manoukian wrote. [See, e.g., here (PDF).]

Ouch. As our tipster snarkily observed, “Live by the sword, die by the sword. For a firm that runs as much as this one does on pure PR, this is quite fitting.”

Funny — but fair? We contacted Bingham — which we’re not sure Legal Pad did, despite being an MSM blog — and received this statement, from firm spokesperson Claire Papanastasiou:

To use this tentative ruling to question Bingham’s commitment to diversity is misleading and false. Bingham has continuously been recognized as a leader in championing diversity in the workforce. More than 440 people at Bingham speak 51 foreign languages (including Korean), but this was not a simple matter of getting documents translated. This case involved the authentication of documents — which would have required a court-certified translator — and with a 16-hour time difference, the Bingham legal team wanted to confer with the client, who was in Korea, to determine the documents’ authenticity and discuss next steps. Bingham informed opposing counsel of the decision not to go forward as a courtesy. And finally, Bingham offered to take the deposition in Orange County and ended up with an order that simply provides what our lawyers were already willing to do. Efforts to transform this relatively minor discovery dispute into something more profound simply are unjustified.

Interesting. As noted by a Legal Pad commenter, the ruling “[s]eems more like a political dig against diversity efforts by Judge Manoukian.”

Speaking of diversity, Bingham has been honored as one of the best law firms for gays and lesbians, by Human Rights Campaign (Aaron Charney, holla); for Asian American lawyers, by Multicultural Law (Shinyung Oh, holla); and women, by Working Mother (pre-Roofiegate).

Alas, even if Korean Translation-gate was overblown, it wasn’t the end of Bingham’s unflattering media mentions in the month of May. Check out this National Law Journal article, which depicts Bingham as hemorrhaging talent and “troubled.”

Was this piece evenhanded journalism? Bingham thinks not. They’ve issued a lengthy and detailed response, blasting reporter Sheri Qualters’s article as “outrageous,” “poorly reported,” and “factually inaccurate by any objective measure.”

It’s kinda delicious. Read the whole thing, after the jump.

Here is the statement, from firm spokesperson Claire Papanastasiou. Emphases added.

BINGHAM MCCUTCHEN — RESPONSE TO NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL ARTICLE

In a year of record financial performance and consistent recognition as one of the best places to work, Bingham McCutchen is stronger than ever. For the National Law Journal to suggest “Troubled Times at Bingham” is outrageous. The article is poorly reported and factually inaccurate by any objective measure, and here’s why:

* We provided on-the-record interviews with several key lateral and legacy-firm partners who spoke about their positive experiences at Bingham on the integration, management and practice-building fronts. In the interest of full disclosure, the partners were Geoff Howard, a legacy McCutchen lawyer and current managing partner of the San Francisco office; Bill Abrams, who joined from Pillsbury and is now managing partner of our Silicon Valley office and co-leader of our IP group; and Rick Welch, former managing partner of Riordan & McKinzie and current managing partner of the Los Angeles office.

They were not quoted in the article and information they provided was largely ignored. Also, had the reporter expressed interest in speaking with any of the 49 lateral partners who joined Bingham in 2007, the five who have joined thus far in 2008, or the hundreds of other partners in the firm, we would have connected her so that her story would not have been based on the opinions of a small group of former Bingham lawyers who previously comprised less than 5 percent of the Bingham partnership.

* With respect to the implication of the partner departures being bad for business, we provided our 2007 financials, a record year. Gross revenue — $743.5 million (up 8.4 percent from 2006); Profits per partner — $1.33 million (up 9.4 percent from 2006); and Revenue per lawyer — $900,000 (up 8.2 percent from 2006). We also noted that the first quarter of 2008 was our strongest ever.

* Regarding the heavy-handed characterization of our chairman’s “top-down-management” style, all of the Bingham commentators noted the importance of holding partners in large law firms to higher standards and the challenge of making tough long-term business decisions while maintaining the quality of the working environment. We know of no other firms of Bingham’s size and scope that have achieved the same combination of business success and workplace quality as we have in recent years. In addition to our record revenue figures noted above, Bingham has received repeated accolades as a best place to work — namely the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For honor for four straight years, as well as multiple recognitions for our offices in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

* Our chairman spent 45 minutes with the reporter discussing Bingham’s priority practices, management structure and strategy; he also explained large law firm economics to her in detail so that she could present a full picture and place the 16 partner departures about which she was inquiring in reasonable and appropriate perspective for a nearly 1,000-lawyer global firm. None of that information made it into the article.

* In addition, the reporter failed to mention that Bingham had a record 2007, successfully integrating three law firms, one in California and two in Tokyo. We are the second largest foreign law firm in Tokyo, and our priority practices are booming. We have also moved into a new state-of-the-art, expanded office in Boston to support Bingham’s global platform. During the last four years, Bingham has built or renovated 920,000 square feet of space, investing substantially in our work environment in offices across the firm, including Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and Tokyo. The reality is that Bingham is a dynamic firm with great morale: demonstrating record performance, continually achieving recognitions for the quality of our workplace, and offering tremendous career opportunities for both lawyers and staff.

Bingham Busted by Its Own Website [Legal Pad / Cal Law]
Year of departing partners for Bingham McCutchen [National Law Journal]