Associate Life Survey: Scarier Than A Slumping Bear?
Back in March, we found that 27% of ATL readers — and a third of ATL readers in New York — thought the Bear Stearns collapse would hurt their careers.
With Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy this morning, and Merrill Lynch selling itself to Bank of America, after “a marathon series of meetings at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz,” we can’t help but wonder how billables at Wachtell and Weil and Shearman & Sterling are going to look this month … and how everybody else’s are going to look over the next year (especially if other firms, like, say, AIG, go under as well).
As we asked back in March:
But how will it affect you? Will work slow down as investors circle the wagons, or will there be a regulatory response that actually increases the need for lawyers? Will shareholders’ fear of fire sales increase bankruptcy and litigation work?
In today’s ATL / Lateral Link survey, let’s find out if your thoughts are any different, now that we’ve had a little post-Bear-Stearns experience to inform our expectations.
Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.
—
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this survey.




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Executive Summary: BOHICA, baby!
The panda is cute, but i like the kitties better.
So have LOLpandas now officially replaced lolcats at this blog?
Weil to 190!
Isn't it about time for bonus news to start trickling in?
lolpandas have better grammar and spelling than lolcats, apparently.
do laterals get bonuses?
Just a suggestion: put all of the questions after the jump so that it doesn't take so long to scroll past your posts.
That panda's eyes are freaking me out. They follow you wherever you go.
Pandas are better than cats.
So all the posts so far are by law students who don't realize that they are borrowing $100k to make $41k when they get out of law school...
Good luck at that insurance defense firm.
Churn = business. And business is good.
@11 -- apparently not The Elect, who are pulling bonuses something like 275 large or 300 large, depending on market.
13th!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes!
Pandas taste better than cats, too.
Yeah -- suck it insurance defense firms. Everyone hates you.
Insurance defense 4 life.
-UVA 2L
Some NYC biglaw will go underwater with their client.
http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=134602&d=415&h=417&f=416
Flight. To. Quality.
Suck it UVA2L.
GULC 5L for life!
JT cannot be harmed by conventional weapons.
14 = fail
Any word on Schulte layoffs?
The most frustrating thing to me is not being able to understand the market forces that may affect my job. I wish I had been able to get a joint degree with Worton.
Worton sucks. I have a joint JD/MPA from UPenn State.
Any word on Schulte layoffs?
Schulte = sinking ship. Get out now.
Hah! All of you whiny, lazy lawyer types keep wanting to complain about your work while you only make a few hundred thousand bucks a year. Everyone with a brain knows that I-banking is where it's at! Anyone with any talent or intelligence is in it, or about to be!
Um, #28, how about everyone *used to be* in i-banking. Now most of them are probably unemployed and applying to b-school.
Hey 29, look up "sarcasm" in webster online. Let us know what is says.
Thankfully, despite the downfall of Wall Street, Seamlessweb will go on! If it went bust, I might actually have to talk to someone to order my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Phew! The real crisis has been averted.
http://nymag.com/daily/food/2008/09/will_wall_street_collapse_brin.html?mid=grub-street--20080915
dont worry about this...i have it on good authority that the ridiculously large summer class was PLANNED!
see, this office did a mega merger back in '05 and needs the associates....