[Ed. note: Today is still a holiday in the blogosphere. High chance of low-frequency posting. If you are stuck at work today and in need of distraction, check out ATL Courtship Connections or think about what you want to wear to Tuesday's ATL Meet the Editors night.]
* “I love you. You love me…” Those who violate noise ordinances and find themselves before Colorado Judge Paul Sacco will face a sentence of Barney the Dinosaur and Barry Manilow. [Rocky Mountain News]
* New middle class trend that’s hotter than flat screen TVs: nixing legal fees by serving as one’s own attorney. [Boston Globe]
* The government still needs lawyers though. Here are tips on landing a BigGovernment job. [Building a Better Legal Profession/Lexis Hub]
* Legal aid facing shortfalls around the country. [Seattle Post Intelligencer]
* The 20 must-read legal stories from the year. [InsideCounsel]
[Ed Note: Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the tragedies in Mumbai yesterday. The events are just another reason to be thankful for what you have this holiday season.]
If you’re working today — I’m so sorry. But ATL is with you, even though I’m still reeling from being RickRolled by Santa Claus and Macy’s.
If there are Half-Skadden or Skadden-Mart associates working hard over Thanksgiving weekend, I admire your professional commitment. For the rest of Biglaw associates spending Thanksgiving chained to a BlackBerry, I hope your work is rewarded.
But while we wait for additional firms to announce bonuses, we’ve gotten some additional information about another Biglaw “perk,” holiday parties.
We’ve covered firms like Orrick that are scaling back on holiday festivities, and firms like Kaye Scholer that are going full speed ahead. Are holiday parties an early indication of which firms will be in the spirit of giving come bonus time? We don’t have good information about the holiday plans at Cravath or STB.
But we do at Skadden. A Skadden tipster gleefully reports:
[W]e were just told that the annual Holiday Party is on December 11. Aren’t most firms canceling parties?
I can only imagine that the tipster sent us the email and then took a gold-plated bath.
Another holiday announcement, after the jump.
Continue reading “Holiday (Party) News”
[Ed. note: Happy Thanksgiving, ATL readers. We'll be posting sporadically today and tomorrow, as the spirit of the turkey moves us. Singles, if you've got holiday down time, check out ATL Courtship Connections.]
* MySpace cyberbully verdict. Lori Drew found guilty of three computer fraud misdemeanor charges, with deadlock on the conspiracy felony. [New York Times]
* Being an attorney won’t protect you from being tased. Tampa lawyer Carl Roland Hayes became irate and verbally abusive at a community board meeting, slapped an officer in the face, started fightin’ and flailin’, and then got the taser. Twice. [Tampa Tribune]
* “More legal work moves to India, including ‘sexy stuffs.” [Wall Street Journal Law Blog]
* U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman gives the death penalty to sea lions in Oregon. [Seattle Times]
* Heath Ledger “Law and Order” episode in the works. [Boston Herald]
If the photos of this week’s contestants look a little stiff, please understand that it’s because the NYT didn’t run pictures of any lawyer weddings this week, forcing us to Photoshop them from the attorneys’ firm bios. You’re welcome. And Happy Thanksgiving!
Here are this week’s Legal Eagle Wedding Watch finalists:
1. Elizabeth Raizes and Kayvan Sadeghi
2. Amy Stutius and Adam Slutsky
3. Sara Rubenstein and Yariv Ben-Ari
Read our assessment of these couples, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 11.22: Big Red Heart”
[Ed. Note: We'll be posting here and there over Thanksgiving. So check back in with us once Dad and Uncle Tommy start fighting over why we lost in 'Nam. Happy Thanksgiving!]
* The great Biglaw Pyramid is collapsing. Some people are actually pretty happy about this. [The Greatest American Lawyer]
* The firm United, States & America is still hiring. Here are some tips for landing the government job you could have scored straight out of law school. [BBLP via LexisHub]
* Blawg Review’s upcoming blue ribbon lineup. There’s not a turkey in sight.
[Blawg Review]
* Lawyers get laughs from the SCOTUS gallery. I bet there’s no bonus for that either. [Holy Hullabaloos]
* Outsourcing of legal work isn’t slowing down. I feel sorry for this year’s 1Ls. Next year’s 1Ls are just being silly. [WSJ Law Blog]
This story sounds like something written by Dr. Seuss, esquire. The city of Louisville, Ky., had planned to incorporate Seussian characters into its annual Christmas display this year. But the plans have been scrapped after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from DLA Piper’s Barbara Orr, who represents Seuss Enterprises.
From the Associated Press:
The city had planned to use “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” as part of its theme for the annual Light Up Louisville holiday celebration. The display called for an area called “LouWhoVille,” complete with costumed characters from the Dr. Seuss classic such as Cindy Lou Who and the Grinch…
The letter demanded the city and the Louisville Convention and Visitors’ Bureau halt any use of the characters for the Christmas display and agree not to use the characters in the future without permission. It threatened legal action if the city and tourism bureau did not comply.
The city is complying and renaming the display Lou-ville. “It appears these lawyers’ hearts are two sizes too small,” Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson told the AP.
We say shame on Abramson for perpetuating small-hearted lawyer stereotypes, especially given that he’s a Georgetown Law grad.
Seuss lawyers stop holiday Who-ville in Louisville [Associated Press]
On this, the day before Thanksgiving, our ATL / Lateral Link survey ponders just how many of you are actually giving thanks.
Back in April, we reported that many (but not most) associates were in decent spirits:
* 25.8% of respondents said their morale was “good.”
* 11.5% said their morale was “great.”
* And 3.3% of respondents thought their morale “couldn’t be better.”
But those were relatively light-hearted days, when Bear Stearns had only just collapsed, and Heller Ehrman and Thelen were still looking forward to their respective 119th and 85th birthdays.
Now that AIG and Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers have fallen, and various layoffs have unfolded, and a sobering half-Skadden bonus structure has spread to STB, how are you feeling today?
Update: This survey is closed. Click here to see the results.
–
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.
[Ed Note: Do you have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com]
Dear ATL -
I haven’t seen anybody commenting about this but I know for a fact I’m not the only one. I was recently laid off by my firm in a stealth layoff. Of course they said it was my “performance,” but that is complete bulls*** because they’ve never complained about me before and I made my hours this year. A bunch of other attorneys were also laid off at the same time – all “performance based.” I am terrified that I won’t be able to get a job anywhere, because no place is hiring and no place is going to hire an attorney who was fired for (false) reasons. What should I do?
Fired and Scared
Dear Fired and Scared,
Pack a suitcase. Walk toward the nearest window. Open the window. Jump out.
Just kidding. Don’t do that. Seriously.
Your first order of business should be to call up people at your old firm and secure professional references. If you really did good work, that shouldn’t be a problem. If a prospective firm asks you what happened, tell them the truth: that your termination was part of a bunch of allegedly performance-based layoffs, and that you cannot speak for anybody else who got fired, but that the circumstances surrounding your departure were puzzling at best and that you are happy to provide PLENTY of references and other confirmation that you did solid work and met your hours. Finally, if you’re anything like me, sob softly in the shower.
I feel your pain – yours is an unenviable situation and if in fact your firm was using a bogus review as a scapegoat to save face or be cheap, that is deplorable. Listen up, firms: IT IS NOT OK TO SABOTAGE ASSOCIATE CAREERS JUST TO CLAIM THAT YOUR FIRM DOESN’T “DO” LAYOFFS OR TO SAVE MONEY ON SEVERANCE PACKAGES. While firms might think that they can get away with it now, we’ll see what God thinks about all this, because FYI he’s watching. And so is Santa.
Good luck and have a happy Thanksgiving!
Your friend,
Marin
Elie solves the problems of the economy after the jump.
Continue reading “Pls Hndle Thx:
Tommy Used to Work on the Docks”
* They can’t marry, but gays can finally have kids in Florida. Circuit Judge Cindy S. Lederman overturns Florida’s 31-year-old law banning child adoption by gays. [CNN]
* The family of murdered D.C. lawyer Robert Wone sues the men in the house where he died. Arent Fox partner Joe Price and two others are the target of the $20 million wrongful death suit. [Legal Times]
* Jury nears decision on computer fraud charges against Lori Drew, the cyberbully MySpace mom. [Wired]
* Before U.S. AG Mukasey collapsed at the Federalist Society event, he had a heckler. Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders has owned up to yelling, “Tyrant! You are a tyrant!” while Mukasey discussed anti-terrorism policy. [The Olympian]
* Bad paralegal! She stole $200,000 from the estate of a Duke professor being administered by Charlotte law firm, Parker, Poe, Adams and Bernstein. [WRAL].
* “Don’t tase me because of B.O.” Chicago citizens sue nine police officers for tasering and pepper spraying them as they celebrated Obama’s victory on Election Night. [Courthouse News Service]
* Dec. 2. New York. Lat. Elie. Kash. Marin. Drinks. Sponsored by Major, Lindsey & Africa. [Above The Law]
Completed Your Firm’s U.S. News Survey Yet?
Reward Schools that Prepare Students Well for Practice
For more, see www.racetothetoplaw.com.
* Brian Leiter corrects the record about Richard Epstein. [Law School Reports]
* Did you know that there was a Proposition 9 in California? With all these voter referendums, could somebody please explain again why California even bothers to have a state legislature? [Johnny California]
* A clients caring (about bonuses) roundup. [f/k/a]
* There’s an argument that law firms should double the bonuses from what were given last year. It’s not a good argument. But hey, until some firm steps up to stop the bleeding (please save us S&C) I choose to grasp at the elusive straw. [Law and More]
* How nerdy do you have to be to refer to lawyers as “non-nerdy?” I mean, at that point are you rolling at 1d10 to see if you can “score” with that woman at the bar? [Topless Robot]
According to Connecticut DUI lawyer James O. Ruane, I can’t breathe as well as white people. Based on this “analysis” Ruane has determined that the breathalyzer is a racist device.
Really. I’m not making that up. Ruane represents a black man who got busted for drunk driving:
A breath analysis administered at state police Troop G in Bridgeport found Brown had a blood-alcohol content of 0.188. The legal limit is 0.08.
In a motion filed Tuesday in Superior Court, Ruane asked a judge to suppress his client’s breathalyzer test results, contending the device used by the state police, and most other local police departments, the Intoxilyzer 5000, discriminates against blacks. Brown is an African-American.
I’m all for zealous defense of your clients, but I don’t see why you have to insult thinking people of all colors to make that defense. But Ruane argued:
[T]he lung capacity of a black man is 3 percent smaller than a white man and, therefore, black men’s test results vary from the sobriety standard set by the device.
He said Dr. Michael Hlastala, a lung physiologist at the University of Washington, examined research of other lung physiologists and, based on his studies, has determined the Intoxilyzer 5000 does not effectively test the blood-alcohol content of black men.
“He looked at all the research and came up with the bigger picture and found the common thread,” he said.
Mmm … blanket generalizations about an entire people. I wonder what Michael Jordan’s lung capacity is as compared to Alan Dershowitz?
Ruane gets more crazy after the jump.
Continue reading “Racist Breathalyzer?”
Former Capitol Hill staffer/sex blogger/author/bankrupt babe Jessica Cutler has taken a husband. According to the Washington Post:
Jessica Cutler, 30, the Hill aide turned “Washingtonienne” sex blogger turned author, to Manhattan lawyer Charles Rubio, 28. … The couple plan to wed at New York City Hall on an early December weekday, followed by a happy-hour reception. (Not pregnant, in case you’re wondering.) How’d they meet? “Randomly in a bar,” Cutler told us. “I wish I had a more romantic story to tell you!”
Isn’t that always the way? You write stories about the exciting escapades of others while you yourself marry a lawyer you met in a bar. Yawn.
The lucky man after the jump.
Continue reading “Sex Blogger Finds Love At Milbank”
Are we going to have a domestic auto manufacturing industry in 2009? Nobody knows. But just in case the government doesn’t bail out Detroit, law firms are jockeying to work on the bankruptcy.
AmLaw Daily reports that three firms are the early favorites to capture the bankruptcy work: Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Kirkland & Ellis, and Skadden.
Timothy Pohl, part of Skadden’s ruling class, sounds confident that his firm is in the running:
Pohl says Skadden has historically done work for former Chrylser owner Daimler, which sold 80 percent of Chrysler to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management in 2007 for $7.4 billion. Skadden also does work for Ford, says Pohl, adding that the firm has yet to be contacted by either automaker.
“I’m not convinced that any [of the Big Three] are hiring advisers yet,” Pohl says. “But between us, Kirkland, and Weil, I’d say that the three of us have the largest [bankruptcy and restructuring] groups with a big falloff after that.”
Obviously both Skadden and Kirkland have the chops to handle the work, but isn’t the real question “Why not Weil?”
It’s uncertain whether a potential Big Three bankruptcy might present a similar problem for Weil–and how the firm would manage to juggle its Lehman, Lenox, and other client obligations in the event of such a resource-draining retention. That’s especially true given that it’s unclear whether a potential Big Three filing would proceed on a liquidation track (a la Lehman) or as an infinitely more complicated corporate restructuring.
At some point, Weil has to run out of bankruptcy lawyers. Right?
On Kirkland, after the jump.
Continue reading “If the Big Three Fall, Which Law Firms Rise?”
Is there a pattern developing in Pittsburgh? A few weeks ago we reported that K&L Gates laid off a number of staff. Today, Gina Passarella of the Legal Intelligencer reports that another Pittsburgh powerhouse, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, laid off between 15 and 25 support staffers.
Buchanan Ingersoll CEO Thomas L. VanKirk confirmed the cuts. But in a move that makes a mockery of the English language, VanKirk refused to call the layoffs, “layoffs.” Instead:
VanKirk said that the cuts were not layoffs, but that the positions were being eliminated in order for the firm to get more in line with its goal of a 3-1 lawyer-to-secretary ratio.
???
Here are some links for Mr. VanKirk, provided free of charge:
Layoff
Layoff
Layoffs
And of course: Layoff
Did your employees want to continue working at your firm? Are they currently allowed to do so? Do you have the slightest idea of what a moral and ethical principle is? Do you?
Having destroyed his own credibility, let’s see what else Mr. VanKirk has to say — after the jump.
Continue reading “Staff Layoffs at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney”
Back in the Halcyon days of 2007, when banks existed and Charlotte was a “secondary market,” Cadwalader was having public picnics (instead of executions). Below is an example of the swag they offered:
Oh yes, Capital Markets did have a field day. Now Cadwalader says this about its Capital Markets practice:
The difficult economic environment and the severe dislocations in markets worldwide present unique opportunities, challenges and issues regarding fixed income securities, structured finance, synthetic, and hybrid products, whole loans, and derivatives. Now, more than ever, financial market participants need legal advisors with the knowledge and expertise to navigate the complex array of contractual rights, financial structures, and bankruptcy and regulatory issues associated with such financial instruments.
Well that’s a positive spin on a field of legal work that no longer exists. But hey, they’re Cadwalader. And you know what the firm motto was (from the other side of the T-shirt):
Cadwalader is a firm you can count on from the cradle to the grave (disclaimer: time and placement of the grave may not be of your own choosing). Our tipster reports:
This is a t-shirt (front & back) from Cadwalader (Charlotte)ʼs 2007 Capital Markets summer picnic. It is a size 3 toddler which makes it even more hysterical/ironic/classic.
There’s got to be more stuff like this floating around out there. Please send us your “ironic” firm swag to tips@abovethelaw.com.
Earlier: Law Firm Offer Swag: What Did You Get?
As 7th year associates at Half-Skadden and Skadden-Mart come to grips with the fact that they will be getting a smaller bonus than 1st years at Skadden, let’s take a look at a curious article that came out on November 20th. The same day Cravath announced their reduced bonuses (and threatened their people about 2009) Chairman Chesler spoke to American Lawyer:
Evan Chesler, the presiding partner of Cravath Swaine & Moore, stresses that firms do not need lots of offices to be diversified. “It is too easy to confuse geography with geographic reach,” he says. “It is not the same thing.” …
Although Cravath has just one small outpost in London, the firm is highly diversified, Chesler maintains. “We certainly do Wall Street work, but we always have done work for companies not on Wall Street, companies that make things and are located all around the world, and will continue to do so.”
Apparently, for Chesler “it is too easy to confuse” words with deeds. Either the firm is diversified and is in a good position to weather this economic storm, or it is not. I’m sure that Chesler’s employees do not really appreciate Chesler running around publicly talking about the health of the firm, on the same day he sends around internal memos warning:
[A]ssociates should be prepared for the likelihood that the economy and the Firm’s financial performance next year will not show a significant improvement over this year and they may receive significantly reduced or no year-end bonuses next year.
If you want to criticize Cravath associates, don’t call them “greedy and entitled,” instead call them “foolish” for believing their own management. Believing their own firm is a mistake I’m sure most Cravath associates will not make again.
After the jump, guess who else was talking.
Continue reading “Cravath & Simpson & Mixed Messages”
* Covington & Burling’s Eric Holder is now definite as Obama’s choice for Attorney General. Look out for the official announcement after Thanksgiving. [Politico]
* Former Hunton & Williams partner Emerson Briggs gets 70 months in federal prison for doing very bad things with his firm laptop. [Legal Times]
* California AG Jerry Brown is doing what he can for the pocketbooks of Walmart shoppers. Look out for a $3 discount near you. [Business Week]
* What year is this? “Judge rules that suspects cannot be detained because of ethnicity.” Thanks to Judge Frederic Block, now it’s okay to be Egyptian on a plane. [New York Times]
* Considering a lateral move? Ask the tough financial questions first. [The Recorder]
* Exxon Shipping, Footnote 17. It’s so hot right now. [New York Times]
* New Yorkers, join the ATL editors for drinks and merriment on Dec. 2, courtesy of Major, Lindsey & Africa. [Above The Law]
