November 2008

* California’s Supreme Court agreed to hear the case against Prop. 8. [Reuters] * For all the associates who go crazy working late into the night in dark conference rooms dreaming of embezzling money from the firm–let this be a lesson to you. Employee Angela Marie Dees was arrested for stealing 1.67 million dollars from […]

Former Cadwalader chairman Bob Link is being left off of the firm’s 2009 management committee. The news was told to the partnership during a meeting today. Link himself confirmed the news to AmLaw Daily: Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s former chairman and current managing partner Robert Link Jr. was not included on a recommended slate of […]

The economy is in the toilet and law firms are scrambling to adjust. Usually this means “firing associates,” but DLA Piper has done something really interesting and brought changes to the partnership instead of firing associates: Some 275 “income” partners who don’t have an ownership stake will be invited to join the ranks of 300 […]

* The ABA Journal bans a commenter and she immediately starts her own blog. I ban a commenter and he immediately sends me emails suggesting that I have an inappropriate relationship with my mother, but the grammar is perfect. Banned ATL commenters 1, banned ABA commenters 0. [Legal Blog Watch] * Wow. I expect this […]

Look, I’m the last person on Earth to criticize somebody for getting out of the law firm life and following a dream. But I’m a little worried that “Jack,” who writes the blog Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity, might have lost a little bit of his grip on reality. I spent most of the morning reading […]

We expected this. Skadden has announced that they will discontinue the “special” bonuses from last year. Instead, they’ll be giving out the 2006/2007 standard package. From the memo, sent out by executive partner Bob Sheehan: [W]e will pay the year-end discretionary bonus at the same levels by class seniority which associates received in 2007 and […]

A tipster reported a rumor today that we’ve heard a couple of times over the past week and a half: Word on the street is that Mayer Brown had big layoffs today. The problem is, that was the word on the street yesterday. And Tuesday. And last week the word on the street was that […]

The homepage of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher asks: “What makes Gibson unlike any other firm?” One of our tipsters offers one possibility: Gibson summer associates have moonlight careers. Found it funny that the model on the front page of this support site for adult websites is also the model on the Gibson Dunn career site […]

We’ve received over a thousand responses to last Monday’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on bonuses, and so far we’ve talked about when bonuses were and will (or won’t) be paid and how your billable hours look this year. Today, we get down to the hardest numbers of all: what do you think you’ll actually […]

The state of New Jersey has reached a settlement with the popular online dating website, eHarmony. Under the settlement, eHarmony agrees to provide its proprietary online matching service to same sex singles. In return, the state of New Jersey will not pursue a civil rights action against eHarmony that the state would surely win: The […]

A law student at Case Western Reserve is suing an upscale Cleveland apartment building because bedbugs drove him from 2 units in the building. Gnats drove him from a 3rd unit before he learned the definition of “insanity” and moved into another building: In his lawsuit, Joshua Bobrowsky said the blood-sucking vermin in three Reserve […]

[Ed Note: Do you have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com] Dear ATL, As a 3L, coasting through his last year of school, I find the occasional moment to partake in a bit of “relaxation” by way of an unmentioned illegal plant. I’m wondering though, other than a question about this […]

* Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who lost his bid for re-election on Tuesday, says he will not seek pardon from President Bush. [CNN.com] * MJ says he is too sick to fly to testify at High Court in London in a breach of contract case. His opponent in the case, the son of the […]

Thanks to the voters of California, we now live in a time where previously granted rights can be snatched away from law abiding citizens on the strength of majoritarian domination. If you didn’t think that was going to spark a whole bunch of legal arguments (on both sides of the issue), you’ve never been oppressed […]

* Are you a lawyer and a vegan? If you’re not too weak, click on the link. [Professional Vegan] * It turns out that the guy who started this company used to be a lawyer in Dallas. [World Beer Company] * I can’t wait until Wendy Savage gets to play Wendy Savage in the Wendy […]

Generally, it is not cool to make fun of people who don’t pass the New York Bar Exam. Generally. However, Elizabeth Wurtzel puts us in a difficult position. A) She’s a public figure, B) She really doesn’t seem to care. When the New York Observer approached her with the news that Gawker alerted the world […]

Newsweek is reporting that Covington & Burling partner Eric Holder will be picked as the new U.S. Attorney General: Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, still has to undergo a formal “vetting” review by the Obama transition team before the selection is final and is publicly announced, said one of […]

It’s time for an ATL caption contest! Since there are so many new readers since the last time we ran one of these, here are the rules: post your caption entries in the comments. We’ll take our favorites, incorporate them into a poll, and allow you to vote for your favorite. We present the picture […]

Avvo is a legal website that rates practicing attorneys. They have now released a set of law school rankings based on which schools generate the highest average rating of alumni. The top five are pretty standard. The highest average rating belonged to Yale: 1. Yale Law School: 7.6 2. Stanford Law School: 7.5 3. Harvard […]

Whenever we do a post on gender inequality in the legal profession, some readers insist on finding arguments to make the income gap “acceptable.” Another survey was released yesterday, this time from the National Association of Women Lawyers, that shows pay and promotion inequality is still the norm. The WSJ Law Blog puts the facts […]