Really, it brings a new definition to the phrase “gilded cage.” The judge today denied a prosecutor’s request to revoke Madoff’s bail.
It’s pretty hard to convince a judge that a 70 year old man whose apartment is guarded by a phalanx of news reporters that jail is the only way to “protect the community.”
For more coverage on Madoff’s “genius” ponzi shenanigans, check Dealbreaker.
Madoff: Bail, No Jail [Dealbreaker]
This is the last in our series of Top Law School Stories of 2008. We gave you law students of the year, the most important law school trends, and best law school listservs of 2008. To round out the series, we’re declaring three schools our Law Schools of the Year.
This is not a U.S. News and World Report ranking. We chose these three schools based on their conduct as institutions in 2008 and the actions taken by their administrators. One school is down South, another is in the windy midwest, and the last is in New England. Check them out, after the jump.
Continue reading “Top Law School Stories of 2008 (Part 4): Law Schools of the Year”
Back in November, we asked you to predict what your hours would look like for 2008, and we reported some worrisome results:
This year, the mighty have fallen, and so have their hours. While roughly 56% of associates still expect to hit at least 2000 hours in 2008, the number reaching 2200 is expected to fall from 35% to about 21%.
Meanwhile, the number of associates who won’t even make 1800 hours has roughly doubled, rising from 9.86% to 19.54%. Almost one in twelve associates don’t even expect to make 1600 hours, way up from 3.29% a year ago. (Remember, these numbers exclude stub years.)
But as gloomy as those results were, many commenters expected a much more dire view:
These reported hours seem WAAAAAAYYY high. People here are averaging maybe 80-110 hours per month. I myself would be happy to hit 1200 or 1300 by year-end.
These numbers are still too high. Everyone I talk to at my firm and others is super slow in corporate. The fact that only signle digits are below 1600 for almost all class years is suspicious. People hitting 1400 are having an above average year at many firms.
If I hit 1100, it’ll be a miracle (and a shitty Christmas).
Oh, and my small corporate group at a satellite office is looking at a range of approximately 700 – 1200. I think the group will likely be getting smaller…
Um, some of us are padding our hours and are still coming in at under 1600. There was literally no work for months, though things have picked up somewhat in the past couple of months.
And, let’s face it, you know last year’s billable hours must have been awful if the presiding partner of Cravath wants to scrap the system.
So, now that 2008 has come to an end, let’s see if last year’s predictions hold true. Today’s ATL / Lateral Link survey will focus on what your billable hours actually were.
Update: This survey is now closed. Click here to see the results.
–
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.
[Ed Note: ATL is happy to welcome back Marc Edelman, sports-law professor/sports-law blogger. Marc will be giving ATL readers his take on the sports-law issues of the day on an ad-hoc basis.]
Sports executives are supposed to be shrewd. They are supposed to be savvy. They are supposed to follow sound legal advice, and they are not expected to write smoking gun emails.
Some big-name sports executives, however, keep fouling this up.
Last Thursday, Portland Trailblazers president Larry Miller sent an email to the other 29 NBA teams, asking them not to sign free agent forward Darius Miles. Miller sent this email because he did not want to incur the salary cap hit that would have been triggered if Miles plays in two more games this season. (For more details, see here).
According to various sources, Miller’s email was filled with legal banter such as claims that if any NBA team signed Miles, it would breach a “fiduciary duty as an NBA joint venturer,” and “tortiously interfer[e] with the Portland Trail Blazers’ contract.”
As a matter of law, however, Miller’s claims are bizarre, if not outright bogus. There is no fiduciary duty amongst NBA teams that forbids them from competing vigorously in the free agent market. In addition, there is no active player contract between a free agent player such as Miles and his former team.
Even more disturbing than these outlandish legal claims, however, is that Miller’s email seems to invite NBA teams to boycott Miles’s services. This reading of Miller’s email places the Blazers at risk of facing an antitrust lawsuit under Section 1 of the Sherman Act or a labor grievance under the anti-collusion provisions in the NBA collective bargaining agreement (Major League Baseball owners got into trouble for similar misconduct in the late 1980s) (pdf).
After the jump, more sports executives behaving badly.
Continue reading “Sports and the Law: Sports Executives Say The Darndest Things”
* Law firm Thompson Wigdor & Gilly has moved in to a loft that looks more like a start-up than a law firm. Their light, spacious, white leather studded office doesn’t fool anyone….or does it? [The New York Times]
* SCOTUS will hear a major reverse discrimination case brought by white fire-fighters who say they were not promoted because of their race. [The Christian Science Monitor]
* A South African appellate court reinstated corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ruling party and probable next president. [The New York Times]
* U.S. government regulators are urging Citigroup to replace chairman Winfried Bischof in hopes that it will restore investor confidence in the bank. [International Herald Tribune]
* Los Angeles litigator William W. Vaughn, who defended Dan Rather against slander in 1983, died last week. [Los Angeles Times]
* New York judge Ronald Ellis will decide today whether to revoke Madoff’s bail and send him to prison. Ellis has made thousands of bail rulings including a case involving a French acrobat whose paraglider got caught on the Statue of Liberty’s torch. [Bloomberg.com]
* Thanks to ATL’s night and weekend readers, we’re making a surge in the 2008 Weblog Awards. It’s time to get the morning voters involved. Remember you can vote once every 24 hours. [2008 Weblog Awards]
Thanks to our readers, we won the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 News & Politics catagory, but things aren’t looking so hot for ATL right now in the Best Law Blog contest of the Weblog Awards. Our friends at the Volokh Conspiracy, a most excellent legal blog, are killing us (and everyone else).
Alas, we didn’t focus on the contest until it was well underway. Because you can vote multiple times — once every 24 hours, until the contest ends on Tuesday, January 13, at 5 p.m. (EST) — we probably should have launched a “get out the vote” effort earlier.
Based on the voting so far, it looks like many of you haven’t noticed the contest yet. But there are still a few days left before the voting closes. If you’re the kind of person who likes to vote on things over the internet, please send the Weblog Awards crew our kind regards. Happy Friday!
Best Law Blog [2008 Weblog Awards]
* Law students across the country are struggling to find jobs, so what are law deans doing about it? They’re spending more time calling up kids trying to convince them to matriculate to law school. Pedagogical excellence, one tuition check at a time. [TaxProf Blog]
* Do you want to see what happens when judges start a rock band? I mean a real one and not the more common definition that involves a Playstation or an Xbox. If your interest is piqued, check out Deaf Dog and the Indictments at the Kennedy Center this Sunday. [Kennedy Center]
* Ignoring people really does work sometimes. [What About Clients?]
* Did you know there was a blog for Mormon lawyers? [Mormon Lawyers]
* A Jamie Lynn Spears lookalike wants $2 million from LAX for being used as a Jamie Lynn Spears decoy. I think we’ve just come up with the plot of “Dave II.” [Popsquire]
* Don’t forget, David Lat is out there on the West Coast right now. Stop by at one of his various events and talk about what you’d like to see on ATL in 2009. [Above the Law]
We’ve been reporting on the Biglaw salary freeze heavily over the past month. Earlier this week, we did a round-up of firms that had announced their intention to keep 2009 salaries at 2008 levels.
At that point, we knew of sixteen firms that had sent memos to their associates notifying them that raises were not forthcoming. While certainly unpleasant, everyone acknowledges that it’s more welcome than layoff news.
Today, we’re getting e-mails from several associates who are freaking out that the freeze is on at their firms, based on their first paychecks of 2009. Their paychecks came in last night at 12:01 a.m. and they are the same amount as paychecks last month. Here are the unconfirmed freeze reports we’ve received so far…
Mayer brown checks just popped at last years levels. So apparently there is a freeze, maybe, but no memos on it yet. Please investigate.
Today was the first pay day in 2009 for Mayer Brown NY. In the past, our first pay check of the year automatically reflected salary increases. No such increase today. Smells like a pay freeze?!? With the added courtesy of letting ADP announce it instead of management.
(UPDATE (6:05 p.m.): Mayer Brown spokesman Bob Harris says the firm “has not yet announced its plans for lawyer compensation in 2009″ and that it usually makes the decision in February.)
Steptoe & Johnson froze salaries. What stands out about this is that they did not send a memo or anything telling associates salaries would be frozen, or saying when/if the position would be reconsidered. Today was our first payday, and they just issued everyone the same checks they were getting last year. No comment. No memo. No explanation. Typical douche-baggery.
… Stroock:
They haven’t made any announcements of a salary freeze. They just haven’t announced any salary increases and continue paying the old salary. When I looked at the employee system to check the amount of tomorrow’s paycheck, it shows that I will be paid the same salary as last year.
Not everyone is freaking out. A reassuring voice, after the jump. Also, Ballard Spahr and RatnerPrestia have officially put the freeze on, with a memo and a press release, after the jump.
Continue reading “Biglaw to Associates: ‘Surprise! Your salary is frozen’?”
The winter wedding announcements are often a prestige wasteland, but we’re actually quite pleased with the caliber of the couples we’ve been able to round up for the first 2009 edition of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch (which admittedly includes some entries from late 2008).
Here are your contestant couples:
1. Bella Sewall and David Wolitz
Click on the link below to read more about these newlyweds.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 12.21-1.4: Winter Thrill”
Maybe William & Mary School of Law administrators were checking in on the ATL Idol competition over the summer. The Law School Dean Search Committee’s methods for choosing a new dean sure sound familiar:
Hi. After vetting well over 100 candidates and conducting ‘airport’ interviews over two weekends (one in DC, the other here in Williamsburg), the Law School dean search committee has chosen 5 finalists who will be coming to campus for interviews over the next 6 weeks. There may be a 6th candidate, but that has not yet been determined.
Hey, ATL Idol turned out well enough (didn’t it?), Why shouldn’t William & Mary law students have a more active role in choosing the new dean? They at least deserve a chance to meet the candidates.
Students will have the opportunity to meet each candidate in a ‘town hall’ (large group, question & answer) setting. We will provide dates and times as schedules crystallize.
Check out the list of W&M Law Dean finalists after the jump.
Back in November, we reported that Loeb & Loeb laid off eight associates. At the time, the firm told us:
We continue to actively recruit, hire and invest in the firm’s core practice areas and in the past three months alone we have hired 13 associates, including 9 first-year associates, and 3 lateral partners. We expect to have a higher attorney head count at year end than at the beginning of the year.
But as the firm continues to make lateral hires, it looks like they are also continuing to cut associates. We understand that four associates were let go on Tuesday and that today will be their last day.
Our tipsters report that these attorneys will be receiving a 2 month severance package.
We’ve reached out to the firm, but Loeb & Loeb has not yet responded to our inquiries.
But it’ll be interesting to see how the firm describes the cuts. Last time, the firm said:
As part of Loeb & Loeb’s periodic attorney evaluation process and assessment of its overall personnel needs in its various practice areas, eight associates firmwide were notified that they were being let go.
We’ll see if these cuts are called performance related, or if they were triggered by the global economic meltdown.
Earlier: Nationwide (Stealth) Layoff Watch: Shearman & Sterling and Loeb & Loeb
Some firms cut… others grow – but what doesn’t grow in the Pacific Northwest? This week’s job is an opportunity for a corporate attorney to be join a growing department at an up and coming regional firm. Even though law firms may have cut their bonuses, Lateral Link still offers attorneys a $10,000 guaranteed signing bonus. This position is one of hundreds of job openings that Lateral Link has throughout the country.
Position: Corporate Associate
Location: Seattle, WA
Description: This northwest regional law firm, is looking for a full time associate to join the Business and Corporate practice group in their Seattle office. The ideal candidate will have 3-5 years of experience in some or all aspects of business and corporate practice, including corporate, real estate transactions (purchase, sale and financing), and general business, in addition to excellent research, writing and analytical skills. The attorney would be joining a growing group and will have the immediate opportunity for high-level work with the partners in the group. Seattle locals preferred, but the firm will consider strong candidates nationwide.
For more information about this position or to apply, please see Position 10232 on Lateral Link. Current members can also contact their personal search consultant directly to discuss this position. Membership in Lateral Link is free and you can apply at www.laterallink.com.
Wildman Harrold, a Chicago based law firm of over 200 lawyers (and an ATL commenter favorite) has laid off 10 lawyers.
The firm has confirmed that there were “approximately” 5 income partners and 5 associates let go. Our tipsters also report that eight staffers were also let go, but the firm did not confirm that information.
One tipster reports that Wildman’s managing partner had previously promised that there would be no layoffs at the firm:
The Managing Partner, Robert Shuftan, assured associates a month and a half ago that the firm would not be conducting layoffs unless something “catastrophic’ happened to the firm.
Another tipster reports:
The laid off attorneys were told that the moves were necessary because of the current economic climate.
But the firm contends that the layoffs were part of its annual review process.
Read the full firm statement after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Wildman Harrold Makes Deep Cuts”
Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: time to announce Above the Law’s top two stories for 2008, on the gossip front. We’ve also been recapping the top stories on the business side of the fence, but stories about the business of law are available from many other outlets. Juicy law firm gossip is harder to come by.
Our two leading gossip stories were broken here at ATL. They were subsequently picked up by mainstream media outlets, but we covered them first.
Read about the two stories, after the jump.
Continue reading “Top Biglaw Stories of 2008: #2 and #1 (Gossip)”
Students who received a prestigious Bristow Fellowship with the Solicitor General’s Office will be informed today.
The Office of the Solicitor General confirmed with us this morning that the decisions have been made and successful applicants will be told today. If you applied, you might want to keep your phone lines open.
But if you are a student from Yale Law School, this year might not be your year. An inside source tells us that no student from Yale received a fellowship this year.
That’s rough. Students from Yale Law are getting shut down before Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan even takes over. But we shouldn’t expect Kagan to be unduly influenced by Harvard-Yale competition in her new role. Talent always rises.
Let us know which schools did well in securing a fellowship this year in the comments.
* Cass Sunstein could share a U-Haul with Elena Kagan for the move down to Washington, D.C. Here are some reactions to Sunstein’s appointment to “regulatory czar” in the OMB. Richard Epstein says “it’s one thing to start a debate, which is what you do in academia, and it’s another to start a program, which is what you do in government.” Hiss! [The Boston Globe]
* Bankruptcy judges are likely to get much more powerful soon. Congress is getting more serious about a law allowing the restructuring of mortgage debt in a bankruptcy. [Reuters]
* Prominent civil rights attorney Charles Morgan Jr. who argued for “one man, one vote” before SCOTUS died yesterday. [Washington Post]
* Washington lawyer Cyrus Mehri joins the N.A.A.C.P.’s crusade for more diversity on Madison Avenue. [New York Times]
* Apple may be wishing John McCain had won the presidency. [New York Times]
In this economic climate, bankruptcy partners are worth their weight in gold. Expect to see more lateral movement in the bankruptcy bar, as marquee names get courted by firms seeking greater presence in the area.
Here’s what could be the start of a trend: Bruce Zirinsky (pictured), co-chair of the financial restructuring department at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, is moving from CWT to Greenberg Traurig. Joining him is fellow bankruptcy partner John Bae.
In response to inquiries from ATL, spokespersons at Cadwalader and Greenberg Traurig issued this joint statement:
We can confirm that Bruce Zirinsky and John Bae have tendered their resignation at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and have accepted offers to join Greenberg Traurig shortly.
Congrats to Greenberg Traurig on their new hires. GT seems to be growing despite the downturn, as reflected in their most recent press releases.
As for Cadwalader, all’s fair in love and lateral moves. The firm is losing two bankruptcy partners, at a time when they’re in high demand. But recall that, back in March 2007, CWT raided another firm for Chapter 11 champs of its own: George Davis, Deryck Palmer, John Rapisardi and Andrew Troop, who left the storied bankruptcy group of Weil Gotshal for Cadwalader.
Reflections on what the Zirinsky and Bae defections mean for CWT, after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Bruce Zirinsky and John Bae from Cadwalader to Greenberg Traurig”
Gary Green was an associate at Skadden in Los Angeles. About a year ago he was fired. On New Year’s Eve, Green filed a complaint against the firm and a number of partners and associates.
Green’s complaint brings the fire. He alleges defamation, wrongful termination, tortious interference, and a host of other things.
And he has some very inflammatory things to say about specific Skadden partners and associates. He calls one of the partners incompetent, bizarre, abusive, and inappropriate. He goes so far as to allege in a court document that a particular partner has run a practice group “into the ground” and is “one of the weakest — if not the weakest partner — in Skadden’s Los Angeles office.” And it goes on.
Green alleges he was fired for giving a harsh review to a junior associate. Most alarmingly, he alleges that Skadden partners were angered by the review because it opened the firm up to potential malpractice claims from a Skadden’s client.
You can download the full complaint after the jump. But first you can read Skadden’s response after the jump.
* If you look closely, you’ll notice that now you can share your favorite ATL posts on Facebook, or Digg It.
* Boston College Law School graduate, Caplan & Ross attorney, and “blook” writer Nicole Mondschein has lots of interesting imaginary friends. [The Star Islanders]
* Great orginal research exposes Elena Kagan: the law student. It turns out I got better grades than she did first semester 1L year. After that … not so much. [The BLT: Blog of the Legal TImes]
* As future poet laureate Beyonce might say “I’m a survivor, I’m not gonna give up, I’m not gonna stop, I’m gonna work harder. I’m a survivor, I’m gonna make it, I will survive, Keep on survivin’” [Law and More]
* Soldiers and Veterans: know the law, know your rights. The Reserve Officers Association of the United States has completely revamped it’s law library and the information there sounds fantastic. [ROA]
* Kid Rock wants his judge to either A) send him to jail or B) go to Iraq to prove a point to the Kid. Hmmm … which one do you think is more likely to happen? [Popsquire]
We mentioned this massive layoff from across the pond in today’s Morning Docket, but it seems like we need to devote a full post discussing the shocking news.
Having already laid off 20 New York litigators, Clifford Chance today let go of 70 – 80 London lawyers. The Lawyer reports:
In a statement, London managing partner Jeremy Sandelson said: “We have not taken this decision lightly. However, like any other business, we have to respond to prevailing market conditions.
Our clients and their legal services needs have undergone significant change over the past year. We need to reflect that in the London office, and that includes ensuring that our level of staffing is appropriate for today’s economic realities.
By taking action now, we believe we will be well placed once conditions begin to improve.
Today’s information puts yesterday’s news about Clifford Chance asking for more capital from their partnership into a larger context. Yesterday, we said:
Associates: next time you complain about greedy partners slashing your pay, consider the possibility that they’re suffering too in this economy. They’re trying to safely navigate the recessionary shoals, just like the rest of us. Some of the measures they’ve been taking, like pay freezes and reduced bonuses, may just be prudent planning. Better to have a smaller paycheck than no paycheck at all.
Good luck to our U.K. friends suddenly receiving no paycheck at all.
Clifford Chance to make 80 London lawyers redundant [The Lawyer]
Earlier: Clifford Chance to Partners: Brother, Can You Spare… £100,000?
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Clifford Chance (Redux) Twenty Litigators Laid Off, in NY and DC
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.
The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
Happy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
