March 2009

In these dire times, academia is regarded as a refuge. Sure, endowments are down, some schools have imposed hiring freezes, and budgets are being trimmed here and there. But the academy, especially the legal academy, hasn’t seen anything like the carnage experienced by Biglaw. Take the ivory tower of Columbia Law School, which apparently remains […]

Ed. note: The legal world is much bigger than New York, or Washington, or even the United States. Welcome to Letter from London, a weekly dispatch from the other side of the pond. Our U.K. correspondent, Isaac Smith, will expose ATL readers to the latest goings-on in the London legal world. You can reach Isaac […]

Last Monday, Dewey & LeBoeuf informed the world that some of its partners would be receiving less money. This past Friday, The Recorder reported that DLA Piper is also officially reducing partner compensation: DLA Piper informed all of its U.S. partners on Friday that it will reduce pay for most of them by 11.5 percent […]

Here at Above the Law, we thrive on taking a vat of hydrochloric acid to the veneer of the legal profession and exposing the original craftsmanship underneath. Nothing is sacred. When given the opportunity to serve for Blawg Review — the “blog carnival for everyone interested in law” — I was excited to take Above […]

* The vultures are circling around Dreier LLP’s Park Avenue office–an auctioneer’s website reads “everything must be sold,” but Dreier’s indictment last week says he must forfeit the firm’s assets–the prosecutors and bankruptcy trustee will have to fight it out. [The National Law Journal] * “U.K. regulatory lawyers advising clients on the financial crisis and […]

We hope you enjoyed last week, a “relatively quiet week” in layoffs. We’ll see if the relative calm holds as we get closer to the time for firms to make another payroll. Last night, the Legal Intelligencer broke the news that Wolf Block could be doing a lot more (subscription) than laying off employees this […]

[Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks. Law Shucks has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.] For the first time this year, we had three consecutive business days without any major firms announcing layoffs. As in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, […]

Displaced 3Ls who haven’t been able to line up a job for the fall might want to give this woman a call: Are You A Lawyer? Probably Not. – watch more funny videos I wonder if she’s hiring junior associates? Have a nice weekend. Are you a Lawyer? Probably Not. [Funny or Die]

* I’ll be hosting Blawg Review next week. It’s a lot of pressure, especially since my wife found my external hard drive and deleted all of my Victorian pornography. But, I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something generally inflammatory and inappropriate. Do you know how I got these scars? [Blawg Review] * […]

Earlier today, we told you that Troutman Sanders was having a firm wide meeting. The meetings are over and we are happy to report that there are no layoffs from Troutman. At least not yet. Of course, things aren’t exactly great over at Troutman. The meetings did convey some “very important” information to associates and […]

This is a very common story about school sanctioned gladiatorial combat among high school boys. The Guardian reports: Some schools have counsellors to settle disputes between students. But South Oak Cliff high school in Dallas preferred another, more direct method: bare-knuckle fighting inside a steel cage. According to a 2008 report obtained by the Dallas […]

It’s NCAA Tournament time, which means that if you get married this weekend or the next two, your guests will be cursing you as they surreptitiously refresh their BlackBerries. We therefore applaud this week’s brides, who planned their weddings for this past weekend, before the madness struck. They are — if we may say so […]

Yes, we live in a world where any firm wide meeting has to be greeted with a sense of “oh, crap.” But that doesn’t mean we can’t still hold out hope that one of these meetings will end up being completely benign. We just received word that Troutman Sanders has scheduled an all staff meeting […]

Let’s take a closer look at the torches and pitchforks the U.S. Congress is brandishing. As you have undoubtedly heard, Congress overwhelming passed the 90% tax on “things we don’t like.” 85 Republicans joined the fracas, so this is a bipartisan ex post facto effort. Our sister site, Dealbreaker, has already weighed in on the […]

You don’t see this everyday. Two D.C.-based partners of Skadden Arps partners are leaving the firm. And it’s not even to work for the government. The two Skadden D.C. litigators are Andrew Sandler and Benjamin Klubes. Associates were told in group meetings late yesterday afternoon. Skadden furnished Above the Law with the following statement: Andrew […]

Good morning. I hope you enjoyed your evening. Welcome back to your daily carnage report. We just received word that Mayer Brown expects to lay off 55 lawyers and staff. Here’s the internal memo that went out to U.S. employees early this morning: In recent weeks, Mayer Brown has undertaken various actions to respond to […]

* AIG turned in the list of bonus recipients to New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday–let the games begin. Just kidding, I too fear for the safety of heavily compensated AIG executives–there is nothing scarier than an angry progressive. [The Los Angeles Times] * Dispensers of medical marijuana have room to breathe after Attorney […]

On Tuesday, I told you about Loyola Law School’s OCI policy of preventing students who had outstanding transfer applications from participating in Loyola’s on-campus interviewing program. I suggested that the policy was unfair: It’s totally understandable for Loyola to want to service people who are happy to be at Loyola. But every student paying tuition […]

* Not that anybody asked me, but I think Jeff Steiner should be a little less judgmental towards his laid off friends that are “partying” instead of “diligently volunteering and considering his next career steps.” It really doesn’t take all day to send out resumes and refresh your barren email account, and some people are […]

There was a snafu over in the admissions department at UNC Law School. A tipster reports the basic details: UNC Law sent out a number of e-mail invitations to their admitted student weekend today leading to the recipients of the e-mail believing they had been accepted. 15 minutes later they sent out this e-mail to […]