There’s a pretty interesting glitch happening right now over at NALP (here at ATL, we know something about “technical difficulties” — we’re working on ours). Even though the new numbers haven’t been made public yet, if you know what you’re doing you can get a sneak peak at the 2009 NALP numbers.
We’re not going to tell you how to do it, but we’ve done it and we’ve obtained some pretty interesting numbers to report about the New York summer programs at the top 20 firms as ranked by Vault. We’ll give you some numbers about the V10 today. Tomorrow we’ll expand our look to the Vault 20.
Getting an offer at one of the top nine firms in the land (the NALP glitch didn’t work for S&C) was considerably more difficult this year than last year. We compares the number of summer associate offers extended to 2Ls in 2007, with the expected numbers for that same group in 2008. Overall 2Ls offers were down a whopping 20% at the top 10 firms. And you have to wonder what percentage of those summer jobs are going to turn into full-time offers for employment.
For 1Ls, it gets even worse. We explain that and some other highlights, after the jump.
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 an impregnable fortress against the recession. Despite a few budget cuts at the university, the law school still provides professors with delicious digs. From the Sunday New York Times:
Many buyers say that jumbo mortgages are hard to come by these days. But don’t tell that to Edward R. Morrison, a law professor and economist at Columbia University, who is something of an expert on these troubled times.
Last month Mr. Morrison and his wife, Anne, bought a restored two-family town house at 357 West 121 Street in Harlem for $2.575 million. Brokers said it was a record price for a town house in the neighborhood — just down the hill from the Columbia campus in Morningside Heights, near Morningside Park — and one of the top 10 town house sales in Harlem in recent years.
As we’ve told you before, to the Elect go all the spoils. (Ed Morrison clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.)
Now, a $2.6 million townhouse is pretty sweet — but it’s not the nicest piece of real estate owned by a CLS faculty member. That title surely belongs to Hans Smit’s $29 million mansion.
(Actually, make that $30 million, the price reflected in the current version of the listing. What recession?)
More details about the Morrison manse, plus a picture of the super-cute professor, after the jump.
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 by email, at isaacsmithlondon@googlemail.com.
On his recent trip to the US, Prime Minister Brown presented President Obama with an ornamental pen holder, carved from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.
Maybe Obama was angry at the UK because London-based firm Clifford Chance laid off 35 business support staff from its New York and DC offices at the end of last year. But news of that only emerged last week — after Obama purchased the DVDs.
Perhaps Obama has a thing against the British. We do, after all, “sound gay and smell like Indian food” — as one poster on last Monday’s column observed. But your new president doesn’t seem the sort of chap to be burdened by petty prejudices — aside from, of course, his hatred of the disabled.
Or could it be that Obama is pissed off that he had to meet Brown instead of Tony Blair? Yeah, that makes sense. Americans f**king love Tony Blair.
Something you might not know about Tony Blair, after the jump.
DLA Piper informed all of its U.S. partners on Friday that it will reduce pay for most of them by 11.5 percent in 2009, while strong performers will get more money.
I guess it was only a matter of time before the horrible economy started taking a bite out of partner draws:
DLA’s pay cut is part of an annual budget projection process and is not related to the firm’s 2008 results. The firm ended 2008 with zero debt and will end 2009 with zero debt, said O’Malley.
As opposed to 2008, when the economic downturn was not full blown until the fourth quarter, firms are preparing for four quarters of dried-up demand in 2009.
Of course, after the jump we have to get into the obligatory “but things here are just great” rhetoric.
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 Law’s brand of rousing rabble out on the road. How many “Sacred Cows” are out there? How many can I hunt and grill? And as Denise Howell might ask me on her “Yo Comments Are Whack” podcast: “how many cow jokes can you take in one week before you end up on a liposuction table?” Eric Turkewitz already tussled with Oprah this week, so the easiest mark has already been bagged.
Of course, ATL is also a news organization. So while I had high hopes of continuing my friendly banter with Loyola Law School Dean Victor Gold, the news of the week inexorably pushes me in one direction. Luckily, it turns out that the thing everybody was blogging about this week is the biggest sacred cow of all, and it is ripe for poaching.
* 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 scandals bill as much $1,440 an hour.” “It’s our time in the sun,” says regulatory lawyer Darren Fox–alright Fox, wipe that smug look off your face–just because former M&A lawyers in the states can’t even get volunteer jobs–doesn’t make it OK to gloat. [Bloomberg.com]
* The Connecticut Attorney General got aggressive about AIG bonuses over the weekend. The outrage continues with new information that AIG payed out $218 million in bonuses, more than the $165 originally reported.[The Los Angeles Times]
* Enron executive Scott Yeager will be the first to bring his case before the U.S. Supreme Court. [The Houston Chronicle]
* SCOTUS will review “Hillary: The Movie,” and decide whether the scathing documentary should have been regulated as a campaign ad. [The Associated Press]
* A specialist on law firm finances says New York firms need to follow each others lead and re-shape associate pay–replacing “lockstep” with merit pay. [The Lawyer.com]
* An interesting case for the judge’s probable ruling to uphold Proposition 8 from a progressive gay marriage supporter. [The Washington Post]
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 week:
Several sources have said members of the executive committee met Saturday to discuss a possible dissolution of the firm. The matter is said to be set for a full partnership vote as early as Monday. A decision to dissolve the firm would need to be approved by at least 75 percent of the partnership, one source said.
After the jump, the now familiar story of failed mergers as precursors to dissolution.
[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, though, the individual suffering continues even as the “big picture” is unremarkable.
The layoff-free streak ended on Wednesday, when Chicago’s Jenner & Block laid off 34 staff.
The major announcement of the week was the long-anticipated layoff at Katten Muchin, where a total of 69 – 12 associates, seven non-equity partners, four other attorneys, six paralegals and 40 staff members – were fired. The firm is offering associates an interesting choice: one month’s severance, or sign a separation agreement and receive three months’ pay. Income partners get six months’ severance with the separation agreement. Those who remain are facing pay cuts of up to 20%, depending on billables.
* 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]
* Some people think that today’s Skadden partner departures are another sign that Biglaw is crumbling. I suppose that is a necessary precursor to the end times. 12/21/12! Mark it, people. The History Channel is never wrong, especially when it is talking about the future. [Ideoblog]
* The competition is heating up for next year’s winter associates program. [Legally Drawn]
* Elections for the ABA chairman of the student’s division are being held this weekend. We support the candidate who can return law students to their rightful, dauphin-esque sense of entitlement and privilege. But failing that GULCer and former Clinton (HRC) staffer Sam Arora will do. He’s already been featured on Above the Law and a constant barrage of Georgetown jokes is fun for the whole family. [ABA]
* Thinking outside the box is a lot easier to do when the box is on fire and there’s nowhere else to go. [What about Clients?]
* We all know you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. But I was surprised to learn that the word “bomb” started the America’s Next Top Model riot. I was pretty sure that the magic word was “cocaine.” [Popsquire]
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 staff. A firm spokesperson gave Above the Law this report:
In response to the continuing economic downturn, Troutman Sanders LLP today announced it is offering a generous voluntary severance package to its staff employees. In addition, it announced it will be implementing in the near future an as yet undetermined number of involuntary layoffs of its staff and associates. Troutman Sanders believes these reductions, while difficult and unfortunate, will help insure that the law firm remains profitable and maintains the highest level of service to its clients.
Pillsbury already blazed the trail on “voluntary” departure programs. Are there really associates and staff who want to be laid off in this economic environment?
We don’t have the information on what “generous” severance is being offered to employees who commit hara-kiri or how it is likely to compare with what people will get if they are “involuntarily” run through.
But one source expects all this to be sorted out in a couple of weeks.
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 Morning News, staff at the school sanctioned the use of “the cage” – a section of the boys’ changing room barricaded by wire mesh and steel lockers – to settle disputes and bring unruly students under control.
I fondly remember the day I bludgeoned Vespin the Trapper Master to death with my graphing calculator. Nobody makes weapons of woe like Texas Instruments. Unfortunately, I went to high school on Long Island, so our Colosseum was in the basement of a Genovese drug store. Would that I was born a citizen of Texas. There I could have received the full adulation of the mob:
Frank Hammond, a counsellor at the school who was dismissed and has since filed a whistle-blower lawsuit, said: “It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff. They were taking these boys downstairs to fight. And it was sanctioned by the principal and security.”
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 — our Cinderellas.
This has been a rough week for big firms based in Chicago. But small firms are still cruising along in the Windy City. As always, the Job of the Week is brought to you by Lateral Link. Lateral Link has been tremendously successful helping smaller law firms recruit top talent and this week placed an attorney at an elite 8 person firm in NY (filling the Job of the Week from February 27). If you are a small firm looking to hire an attorney, please email Michael Allen at mallen@laterallink.com.
Position: Commercial Litigation Associate
Location: Chicago, IL
Description: This Chicago boutique with less than 5 attorneys, is seeking a junior associate to join the firm. The attorney should have at least 2 years of big firm experience and due to the size of the firm personality fit is very important. The firm was started by a former Kirkland & Ellis attorney and they represent some of the world’s largest companies with an aggressive targeted approach to litigation. The new associate will jump right in and be involved with every aspect of litigation. This a tremendous opportunity to get significant hands on experience.
For more information about this position or to apply, please see Position 10412 on Lateral Link or you may contact Brooke Weinstein at bweinstein@laterallink.com. 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.
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 for 2:00 p.m. EDT today. Conference rooms have been booked at all of the firm’s offices. The purpose of the meeting was announced via firm-wide email:
Bob Webb is holding a meeting today for all of the US Firm’s staff employees to discuss a very important matter. Your attendance at this meeting is requested and we appreciate if you would adjust your schedules in order to attend. Thank you.
We collect some of our other Troutman tips, and an update about an all associates meeting, after the jump.
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 legality of this tax. (Aren’t you glad law firms didn’t take any government money?) They neatly summarize some of the key legal questions:
The “bill of attainder” test keys off these two prongs:
Is it targeted at specific individuals?
Is it of punitive intent?
So what’s punitive intent? The Fifth Circuit’s SBC Communications v. FCC ruling is about the most direct on this as the Supreme Court hasn’t touched the issue in decades.
We’ve collected some of the arguments, for and against, for your perusal. After the jump, we invite you to take our reader poll.
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 Sandler and Benjamin Klubes are forming their own law firm to be named BuckleySandler, which will also include all of the 36 attorneys from the firm Buckley Kolar, a DC-based boutique that focuses on regulatory issues affecting the financial services industry. In addition, Andrew Sandler will become the CEO of Corporate Risk Advisors, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm providing services to the financial services industry.
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 the ongoing global economic crisis, which is impacting our clients, our profession and the firm. As part of that process, our London office today began a redundancy consultation that we expect will result in the departure of up to 55 lawyers and support staff.
The action in London is part of a review of our global operations. We have not yet determined what that will mean for each office and practice. However, the only responsible course is to align our personnel levels with current and anticipated client demand for our services.
We are carefully weighing our decisions and considering a number of options, with full recognition that these decisions could affect the careers and lives of people whose contributions to the firm we value. We expect to make any further decisions shortly. As more information becomes available, we will share it with you.
Thank you for your understanding.
This is the second round of layoffs at Mayer Brown. Our sources feel that this is a clear indication that layoffs will be immigrating to the U.S. “shortly.”
If they do, we’ll keep you posted. Good luck to those in London. Happy Friday.
* 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 General Eric Holder announced that federal authorities would cease raiding their operations. [The New York Times]
* Attorney General Eric Holder issued guidelines to federal agencies after The White House advised them to release their records to the public. [The Washington Post]
* A 3-judge federal appeals panel is considering whether or not to re-instate Madoff’s bail–springing him from jail until sentencing in June. [Newsday]
* Albert Hu, a Silicon Valley hedge fund manager conned clients by saying he was represented by prominent law firms like Heller Ehrman and Shaw Pittman; he was arrested in Hong Kong, and charged with defrauding millions from investors. [The National Law Journal]
* Another sad tale of an associate whose offer has been put on hold–his employer Latham & Watkins is asking incoming attorney’s to defer their start dates. [The National Law Journal]
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 should have equal access to the school’s services.
Well, that post has generated a somewhat blistering response from the Dean of Loyola Law School, Victor Gold. He sent the following message to all students today:
The website Above the Law carried a story recently about Loyola’s policy concerning transfer students’ participating in on campus interviews (OCI). The story misrepresents our policy, omits some key facts, and gets others wrong. The purpose of the policy is not, as the story claims, to discourage transfers. Rather, its purpose is to make sure that offers intended for Loyola students in fact go to Loyola students. It is my job to maximize employment opportunities for Loyola graduates and to ensure that employers coming to Loyola actually get to interview Loyola students. That is why I approved the policy.
The key facts Dean Gold wishes to publicize, plus a reader poll, after the jump.
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.
There’s a pretty interesting glitch happening right now over at NALP (here at ATL, we know something about “technical difficulties” — we’re working on ours). Even though the new numbers haven’t been made public yet, if you know what you’re doing you can get a sneak peak at the 2009 NALP numbers.
Continue reading “NALP Glitch Gives Early Preview of 2009 Summer Program Numbers”
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.
You don’t see this everyday. Two D.C.-based partners of 
