We know many lawyers have “secret” other lives. Last night, we went to the surprisingly good debut performance of one of our legal friend’s rock bands. Some legal types dabble in the visual arts. Some attorneys have a little prostitution gig on the side…
It’s best if your extracurricular activities are not of the variety that push legal boundaries.
Hatim (Tim) Attalla, of counsel at Miller Canfield in Detroit, likes to spend his free time on a Harley with the Detroit Highwaymen Motorcycle Club. Nothing wrong with that. Lawyers and leather go together just fine.
But the love of the road, and his fellow bikers, allegedly led Attalla to stray from the straight path of the law. Now he’s part of a 35-count federal court RICO indictment. From the Detroit News:
Hatim “Tim” Attalla is charged in the indictment with conspiracy to possess and distribute illegal drugs. It’s alleged he advised arrested club members to keep quiet about former club vice-president Aref “Scarface” Nagi’s involvement in drug dealing, supplied Nagi with a variety of pills, and acted “as general counsel to the enterprise.”
Terrible timing. Attalla was named on Wednesday to the new Detroit mayor Dave Bing’s crisis turnaround team. Yes, the mayor who was elected to replace philandering mass-texter Kwame Kilpatrick. Does Detroit exist just to make New Orleans feel better about itself?
More on the Highwaymen’s general counsel of corruption, after the jump.
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Day: Hatim ‘Biker Dude’ Attalla”
We’re pleased to announce that HLS grads Tracy Zuckerman and Ryan Van Grack triumphed in a high-turnout vote to win ATL Couple of the Month honors for April. Kudos!
On to this week’s contest. Once again, it’s too close for us to call, so get your voting fingers ready; there’s a poll after the jump. Here are the entrants:
1. Elizabeth Arens and Christopher Mathews
2. Jennifer Toll and Brett Schulman
3. JoAnn Kamuf and Rusty Ward
Check out these couples’ resumes and photos, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.10: Toll House”
As noted in yesterday’s Morning Docket, President Obama has reportedly narrowed his search for a Supreme Court justice to a shortlist of six. From CNN:
Among the finalists are federal appeals court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak by the White House.
Women make up all but one of the top candidates currently being given serious scrutiny, the sources said.
Also on the list, a source said, was California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. The 60-year-old Los Angeles, California, native was not among the early favorites mentioned by legal analysts and the media. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs previously hinted some of the names under consideration were under the political radar.
Who will get the nod? To be totally honest, it’s pretty impossible to say at this point. Once you get down to a short list of a half-dozen, the choice belongs to the president (as the White House seems to be emphasizing to interest groups). Anything can happen.
President Obama will meet personally with some of the finalists, and his final choice will no doubt be influenced by those meetings. A leading contender can kill his or her chances by coming across poorly in the interview (as former Judge J. Michael Luttig did when he met with President Bush, according to Jan Crawford Greenburg in Supreme Conflict).
But none of this will stop us — or anyone else — from speculating. Speculation is fun! And since we probably won’t have a nominee until after Memorial Day, for the reasons identified by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic, we might as well pass the time with parlor games.
Additional discussion, plus a pair of polls, after the jump.
Continue reading “Supreme Speculation: And Then There Were Six”
We have a new leader in the clubhouse in terms of Vault Top 50 firms cutting associate salaries. DLA Piper is going down the salary cut road. The internal memo just went out:
We are making an adjustment of our base associate compensation in our major markets to $145,000. In those markets where the starting compensation has been $145,000, we are adjusting it to $130,000. Adjustments to all associate salaries at other class levels will be determined and communicated on a case-by-case basis based on class year and performance levels. We will continue to reward associates for exceptional performance in 2009 through our bonus program, taking into consideration both the associate’s performance and that of the firm. We also will not increase paralegal and staff compensation for this year. The timing and implementation of all of these actions will take effect June 8th and be reflected in the June 19 paycheck.
Until today, Baker & McKenzie was the most prestigious firm (according to Vault) that slashed salaries.
But DLA Piper wants people to know that its partners have already taken a hit to their earnings:
Our partners, including the three of us, have already accepted significant reductions in our projected 2009 compensation, and compensation levels for Of Counsel and Senior Counsel have also been reduced. We are now taking the further steps of bringing US associate salaries and staff salary increases into alignment with market realities.
We reported DLA’s decision to decrease partner compensation, back in March. Does sharing the pain make associates at DLA feel better about their reduced paycheck than associates at other firms?
One tipster isn’t too broken up about it:
On the bright side, at least we’re not fired. All the older associates are holding their breath awaiting the “case by case” reviews.
Read the full memo after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Salary Cut Watch: DLA Piper Joins the Party”
My mother always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Wait a minute. She never said that. Instead, my mother said: “Using spellcheck instead of committing to learn the basic rules of phonics is really going to come back and bite you in the ass one day.”
With that in mind (the nice thing, not the phonics thing), I bring you the Fourth Tier Law schools — according to the U.S. News law school rankings. Check out the full list of fourth tier law schools here.
When we discussed the third tier, many commenters argued that going to one of those schools and graduating in the top of your class still allows you to access many of the glories of Biglaw, without crushing educational debt.
Does that argument hold up for fourth tier schools?
Let’s take a look at goals after the jump.
Continue reading “Open Thread: 2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings (Fourth Tier)”
Junior associates have been expressing concerns to us about the pending arrival of summer associates. One in particular summarizes many of the issues associates seem to be worried about right now:
I have a question that perhaps you can find the answer to by asking questions we are too frightened (hate to admit this) to ask: How are firms like mine [a Vault 10 firm] going to handle Summer Associates, when they have so many first rate first-years who are sitting around hangdog, empty handed, and mentally reaching serious levels of clinical depression?
I know we should be grateful to have salaries, but we are literally wasting away. Not all of us. Some of the 1st years had Partner Mentors as summers who look out for them, are busy themselves and keep them busy. Some like me, and others were not so lucky. I went to a T3 law school and took this job because I was told [my firm] had super smart lawyers, that were also sane, cultured, congenial and humane. That was before the downturn. Now it’s every person for himself here.
Come on, buddy; it’s not going to be that bad. Summers are going to be writing so many “memos to file” that I’d buy stock in Redweld.
And the “every person for himself” mentality was always there, even before the downturn. Why do you think some associates have partner mentors while others do not? Maybe you can spend the summer learning the political game as it is played at your firm, instead of honing your privilege log skills. Don’t worry about summers taking anything from you; worry about taking something from someone else.
Yay, Biglaw life!
But after the jump, we see that our tipster might be inconsolable.
Continue reading “First Year Associates Prepare for War With Summers”
When the New York Times stands up and takes note of law firm partner defections, you know you are talking about the kinds of people who are capable of making rain in the Kalahari:
David Fox and Daniel E. Wolf, two top partners at the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have defected to Kirkland & Ellis in a move likely to send shockwaves through the Wall Street legal world.
The loss of Mr. Fox, 51, who was among the highest-paid lawyers at Skadden, is a blow to the firm, where revenue has fallen across nearly all practice areas. A prominent mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, Mr. Fox is leaving after more than 20 years with the firm, founded in 1948. It is rare for an established firm to lose such a senior lawyer to a less-known rival, and the move is the first time a partner in Skadden’s New York M.& A. practice has jumped to a competitor.
A “less-known rival”: were Kirkland & Ellis attorneys able to hear the compliment over the crack of the back of the NYT hand?
After the jump, the Times makes it sound like Skadden just lost Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.
Continue reading “Musical Shockwaves Chairs: Skadden Rainmakers Defect to Kirkland & Ellis”
Join 500+ young eligible legal (Attorneys, Paralegals…) and healthcare (M.D.s, Nurses, Pharma, Biotech…) professionals from the major NYC medical centers (Columbia, Cornell, NYU…) at an elite Manhattan venue in what should be a dazzling spring night. Click here.
* Ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow and wife Soon-Yi Previn will not be called to testify about Woody Allen’s scandalous personal life in the Allen v. American Apparel trial. Allen sued the clothing company for using his rabbi image from Annie Hall without permission. American Apparel CEO Dov Charney’s defense seems as likely to win as American Apparel clothes are likely to survive three wash cycles. [Reuters]
* Karl Rove will get cozy today with the prosecutors investigating the U.S. attorneys firings. [Washington Post]
* And now for your daily SCOTUS round-up. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post analyzes White House speak and says the SCOTUS pick will be a non-Hispanic woman. Dionne says Kagan will get to head to One First Street. [PostPartisan/Washington Post via ABA Journal]
* But there’s another non-Hispanic woman in the running, Dionne. Eric Posner has analyzed the court opinion rating numbers and thinks Diane Wood is looking good. [National Law Journal]
* But Sonia Sotomayor saved baseball! [New York Times]
Every time you open a law school, somewhere a kitten dies.
The University of North Texas is pushing to open a new, mean green law school:
Dallas will be home to the state’s next public law school under a bill that won tentative House approval today.
Budget woes mean funding for the law school remains uncertain, at least for the next two years. At that point, officials could come back to the Legislature again for funding, or seek tuition revenue bonds instead. But for now, the budget the Legislature is poised to approve does not include the $40 million needed to establish the school.
Still, North Texas lawmakers said simply getting approval for the University of North Texas Law School — which already passed the Senate — is a great achievement. This is the third legislative session in which they’ve pushed for it.
This seems like a good time to mention that there are 200 accredited law schools already pumping out J.D.s like rabbits on fertility drugs. Compare that — as some commenters did last night — with the 130 or so accredited medical schools. In terms of exclusivity, the legal profession is on the beach at Bethpage Black, while everybody else is enjoying an excellent tee time at Winged Foot.
It’s not even like North Texas needed a law school. More details after the jump.
Continue reading “More Law Schools + More Lawyers + Recession = FUBAR”
* “So, you know the SEC? That regulatory body at the height of its game, which uncovers and cracks down on scams by reading about them in the Journal or other business publications, and then either responds or ignores them?” They’re hiring. [Dealbreaker]
* Michael Mukasey’s UNC Law commencement address isn’t the only one that disappointed. Senator Mitch McConnell’s attacks on “the others,” in his Louisville Law graduation speech, didn’t go over that well either. [Law School Headlines]
* Following up on all the torture talk today, are layoffs a form of “emotional waterboarding”? [Law and More]
* Some home improvement tips for Biglaw partners worried about the laid-off hordes storming their Upper East Side castles. [Halogen Life]
* New Yorkers: What are you doing on Saturday night? If your parents want you to marry a doctor, then think about attending this event. [IMG Revolver]
On Tuesday night, we attended a very interesting panel discussion, “Do We Have the Legal Tools to Prevent Terrorist Attacks?” It was sponsored by the New York City Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society, and it featured the following panelists:
Andrew C. McCarthy (no, not that Andrew McCarthy) — Senior Fellow, National Review Institute, and author, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.
Glenn Sulmasy — Professor, U.S. Coast Guard Academy and author, The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror.
Samuel J. Rascoff — Assistant Professor, NYU Law School and Former Director of Intelligence Analysis for the New York City Police Department and Special Assistant to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq
Hon. Kenneth M. Karas — United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (moderator)
Read about the wide-ranging and thoughtful discussion, after the jump.
Continue reading “Do We Have the Legal Tools To Prevent Terrorist Attacks?”
A few weeks ago, we launched a new Career Center, brought to you by ATL and Lateral Link. Since then, the law firm profiles in the Center have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
We thought it would be interesting to share with you the top ten most-viewed profiles. Here they are (click on the firm name to see the profile):
1. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges
2. O’Melveny & Myers
3. Cravath, Swaine & Moore
4. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
5. Sullivan & Cromwell
6. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
7. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
8. Jones Day
9. Kirkland & Ellis
10. Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton
Looking for a firm not listed above — perhaps the firm you work for, or aspire to work for? Just visit the Career Center homepage, then use the dropdown menu to find the profile you’re looking for. Happy surfing!
Earlier: Welcome to the ATL Career Center!
CAREER CENTER
Remember the folks at Kaplan — the ones who helped get your LSAT score from the 150s to the 170s, sending you on the path to a glorious career in Biglaw? We don’t hear from them all that often at ATL, but they recently emailed us a press release about a survey of this year’s LSAT test takers.
The Kaplan folks thought it was interesting that more than 40 percent of the 1,040 people who took the February 2009 LSAT said the recession is motivating them to apply to law school. Eh — we weren’t that blown away. School is a safe harbor. A debt-generating safe harbor, but a safe harbor.
What we thought was interesting was this. Over half of those heading to law school hope to end up on a ballot rather than Ballard Spahr:
Law School Remains a Popular Breeding Ground for Future Politicians: 54 percent of respondents say they will “definitely” or “probably” run for political office. Despite this high overall number, between genders there is a significant gap in interest level, with 68 percent of males answering “definitely” or “probably,” compared with 41 percent of females.
Maybe it’s not terribly surprising that many an aspirational law school student hopes to one day be a lawmaker. But this does represent an increase in wannabe politicos among the logic game solvers. We talked to Kaplan’s Director of Pre-Law programs, Jeff Thomas, who told us that last year, only 42 percent of LSAT takers said they wanted to get paid by taxpayers.
Has Obama’s law degree proved more inspiring than Bush’s MBA? Thomas speculated that “a law degree has become more of a necessity for political office.” He also said: “Anecdotally, I can tell you that fewer hands go up now when we ask people if they plan to work for a big law firm or go into private practice.” He says more LSAT takers are saying they want to do public interest, human rights work, or lobbying.
Which one is not like the others on that list?
The United Kingdom, (a/k/a: Mother England. f/k/a: The Little Island that Could), just lowered the student loan interest rate to 0%.
0%! God save the Queen:
More than 2.5 million students will pay 0% rate of interest on their loans from September, the government announced yesterday.
Hopes were raised last month that students would effectively earn money on loans after the Retail Prices Index (RPI), to which they are linked, dropped to -0.4%.
The new terms will apply to all loans taken out after 1998:
The new rate will affect those with outstanding student loans taken out after September 1998 as well as applicants for both maintenance loans and tuition fee loans in the current and next academic year.
Okay, it’s not quite a full student loan bailout, but it is a start. Let’s get into additional details after the jump.
Continue reading “Student Loan Bailout. We Are So Going to Make This Happen”
Is it national “women in Biglaw” month and nobody told me? Yesterday, we learned that women who don’t put their careers on hold in order raise children can expect a similar salary to their male counterparts. A few days ago we learned that women hate working for other women. A couple of weeks ago, we had a story about alleged gender bias on the board of the Cardozo law review.
Isn’t there a sporting event or contest of some kind I can go watch? I’m happy to drag my knuckles all the way to my cave.
In any event, a new study out today shows that a large number of women are very dissatisfied with their jobs:
Dissatisfaction with work-life balance is pushing women lawyers in New Jersey out the door and into new jobs, a survey has found.
Most of the respondents–almost two-thirds–said they were satisfied with their ability to integrate their work and personal lives and the predictability of their hours, according to a press release. But the numbers were different for women lawyers who had changed jobs in the last five years. More than 70 percent of the job-hopping lawyers said their previous employer was not supportive of full-time flexible alternatives, while only 30 percent described their current employer as unsupportive of such arrangements.
“An important new finding of this study is that women lawyers often choose an exit strategy when faced with the dilemma of choosing between work and family obligations,” the study said. “The business case for more family-friendly approaches to the practice of law could not be more clear.”
In a perfect world, a more family-friendly approach would seem like an excellent business idea.
But in the world wrecked by the current economy, firms are actively trying to force attrition. You’d hope that the attrition would be gender neutral, but at this point everybody who voluntarily leaves a firm is one less person that will show up on Layoff Tracker.
After the jump, Legal Blog Watch points out that even when women do jump from one job to another, the grass is often just as dull.
Continue reading “What Women Want … At Least In New Jersey”
I figure that every new person that gets laid off is just a new recruit on the student loan bailout bandwagon. Sure, the shrinks out there would call that my “coping mechanism,” but you can’t start a revolution when everybody is well-fed and content.
The newest foot soldiers come from Hunton & Williams. The firm has laid off 87 people today: 23 attorneys, 64 staff. Hunton & Williams managing partner, Wally Martinez, confirmed the news to Above the Law:
Today, we reduced approximately 23 associate and counsel positions and 64 staff positions in our U.S. offices. The reductions are spread among most of our teams and offices.
AmLaw Daily has this report from Mr. Martinez:
“We conducted our own internal stress test,” says Martinez, adding that the lack of associate attrition was also a catalyst. “We’re quite late getting to the layoff table, but the economic situation is a lot more prolonged and deeper than we had expected.”
Hunton indicated that these were economic layoffs. But tipsters report that individual laid off associates are being told something different:
My colleague … was not allowed to use the word layoff and the departure is being considered a resignation (in order to get a severance package).
I don’t know a lot of people who have involuntarily resigned. I suppose it’s possible, but it sounds like the colleague either got “laid off,” or needs to get themselves to an exorcist immediately.
Good luck to all the people laid off from Hunton today. Welcome to bandwagon, there is plenty of room left.
Read the full Hunton & Williams statement after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Hunting 87 Employees at Hunton & Williams”
Tired of talking about terrorism, torture, and related topics? You might not be alone. At a Federalist Society discussion we attended on Tuesday night, entitled Do We Have the Legal Tools to Prevent Terrorist Attacks?, even some of the panelists wondered why these subjects still generate so much discussion, over seven years after the 9/11 attacks. (More about the panel later today.)
Similarly, when former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey made the war on terror the focus of his recent commencement address at UNC School of Law, some of the graduates (and their families) were less than pleased. From one attendee:
Michael Mukasey just spoke at UNC commencement and used the entire speech to cover his own ass on torture. It was wildly inappropriate for a graduation….
A lot of people were very upset. The speech hardly mentioned the students graduating, if at all, and was instead a 30-minute legal argument defending torture. He focused on Jose Padilla for most of the speech, basically talking about how bad of a person he was and how much information they got from him. People in the audience were walking out, including all ten members of my family who were present.
This is not the first time Mukasey has caused commencement controversy. See here (first paragraph), discussing events at Boston College Law School last year.
Some way harsh reviews of ex-AG Mukasey, after the jump.
Continue reading “Attorney General Mukasey’s UNC Commencement Address: Torture to Sit Through?”
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.
This week, we’re changing things up a bit here at Pls Hndle Thx. Does this have anything to do with the fact that the usual problem-response-counter response-response format is getting a bit tiresome? No! It has everything to do with this week’s salacious question:
ATL:
I have a crush on one of the ATL staff. I’m not going to give gender, and I won’t say anymore. You know me; I comment under the name “Guest.” You’ll recall that Meade, Ann Althouse’s commenter suitor, asked in her blog’s comments how he could win her affection, and Ann gave him some advice. Now I’m asking you all for your advice. How can I win this person over?
Cyrano de B.
If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends, the Spice Girls once sang, so I took their wise advice and went straight to the sources themselves — Lat, Elie, Kash and Roxana — to ask what it takes to be their Rock of Love.
Gentlemen?
Elie: I like women who are demonstrably more intelligent than me, with large breasts. Which pretty much exactly describes my wife. Actually, it perfectly describes my wife. My wife is perfect. In every way. Are there other women? I didn’t notice. Can I go home now Marin? I have to make some space for myself on the couch.
Lat: Charmingly eccentric, boyishly appealing, well-educated professional seeks same. Enjoys reading (mostly fiction and periodicals), blogging, theater, film, going to the beach, riding in cars with boys, getting free stuff in the mail, and drinking vanilla soy milk. Quintessential Gemini, with a wide range of interests and a weakness for novelty — willing to try almost anything once. Stalk me on Facebook or Twitter.
But we’re not done yet. Find out what kills with the Ladies of ATL, after the jump.
Continue reading “Pls Hndle Thx: Don’t Stand So Close to Me”
