Simpson Thacher laid off a number of staffers yesterday. Our sources report that there was massive confusion for associates and clients while the cuts were being made. People around the office have been calling it “Black Monday,” and it looks like the firm isn’t done laying people off.
Simpson Thacher did not respond to our multiple requests for comment.
But our sources report that the layoffs started Friday night. On Friday, the firm fired its overnight document duplication team, and made reductions to the shift that starts at 6:00 p.m. Sources report that the cuts affected 10 – 20 people.
The employees were escorted out by security Friday evening.
But that is not what caused the confusion on Monday morning. More details after the jump.
Archive for June 2009
* Cristina Warthen née Schultz, aka the Stanford Law Escort, is the 2001 Stanford law grad turned call girl turned filthy rich wife of Ask Jeeves founder David Warthen. But apparently, she’s no longer filthy rich, and will not be married for much longer. Warthen was wiped out by the stock market plunge and their divorce is pending. She’s not sure how she will pay the government the $313,000 she owes for tax evasion. [Mercury News]
* Facebook = gold mine for divorce lawyers. [Time]
* The Supreme Court will consider making discharging student debt through bankruptcy easier. [Associated Press]
* Nationwide Layoff Watch: California public defenders. [The Associated Press]
* Meet me in St. Louis, but don’t make me pay for recycling. [Courthouse News Service]
* The retrial for the Minnesota mom taken down by the music industry for illegal file sharing started yesterday. [CBS News]
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Posted in:
Email Scandals, Sex Scandals, White & Case
Nationwide Layoff Getting Laid Watch: White & Case
By David Lat & Elie Mystal
As noted even in the New York Times, the global mega-firm of White & Case has been hit hard by the recession. But allegedly one of the firm’s associates has been hitting it up — with another man’s wife.
The supposedly cuckolded husband has no intention of allowing this White & Case attorney to get away with an affair. The husband sent two accusatory emails to dozens of recipients who know him and / or the White & Case attorney. The emails have bounced around White & Case’s Miami office — and beyond. Due to their wide circulation, many of you have probably seen them already.
We’ve replaced the names of the participants with pseudonyms, but you’ll get the gist. Here is the initial email sent out on Sunday afternoon from “Cuckolded in Canada,” addressed to (1) his wife, “SexyLexus” (the origin of that name will become clear later); (2) the White & Case associate she was allegedly cheating with, hereinafter “Miami White”; and (3) dozens of third parties:
From: Cuckolded in Canada
Subject: When [Miami White] from White & Case Cheated with my Wife [SexyLexus] in May and June 2009
Miami White,
Families, wives, young children are valuable things. I work hard to take care of my family – a wife, 4 small children under the age of 6. It is the most valuable thing in the world to me.
When you decided to start sleeping with my wife while I was out of town over the last few weeks (May 27 – June 7 2009), you threatened my way of life, and you really hurt a lot of people – most notably the lives of my 4 very young children.
You are a securities lawyer at White & Case, so you know how to do due diligence. Perhaps you thought it was clever or fun, but attending a school recital with my wife who you’ve just met and started sleeping with over the last few weeks is extremely poor judgement. Sleeping with other mens wives, is alone, perhaps the poorest taste and the worst judgement all on its own. It implies a very low moral character. Perhaps you wish to plead ignorance, but a simple search on my name on the internet would indicate that I take a great deal of pride in my family. But after reviewing the text messages between you and my wife it would appear that you did the due diligence, that you knew she was spending the summer with me in Canada starting last week, and that we had small children and you were jeopardizing my family with your actions.
I have tried to contact you numerous times this week to address the situation and ask you to step aside… to let me address the issues now faced in our house. I have contacted your mobile at [Redacted] and your house at [Redacted] but you are too much of a coward to answer. You need to be made aware of your actions and the consequences they bear.
Miami White, and SexyLexus… what follows below are the text messages of your affair over the last few weeks as it unfolds. I would like to especially thank those at [my kids' school] that watched this unfold at the school concert last week, and did nothing to alert me or defend my family. That is certainly a church and a school I want my children to grow up learning from. You have all seen me drop my kids off and pick them up there every single day for the last year. Did you think to mention anything when I showed up there last Monday June 8 at my kids ceremonies? You know how important they are to me.
And for all of you that think running around with other mens wives or husbands behind their spouses backs is acceptable behaviour – recognize that there are consequences and that many of us that will fight for our families and ferociously defend our home and children.
How’s that for an opening salvo? Wait until Cuckolded starts revealing the text messages between his wife and her purported paramours, after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Getting Laid Watch: White & Case”
* “The Supramarket”: If you’re a Bluebook dork, you will laugh out loud. [Courtoons]
* Harvard Business School professors: even crazier than their colleagues at HLS? [Dealbreaker]
* It seems that Andrew Sullivan may have been wrong when he described one of the DOJ attorneys on the DOMA brief as “a Bush administration holdover” and a Mormon. [NLGJA; The Daily Dish]
* The First Amendment has its limits — as a prisoner learned after sending a prosecutor some toilet paper, along with a colorful message. [Overlawyered]
* Judge Sonia Sotomayor: shorty on the Court. [YouTube / Auto-Tune the News]
* If the law firm you work for hasn’t squeezed every last drop of blood from you, here’s a worthwhile cause that wants what you have left. [ATL Community; Facebook]
* Blawg Review #216 is up at Family Lore in merry old England, and it’s
about the Magna Carta and all that. [Family Lore via Blawg Review]
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Posted in:
Paul Hastings, Staff Layoffs
Staff Layoff Watch: Paul Hastings Re-Centers 25 Staffers
By Elie MystalIn this economy, firms are looking for efficiency wherever they can find it. Above the Law has been able to confirm that 25 staffers will be let go at the end of July as Paul Hastings moves its document production services to its Los Angeles office. The goal, as we understand it, is to centralize the firm’s document production services and make them more efficient.
The move will result in 25 terminated positions in New York and other Paul Hastings offices around the the country. But the firm is also creating new positions for staffers in L.A.
The affected personnel have been informed of the cuts. But Paul Hastings’s spokespeople report that those staffers have been encouraged to apply for the new L.A. document work. Successful applicants will have their relocation expenses paid by the firm.
And the weather is nicer in L.A.
Staffers who are unable to secure a position in L.A. — or who simply don’t want to go — will receive a severance package.
As Maria von Trapp might say: Whenever God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window. Of course, Maria von Trapp married a super wealthy guy but still ended up living in Vermont, so maybe she doesn’t have the most applicable advice.
Perhaps Micheal Ray Richardson has some advice that is more relevant to the current situation?
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of staff layoffs
We’ve been following the trials and tribulations of the former Bingham McCutchen “Stepford Secretary” who sent out a mission statement to the firm about CHARACTER. After the email, the secretary was fired by Bingham.
Now, she’s lawyered-up. No complaint has been filed, but we understand that the secretary has hired an attorney and is considering her options.
What possible claims could she have?
We understand that the Stepford Secretary was let go for violating the firm’s email policy, and insubordination. But she had been with the firm for over ten years. According to some of our sources, the Stepford secretary doesn’t see her email as “insubordinate,” because the email didn’t disparage the firm. As one tipster puts it:
Bingham never bothered to ask why she sent the email or what provoked the cry for help.
Spokespeople for Bingham McCutchen declined to comment about Stepford Secretary.
But we’ll ask the question: Why did she send the email and what provoked the cry for help?
We’ve been trying to get in touch with the Stepford secretary to hear her side of the melodrama. In case you are wondering, the best way to reach us is at tips@abovethelaw.com.
Earlier: Bingham McCutchen Staffer Doesn’t Want to be a ‘Stepford’ Secretary
Bingham McCutchen’s ‘Stepford Secretary’ Has Left The Building
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Posted in:
Advertising, New York Times, Weddings
Rejected by the NYT Weddings Editors? Fake Law Firm Fights for YOU!
By Laurie Lin
As ATL’s resident expert on the New York Times weddings section, we hear all the time from bewildered couples who didn’t make it into the paper. And they’re hurting.
No matter how raucous the reception or how passionate the wedding night, when the mother of the bride rips open the Sunday Styles section and realizes that her bridge club isn’t reading about her little princess — well, the ensuing bitterness and second-guessing can cast a pall over the whole weekend (and, in some cases, the whole marriage).
These are real families, experiencing real heartbreak. And now, a fake law firm offers to help. Via the Village Voice, we received a video advertisement for a firm that offers to “sue the New York Times so hard for you” — and collect cash, an apology, and maybe even a court order placing your announcement in the paper.
The Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog predicts, “Since the ice has been broken, expect a class action suit any day.”
The amusing video, after the jump.
Continue reading “Rejected by the NYT Weddings Editors? Fake Law Firm Fights for YOU!”
We’ve written before about a unique perk for the attorneys in Venable’s D.C. office. Like many firms, the office has a rooftop with amazing views of the nation’s capital. Unlike most firms, it also has a rooftop bocce court.
The bocce balling and Venable’s representation of Michael Jackson led us to ask at the time whether the firm is DC’s weirdest. We hear the attorneys there were actually thrilled with the superlative.
Venable is proud of its bocce ball and touts its annual bocce tournament on its diversity page. This year’s tournament took place earlier this month. We came across an account of the bocce showdown:
Friday June 5 was the annual Bocce Happy Hour Kickoff. We take our Bocce Seriously – 64 teams in a “March madness” format. there are lots of rules, heckling, trash talking, and a prize. usually a month of free parking ($230) and your name inscribed on the Sir Francis Drake Trophy Cup. It’s big. oh AND you “get” to be Commissioner of the Tournament the following summer.
This year, the “Commissioner” decided to combine bocce March Madness with an American Idolish singing competition. Some of the bocce ballers got dressed up for their serenades, including “one guy dress[ed] up as Susan Boyle” who sang “Memories.” It sounds painful to us, but our narrator swears it was fun.
Read the full account of the bocce balling, karaoke singing, alcohol-fueled tournament, after the jump.
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Posted in:
Bonuses, Clerkships, Money, SCOTUS, SCOTUS Clerks Are Fair Game, Supreme Court Clerks
SCOTUS Clerkship Bonus Watch: Still at $250K?
By Elie MystalThe National Law Journal suggests that the down economy could be hitting the pockets of the Elect. Some firms are suggesting that the $250,000 bonus to hire a former Supreme Court clerk is just too expensive in today’s economy:
At firms that have been shaken by the downturn, however, a $250,000 bonus will be hard to sell, some practitioners say. “Intuitively, it doesn’t feel right to pay that kind of bonus when you are trying to make economies wherever you can at the firm,” said veteran advocate Carter Phillips, managing partner at Sidley Austin’s Washington office. Thomas Goldstein of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where there have been cuts, agrees that it’s tough to justify a $250,000 bonus when a firm is considering letting go a staff person paid $50,000. Because of that juxtaposition, he predicted bonuses will shrink — though he said it’s too early in the hiring season to say how much. “The number of firms willing to pay that amount of money will be down.”
But surely these firms aren’t talking about collusion, are they? SCOTUS clerks command top dollar, and firms that are struggling can’t artificially deflate the price for this top talent — even if they want to:
Firms won’t be sorry to wave goodbye to what Goldstein calls the “incredible escalation” that the $250,000 bonus represents. Even before the recession, firms were grumbling about it because of a recurring pattern: Some clerks grab the bonus, work at the firm for a year or three, then skip off to academia with loans paid off and kids’ tuition in the bank. “Firms are going to be more interested in clerks staying around and practicing law,” [former solicitor general Paul] Clement said.
While some firms might be priced out of the Elect market, we are still talking about a “recession-proof” set of credentials.
More after the jump.
Continue reading “SCOTUS Clerkship Bonus Watch: Still at $250K?”
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Posted in:
Cadwalader, Mayer Brown, Minority Issues, Racism
Plaintiff in Mayer Brown Title VII Case Departed With Flair
By Elie MystalLast week, we brought you the story of a former Mayer Brown associate who is suing the firm. We have some more back story on the plaintiff, Venus Yvette Springs, and she certainly sounds like a colorful person.
Before joining Mayer Brown, Springs worked at Cadwalader. According to our tipsters, she left CWT in an interesting fashion:
In her departure email from Cadwalader, she quoted all sorts of religious passages and talked about how she wanted to devote her life to pro bono.
Shortly thereafter, she wound up at Mayer Brown — one of the largest and most profitable law firms on the planet.
In her complaint against Mayer Brown, Springs alleged that the firm did not count her pro bono hours as it had promised. Of course, working in the real estate department at a major firm hardly sounds like a life “devoted to pro bono.” She wants to work with clients who can’t pay, but wants to make sure she gets a plump pay check anyway.
But maybe she needed to support her family. Unconfirmed reports say that her husband is Jules Springs. Jules Springs recently pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud. No word on whether or not Mr. Springs was an equal opportunity defrauder.
After the jump, Venus Springs compares her plight at Mayer Brown to the Holocaust. I wish I were making that up.
Continue reading “Plaintiff in Mayer Brown Title VII Case Departed With Flair”
* Like Drinker Biddle, Frost Brown Todd is instituting an apprenticeship program for its first year associates. They make less money and are billed out to clients at lower rates during their 1,000 hour apprenticeship. [Business Courier of Cincinnati]
* Stereotypes and jury selection. [Baltimore Sun]
* Jones Day’s Corinne Ball showed she’s the master of the quickie during the Chrysler restructuring. [New York Times]
* What can David Carradine’s family do about his death photos going viral? [American Lawyer]
* Behind the scenes in the push to get Sonia Sotomayor to SCOTUS: The White House keeps her supporters on a tight leash. [Washington Post]
* The San Francisco Chronicle recounts SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy’s commencement speech at Stanford on Sunday, but strangely accompanies the article with a photo of Clarence Thomas. Do all the non-liberal justices look the same to you, San Francisco? [San Francisco Chronicle]
[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.]
That’s it? We’re looking for that one perfect week of no layoffs and we lose it to a Tennessee firm and two UK firms? So much for midsize firms being a safe harbor. The dream of a week without layoffs lives on. Instead, we’ll catch up on the regular activity. The trend of initial jobless claims declining continues, with new applications down to January levels. Same old song and dance, though, as total unemployment continues to climb, setting a record for the 19th straight week.
Businesses are slowing staff reductions as signs emerge that the worst recession in at least five decades may end in the second half of 2009. Still, economists in a Bloomberg News survey predicted the unemployment rate will climb to 10 percent by year-end and restrain consumer spending, muting any recovery.
That’s pretty much in line with the trend in the law-firm sector, although we might have our first green shoots. After the jump.
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Posted in:
Clerkships, Cravath, Harvard Law School, Job Searches, Summer Associates
Cravath Announcement Causes Immediate Reaction At Harvard Law School
By Elie Mystal
Don’t get too close to any Ivory Tower in your town today. The news that Cravath is leaving the class of 2010 out of work for a year has sent monocles flying as students at top law schools learn a powerful lesson about free market capitalism.
Harvard Law School sent out a letter to all of its rising 3Ls in the wake of the Cravath announcement. It essentially warned them that you can’t trade in an HLS degree for food and shelter:
Dear Rising 3Ls:
We hope you are getting off to a great start in your summer jobs. We write to alert you about a situation that may require action on your part. As you know, many law firms deferred the start dates of class of 2009 associates from 2009 to 2010. Without clear indication that the economy will turn around by 2010, some firms are planning ahead and already notifying summer associates from the class of 2010 that their start dates are likely to be deferred until 2011 or later. See, e.g., Cravath and Skadden. Generally firms have been generous in providing fellowships or stipends to the class of 2009 given the surprise to that class, but firms may not provide such options to you in the class of 2010 because you have more advance notice about economic conditions. If you are at a law firm this summer and hope to return after graduation, you should ask yourself now what you might do to fill the 2010-2011 year if necessary. [Emphasis in the original.]
What should the class of 2010 do for post-graduate employment, “if necessary”? Stipends look like they are going to be less generous, so people might actually need to earn some money for a year.
So, what can you do with a law degree once Biglaw decides that they don’t want you? I hear law firms in Baghdad are booming right now.
Harvard has its own ideas, after the jump.
Continue reading “Cravath Announcement Causes Immediate Reaction At Harvard Law School”
* The Cravath deferrals could be exposing fundamental fissures in the Biglaw business model. So class of 2011, don’t think you’ve escaped. [Ideoblog]
* Kash and I tweet about work. Luckily, there’s no rule governing ex parte communications between legal bloggers. Judges and lawyers on the other hand … [True/Slant]
* Firm sponsored Law Clerks. It’s c-c-catching on. [Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly]
* When I was in high school, I used the word Tsar instead of Czar. But I had a difficult time getting laid in high school, so I switched it up for college. [Concurring Opinions]
* Is the Obama DOJ being overzealous? [Law Dork 2.0]
* Marc Edelman and Brian Doyle warn that if American courts won’t do anything about the NBA’s age requirement, European courts might. [Social Science Research Network]
* Carrie Prejean should familiarize herself with one of Aaron Sorkin’s better lines: “there’s never an egg-timer around when you need one.” (Bonus points if you nail the movie and the character or actor). [Popsquire]
Dear sirs. We are a legal blog based in the New York City. One of our Nigerian investors has mysteriously passed away and left us a lot of money. We are trying to increase the number of advertisers on our site, and have a unique proposal for you. We will send you the money and then we would like you buy adds on our site. You can keep some of the money for your trouble. We only want to do this deal with the “Guest” commenter. If you are “Guest,” please send us your bank details to tips@abovethelaw.com and we will send you a check.
We doubt that would work on you, oh savvy ATL readers, but it might work on Bradley Arant Boult Cummings (a firm that came out of Southern merger mania). The firm was recently taken in an e-mail scam and lost $400,000. From the ABA Journal:
The Nashville Post (sub. req.) reported yesterday that the law firm wired more than $400,000 to the foreign bank account of a scammer posing as a client. Lawyers at the firm believed the funds were covered by a check it had deposited–a check that turned out to be phony.
The law firm says it quickly reported the scam to the FBI, leading to the arrest of suspects and the freezing of the funds. “It was an elaborate criminal plan on many levels,” Bradley Arant managing partner John Grenier said in a statement released to the ABA Journal. The firm quickly reported the crime, leading to “the apprehension of the suspects in this scheme and the freezing of the funds.”
How did the firm get taken by the elaborate criminal plan? After the jump.
Continue reading “Law Firm of the Day: Bradley Arant Boult Cummings”
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Posted in:
Columbia Law School, Georgetown Law School, Harvard Law School, New York Times, Stanford Law School, Weddings, WilmerHale
Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 6.7: Matched
By Laurie Lin
Another week, another NYT Vows column comparing the bride to a giant coniferous tree (“The bride stood stately and erect, echoing the Redwoods that surrounded them . . . “). Seriously, could they maybe assign Vows once a month to a real writer, just to make it a little less chirpy and insipid? What about Maureen Dowd? What about Paul Krugman?
Here are this week’s finalists, including the tree-like bride:
1. Alizah Diamond and Itai Maytal
2. Stefanie Schneider and David Alpert
3. Anya Emerson and Jonah Staw
After the jump, our non-chirpy analysis of these couples.
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Posted in:
Law School Deans, Yale Law School
Will Robert Post Be the Next Yale Law Dean?
By David Lat
Harvard Law School just announced its new dean, Martha Minow. Minow replaces Elena Kagan, who left HLS to become Solicitor General.
Meanwhile, HLS’s rival to the south, Yale Law School, has a vacant deanship of its own, also courtesy of the Obama Administration. After being nominated to serve as the Legal Adviser of the State Department, Harold Hongju Koh stepped down as dean. Professor Kate Stith is now serving as acting dean.
We called Dean Koh’s departure months before it happened, and now we’ll hazard another prediction: his successor as dean will be Robert Post, currently the David Boies Professor of Law at Yale. From an ATL tipster:
I have it from a pretty reliable source that the new YLS dean is going to be Robert Post. It seems really bizarre and unexpected…. but I’m pretty sure it’s true.
We’re not sure if we’d call it “bizarre and unexpected,” but it would be surprising. The trend in academia is to award leadership posts — university presidencies, law school deanships — to women and/or minorities. See, e.g., Elena Kagan, Martha Minow, and Drew Faust, at Harvard.
Several of the candidates floated for the YLS deanship — including Acting Dean Kate Stith, Professor Reva Siegel, and Professor Heather Gerken — would have advanced the goal of “diversity.” Robert Post is a white male, which doesn’t help when applying for promotion — especially in New Haven. If he were a firefighter, he’d be screwed.
Comments from more sources, who all agreed that Post will be picked, after the jump.
Continue reading “Will Robert Post Be the Next Yale Law Dean?”
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Posted in:
Biglaw, Cozen O'Connor, Job Searches, Kirkland & Ellis, Nixon Peabody, Skadden Arps
Chicago Is Hiring? Lawyers?
By Elie MystalThe National Law Journal reports that some firms are hiring lawyers — including associates — in Chicago. The ABA Journal summarizes the good news:
Three law firms are moving into new offices in Chicago and seeking to fill the space with new lawyers.
The firms getting new digs are Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Nixon Peabody; and Cozen O’Connor, the National Law Journal reports.
Happy Friday indeed.
According to the NLJ, despite all the hits the Chicago legal market has taken during this recession, the city is in an expansionary mood:
While law firm expansion has slowed in Chicago during the recession, particularly compared to the accelerated growth in the prior five years, many national firms that set up shop in the city since 2000 are still looking to add lawyers. Efforts to recruit partners with business has been a constant, but firms in the past month have started to look for associates in certain practice areas, including finance, banking, litigation and bankruptcy, said Amy McCormack, who leads the Chicago recruiting firm McCormack Schreiber.
Does that include Kirkland & Ellis? Let’s take a look inside (its new offices), after the jump.
Health care is faring relatively well in the recession. The latest Job of the Week is a position with a leading company in the field.
As always, the JOW is brought to you by Lateral Link — Above The Law’s partner on our new Career Center, where you will find useful information on the top law firms as well as various resources, including articles and career coaching information. New in the Resource section this week is an article by Tricia McGrath entitled Keeping Your Career “On Track” in a Down Market.
Position: General Counsel
Location: San Jose, CA
Description: A major provider of innovative medical products for use in the field of women’s health is seeking a General Counsel. The attorney will head the legal department and will be responsible for providing legal and business advice to senior management and will lead and coordinate the general corporate policy needs of the company. The candidate must be a member of the California bar and have a minimum of 10 years experience, preferably in the health care or medical device Industry. In addition, a combination of in-house and top tier law firm experience is preferred, but exceptional candidates that do not have diverse experience will be considered. Experience with international contracts is also preferred.
For more information on this position or to apply, please see position #24977 on Lateral Link. Interested applicants can also contact Theresa DeLoach at tdeloach@laterallink.com to discuss this position. Membership in Lateral Link is free, and you can apply at www.laterallink.com.
We’ve previously 


