As if creating new law schools from scratch wasn’t enough, now the schools themselves are starting to breed. Legal Blog Watch reports that The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is metastasizing and creating a hybrid undergraduate program:
The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is branching out. It is launching the nation’s first college dedicated exclusively to the teaching of history, including American legal history. To be called the American College of History and Legal Studies, the college will open its doors in August 2010 in Salem, N.H., according to an MSL announcement.
The ACHLS will be an undergraduate “completion college,” offering only junior- and senior-year courses. After completing their junior year, students who meet certain criteria will have the option of starting law school at MSL. These students will receive their bachelor’s degrees after the first year of law school.
Let me get this straight: you spend a whole year of college learning legal history, and then you still have to go through three years of law school at Andover? So it’s kind of like an extra fourth year of law school that is even more useless to a practicing attorney than the long three years that come after it?
HOW DOES THIS HELP ANYBODY GET A JOB??????
Sorry, I didn’t mean to go all-caps there. It’s just my head, and the blood coming out of my ears. And the eye: lidless, wreathed in flame.
I take my blood pressure medication after the jump.
Continue reading “Now Law Schools Are Spawning Colleges”
In these tough economic times, I’m sure many people have been tempted to sightly exaggerate their credentials, experience, and competence.
But you shouldn’t lie exaggerate to clients. At least not if you want to be a member of the bar in good standing. The National Law Journal reports that a former Pillsbury associate is getting his law license pulled for 60 days:
A former Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman associate who told clients that he was senior counsel at the law firm will have his license pulled for 60 days.
A District of Columbia attorney disciplinary committee has recommended that Garland H. Stillwell hand over his license for misrepresenting his employment status at the Washington firm.
But there were other aggravating circumstances to Stillwell’s case:
The committee also found that Stillwell charged personal expenses to Pillsbury Winthrop’s pro bono accounts and represented a client in a matter that created a potential conflict of interest within the firm without disclosing it or seeking a waiver.
Stillwell is not at Pillsbury anymore. That’s hardly surprising.
But he is still employed at a law firm. Let’s check-in after the jump.
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Day: Former Pillsbury Associate Doesn’t Know His Place”
Remember the days when junior associates thought that work-life balance was important? Remember when people thought that law firms could be forced to change to accommodate associates who wanted to be lawyers and have personal lives?
Those days are seemingly over. An interesting post on Law21 suggests that the quest for work-life balance (WLB) is pretty much dead:
[T]he market has changed just a little. After 10,000 lawyer and staff layoffs at large US and UK firms, even the most active WLB boosters have toned down talk that might earn them the dreaded “entitlement” label. Articles and posts that reference the term “work-life balance” now do so in an environment of cold pragmatism: Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog and Dawn Wagenaar at The Complete Lawyer provide good recent examples. Realist observers like Dan Hull and Scott Greenfield have gained the upper hand in the WLB discussion — check out this slam-bang debate at Legal OnRamp about “work-life balance” generational expectations.
We have mentioned before that law students and junior associates have lost any kind of leverage over law firms. People are desperate for jobs, and firms feel they can pretty much do what they want. But some people think that the work-life balance attempt was doomed to fail:
Where proponents of “work-life balance” went off-track, to my mind, was that they argued the duty to ensure a satisfactory proportion between a lawyer’s work and the rest of her life was an institutional responsibility — that it was up to the law firm, basically. The firms disagreed, and all they had to do was wait for the marketplace to turn their way to make that clear.
Law firms aren’t going to unilaterally change their business models for the sake of WLB. No law firm ever budged an inch on its billable quotas or offered associates more money and perks because its partners genuinely felt they should be nicer employers — appeals to conscience at partners’ meetings don’t have a roaring record of success. Firms change their working conditions as the talent market dictates. In a seller’s market like the one we’ve just had, they play nice; in a buyer’s market like this, they don’t.
But just because the movement towards better working conditions has been stalled, it doesn’t mean that many young lawyers don’t still need better working conditions.
Let’s remember how this all got started, after the jump.
Continue reading “Has Work-Life Balance Toppled Over Thanks to the Teetering Economy?”
Incoming first years at Shearman & Sterling have been trying to figure out when they can start at the firm. A couple of months ago, the firm said that December 2009 would be the earliest start date. But Shearman also encouraged its incoming first years to defer until September 2010, while promising those deferrals that the incoming class of 2010 would not be starting on time.
Was the firm’s ambiguity about its regular start date a subtle attempt to get more people to take the year long deferral?
We don’t know how many incoming first years took the year long deferral option. But today, we have news that Shearman has confirmed its regular start date(s). But you’d better hurry to secure your space now.
More details after the jump.
Continue reading “Shearman & Sterling Start Date Watch: You Better Hurry”
* Does SCOTUS need some affirmative action for non-Ivy League grads? [New York Times]
* White & Case partner Tom Lauria, who got SCOTUS to issue a stay in the Chrysler-Fiat deal, is pissing people off and “enjoying the heck out of it.” He may take on GM next. [Wall Street Journal]
* SCOTUS decided yesterday to lift the Chrysler-Fiat stay, so that sale can move forward. [Washington Post]
* Sonnenschein hit with a $30 million poaching suit. [American Lawyer]
* Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is threatening to sue HarperCollins if they defame him while publicizing a book on September 11. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* The Northern District of California courthouse sounds like a wild place. [Courthouse News Service]
We want you here as long as it makes sense. — Fictional Firm Chairman
What does that mean? — Fictional Junior Partner
It means you’re here until you’re not. — Fictional Firm Chairman
Those are lines from a bit of YouTube fantasy porn for BigLaw attorneys frustrated by the way their firms are treating them during the economic downturn. The video ends with the junior partner telling the chairman that he feels unappreciated and that he’s leaving.
If you can’t play with the BigLaw boys, then move along.
A legal marketer in New Jersey was hired by an unnamed mid-size firm to create a video to help with the firm’s lateral recruitment. It features a young BigLaw real estate partner, named Steve, meeting with his firm’s chairman to seek guidance. The chairman, who calls the partner Gary throughout the meeting, is not especially sympathetic to the younger lawyer’s recession-induced crisis:
JUNIOR PARTNER, STEVE: I’ve worked so hard to build something here. You wiped the floor with me for eight years as an associate. I am a partner now. I have a book of business, and yet I feel… lost.
BIGLAW CHAIRMAN: Do you have any idea how much billable time we wasted during this conversation? How long were you outside my office lurking like a wolverine of sorts?
According to the marketer Micah Buchdahl, the firm wasn’t a fan and declined to use the video. Check it out after the jump.
Continue reading “Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: ‘Midsize Is the New Big’”
* Don’t forget: Lolcats and Above the Law with David Lat and Ben Huh tonight at 7:00 p.m. [Asian American Writers' Workshop]
* What happens when smart people don’t make smart decisions? The “human capital bubble” bursts. [Yahoo! Personal Finance]
* Free CLE, with an option for even more free CLE if you use Twitter. [Lawline]
* Is it good to have anonymous bloggers? Or should people be willing to sign their names to their opinions? [The Opinionator]
* If you look around New York State at the moment, you are almost forced to ask if Eliot Spitzer and his sexcapades were really that much of a problem. [Law and More]
* The Clerkship Notification Blog for 2010/2011 is back up and running. This is good news for all those that want to escape the ravages of Biglaw for a year. [Clerkship Notification Blog]
* Are you worried that the world is changing? Just think of how far we’ve already come. [Copyranter]
It has been a tough two weeks for employees at McDermott Will & Emery. First the firm cut the salaries of summer associates. Then MWE fired 72 people.
Today, word came down to all associates and non-attorney personnel that the firm is also cutting benefits. A firm-wide memo explained:
The Firm has evaluated its employee benefit plans and is making changes effective July 1, 2009.
We began our evaluation late last year in response to the deteriorating economy and the fact that changes to employee benefits plans were occurring throughout corporate America. After a thorough review by our benefits consultants, we were informed that our plans were above market and that specific changes, if implemented, would bring our plans more in line with the market.
Right. Who wants to pay an “above market” benefit package?
Remember, McDermott is the firm that canceled aspects of its coffee service. At the point where the firm is looking to save nickels and dimes on coffee, it shouldn’t be surprising that it has found a way to save some money on more important employee benefits.
A tipster reports that the top line changes to MWE’s benefit structure include an increase in some premiums and deductibles, as well as a reduction in the percentage of pharmaceutical costs that are covered by the firm’s health plan. Suddenly, the nationwide health care debate expected to take place in Congress this summer just became much more important to employees at McDermott.
In fairness, MWE isn’t the first firm to go down this path. Last month, Kirkland & Ellis made similar changes to its health care coverage for associates.
Read the full memo after the jump.
Continue reading “Reversed Perk Watch: McDermott Will & Emery Scales Back on Benefits”
Today we sat down with Gururaj Potnis, director of Manthan Legal, who was in New York to attend a legal conference. Manthan is an Indian company that describes itself as a “leader of offshore Legal Process Outsourcing.” According to Potnis, Manthan has roughly 280 lawyers — 140 senior attorneys, and 140 more junior colleagues who do paralegal-type work — and they stand ready to help law firms cut costs (and increase profits).
Potnis thinks a “tectonic shift” is taking place in the legal industry, and he believes his company is well-positioned to take advantage of the new market. According to him, he’s got law firm clients on his side: “For the first time, the large law firms are being asked by their customers: ‘Are you efficient?’” The market change that we are now seeing “is 99% being driven by customers.”
Manthan Legal is positioned differently from its Indian competitors in legal outsourcing. It works primarily for law firms rather than in-house counsel:
Right now, 90% of the [outsourcing] industry is being driven by corporate counsel [i.e., in-house lawyers]. At some point in time, they’ve been exposed to the concept of having to get the maximum amount of work from the minimum budget….
[I]n the short term, the corporate counsel will drive [the outsourcing trend]. But in the long term, the law firms will have to develop an alternate billing model.
And under these alternative billing models, outsourcing may have an important role to play.
What can outsourcing firms offer? Junior associates might not like it, but managing partners will have to start paying attention. More after the jump.
Continue reading “Outsourcing: What Indian Firms Have Planned for the Future of Biglaw”
The Village Voice had a great piece last week on the developing trial of Robert Simels, a New York attorney who has attracted a fair amount of fame from defending alleged mobsters and other assorted “kingpins.”
Legendary local attorney Robert Simels is only being punished for representing some of New York’s most unredeemable gangsters, say some in local legal circles. Kind of a what-goes-around-comes-around situation.
Simels not only lawyered for mafia turncoat Henry Hill (on whose life GoodFellas was based), but also some of the biggest Latino and black drug kingpins of the ’80s and ’90s. And now, Simels himself is in deep trouble. He’s been indicted for allegedly tampering with witnesses in a case revolving around a comparatively little-known Guyanese drug gangster, Shaheed “Roger” Khan.
There is talk that Simels has been hauled into court as a punishment for his unsavory client list. Coincidentally enough, his trial is taking place before U.S. District Judge John Gleeson — a former prosecutor who went after John Gotti.
So it should come as no surprise that Simels has turned to another legendary defender of clients with supposed mafia ties, Gerald Shargel:
Simels has hired Gerald Shargel, one of Gotti’s main lawyers and a guy who is, in fact, one of the most prominent mob lawyers in the city.
Nice.
But did you know that Shargel also doubles as a professor at Brooklyn Law School?
Details after the jump.
Continue reading “Brooklyn Law School: Where Else Can You Learn From a ‘MobFellas’ Attorney?”
Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.
It is spring, but the weather has turned cold again. My short-lived job is over; my short-lived relationship is over. One flat, grey day follows another. I am beginning to wonder whether my career is over, too.
A few days after Elisa cuts us loose, Olivia finally returns the phone call I made to ask her whether she had another assignment for me. “Roxanna, hiiii,” she coos breathily. She sounds surprised to find me at home.
“I guess the project ended early,” she says, her voice dripping with faux sympathy. “Soooorrry.” I wonder if she has practiced using this tone to comfort children who have failed to make the spelling bee finals. Or puppies, I think, half-expecting her next words to be, “who’s a good girl? You are! Yes, you are!” But she switches gears seamlessly, her voice brightening. “Well,” she chirps, “it’s probably nice to put your feet up after all that hard work, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I hear myself say flatly. “I worked like … a dog.”
“Then you definitely need a little break!” she effuses, sounding relieved. “Did you have a good experience, though? The people over at the Big Law firm are just great, aren’t they?”
I hold the phone out from my ear, wondering whether the caller I.D. will identify Olivia’s location as Bizarro World. In Bizarro World, “great” and “insufferable bitch” must be interchangeable terms. “It was really interesting,” I tell her, trying to sound upbeat. “In fact, I don’t even need a break. I’m ready to get right back on the horse!”
“Ohhh,” she says, as though I have asked her to lend me money. She tells me that she may have another “potential” project coming up, and has some “really interesting and exciting possible opportunities” for contract work. There is silence while, I assume, she pretends to look for exciting possible opportunities on her computer. For all I know she is scrolling through Craigslist or Law.com. I have an urge to ask her whether my friend, the troll, has found an exciting possible opportunity. Finally, I tell her to take her time looking and call me if anything comes up.
I need to do some errands, but the task of showering and getting dressed suddenly seems insurmountable. But why bother with proper attire when you have a long down coat? I think, and put it on over the ratty t-shirt and sweatpants I’m wearing. I glance at my disheveled hair in the mirror and decide that God made hats for many reasons (only one of which is cold weather), and that he probably also made Crocs for the members of his flock who are too unmotivated to look for their shoes. My outfit complete, I strike out.
Follow my adventures, after the jump.
Continue reading “Notes from the Breadline: Going Where There’s No Depression”
If you hire them, they will come.
The National Law Journal reports that applications for the Judge Advocate General’s Corps are way, way up:
The U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force report a surge in applicants for Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps jobs in recent years, according to recruiters and military attorneys.
That trend accelerated in 2008, and several branches report that they are on track to hit record numbers of applicants in 2009.
You’ve got to love it when the government is the employer of last resort:
It’s difficult to pinpoint the precise reason, but the recession certainly seems to be a factor. Major law firms have laid off thousands of attorneys in the past year, many recent law school graduates have been struggling to find employment and some solo practitioners are having a hard time keeping the lights on.
After the jump, how JAG’s offer of job security has led to a more competitive environment.
Continue reading “JAG (a.k.a. Recession-Proof Lawyers) Recruitment is Way Up”
This news has been percolating around for over a week, but Above the Law is now able to report that Pillsbury Winthrop has in fact cut associate salaries.
We don’t have the official memo, but multiple sources at the firm confirm that salaries have been cut 10% – 20% based on associate utilization rates. A tipster reports:
[T]he pay cut is between 10-20% depending on current hours. The memo gave associates ranges of hours and the paycut percentage if you fell in that range. The problem [is] that no one knows how much of their pro bono (which most associates have been turning to during slow times) will count as billable so many associates are unclear what their paycut will be. The Firm looked at hours from Jan through May to make its cuts.
Other tipster report that if your utilization rates were at 90% or higher — essentially, if you are close to hitting your target hours — you received no pay cut. So, to get hit with the 20% pay cut, you had to be particularly slow.
Of course, some people were particularly slow. More details after the jump.
Continue reading “Salary Cut Watch: Pillsbury Cuts Salaries Based on Utilization Rates”
In this weekend’s piece about the White & Case business model, the New York Times noted the law firm, cash-on-hand business model. Yesterday, Kash wrote:
Law firm dons partners generally get loans from banks at the beginning of the year to pay overhead — rent, associate salaries, etc. As the year goes on, they (hopefully) collect massive fees from clients, paying off the loans (and paying themselves out). Apparently, this is how your local ice cream truck driver — or maybe cupcake truck driver — operates his business as well.
Obviously, the model doesn’t work when banks aren’t willing to lend. But today Am Law reports that JPMorgan is poised to step up its law firm lending practice. The move could result in additional lines of credit open to law firms:
JPMorgan Chase is beefing up its profile in lending to the legal industry. The bank has hired the former head of Citigroup’s law firm group.
Lester Pataki, who led the legal industry specialty group in Citi’s private bank arm, is joining JPMorgan as the national practice leader and chairman of its law firm group, the bank announced Monday. JPMorgan says it hopes to capitalize on Pataki’s strategic skills to help it boost its presence in the area.
Isn’t JPMorgan one of the banks that is doing relatively okay? You can almost hear management committees all across the law firm landscape saying “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie.”
More details after the jump.
Continue reading “More Private Lenders Could Help Law Firms”
* It’s a good time to be a lawyer with game. [AmLaw Daily]
* Judicial reform advocates are doing happy dances in response to the SCOTUS ruling in Caperton v. Massey. Elected judges must step aside when faced with cases involving people who donated generously to help put them on the bench. [Washington Post]
* Baker & Hostetler is on the rise thanks to Bernie Madoff, or rather the hiring of the trustee for Madoff’s investment firm. [Wall Street Journal]
* Tony La Russa’s attorney learns a valuable lesson: You don’t have a deal until you have a deal in writing. News reports of a settlement in the St. Louis Cardinals coach’s suit against Twitter over a made-up profile may have been a bit premature. [The Recorder]
* A stripper’s pole is not like a chair in a hair salon. When it comes to wage-and-hour laws, a stripper is more like a waitress or a pizza delivery man than a hair stylist. Minnesota strippers are suing to be recognized as employees rather than independent contractors. [National Law Journal]
* Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries have crunch, but don’t have berries. A San Diego woman sued for fraud when she “discovered” this. California Judge Morrison England Jr. dismissed her suit letting her know that there is no such fruit as crunchberries “growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.” [USA Today]
Graduation usually marks a high point in our lives. Ceremonies celebrate graduates’ achievements and their bright futures. But this year, grads are faced with a rocky economy, a terrible job market, and predictions that things will stay this way for quite some time. A sign of the dire times: Harvard grads used their ceremony as a staging ground for a protest against layoffs.
New York Magazine conducted an unscientific survey of 2009 graduates to see what they think about the future. New York City may be ground zero for the fiscal meltdown, but NY Mag managed to find people who are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and hopeful about the future:
We were startled by the fact that, circumstances be damned, we found very little bitterness at all — caution, yes; worry too — but judging from the responses to our questions, this is a reflexively optimistic cadre of graduates, feeling, if anything, existentially freed up by this era of radical change. They’re nervous about the job market but figure it’ll sort itself out.
The survey included 200 students from 10 schools. Among the allegedly hopeful lot are a bunch of Fordham Law students, photographed above.
If your depression over the End of Biglaw is still weighing on you, read on. Maybe the delusional optimism of the 2009 grads is contagious. (Or read on if you’re curious to find out when the majority of those surveyed lost their virginity.)
Continue reading “Fordham Law Grads Share Their Hopes and Dreams with New York Mag”
* Zombie images attack the rights of publicity. And brains. [New Media & Technology Law Blog]
* Who is ready for a Marcus Epstein follow up? On Friday, Bay Buchanan indirectly accused me of leading a “modern day lynching” of Mr. Epstein. Allow me to respond. [True/Slant]
* Speaking of things Above the Law readers have been following, remember how the dossier Fordham law students compiled on Justice Scalia has been kept private? Well, Kash has some speculation on what was in there. [Washingtonian]
* Tony La Russa and Twitter have come to a settlement. Twitter will cover Tony’s legal fees, while La Russa will finally admit that he knew damn well that Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire were juicing and he just looked the other way because he wanted to win baseball games and be called a “great” manager. Okay, only one part of that is true. [WSJ Law Blog]
* I’m not surprised that a website has popped up to help students misdirect their professors. I’m surprised that students are willing to pay for something that smart kids have been doing for years. [Legal Writing Prof Blog]
* Some celebrities can’t wrap their mind around the concept of video evidence. [Popsquire]
* It’s World Oceans Day. I’m going to be glued to my television tonight, when the oceans of the world converge upon Washington, D.C. for an historic (and wet) protest against North America’s divisive policy of keeping oceans apart. [My Shingle via Blawg Review]
My thoughts on the proliferation of American law schools have been well documented. But let’s take a moment to look at the other side of the argument.
Thomas M. Cooley Law School — which already pumps out 12,000 degrees a year to swarm like locusts across the great state of Michigan — is opening a new law school campus. In Ann Arbor. Because, clearly the University of Michigan law school just isn’t serving all of the people in Ann Arbor that need a law degree. Last night, Cooley students were told the great news:
Tomorrow, Cooley will announce to the public that the American Bar Association granted acquiescence to open a new campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan this September. We will do so in the facility currently occupied by Ave Maria School of Law, which is leaving Michigan at the end of this month to begin operations in Naples, Florida this fall. We will be leasing the facility for three years with an option to purchase it, but will have no other relationship with Ave Maria. In essence, Cooley’s Ann Arbor branch campus replaces Ave Maria School of Law.
Sure, I know replacing one largely irrelevant law school with another sounds bad, but you’re just not seeing the full upside. Thanks to schools like Cooley, we are one step closer to the glorious world where every single educated person also holds a law degree.
And that is a world worth living in! After the jump, join in my grand vision for the future.
Continue reading “Great News! Cooley is Opening Another Law School Campus. Yay!”
If you read Above the Law last week, you’ll know that it’s an interesting time at WilmerHale. The firm is transitioning associates onto the street to other opportunities. It’s also dealing with former associates who left to clerk and now want back in.
But the firm isn’t unconcerned about the terror snaking through its associate ranks. In fact, they’ve hired a “Chief Legal Talent Officer.” According to the firm wide announcement:
I am pleased to announce that Brad Scott, our new Chief Legal Talent Officer, has started with the Firm. We are fortunate to have attracted an individual with Brad’s qualifications. The Chief Legal Talent Officer role will be responsible for all aspects of the attorney lifecycle including associate recruiting and onboarding, promotion and compensation processes, professional development, mentoring and career development and diversity programs throughout the Firm.
Associate onboarding? What about associate offloading? We know that at some firms the person that fills this position doubles as the physical manifestation of the Grim Reaper. But maybe that won’t be Mr. Scott’s fate. A tipster quips:
Clearly WH is doing well if it can hire even more layers of management.
More details after the jump.
Continue reading “WilmerHale Hires Operational Wisdom, From Heller Ehrman”
