You learn a few things when you survive a major outbreak of alleged racism before you even graduate from law school. One thing you learn is that you don’t have to step aside quietly when million-dollar judgments go against your client.
Last month, we reported that Jammie Thomas-Rasset — who is represented by K.A.D. Camara — was hit with a $1.92 million judgment for illegally downloading 24 songs. When we spoke to Camara about the verdict, he expressed his belief that the high penalty could be problematic for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA):
I think a verdict this high may backfire against the RIAA. It makes clear that there’s a problem with the statute. And there are many grounds for appeal in Jammie’s case.
The problem is that Jammie Thomas-Rasset has already been tried twice.
But that isn’t going to stop the law firm of Camara & Sibley. Threat Level reports that Camara has asked U.S. District Judge Michael Davis to set aside the $1.92 million verdict, declare the Copyright Act unconstitutional, or at least order a new jury trial to assess damages.
Put another way, we’ve gotten to the “kitchen sink” point of this litigation.
More details after the jump.
Continue reading “Kiwi Camara Fights the RIAA One More Time”
We’ve been extensively chronicling salary cuts for associates. One consistent firm rationale for cutting salaries is that firm clients are no longer willing to pay for junior associates. The consistent counter-argument is that clients don’t care what associates get paid, clients care about what clients are charged.
Unfortunately, there has been precious little information about what law firms are doing to reduce their billing rates. It seems that firms want to get the information out that they are cutting the salaries of their attorneys, but do not wish to discuss what they are charging their clients.
Today, Incisive Legal Intelligence released its 2009 Billing Rates and Practices Survey Report. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it. But here is the top-line summary from the press release:
The average hourly billing rate reported was $284. Nationally, plaintiffs’ contingency litigation is the practice area with the highest average hourly billing rate ($413), followed by labor/employment ($302), general law ($295) and real estate/land use ($294). The billing rate survey data represents a sample of more than 14,000 lawyers throughout the 50 United States, drawn from responses from 255 law firms.
More notes from the report, after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Firm Billing Rates”
The University of Illinois College of Law is embroiled in a scandal over admitting politically connected students under government pressure. But the school’s faculty is done taking it on the chin from the Chicago Tribune.
At the end of June, the Tribune posted emails from a former College of Law Dean, Heidi Hurd. The emails suggest that Hurd was trying to bargain for jobs for her graduates, in exchange for admitting underqualified students.
But last week, Hurd claimed she was just kidding. In an open letter to the Chicago Tribune, Hurd writes:
Contrary to recent headlines, the College of Law did not seek or receive any jobs from anyone in exchange for the admission of students. It did not enter into a “jobs-for-entry scheme” or engage in quid-pro-quo exchanges of admissions favors for employment favors. Indeed, it takes very little to make clear that the employment challenges of students who are not academically successful could never be overcome by anyone’s promises to furnish the College with job opportunities, as the recently published exchanges should have made clear. While my sarcasm was clearly lost on the tin ears of some, my e-mail exchanges in response to queries about this were on their face facetious.
You can go back and read the emails here. Is that sarcasm or quid-pro-quo?
But Hurd is not the only person writing open letters to the Chicago Tribune. There are 16 University of Illinois professors who are mad as hell, and are not going to take it anymore.
Details after the jump.
Continue reading “University of Illinois Faculty Strike Back”
* The mystery of Sotomayor & Associates. [New York Times]
* Florida Supreme Court rules that judicial appointment list need not be ‘colorful.’ Gov. Charlie Crist can’t reject a list of judges based on a lack of minority candidates. [Courthouse News Service]
* Tony La Russa swings and misses in his lawsuit against Twitter. [Legal Recorder]
* Michael Jackson’s mom must give up the keys to his estate. [Los Angeles Times]
* Ten percent of smart phone users are “Smartphoniacs.” We’re willing to bet that a good number of them are lawyers. [Wall Street Journal (subscription)]
Thanks to everyone who attended last week’s cocktail hour and panel discussion, Market Volatility & Your Finances. The well-attended event — held at the headquarters of AXA Advisors, in a spacious room with stunning views of Central Park (see above) — was informative and fun.
A special thanks to Larry Bahr and AXA Advisors for hosting the evening. If you’re looking for a financial advisor to help you navigate these challenging times, you should definitely drop Larry a line.
We’ll be doing more Above the Law events in the future. If you’re interested in possibly sponsoring an event, please contact our sales and marketing director, Elyse DiPierri, by email (subject line: “Event Sponsorship”).
Check out the pictures, after the jump.
Continue reading “ATL Party Pics: Market Volatility & Your Finances”
* The move to have a gentleman’s agreement against anonymous internet commenting seems to be gaining steam. Thoughts? We encourage people who want to share their opinions to use avatars of respected character actors or former NBA players. [What About Clients?]
* Senator John Cornyn is getting ready for the Sotomayor confirmation hearings next week. Who’s bringing the popcorn? [U.S. Senator John Cornyn]
* Is Richard Posner right that news aggregation websites such as the Huffington Post siphon traffic from mainstream media sources? One blogger looks at just how much traffic the Huffington Post is able to throw around. [Bloggasm]
* I was on Fox Business today, talking about the University of Miami law school deferral program — and suggesting that prospective Minnesota law students should get slapped in the head. Luckily, my own head did not roll off of my body. [Fox Business]
* Westlaw cares about the environment. [Legal Writing Prof Blog]
* A Courtoon caption contest. I’ll bite. The picture looks like a laid off lawyer offering up his first-born child in order to pay off his law school debts. You know, something that is entirely reasonable given the economy. [Courtoons]
* Apparently, Janet from Three’s Company wants to drive as clumsily as Jack Tripper. [Popsquire]
Academic freedom is a beautiful thing, essential to our nation’s celebrated system of higher education. And, to borrow the words of Dick Cheney on gay marriage, “freedom means freedom for everyone” — including people whose ideas we might not like, or even find repugnant.
How far should academic freedom extend? That’s an issue being faced right now at NYU Law School. The following message went out to the law student community last week:
Dear Student,
We are writing on behalf of OUTLaw, NYU Law’s LGBT student group, to raise awareness of anti-gay statements made by a NYU visiting professor. Dr. Li-ann Thio, a professor at the National University of Singapore, will be teaching Human Rights Law in Asia during the Fall 2009 semester as a Global Visiting Professor of Law at NYU.
In 2007, the Singaporean Parliament was considering repealing 377A – the statute criminalizing consensual sex between men in Singapore. Dr. Thio, a Nominated Member of Parliament, gave a speech before Parliament arguing against the repeal. In her speech supporting the continued criminalization of “acts of gross indecency” between two males, she made such statements as, “You cannot make a human wrong a human right,” “Diversity is not a license for perversity,” and that anal sex is like “shoving a straw up your nose to drink” (http://theonlinecitizen.com/2007/10/377a-serves-public-morality-nmp-thio-li-ann). The efforts to repeal 377A failed, and consensual sex between men is still illegal in Singapore.
While respecting Dr. Thio’s right to her opinion and without questioning her teaching abilities, OUTLaw believes it is important for LGBT students and allies to be aware of her views in order to make fully informed decisions regarding class registration. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the OUTLaw Board at nyu.outlaw@gmail.com.
The NYU OUTLaw Board
Links to videos of her speech to the Parliament: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWqp3mLz4ko (part 1), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUDYo29gNNg (part 2), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPIdp0qXZy4 (part 3)”
The videos are worth checking out (especially if you’re a high school debater wanting to relive your glory days). Dr. Thio speaks persuasively and with conviction, supporting her argument against gay sex with an impressively broad range of sources, from the Bible to Immanuel Kant to contemporary bloggers. One would expect nothing less from someone with her dazzling educational pedigree: a BA from Oxford, an LLM from Harvard Law School, and a PhD from Cambridge. Don’t call her Dr. TTThio!
Additional discussion, plus a reader poll, after the jump.
Continue reading “NYU Professor of Human Rights: Not a Fan of Gay Rights?
Also: Is anal sex like ‘shoving a straw up your nose to drink’?“
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) has an article that doesn’t go so far as to proclaim the end of Biglaw, but does speak to the rise of midsize firms. The less-than-200-attorney firms are getting a little recession boom as clients seek out lower rates:
A survey of 550 large companies by BTI Consulting Group found that 38% of the law firms they hired last year came from below the nation’s top 200 in terms of revenue, which generally means small and midsize firms. That was up from 25% in 2007.
Florida company AutoNation is one of the clients that has switched from Biglaw to Midlaw for its legal work, and shaved its bill by a quarter. Its new firm, Angelo & Banta, charges $200 to $495 an hour for work done by senior partners, according to its managing partner.
So how can Biglaw firms hold on to their clients?
General counsel and consultants say that to keep valuable clients, big firms have been more receptive to charging flat fees, removing some uncertainty for clients who otherwise would be billed by the hour. And when large firms do charge hourly rates, they often are doing so at a discount.
The good news is that midsize firms are hiring. The bad news is that those jobs come with midsized paychecks.
Midsize Law Firms Pick Up Clients as Companies Turn From Pricey Giants [Wall Street Journal]
Welcome to July, a month of transitions at the U.S. Supreme Court. The law clerks for October Term 2009 will be starting up at One First Street this month. The OT 2008 clerks are riding off into the sunset — and six-figure signing bonuses. [FN1]
So OT 2009 clerk hiring is pretty much done — to check out the incoming class of the Elect, see here — with one notable exception: Sonia Sotomayor. If you have information about what Judge Sotomayor plans to do on the clerk hiring front if and when she becomes Justice Sotomayor, please email us (subject line: “Sotomayor Clerk Situation”). We understand that at least some of her 2009-2010 Second Circuit clerks have already started with her; what will happen to them if and when she gets confirmed to the high court?
With OT 2009 behind them, the justices are turning their attention to October Term 2010. And so are we.
Check out the list of OT 2010 hires, after the jump.
[FN1] On the subject of SCOTUS clerk bonuses, reports of the demise of the $250,000 signing bonus may be greatly exaggerated. We hear through the grapevine that some New York offices are offering $250K signing bonuses to outgoing Supreme Court clerks. But it does appear to be the case that the $250K bonus is less common this year than last year, especially in D.C.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: A Look at OT 2010″
Things could be better over at Cahill Gordon. In May, the American Lawyer noted Cahill’s fall from the Am Law 100, the nation’s 100 largest law firms by revenue. Until its recent tumble, Cahill had been on the list for 24 consecutive years.
Back in January, we reported that Cahill Gordon laid off approximately 10 percent of its associates. At the time, we mentioned that first- and second-year associates were spared from the winter cuts.
Well, it appears that the wheel has come around. Multiple independent sources report that Cahill laid off a number of associates last week. Our sources report that junior attorneys were the focus of this round of cuts:
It seems without warning many 2nd years were let go [last Wednesday].
Another tipster reports:
Second years out the door [last week]. I guess the January reprieve was just temporary.
At least second years received some extra pay. The firm did not respond to our request for comment, but we understand that laid-off associates did get a severance package.
And the sacrifice of Cahill second years could preserve the salaries for all of the remaining Cahill associates. More details, plus a reader poll, after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Cahill Gordon, Round 2″
Bingham McCutchen has found a way to expand during the recession. Just weeks after losing 11 lawyers (5 partners and 6 associates) to Morgan Lewis, Bingham McCutchen has acquired McKee Nelson. The American Lawyer reports:
After enduring a rough few years caused by the collapse of the structured finance market, the elite specialty firm of McKee Nelson has agreed to be acquired by the larger Bingham McCutchen.
Partners at both firms were informed Monday morning of the merger, which is scheduled to take effect August 1. The combined firm will be called Bingham McCutchen, and will include all of McKee Nelson’s lawyers.
No word on whether the McKee attorneys have the CHARACTER to become Bingham attorneys. But the merger looks good on paper:
McKee Nelson, which is known as one of the pre-eminent firms for tax planning and tax litigation, was viewed by Bingham as an attractive addition. “It’s really rare to find a firm that is this size that has three market-leading practices,” says Bingham chairman Jay Zimmerman, referring to McKee’s expertise in tax, financial institution litigation, and capital markets-structured finance. Structured finance might be moribund now, but Zimmerman sees it as an area worth investing in. “It will be part of our longterm strategy for serving the financial institution industry.”
How does this work on the McKee side of the ledger? We check in after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Firm Merger Mania: Bingham McCutchen Acquires McKee Nelson”
If the class of 2009 is like the main cast on Lost, then the class of 2010 is starting to look like the Tailies. Ropes & Gray has decided to defer its current summer class until “Sometime, 2011.”
Here is the firm-wide memo that all Ropes & Gray associates received last week:
As we recently communicated to summer associates, we will be making offers to them according to the usual standards and in the same numbers as in the past. We have not set a definite start date for them, but it will be no earlier than January 2011. We are encouraging current summer associates to consider pursuing a clerkship or NAP fellowship.
Just like Cravath Skadden, Ropes is promising that its summer offer rate will be commensurate with past years. However, just like Cravath Skadden, Ropes makes no mention of any kind of incoming first-year deferral stipend that it intends to offer to the class of 2010.
UPDATE: We now know what kind of stipend Ropes will be giving to the class of 2010. See here.
In March, Ropes announced its New Alternatives plan, which deferred the class of 2009 to January 2010. Now the firm is encouraging its current summers (class of 2010) to seek a public interest fellowship between law school graduation and the new start date at the firm.
At least current Ropes summer associates should come out of this summer with offers in hand. There are a lot of Biglaw summers that would sign up for that, regardless of when they can actually start after graduation.
Read the full Ropes & Gray memo, after the jump.
Continue reading “Ropes & Gray: Defers Current Summers to 2011″
[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.]
We’re not doing This Week in Layoffs this week, as it was a triple witching day – end of week, end of month and end of quarter (not to mention holiday weekend). Instead, we’ve put together an extensive mid-year review of law-firm layoffs so far.
All told, 125 major law firms have announced or had confirmed layoffs. The combined total is 10,723 people, 4,015 of which are attorneys and the balance, 6,708, are staff.
After the jump, we go into excruciating detail, complete with charts.
Continue reading “This Week in Layoffs: Mid-Year Layoff Review”
* Legal bills to blame for Sarah Palin’s exiting the Alaskan gubernatorial stage. [New York Times]
* Appellate lawyer Gregory Coleman had two dates with the SCOTUS justices in eight days. [Austin American-Statesman]
* The U.S. Treasury will soon have a Department of Automobiles. [Washington Post]
* Cass Sunstein has his fingers in White House policy and his eye on SCOTUS. [Wall Street Journal]
* Given the choice, would you rent the books for your IP class rather than buy them? [New York Times]
* Wachtell remains. (On top of the M&A list.) [Bloomberg]
Governor Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, announced today that she is resigning as governor of Alaska on July 25.
“We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities,” said Palin. Check out her full statement here (PDF).
Palin may not be a lawyer, but she’s definitely a client. She owes more than $500,000 to the Alaska law firm of Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness, which has defended her against various ethics complaints. Paying off her debt shouldn’t be a problem, thanks to the (surely lucrative) book deal negotiated for her by Williams & Connolly super-agent Robert Barnett (who spoke to ATL last September, when his firm hired appellate superstar Kannon Shanmugam).
We wish Governor Palin the best of luck in her future endeavors. Hopefully she will remain on the national stage for years to come.
Update: According to the New York Times, legal bills played a significant role in Palin’s decision to step down.
Palin to Resign as Alaska Governor on July 25 [Washington Post]
Palin to Resign as Governor of Alaska [The Caucus / New York Times]
With the Fourth of July falling on a Saturday this year, it pains us to contemplate all the tacky red-white-and-blue themed weddings that will be taking place tomorrow in VFW halls across this great nation. Please, people: A little bunting goes a long way. And it should never go on the bridesmaids.
But we’ll tackle the Independence Day weddings next week. Today, we’ve got the last batch of June weddings. Here are the finalists:
1. Heidi Lee and Steven Hwang
2. Ahsaki Benion and Richard Habersham II
3. Kristin Campbell and Robert Samuelson
Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 6.28: That Was Easy”
ATL will be on a reduced publication schedule today, in observance of Independence Day. Most of you are out of the office, and we are too.
But not everyone has the day off. From one tipster:
While the rest of downtown Chicago is dead, away on vacation or taking the day off, Katten employees are hard at work today. The office demeanor is less than pleasant. Just another way for Katten to thank their hard working employees. Maybe we shouldn’t complain since those of us that work there still have jobs. Happy 4th of July!
Are you in the office today? Feel free to complain, in the comments.
If not, enjoy the three-day weekend. We’ll see you on Monday.
It appears that Mark A. Sargent’s abrupt resignation as dean of Villanova Law had nothing to do with the Peanut Girl controversy, or his more recent email faux pas.
It’s more likely that it had to do with an Eliot Spitzer problem: patronizing prostitutes. But at least the public-minded dean helped the police crack a local prostitution ring!
Ex-dean helped police, report says [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Earlier: Farewell, Dean Sargent: ‘Peanut Girl’ dean resigns at Villanova.
* Is the Urban Dictionary Above the Law? Not in America, baby! [True/Slant]
* How much of your taxpayer dollars goes to fund lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office? Not much. Relatively speaking, not much at all. [The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times]
* What kind of 4th of July parties is your firm sponsoring this year? [Legal Toast]
* Here are the 100 best blogs for those who want to change the world. [Best Universities]
* Now the DEA is involved in Michael Jackson’s death. What do you think you will hear more of this weekend, The Star Spangled Banner or Billy Jean? [Popsquire]
* Lori Drew has something extra to celebrate this weekend. [WSJ Law Blog]
