Now that aspiring lawyers have taken the bar exam, they can relax and try to forget about it until the fall, when results come in. One way of relieving stress is “the bar trip”: a post-bar exam vacation to an exotic locale, for sun, surf, or snow, depending on one’s travel preferences.
The bar trip — the last hurrah before immersion into the grim realities of law firm life — is a tradition among law grads. But we’re hearing that the recession may be interfering with the tradition this year. With Biglaw start dates pushed back, and talk of lower salaries running rampant, law grads may be feeling less celebratory this year.
Purely anecdotally, law grads have told us that they’re scaling back. They’re not going on extravagant bar trips, and in some cases, not going on bar trips at all.
Are we only friends with fiscally conservative types, or is this actually a trend this year? Are you thinking of a “staycation,” or are you still planning a trip around the world?
If you’re traveling, please tell us where you’re heading and for how long. If you are heading out of the country, we hope you’ll be sure to spend some time in internet cafes checking out the latest ATL news.
Earlier: Post-Bar Travel: Open Thread
Archive for August 2009
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Posted in:
Crime, Gender, Hair, Lawsuit of the Day
Update: Hair Salon Extortionist’s Conviction Upheld
By David Lat
Back in March 2008, we named Daniel Hynes our Lawyer of the Day. Hynes was convicted of theft by extortion after trying to shake down at least 19 New Hampshire hair salons by accusing them of gender and age discrimination (in the form of pricing haircuts differently for men, women, and children).
Now, a quick update, from the ABA Journal:
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has upheld the extortion conviction of a lawyer who threatened to sue a Concord hair salon for charging women more money for haircuts than men or children.
Daniel Hynes is identified as a Manchester lawyer and a 2006 graduate of the Western New England College School of Law in a story published by the Concord Monitor in March last year. A jury convicted him of theft by extortion after deliberating for only 1 ½ hours.
One and a half hours? Ouch. And Hynes didn’t fare better on appeal.
Continue reading “Update: Hair Salon Extortionist’s Conviction Upheld”
* An Illinois judge sentenced Clifton Williams to six months in prison for yawning. Good thing Williams didn’t set off a yawn waterfall. [Chicago Tribune]
* Second Circuit reverses Judge Jed Rakoff’s decision to grant New York Times access to the Emperor’s Club wiretaps. Further embarrassment of Eliot Spitzer is not sufficient “good cause.” Here’s the decision. [Courthouse News Service]
* Layoff litigation for Linklaters? [Legal Week]
* Where the work is: practice areas that are still booming. [ABA Journal]
* Lawsuits say smartphones force hourly employees to work off the clock. [Wall Street Journal (subscription)]
* Hot recession trend: Pro se. [Los Angeles Times]
Who is the publicist for Alberto Gonzales? Shouldn’t this person have warned the former attorney general about the perils of being interviewed by Deborah Solomon, the snarky, cranky, exceedingly direct interviewer for the New York Times Magazine? She’s not known for tossing softballs at her subjects.
To his credit, Gonzales didn’t shy away from the challenge. Read about the interview from yesterday’s Times, after the jump.
Well, it’s my five-year wedding anniversary (yesterday). You know what that means. I’m responsible for a lot of wood.
In a desperate attempt to convince my wife to hang around for a sixth year, I’m taking the week off. Yeah, the whole week. It’s pretty cool to not be working at a law firm anymore. But it’ll be a “stay-cation,” because I don’t work at a law firm anymore. I hear the Yo-Yo Open is in the city this weekend.
I leave you in the always capable of hands of Mr. David Lat. Next week should be a lot of fun on Above the Law. New Vault rankings are coming out and either there will be a significant shake-up in the rankings or some people are going to lose there their ever-lovin’ minds.
Don’t forget to send your tips into tips@abovethelaw.com. Have fun, I’ll catch you on August 17th.
It’s official. Earlier today, everyone’s favorite Wise Latina was sworn in as the nation’s 111th Supreme Court justice.
Justice Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the SCOTUS. Justice Ginsburg once again has company for her trips to the ladies’ room at One First Street. Justice Scalia now has competition for being the most aggressive questioner on the high court bench.
Does anyone know what Justice Sotomayor has done — or is planning to do — on the law clerk front? If you know, please email us (subject line: “Sotomayor clerks”). ¡Gracias!
Sotomayor Sworn In as Supreme Court Justice [New York Times]
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Sonia Sotomayor
Yesterday some of you sat for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). It seems to us that there’s not much to say about the test, but several readers have requested coverage. Like this one:
I walked out of the exam with little confidence. Maybe you can provide an open forum for people to express their thoughts on the test, or for past takers to provide insight on scoring / how many people they know that failed.
Well that’s cheery, isn’t it? Here is the requested open thread. Please do not reprint entire questions from the test in the comments.
Another MPRE taker’s tale — from the great state of Iowa, where people actually seem optimistic about the state of the legal job market — after the jump.
Continue reading “So What Did You Think of the MPRE? Open Thread”
[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.]
Come on, now! Last week, we made it all the way until Thursday afternoon before word came out that Alabama’s Bradley Arant was keeping the "weeks with a layoff" streak alive.
This week, it’s even more poignant because the end of the run was so close. This time it was yet another southeast regional firm raining on everyone’s parade. Florida’s Akerman Senterfitt has just confirmed that it laid off five of its 150 associates. At 2:30 on a Friday afternoon. Surely it can’t get any closer than that.
We soldier on.
Broader economic data are particularly interesting this week, as there are completely mixed messages coming out. There will be reports that unemployment has declined, and President Obama is excited, saying that the "worst may be behind us."
To the surprise of many, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% when most were expecting a small increase. Basically, there was still a net loss of jobs in July, albeit smaller than predicted and smaller than June, so how did the unemployment rate drop?
We address that burning question, plus the week’s events in law-firm layoffs and other activities, after the jump.
* Trial lawyers take their mischief abroad, as plainttifs “seek jackpot justice in the global litigation lottery.” [Latin Business Chronicle]
* Next time opposing counsel asks for your consent to an extension, just say no. [What About Clients?]
* Which one of your favorite professional athletes will be thrown behind bars this year? Check out the odds. [Miss Trials]
* “Amazon’s recent deletion of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from its customers’ Kindle e-book readers has sparked a class action lawsuit by Kindle users.” [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
* Does Florida’s attempt to outlaw the display of gang symbols on the internet violate the First Amendment? [Underdog]
* Not everyone can be Goldman Sachs. Bonuses at the Big Four accounting firms could end up down 90 percent this year. [Going Concern]
* Google Voice is your friend. [Young Lawyers Blog]
California attorney Patrick Manshardt has the worst luck — or the worst enemies — ever. He has been representing a number of Chinese dissidents in a suit against Yahoo! for disclosing their information to the Chinese government.
The Whittier Law School grad has been involved in constitutional and civil rights litigation for the past 14 years. In February, he was given a 60-day suspension by the California Supreme Court for making an emergency appearance in the Yahoo! case while being on inactive status.
Why was he on inactive status? Because he hadn’t fulfilled his CLE credits. Why hadn’t he fulfilled his CLE credits? Well, that’s where this story becomes really f*&#ed up:
The reason why I did not complete my MCLE requirement was because on the day I was scheduled to take the classes in January 2007, I had been the victim of a home invasion robbery in Arcadia the night before. During the robbery I was stabbed in
the face, beaten repeatedly in the face and knee caps, and was left naked and unconscious in a ditch in pre-dawn hours. I awoke as I was being placed in an ambulance.
An ATL reader sent along Manshardt’s “Declaration in Response to Yahoo! Inc.’s Case Management Statement,” filed in the Northern District of California last month, noting:
“This guy has prooooooblems, probably the least of which is CLE credit. But it’s always the CLE which gets you in the end.”
His problems worsen, after the jump.
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Posted in:
Columbia Law School, Goodwin Procter, Harvard Law School, Mayer Brown, University of Chicago Law School, Wachtell Lipton, Weddings
Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 8.2: Turkish Delight
By Laurie Lin
How young is too young to get married? Or more to the point, how young is too young to appear in the NYT weddings pages and not look foolhardy or vaguely scandalous? We ask because these newlyweds, ages 22 and 24, strike us as shockingly young. (And it’s definitely not a shotgun wedding — click on the link and you’ll see why.)
At any rate, this week’s featured newlyweds are all older than 22, so it’s a moot point. (If you want to ponder the trends in MAFM [median age at first marriage], here’s more.) Our finalists:
1. Caroline Nyenke and LaRue Robinson
2. Elianna Marziani and James Nuzum
3. Zehra Dincer and Matthew Mazur
Click on the link below for the scoop on these newlyweds.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 8.2: Turkish Delight”
Some of you have been asking for layoff news. Be careful for what you wish for; you might just get it.
There’s not a lot going on these days in terms of lawyer layoffs. The rate of job loss in the broader economy is slowing, and perhaps the legal economy is getting better too.
But we do have a small amount of layoff news to report. In response to ATL inquiries, a spokesperson for the Florida-based firm of Akerman Senterfitt stated that it laid off five associates (out of more than 150 associates at the firm). We heard that first-year associates were affected; the firm confirmed that two out of the five were first-years.
If there’s layoff news at your firm that we’ve missed, please email us. Thanks.
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Posted in:
Cellphones, Lawsuit of the Day, Sex
Lawsuit of the Day: Involuntary Poster Child for ‘Sexting’ Sues Hearst
By David LatHow would you like to be the unofficial mascot for that dubious practice known as “sexting”? From ATL associate editor Kashmir Hill, writing over at True/Slant:
Earlier this year, the media went crazy over “sexting.” It has all the elements of a great, salacious, audience-attracting story: flirtation, cell phones, nude photos, and oftentimes, teens….
One of the stations which ran a series of these stories is WLWT in Cincinnati, Ohio. The station repeatedly used a photo of a cell phone with a text to Joanna Argus saying “Hey baby, I got what you want.”
Joanna Argus, an Ohio woman in her late twenties who works as a fundraising consultant, found out about this for the first time when one of her clients called to ask about it. She was shocked, confused, and worried about who else would see it. She complained to the station, and the station’s manager promised it would not happen again. But it did happen again: at least six times over nine months, and was also used as the image for a presentation to a group of high schoolers on the dangers of sexting.
Oy. Argus is now suing the Hearst Corporation, the media conglomerate which owns the television station, for invasion of privacy, defamation, emotional distress, and negligence. (Recent bar exam candidates: feel free to break it down, in the comments.)
We’ll do our part to undo the reputational damage. If you happen to come across her name or photo, or if you meet her in person, please know that poor Joanna Argus has nothing to do with “sexting.”
A reputation nightmare: Becoming the ‘sexting’ mascot [True/Slant]
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Posted in:
Law Schools, Transfer Students
Open Thread: How do transfer students fare in on-campus interviewing?
By David Lat
Last month’s open thread on transfer students proved very popular. It generated surprisingly substantive commentary, full of helpful advice (and the usual law student status anxiety).
Since then, we’ve received several requests for more coverage of this constituency. So we thought we’d revisit the subject of transfer students and transfer applications.
With on-campus interviewing (OCI) fast approaching, it’s a timely topic. A transfer-student tipster tells us:
The beginning to middle of August would be a good time [to talk about transfer applications]. Transfer applicants are either going to find out soon or will just have, so stress will be high for them. OCI bids will either have just gone in or will be going in, so the “legitimate” students (my name for kids that do well on the LSAT) will chime in with frustration and hatred towards transfers.
C’mon, guys — don’t hate, appreciate!
Do the “legitimate” students hate transfers out of fear? Let’s explore this theory.
Continue reading “Open Thread: How do transfer students fare in on-campus interviewing?”
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Posted in:
Advertising, Job Searches, Job of the Week, Sponsored Content, This Is an Ad
Job of the Week: California dreaming? A job for a corporate attorney.
By Above the Law
The California economy is deeply troubled right now. But some firms out there are doing fine, thank you very much (and not just Jones Day). One leading firm is even hiring on the transactional side — yes, you heard that right — for its L.A. office.
Check out the latest Job of the Week, brought to you by our friends over at Lateral Link. They have secured over two dozen attorneys interviews in the last couple of weeks (in New York, Los Angeles, Orange County, Dallas, Silicon Valley, even Oregon and North Carolina).
Position: M&A Associate
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Description: Prominent national firm looking for an attorney with 3 to 5 years of corporate/M&A experience. Do we need to say more? Polish up your resumes and make them sparkle, because they want all-stars for this spot — top law school, top firm experience, and a strong work ethic.
For more information on this position or to apply, please see position #5201 on Lateral Link. Membership in Lateral Link is free and you can apply at www.laterallink.com.
Earlier: Prior Job of the Week listings
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Posted in:
Associate Advice, Job Searches, Layoffs, pls hndle thx
Pls Hndle Thx: Full Catastrophe Living
By MarinEd. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.
ATL,
I’m a first year at a BigLaw firm. From the looks of things, I’m not going to make my minimum billable hours this year by a significant margin (>200 hours). It’s not for lack of trying; there’s just not enough work, and any work available is being hoarded.
My last performance review happened before the work drought, and it was excellent. My next performance review won’t happen for a few months. Assuming it is hopeless to bill more hours, (1) what will happen to me, (2) when will it happen, and (3) what should I do? Should I start looking for another job immediately? Should I bum around and wait until my performance review? Will I be fired or laid off with severance?
Celestine Prophecy
Dear Celestine Prophecy,
I don’t know what will happen to you, and your firm may not either, at this point. If your firm is a jerk hat, they’ll fire you for “performance,” following which you’ll tip off ATL, the firm will not respond to media inquiries, and we’ll write a story about stealth layoffs. If your firm is nice, they’ll either pardon your low hours or lay you off with some severance and send a duly mournful “personnel adjustment” announcement to ATL that reads like an obituary. Is your firm a good witch or a bad witch? You would know best.
Starting to look for jobs now definitely seems like a terrific and worthwhile endeavor. While you’re at it, keep your eyes peeled for Curly’s Gold and pieces of the True Cross.
To address your most fundamental “what should I do?” question, there’s not much you can do at this point to affect whatever fate has in store for you. Everyone deals with feelings of despair and helplessness differently, but I recommend Full Catastrophe Living, Peter Cetera, Nordic Naturals Fish Oil with Lemon and loitering at Bath & Body Works to smell the new soap flavors.
Keep a stiff upper lip, as my dad would say. Layoffs have been slowing down for a while now. I think you’ll be ok.
Your friend,
Marin
After the jump, something really strange happens. And not in a good way.
A U.S. House member wants Bank of America to turn over extensive documentation relating to its Merrill Lynch deal (with a focus on lossess and loss projections at Merrill). We wonder which law firm is representing B of A in this matter — there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned congressional investigation to get the billable-hour engines revving.
Read more and discuss over at Dealbreaker.
In A Surprising Twist, Lawmakers Focus On The BAC/ML Merger [Dealbreaker]
Yesterday we wrote about Gina Rubel’s suggestion in the Legal Intelligencer that law firms namechecking multiple founding partners drop a few for shorter, easier, and more memorable names. ATL readers who voted in our poll were split down the middle on whether bigger is better. Over 800 votes were cast: 52% said they like a short firm… name and 48% said they prefer it long.
A Davis Polk & Wardwell spokesperson ATL commenter pointed out that the firm recently trimmed its name (in connection with its hottie-friendly website revamp):
DavisPolk has just changed its name for marketing purposes and has dropped Wardwell out – mention of DPW should have been made in this article. I am disappointed.
In yesterday’s post, we took the shortening advice a step further and suggested firms cut their names down to a couple of syllables, like Morrison & Foerster’s embracing the name MoFo. We recommended a few other (humorous) possibilities: ClearGo, SuCro, CoBu, WilCo, etc. As sometimes happens usual, ATL readers impressed us and made us chuckle with some of their responses. We’ve culled the over 100 comments for the best suggestions; here are our top ten favorites:
10. Haynes & Boone = HayBoo
9. Fulbright & Jaworski = FulJaw
8. Sullivan & Cromwell should change its name to “Sully”. It would make it sound more “heroic”.
7. King & Spalding = KingS
6. Willkie Farr & Gallagher = WILF
* Class action wants cancer warning on hot dogs. [Courthouse News Service]
* Sonia Sotomayor, confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Senate yesterday, will be sworn in on Saturday at SCOTUS rather than at the White House. [National Law Journal]
* “If even a famous lawyer gets arrested, what can we ordinary little people do?” [Los Angeles Times]
* Brown stains on your teeth may just mean that your mouthwash is working. A Michigan lawyer suing Procter & Gamble says he wanted fresh breath without the stains. [Associated Press]
* Traffic laws must be upheld, even if you’re breastfeeding. [City Room/New York Times]
* Another skirmish in the DOJ’s war on online gambling. A Canadian man is indicted for laundering as much as $565 million in gambling payments through phony companies. [Threat Level/Wired]
The latest edition of the highly influential Vault law firm rankings will be coming out any day now. Participating firms have been notified in advance of how they fared this year — and some of them are already tooting their own horns.
For example, Ropes & Gray sent around an internal email touting its being named Vault’s #1 Best Firm to Work For. Congratulations, Ropes!
Congratulations are also in order for Bingham McCutchen. From the firm’s press release:
Bingham’s ranking jumped significantly in diversity and overall scores in the 2010 Vault ratings, the firm’s best year to date.
In the overall Best Firms to Work For category, Bingham broke into the Top 10 at No. 6 in the 2010 rankings…. In the 2010 Prestige category, which ranks firms based on the evaluations of associates from other law firms, Bingham rose seven slots to No. 56.
Bingham’s rank also rose in every category related to diversity in the 2010 Vault rankings. The firm placed in the Top 20 in the Diversity Women category at No. 15. It also rose from No. 16 to No. 11 in the Diversity Gay & Lesbian category, and climbed from No. 16 to No. 12 in the Overall Diversity category.
Do you know how your firm fared in the soon-to-be-released Vault rankings? Do you have an opinion on how it should have done?
Feel free to discuss, in the comments. Of course, when the new Vault rankings are officially released, we will bring you more coverage. Thanks.
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Posted in:
Advertising, Shameless Plugs, Sponsored Content, This Is an Ad
The BarMax Manifesto: “We Are Not Sheep”
By Above the Law
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
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Posted in:
Advertising, Asia Chronicles, Shameless Plugs, Sponsored Content, This Is an Ad
The Asia Chronicles: In-House Openings at Hedge Funds In Hong Kong / State Of The Market / 7 New Kinney ’12 US Associate Placements In HK / China
By Kinney Recruiting
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.comHappy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
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Posted in:
Careers
