As we get back to the Vault rankings, we encounter more firms that have engaged in stealth layoffs. And a firm that conducts mass transit layoffs. To refresh your memory, here’s the next group: 61. Cooley Godward 62. Pillsbury 63. Sonnenschein 64. Cahill 65. Holland & Knight 66. K&L Gates 67. Nixon Peabody 68. Foley […]
Today is the back to school day, at least in NYC. Normally, we at Above the Law notice the event passively due to the increased proliferation of children on the mass transit system. But a reader brought the day to our attention in a more specific way: Today was the first day of school in […]
Legal work isn’t slowing down, and the firms that win won’t be the ones working harder — they’ll be the ones working smarter.
An ATL reader sent along a link to an attorney profile at the Texas State Bar website, with the following request: Please find out if this is for real. The photo on the State Bar of Texas website that prompted the reader’s plea to us, plus the backstory behind the picture — after the jump.
* Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor officially took her seat at One First Street yesterday. [Caucus Blog/New York Times] * Jennifer Lopez is not Sotomayor’s only music industry friend. Ricky Martin was among the attendees at the ceremony yesterday. [Washington Post] * Maybe you can start billing that Facebook time. [Bloomberg] * Could GPS bracelets […]
By day, Jarriette Richie was a legal secretary. By night, she was one of the small business entrepreneurs who are so important to the vitality of the American economy. Not only that, Richie’s business provided services to a critically underserved community. Richie was the proprietor of Show ‘N Tell Entertainment — which arranged erotic male […]
Results from the August 2009 sitting of the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) are out, and people are talking. In addition to posting comments, candidates have emailed us about the news. For example: Just wanted to be the first to inform ATL that August 2009 MPRE scores are now available for download (at least mine […]
Law firms and legal departments are writing the future of the profession in separate rooms. What happens when they actually work together?
* David Lat is officially a Legal Rebel. [ABA Journal] * Help Dahlia Lithwick write her book! [Slate] * Yale Law School is asking Obama to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Or maybe they are telling him to do it? It doesn’t matter does it? He’s not listening. [Transracial] * Some people think that the […]
This is a blind item, since we don’t know the identity of the attorney. Yesterday, this unknown attorney sent an employee a text message. It wasn’t to wish the employee a happy Labor Day. From Reddit: “Sexting” was the latest hot cell phone trend. Maybe the new trend will be “diSMSing.” Dear Reddit. It is […]
A couple of weeks ago, I asked if the mainstream media was aware of the existence of Biglaw lawyers. They’re still not, but the New York Attorney General is. Dealbook reports: Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo fired another shot at Bank of America on Tuesday, asking the bank to allow its lawyers to be questioned. […]
It already looks like September will be a month rife with layoffs. But before we bunker down for a bumpy fall, let’s take one last look at the end of a peaceful summer. Law Shucks has done his monthly round-up of an August that was mild on the layoff front: The month set records (in […]
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Hampton Behavioral Health Center is a mental health clinic in New Jersey. Its website makes the place seem quite tranquil: lots of pastels and photos of clouds. A safe place. The tranquility was disrupted on Christmas Eve 2007 when a masked gunman burst into the clinic’s pharmacy, reports Courthouse News Service. The gunman told pharmacy […]
UCLA School of Law will lose its dean at the end of the year. Dean Michael Schill will leave the law school at the end of the year to assume the deanship of the University of Chicago Law School. Dean Schill just informed his students over email: Dear Members of the Classes of 2010, 2011, […]
Today is the start of performance review season for associates at Fulbright & Jaworski. As you well know, performance reviews are now very important. We’ve noticed that firms which are miraculously unaffected by the economic recession coincidentally have the toughest performance reviews. We don’t know if this round of performance reviews will lead to another […]
In this economy, if a newly-minted attorney can find a job, especially one paying over $100,000, she should be grateful. Based on our many conversations with law students and young lawyers, we think that most of them understand these new economic realities. But not all of them. At least one Above the Law reader is […]
Was the 2009 summer just an aberration? Or are long hours, canceled retreats, and take-out lunch budgets the future of Big Law summer associate programs? Find out which firms rolled out the red carpet for summer associates and which firms couldn’t say goodbye to their summers soon enough, over at the ATL Career Center , […]