* Earlier this month, we reported that Sonnenschein had made cuts. Of the 30 let go, 10 were income partners. [National Law Journal]
* Republican Congressman Joe Wilson may be the most hated lawyer in the U.S. today after heckling President Obama during his healthcare reform speech. [CNN]
* The income gap is narrowing thanks in part to a fall in PPP. [Wall Street Journal (subscription) via ABA Journal]
* “I don’t have to do anything you say. I’m a law student.” [Wicked Local]
* Federal judge Denny Chin — known for sentencing Bernie Madoff to 150 years, having a theatrical flair, and clocking some decent marathon times — will ascend to an appellate judgeship in New York. [New York Times]
Archive for September 2009
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Posted in:
Denny Chin, Layoffs, Morning Docket, Sonnenschein
Morning Docket 09.10.09
By Kashmir Hill-
Posted in:
UC Irvine School of Law
Meet The Students Who Are Going to Law School for Free
By Kashmir Hill
We have devoted a lot of coverage to the new law school at UC-Irvine. It’s hard not to stare at a law school that offer it’s inaugural class free tuition — even if subsequent classes will enjoy the experience of paying through the nose for a public education. We assume they’ve noticed our coverage.
Evidently, UC-Irvine likes the attention. Now the law school wants everybody to meet its inaugural class. In a move that can only be viewed as a direct challenge to the Above the Law community, UC-Irvine has decided to run student profiles on every single student in its first class. All of them.
The first four students are up. Shall we take a look after the jump?
Continue reading “Meet The Students Who Are Going to Law School for Free”
* Do good litigators help their clients stay out of future lawsuits? [What About Clients?]
* E-discover this. [Technolawyer]
* Speculation continues about what effect Bob Bennett’s departure will have on Skadden. [Am Law Daily]
* Lobbyist, we know who you are. At least we want to. [The Volokh Conspiracy]
* A California assemblyman resigned his office today after making a crucial “hot mic” mistake. [TPM]
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Posted in:
Breasts, Gender, Women's Issues
Discriminating Against Women With Breasts Doesn’t Amount to Gender Discrimination
By Elie Mystal
Last month, I roundly criticized a receptionist for peeing on herself. She claimed that her employer wouldn’t allow her to take bathroom breaks. I argued that personal hygiene and basic self respect demanded that she use the bathroom and worry about suing the firm if they actually fired her for it.
A woman in Ohio was in a somewhat analogous situation. She needed additional bathroom breaks so she could go pump breast milk. Evidently her employer objected, but instead of just — I don’t know — leaking in the middle of the office, she took the breaks anyway. She was fired, she sued her company, and an Ohio court held that firing a new mother for taking breaks to pump breast milk wasn’t gender discrimination.
???
True/Slant has the trial court’s decision:
In its verdict in favor of Totes/Isotoner, the trial court found that:
“Allen gave birth over five months prior to her termination from [Isotoner]. Pregnant [women] who give birth and chose not to breastfeed or pump their breasts do not continue to lactate for five months. Thus, Allen’s condition of lactating was not a condition relating to pregnancy but rather a condition related to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding discrimination does not constitute gender discrimination.”
On appeal, the trial court’s decision was upheld. And there were women on the appellate panel. Details after the jump.
Continue reading “Discriminating Against Women With Breasts Doesn’t Amount to Gender Discrimination”
Yesterday, we covered Andrew Cuomo’s letter to Bank of America. In it, the New York Attorney General ask BofA to essentially waive its attorney client privilege and allow the AG’s office to question BofA outside counsel at Cleary Gottlieb.
Update: The NYAG is looking to talk to the lawyers who consulted on the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger. Cuomo wants to talk to attorneys at Wachtell and Shearman & Sterling. He is not asking to talk to Cleary lawyers about their work for the bank.
Today, Cleary commercial litigation partner Lewis Liman, fired back at New York’s chief lawyer. The Charlotte Observer has the details:
“First, the basic premise of the letter is simply wrong,” Bank of America’s attorney, Lewis Liman, wrote in the bank’s response. “Bank of America has not put at issue the subject matter of any advice of counsel. Nor has Bank of America offered reliance on legal advice as a justification for its disclosures. Bank of America’s position has been clear and consistent throughout: the proxy statement and related disclosures complied with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Because Bank of America did not violate the law, it has not offered reliance on legal advice as a defense.”
Lewis Liman? That sounds more like something Josh Lyman would write.
Apparently, the NYAG isn’t the only one that knows how to litigate in through the press. More from Liman and Bank of America, after the jump.
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Posted in:
Eyes of the Law, Fabulosity, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court
The Eyes of the Law: Partying with Sonia from the Block
By David Lat
Sometimes stereotypes are true. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court’s first Latina justice, loves to dance — and she’s pretty darn good at it, too.
Consider this comment — posted back in May 2005, about then-Judge Sotomayor — from Underneath Their Robes:
In October [2004], attended the wedding of two law school classmate, one of whom (the bride) clerked for Judge Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor was delightful and gracious — she took the time to introduce herself to the bride’s mother (and invited her to lunch when she was next in NYC to see her daughter). But the best was yet to come.
The Judge is a dancing machine. She danced it up with the groom, the bride, and the bride’s district court judge (Judge Underhill of Connecticut, who is no slouch on the dance floor either). She has mad rhythm. Don’t be fooled by the robes that she’s got!
Indeed. Residents of Washington who were out on the town Monday night were treated to the sight — and sound — of Justice Sotomayor celebrating her Supreme Court appointment, dancing and singing karaoke with family and friends.
An eyewitness (and earwitness) account, plus some grainy video, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Eyes of the Law: Partying with Sonia from the Block”
We received a lot of tips about Winston & Strawn during the month of August. It seems like the firm had a busy month. We’ve reached out to the firm — multiple times — but haven’t heard anything back. But multiple sources report that Winston laid off around 20 associates over the month of August.
It is not surprising that the firm did not respond to us. Tipsters report that Winston has been extremely stealthy about its associate cuts. They laid people off over a long period of time, but never more than a few associates at any one time. One tipster explains it this way:
The layoffs for attorneys started in the Spring and they took breaks from it to keep under the radar. Same with the secretaries.
As we understand it, the associates let go were mid-level attorneys. They were told that the layoffs were for economic reasons.
Associates at Winston weren’t the only ones feeling the pain of being let go. After the jump, tipsters report that partners have been shown the door as well.
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Posted in:
Associate Advice, Job Searches, Notes from the Breadline, Old People
Notes from the Breadline: We’re All in this Thing Together (Walking the Line Between Faith and Fear) (Part II)
By Roxana St. Thomas
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.
Welcome back from the long weekend, dear readers. I hope that, after what has been a hard year for many of us, everybody had a good time, everybody let their hair down, and everybody saw the sunshine. And anything else you can think of.
As a preliminary matter, I thank you wholeheartedly for your diligent attention to last week’s Homework Assignment from the Breadline. You answered the call with incredibly thoughtful, honest, and poignant responses to our questions about your experiences, for which I am extremely grateful. It’s good to see your faces a bit more clearly.
Well, my friends: without further ado, let’s put this thing together.
First, we wanted to hear about the experience of life in the breadline as an “older” member of the workforce, whether from readers who had been there themselves or from those who had seen a parent struggle with unemployment. Your responses reflected the particular indignities of being laid off and looking for work at a certain age, and described the sting of discovering that years of acquired wisdom and competence are, suddenly, of little consequence to the skeptical gatekeeper reviewing your résumé.
One reader, whom we’ll call “Mike,” got the phone call from human resources last July, just after his 58th birthday. “We were friendly,” he wrote, “so the ritual kiss from Al Pacino was brief and honest.” Mike was asked to sign a non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreement and given five weeks of severance in a lump sum. Of that, he said, “the USA and NY took 40%.”
So what has Mike been up to since hitting the breadline?
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Posted in:
Contests, Douchiest Law School Contest, Duke Law School, Law Schools, Reader Polls
ATL Douche Madness: Duke is the Douchiest Law School
By Kashmir Hill
Over the long holiday weekend, Duke and Harvard duked it out in the ATL Douchiest Law School contest. Though many commenters argued that Duke Law School’s reputation was being unfairly influenced by that of its douchey undergrads, those Duke Law defenders were not persuasive enough to sway voters. Duke triumphed with 55% of the vote.
Duke is the Douchiest Law School!
Who was the star player in this match-up? A Duke Law School grad named Tucker Max. More on him, and a round-up of the choice comments explaining Duke’s douche dominance, after the jump.
Continue reading “ATL Douche Madness: Duke is the Douchiest Law School”
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Posted in:
Cahill Gordon & Reindel, Cooley Godward, Foley & Lardner, Holland & Knight, Job Searches, K&L Gates, Kaye Scholer, Nixon Peabody, Pillsbury Winthrop, Sonnenschein, Steptoe & Johnson, Vault 100 Open Threads: 2010
Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 61 – 70 (2010)
By Elie Mystal
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 & Lardner
69. Kaye Scholer
70. Steptoe & Johnson
The penalty for having a partner announce layoffs on a train was six spots according to Vault. There have been other Pillsbury cutbacks. But the Acela incident happened when associates had Vault surveys sitting on their desks.
After the jump, let’s take a look at some of the other firms in this group.
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 61 – 70 (2010)”
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 NYC. [Could you] do an open thread? Then we could share info, like where to get the best prices for the darlings on the black market.
We sure can! How happy are parents to get the kids out of the house and back to school? Biglaw is notoriously hard on family life. Do veteran parents have any advice for the novices?
Just for kicks, let’s try to keep the thread G-rated and family friendly.
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Posted in:
Fabulosity, Hotties, Lawyer Advertising, Pictures, Solo Practitioners
Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: State Bar Association of Hubba-Hubba
By Kashmir Hill
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.
Continue reading “Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: State Bar Association of Hubba-Hubba”
* 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 solve the prison overcrowding problem? Philadelphia DA candidate Michael Untermeyer thinks so, and will be wearing one for the next month. [True/Slant]
* An Atlanta law firm got scammed. Isn’t anyone afraid of lawyers anymore? [CBS Atlanta]
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Posted in:
Bad Ideas, Hotties, Lawyer of the Day, Nude Dancing, Secretaries / Administrative Assistants
Legal Secretary of the Day: For the Ladies
By Elie Mystal
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 dancers for ladies exclusively.
But you know how difficult it is to get credit in this economy. And Richie needed to fly dancers and guests down to Puerto Rico for an “event.” So, she had to improvise.
The Washington Post picks up the narrative, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Secretary of the Day: For the Ladies”
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 was).
Sorry, you weren’t the first; several readers beat you to the punch. Like this one:
It’s not exciting as gunmen or layoffs, and will definitely engender some “who cares,” but MPRE scores are out.
Write “WHO CARES,” crow about your triple-digit score, or opine on whether Elizabeth Wurtzel can call herself an “attorney,” in the comments to this post.
If you passed, congratulations; if you didn’t, better luck next time.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of the MPRE
* 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 Vault rankings should have showed more movement at the top. But let’s get another year of associate surveys under our belt first. [Bar and Bench]
* Average salary based on undergraduate degree. Personally, I think horticulturalists make a lot more — assuming they can hook up with an organization that knows how to move product. [Tax Prof Blog]
* This week’s Blawg Review pays special attention to new law students.
[Law is Cool via Blawg Review]
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Posted in:
Cellphones, Lawyer of the Day, Layoffs, Rudeness, Technology
OMG. So sorry, but u r fired. :-(
By Kashmir HillThis 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 10:40 PM, on a Holiday, and I was just fired via text. [Reddit]
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Posted in:
Andrew Cuomo, Cleary Gottlieb, Wall Street, White-Collar Crime
Cleary Lawyers, The NYAG Would Like to Meet You
By Elie MystalA 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.
In a letter to the bank’s outside counsel, Lewis J. Liman of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Mr. Cuomo wrote that “attorney-client privilege is hindering this office’s ability to make fair and fully informed decisions as to what charges, if any, to bring and whether individual Bank of America officers should be charged.”
What, does Andrew Cuomo want BOA to waive privilege to help him out? I’m not sure that this is how to run a prosecutor’s office, but it seems like a pretty effective way to run for Governor through the headlines.
Cuomo Takes Aim at Bank of America’s Lawyers [Dealbook]
Earlier: The Mainstream Media Is Aware That Law Firms Exist, Right?
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 a good way) in every major category: fewest total layoffs, layoffs of lawyers, layoff of legal staff, firms laying people off, etc.
Most notably, for the first time since December 2008, there was a week without a layoff.
Is it just the eye of the storm, or are big layoffs in Biglaw a thing of the past? Click the link below for all of the charts and trend lines.
The Month in Layoffs – August 09 [Law Shucks]
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Posted in:
Holidays and Seasons, Lawsuit of the Day, Violence
Lawsuit of the Day: Worst Safety Drill — and Christmas Eve — Ever
By Kashmir Hill
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 worker, Babette Perry, that he had already taken another hospital worker hostage and demanded Oxycontin. Perry tried to call for help but the phone line was down.
But it turns out this was all just a surprise safety drill. The “gunman” was actually a fellow hospital worker. The phones had been cut on purpose. There was no actual threat of being shot or taken hostage. Woo hoo, right?
Perry was not exactly relieved by this news. She’s now having mental health issues of her own, and has filed a suit against the clinic for compensatory and punitive damages. But even if she wins, she might have a hard time spending her money.
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Worst Safety Drill — and Christmas Eve — Ever”
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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
