October 2009
-
Biglaw, Federal Government, Media and Journalism, Politics
A Look at Orrick's Crisis Management Practice
Last week we wrote about the move of prominent D.C. lawyers Lanny Davis and Eileen O’Connor from Orrick to McDermott Will & Emery. Am Law Daily described the jump as follows: “Lanny Davis, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer who supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and was a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, is taking […] -
Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, Summer Associates
Edwards Angell Wants Responses to Offers in Three Weeks (or Less)
A couple of weeks ago, news broke that Sullivan & Cromwell was asking 2Ls to make summer decisions more quickly than the NALP rules suggest. You’ll remember that law schools banded together to pressure S&C to change its policy. Will law schools react as strongly if other firms follow the S&C route? We could be […] - Sponsored
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use. -
Antitrust, Christopher Christie, Guantanamo Bay, Heller Ehrman, Herman Thomas, Morning Docket, Politics, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Morning Docket: 10.08.09
* At the Supreme Court, much ado about a cross. [Washington Post (Robert Barnes); Washington Post (Dana Milbank)] * Former Heller Ehrman partners deny that the firm was insolvent in 2007. [Am Law Daily] * The new Honduran government, which came to power through a coup, has hired lawyers and law firms — including Lanny […]
-
Cardozo Law School, Celebrities, Crime, Gerald Shargel, Hotties, Lawsuit of the Day, Sex, Sex Scandals
Lawyer of the Day Stephanie Birkitt: An Update on the Ex-Letterman Lover
On the media website Mediaite, we are erroneously listed as having an affiliation with the Late Show with David Letterman. We wish! If that were the case, then maybe we’d have inside dirt on one of the juiciest media scandals to come along in a while. And it’s a media scandal with a legal angle […] -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 10.07.09
* Former basketball player Len Elmore was a partner at Dreier LLP. Now he’s sad. [Bitter Lawyer via ABA Journal] * Suing law firms isn’t just for laid off attorneys anymore. Now legal recruiters are getting into the act. [Am Law Daily] * And apparently law firms aren’t the only institutions that can be sued […] -
Boutique Law Firms, ERISA, Hotties, Small Law Firm Open Threads, Solo Practitioners, Tax Law
Small Law Firm Open Thread: ERISA / Employee Benefits Law
Let’s push forward with our series of open threads on small law firms in different practice areas. To see what we’ve covered so far, click here and scroll down. Today’s topic: ERISA LAW. For those of you who aren’t familiar with ERISA, we’ll quote a prior post of ours: For all of you non-lawyers — […] -
Football, Law Schools, Sports, Texas, Violence
The Cornerback v. The Counselor
A battle went down the other day on a basketball court at Gregory Gym on the University of Texas – Austin campus. It’s a battle that has been fought across time and generations. It pitted a freshman defensive back from the Texas Longhorns (ranked #2 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll) and a […] -
Layoffs, Notes from the Breadline, Pictures, Shopping
Notes from the Breadline: Every Picture Tells a Story(Or: A photo essay on unemployment.)
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. Many of us know (and some of us have described, […] - Sponsored
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm. -
Deferral Stipend, Fenwick & West, Money, Start Dates
Incoming Associates at Fenwick Take the Money and Run
As regular Above the Law readers know, there are a few firms that are offering “go away” money to their incoming associates. The deal, like ones at Stroock and Pillsbury, is that the firm will give incoming associates a large payment instead of a job, and the incoming associate will quietly go peruse other employment […] -
Akin Gump, Layoffs, No Offers, Staff Layoffs, Summer Associates
What's Going on at Akin Gump?(Some staff cuts, plus news on offer rates.)
So what’s happening at Akin Gump these days? There has been some happy news — e.g., a thriving energy M&A practice, lawyers honored by the Washington Business Journal as top D.C. lawyers, and a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index of the Human Rights Campaign. And there has been some less happy news. We’ve […] -
Admin, Advertising, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad
Thanks to This Week's Advertisers
A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law: American Bar Association The Atlantic Kinney Recruiting Lateral Link LexisNexis Soul Calibur 4 PSP U.S. Chamber for Legal Reform If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, download our media kits, or […] -
Bad Ideas, Law Schools
Belmont (TN) To Open New Law School -- Just Because They Can
Somewhere there is a giant invisible hand that really enjoys jerking around the earning potential of attorneys in good standing. Belmont University is opening a new law school next year. The Tennessean reports the latest evidence that university presidents hate lawyers: The Belmont College of Law would be the state’s sixth law school, the third […] -
Conferences / Symposia, Intellectual Property, Job Searches
The Economy Is Still Soft For IP Lawyers
Despite slight indications that the legal economy is recovering, the market continues to be difficult for would-be intellectual property lawyers. The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) is having its annual career fair next Saturday. Unfortunately, employer turnout is depressed this year. Here’s the email that went out to AIPLA job seekers yesterday: To: AIPLA […]
Sponsored
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
-
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 10.07.09
* Can Congress ban a “Human Sacrifice Channel” on television? Justice Alito wants to know (and Fox probably does too). [New York Times; Washington Briefs] * European Union regulators are working on a settlement in the Microsoft browser case. [AP] * A jury concludes: mugging a 101-year-old woman on her way to church is not […]
-
UNC Law
What do the Justice Department, UNC, and law school applicants have in common?
All three are finding new uses for the “tools of the Internet.” Here are three recent stories that caught our attention but didn’t warrant full posts: 1. The Justice Department now tweets. Last week, the DOJ revamped its website and joined Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter. If you want to stalk Attorney General Eric Holder, […] -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 10.06.09
* Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest has been officially expunged from the record. It’s almost like it never happened, kind of like Apocalypto. [TMZ] * The FTC is requiring bloggers who review products to disclose their connections with advertisers. Our sister site Fashionista has some questions. [Fashionista] * George Washington Law School got the U.S. News […] -
Law Shucks, Layoffs
This Month in Layoffs: September 2009
On the one hand, according to Law Shucks, September was almost three times worse for layoffs than August. On the other hand, that’s still a lot better than May. While we’ve been focused on the U.S. market, Law Shucks reports that the biggest September layoffs happened in the U.K. Of the seven firms that laid […] -
Education / Schools, Federal Judges, Politics, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, State Judges, Supreme Court
Should Judicial Elections Be Abolished?(Or: ATL chats with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.)
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is not really retired yet. “I am more busy in retirement than before,” she told Above the Law in a recent interview. One of her myriad projects is Our Courts, a non-profit organization that develops Web-based games to teach seventh- and eighth-graders about government. We spoke with Justice […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Minority Issues, Racism
African-American Lawyers Searching for Hours
In an environment where hours are scarce, a new report shows that white attorneys are coming out on top. A new survey suggests that African-American attorneys — and minority attorneys in general — are experiencing a greater pinch for hours than their white counterparts. The Minority Law Journal reports: [M]inority lawyers surveyed said they posted […] -
Accounting / Accountants, Brett Kavanaugh, Going Concern, Sarbanes-Oxley / Sarbox / SOX, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Wall Street
Will the Supreme Court Knock SOX's Socks Off?
Is the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board unconstitutional? This admittedly boring-sounding entity has the important task of overseeing accounting firms, who in turn keep an eye on the balance sheets of corporate America, through such mechanisms as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance. The constitutionality of SOX and the PCAOB is at issue in Free Enterprise Fund v. […]