Archive for November 2009

My Job Is Murder: Of Confinement and Contracts

By Susanna Dokupil

My Job Is Murder.jpgEd. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks.
The author, a former appellate lawyer, wishes to emphasize that any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except for the geeky stuff. Appellate lawyers really are that geeky.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Tyler got onto the elevator and pressed the button marked 13. As the doors closed, he looked down at the golden manacles that signified his position as an associate. He must survive the tower another day, he thought. Only 657 more days until he paid off his student loans — that is, if he stuck to his budget. Until then, Tyler must serve out his apprenticeship as a squire to the knights of the realm, ensuring that the knights had the proper weapons for jousting with opposing counsel.
He reached his sparsely furnished cell in the law offices of MakoProphet, a D.C. appellate boutique, and turned on his +6 vorpal laptop. Tyler had a tendency to let his imagination wander. He scored high on Intelligence and Dexterity, but less so on Strength and Charisma. Tyler had spent — or rather misspent — the better portion of his youth immersed in fantasy fiction, various strategy games, SimWhatever, or some combination of the above. He tended to view the world in game terms. It helped him break down the complexities of real-life interactions into understandable bits to compensate for his obvious lack of social skills.
Tyler’s voicemail light was blinking. It was a message from his secretary, Jill. The firm’s travel office wanted him to fly from D.C. to New York through Cleveland in order to use some preferred airline. He imagined Jill talking to Patty and Selma from The Simpsons. Class: Bureaucrat. Level: Five. Hit Points: About a million. Bureaucrats were generally impossible to kill and not worth the effort. Better to work around them. He had his secretary research alternatives.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Confinement and Contracts”

Police Pay Informant to Frequent Prostitutes. Court Cries Foul.

By Elie Mystal

Penn State Police Prostitutes.jpgFrankly, this is the kind of scheme that Detective Jimmy McNulty would have come up with. The Legal Intelligencer reports:

In a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last week that state troopers committed “outrageous government conduct” when investigating alleged prostitution at a massage parlor in the Lehigh Valley by giving money to an undercover informant to have sex four times with two different women at the parlor.

You read that correctly. Pennsylvania state troopers pimped out an undercover informant to have sex with prostitutes:

[T]he police investigation started when a patron of the massage parlor complained to state police that he had been offered “‘manual sexual stimulation’” after being given a massage. The patron did not accept the offer because he could not afford it, the opinion said.
The patron then agreed to become an informant for the police, the opinion said. He wore a wire and was provided money with which he purchased sexual acts with two different women at the massage parlor on four occasions, the opinion said.

Does the work of the undercover informant count as a “shovel ready” stimulus job, or are the two prostitutes counted as jobs the Obama administration has created or saved?
You have to love the informant. Who hits up their local police officer for hooker cash? Real sense of moral integrity by that guy.
Not surprisingly, the court was outraged by the actions of the police officers. Details after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Police Pay Informant to Frequent Prostitutes. Court Cries Foul.”

Another Way to Handle Swine Flu

By Elie Mystal

Akerman logo.JPGWe previously reported on Ropes & Gray hoarding Tamiflu for its employees. Reaction was mixed. Some people applauded Ropes looking out for the health of their employees and their families; others feared that Ropes was unwittingly contributing to a drug-resistant strain of the H1N1 virus.
But there are many ways to prevent an outbreak of piggy pestilence at a law firm near you. One of the most, dare I say rational, measures is to make sure that people who are sick aren’t coming into work.
That’s what they are doing at Akerman Senterfitt. The Washington Post reports (gavel bang: ABA Journal) that the firm is allowing people with the sickness to take time off of work, without counting it against their allotted leave time:

When Great Falls resident Carolyn Cuppernull’s 10-year-old daughter came down with swine flu, she didn’t have to take time off work to stay home with her.
Cuppernull is senior marketing manager of the Washington office of the law firm Akerman Senterfitt. Under the group’s former policy, she would have had to use paid leave to stay home if she or a relative got sick. But the firm recently updated its rules to allow employees to stay home with full pay — without using leave time — for H1N1-related absences.

Now that’s a way to make sure your office doesn’t suffer a swine flu outbreak without potentially contributing to the mutation of a global super virus.
Of course, there is a downside.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Another Way to Handle Swine Flu”

ATL Caption Contest: The Pile Up

By Kashmir Hill

It’s time again for ATL readers’ creative juices to flow. We have a new legal-themed photo for a caption contest. As usual, we’ll provide the back story at the end of the contest so as not to influence or restrict your caption creativity.
Here’s the photo:
cluttered office.jpg
Same rules as always: Submit possible captions in the comments. We’ll choose our favorites — with preference given to those with a legal bent — and then let you vote for the best one.
(As an aside, the pile up reminded us of a photo from AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. See The Pile On.)
Please submit your entry BY MIDNIGHT ON TUESDAY. Thanks!

Goodwin Procter and Boston Globe Need to Work on Their Timing

By Elie Mystal

goodwin Procter logo.JPGOn Sunday, the Boston Globe released its list of the Top 100 Place to Work in Massachusetts. Goodwin Procter placed #74. That’s interesting because last Thursday Goodwin laid off 55 people.
Nice timing on the Globe report. In a companion article titled “They look past the paycheck” the Globe highlights Goodwin:

Under the traditional apprenticeship system at law firms, new lawyers learn from partners who handpick associates they want for particular cases. …
A new approach matches the associate’s professional development goals with a partner’s needs, leaving associates less at the whim of partners and partners more assured of a good fit. Goodwin Procter has a site online where associates enter their availability and their interests, but it takes more than a grand schedule to make the program work. Staffing managers who are lawyers themselves make the match.

Wrong day for that story. Wrong day.
Goodwin wasn’t the only law firm on the list. Other firms after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Goodwin Procter and Boston Globe Need to Work on Their Timing”

Morning Docket 11.09.09

By Kashmir Hill

laid off lawyer attorney layoff.jpg* The National Law Journal has their annual headcount at the top 250 law firms. Law firms saw their biggest decline in the three decades that NLJ has been keeping track, with headcount falling by nearly 5%. [National Law Journal]
* The links of the Galleon insider trading ring. Ropes & Gray had some uncomfortable calls to make to clients Hilton, Avaya Inc., 3Com Corp. and Axcan Pharma Inc., thanks to Arthur Cutillo. [Bloomberg]
* Law firms may want to come up with a “dos and don’ts” list for clients with regard to insider trading. [New York Times]
* Scott Rothstein rose fast and will fall faster. More details on his wild life and wilder philanthropy. [St. Petersburg Times]
* Actor James Woods is suing a Rhode Island hospital over the death of his 49-year-old brother. [Fox News via AfterTheBeef]
* New Google Books settlement tonight. [Washington Post]

Goldman Envy Comes to the Legal Profession

By David Lat

goldman sachs.gifOver the weekend, the New York Times had an interesting article about compensation for Wall Street bankers. The article explained how, due to criticism from the public and from Congress, banks shifted employee comp away from cash and towards stocks and options. This shift was supposed to align pay with performance, averting an AIG situation of rewarding failure.

Now, thanks to the recovery in bank shares — fueled in part by generous government bailouts, and not necessarily the brilliant performance of bank employees — these stock and option grants are turning out to be super-lucrative. Here’s an interesting excerpt:

Goldman Sachs, for instance, sharply cut nearly all bonuses it paid last year but gave some executives more options than usual.

The company gave its general counsel, for example, 104,868 stock options and 14,117 shares in December, when the bank’s stock was around $78.

Now the bank’s shares have more than doubled in value, making that stock and option award worth nearly $12 million, according to Equilar, an executive compensation research firm in Redwood Shores, Calif.

Sullivan & Cromwell partners, eat your hearts out. Not only does Goldman GC Gregory Palm get to boss you around, he also makes more money than you do.

Way more. Get a hint of how much, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Goldman Envy Comes to the Legal Profession”

This week’s headlines from AsiaLegalBlog.com

By asialegalblog

cypress recruiting logo.gif
This week’s headlines from AsiaLegalBlog.com.

This information is supplied by Cypress Recruiting Group, the first and only US-based legal recruiting firm to specialize exclusively on law firm and in-house placements in the China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Middle East, and Russia legal markets. Click here to see our available opportunities.

This Week in Layoffs: 11.07.09

By Law Shucks

pink slip layoff notice Above the Law blog.jpgEd. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks, which has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.

It was pretty hard to miss this week’s big news: unemployment crashed through the 10% barrier, hitting 10.2% in October – the highest level since 1983 (and, of course, worse than predicted). Underemployment also hit record levels, with the number of self-reported disenfranchised and under-utilized people reaching 17.5%.

Republicans jumped on the numbers as a sign that Obama’s package has failed, and the White House countered that it has saved almost 700,000 jobs. But that claim doesn’t even come close to addressing the original estimates and is completely unmeasurable. Still, the administration is reconsidering ideas it had previously rejected, like a highway bill and a business tax credit for new hires, even as they ask for two versions of a budget: one with flat spending and another with a 5% cut.

Law firms got their place in the MSM sun this week, as Bloomberg used a former law-firm employee as an example of increased migration to areas perceived as having jobs:

Some people are pulling up stakes and moving to where they think the job prospects may be brighter. Beth Rubin, 41, lost her position as a receptionist at the law firm Goldstein Bershad & Fried, PC in Southfield, Michigan, in October. The resident of Ferndale, a Detroit suburb, is now selling her furniture and moving to Georgia. “I’m looking to get a job in Georgia, and I don’t know about the job market there, but I can tell you Michigan is horrible,” Rubin said in a telephone interview.

Of course, anything has to be better than Detroit.

More on the highs and lows in the legal sector, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “This Week in Layoffs: 11.07.09″

Non-Sequiturs: 11.06.09
Including Maryland bar exam results.

By David Lat

Maryland Quarter Old Line State.jpg* Congratulations to Marc Randazza, ATL’s counsel in Jones v. Minkin, on another successful representation. [The Legal Satyricon]
* Speaking of free speech, is a college acting unconstitutionally by banning so-called “empty-holster protests”? [Courthouse News Service]
* Maryland bar exam results are out. Congrats to all who passed! [Maryland State Board of Law Examiners]
* In the wake of the Maine vote, is there such a thing as “Gay Apartheid”? [Transracial]
* Remember the Notre Dame 1L impersonator? He may be “weird and unethical,” but he didn’t break any laws. [WNDU]
* The ATL running group will be meeting tomorrow (Saturday) at 10 a.m., at the East River 6th Street track. All are welcome. [Above the Law]

  • 06 Nov 2009 at 6:07 PM

Pepsi Breathes a Billion-Dollar Sigh of Relief

By David Lat

aquafina hurt pepsi co billion.jpgAssociates at Cleary Gottlieb may not be starting their weekends on a happy note. But for legal secretary Kathy Henry, the weekend is off to a very good start.
Judge vacates $1.26B ruling against PepsiCo
[Associated Press]
Earlier: Legal Secretary of the Day: Pepsi’s $1.26 Billion Mistake

Breaking: Cleary Matches Cravath Bonuses
Is it all over? Reader poll after the jump.

By David Lat

2009 Associate bonus watch above the law.JPGWe have confirmed the news of a Cravath bonus match with multiple sources at Cleary Gottlieb. One exchange went something like this:

ATL: Any good news today?

CGSH: No. Cravath news. Bonus FAIL.

So the 2009 bonus market is probably going to coalesce around the Cravath-level bonuses — unless S&C shows up and trumps CSM. Stay tuned.
The timing of the announcement is telling. Usually bad news is saved for Friday afternoons, so it gets lost in the pre-weekend shuffle. Did CGSH view its bonus numbers as potentially disappointing to the recipients?
Perhaps. In our reader poll on the Cravath bonuses, a majority of respondents said the CSM bonuses made them either “unhappy” or “very unhappy” (the most popular choice). Approximately 30 percent said the bonuses made them “neither happy nor unhappy.” Under 20 percent said the bonuses made them “happy” or “very happy.”
The Cleary memo and another READER POLL, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Breaking: Cleary Matches Cravath Bonuses
Is it all over? Reader poll after the jump.“

A Mayer Brown Associate’s Supreme Court Debut:
A Post-Argument Recap

By David Lat

Mayer Brown LLP new logo.jpgAs we mentioned earlier this week, Steve Sanders — a fourth-year associate at Mayer Brown, no relation to the 90210 character — argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
When we emailed him on Wednesday to set up an interview, we received this rather straightforward Out of Office message:

I’ll be traveling on client and professional business Monday, 11/2 through Saturday, 11/7. I will have access to email, but my response may be delayed. Thanks.

How modest! If we had been in Sanders’s shoes, we would have used this Out of Office auto-reply:

Oyez, bitchez!!! Today I’m arguing before the freakin’ Supreme Court of the United States.
Later, haters!!!

But that’s not Steve Sanders’s style. He is dignified and professional, as we discovered when we caught up with him by phone after his argument.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “A Mayer Brown Associate’s Supreme Court Debut:
A Post-Argument Recap”

  • 06 Nov 2009 at 3:38 PM

An Ill-Advised Way To Make $300

By Kashmir Hill

echeat.gifDamian Bonazzoli is a senior staff attorney for the Massachusetts Appeals Court. According to the ABA Journal, he likely makes a five-figure salary. Apparently that wasn’t enough money for him. His entrepreneurial side business got him caught up in a journalist’s term-paper-trafficking sting operation.
Colman Herman wrote a piece for Commonwealth magazine exploring the “shadowy underworld” of college papers for purchase. The journalist went cruising on Craigslist for people advertising thesis-generating services. He e-mailed 66 people. Among the 62 respondents was Bonazzoli:

Damian Bonazzolli (sic), who promised a “quality grade” if he was hired to write the 20-page paper, responded to an initial inquiry by sending, unsolicited, his résumé. It indicated he is a senior staff attorney for the Massachusetts Appeals Court, a job that pays him $94,000 a year, according to state records. He wanted $300 to write the paper on physician-assisted suicide.
In an email exchange, Bonazzolli (sic) [FN1] said turning in a paper that he had written would not be illegal. “I am aware of no state or federal statute that prohibits such a practice. This is not the equivalent of, say, lying on a federal employment or tax form,” he said. “Could your school take disciplinary action? Of course. But that’s quite different from a criminal prosecution.”

We hope no law students have hired Bonazzoli to do legal analysis for them. His is not up to par when it comes to Massachusetts law.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “An Ill-Advised Way To Make $300″

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 11.1: The Beard

By Laurie Lin

champagne glasses small.jpg
As expected, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner easily won our October Couple of the Month poll. You can read all about Ivanka’s newlywed bliss here, here, and here (she’s already “gadding about the city ringless.”)
Now we plummet back to earth to turn the LEWW spotlight on more ordinary folk. This week’s contestant-couples:

1. Lisa Klein and Blake Sparrow
2. Sarah Goodstine and Laurie Levin
3. Rachel Moston and Garrett Ross

Get the scoop on these newlyweds, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 11.1: The Beard”

Southern New England School of Law Prepares to Fight

By Elie Mystal

Southern New England School of Law logo.jpgWe have reported on the proposed merger of Southern New England School of Law with the University of Massachusetts, which would bring the first public law school to the state. At the time, I wrote:

I mean no offense by this, but isn’t the Southern New England School of Law not a very good law school? There’s a reason the school isn’t accredited, right? I just don’t see how raising the profile of bad law schools is the right way to go.

Apparently, Southern New England School of Law took offense. The Boston Globe reports:

“My students and faculty have been maligned,” the school’s dean, Robert Ward, said during a recent tour of campus, a 75,000-square-foot three-story building next to an outlet mall in North Dartmouth.
Ward acknowledged his school has a way to go to meet national accreditation standards, but said it is far from the crumbling, financially destitute failure critics portray it to be.
He noted a retired appeals court judge — a Harvard Law graduate, no less — among his 13-member faculty.

Putting aside the question of whether or not Southern New England is a good school, can we get back to the question of whether Massachusetts needs a public law school?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Southern New England School of Law Prepares to Fight”

Lawyer of the Day: I’m Not As Think As You Drunk I Am

By Elie Mystal

DWI attorney Tyler Flood.JPGThe Houston Press has written an exposé on the kind of lawyer that makes drunk Texans proud. DWI specialist Tyler Flood is revealed in all his glory as the Press discusses why he is so skilled at helping drunk drivers in their time of need:

“Listen, most of the people we get off are intoxicated. But that’s the justice system,” [Tyler Flood] says. “I’ve always thought people would be very concerned if they knew what we were doing.”

Really? You think people would be concerned by your practice of setting drunk drivers free to careen down the streets of your city? Who would have a problem with that?
More from Flood after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Lawyer of the Day: I’m Not As Think As You Drunk I Am”

Job of the Week: It’s Always Sunny in Texas

By Above the Law

Job of the Week Lateral Link ATL logo.gifDid you just pass the bar in Texas? Congratulations! Maybe now is a great time to find a job.
The Job of the Week, brought to you by Lateral Link, is with a stellar boutique that is looking for a superstar associate to join its growing ranks. Even in a strong economy, great opportunities like this one don’t come along very often.
Title: Litigation Associate
Location: Houston
Description: A high-end litigation boutique is seeking a 2007 or 2008 grad with general commercial or IP litigation experience. The firm requires stellar academic credentials and writing skills, and the ability to manage cases by yourself. Clerkships are preferred but not required. The firm is open to relocators.
For more information about this position, please contact Lateral Link’s Texas Director, Gary Cohen. Current Lateral Link members can also view Position #5397 on Lateral Link. Membership in Lateral Link is free and you can apply at www.laterallink.com.
In addition, we are still collecting salary data for the Career Center so please take a minute to tell us about compensation at your law firm — AFTER THE JUMP.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Job of the Week: It’s Always Sunny in Texas”

Lawsuit of the Day: Sex, Drugs, and 3000 Billable Hours

By David Lat

Alan Levy Alan R Levy lawyer.jpgWhen ex-associates sue their former firms, a fun time is had by all — with the possible exception of the litigants. Dirty laundry is aired, often for the amusement of onlookers. Here are some classics:

Today’s Lawsuit of the Day, Alan Levy v. Sedgwick Detert Moran Arnold LLP (PDF), is a similar suit. Alan Levy (pictured), a former associate at Sedgwick, alleges that his employment was terminated on the basis of disability — to wit, severe depression and a breakdown, brought on in part by the abusive treatment he received at the hands of a partner, Scott Haworth.
So, what was the alleged abuse inflicted upon Levy by Haworth?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Sex, Drugs, and 3000 Billable Hours”

Orrick is Recruiting Again

By Elie Mystal

Orrick logo.JPGBack in July, Orrick told people exactly what it was going to do regarding recruiting for its 2010 summer program. Here is the crucial part of Orrick’s July announcement:

[W]e believe it would be irresponsible to recruit a class for the summer of 2010 – a class that would normally join us in late 2011 or early 2012, the same time our current class of summer associates would be joining us after the one year deferral – until we know how many of our 2009 summer associates accept their one-year deferred offers. We need to prioritize the interests of our current Orrick summer associates over the law students whom we have not yet met and who would otherwise be competing for the same positions.
For these reasons we have decided to shift our on-campus recruiting efforts from the normal time-frame to November 15, 2009 through March of 2010. After the November 15th NALP deadline, we will know how many of our current summer associates accept their deferred offers, and we will be able to better assess our needs for recruiting 2L associates for a 2010 summer program. We expect to reach out to 2L and possibly 1L students during this shifted time frame to meet our summer 2010 recruiting needs.

Well, we’re getting pretty close to November 15th. And Orrick has been placing recruiting ads at a law school near you. But some Above the Law tipsters are surprised that Orrick is doing exactly what Orrick said it would do:

I assumed that was BS though and figured it was just a way to avoid saying they weren’t recruiting at all. Given how things are going, why would they basically go to recruit fromt the bottom half of the class?

You know, when this whole recession is over, we are going to need to have some trust building exercises between firm management and employees.
Orrick didn’t lie back in July. They really are recruiting. Check it out after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Orrick is Recruiting Again”