UPDATE: We have additional coverage on this story here.
Associate layoffs are sometimes conducted in a stealth manner. Partner layoffs are always conducted in secret. Forcing out partners has been a big part of the Great Recession. But when firms “quietly ask partners to leave,” the information actually stays pretty quiet.
But last night, the Above the Law inbox started buzzing with news that four real estate partners had been asked to leave Paul Hastings.
UPDATE: Sources now report that only three partners are being asked to leave.
How do we know this? Well, Paul Hastings may have quietly asked these people to leave, but their offices were packed up loudly.
We understand that all of the departures are in Paul Hastings’s New York real estate department. We’ve got the names, details, and a firm statement, after the jump.
Continue reading “Paul Hastings: Three Partners Told to Pack Their Bags”
* AP image-appropriating artist Shepard Fairey is under criminal investigation. If convicted, perhaps he can ‘Hope’ for a pardon from Obama. [ABC News]
* Gays and lesbians settle in their relationship with eHarmony. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Balloon boy parents don’t want to pay their fines. [Washington Post]
* Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein is expected to plead guilty today. [Sun Sentinel]
* Judge David Hittner orders insurance company to pay Allen Stanford’s criminal attorneys. [Houston Chronicle]
* Irony! [ABC News]
A neighborhood association in Berkeley has filed a class action suit against the University of California – Berkeley’s many fraternities, accusing them of being, well, total frat boys. This lawsuit got wasted in the Californian press last week, but we’re funneling it for the first time today thanks to Courthouse News Service.
As one would expect, the complaint alleges that the frat studs are guilty of public and private nuisances. As one might not expect, the legal theory in the suit “has its roots in cities’ injunctions against criminal street gangs,” per The Recorder.
Phi Beta Kappa appears to be the only Greek society left off of the defendants’ list in the complaint [PDF]. The “South of Campus Neighborhood Association” and Paul Ghysels accuse them of public drunkenness, facilitation and encouragement of underage drinking, harassment of passers-by, “excessive noise, particularly between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am,” noxious smells and fumes, public urination, “hosting large social gatherings,” and “shooting projectiles, which have hit neighbors,” among other awesome offenses.
Oh, college.
So who do California college fraternity members call when they need help to protect their hard-partying ways? A lawyer in Texas, of course.
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day Last Week: Neighborhood Sues Frat Boys for Being Frat Boys”
* Remember the guy who dressed up as a pimp to “sting” ACORN workers? Well, he’s at it again, this time caught attempting to bug the office of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. What a hero. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
* Vinny from Jersey Shore is contemplating going to law school. You know, Yale or Harvard if this whole sleazy mamma’s boy thing doesn’t work out. [Perez Hilton]
* InStyle magazine probably has a likelihood of confusion lawsuit, if they want it. [Fashionista]
* If you are a professor who specializes in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, now is your time to shine. [FCPA Professor]
* Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks he can deal with California’s prison overcrowding problem by sending the excess convicts to Mexico. I have a much better idea. Let’s allow an elite group of gladiators to hunt prisoners that could be persuaded to escape. We could put it on television, and offer the prisoners money and freedom should they survive this ultimate escape (hosted by Jeff Probst of course). Granted it might take, I don’t know, seven years to get this thing fully operational, but the ratings would be through the roof and the ad dollars would really help California’s budgetary woes. If only I could think of a title for the show … [WSJ Law Blog]
Next month we’ll be speaking on a panel at a conference for Asian American law students and lawyers. It’s taking place at the University of Pennsylvania and being sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) at U. Penn. Details and registration info appear here.
Asian law students. In Philly. Will there be a metal detector at the door?
In the past three years, two Asian law students in Philadelphia have gotten into trouble with the law due to gun-related incidents. First there was Joseph Cho, at the time a 2L at U. Penn., who shot up the door of his neighbors’ apartment in January 2007. Earlier this month, Gerald Ung (pictured), in his final year at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, allegedly shot Edward DiDonato Jr., a recent college graduate and the son of a partner at Fox Rothschild. (See prior posts here and here.)
Today we have updates on both cases.
Continue reading “Some Updates on the Temple Law Student Shooter
Plus the sentencing of the U. Penn. law student shooter.“
As a denizen of New York City, I find that I have to deal with people who could be cast members on The Jersey Shore all the time. They clog up my 4 train when the Yankees are playing. They bounce at bars and clubs. Here in the city, you can even see them in their natural habitat, Gold’s Gym.
That’s why I was surprised when students at NYU Law School offered $2,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to get Snooki to come out and party with them. Why buy the landfill when you can get trash for free?
But in the hearty Midwest, it’s a little easier to understand why the cast from Jersey Shore can be so compelling. I mean, from the perspective of a Midwesterner, the cast of Jersey Shore must look like an alien species. I bet a Midwesterner would look at J-WOWW with the same level of fascination I’d regard Michele Bachmann. “What does it eat?” “Can I pet it?” “If I use a sentence comprised entirely of polysyllabic words, will its head explode?”
So, I have a modicum of understanding for the underground movement happening at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Here’s part of a letter that Above the Law received yesterday:
Dear AbovetheLaw,
I am a third-year law student at the University of Wisconsin Law School. My graduation is fast approaching and so far we (my classmates and I) have not heard who is going to be our guest speaker. However, the last thing I want to hear during my graduation is how great we are for becoming young lawyers, and that we have such a promising future ahead, especially considering our employment options currently. Instead a couple of classmates and I have come up with this great idea. If our futures are going to dissolve following graduation, we want to go down “guns blazing.” We want to raise money in order to bring the cast of Jersey Shore to come as our guest speakers.
Wasn’t this the setup for The Simple Life?
Are the Wisconsin students serious? More details after the jump.
Continue reading “Wisconsin Law School Seeks to Import Jersey Shore to the Great Lakes”
Our recent Career Center
survey asked about whether you think layoffs and salary cuts are a thing of the past or if 2010 will bring more of the same. The majority of respondents — 70% — are optimistic about salaries, saying they do not expect any further salary cuts in 2010.
However, respondents were not so optimistic about the chances of future layoffs. After a year in which over 75% of respondents saw layoffs at their firms, almost half — 45% — think there is at least a 50-50 chance of more layoffs in 2010.
Check out the full survey results after the jump — and visit the
Career Center, powered by
Lateral Link, for more on
which firm has announced above-market bonuses for the second year in a row and
which firm is so confident about recovering from the recession that it is opening multiple new offices.
Full survey results, after the jump.
Continue reading “Career Center: Survey Says”
Predictably, I used to play Dungeons & Dragons in high school. Just as predictably, I didn’t lose my virginity until I stopped. It’s an established fact that Dungeons & Dragons is a bigger threat to human reproduction than all the gay marriages in the world.
But I did not know until this day that D&D could also pose a security risk. A Wisconsin prisoner, Kevin T. Singer, sued Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Institution after the guards confiscated his D&D materials.
Why did the prison guards take away this guy’s D&D paraphernalia? I’ll let Judge John Tinder of the Seventh Circuit explain:
Waupun’s long-serving Disruptive Group Coordinator, Captain Bruce Muraski, received an anonymous letter from an inmate. The letter expressed concern that Singer and three other inmates were forming a D&D gang and were trying to recruit others to join by passing around their D&D publications and touting the “rush” they got from playing the game. Muraski, Waupun’s expert on gang activity, decided to heed the letter’s advice and “check into this gang before it gets out of hand.”
A gang? A gang that needs to be checked? I’ve never been to prison, but I have watched Oz. I’m forced to believe one of two things: (a) any D&D “gang” member would find themselves tossing salads faster than you can say “saving throw against horrific prison justice … fails,” or (b) if you could beat up the D&D kids in your high school, then you can go to Wisconsin, commit violent crimes with impunity, get sent to prison and live like a God.
Singer sued the prison for violating his First Amendment rights. The district court ruled for the correctional facility on summary judgment, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
Does that mean we get to hear the Seventh Circuit argue that D&D is gang-like? Yes it does. Will that be hilarious? More fun than hacking through an encampment of goblins with a dwarven ax of immolation….
Continue reading “Seventh Circuit Rules Dungeons & Dragons A Threat to Prison Security”
Over the weekend — yes, we often publish over the weekend, so do check in with us — we wrote about the happy story of Jeffrey Fenster. Fenster, a 29-year-old lawyer who previously worked for a short time at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, was recently selected by Governor David Paterson to serve as executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State.
In the comments, a number of you wondered how Fenster landed this gig, despite what one former board commissioner described as “absolutely no administrative experience” and “no experience in workers’ comp or labor law.” One commenter speculated that Fenster might have been helped by Martin Minkowitz, a retired Stroock partner and expert in workers’ compensation law (which is what the New York Times hinted at).
As it turns out, it appears that Fenster was helped by connections — but not through Stroock or Marty Minkowitz.
Continue reading “How Jeff Fenster Landed on the Workers’ Comp Board
Or: How to Get a Government Job“
Some lawyers love what they do. Those who don’t are vocal about how much they hate their jobs. So what would the naysayers prefer to be doing professionally? Above the Law editors have heard these “dream careers” tossed around: government intelligence analyst, writer/journalist, banker (so they can keep making the bank), and — for those who want to stay in the law, but not Biglaw — assistant U.S. attorney, judge, or law school professor.
Some people are content to stay in the law but need a creative/fun outlet. It’s an added bonus if that outlet also makes money. One such endeavor is to open a restaurant. (The belief that most restaurants fail in the first year is a myth, after all.)
We’ve written before about lawyer-turned-Subway entrepreneur Larry Feldman. But being king of a sandwich-shop franchise is not really the glamorous side of food service. The daydream version involves starting up a place with a bit more character.
For some, being laid off has been a push to tap into a culinary side. Here in New York, a first-year associate caught up in law firm layoffs used the opportunity to open a Taiwanese steamed bun cafe in the Lower East Side, called Baohaus.
Further south, in Washington, D.C., another casualty of the recession layoffs got into the eat-out business. Julie Liu, a former Katten Muchin associate, launched a restaurant in Dupont Circle last year named Scion. She was very thankful to Katten for her three-month severance: it “basically paid for Scion’s kitchen equipment.”
We caught up with Liu about opening a restaurant with her sister, and got some advice for other wannabe restaurateurs.
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Restaurateur”
Yesterday, reports came in that Chadbourne & Parke unfroze salaries. Then tipsters started telling us that Chadbourne didn’t just thaw out one class year; instead, they went all out and gave true-up raises — putting their associates back to the salary level they would have been at had the firm never frozen salaries in the first place. True-up raises are even more significant at Chadbourne because the firm didn’t just freeze salaries, it actually cut salaries back in April.
By the end of the day, Chadbourne sources were telling us that in addition to the true-up raises the firm was giving out make-whole bonuses. Essentially, Chadbourne was giving people back the money they would have made over the course of 2009. That’s a move out of the Latham playbook (in a good way). One tipster put it like this:
[J]ust got my letter re: (1) bonus, and (2) 2010 salary and (3) true-up (actually got the letter last Friday, the 22nd). I am glad to say that I got unfrozen with a “true” true-up! The firm could not tell me if all associates were treated the same.
As we understand it, this good news was shared with nearly all Chadbourne & Parke associates.
Details and a statement from the firm, after the jump.
Continue reading “Chadbourne & Parke: True-Up Raises and Make-Whole Bonuses”
* Obama will propose a government spending freeze in tomorrow night’s State of the Union address. [Washington Post]
* The Justice Department gives the green light to the Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger (subject to conditions). [Main Justice]
* This Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case sounds like it might make a good movie. [WSJ Law Blog]
* A closer look at the disastrous Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village real estate deal, which just ended with Tishman Speyer handing over the keys to the complex (plus a defense of Tishman Speyer from Fried Frank’s Jonathan Mechanic). [Am Law Daily; New York Times]
* Judge Jack Weinstein (E.D.N.Y.) rails against Wall Street’s “culture of corruption.” [New York Law Journal]
* Is Justice Stevens singing his swan song? Adam Liptak wonders. [New York Times]
* Elie isn’t the only opponent of a new U. Mass law school. Former MA attorney general Thomas F. Reilly thinks it’s a bad idea too. [Boston Globe]
* University of Iowa College of Law gets a new dean. [University of Iowa]
* A successful defense of a Twitter defamation suit argues that almost half of tweets are just “pointless babble.” [National Law Journal]
Biglaw firms do pro bono work for all sorts of reasons: to “give back to the community,” to give associates varied legal experience, for reputational reasons, and for that warm, fuzzy feeling we all get helping those less fortunate.
Usually pro bono work makes for good press. But not always.
Pillsbury Winthrop got a good thrashing in the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend for its pro bono assistance to a man named Bob Kaufman.
Kaufman is a fan of “antique cars”… of the old and rusted variety. According to court documents, Kaufman “is addicted to acquiring vehicles. Over the last two years, he has had an average of seven cars parked on San Francisco streets at any one time.”
Kaufman violated a San Francisco parking law requiring that cars be moved every 72 hours. Two of his clunkers were confiscated. He decided to sue the city of San Francisco and the police department for taking his babies away. He met a Pillsbury attorney at a legal clinic and the firm took pity on him. From the Chronicle:
But now Kaufman has something else — Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw, a high-powered international law firm. Although the Pillsbury Web site says the local office focuses on banking, technology and real estate, currently it is helping Kaufman get two junker cars back from a tow yard.
So far, the city is out $71,320 fighting what the city attorney’s office insists is a frivolous lawsuit.
We expect the hippies in California to hate on Biglaw, but not for their pro bono efforts…
Continue reading “Pillsbury Gets Pilloried for Pro Bono Work in San Francisco”
* The dog-haters and other associated meanies out there will think this link belongs in the doghouse. But if you have ever seriously thought about the legal rights of dogs and social and political implications of having a pet, you simply must read this article. [New York Magazine]
* This gives entirely new meaning to the term “scum-sucking lawyer.” [Buffalo News]
* “Should five percent appear too small, be thankful I don’t take it all.” [Tax Prof Blog]
* Lunch interviews are a great opportunity to show your prospective employers that you can handle your three martinis with grace and focus. [Law.com]
* Life in a world of opportunity flatness. [Law and More]
* Five things every prospective law student should know. [About.com]
* Metal heads have legal problems too. [Metalsucks]
* Haggis is to edible as law student is to: A) Mentally handicapped, B) Employable, C) Doable, D) Terminal? [The Scots Law Student via Blawg Review]
Last week, Wilson Sonsini was busy shuffling staffers out the door. Today, Wilson Sonsini is proud to announce bonuses for the lawyers — just in case any of them were feeling bad about their recently departed secretaries.
The firm-wide memo just went out; here’s the bonus news:
Merit Bonus
The firm will pay merit bonuses for FY10 to all eligible non-member attorneys. Continuing with the criteria implemented last year, the merit bonus program provides for hours-based awards to all attorneys in good standing who achieved 1,900 or 2,100 bonus-eligible hours over the course of the 2009 calendar year. In addition to the hours-based component, attorneys also may receive a discretionary amount based on work quality and overall contribution to the firm. …
This year’s total bonuses range from a maximum of $9,000 for eligible associates from the class of 2008 to a maximum of $49,000 for eligible associates from the 2002 and earlier classes.
While the top number is more than the Cravath scale, we have no idea how many lawyers actually exceeded the Cravath bonus. I’ll spare you the familiar rant about the uselessness of providing the high score without mentioning the average payout associates received. Suffice it to say: nobody’s fooled.
UPDATE: We now have the full bonus memo for WSGR, which appears after the jump.
Wilson Sonsini also announced salary news today. After the jump, you’ll see that it looks suspiciously like a thaw of one class year.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus/Salary Watch: Wilson Sonsini Announces Bonuses A Few Days After Firing Staff”
Jean Valjean once stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family during a down economy in France. Despite this crime, Valjean is regarded as a hero who stole only when it was absolutely necessary, then devoted his life to helping others and serving God.
I thought of the Les Misérables story when I read a distressing tale on the ABA Journal this morning:
California bar officials are blaming the recession for an increase in lawyers being investigated for pilfering client funds or collecting fees to modify mortgages without doing anything to help.
The State Bar of California is investigating 1,200 loan modification cases and more than 300 lawyers who were involved, the Fresno Bee reports. More lawyers are also being accused of mishandling client funds, according to Carol Langford, a lawyer who defends lawyers accused of ethical wrongdoing. Most of the lawyers under investigation were retired or relatively new to practice, the story says.
Hmm … I just don’t know if “Les Avocats” will be quite as catchy.
Should we feel sorry for California lawyers forced into a life of crime?
Continue reading “Are Lawyers Just One Step Removed From Criminals?”
Berkeley law professor John Yoo, author of the so-called “torture memos” — as well as a new book on executive power, Crisis and Command, which has been getting very good reviews (even from such outlets as the New York Times and the Washington Post) — once again finds himself in the hot seat. And we’re not just talking about snarky (but ineffectual) attempts by Jon Stewart to make Yoo look bad.
From the Daily Californian (via Business Insider):
The Boalt Hall School of Law administration has come under fire once again over the undisclosed location of Professor John Yoo’s spring semester California Constitution class.
Yoo, who has been criticized for memos he wrote under the Bush administration justifying alleged torture practices, was scheduled to begin his first class of the semester Tuesday night and is the only professor in the law school whose class location is not listed on the law school’s class schedule. Anti-war groups World Can’t Wait and Fire John Yoo! have targeted Yoo since he returned from sabbatical last fall and criticized the Boalt Hall administration Tuesday.
About 25 people, some clad in orange jumpsuits, gathered Tuesday outside Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley’s office, demanding that the location of Yoo’s class be made public.
People in orange jumpsuits, roving the streets of California. Is this Judge Reinhardt’s doing?
We reached out to Professor Yoo to see if he had any comment on the classroom controversy, and he sent us a rather amusing reply.
Continue reading “John Yoo’s ‘Secret Class’: The Professor Responds”
If you’ve been paying attention, you might have noticed that the value proposition for going to law school is diminishing. Legal salaries are in a deflationary state, despite the fact that law school tuition is on the rise. And that debt/salary ratio is really only a concern for the law school graduates who are lucky enough to find an actual legal salary. Many recent law school graduates and current law students are having difficulty turning their legal education into a job as an attorney.
Confronted with these challenges, law school administrators have taken a number of innovative steps. There’s the “let’s totally ignore the problem and hope new law students are too stupid to research what’s happening in the legal economy” move. Hey, nobody ever went broke betting on the gullibility of the masses. A cherished yet under-reported program is the “let’s juke our employed-upon-graduation statistics and hope that U.S. News doesn’t really notice or care” option. Don’t knock that one until you’ve tried it. But my favorite thing is when law schools go with a “let’s announce a new initiative that won’t actually help anybody get a job, but it will look like we are doing something.” Trying something that was pioneered by the crew of the Titanic is an option that’s too good to pass up.
The latest example of this wonderful strategy comes to us from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University. Apparently the administration has spent weeks cooking up a new plan that will allow 2Ls to take classes over the upcoming summer, and then graduate early in December 2010 (as opposed to May 2011). That’s right, if you are desperate to get out onto the barren job market as soon as possible, IU can make that happen for you.
By allowing students to graduate early, IU is bucking a trend. At other law schools, the idea is to allow students to graduate later — for a fee, of course — as schools try to grab just a little more money out of students before they enter the jobless recovery.
Exciting details after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Schools Rearrange Deck Chairs”
It has been a month since our last caption contest, so it’s high time for another. Here’s the pic:
Same rules as always: Submit possible captions for this photo 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.
Please submit your entries by TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, at 11:59 PM. Thanks!
UPDATE: The time for submitting entries has passed. Check back later to vote on the finalists.
