As we noted this morning, today was the first day of the bar exam for many of you. In light of the still-fragile legal economy, where some firms are looking for any excuse to fire associates, passing the bar exam may be more important than ever.
Some firms — e.g., Quinn Emanuel — have specific policies requiring lawyers to leave the firm if they fail the bar exam a second time. And many candidates for the February bar exam are people who didn’t pass during the July administration, so this is their second time at bat.
In light of the stress that February 2010 bar takers are under, we’d expect some amount of… weirdness. Did the person next to you have a nervous breakdown? Did a fellow exam taker get arrested while taking the bar? Was there an earthquake?
Here’s an open thread for you to talk about today’s bar exam experience.
P.S. Do not post specific questions or answers from today’s test, which could get you in legal trouble.
Earlier: Good Luck on the Bar Exam!
Archive for February 2010
* Freezing judicial salaries is unconstitutional, according to a bunch of New York judges — except for dissenting judge Robert Smith, who argued that there are still plenty of able judges, and chief judge Jonathan Lippman, who had to recuse because he’s a plaintiff. [City Room/New York Times]
* Habla espanol? Then you’re fired. [Change]
* We thought Christopher Austin’s two-week partnership at Cooley Godward might have been the shortest Biglaw partnership ever, but a German partner has him beat, with just one week spent at Milbank. [Legal Week]
* BuckleySandler poaches white collar law partner Samuel Buffone from Ropes & Gray. [BLT]
* New Yorker editor David Remnick has written an Obama biography. The correction on this article clarifies that it’s neither pumped up nor pimped out. [Arts Beat/New York Times]
* David Boies is not the only one praying for Elizabeth Wurtzel to pass the bar. [Gawker]
* New York lawyers, no refund for you? [Going Concern]
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Posted in:
Covington & Burling, Partner Issues
Covington & Burling Partner Wants to Fix the Broken Legal System
By Kashmir Hill
Philip Howard wants to “liberate Americans from too much law,” even though the law has served him well. The UVA Law grad is a partner at Covington & Burling. He made a strident argument for legal reform in his book last year, Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick reviewed the book. Though she shares some of his concerns, she concludes that “the cure for ‘too much law’ should not be too little.” But some people think Howard’s ideas are worth spreading. Among them are the organizers of TED. The TED conference invites presentations from leading thinkers in Technology, Entertainment and Design. (Sometimes leading thinkers are god-awful, though.)
Howard spoke at TED about “four ways to fix a broken legal system.” And he did it in just 18 minutes. He said:
Law is supposed to support our freedom, not undermine it. Somehow over the last few decades the land of the free has become a legal minefield. Hardly any social interaction is immune from legal implications. A pediatrician told me matter-of-factly, “I don’t deal with patients the same way anymore. You wouldn’t want to say something off-the-cuff that might be used against you.” My own law firm has questions we’re not allowed to ask interviewees, including such suspect questions as “Where do you come from?” In the land of the First Amendment, spontaneity can land you in a lawsuit.
Well, Covington-wannabes, you don’t have to worry about fielding that question at OCI.
Video from the conference and the bulletpoints, after the jump.
Continue reading “Covington & Burling Partner Wants to Fix the Broken Legal System”
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Posted in:
Greenberg Traurig, Politics
Taj Still Lives! And He’s Running for Arizona AG.
By Kashmir Hill
One of our five favorite motions of 2009 was filed by Arizona attorney Tajudeen “Taj” Oladiran. Oladiran is former Greenberg Traurig associate who filed a lawsuit against “Suntrust Bank and its pimps” for allegedly suckering him into predatory housing loans.
Taj filed a “Motion for a [sic] Honest and Honorable Court System” in his racketeering case against Suntrust before the “dishonorable” Susan Bolton. In it, Taj called Judge Bolton “a brainless coward,” not exactly the best way to win her over.
He ended the motion:
Finally, to Susan Bolton, we shall meet again you know where. :-)
Some worried that closing indicated suicidal intentions, so we tracked him down and brought you the post: Taj Lives! (And He’s Pissed).
We’re happy to report that Taj still lives. And despite his impolitic motion, he’s heading into politics. He’s filed papers to run for the Republican nomination for the Arizona attorney general race…
Continue reading “Taj Still Lives! And He’s Running for Arizona AG.”
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Posted in:
Law Schools, Old People, Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day: That sounds a lot better than law school…
By Kashmir Hill
Most of the time, the other students acted like I wasn’t even alive. Some of them asked if I was really serious. I told them I could take a first-class trip around the world and not spend as much money and not have to work as hard. – Alice Thomas, 79, who will graduate from McGeorge School of Law in May. And yes, she has an offer. At a Reno law firm, where she will work on legal issues involving the elderly.
We spent the past two weekends speaking at law school conferences (at U. Penn and Case Western). This gave us the opportunity to meet and chat with numerous law students.
Summer jobs were a common topic of conversation. The vast majority of law students we spoke with, including 2Ls, did not yet have their summer jobs lined up. Welcome to 2010.
For the law students who were lucky enough to land summer associate positions, despite firms dramatically cutting back on SA hiring (or even eliminating their programs entirely), there is a concern about program length. Will 2010 summer programs be unduly short, thereby diluting the learning experience — and earning potential — of being a summer associate?
Worrying about how long you’ll get paid $3,000 a week to eat fancy lunches and take in surgically-enhanced breasts Broadway shows is admittedly a high-class problem. But ATL is all about high-class problems, so let’s go there. From a nervous 2L at a top 15 law school:
We have received our summer program start date (May 24), but the firm has not told us when the program will end. My guess is they are paranoid and waiting to see how the next few months play out.
I would love to know how long other ‘biglaw’ firm’s summer programs will be. Has ATL considered running an open thread on 2010 summer program length?
Thanks for the reminder. Last year’s open thread on summer program length generated over 300 comments, so this is a hot topic.
A little bit more on summer program lengths, after the jump.
Continue reading “Open Thread: How Long Is Your… Summer Program?”
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Posted in:
Advertising, Career Center, Pro Bono, Public Interest, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad
Career Center: Are You Giving It Away for Free?
By Above the Law
During the past year, pro bono programs got an unexpected boost from the recession when firms like Skadden offered stipends to their deferred associates who took public interest jobs. On the flip side, associates who escaped layoffs at their firm probably felt some pressure to devote themselves to billable work to the exclusion of pro bono work.
This week, our ATL / Lateral Link survey asks about the effect of the economic downturn on the pro bono programs at your firm. We’ll use the information to update the ATL Career Center and bring you the results next week.
If you have information about your firm that you want to share with other career center users, please email us at careercenter@abovethelaw.com. Also, a reminder that we are still accepting applications for additional writers for the Career Center.
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Posted in:
Craigslist, Law Schools
Craigslist Post of the Day: Screw Temple Law School (Student)
By Kashmir HillToo bad this Temple Law School 3L isn’t at a southern school where students aren’t just “law school hot.” See Adrielle Churchill of the University of Arkansas.
From Craigslist Philadelphia Missed Connections:
But will he be a lawyer with a job? Temple University Beasley School of Law came in at #42 on the National Law Journal’s list of Best Law Schools for getting a Biglaw job. NLJ reports that 16.2 percent of grads at Temple score a job with one of the top 250 firms.
We’re glad to see this Temple law student taking advantage of the more favorable odds of scoring with an undergrad. Some of the responses, after the jump.
Continue reading “Craigslist Post of the Day: Screw Temple Law School (Student)”
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Posted in:
Baseball, Law Schools, Sports
Thomas M. Cooley Law School Buys Stadium Naming Rights
By Elie Mystal
Okay, the legal economy is in the tank. Recent law graduates are having a tough time finding jobs. Graduates from lower tier law schools are getting squeezed as top tier law students and deferred associates compete for jobs and opportunities. You get the picture.
Now enter Thomas M. Cooley Law School. The school that’s ranked 12th by Thomas M. Cooley Law School and is considered fourth tier by everyone else. With over 3,500 full- and part-time students, Cooley gives new meaning to the term “diploma mill.” Despite the terrible economy the school is expanding, ensuring that even more law students will know what it feels like to pay off post graduate educational debts with extra shifts at McDonalds.
What is Cooley Law School doing to improve the lot of the students suckered into a 4th tier law school? It’s buying the naming rights to a minor league baseball stadium. I’m not joking. Cooley is taking the tuition dollars of its students and buying naming rights. Naming rights. I guess replacing all the desks and lecterns with steaming piles of dung was just a little bit too expensive for the bigwigs at Cooley. Buying naming rights gets the same message across to students.
More details on Thomas M. Cooley’s new glory project, after the jump.
Continue reading “Thomas M. Cooley Law School Buys Stadium Naming Rights”
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* Would ash sway a jury? A judge in Iowa thought so. [Beliefnet via ABA Journal]
* Spanking judge Herman Thomas was acquitted on charges of sexually abusing inmates, but yesterday he was disbarred. [Associated Press]
* CHECK YOU EMAIL SCAMS. [ABA Journal]
* Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski laments the death of the Fourth Amendment. [Pogo Was Right]
* Snarky justice is better than no justice. More on Judge Rakoff’s ruling on the Bank of America-SEC settlement. [New York Times]
* Another lawyer show, this time with Jim Belushi. [Reuters]
Today is the first day of the February bar exam. If you’re sitting for the test today, good luck.
Celebrity authoress Elizabeth Wurtzel, a repeat taker, is freaking out. As Wurtzel said last night on Twitter, “I guess I’m taking the bar exam on Tuesday & Wednesday. Anyone with magical, mystical powers who wants to use them on my behalf, please do.”
If it makes you feel better, Lizzie, you’re not alone in your anxiety. Many other aspiring lawyers are losing it on Twitter.
To ATL readers who have passed the bar: Do you have any last-minute tips for today’s victims? Feel free to offer them in the comments.
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Posted in:
Department of Justice, Kirkland & Ellis, Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day: Was Working on the Torture Memos… Torture?
By Kashmir Hill
I have a number of large projects with different people. I would have said no, but it didn’t seem like that was an option here. – Jennifer Hardy (née Koester), now a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, complaining to a friend via email that she was working 12 hour days without breaks at the Department of Justice (where she reportedly worked on the so-called “torture memos”).
* When Supreme Court justices decide not to help you, they do it in a very classy way. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]
* The business types are calling the class of 2009 “The Class of the Damned.” I suppose that is a little more accurate than our term “The Lost Generation.” Unemployed 2009 grads aren’t so much “lost,” they’re screwed. [Wall Street Journal]
* Here’s the thing: if you are a lawyer and you can’t talk yourself out of or around difficult questions, then you are truly in the wrong business. [Law.com]
* Would you trust a lawyer who learned bankruptcy law on the internet? What if he could save your family from foreclosure? [McSweeny's Internet Tendency]
* Okay, if you put together the U.S. News law school rankings, the Super Lawyers rankings, and the National Law Journal list, you come up with 11 schools that are more desirable than Yale Law School. Since pigs aren’t flying up my butt right now, I’ve got to think that there’s a methodological flaw somewhere in there. [Business Insider]
* Some people want to believe that Biglaw is the monster and lawyers are Dr. Frankenstein. But really, Biglaw is the doctor and we are the … is that fire? Fire BAD.
[Law Firm Web Strategy Blog via Blawg Review]
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Posted in:
Cooley Godward, Goodwin Procter, Musical Chairs, Ropes & Gray, Weirdness, Yale Law School
Christopher Austin, The Two-Week Partner
By Kashmir Hill
Christopher Austin spent sixteen years at Ropes & Gray, the crème de la crème of Boston law firms. He was the co-head of the Technology Company and Venture Capital Practice group. So it was with some fanfare that Cooley Godward announced earlier this month that the Yale Law grad was leaving Ropes to join Cooley’s burgeoning Boston office.
The firm issued a press release, and the news made it into the “Human Capital: People on the Move” column of the Boston Business Journal, on February 3:
Cooley Godward Kronish LLP added Christopher Austin, previously the co-head of the technology company and venture capital practice at Ropes & Gray LLP, as partner. Austin will be a resident in Cooley’s Boston office.
So it was with some surprise that one of our readers saw his name mentioned again in the same paper and the same column, but with a different firm destination, on February 19:
Goodwin Procter LLP added a new corporate partner in the firm’s Boston office. Christopher Austin’s practice focuses on the representation of public and private technology and life sciences companies, venture capital funds and investment banks. Austin was previously co-head of the technology company and venture capital practice at Ropes & Gray LLP, where he practiced for 16 years.
La partner è mobile. Two weeks may be the record for shortest partnership ever. This truly does sound like musical chairs.
So what happened? Cooley issued a surprisingly spicy statement…
What is Baltimore known for? We think of The Wire, John Waters movies, a world-class aquarium, and crabs (the seafood, not the parasites).
The city is also known for high crime. And some folks think Maryland taxpayers got robbed, by the former law school dean at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. From the Baltimore Sun:
Karen H. Rothenberg, former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, was the administrator who received $410,000 in what a state legislative audit called “questionable compensation payments,” according to university payroll records.
The routine audit of the University of Maryland, Baltimore says that in fiscal 2007, a high-ranking administrator received four payments totaling $350,000 for sabbatical time that was apparently never taken. The payments, approved by UMB President David Ramsay, came on top of a $360,000 salary.
But wait, there’s more….
UPDATE: A reader poll has been added, after the jump.
Continue reading “Is a Maryland Law School Dean Worth $800,000?”
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Posted in:
Lawsuit of the Day, Reality TV, Television, Violence
Update: Jersey Shore Fans, Rejoice! Judge Will Not Block DVD Release.
By Kashmir Hill
We reported this morning that a victim of a Jersey Shore beatdown was trying to prevent the Tuesday DVD release of the popular MTV reality series. Stephen Izzo, Jr., 26, was attacked by Ronnie “Don’t fall in love at Jersey Shore” Ortiz-Magro during the show’s first season.
In the episode, Ronnie bragged that he knocked Izzo down with “one shot.” But then Ronnie got knocked down — with a charge for aggravated assault.
Izzo’s lawyer asked a judge to block the Jersey Shore season one DVD release tomorrow because “the law prohibits people from profiting from a criminal case.”
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Foster did not fist pump to that claim….
Continue reading “Update: Jersey Shore Fans, Rejoice! Judge Will Not Block DVD Release.”
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Posted in:
Biglaw, Job Searches, Law Schools, Rankings
Best Law Schools for Getting a Biglaw Job (2010)
By Elie Mystal
What should you do if you want to get a Biglaw job? Have sex with a partner? I wish it was that inexpensive.
Most people will come to the conclusion that going to law school is a more reliable long-term career strategy than latching onto a partner stuck in a loveless marriage. But which law school should you go to? According to the National Law Journal, students looking to land in Biglaw faced a lot of challenges in 2009, but some schools were better than others at placing graduates in top jobs:
The National Law Journal’s annual Go-To Law School List paints a pretty sorry picture of first-year associate employment at the nation’s 250 largest law firms last year. The No. 1 law school sent just 55.9% of its 2009 graduates to NLJ 250 law firms. In 2008, the highest percentage of graduates heading to NLJ 250 firms was 70.5%. Importantly, the 2009 percentages include deferred associates, so an even smaller group actually went to work last year. Remember, the list consists of the very top performing schools, where job prospects in years past have proven recession-proof. Not so in 2009.
On the bright side … well … hey, a lot of the people who did land Biglaw jobs will burn out after a few miserable years. So maybe getting shut out of the few jobs that can support an enormous law school debt load is actually a blessing, merely disguised as rejection and poverty.
So which schools did the best at placing people in Biglaw?
Continue reading “Best Law Schools for Getting a Biglaw Job (2010)”
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Posted in:
Associate Salaries, Killing Lockstep, Salary Cuts, Salary Freeze, Winston & Strawn
Winston & Strawn Kills Lockstep and Adopts a ‘Black Box’ Compensation System
By David Lat
Friday brought good news and bad news for Winston & Strawn associates.
The good news is that the double salary freeze, which has apparently resulted in first- through third-year associates at Winston all earning $160,000, may be thawing. Managing partner Thomas Fitzgerald sent a memo — this time to its intended recipients — indicating that raises are on the way.
The bad news is that Winston associates don’t know how much of a raise they’ll be getting — and the most they can hope for is a salary that matches the market. The memorandum contains the standard $160K salary scale — 160-170-185-210-230-250-265-280 — but states that “[s]alary levels in each associate class will range up to the maximum base compensation levels set forth” in the memo (emphases added).
The Winston associates we’ve heard from are upset. They’re unhappy not just about the move away from lockstep, but over the firm’s failure to set forth in detail how salaries will be determined. Most of the other firms that have abandoned lockstep have set forth elaborate systems for evaluating associates to determine their compensation and advancement. The Winston memo simply states: “Individual associate salaries will be determined on a case by case basis based on seniority, performance and productivity factors and will be communicated separately to each associate.”
This is a “black box” approach to compensation. It’s used by other big firms — e.g., Jones Day — but it’s a significant departure from Winston’s historical practice. It’s not what Winston associates signed up for when they joined the firm.
But then again, thanks to the Great Recession, lots of Biglaw associates aren’t getting what they expected when they joined their firms. And if associates aren’t happy, with compensation or any other aspect of their employment, their firms will tell them: you’re free to leave. In the words of an unemployed woman quoted in this weekend’s New York Times, “There are no bad jobs now. Any job is a good job.”
There’s a little more bad news about Winston associate salaries. Find out what it is, and read the full Winston & Strawn memo, after the jump.
Continue reading “Winston & Strawn Kills Lockstep and Adopts a ‘Black Box’ Compensation System”
Finally. The brilliant but prickly Judge Rakoff has (reluctantly) signed off on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $150 million settlement with Bank of America. The saga, which has consumed Wall Street (and stressed out many Wall Street lawyers) for over half a year now, has come to an end.
For more detailed coverage, see the links collected after the jump.
Continue reading “Breaking: Judge Rakoff Approves SEC Settlement with Bank of America”
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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
