Ed. 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.
First-time jobless claims dropped last week, and the overall unemployment rate (U-3) held steady at 9.7% in February.
But you won’t call that "good news" if you know what’s good for you.
Ross Todd at the American Lawyer spared us some typing:
The news for the legal services sector is one of the more hopeful signs of late. Only 100 jobs were lost in the legal sector in February, the second month in a row that has seen a substantial drop-off in job losses. According to seasonally adjusted BLS data, the legal sector lost 1,100 jobs in January compared to 2,100 in December, 2,900 in November, and 5,800 in October. Since February of last year, the sector has shed 37,100 positions.
Coincidentally, that lines up very closely with the 110 jobs we reported lost from major law firms in "The Month in Layoffs" for February. (BLS reports net numbers, we’re just tallying layoffs at major firms).
But layoffs aren’t firms’ only costcutting measure, and in fact they seem to be falling out of favor quickly. After the jump, what the firms have been up to this week.
Continue reading “This Week in Layoffs: 03.07.10″
The backstory behind the false rumor of Chief Justice John Roberts stepping down from the Supreme Court — initially reported (and then retracted) by Radar, and covered by us here, here, and here — continues to pick up mainstream media mentions as well. See, e.g., the Los Angeles Times and NPR.
We stand by our primary claim that this gossip arose out of Professor Peter Tague’s criminal law class at Georgetown Law, in which he tried to teach his students a lesson about the credibility and reliability of informants. But we would like to retract one aspect of our earlier coverage. We wrote:
Note the timestamps on the Radar posts. The first one came out at 6:10 a.m., i.e., the Pacific Time equivalent of 9:10 a.m. Eastern time. The retraction came out at 6:36 a.m., i.e., the Pacific Time equivalent of 9:36 a.m. Eastern — shortly after Professor Tague let his class in on the joke.
We now believe that the time stamps on the Radar post bear little or no relation to reality. David Perel, Executive Vice President of RadarOnline.com, admitted as much to Gawker, when he described the timestamps as “off.”
For those of you who are interested, we have a few more thoughts on the exact timing of events here.
Continue reading “The John Roberts Retirement Rumor: A Postscript”
* Best Oscar related lawsuits ever. [THR, Esq]
* Woman sues Netflix for DVD delay. I swear, “overly litigious” doesn’t even begin to describe this country. [Gothamist]
* Former Foley Hoag tax partner suspended for — wait for it — not filing his taxes…. [Tax Prof Blog]
* Minority- and women-owned law firms, there’s going to be some business coming your way. [WSJ Law Blog]
* USC Gould School of Law delays their tax LLM program. Word on the street is that the school realized it couldn’t place its graduates in good jobs. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Gaming the legal education system. [Blackbook Legal]
Last May, Reed Smith announced a 10 percent across-the-board salary cut for its associates. The cut went into effect on July 1, 2009.
This week brought salary and bonus news from the firm. From one Reed Smith source:
Reed Smith announced 2010 compensation today. The firm’s “raises” are essentially only restoring the original salary levels that we all had before the firm’s universal 10% cut in 2009. I have not heard of anyone receiving any sort of bonus.
UPDATE / CORRECTION: Actually, it appears that the salary announces were highly individualized — and all over the map. Some associates received sizable raises, some received modest raises, some were kept frozen, and some saw their salaries cut even further. Most appear to be unhappy: “Morale is very low,” said one.
Bonuses were announced too. A different RS source informed us: “Salary and bonus memos are out. Bonuses are per usual, a set structure based on hours.” But the Reed Smith bonuses may have been more theoretical than practical. “I think that very few people hit [the required] hours,” this tipster told us.
There’s a bit more Reed Smith news, most of it not happy….
Continue reading “Reed Smith Announces Salary and Bonus News
(Plus other Reed Smith news.)“
Yesterday, as part of our series on clever — or, at least, interesting — business cards, we shared with you the card for Adam Reposa, Texas “lawyer/winner.”
Reposa’s card included his stats in terms of cases won. As one commenter pointed out:
Must be a pain to update your business cards every time you win a case. Lucky for him the victories seem few and far between.
It turns out Reposa has a second, evergreen card:
He offers advice to prospective clients on the card’s flip side…
Continue reading “Adam Reposa: Stud Trial Lawyer and Cannibalistic Carpenter?”
There is a growing awareness on just how much the U.S. News law school rankings affect legal education in this country. Last fall, the Government Accounting Office reported that the rankings were a significant factor in the rising cost of legal education. Many have argued that the rankings create perverse incentives for law school deans. Now, some are arguing that the rankings have a negative effect on law school diversity:
U.S. News rankings guru Bob Morse lays out the argument against the rankings:
[Michael Sauder of the University of Iowa and Wendy Nelson Espeland of Northwestern University] also comment on the impact that the U.S. News law school rankings have had on law school diversity, and they give their views on the annual U.S. News law school diversity index. They say that “because rankings include selectivity statistics (LSAT scores, undergraduate grade point averages, and acceptance rates account for 25% of a school’s overall rank) that reflect racial, gender, economic and geographical differences, and because the ability to perform well under duress on a timed, standardized test is a highly restrictive form of merit, efforts to improve these statistics can threaten various forms of diversity. Notably, U.S. News’s diversity index is not factored into the overall rankings given to law schools but is presented separately, which hugely undercuts its impact.”
Of course, Morse doesn’t think the rankings negatively impact law school diversity.
Continue reading “U.S. News Claims Their Rankings Do Not Hurt Law School Diversity”
Apparently, people who summered at Mayer Brown in 2009 and received an offer are still waiting to hear whether they will be able to start work in a timely manner.
Two former MB summer associates and current NYU Law students decided to take matters into their own hands. They sent out an email to everybody in Mayer Brown’s 2009 summer class. The students hoped to put grassroots pressure on Mayer Brown. I’ve redacted the students’ real names.
Hello Mayer Brown Class of 2010,
You know [Rosencrantz] if you were in New York, and [Guildenstern] if you were in Chicago. We are writing because Mayer Brown has kept us all in the dark about our futures. Their delay in formally announcing any of the plans for our class is unique among top law firms — in their total lack of official communication regarding our start dates, stipend, and health insurance over the coming year, they truly stand alone.
This letter is a call to concerted action in order to require Mayer Brown to make formal announcements regarding our future. We urge that each Mayer Brown 2009 Summer Associate ask their Law School’s Office of Career Services to call Mayer Brown and request the immediate formal announcement of the terms of our offers.
The rest of this call to action, after the jump.
Continue reading “Mutiny at Mayer Brown?”
On Thursday morning, a criminal law professor at Georgetown University Law Center started his class with some startling news. He told his first-year law students that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was planning to retire due to health concerns. He told his students that he could not reveal his sources but that the information was credible.
Some argue that the internet should not be allowed in law school classrooms. What transpired in Professor Peter Tague’s classroom lends support to that argument. His students proceeded to send out the surprising news via email and/or chat and/or tweet. Somehow it made its way to Radar Online, and soon the blogosphere went into a frenzy over the news.
But the news was spurious. Midway through his lecture on the credibility and reliability of informants, Professor Tague revealed that the Roberts rumor was false and that he was illustrating how someone a lawyer might ordinarily think was a credible source — like a law school professor — could disseminate inaccurate information. An important lesson in law: trust should be based on multiple sources.
It’s an important lesson in journalism as well. And the blogosphere learned it the hard way yesterday. Radar Online published an “exclusive” story that Roberts would be retiring “at any time.”
We did not initially report it here, after checking with our sources and encountering extreme skepticism. But it spread like wildfire through the blogosphere, so we “broke the news” that Roberts was still chief justice. A couple of hours later, we broke real news, of how the rumors got started.
We did not criticize Professor Tague in our story, but we’ve been contacted by his current and former students who wish to defend him. He certainly succeeded in teaching them — and many news organizations — a lesson, but he must also have learned about the dangers of pedagogical pranks in the Internet age…
Continue reading “Everybody Learns A Lesson from Georgetown Professor Peter Tague”
Ed. note: ATL has teamed up with the 10th Justice to predict how the Supreme Court may decide upcoming cases. CNN has called FantasySCOTUS the “hottest new fantasy-league game.”
Tom Goldstein predicted Justice Stevens will retire at the end of the term. He’s getting his own sitcom, so it must be true And in honor of Stevens’ looming retirement and the attendant circus, this week’s installment of the 10th Justice will consider Stevens’ behavior in the 14 cases that have been decided this term. We will show how users perceive Justice John Paul Stevens.
Continue reading “FantasySCOTUS.net: The Influence of (soon to be retiring?) Justice John Paul Stevens”
I previously mentioned that I would be participating in a poker tournament hosted by Caesars Palace Atlantic City and Stockings and Bonds. Breaking Media will stake one lucky reader in the tournament as well.
But enough about you. Top prize is $30,000 and I want to win — I at least want to make it to the final table. Now, I’ve got some skill. I’ve got a good feel for the game, especially live, when you can see the people you are playing against. And, as we all know, legal training offers an advantage in the game of poker.
But I’ll be playing against i-bankers and other true experts in risk management. So I’ll need to raise my game. For that, I want to get a sense of the best poker practices developed by all of you lawyers out there.
Let’s start with the most essential question: What should I wear?
Continue reading “Poker Open Thread: Seeking Advice”
* Is Obama ready to back down on a civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? [Daily Beast]
* Unemployment holds steady. [New York Times]
* Anti-gay California State Senator caught leaving a gay bar. [True/Slant]
* A Texas lawyer threatens to sue the airport where he lost his coat. [The Smoking Gun]
* How to wear your rights. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Charlie Nesson is being asked to pay some of the RIAA’s fees. [Ars Technica]
* Who would take tax advice offered by one of the sorriest teams in professional sports? [Going Concern]
* Kash opines: “Nowadays, if you’re not on Facebook, it’s possible you don’t actually exist.” Good point. But I don’t think Descartes needed a business card. [True/Slant]
* Digital court makes me cry. [Lawyerist]
* “Do you have any questions for me?” Yeah, “how the hell am I supposed to answer that stupid interview question?” [Law.com]
* The lawyer for the Oscars. [THR, Esq. and WSJ Law Blog]
* Karen H. Rothenberg, the former Maryland law dean embroiled in controversy, will be speaking at Fordham. [Fordham Unversity]
Everyone is wondering: Where did that erroneous rumor of an imminent retirement by Chief Justice John Roberts come from? The gossip spread like wildfire, triggering thousands of texts, blog posts, and emails — a few hundred of them to the ATL tips line — before Radar, which first published the rumor, retracted its report.
We were skeptical, which is one reason why we didn’t write about the gossip as quickly as some other outlets. We reached out to the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office after we heard the rumor, and we didn’t want to write about it until we heard back from the PIO (or at least gave them a little time to respond).
Of course, we have many Supreme Court sources other than the official ones — and they reacted with extreme skepticism when we ran the Radar report by them. One of our SCOTUS experts actually laughed out loud after we (sheepishly) asked, “Have you heard anything about a possible Roberts retirement?” This source noted that JGR would sooner die — literally — than give Obama the chance to appoint his successor.
Like many a promising legal career, the Roberts resignation rumor traces its origins to a 1L class at Georgetown University Law Center….
Continue reading “Anatomy of a Rumor: The Story Behind Chief Justice John Roberts’s ‘Retirement’”
Everybody knows that the Charlotte legal market has taken a beating during the recession. But we didn’t know that it was so bad that the firms couldn’t afford to pay people. This tip comes in from Charlotte-centric Moore & Van Allen:
Just passing along in case this warrants further investigation (i.e., if anyone still gives a crap about Charlotte-based AmLaw 200s). Many of us are sick of the free pass our firm has gotten in the media w/r/t layoffs and now, associate comp changes.
Associates were informed of a new salary scale on Friday for Charlotte (the highest paying market). First years will make 125. Turning over a new leaf in “compression”, each year will increase by a mere 5k. Associates were informed of their 2009 bonuses, as well. MVA has a completely discretionary bonus system. There were a few 50k bonuses, but (curiously) a couple of bonuses that were less than 5k. I didn’t know that bonuses even came in such small increments.
MVA’s Charlotte office wasn’t on a $160K scale to begin with. But tipsters report that $125K is still a significant paycut.
Continue reading “Nationwide Salary Cut Watch: Charlotte and the Post Apocalyptic Universe”
Last fall, we wrote about the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program, which one reader of ours described as “a hidden, relatively-unexploited gem for graduating law students.” You can read the full post here.
Some commenters, who already knew about the PMF program and the job opportunities it offers, were not happy with the exposure. A reader summed up their reactions:
A lot of people are complaining that the competition for the program will now increase due to extra exposure. I guess that can be rough for some people, but overall I think it’s good for the program.
Well, it certainly increased the competition. The number of applications went up — way up….
Continue reading “Applying for a Federal Government Job?
Good Luck With That”
Radar Online had an “exclusive” report today that Justice John Roberts planned to step down any minute. It spread like wildfire through the legal community. Huffington Post picked it up, noting that the justice has suffered seizures in the past.
The chief justice is a vigorous 55, and has already hired his clerks for next term, so we were dubious. And we were right to doubt the report. There’s no merit to it. Radar just updated their article:
RadarOnline.com has obtained new information that Justice Roberts will NOT resign. The justice will be staying on the bench.
Despite the desires of some liberals, Justice Roberts isn’t leaving One First Street anytime soon.
EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Considering Stepping Down [Radar]
John Roberts Stepping Down? [Huffington Post]
Over the weekend, I read an interesting article by Orrick partner Patricia Gillette about how law firms should rethink how and who they layoff in an economic downturn. Normally, when firms find themselves in a financial pinch, they immediately slash those that they consider most dispensable: the contract lawyers, part-time lawyers, and support staff that may very well be crucial to the firm running smoothly.
While it’s always attention-grabbing to hear critical rumblings out of the belly of the beast that is “Biglaw,” one paragraph from the article struck me. I read it again to make certain I had understood it correctly. Gillette says that not all of the best and brightest lawyers wind up as Biglaw associates. Craziness…
Continue reading “Biglaw’s Status Issue”
You’re a lawyer? Please don’t kill yourself, the cab gets really messy.
– My cab driver last night, after I explained what I used to do for a living.
There have been quite a few lawsuits filed by former law firm employees of late. Covington & Burling is fighting off Yolanda Young. Fried Frank is tussling with Julie Kamps. And law firm secretaries across the land are uniting in pursuit of their overtime.
Law firms cutting back and performing layoffs tend to leave people grumpy and litigious. A former Morrison & Foerster secretary joined the angry ranks recently with a lawsuit for wrongful termination. Aileen Martinez worked in MoFo’s San Francisco office for 28 years. She was laid off in January 2009.
According to The Recorder, Martinez said she had to take three months of disability leave in 2008, because she was afraid of litigation associate Mimi Yang.
What did Yang allegedly do to strike fear in the heart of Martinez?
Continue reading “Legal Secretary of the Day: Where’s My Fax, MoFo?”
