* Justice John Paul Stevens hedges on retiring this year. [New Yorker via BLT]
* If Obama were to follow in Roosevelt’s footsteps in his battle with the Supreme Court, he would propose upping The Nine to The Fifteen… [New York Times]
* …and the battle is definitely not over yet. [Washington Post]
* The University of California owes alumni $38 million for illegally raising their tuition. [Los Angeles Times]
* An Indiana valedictorian sues to prevent prayer at his high school graduation. [Courthouse News Service]
* City workers in Detroit can’t wear perfume or cologne after a $100,000 settlement in this suit. [Associated Press]
Archive for March 2010
The long arm of the law should not extend to the middle finger. – Ira P. Robbins, criminal law professor at American University – Washington College of Law
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.
National jobless news seems to be business as usual. First-time jobless claims fell by 6,000 last week to 462,000.
That contributed to a net gain of 37,000, to 4.56 million people included in the "continuing claims" total. Above those receiving regular benefits, there are also 5.69 million people receiving extended benefits, an increase of about 175,000 for the week.
That becomes particularly relevant, because the Senate voted 62-36 to extend benefits (both unemployment insurance and health-insurance premium subsidies) through the end of the year. Traditionally, benefits lasted up to 26 weeks; under the new law, some people will receive up to 99 weeks’ benefits. Republicans made noise about adding $140 billion to the $12.5 trillion deficit, but were pretty much powerless to stop it.
Layoff news in the law-firm sector was not nearly so good this week. Details after the jump.
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Posted in:
Lawsuit of the Day
Lawsuit of the Day: Former Model Doesn’t Want to be Lusted After
By Kashmir Hill
A former swimsuit model is offended at the suggestion that men would use her photograph as masturbatory material. And now she’s filing a $10 million lawsuit against NBC Universal for “great humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress, shame, mortification and injury to her reputation and career” because an old photo of her was used as such fodder in the movie Couple’s Retreat.
From the New York Post:
Irina Krupnik “only learned of defendants’ lascivious use of her photo in the film” after it was released in theaters — and was horrified to discover it was being used as a “masturbatory prop” for a character played by Jon Favreau, the [now] makeup artist says in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
What do swimsuit models think men do with their ads?
We have put her photo after the jump. Look, but do not get any ideas…
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Former Model Doesn’t Want to be Lusted After”
* Should footage of Tilikum — the serial killer whale — attacking a Sea World trainer ever be shown? [Business Insider]
* Toyota Prius: friend or foe? [Washington Examiner]
* Remember the Henry Markopolos quote “They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.” Well, Columbia Law Professor John Coffee has quite a comeback. [Big Debt, Small Law]
* Kash wonders if ChatRoulette is breaking child porn laws. I’ve got no idea, that thing seems like it’s breaking all the laws of nature. [True/Slant]
* The DOJ is suffering from a web meltdown, but hey, it’s Friday. [Politico]
* Funny, I thought dueling was an acceptable judicial remedy in Kentucky. [Young Lawyers Blog]
* “Hate blogger” Hal Turner wins a second mistrial. So that was a really good use of the time of all the judges who testified. [Wired]
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Posted in:
Associate Salaries, Katten Muchin Rosenman, Salary Cuts
Katten Salary Follow-Up: Pay Raise If You Hit Hours, Salary Cut If You Did Not
By Elie Mystal
Last week, we told you that Katten Muchin was delaying its decision on associate salaries. The firm finally got around to telling people how much they’re paid this week, and we can see why there was a long delay. See, when you try to do 1,001 different things all that same time, it gets pretty complicated.
All of the salary news was communicated via individualized firm memos, so a tipster explains the top line news: Katten is moving down to a $145K pay scale:
They went down to the 145K scale (145,000; 160,000; 170,000; 185,000; 210,000; 230,000; 250,000; 250,000; 250,000). And no, those last 3 numbers are not errors.
Well, for Katten associates that were frozen last year, the new scale still gives some of them a pay bump, if they moved up a class year.
But not every Katten associate will be moving up a class year …
Continue reading “Katten Salary Follow-Up: Pay Raise If You Hit Hours, Salary Cut If You Did Not”
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Posted in:
Fashion, Feminism, Gender, Women's Issues
Biglaw Women, You Will Not Get Help with Your Make-Up
By Kashmir Hill
Yesterday, Elie got his panties in a bunch about the New York City Bar event: Dressing for Success: Fashion Sense for the Workplace. The event — aimed at women — was to be led by Eve Pearl, a “celebrity makeup artist and fashion consultant” who would talk about “how to project a professional image.”
Elie quoted tipsters offended by the City Bar offering women “charm school lessons.” He was especially offended by the fact that Pearl would not be offering any foundation application tips to men:
Why market a “fashion sense talk” to women, while ignoring men? Why just assume that women, professional women, need be more concerned about their appearance than their male counterparts? We all know why. It’s because there is a huge double standard when it comes to the appearance expectations on women as opposed to men.
The jihad on fashion for women was successful. The City Bar told us today that they’re canceling the event. But since I’m not as much of a feminist as Elie, I’m disappointed by the news.
Continue reading “Biglaw Women, You Will Not Get Help with Your Make-Up”
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Posted in:
Caption Contests
ATL/New Yorker Caption Contest Finalists: In Bed with SCOTUS
By Kashmir HillThis week’s New Yorker caption contest features a cartoon depicting The Nine. The cartoon gets even further under their robes than Lat ever has.
We couldn’t get permission to post it, but it shows the high court taking a position that can only be described as post-coital. Check it out here.
We were disappointed in the captions chosen by the New Yorker editors, so we ran our own contest. Our top ten favorites after the jump.
Continue reading “ATL/New Yorker Caption Contest Finalists: In Bed with SCOTUS”
Brian Leiter — outspoken critic of the profession’s obsession with the U.S. News law school rankings — is working on a new study about the strength of law school faculties. Here’s how he describes it:
We’ll be posting soon a new study of the scholarly impact of law faculties at the ranking site which looks at citations to faculty scholarship for the period 2004-through very early 2010. The top ten (factoring in per capita mean and median impact), with their normalized score in parentheses, are as follows:
Looking at the numbers: there’s Yale, and then there’s everybody else …
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Posted in:
Job of the Week
Job of the Week: Not Too Big, Not Too Small, This Job is Just Right
By Above the Law
Looking to leave big firm life? This week’s Job of the Week is the elusive mid-size firm opportunity. Join a firm that has grown during the recession, adding nearly 15 attorneys over the last year and a half. Great hands-on work. As always, the Job of the Week is brought to you by Lateral Link.
Position: Mid-Level Litigation Associate
Location: New York
Description: Mid-size New York firm seeks mid-level litigation associate from classes 2003-2006. Top academics and professional credentials required, as well as an accounting/financial background or significant exposure defending accounting firms or banks.
For more information about this position, please view Position #5982 on Lateral Link; current Members may can contact their personal search consultant for this or other litigation opportunities in the New York area. Membership in Lateral Link is by application only and you can apply at www.laterallink.com.
Earlier: Prior Jobs of the Week
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Posted in:
SCOTUS, Supreme Court
First One @ One First’s Guide to SCOTUS Seats, Part I: When to Arrive?
By Above the Law
My name is Mike Sacks. I am a 3L at Georgetown and creator of First One @ One First, where I write about my adventures from the front of the general admission line for the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in cases of public interest and political salience. After the New York Times covered my exploits in the McDonald v. City of Chicago line last week, Above the Law honored me as its Law Student of the Day.
And then Kash took advantage of me.
She approached me at my most vulnerable moment, fatigued from my twenty-six hour Court campout and under deadline for an argument write-up with the ABA Journal, and asked me to provide a “tutorial for how to score a seat for a SCOTUS argument.”
In other words, she requested that I exchange my very closely kept trade secrets for thousands of hits at F1@1F and a slew of trolls below this post.
I needed clarity–a bright moral line–to cut through my sleepless haze and save my principles from ATL’s temptation. I needed Justice Scalia.
But Justice Scalia, only hours before, killed his credibility when he openly embraced “substantive due process,” the living constitutionalists’ darling device for abortion- and gay-rights, rather than face the liberal consequences of an originalist reading of a resurrected Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
That sealed it. If Scalia could imperil his legacy for the sake of convenient results, then so could I.
Continue reading “First One @ One First’s Guide to SCOTUS Seats, Part I: When to Arrive?”
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Posted in:
Dissolution, Intellectual Property
Nationwide Dissolution Watch: Darby & Darby Going Down
By Elie Mystal
Darby & Darby, an intellectual property boutique with a strong presence in New York and Seattle is going under. Last night, tipsters reported serious trouble for the firm that has been around since 1895. Multiple sources put the news in similar, explicit language:
Darby & Darby is shutting down, [Friday].
This morning, Darby & Darby released an official statement:
It is with a heavy heart that we announce that after more than 100 years in continuous operation, Darby & Darby will begin the process of winding down the firm in anticipation of an orderly dissolution. While we continue to have exceptional clients, from individual inventors to Fortune Global 500 Companies, and remain profitable, many of the factors frequently cited in other firm’s demise have similarly impacted us. That said, we believe strongly in the IP boutique model which continues to produce some of the best legal talent in the Intellectual Property field. We will be working with all of our amazing and loyal professionals and staff to help them find new homes and know they will be very successful wherever they land.
Tipsters report that the news has been running all over the firm’s New York and Seattle offices since last night. And they are telling stories of partners in the know “looting” the firm and aggressively looking for other work…
Continue reading “Nationwide Dissolution Watch: Darby & Darby Going Down”
* Tentative settlement reached to pay World Trade Center first responders. [CNN]
* The secret trials of rich people. [Forbes]
* God of War doesn’t infringe on the screenplays of two unknown writers. And now the writers have bigger problems as they’ve doubtlessly made Kratos angry. [Courthouse News Service]
* Wait, bedbug-sniffing dogs really exist? [ABA Journal]
* In case you missed it in Non-Sequiturs yesterday, Judge G. Thomas Porteous was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday. On to the Senate now. Meanwhile, he continues to get a $174,000 salary. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
* With a new New York D.A. comes new conflicts. [DNAinfo]
* Lehman brothers used some tricks to hide the collapse from itself. [New York Times]
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Posted in:
Fashion, Feminism, Gender, Women's Issues
Biglaw Women, Do You Even Know How to Use Make-Up?
By Elie MystalWith the potentially groundbreaking elevation of Kathleen Sullivan this morning, and the oh-so-tasteful prostitution and stripper jokes in Non-Sequiturs, it’s kind of been a female-focused day here at ATL.
It’s been a good day for gender equality, but let’s not forget that progress can be an incremental proposition. The City Bar of New York is putting on a little event for the ladies and — well — why don’t you be the judge?
Dressing for Success: Fashion Sense for the Workplace
Join us for a night that no professional woman should miss. Eve Pearl, five-time Emmy Award winning celebrity makeup artist, fashion consultant, author, and national TV personality will discuss how to project a professional image. From determining what is appropriate and suitable for the workplace, including business casual attire, hair and make-up, to demonstrating proper make-up techniques, you can begin utilizing what you learn the next day.
The program will be followed by a networking reception where beverages and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Whether you are just starting out in your career, or have been perfecting your look for decades, this will be a fun and informative evening.
UPDATE: The event has been canceled. Kash laments its demise here.
At least there is a woman giving the advice. Maybe the City Bar learned something from the New York State Bar association about condescending panels of men giving advice to women.
Still, given the subject manner, what could possibly go wrong?
Continue reading “Biglaw Women, Do You Even Know How to Use Make-Up?”
* If you need advertisements to help point you in the direction of prostitutes in a state where prostitution is legal, then something is wrong with your wang. [The Volokh Conspiracy]
* I think strip clubs should be zoned right next to churches. The patrons frivolously stuffing dollars everywhere would feel slightly ashamed of themselves, and the strip club patrons would just be pissed. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Shocking, but some lawyers need help to avoid picking up work. [The Lawyerist]
* Porteous impeached, unanimously, by the House. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Riding your bike while drunk is a crime, kind of, in Oregon. So, if you are drunk you can’t drive, you can’t bike, next thing you know, they’ll be telling us that alcohol impairs one’s ability to walk. [Bad Lawyer]
* Honest question, why would you even want to be Governor of New York? As NYAG, all of Wall Street fears you, and you can make spurious jurisdictional arguments to bring nearly the entire world under your purview. As NY’s Governor, nobody respects you, you have to live in Albany, and you can’t even get a little side action without the New York Times crawling up your ass. [New York Times]
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Posted in:
Howrey LLP, Partner Issues, Partner Profits
What’s Wrong With Howrey? Profits are Down and Partners Will Be Axed.
By Elie Mystal
It’s been almost a year since a Biglaw firm dissolved, so don’t expect any more lights to be turned off because of the recession. But an article in Legal Week announces that Howrey is facing some difficult times:
Howrey is set to cut up to 10% of its partnership over the coming months in the wake of a 35% drop in profits per equity partner (PEP) during 2009.
Between 25 and 30 partners are expected to leave Howrey over the next few months as part of the restructuring, with the majority of the cuts set to fall in the US. Up to three partners are expected to leave across the firm’s European offices.
That’s a huge number. How do you say “trail of tears” in partner-speak? We’ve seen lots of firms lay off 10% of their associates, but we haven’t seen this kind of forced partner exodus.
How times have changed. It wasn’t all that long ago that Howrey was acquiring partners in bunches from other failed law firms.
Now the firm appears to be struggling. Am Daily suggests that these lateral hires are part of the reason for Howrey’s current troubles:
Ironically, the acquisition of high-profile laterals–including a construction group from the now-defunct Thelen and Gary Bendinger, whose lucrative client list includes KPMG and other auditors–created internal client conflicts that hurt some partners, according to two sources familiar with the matter. In an interview Thursday, [managing partner Robert Ruyak] acknowledged as much, but said that firms routinely make such trade-offs in planning for the future.
How bad is it at Howrey these days?
Continue reading “What’s Wrong With Howrey? Profits are Down and Partners Will Be Axed.”
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Posted in:
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day: What Lawyers Have in Common with Sandra Bullock?
By Kashmir Hill
Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they’re noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies.
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Posted in:
Texas, University of Texas School of Law
University of Texas Law School: Looking for a Few Good Human Beings
By Elie Mystal
The dean of the University of Texas Law School, Lawrence Sager, decided to weigh in on the mess created by three of his 1L students. He kind of had to. For over a week, the legal world has been questioning the worth of a UT Law degree.
But Sager is a man with a marvelous wit, so you just knew that when he decided to light up the 1Ls pissing on his school’s reputation, it was going to be good. Sager penned his response in the Daily Texan:
I am writing in response to the opinion piece written by three students which appeared in The Daily Texan on March 4 under the title, “Law students need a practical education.”
A little more than halfway through their first year of law school, the authors of this call for practicality have not yet confronted the law school’s extraordinary array of courses, ranging from Admiralty Law to Wind Power Law.
Ouch — laying down the black-letter smackdown. Dean Sager’s going to blow these 1Ls out of the water….
Continue reading “University of Texas Law School: Looking for a Few Good Human Beings”
A question started percolating around the ATL offices this morning (your ATL editors do work out of an office, at least since our moms kicked us out of the basement): Is Kathleen Sullivan the FIRST female named partner in the Am Law 100?
We figured that surely there was at least one other firm that had a female partner with her name in lights. But we’ve thought about it, conferred with the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and googled around a little, and so far we’ve come up empty.
According to a spokesperson from Quinn Emanuel, Kathleen Sullivan is the Alpha female of the Am Law 100:
We believe she is the first female partner to be a named partner in the Am Law 100.
Is this possible? Were all of the top 100 firms named after old white men until today? All of them?
If you know of an exception, send us an email or put it in the comments. Please tell us that we didn’t have to wait until 2010 to cross this threshold. Regardless, we’re always happy to see a woman on top.
Earlier: CHECK YOU FIRM NAME: Quinn Emanuel Adds Kathleen Sullivan to the Stationery
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Posted in:
Cadwalader, Paul Hastings, Start Dates, White & Case
Open Thread: When Do You Start Work, Class of 2010?
By Kashmir Hill
Lucky little 3Ls with offers, are you dreaming of the Biglaw days that await you? If your firm didn’t tell you last summer that you would be deferred, you should be hearing about your start date soon… right?
Some people have started hearing news. Those heading to White & Case have not gotten start dates but they have heard about their deferral stipend. From a firm e-mail:
We are pleased to confirm that we will be paying a stipend of US$65,000 to students whose start dates have been deferred to Fall 2011. Almost all of you have accepted your offers, and we look forward to having you back at the Firm.
Some especially lucky little 3Ls actually know when they get to start…
Continue reading “Open Thread: When Do You Start Work, Class of 2010?”
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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
