The weather is seasonal in New York City today, but for most of this week we’ve experienced a little heat wave. Near record high temperatures were recorded throughout the tri-state area.
Apparently, Cardozo Law School was completely unprepared for this spate of summer weather, and it nearly ruined the school’s “OCI Preview” event for 1Ls desperate to snag jobs next recruiting season. Multiple tipsters reported variations on the same theme. I’ll use a version that doesn’t involve cursing: “I pay over $40,000 in tuition yet my law school can’t even turn the A/C on when I’m trying to network for a job.”
It was so bad that Cardozo had to send around an apology to the students for making them network in a sauna. And according to the email, Cardozo truly couldn’t figure out how to simply turn the A/C “on”…
Now I have another reason to love Georgetown: Jim Michalowitz. You see, Georgetown University Law Center is one of the few schools with an e-discovery blog. I have highlighted it before on Gabe’s Guide. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover that Jim had actually taken time out of his busy schedule to write a response to my ATL post that was highly critical of the legal outsourcing of e-discovery work to non-attorneys here and overseas.
With the title, “You Can’t Trust Them Foreigners – Outsourcing Document Review,” it’s of little surprise that Mr. Michalowitz — advisory board member of Georgetown University’s CLE e-Discovery Institute, Six Sigma enthusiast, and proponent of foreign legal outsourcing — took a different take on the issue.
And, you know what? He was so right. I just don’t trust them foreigners. I didn’t know it until I read his post, but it all makes perfect sense now.
Here are some of Mr. Michalowitz’s conclusions about my original arguments against outsourcing legal work to non lawyers:
My position on legal outsourcing was extreme
Using foreign or non-attorneys would equal a poor or lower quality work product
Foreign lawyers might as well be considered non- or “not-real” lawyers
Mr. Michalowitz brings up some good points; however, he either has some fundamental misunderstandings of — or is falsely characterizing — my views on legal outsourcing. So, I thought that I would take the time to nicely clarify any misconceptions he might have. Oh, and by nicely, I mean, I am coming like the Clash of the Titans, because I am about to release the Kraken, after the jump.
Enter iPad… cue entertainment lawyer openings to protect the network’s content.
This week’s job is an in-house position at a global media company for a lawyer with entertainment experience. In addition to a new need for entertainment lawyers, in-house legal hiring is picking up across the board as companies are lifting hiring freezes. In fact, in the first quarter Lateral Link placed five attorneys in-house, including two attorneys at Vail Resorts in Colorado.
Position: Counsel, Rights
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Description: Global media company is seeking an attorney specializing in entertainment and/or intellectual property law to join its Rights Unit. This unit is responsible for analyzing and managing information concerning the company’s rights in its entertainment content. The Rights Unit serves a variety of the company’s business divisions, including its production studios, distribution divisions, and its digital media group. The attorney should have at least six years of experience working with entertainment contracts as well as litigation and IP experience.
If you are a Lateral Link member, please see Position #6071 on the Lateral Link site. If you are not a Lateral Link member, you can sign up for free a www.laterallink.com. You may also contact Carolyn Brenner at cbrenner@laterallink.com.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is done with his teasing. He’s been hinting for weeks that he could announce his plans to retire at any moment. Today, he finally made it official.
He sent a letter to President Barack Obama this morning — available after the jump — consisting of a single sentence (Souter did it with two):
Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court’s next Term, I shall retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice, under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 371(b), effective the next day after the Court rises for the summer recess this year.
This means Obama will have his second opportunity to make an addition to the Supreme Court. U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan is considered by many to be the frontrunner for the nomination.
At the end of the summer, Willkie Farr & Gallagher told offerees that they would be able to start at the firm on time, in the fall of 2010. It turns out that Willkie’s promise wasn’t something intelligent law students should have relied on. Here’s the email that went out to the summer class, yesterday:
Hope everyone is enjoying this summer-like weather. We are looking forward to your return and wanted to provide you with details about arrival date, salary advance and other important matters.
Orientation Date: The orientation date for the new associate class is Wednesday, January 5th.
Salary Advance: The Firm offers a salary advance for all incoming associates. You have the option of receiving up to $20,000 (payable in any month from June to October) as an advance on your first year salary. The amount advanced will be deducted from your salary over a period of one year. If you are interested in taking an advance, please complete the attached form and return it to me.
What a breezy, matter-of-fact email communicating that you don’t intend to keep your promises. But associates headed to Willkie weren’t bothered by the tone. The substance, now that pissed them off…
* The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 needs an upgrade? Why? Has there been some kind of revolution in electronic communications that’s happened over the past 24 years? [New York Times]
* The University of St. Thomas Law School is the latest to drop the LSAT as a requirement for admission. [ABA Journal]
* Former producer of Survivor is now the prime suspect in his wife’s homicide. [NY Post]
* Tragic news for the UNC Law community. [Daily Tar Heel]
* If Willie Nelson and Robert Duval are your character witnesses, you are probably a good guy. Maybe guilty as sin, but a good guy. [Waco Tribune]
Last weekend, Jonah Lehrer wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about “The Superstar Effect,” suggesting that Tiger will make other golfers play worse just by showing up:
According to a paper by Jennifer Brown, an applied macroeconomist at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Mr. Woods is such a dominating golfer that his presence in a tournament can make everyone else play significantly worse. Because his competitors expect him to win, they end up losing; success becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ms. Brown argues that the superstar effect is not just relevant on the golf course. Instead, she suggests that the presence of superstars can be “de-motivating” in a wide variety of competitions, from the sales office to the law firm.
Brown analyzed PGA Tour data from 1999 through 2006, and discovered that Woods’s presence in a tournament resulted in other golfers taking more strokes. Brown suggests that in situations where success is based on relative performance, a known superstar causes everyone else to give up and step down their game.
We thought that superstars made mediocre associates swing with malice aforethought. But Brown suggests that the “up and out model” at law firms results in great performance from the Tigers bound for partnership, and halfhearted efforts by the rest of the associates who know they’re on their way out…
* A man allegedly robbed a Staples in an attempt to get a felony conviction. Why did he want a felony on his record? To avoid going to law school. Sure, this guy is crazy, crazy like a fox. [WPTV.com via Twitter]
Put those condoms and bananas away, teachers. Wisconsin district attorney Scott Southworth says that sex ed showing minors how to use contraception is “sexual assault ed,” and that teachers who participate are subject to criminal liability.
State legislators want schools to teach the virile young children of the Cheese State how to safely churn the butter. From AOL News:
The state law, called the Healthy Youth Act, took effect in March. Starting this fall, it requires schools with sex-education courses to teach students medically accurate, age-appropriate information, including how to use birth control and prevent sexually transmitted diseases. It also requires the classes to include information about how to recognize signs of abuse and how alcohol can affect decision making.
Southworth sees this mandate as “troubling.” In a letter to five school districts, he said the law “promotes the sexualization — and sexual assault — of our children.”
Because if a kid discovers how to use a condom — Gasp! — he or she might just actually use it. According to Southworth, should that happen, sex ed teachers could face up to six year prison terms for enabling deviant sexual behavior…
With apologies to John Paul “I’m not dead yet” Stevens, speculation has been rampant about who will replace him, if he decides to retire.
Many of the names that came up after Souter retired are bubbling back to the surface, but U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has to be considered the front runner. Obama hasn’t said anything and Stevens is, you know, still there — but that didn’t stop the Harvard Crimson from handicapping the chances of former Harvard Law School Dean Kagan:
In the face of Justice John Paul Stevens’ impending retirement, the nomination of former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan for the open seat on the Supreme Court has become a likely prospect.
If she is selected as President Barack Obama’s nominee, Kagan—who currently serves as the nation’s first female Solicitor General—will face a number of challenges on the road toward confirmation, including her lack of experience as a judge, her religious background, and her stance on the military.
Man, the “impending retirement” of J.P. Stevens is turning into a a Monty Python skit. But, so long as we’re here, let’s take another look at that religious question. It might be the only thing that could scuttle Kagan’s ascendancy to the high Court…
You’d be happy to know they warned all us new New York lawyers to consider before sending an email whether we would want it to appear on AboveTheLaw.com.
Well, it’s about time. On April 13th, a small claims court in Florida will deal with a case where an associate is suing his former law firm over allegedly deferred compensation. Only $2,000 is at issue, but this is a battle of principle. The Daily Business Review (subscription) sets it up:
The salary deferral imposed by [Becker & Poliakoff] in May 2008 was temporary and necessary in order to avoid layoffs during the economic downturn, managing partner Alan Becker said….
Former Becker associate Richard Valuntas sued the firm last August, alleging Becker committed breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation by refusing to repay him the 12 percent deducted from his paycheck for several months. He also alleges Becker’s deferrals violated its own employment contract and policy manual.
You see, the firm promised restitution of the salary cut, and they did eliminate the cut in August of 2008 and gave associates make-whole payments. But only associates still at the firm received full restitution. Valuntas left Becker that August and apparently missed out on one of these restitution paychecks.
Despite the small amount of money involved, both litigants are going to the mattresses…
Mayer Brown associates got a disturbing email this morning:
After careful consideration, the firm has decided to implement a job reduction in our US offices that will affect 28 associates and counsel and 47 staff members.
This can’t be good news for the firm’s incoming mutineers who are still waiting to hear back about their start dates. Though the memo, available in full after the jump, suggests that despite laying off these 75 people, things look bright there:
Despite this necessary action, we see encouraging signs for 2010. Thus far, the year is off to a positive start. Taking this step will enable us to maintain our financial strength and continue investing in our practices, our global platform and the professional development of our people – and thereby enhance our ability to provide clients with the high standard of legal work and service that defines Mayer Brown.
We hope the 75 people losing their jobs today were left off the distribution list, because that smarts…
Karen Shapiro is a lawyer turned “life coach.” From what I understand, a “life coach” is essentially a therapist who helps you see happiness attainment like a basket that needs to be dunked on. Being called coach may or may not allow them to slap you on the ass when you get a promotion or settle into a healthy long-term relationship.
Shapiro, a Boston University School of Law grad, recently penned a column for the Legal Intelligencer on the game plan for success in the legal playing field. Apparently, you all need to be carefully crafting your personal brands.
If your brand is “cog in the machine,” you have some work to do…
Associates at the firm still aren’t fully occupied, according to Dell.
But that, he said, is due in part to the fact that the firm was judicious last year with its layoffs, holding on to more lawyers than it needed to service the recessionary level of demand for its services.
Judicious? On the off chance that soon-to-be 2Ls have the research capabilities of a goldfish, click here, or here, and then tell me what you think about the word “judicious.”
If that represents judicious layoffs, I can’t imagine what kind of sick nightmare Dell would call “aggressive” layoffs.
Oh, but there are other problems with that statement…
On Monday, we reported that the kick-off for Harvard Law’s 2010 Class Gift pissed off a lot of current HLS students. Commenters told us that similar class gift drives were alienating students across the country.
Well, it seems the class marshals at HLS got the message. They decided to try to sell their students on exactly what their donations might fund:
Dear Class of 2010:
We wanted to provide you with more information and perspective on the Class Gift. The Class Gift is small sum of money donated by graduating students. This year there are three options for donating to the Class Gift:
(1) The Harvard Law School General Fund… (2) Student Financial Aid… (3) The Post-Graduate Student Funded Fellowship
Oh don’t worry, these HLS kids aren’t done with their slice of humble pie…
* Okay, Obama is officially just stealing administrative policies from the plotlines on the West Wing. Today’s episode: Posse Comitatus. [Gawker]
* Welcome to the dangerous quadriplegic doctrine. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Disabled man has service dog. Disabled man is on food stamps. Disabled man is denied food stamps for his service dog. The government hates puppies. [ABA Journal]
* As we mentioned, Washington, D.C. won our March Madness poll. Some people seem to think that this makes D.C. even more of hellhole than it was before. [True/Slant]
* A full breakdown of the week dominated my Eric Turkewitz’s sense of humor (and the NYT’s lack thereof). [Infamy or Praise]
* Lawrence Lessig weighs in on the Constitutional Convention idea. [Daily Beast]
Michael Diaz, Jr. has a high profile in Miami. These days, the University of Miami Law grad’s name tends to crop up in the business pages, but in the late 80s, he worked on a series of highly-publicized homicide cases as a prosecutor in the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office. In 1990, he started his own international litigation shop, Diaz Reus & Targ, LLP. Business Week recently profiled him for his representation of Ponzi victims and big game asset hunting.
He’s a man with a reputation and serious weight (more of it is seen in this Business Week photo than in his firm photo), so he wasn’t pleased when someone honked and yelled at him in a grocery store parking lot. According to the South Florida Business Journal, Diaz was a passenger in a white Lexus that was blocking the entrance to a parking garage. James Bracco, 30, began honking at the Lexus and then tried driving around it, while yelling at the people in the Lexus. Diaz allegedly got out of the Lexus, opened the door of the offending car, punched the offending driver in the face (knocking some teeth loose), and then punched the offending driver’s girlfriend in the chest several times.
Since this is Florida, this, of course, took place at a Publix.
Sounds like someone has been watching too many Miami Vice reruns. Not cool, dude…
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.
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.com
Happy 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.
The weather is seasonal in New York City today, but for most of this week we’ve experienced a little heat wave. Near record high temperatures were recorded throughout the tri-state area.
Continue reading “Cardozo OCI Preview Bedeviled by Hot Weather”
A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law:
