Archive for April 2010

A Strike Against Stroock: New York AG Rules Against Extell

By David Lat

Last summer, we wrote about an apparent drafting error by lawyers at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan that “could cost Stroock’s client millions.”

Time for an update: it looks like the mistake will cost Stroock’s client millions. The Wall Street Journal reports:

A long-simmering dispute between Extell Development Co. and individuals who agreed to buy condominiums in one of the developer’s new luxury Manhattan buildings ended Friday when the New York Attorney General ordered Extell to refund $15 million in down payments.

The ruling is a setback for the New York-based developer, which stands to lose more than $100 million in apartment sales, according to person familiar with the matter.

It is also a potential embarrassment for the white-shoe law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, which prepared the offering plan for the building. The plan included a mistake that contributed to the ruling in favor of the buyers.

In our last post about this situation, several ATL commenters offered legal analysis. How did they fare?

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Pls Hndle Thx: Great Taste, Less Filling

By Marin

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

ATL -

Can you do a post on how to avoid the first year “fifteen” or “thirty,” besides the usual diet and exercise? Or, better yet, explain why it is that every male associate here is huge and has gained a ton of weight and looks terrible, while the women are all incredibly emaciated and end up losing 30 pounds after they start BigLaw? Is it because the men just don’t care and the women do, or do men and women at the firm just process stress differently (i.e. eat everything in sight vs. not eat at all)? Maybe there’s another explanation for it (Smoking? Coke?), but the extremely fat/extremely thin phenomenon seems to be extremely gender-related at the firm.

Thanks,
‘Fraid of Being a Fatass

Dear ‘Fraid of Being a Fatass,

What this weight gain/emaciation gender divide really comes down to is exacting revenge. When I stayed late as an associate, I would bide my time, toiling away and occasionally pressing my face against a legal pad to examine the oil stains. Then at 7 p.m., I’d mosey down to the cafeteria for some free-ass dinner, and there would be countless dudes piling their trays high with soggy pizza, salads dripping in Thousand Island dressing, chocolate-dipped biscotti and bizarro flavor Nutra-Grain bars, acting like they were carbo-loading for an Ironman and not a credit facility spell check session. One time I saw a guy buy $27.60 worth of food and then add on gummy bears until he was at $29.75. At that point, it became clear to me what was happening….

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The Hubris of Would-Be Lawyers

By Elie Mystal

The oversupply of lawyers. It’s a problem. There might not be a lawyer oversupply at the bottom end where poor clients need legal services at a price point that makes it hard for young lawyers to pay off their debts. But at the top end, there are too many lawyers seeking a diminishing number of $160K jobs.

You can blame the ABA and its liberal accreditation polices. You can blame law schools themselves, for charging high tuition to students who will not be able to land the highest paying jobs.

But some of the blame has to fall to young would-be lawyers themselves. Prospective law students have the information, they can look at market trends. They know how much they’ll have to take out on loan in order to debt finance an education. But they refuse to listen to the information available to them, and instead rush headlong into a very expensive education. Law school applications are up, even as the legal economy is going down. That’s a disconnect.

A new survey from Kaplan shows that prospective law students aren’t getting any smarter about their own decisions. Oh, they know what they’re up against — but in a show of amazing statistical ignorance, they seem to think that they”ll beat the odds, while their classmates will be screwed…

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Morning Docket 04.13.10

By Kashmir Hill

Eric Holder may head to the Hill this week

* Simpson Thacher partner Philip Culhane joins the RICO lawsuit against his prep school for sex abuse. [AmLaw Daily]

* A Denver lawyer is threatening to sue the University of Wyoming on behalf of a student unless it lets former 1960s radical William Ayers speak on campus. [Associated Press]

* Tagged.com is going to be contributing to the San Francisco District Attorney budget. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Attorney General Eric Holder may be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. [Washington Post]

* Italian judge explains his ruling against Google executives for violating privacy laws. [New York Times]

* Husson University in Maine decides NOT to start up a law school. [Bangor Daily News]

Just How Crappy Is Legal Education Today?

By Elie Mystal

On Friday, we told you that at least one corporate GC thinks that first and second year associates are “worthless.” But at the Harvard Law School/New York Law School Future of Education Conference, it wasn’t just business people that had negative things to say about the current state of legal education.

The panel: “Top Three Problems with the Current Model” brought together law firm leaders, consultants, and legal educators to all share their thoughts on what, precisely, is wrong with American law schools.

There were five panelists and a moderator (on my legal pad I made the notation “five person panels are dumb”). And between all five of them, I guess you could say that “everything” is wrong with American legal education. But each of them in turn highlighted different aspects of the process that needed fixing…

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.12.10

By Elie Mystal

* What is it like to go to law school, according to Google? [YouTube]

* A day in the sex life of a female attorney. [New York Magazine]

* Maybe you can’t go from law school to the NBA. But you can certainly learn how to play poker like a star. [Woman Poker Player]

* Is this what happens when law firms are nice to employees and clients? [ABA Journal]

* Law firms are Luddites. [TechnoLawyer]

* We’d like to extend congratulations to Blawg Review’s 5th anniversary. Enjoy your wood, fellas.
[Legal Blog Watch via Blawg Review]

The Lost Class Does Not Even Warrant A Spellcheck?

By Kashmir Hill

A University of Tennessee College of Law student sent along this photo:

The class composite is hanging in the entrance to the law school library.

Maybe the extra “s” stands for screwed?

2L at Kansas Law Thinks NBA Draft a Safer Bet than OCI

By Elie Mystal

It has been a sports heavy day here on ATL, and in its own way this story is much more interesting than a coincidental intersection of legal issues and sports themes. You see, it’s a sad day in your life when you realize that your parents misled you into pursuing higher education. Sure, education is the “silver bullet” for upward mobility in this society, unless you can hit a curveball or a jump shot. If you’ve got athletic talent, you can often go to school for free (instead of saddling yourself with undergraduate debt). If you have rare talent, you can make far more money than most doctors or lawyers you know.

And even if you never make it to the pros, you can earn a living for a time slumming around the minors or coaching sports. If that lifestyle doesn’t suit you, then you can go back to professional school. Hey, at least you took your shot. It’s not like first year torts is going anywhere.

One Kansas Law student appears to have learned that anti-intellectual lesson a little bit too late. Check out his hilarious letter to the editor posted in the Kansas Law Free Press…

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Temple Law Grads Get into the T-Shirt Business

By Kashmir Hill

One of the 3muchapparel creations

Some law school students are getting famous for reviewing t-shirts. Other law students got busy making their own.

Three recent Temple Law grads started their own t-shirt company in 2008 called 3muchapparel, which specializes in legally-themed t-shirts — check out the gallery, after the jump.

I caught up with one of the founders by phone last week. Pong Chulirashaneekorn is the team’s creative genius. His two JD/MBA partners handle the finance and marketing side of the business. One of their marketing ploys was to send the ATL team a Christmas card and three t-shirts: it worked and caught our attention.

Pong said the last year of law school — the partners graduated in 2009 — was a perfect time to launch the business. “The third year is not very taxing,” Pong told me. “It would have been impossible as a 1L.”

The three partners each invested in the company. Pong’s $2,000 investment came out of his summer associate salary at a prominent Philly firm. That’s all that ended up coming out of the summer gig. Though the firm covered his bar expenses, he did not wind up getting a full-time offer there. That’s meant more time to invest in 3muchapparel…

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Clifford Chance: Cancels Hours Requirement for Bonuses in London, But No Change in NYC

By Elie Mystal

This morning, the Lawyer reported that Clifford Chance was changing the requirements for associate bonuses in London:

Clifford Chance is set for a radical overhaul of its associate bonus system, with the maximum award now open only to senior associates and payments no longer based primarily on hours worked….

A spokesperson for ­Clifford Chance said: “While billable and investment hours continue to be ­important, the bonus will not be directly linked to achieving a target number of hours. We’ll weigh a ­number of factors to ensure a balanced and flexible bonus scheme.”

Dear Lord, it looks like the American epidemic of moving towards merit-based compensation just hopped a transatlantic flight.

But don’t worry Clifford Chance New Yorkers, your bonus requirements will not be affected by the changes in London…

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Verdict of the Day: Canadian ‘Asshole’

By Elie Mystal

We expect judges to not let their personal opinions influence their judicial decisions. But it’s silly to expect judges to be automatons with no feelings. They hurt, they cry — and just like everybody else, they get angry when they have to deal with assholes.

Sadly being an asshole isn’t a crime, and so one Canadian judge just had to suck it up and let a Canadian junior hockey player charged with assault go free. But not before the judge gave the defendant a little piece of his mind. The CBC reports (gavel bang: Deadspin):

Junior hockey player Chris Doyle was found not guilty of assault Friday, but received some harsh words from P.E.I. Judge John Douglas.

“If he was charged with being a colossal asshole, I would find him guilty,” said Douglas, chief judge of the provincial court.

“Of assault causing bodily harm, I find him not guilty.”

Make no mistake. Judge Douglas was right to point out that Chris Doyle was a giant douchebag…

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Fashion Dos and Don’ts From the Windy City
(If you have a tramp stamp, it may already be too late)

By Kashmir Hill

Fashion don'ts

Last week the Chicago Bar Association held a What Not To Wear Fashion Show [PDF]. The announcement for the event essentially promised a Project Runway for law students, with “guest judges and fashion industry experts” to critique law students selections for “professional attire.”

We imagined 1L women teetering down the walkway in Victoria’s Secret skirt suits and hooker heels, and 2L men sporting scruff and pinstripes, and the judges snarkily lecturing them on proper Esquire attire.

So we rounded up two legal bloggers in the Chicago area and asked them to attend and report back. We sent Legally Fabulous — a 3L who “often dies a little on the inside at the things she sees her classmates wearing for interviews” — and Attractive Nuisance, a Chicago associate who writes for ExitStrategy.

Attractive Nuisance called the event “How To Dress Like A Lawyer As Told By Some Women Haters, Old Men And Random Law Students.” Legally Fabulous was most impressed by the advice from Professor Maureen Collins of John Marshall Law School:

[She] had some of the best quotes of the night, including:

  • “The interview world is no place for a cheap, ugly tie.”
  • “I shouldn’t know anything about your underwear… bra straps are meant to be hidden”
  • “Khakis were invented for men who can’t match clothes”
  • “Maybe you bought your suit at Express or somewhere… and you bent over to get a Danish and I can see your tramp stamp.”

It’s hard for us to imagine a law professor uttering the words tramp stamp — a derogatory term for a tattoo on a woman’s mid-lower back. But after hearing Clarence Thomas say “TTT,” we suppose anything is possible.

After high school, one should throw out all clothes purchased at Express. Other tips for the fashion clueless, after the jump.

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(If you have a tramp stamp, it may already be too late)“

Justice Sam Alito, The Phillies Fan

By Elie Mystal

Let’s take a brief break from covering people leaving the Supreme Court and potential replacements, and focus on somebody who is not going anywhere any time soon. In a sports-centric interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, Justice Samuel Alito goes into some depth about his love for the game of baseball and the Philadelphia Phillies.

You know it’s a good interview if I’m covering a right-leaning Justice who likes the Phillies. It’s not easy to write with tears in your eyes. But Alito makes it worthwhile by showing us a little bit of his personal life:

On the shelves are a Phillies cap, several framed pictures depicting various Phillies players, autographed baseballs, a book on the 1950 Phillies Whiz Kids and other Phillies-related memorabilia.

Justice Alito’s work couldn’t be more serious. The decisions he participates in have an enormous impact on the country. Baseball is his escape. And the Phillies have always been his favorite team.

Well, Alito is far more respectable than the last Phillies fan who graced these pages.

We’ve noted that baseball is such a natural fit with the judicial process. Alito also gives us the scoop on the favorite teams of other SCOTUS Justices:

Unfortunately I had a bet with Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor about the outcome of the World Series. She’s a Yankees fan. Justice [Antonin] Scalia is a Yankees fan. So we had a bet, cheesesteaks vs. Nathan’s hot dogs, and I had to provide Nathan’s hot dogs.

Justice [Stephen] Breyer is a Red Sox fan and Justice [John Paul] Stevens is a Cubs fan. He claims to have been present when Babe Ruth called his shot [in the 1932 World Series] at Wrigley Field. [Smiling] Although about 200,000 people claim to have been in attendance at that game, I trust him that he actually was.

What about John “The Umpire” Roberts? Meh, he probably just roots for a well-played game.

Alito also has some thoughts on the great baseball debates on our time. What would he do if he had a Hall of Fame vote?

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Last Week in Biglaw: 04.12.10

By Law Shucks

Ed. note: Law Shucks focuses on life in, and after, BigLaw, including by tracking layoffs, bonuses, and laterals. Above the Law is pleased to bring you this weekly column, which analyzes news at the world’s top law firms.

Law-firm layoffs have fallen from a peak of 3,682 in March ’09 to 164 in March ’10. Although firms continue to lay people off, firms are increasingly looking for alternative ways to manage their finances. The Law Shucks “This Week in Layoffs” column had evolved to include those alternatives.

Now, we’re taking the next step and expanding the scope further in this new column. We’ll continue with recaps of layoffs and the related economic events (salaries, start dates, PPP, etc), but will also cover a broader range of events in BigLaw.

BigLaw is slow to change, though. After the jump, we kick off the new column with the old stalwart: layoffs.

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Morning Docket 04.12.10

By Kashmir Hill

Dawn Johnsen gives up on OLC

* After a yearlong hold-up, Dawn Johnsen withdraws her nomination to the Office of Legal Counsel. [Huffington Post]

* There’s been so much Stevens retirement coverage that new angles are rare. But this piece is fresh: on what the High Court now lacks. [The Root via Concurring Opinions]

* Class action against Texas judge for requiring litigants to file via Lexis Nexis. [Courthouse News Service]

* Wilmer Hale co-managing partner William Lee is the first Asian-American selected to serve on the Harvard Corporation. [Boston Globe; Harvard Crimson]

* Florida man sued for $15,000 for negative eBay review. [Florida Today]

* The New York Times speaks out about law school clinics. [New York Times]

Corporate General Counsel Puts Fear of God into Legal Educators
(And You Should Be Worried Too)

By Elie Mystal

Today I attended the Future of Education Conference, sponsored by Harvard Law School and New York Law School. New York Law School hosted a pretty interesting event. The fact schools as different as HLS and NYLS were coming together to host it (part two of the conference will be at HLS this October) is illustrative of the breadth of legal educators who are trying to deal with the declining “value proposition” of going to law school.

I’ll be doing a couple of posts on today’s conference over the next few days (you can check out my real time tweets from the event @atlblog). But I did want to share some thoughts from United Technologies‘ General Counsel, Chester Paul Beach and Gillian Hadfield, Professor of Law and Economics at USC.

Speaking during the “Apocalypse Now” session, Beach stood up and told approximately 75 law school deans and legal educators from around the country:

“We don’t allow first or second year associates to work on any of our matters without special permission, because they’re worthless.”

[Correction: The quote below has been changed from an earlier version.]

Later, on a separate panel, the USC professor pointed out how difficult that assessment was for graduating 3Ls.:

“What did Paul Beach say? “They’re worthless”.  It’s awful, it’s really really awful”

It is pretty awful for 3Ls as they prepare to set out into the market.

So the panelists pulled no punches, but did the educators get the message?

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(And You Should Be Worried Too)”

Non-Sequiturs 04.09.10

By Kashmir Hill

* Do trust them foreigners. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Can you be in virtual contempt of court? [Threat Level/Wired]

* Is Manhattan DA Cy Vance rehearsing for Undercover Boss? [Gothamist]

* STD Secure. [Instapundit]

* Toyota plaintiffs have class. [Los Angeles Times]

* Speaking of Stevens… [Legal Times]

* Speaking of Supreme Court Justices retiring… Jimmy Smits will play the fictional one in new Conan O’Brien-produced legal show, Justice. [TV.com]

* Pay your interns and law clerks. [Lawyerist]

The In-House Perspective on Law Firms Using Client Products

By Kashmir Hill

Hey Biglaw partners, if you’re switching products to please your client, you may be wasting your time. Last week, we reported that Day Pitney is getting rid of all the free Cokes in its office in favor of client Pepsi-Co’s products.

This was disappointing news around the firm, since according to our survey, 78% of lawyers prefer Coke to Pepsi.

As we recounted anecdotally in that post, Day Pitney is not alone. Many firms have been known to switch products to please clients. One former Biglaw type who is now in-house says, though, that product loyalty is inconsequential.

For the record, I am now in house with a very large company and I have absolutely NO expectation whatsoever that any of our firms will require their staff and attorneys to use our products, and only our products. In fact, I would see a move like the one taken by Day Pitney as nothing but full, balls-to-the-wall pandering. Forget what soda you stock at meetings. How about you do good work and stop overbilling me? THAT’S what matters. Idiots.

Is this in-house lawyer’s analysis flat?

UPDATE: Others say Pepsi will can those who don’t drink their kool-aid, er, their Sierra Mist…

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Supreme Speculation: Who Will Obama Nominate to Replace John Paul Stevens?

By Kashmir Hill

Potential Supreme Court nominees?

For weeks, the media laundry machine has been circulating news of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’s impending retirement. Now that the buzzer has gone off on that, it’s time to switch to the next cycle: speculation as to who President Barack Obama will nominate to replace him.

President Obama has been dragging his feet in his appointment of federal judges. We are relieved to hear that he is going to pick up the pace for announcing his Supreme Court pick. ABC News reports that the White House is prepared — thanks to Stevens’s public pondering — and that the announcement will come “within weeks.” Which isn’t really very helpful at all. Two weeks? Four weeks? Twelve weeks?

BLT reports on Obama’s speech from the Rose Garden today:

“While we cannot replace Justice Stevens’ experience or wisdom, I will seek someone in the coming weeks with similar qualities — an independent mind, a record of excellence and integrity, a fierce dedication to the rule of law, and a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people,” Obama said. “It will also be someone who, like Justice Stevens, knows that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.”

Please make it fast, Obama. We’re ready to move on to the confirmation hearing cycle!

Let’s speculate until then, though…

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ATL and Practical Law Company Kick Off the Summer This Tuesday

By Above the Law

It’s a talk, it’s a party, it’s an open bar, it’s an opportunity to meet and mingle with the ATL editors, law firm associates, and law students. Can you think of a better way to spend a Tuesday night?

We’ve still got space for the Summer Associate Kick-Off Party, hosted by Practical Law Company. The event is this Tuesday, April 13th, from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Amity Hall, (80 West 3rd Street). David Lat, Elie Mystal and Kashmir Hill will be hanging out and offering advice on the Do’s & Don’ts Of Being A Summer Associate.

First Do: Take advantage of networking opportunities. (And open bars.)

If you’re a law student or lawyer, you’re invited. You can RSVP for the event by emailing us at rsvp@abovethelaw.com, with your name and your law school or law firm.

We hope to see you there.

Summer Associate Kick-Off Party [Practical Law Company]