Archive for May 2010

This Week in Biglaw: 05.31.10

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.

Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer for business, if not for astronomers, and with that comes the arrival of the summer associates. Most years, it’s a months-long party, but lately it’s taken on a veneer of respectability as young gunners put on their best face and try on professionalism. Gone are the days of cruising through, knowing that you’d really have to screw up to not get an offer. Offer rates have plummeted from the high 90s to little better than a coin flip at some firms.

If you think you need advice on how to behave during the summer program, there’s plenty out there whatever your role.

Bitter Lawyer has the best list, with nine simple things to avoid. It’s not just the summer associates who need advice on summer programs, though. BL’s Unethical & Amoral Matthew Richardson provides the lecherous associate’s perspective.

Corporette has some practical advice on keeping the weight off while being tempted left, right, and center with the city’s finest food. Even Jones Day’s hiring partner has some advice.

The highest-profile incoming summer associate is probably Sara Hallmark (nee Albert), a competitor on America’s Next Top Model, who will be summering at Hogan Lovells’ DC office. Not that she in particular needs fashion advice, but the newly merged firm did feel the need to publish a dress code for the legacy Lovells lawyers who are about to be freed to enjoy their first casual Fridays. Even with everyone on their best behavior these days, and no clash of culture excuse, other firms still send the dress-code memos out. Weil Gotshal is one of the latest – at least they illustrated their version.

Of course, we expect common sense in abundance from those smart enough to gain entry to BigLaw. But it’s good to know that if someone can fail out of medical school and get disbarred, there’s always business school.

After the jump, we hit the recent highlights and lowlights in BigLaw.

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Memorial Day Docket

By Kashmir Hill

Peter Erlinder

Ed. note: ATL is on holiday today, in recognition of Memorial Day. We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

* Peter Erlinder, a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., is on the wrong side of the law in Rwanda for promoting “genocidal ideology.” [Star Tribune; Pioneer Press; Katz Justice]

* The right to complain online is in peril: Tweets and Facebook groups lead to lawsuits. [New York Times]

* The Massachusetts law student that you don’t want to hire tells his side of the story. He explains the reasons for his typos and shows off his very impressive office. [YouTube]

* Did Joe Sestak/Bill Clinton conversation break the law? [CBS News]

* Controversial filmmaker quits his judicial day job. [New York Times]

* Lively wakes in Puerto Rico. [Miami Herald]

* Ankle bracelets now do GPS and BAC? [Adjunct Law Professor Blog]

* ATL’s sports commentator Marc Edelman crushes hopes of an explosion of NFL video games as a result of American Needle v. The National Football League. [Ripten]

* An ode to Con Law. [Cardozo]

ATL Caption Contest: Legal Lexus Nexus

By Kashmir Hill

We’re closing up shop on the early side today. We hope some of our readers also get an early start on the Memorial Day weekend.

But if you’re stuck at the office, perhaps you can come up with some clever captions for this photo sent to us by a reader from Massachusetts:


Same rules as always: Submit possible captions in the comments. We’ll choose our favorites — with preference given to those with a legal bent — and then let you vote for the best one.

Please submit your entries by MONDAY, MAY 31, at 11:59 PM.

We hope you appreciate this vehicle for procrastination.

Non-Sequiturs: 05.28.10

By Elie Mystal

* Whatcha gonna do when the Hulkster lays a lawsuit on you. [ABA Journal]

* The death of the one word exam. [New York Times]

* New York needs to tamp down its anti-bullying law or I’m going to start locking legislators in the janitor’s closet. [Forbes]

* Being a lawyer for the detainees sounds like a thankless job. [Salon]

* Hey female partners, here’s a reason to hire male legal secretaries. [WSJ Law Blog]

* After the jump, a preview of the new Jerry O’Connell-starring legal show, The Defenders. [Wild Wild Law]

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Is California Ready to Get Into the Student Debt Fight?

By Elie Mystal

Howard B. Miller, President of the State Bar of California, penned a provocative letter for the California Bar Journal. In it, Miller suggests that the California bar has a duty to help stem the tide of law students graduating with a crushing amount of educational debt:

Do we in the profession have an obligation to deal with all this — especially the State Bar of California? I think we do.

Miller criticizes a wide range of people who have roles in our system of legal education. It’s pretty awesome…

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Job of the Week: West Side Finance

By Above the Law

The Job of the Week comes from the West Coast this week. More importantly, the job is for a finance associate — another indication that the legal economy is starting to turn around.

Position: Finance Associate

Description: The West Side office of a leading New York firm is looking for a junior finance associate. Must have at least one year of law firm experience in sophisticated finance transactions, including leveraged finance matters such as acquisition financings, construction financings, working capital loans and/or asset-based facilities, as well as senior debt, subordinated debt, second lien loan, second lien bond, bridge loan, mezzanine loan and/or debtor-in-possession financings. Must be currently employed. CA bar preferred, but not required. If you are currently a Lateral Link member please see position #6385 on the Lateral Link site. If you are not a Lateral Link member, you can sign up for free a www.laterallink.com. If you are interested in this position or any other West Coast positions, please reach out to Gloria Cannon directly, gcannon@laterallink.com. Gloria is one of Lateral Link’s outstanding California recruiters, with a proven track record in the recruiting field.

Generation Wars!!!!

By Kashmir Hill & Elie Mystal

The modern workplace plays host to three generations: the baby boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. A panel at the InsideCounsel SuperConference this week called the youngest of the bunch, Gen-Why?. The italics are likely meant to indicate a whiny tone, because this bunch, born from 1981 to 2001, are supposedly entitled and snotty. E.g., “You’re going to defer me for a year with a $60,000 stipend? Wah! I hate you!”

I attended the panel as did another legal blogger, Adrian Dayton. Check out his post on what’s wrong with Gen-Y. Despite their complaints about the young’uns, oldies tend to give in to their wishes, judging from the response one general counsel gave to a Gen-Yer who asked to head off to New Zealand for a year and have his job held until he got back.

A not-especially-snotty-or-entitled Gen-Yer was chosen for the panel: Jack Rossi, staff counsel at JetBlue, who scored an in-house offer directly out of law school. He admitted that some of the myths about his generation are true: he does like feedback and wants mentorship (and he’s gotten it in-house). An older baby boomer lawyer in the audience spoke up to say, “I wanted the same things as Jack, but I was not brave enough to ask for it… It was kind of ‘figure out for yourself.’ I think the fact that younger lawyers ask is actually a good thing.”

Honestly, there wasn’t a lot of tension in the room between Gen Y and Boomers, even when J.D. turned PhD panelist, Arin Reeves of The Athens Group, suggested Boomers were at fault for spoiling young folks given the wining-and-dining summer associate experience they created. “If you want to teach that work is the priority, take the events away,” said Reeves.

I think all of our Biglaw readers will agree with us in deeming that terrible advice.

In the room, greater tension seemed to exist between Gen X and Gen Y. “It sounds like we’re saying, ‘How are we going to accommodate an already spoiled generation?’” observed one Gen Xer.

Since I am Gen Y, and Elie is Gen X, we thought this would be an opportune time for a little ATL debate. I’ll let the old man go first…

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A Mass. Lawyer You Don’t Want to Work For and a Law Student You Don’t Want to Hire

By Kashmir Hill

UPDATE (May 30): Law student responds via YouTube, and shows off his very impressive office.

A law student in Massachusetts is looking for a job. He found a listing on Craigslist to work as a paralegal for a bankruptcy attorney. He applied, got an interview, and got an offer (kind of). But then he got into a spat with the attorney via email, preserved for posterity by The Docket.

The law student interviewed on Monday. On Tuesday, the female attorney sent him a rather candid email:

I have to confess, I am on the fence about offering you a position. This is a thought I had…tell me your thoughts.

The thought was that she would have the law student do a few freelance projects for a month, and if those went well, she would offer him a full-time position. He responded:

I can do any type of Motion, and research. I do not think a 30 day trial period is necessary. I would prefer bring me on full time to show you my capabilities.

That’s really not the right time for a grammatical typo, my law school friend.

In response, the lawyer laid out exactly why she had reservations about him, and wished him “best of luck in [his] job search.” That just made him crankier…

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Morning Docket: 05.28.10

By Kashmir Hill

* The war on terror… of attorney fees: The plaintiffs firms in the World Trade Center litigation are squabbling. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* Arkansas mother who hacked her son’s Facebook account was found guilty of misdemeanor harassment. [Los Angeles Times]

* Will gays and lesbians in the military have something extra to celebrate this Memorial Day? [New York Times]

* Why shouldn’t you do genetic testing on yourself? [True/Slant]

* Nominee for stupidest headline of the day. [USA Today]

* A breakdown of Obama’s BP press conference. [Washington Post]

* Texas just keeps sounding better and better. [The Gazette]

* Tampa lawyer willing to work for less than $10/hour. [Tampa Bay Online]

* We smell a class-action lawsuit brewing. It smells like tanning oil. [Web MD]

* And a music video selected by Elie in honor of Obama’s press conference…

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Quote of the Day: Youth Be Served

By Elie Mystal

We’re more aggressive than we used to be. This is not your grandfather’s Cravath.

– James Woolery, a 41-year-old Cravath partner.

Non-Sequiturs: 05.27.10

By Elie Mystal

* Facebook reverses itself on privacy. [True/Slant]

* Pants Judge is back in the news. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Stanford Law grad turns himself into a writer. [ABA Journal]

* Harvard commencement was today. I’m missing my ten year college reunion and an opportunity to see Meryl Streep with some private citizen named Souter. [Box of Scraps]

* They found the body of the missing Irell partner. [ABA Journal]

A Diabolical Defense Strategy

By Kashmir Hill

An attorney representing a man in a Virginia Circuit Court came up with a creative defense strategy for one of his clients. Attorney George Freeman was representing a man who had pleaded guilty to fraud. Due to nine prior convictions, Rodney Newsome was facing serious jail time.

But Freeman got him off with no sentence at all: By telling the judge that Newsome was dead. From the Washington Post:

Rodway told Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Michael F. Devine that in 2008 and 2009, Newsome’s attorney at the time, George Freeman, had filed doctor’s notes, and then a report from the Maryland health department, that “indicated Mr. Newsome had gone to the big courthouse in the sky.”

Newsome claims not to have been aware of the fact that his attorney was filing forged doctor’s notes and death reports. He just thought he had a good attorney?

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UCLA Law: Surprisingly Chipper About Grade Delay

By Elie Mystal

The law school perspective on grading is wrong. At many law schools, professors look at grades as the least important part of their job. Sadly, it’s actually the most important part of their job. Grades are the only thing law students can’t get from an outline. Grades are VASTLY more important to a student’s earning potential than any professorial pontification about black letter law.

Grades should be produced immediately or as soon as is physically possible.

Law school administrations don’t seem to get that. UCLA Law is just the latest example. A tipster reports:

I’m a rising 2L at UCLA Law — we got this email last night saying that our grades weren’t going to be posted until next week. The fact that we won’t know our grades until then seems like something a low-ranked school would do to discourage transfers, but what struck me right away was the rather condescending tone.

The tipster is right. The tone of this email is kind of ridiculous…

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Georgetown Law Lamentation on NPR

By Kashmir Hill

The mainstream media is on to the fact that life kind of sucks for the law school class of 2010. The Wall Street Journal brought your troubles to the attention of the general public earlier this month, and we encouraged you to send the article to your family and friends to explain how screwed you are. But the Wall Street Journal is a subscription-only publication, so maybe your loved ones couldn’t access it.

Now, luckily, National Public Radio has tackled the issue of tough times for law grads. Five Georgetown then-3Ls, now alumni, shared their dismal prospects with NPR on All Things Considered last week. Now those family and friends who either don’t subscribe to the WSJ or are illiterate can also have the opportunity to hear about how screwed you are. Pass it on: Economy Seems Bleak For Graduating Law Students.

Why you gotta hedge, NPR? We think it’s fair to say it IS bleak. Host Robert Siegel asked the five grads how many jobs they had applied for. “I’ve sent out at least 150 résumés and cover letters,” responded one female Georgetown 2010 grad, who scored a government job. “Hundreds,” said another, who is still jobless.

Judging from this little sample, Georgetown will not have a 93.5% employed-upon-graduation rate this year: Two have jobs, three do not. So, what are their plans?

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$10 an Hour for a J.D.

By Elie Mystal

We’ve done a lot of posts about terrible jobs. Here’s another one.

We don’t know which law school is pushing this job, but we know that the National Environmental Policy Act Campaign is looking for the cheapest legal services it can find. A tipster was so very sad about his situation, he emailed us:

As a jobless 3L from a TTT, I have been keeping up on you employment, alternative careers, and general law school news for, well, about 3.5 years now. I have never commented and I have never contacted you until now.

The reason for writing is the disgust and despair I felt when I went to quickly check my email less than an hour before I donned my cap and gown for my graduation ceremony. This email was sent from one of the 3 employees at our Career Services office, specifically noting an open position. I like that he took the time to send it out as a separate email rather than post it on Simplicity or the intranet vacancy board.

We occasionally get emails from “first time caller, long time listener.” Those emails are always interesting.

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Quote of the Day: Brevity Is the Soul of Wit?

By David Lat

Choosing not to study a treatise on presidential administrative policies containing 527 footnotes is an understandable act of self-preservation.

– John Yoo

What You Can Wear At Weil

By Kashmir Hill

Surprise: At Weil, you can't wear this.

It’s hot. It’s sticky. It’s summer time.

That means it’s time for law firm HR departments to send out their annual summer fashion memos. Otherwise, associates might start showing up to work in bikinis and speedos. Because after a long winter spent hibernating under fluorescent lights, packing on the cold-month pounds, that’s exactly what law firm associates want to do…

Weil Gotshal & Manges sent around a flyer to its associates today, with the subject, “Reminder: New York Office Guidelines on Business Casual Attire.” It lays out Fashion Dos & Don’ts for its associates. Happily, the bulletpoint list of “Unacceptable” attire is actually longer for men than it is for women.

The list doesn’t seem to be season-specific, as both genders are forbidden from wearing “hiking/snow boots” this summer.

So what can they wear?

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Fools Rush In … To UMass Law

By Elie Mystal

We’ve done so many posts about UMass acquiring the Southern Poverty Law Center New England School of Law that I actually thought people were paying attention.

I was wrong.

The ABA Journal reports:

More than 400 students have applied at the new law school at Dartmouth,

There’s more to that sentence but I had to stop right there to dry my crying eyes…

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So You Wanna Be a General Counsel?

By Kashmir Hill

The last day of the InsideCounsel SuperConference started with a Supreme Court star, hot cars, drugs and, um, insurance. On Wednesday morning, superstar litigator Ted Olson interviewed three of the nation’s premier general counsel: David G. Leitch of Ford Motor Company, Deborah Platt Majoras of Procter & Gamble, and Michele Coleman Mayes of Allstate Insurance.

(The session also functioned as a kind of George W. Bush administration mini-reunion, given Olson’s service as Solicitor General, Majoras being the former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Leitch’s experience as White House deputy counsel.)

Olson asked the right questions, and these three gave candid answers. A partner at Gibson Dunn, Olson asked a question near and dear to many of our readers’ hearts: “What do you look for from outside counsel?” Olson asked them to talk about other factors than the oft-discussed “low rates and alternative fees.”

  • Good communication. “Tell us how we can help solve a problem and not exacerbate it. Tell us like it is. Too often, I feel like firms are managing me like a client. Firms never tell us, ‘I’m not as good at this – someone else might be better,’” said Mayes.
  • A point of view. “Give me the advice. Firms think they do this. But actually, firms want to explain the law, give some legal thoughts, and then let you decide. I want you to understand our business enough, that when you give me legal advice, and we discuss it – it’s not usually yes or no, if it were that simple, we’d do it ourselves – but I want you to have a point of view. Too often, outside lawyers don’t have that,” said Majoras.
  • Candor. “Just be candid about what we’re doing, what your limitations are, what your advice is,” said Leitch.
  • Appreciation for how their business operates. (Though this actually got into the forbidden topic of $$$.) Leitch knows he has a target on his back as a GC with a big litigation budget, but he’s cut his legal staff by 40% and is watching life-long Ford workers get laid off. “When I’m seeing people who have been at Ford for 40 years be laid off, and you’re going to call me that day and argue about whether your fee is $500 or $550, I just can’t deal with that,” said Leitch. “Know my business; know that our lawyers have gone without bonuses for the last two years.”

What if you don’t want to work for a GC, and you’d rather be one yourself?

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Morning Docket: 05.27.10

By Kashmir Hill

* An ex-partner of Lindquist & Vennum, Michael Margulies, allegedly embezzled some $2 million from the firm and its clients between 1994 and 2010. [Star Tribune via ABA Journal]

* More fodder for the BP lawsuits. [New York Times]

* Robert Morgenthau is back. [New York Daily News]

* Massachusetts AG’s office wants to do away with the Defense of Marriage act. [Boston Globe]

* St. Paul lawyer Jeff Anderson is going on a crusade against child porn lovers. [Pioneer Press]

* Google privacy irony. [New York Times]