There was unhappy news out of Chicago last week. Stewart Dolin, an M&A partner at Reed Smith, was struck and killed by a train on Thursday. According to the Chicago Tribune, the coroner has ruled the death a suicide.
Dolin was the co-chair of Reed Smith’s corporate and securities practice. He lived in Glencoe, north of Chicago, and was hit by a northbound train at a Blue Line station in the Loop at 1:45 p.m.
When suicides happen, many firms will turn the person’s website bio into a temporary “in memoriam” page, but Dolin’s bio has been removed. A firm spokesman tells us: “After conferring with the family we kept our communication memorializing Stu internal.”
The managing partner in the Chicago office has issued a statement about Dolin’s death.
Last Wednesday, the firm of Hogan Lovells — formerly known as Hogan & Hartson, before its recent merger with U.K.-based Lovells — made an announcement about associate salaries.
Lawyers have been all up in The Tonight Show’s grill this year, thanks to the Jay Leno – Conan O’Brien smackdown. But the lawyers were relegated to an off-screen role. Jay Leno never name-checked Gibson Dunn (that we know of) for repping NBC and helping to put him back on his throne.
Another Biglaw firm did get a shout-out from Leno on Monday night, though. During his headlines bit, Leno got laughs thanks to Morrison & Foerster.
The good old days of Biglaw summer associate programs have now become the stuff of legend. Long gone are the days of doing doc review at the beach, unlimited lunches on the firm’s tab, swanky social events, and 100% offers for full-time employment.
Instead, today’s typical summer associate program has been streamlined down to 8 to 10 weeks, reduced the size of its class (by 50 percent or even 80 percent), and adopted new cost-saving rules for meals and entertainment.
We want to hear from you about what your experience has been like under this new paradigm. If you are a 2010 summer associate, please clickhere to complete a short survey, which will be kept completely confidential.
Feel free to use this opportunity to dish all about your firm’s work assignments, facetime requirements, meal budgets, and events – whether good, bad, or indifferent. Survey results will be posted on the Career Center — just in time to help you, your colleagues, or potential summer associates make some important career choices. Thanks!
The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to recommend Obama’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, to the full Senate, by a vote of 13 – 6. So the former Harvard Law School Dean and current Solicitor General is one step closer to becoming the fourth woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court.
Kagan received exactly one of the seven possible votes from Senate Judiciary Republicans. South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham was the only Republican to break ranks. But the Democrats held together, and it’s always impressive when Senate Democrats manage to not royally screw something up.
Kagan’s confirmation should be voted on by the full Senate sometime next week.
UPDATE: In case you’re wondering, this is the exact same vote that Sonia Sotomayor got when her nomination came out of the Judiciary Committee.
Come on babe, why don’t we paint the town; and all that jazz!
I’m gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings down; and all that jazz!
Start the car, I know a whoopee spot; Where the gin is cold, but the piano’s hot!
It’s just a noisy hall; where there’s a nightly brawl
And all… that… jazz…
It’s really a great day to be stuck in Chicago. The weather is pleasant today but not sweltering. The Cubbies have a home game. And former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will take the stand in his own defense. Add in a deep dish pizza and a taping of Oprah, and you could have the full Chicago experience all in one day.
The 2011 Vault prestige rankings went live this morning. It’s the time of the year when associates get to make fun of their friends, and partners get to brag to their peers. Law is a prestige-conscious field, and the Vault rankings will set the tone for prestige battles over the next year.
The top five remain the same, but the order has changed:
Corporate Counsel has released its annual list of the highest-paid general counsel in the land. The trend this year is a leveling-off, says Corporate Counsel, thanks to the recession and the belt-tightening that results from a greater transparency for executive compensation. The party slows down when the lights come on.
These GCs still managed to do well for themselves. At the top of the list is Russell Deyo, of Johnson & Johnson. The Georgetown ’75 grad has been with the company for 25 years, having joined in 1985 as a regular old staff attorney. His salary is a mere $831K, but he rakes in millions in bonus money.
Who topped the list, and how much are they making?
* The Senate Judiciary Committee should vote on Elena Kagan today. I’ll set the over/under for Republican support at 1. But I’m going to go out on a limb and take the over: Graham and Hatch. [Washington Post]
* In case you were wondering, yes, the summer job market in NYC really is that depressing. [New York Law Journal]
* Are you still hunting for a job? What, don’t you have a wealthy or influential father or something? [New York Times]
* Another fun tidbit from the NYT — a California city has successfully outsourced everything. Everything. [New York Times]
* The legal relationship between Lindsay Lohan and former O.J. lawyer Robert Shapiro didn’t last very long. [ABA Journal]
* Another attack on the billable hour. [Am Law Daily]
* The New York Post profiles New Yorkers who have hit 5,000 friends on Facebook. Come on people, David Lat can totally make this list next year. I promise his status updates are more interesting than these Post jokers. [New York Post]
We are getting very close to bar exam time. Some of you might be thinking that there’s not enough time left. Some of you might be resigned to the fact that you will fail the bar and all your friends will know about it and make jokes about you when you’re not in the room.
Well, if you do fail, jokes will be made at your expense. But there’s still more than enough time to pass. Above the Law received an email from a reader who passed the California bar exam on his first try. The reader took the time to document just how long he spent studying for the test. The total commitment? Under 90 hours.
And that’s for the California February bar, a test that has a passage rate just north of “utterly pathetic.”
So how did he do it? The reader shares his study plan with all of you who are coming into bar prep crunch time…
* Sure, stoners can totally get their act together to file for a patenta trademark trademark protection (or something — bite me). [WSJ Law Blog]
* Step 1: Make sure your Facebook wall is appropriate for employers. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit from new job! [Legal Blog Watch]
* With her Ponzi-scheming husband languishing in federal prison, what’s Ruth Madoff up to these days? [Dealbreaker]
* Washington Post explains why the Washington Post doesn’t care about the New Black Panther party. I didn’t say it was a convincing explanation. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Things that suck: the music industry, the journalism industry, the legal industry, etc. [Nintyfiveyears via Blawg Review]
Last November, we scrutinized the compensation of one of America’s best-paid in-house lawyers: Gregory Palm, general counsel of Goldman Sachs. There was some nit-picking from readers about the precise size of his (pay) package, reflected in the various updates appended to the post, but there was unanimity on the main point: serving as Goldman’s top lawyer is a path to riches.
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a long, interesting, behind-the-scenes look at the negotiations between Goldman and the SEC that culminated in the bank’s $550 million settlement — negotiations in which Greg Palm played a leading role. For some good commentary on Louise Story’s article, check out Larry Ribstein (who sees the case as a strike suit that just happened to be brought by the SEC).
What we found most intriguing about the NYT piece — which weighed in at a hefty 3,200 words, as noted by the WSJ Law Blog — was the delicious dish about Gregory Palm’s pay….
Going on game shows offers up the possibility of great reward or eternal humiliation in the form of YouTube’s infinite archives. An Oregon lawyer by the name of Paul Galm experienced the latter, when he appeared on “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” in 2006. (This is admittedly old, but sometimes we like to exhume Internet classics.)
Galm started off by telling Meredith Viera about how he and his wife — both attorneys — quit their jobs and blew their savings traveling around the world, and how he was appearing on WWTBAM hoping to get his nest egg back. Instead, he epically wound up with egg on his face:
Says the tipster who sent it along: “This guy must have gone to a TTT.”
Well, we did a little research. As it turns out, Paul Galm went to a top ten law school.
Which prestigious institution popped him out, and where is he now?
It’s common for a spouse to claim that a divorce lawyer left him with nothing but the shirt on his back. But it is the rare divorce attorney who returns the favor and takes her shirt off. We’ve extensively documented the briefs and bustline of the well-endowed Corri Fetman. But today we’ve got a divorce lawyer whose résumé isn’t quite so inflated.
(Warning: This should go without saying, but in case there is a freaking idiot out there, the next link is NSFW — Not Safe for Work.)
Meet Playboy’s “Employee of the Month”[NSFW] for July, Kimberly Kourt. Ms. Kourt — I’ll go on a diet if that’s her real name — says she’s a family lawyer, but real classy-like:
“I pride myself on always being professional and appropriate, right down to what I wear in the courtroom,” says sexy trial lawyer Kimberly Kourt. “But on my own time, sexy clothes are fair game.”
Nothing says “professional and appropriate” quite like posing for Playboy.
So, tastefully edited pictures or it didn’t happen….
(Warning: We have redacted certain key portions of the Kimberly Kourt photos, to make them safe for work. So there is no longer any nudity — but please be advised that significant amounts of bare flesh do appear below….)
There are many big questions in life. For example, email etiquette. “To” or “dear” or just a name? “Best” or “best regards” or “sincerely” or just your initials? Instant response or tasteful 15-minute delay?
Like many of the big questions, it’s hard to come up with definitive answers. But one summer associate has a core belief system that he thinks all fellow lawyers and law students should embrace:
The summer intern season / horror show is winding down. For the sake of next year’s crop of law student summer interns/associates, could you please post a commentary on annoying email habits? Maybe something similar to George Costanza’s rules for workplace behavior. Anyways, I was fortunate to work at least three years before heading back to school and learned some useful lessons about email etiquette. Apparently, these lessons do not reach most of my over achieving, nobody-has-ever-told-me-no-before law school classmates who come straight from undergrad.
- Chester Copperpot
Copperpot has brought Four Commandments back from the digital mountaintop. We blaspheme against some of them after the jump….
I’ve already shared with you my views on the burqa (views that weren’t popular with some of our more politically correct and/or sensitive readers). And you’ve already voted in a reader poll on efforts to ban the burqa, showing that 60 percent of you are wimps do not support France’s effort to ban the burqa.
Now some law professors have weighed in on the burqa ban. In a piece earlier this month for the Opinionator blog of the New York Times, University of Chicago law professor Martha Nussbaum offered a thoughtful critique of the burqa ban.
Over the weekend, two other prominent law professors — Richard Epstein, Nussbaum’s colleague at U. Chicago, and John Yoo, of Berkeley — jumped into the fray….
As we mentioned this weekend, the BP oil spill has been capped (for the time being), and now we can fully focus on who needs to get paid. As with so many things, it’s Ken Feinberg’s world and we’re just living in it. Bloomberg reports:
Kenneth Feinberg, who is overseeing a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims from BP Plc’s oil spill, pledged to create a system “more generous and more beneficial” to spill victims than taking the company to court.
More generous than court? Ooohh, judicial system, Czar Feinberg is calling you out. You gonna just take that?
[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 two years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]
Evan here. When considering a move to Singapore, it is more important than in other Asia markets that you have some type of credible connection to the city-state. This would seem ironic, since in Singapore firms routinely hire English-only US associates, so on the surface it would seem the perfect Asia market to target if you do not have an Asian background.
While it may have been true during the ’07 hiring boom that associates without Singapore ties were able to penetrate that market , this is no longer the case. US and UK firms all over Asia in ‘07 were dealing with a shortage of well-qualified US associate candidates, so even though Singapore was not hiring nearly as much as Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo, it was an easier place to land in ‘07 for someone who had no connection at all to Asia.
Today, things are quite different. While the number of openings in Asia are once again relatively high (especially in Hong Kong / China and Singapore), there are many more qualified candidates for these positions than there were in ‘07. A number of our Singapore Biglaw client firms are hiring now, but are being understandably very selective.
One of the key factors our candidates for Singapore are dealing with is the issue of why, exactly, they are moving to Singapore. Why Singapore, why this particular paradise tropical location? Unprepared candidates or recruitment consultants are sometimes caught off guard. Were your parents or grandparents born in Singapore, were you born in Singapore (as Evan was), do you have an aunt in Kuala Lumpur? Think about what you can come up with in terms of nexus before contacting us, let alone sitting for an interview. Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Singapore Nexus”
* The DUI of an MD from UBS results in Bess Levin’s field trip to Beamers Cafe, “Stamford’s premier strip club.” [Dealbreaker]
* Georgetown law prof Patrick Glen: “[A] candidate who received his or her legal education [at a school other than Harvard or Yale] should lower their aspirations. They may very well attain a seat on a federal appellate court, or perhaps a state supreme court, but if past is prologue, they will have no hope of setting up an office in the Marble Palace.” [Economix]
* Speaking of law schools, if you’re thinking of going, this is the kind of analysis you should undertake. [Advise-In]
* An analysis of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in the appeal brought by Wesley Snipes. [White Collar Crime Prof Blog]
* Are BYU law students allowed to use the Harold B. Lee Library? It sounds pretty awesome — check out the video, a clever parody of this Old Spice commercial, AFTER THE JUMP….
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.
Continue reading “Reed Smith Partner Commits Suicide in Chicago”
Last Wednesday, the firm of 
The good old days of Biglaw summer associate programs have now become the stuff of legend. Long gone are the days of doing doc review at the beach, unlimited lunches on the firm’s tab, swanky 
Last November, we 
There are many big questions in life. For example, 
I’ve already shared with you 
* The U.S. has some serious intelligence problems. [
* The DUI of an MD from UBS results in Bess Levin’s field trip to Beamers Cafe, “Stamford’s premier strip club.” [
