People are talking about an interesting Slate article entitled “Leaving Big Law Behind: The many frustrations that cause well-paid lawyers to hang out their own shingles.” It’s currently the most-read piece on the site. But it’s actually quite similar, even down to some of the sources, to an article that appeared a few days earlier in Crain’s New York Business:
A lawyer’s hourly billing rate used to be a badge of pride — the higher the number, the more valuable (and supposedly brilliant) the lawyer. But over the past 18 months, a strange phenomenon has been sweeping the legal arena: Partners at major law firms are quitting because they want to be able to charge less for their services.
This is, of course, not a new development. Kash and I wrote about it in a December 2009 cover story for Washingtonian magazine, in which we interviewed a former member of the $1,000-an-hour club who left a large law firm and started his own shop so he could offer clients better value. But all the recent coverage — in Crain’s, Slate, and elsewhere — suggests that the trend is picking up steam.
Which kinds of lawyers are leaving Biglaw to hang up their own shingles? Why are they doing it? And how’s it going for them?
Continue reading “A Hot New Trend: Leaving Biglaw to Start Your Own Firm”
Late last night, we received a tip that has become all too common in the dog days of August. This tipster sent us this letter from the career services office at Georgetown Law:
Haynes and Boone, LLP has just informed us that they will no longer have a summer program in their Washington, DC and Austin, TX offices. Please contact me if you are interested in switching your interview to either the Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, or New York, NY offices or if you would like us to cancel your interview.
These late-breaking summer program cancellations, partial cancellations, or substantive summer-program changes really need to stop…
Continue reading “Dear Law Firms: Canceling Summer Programs After People Bid on Those Programs Is Bad Form”
* And here’s the catch: sign up for the BP settlement fund, waive your right to sue BP and other major defendants. [New York Times]
* The only publicly owned law firm seems to be doing well. [Legal Week]
* You know how New York City works; when we run out of space, we just build up. Such is the plan at Fordham. [ABA Journal]
* Massachusetts order regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been put on hold while the DOJ decides whether or not to appeal. [National Law Journal]
* Ground Zero strippers don’t have a problem with the Ground Zero mosque. [Wall Street Journal]
* Beware of 100% offers from firms who conducted layoffs not too long ago. [The Careerist]
Today the Tenth Circuit told the state of Utah that it could no longer erect crosses by the side of the highway memorializing state troopers who have died. The WSJ Law Blog excerpts this part of the opinion in American Atheists, Inc. v. Duncan (PDF):
“This may lead the reasonable observer to fear that Christians are likely to receive preferential treatment from the [Utah Highway Patrol],” the judges wrote, adding elsewhere in the opinion that “unlike Christmas, which has been widely embraced as a secular holiday. . . . there is no evidence in this case that the cross has been widely embraced by non-Christians as a secular symbol of death.”
I’m sorry, are there Hindus driving through Utah who are unaware that “Christians are likely to receive preferential treatment” in Utah? If so, I’d call that person a most unreasonable observer.
All joking aside, are we really living in a world where a simple cross to mark the death of a government worker violates the Establishment Clause?
Continue reading “Crosses Memorializing Dead State Troopers in Utah Ruled Unconstitutional”
* “These golden handcuffs are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em, Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.” [Life's Work]
* Silly British government. Don’t they know that only little people pay taxes? [Fashionista]
* It’s funny how we take basic property rights for granted. Yes, by “we” I mean “dirty libs.” Republicans have this strange ability to care about private property rights all the time. [Idea exChange]
* I had a chance to expand on my thought about Phillip Markoff’s suicide with Professor Douglas Berman — who said he was happy from a utilitarian standpoint with Markoff’s suicide — and Leslie Walker — Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services in Boston. [Legal Talk Network]
* I don’t what you’re doing, Mrs. Ted Olson, but keep it up! [WSJ Law Blog]
* Democrats spinelessly running for cover on this Ground Zero mosque issue reminds me of… Democrats, sadly. [Salon]
Are we about to head into, or already in the midst of, a double-dip recession? The stock market has been taking a beating. Unemployment claims are on the upswing.
And law firm layoffs continue. The Daily Journal reports:
A month after the collapse of a proposed merger, San Francisco-based intellectual property boutique Townsend and Townsend and Crew announced Wednesday it is laying off nine attorneys and 25 staff members.
All nine attorneys, and most of the targeted staffers, are from Townsend’s Bay Area offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Walnut Creek. The layoffs reduce Townsend’s firmwide attorney headcount by 5 percent, to 174 lawyers, a firm spokesman said.
The failed merger would have involved Townsend and Kilpatrick Stockton.
Which Townsend lawyers were hit hardest by the cuts?
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Townsend Lays Off 34 of Its Crew”
I can’t remember the last time I was this happy about an indictment. From NPR (gavel bang: Going Concern):
Former New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, who testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2008, with his former trainer, Brian McNamee, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.
According to the Department of Justice, he has been “charged with one count of obstruction of Congress, three counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury.”
Go get him, feds. You go get that bloated, shady, suspicious, bat-throwing antichrist. Get ‘em all, I say; you lie to Congress, you get the horns!
Federal Grand Jury Indicts Former Major League Baseball Pitcher Roger Clemens [NPR]
Roger Clemens indicted [ESPN]
Readers, we’ve reached the end of the road. After this post, we will have exhausted the Vault 100 law firms — the one hundred most prestigious large law firms in the country. We’ve been doing a series of open threads on these firms so that readers can discuss, in the comments, how these firms stack up against each other.
We were impressed by the quality, but not the quantity, of the comments on our last law firm open thread. Will the final 20 generate as much discussion? Here they are:
81. Arent Fox LLP
82. McGuireWoods LLP
83. Venable LLP
84. Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP
85. Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP
86. Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP
87. Baker & Hostetler LLP
88. Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
89. Seyfarth Shaw LLP
90. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
91. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
92. Blank Rome LLP
93. Bracewell & Giuliani LLP
94. Dorsey & Whitney LLP
95. Kilpatrick Stockton LLP
96. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C.
97. Dickstein Shapiro LLP
97. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
98. Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P.
99. Troutman Sanders LLP
100. Fenwick & West LLP
Let’s kickstart the conversation by pulling out some tasty tidbits from their Vault write-ups….
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 81 – 100 (2011)”
In a follow-up to Kash’s post on Monday regarding the newly formed Big Law Society, I volunteered to check out their first happy hour Tuesday night at the BlackFinn American Saloon in D.C. At first I thought it would be amusing to see the type of people who would attend such a gathering. But by 8 p.m. on Tuesday, I was tired and doubted whether I should go at all.
Moreover, I had reason to be suspicious, considering what the group posted about itself on its About page:
Big Law Society organizes social networking events for a very select group of legal professionals, with the aim of creating a community of talented, dynamic individuals. Memberships and invites to the Big Law Society events are limited to individuals with a unique professional background; however, qualified members are welcome to bring guests.
Seriously, I almost felt like I was crashing a middle school party for the “popular” kids, except with less interesting people….
Continue reading “A Report From the First Meeting of the ‘Big Law Society’”
Now this is a list that matters. Corporate Counsel (an American Lawyer publication) has complied its annual list of the firms that Fortune 100 companies use as outside counsel. This is a list of which firms are getting work from clients with deep pockets. If you care at all about the business end of the law, then you care about this list.
And while the firms that are tapped for this kind of work won’t surprise anybody, it’s always good to take a look at who clients want to be with.
For general corporate law, these are the firms that were mentioned most by clients reporting to the magazine:
Cleary: 12 mentions
Davis Polk: 11 mentions
Cravath: 10 mentions
Simpson Thacher: 10 mentions
Yep, no real surprises there.
But what about some other practice areas? Well, the names start to change…
Continue reading “Who Represents Corporate America?”
Ed. note: Adrian Dayton is a lawyer and writer who advises law firms about business development through social media.. He will be writing a series of guest posts for Above the Law about social media.
Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
– Frank Herbert, Dune
“Don’t turn the TV off!”
My Dad insisted he was recording the football game.
“Well, can I at least change the channel?”
“No.”
What my father didn’t understand is that the VCR could record his game, even if the TV was displaying a different show. For those who don’t remember the old invention called the VCR, it could record one show while you watched another on the TV. It could even record the show while the TV was not on. That completely blew my father’s mind, so just to “be safe” he left the TV on and kept it on the channel he was recording.
Technology and social media can be scary to the ruling class, and we even see that among the legal blogosphere. Take one of my favorite law bloggers, Scott Greenfield….
Continue reading “The All-or-Nothing Social Media Skeptics”
This was bound to happen at some point. There have been countless associates who were promised jobs at law firms. They stopped looking for other jobs in reliance on that job offer. Then during the recession they were deferred, or their offers were rescinded. They are the leading citizens of the Lost Generation.
Do they have any legal claims against their would-be employers?
Almost certainly not, but it looks like somebody is ready to try to find out. The ABA Journal reports:
A would-be associate has sued San Francisco law firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin for deferring and then rescinding her job offer.
A clean test case on the issue of offer rescission? Not quite. As with most things, there’s a racial angle…
Continue reading “Let’s Do This: Deferred (Then Rescinded) Would-Be Associate Sues Firm”
* Mission accomplished? [New York Times]
* The DOJ and Barclays bank can kiss and make up, for $298 million dollars. [BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]
* You know what the Ground Zero mosque debate really needs? The New York Catholic Church. [NBC New York]
* Meanwhile, Obama pledges to support the 9/11 health and compensation bill. [New York Post]
* The first time SEC has ever gone after a state — and it’s New Jersey! [New York Times]
* You might not be able to be a Supreme Court justice if you go to law school in Arizona, but at least you’ll be able to see one. [Tax Prof Blog]
Greetings, loved ones. Hello there, California girls (and boys). We hope that you’re doing well. Gay marriage might be on hold for now, but there are other unions to celebrate on the West Coast.
Like unions between law firms and job-seeking law students. As we’ve discussed in these pages before, on-campus interviewing at law schools seems to be on the upswing.
And it’s not just in New York, where schools like Columbia and NYU report increased interviewing activity. It’s happening in California too, as reported by Sara Randazzo and Kari Hamanaka of the Daily Journal:
Career counselors around the state are reporting that the number of employers signing on to the recruiting process this year is either steady or up slightly. The mood, however, is still tempered by the reality that the recruiting climate is nowhere near the fever pitch preceding the downturn when there were barely enough top law students to go around for associate-hungry firms.
“When I talk to lawyers in the field, it seems things are busier, but given all the excess in the hiring pipelines they are still very conservative,” said Terrence Galligan, assistant dean of career development at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Well, conservative can be good (and not just politically). The conservative hiring of summer associates for 2010, for example, seems to have resulted in very high offer rates.
For 2011, some firms that stayed on the sidelines in 2010 are back in the game….
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Glitters in the Golden State”
* We know you love rankings. Here are the top 25 national universities and liberal arts colleges, according to the 2011 U.S. News college rankings. [TaxProf Blog]
* CHECK YOU ETHICS? In the seemingly endless Barbie/Bratz litigation, lawyers from Orrick, which now represents Bratz maker MGA, have accused Mattel lawyers from Quinn Emanuel of participating in an elaborate corporate espionage scheme. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Give her a gold-plated gavel: Wisconsin Law professor Victoria Nourse, nominated to the Seventh Circuit, has a net worth of almost $20 million. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
* Do you hate parking boots? So does this guy — and his taking a stand against them might bring about legal change in the U.K. [AltTransport]
* That one count of conviction against Blagojevich? Give the credit for it to Justice Scalia. [American Spectator]
* Corporette asks her readers: What is your best interview advice? [Corporette]
* Danielle Chiesi, a central figure in the Galleon Group insider trading case, knows how to get what she wants. [Dealbreaker]
DLA Piper recently rejoined the ranks of Biglaw firms paying a $160,000 starting salary. Welcome back to the pack. Unfortunately, some incoming associates hoping to start at DLA will have to wait quite a bit before they are able to cash in on that $160K dream. A tipster reports:
DLA Piper just told their incoming first years (i.e., the people who graduated in May 2010) about their start dates. A few months ago they told everyone that they’d either be starting in January 2011 or January 2012, but didn’t state who would be starting when, how many people they expected to start on either date, or any other specific information.
They made the calls [yesterday] and almost everyone is deferred until January 2012. They said they “expected” to give a stipend of $5k a month for pro bono work but didn’t definitively confirm anything.
Well, DLA Piper has now provided information about the situation to Above the Law. All of these kids — who summered with DLA Piper in 2009 — knew there was a possibility of getting deferred until 2012. But only half of them actually will. The rest will start relatively on-time…
Continue reading “DLA Piper Defers Half the Class of 2010 to 2012″
[S]ome of the conclusions of which our leading economic experts have been confident have turned out to be incorrect. For example, Alan Greenspan, appointed and then reappointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve for five terms by four different Presidents, recently admitted to a significant flaw in the ideology that caused him to support and implement policies of financial deregulation…
And Judge Richard Posner, a highly respected jurist and a leading economics expert, has recently expressed his admiration for Keynesian economics, reversing a lifetime of reliance on the Chicago School’s approach.
– Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the Ninth Circuit in State of California v. Safeway, Inc.
Here at Above the Law, your editors always avoid the black cars / livery cabs that populate the city. Instead, we trust yellow medallion cabs. This preference dates all the way back to our days in Biglaw. Lat would often take yellow cabs, even if he was entitled to a Fone-A-Car thanks to pulling ridiculous hours at Wachtell. I took livery cabs all the time coming home after-hours from Debevoise, until one night, coming back from Brooklyn — on non-firm related business, unfortunately — I was robbed by a driver.
These cars just aren’t to be trusted. Take the case of one NYU law student from back in 2000. Returning home after a night out in lower Manhattan, she claims she was raped by a friend of the black-car driver taking her home.
Thankfully, yesterday the alleged assailant was arrested. DNA evidence he turned over after more recent criminal activity matched up with the rape kit the NYU Law victim filed a decade ago….
Continue reading “Another Reason to Distrust Black Cars: You Might Get Raped”
The world of legal recruiting is a bit like Glengarry Glen Ross. Like the real estate agents of Glengarry, legal recruiters work mainly on commission, and they get paid when they close deals. Instead of getting paid for selling parcels of land, though, headhunters get paid when they find lawyers — people like you — new employment (most often at law firms, although sometimes in-house as well).
Like Glengarry, the world of legal recruiting features outsized personalities, profanity-spouting hustlers, and smooth-talking salespeople (the folks who cold call you and try to lure you away from Big Firm A to Big Firm B). Given the sheer number of recruiters working today, the fierce competition for deals, and the fees at stake — moving a group of powerful partners from one firm to another can result in a six- or even seven-figure payday — it’s not surprising that the business has a seamy side.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, which has come to light thanks to some recent, non-sealed court filings, one of the biggest attorney search firms out there — Major, Lindsey & Africa — has made RICO claims against an ex-employee.
Wait a sec. RICO — as in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act? Some say legal recruiting can be a dirty business, but it’s not that dirty, is it?
(And are law firm associates going to start getting voice mails from Teamsters? “Hey there, uh, David, my name is Sal….”)
Let’s explore the allegations of MLA’s lawsuit against one its former recruiters, Sharon Mahn….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Major Lindsey Files RICO Action Against Former Employee”
They don’t call it “HOT-lanta” for nothing. Hiring is heating up in the south, and if you’re a corporate attorney with experience in outsourcing and software systems acquisition transactions, then the latest Job of the Week, brought to you by Lateral Link, is a home run.
