Archive for August 2010

Drinker Biddle’s Latest Attack on the Billable Hour

By Elie Mystal

Have you ever heard of a “chief value officer”? Let’s assume your answer is “no,” because you don’t spend your free time reading synergistic white papers produced by McKinsey & Co. But that’s something the good people at Drinker Biddle would like to change. The Legal Intelligencer reports that Drinker Biddle is creating a new position to help the firm focus on client value:

If in a push for efficiency law firms are changing the way they offer their services, it’s only logical that how they market those services needs to change as well.

That’s a concept not lost on Drinker Biddle & Reath, which, after scaling back what it calls its client relations department over the last four years, is ready to grow it in a different way after widely restructuring the department’s functions.

The restructuring is highlighted by the appointment of Chicago-based Kristin Sudholz as the firm’s first-ever chief value officer.

You gotta ask yourself: What kind of economy are we living in where a professional services firm needs to create an executive position to make sure clients receive value for the services they purchase? It’s almost like a automobile manufacturer needing to create a “chief driving officer” to oversee consumers’ ability to actually drive the product.

The thing is, I’m almost positive GM does have an executive in charge of “drivability” or something. So maybe this Drinker Biddle idea isn’t totally off the wall…

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How Should Years of Wrongful Imprisonment Be Valued?

By David Lat

In Friday’s Non-Sequiturs, while linking to an interesting article about a man who served 27 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, I used an intentionally inflammatory blurb:

Would Michael Green, exonerated of rape charges by DNA evidence, be worth $2.2 million today if he hadn’t gone to prison? Just asking.

Judging from some of the comments, it seems that this blurb offended some of you. If so, I apologize.

(But I should also note that part of the blogger’s job is to troll provoke readers, intellectually and emotionally. Elie is tasked with baiting provoking the conservatives, and I’m in charge of provoking the liberals. If we don’t offend you every now and then, we’re not doing our jobs.)

In making my excessively irreverent quip, I was trying to get at a fairly serious question: How can we put a price on a man spending years behind bars for a crime he did not commit?

Let’s discuss….

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A Collection of Funny Summer Associate Stories from a Bygone Age

By Kashmir Hill

Some people were disappointed in the summer associate tales this year. We had only one really salacious story this summer. (If there were others we missed, email us.) Thank you, Oenophile Olympian, for your addition to the summer associate rules of etiquette.

Our schadenfreude-loving readers were terribly disappointed by the scarcity of scandal. Shame on you, sober and sedate 2010 summer associates! Though it’s worked out well for you all, it forced long-time lawyers to go digging in their memory banks for more exciting material.

We have five stories that came to us via comments and e-mail from the good old days when summer associates were young and restless, instead of focused and desperate…

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Scamblogs Get Some Mainstream Media Attention

By Elie Mystal

It’s been ten days since I last logged on to “the internet.” Ten days since I picked up a newspaper or let the dancing visions on MSNBC poison my mind. Ten days since I’ve tapped into the 140-character pulse of the world.

While I’ve had my head in the sand, it appears that the mainstream media is once again trying to get a handle on what’s happening in the legal profession. Sunday’s report in the Newark Star-Ledger isn’t breaking news to regular Above the Law readers, but it is an indication that media attention on how law schools conduct their business is intensifying, if ever so slightly:

As they enter the worst job market in decades, many young would-be lawyers are turning on their alma maters, blaming their quandary on high tuitions, lax accreditation standards and misleading job placement figures. Unless students graduate from schools like Harvard or Yale, they “might as well be busing tables,” Bullock said.

The quote is from Scott Bullock, the just-outed writer previously known as “Law is 4 Losers,” of Big Debt Small Law (currently down, as noted earlier).

It turns out that Bullock went to Seton Hall Law School. Now that mainstream media outlets are asking questions, Seton Hall felt obliged to respond…

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Morning Docket: 08.16.10

By Kashmir Hill

* Career alternatives for lawyers: Vintner. [New York Times]

* When Rudy Lim was poached from DLA Piper to head Duane Morris’s Singapore office, he got a nice pay bump from $300K annually to nearly $700K. To help drive up his worth, though, he forged a pay slip at DLA. The fall-out? A fine, a day in jail, disbarment, and no one ever trusting him during salary negotiations again. [Bloomberg]

* The “law school scam” blogs get some mainstream media attention. Law is 4 Losers, the man behind the Big Debt, Small Law blog, is a Seton Hall law grad. And he appears to have erased his blog since the article came out. [The New Jersey Star Ledger]

* Another way the justice system confuses the general public. [Associated Press]

* Will the Ninth Circuit stage an intervention in the Prop 8 ruling? [New York Times]

* Oracle v. Google is good for Microsoft. [PC World]

* As New York finally ushers in no-fault divorces, the WSJ looks back on the history of the need for fault. They dug up from the 1800s what may be the best-named adultery-spurred divorce case ever: Cock v. Cock. [Wall Street Journal]

This Week in Biglaw: 08.15.10

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.

For the lucky few who were able to secure jobs in the drastically reduced summer programs this year, the good news keeps on coming.

Unlike last year, offers are coming in near the traditional rates approaching 100%. Champagne bottles were popped, literally or figuratively, when 100% offers were announced at Kirkland Chicago, Skadden DC, Kaye Scholer NY, Freshfields NY, and Quinn Emanuel NY. With the bar clearly set, expect peer firms to match – absent individual misbehavior, of course.

Don’t forget, we’re talking about 100% of classes that were off by approximately 44% compared to last year, though.

So as the economy improves, class sizes for next year’s summer programs look like they’ll continue to expand. Columbia is reporting an 8% increase in OCI spots for its 2Ls. More immediately, will that translate to the return of something we haven’t seen in three full years: OCI for third years? Believe it or not, there was a time when firms had huge summer programs and still had to go back to campus for more bodies (e.g., 1997, 2000).

The news isn’t all good, though.

Details after the jump, including layoffs, two stories involving Playboy magazine, and a plethora of associate-vs-firm litigation.

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Weekend Docket: 08.14.10

By David Lat

* The third time proves the charm for prosecutors pursuing New Jersey right-wing blogger Hal Turner, who was convicted on Friday of threatening three illustrious Seventh Circuit judges. [AP via Chicago Tribune]

* In other Chicago-related news, the actual jury in Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial is still out — but the court of public opinion may be somewhat sympathetic to the disgraced governor. [New York Times]

* President Barack Hussein Obama defends the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero — in remarks at a Ramadan dinner, natch. [Washington Post]

* First Cadwalader. Then Cravath. And now… the Brooklyn DA’s office. BEDBUGS!!! [Gothamist]

* Additional thoughts on GPS surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, via Charlie Savage. [New York Times]

* Yale law professor Peter Schuck has an interesting proposal for reforming birthright citizenship. [New York Times]

Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 41 – 60 (2011)

By Kashmir Hill

We’re doing our annual march through the Vault prestige rankings, to give ATL readers the opportunity to have their say about perks and pitfalls at these firms. If your firm actually let you swap your Blackberry for your iPhone, brag here. Or if your firm has such a strong stench that it makes you nauseous, vent here.

We’ve been doing open threads in batches of ten, but now we’re going to pick up the pace. Here are the Vault #41 – 60. This is when the prestige list gets a little more geographically diverse, with firms based in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Palo Alto and even Pittsburgh:

41. Winston & Strawn
42. Baker Botts
43. Jenner & Block
44. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
45. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
46. Proskauer Rose
47 (tie). Dewey & LeBoeuf
47 (tie). King & Spalding
48. Goodwin Procter
49. Baker & McKenzie
50. Fulbright & Jaworski
51. Vinson & Elkins
52. McDermott Will & Emery
53. DLA Piper
54. Morgan Lewis & Bockius
55. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
56. Bingham McCutchen LLP
57. Dechert LLP
58. Cooley LLP
59. K&L Gates LLP
60. Alston & Bird LLP

We took a spin through their Vault rankings and awarded superlatives, after the jump.

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.13.10

By David Lat

* Would Michael Green, exonerated of rape charges by DNA evidence, be worth $2.2 million today if he hadn’t gone to prison? Just asking. [New York Times]

* More on the issue of standing in the Prop 8 case. [The BLT (Tony Mauro); Dorf on Law (Michael Dorf); SCOTUSblog (Lyle Denniston)]

* Attention maritime law nerds: RMS Titanic, which has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic, is looking at a nine-figure payday. Congrats to McGuire Woods, which represented RMS Titanic in district court. [Associated Press]

* Starting law school in the fall? Here are some tips. [Lawyerist]

* The mortgage crisis is far from over. [Instapundit]

* Advice for jobless lawyers: “Sell your skill at going to school.” [Law and More]

* In case you’re not tired of talking about Judge Vaughn Walker being gay and all. [CounterPunch]

Practicing Green Law: Meet Jack Jacobs, Founder of Cleantech Law Partners

By AltTransport

Ed. note: This is a guest post from our sister site, AltTransport. They recently interviewed Vermont Law grad Jack Jacobs, entrepreneurial founder of a firm specializing in green law.

Attorney Jack Jacobs started his career at a boutique environmental law firm in Boston, but grew frustrated that his work seemed to be about finding ways to avoid tackling environmental issues rather than protecting the environment. He went back to school to get an LLM from Portland’s Lewis and Clark Law School. (If you can’t decide whether Vermont Law School or L&C is the best law school for environmental law, you can be like Jacobs and just go to both.)

He then founded Cleantech Law Partners to deal with the specific challenges that face cleantech firms, biofuel startups, and electric vehicle makers — such as Tesla — in today’s regulatory and policy environment. With offices in California, New York, D.C., Oregon and Germany, Cleantech Law Partners works with clients engaged in renewable energy and cleantech projects — mainly incorporating new entities, finalizing contracts and lobbying for the passage of industry-specific legislation.

AltTransport spoke with Jacobs about the legal challenges facing today’s cleantech startups, and what the government can do to make life easier for them. Check out the Q and A with Jacobs, and comment, over at AltTransport.

Lawyerly Lairs: Did a Realtor Use an Attorney’s House for Gay Sexcapades?

By David Lat

An attorney's lovely suburban home was allegedly transformed into A DEN OF SEXUAL SIN....

This story — which could also qualify as a Lawsuit of the Day — is fine, funny Friday fodder. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

Adam Bunge, an attorney, and his wife, Sarah Bunge, a Lutheran pastor, put their Maple Grove home up for sale and headed off to London this year for a four-month “work holiday.”

While they were gone, they allege in a lawsuit filed last week, their real estate agent used their house and possessions for “unauthorized sexual escapades,” staining their sheets, couch, carpet and other surfaces….

“It feels like we have been violated in every sense of the word,” Adam Bunge said in an interview.

The Bunges weren’t the only ones who were “violated.” In every room of the house. And it got pretty messy up in there….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 8.8: Oklahoma!

By Laurie Lin

When we filed our last column, we were full of anticipation over Chelsea Clinton’s then-upcoming wedding. And the New York Times did not let us down with its wall-to-wall coverage of the big day. In case you missed it, you can read the NYT on Chelsea’s dress, Chelsea’s wedding planner, the secrecy, the confidentiality agreements, the feeding frenzy, the frustration of the fashion media, the interfaith angle, the rabbi’s spiritual journey, and the reaction in the town of Rhinebeck. Oh, and there’s a slideshow.

And now, on to this week’s couples (we’re including one standout from mid-July that we’d missed):

1. Emma Mittelstaedt and James Burnham

2. Dace Caldwell and Roman Martinez

3. Anne Stephens and Preston Lloyd

Read all about these couples and their exploits, after the jump.

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Judge Kozinski Doesn’t Track with the Ninth Circuit on GPS and the Fourth Amendment
Calls his fellow judges ‘cultural elitists’ when it comes to privacy.

By Kashmir Hill

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski gives a thumbs up to privacy for the poor

A user’s manual that’s 200+ years old can be difficult to apply to modern technologies. Thus, it’s been a challenge for judges interpreting the Fourth Amendment as it applies to police surveillance via GPS tracking devices on cars.

There has been a plethora of precedents set across the country as to whether slapping a GPS tracker on a car is considered a “search” and whether a warrant is needed. A Wisconsin state court decided last year that warrantless GPS surveillance is okay. Within a week of the Wisconsin decision, a New York state court disagreed. More recently, the D.C. Circuit ruled that GPS tracking is indeed a search, and introduced what the Volokh Conspiracy’s Orin Kerr called a “mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment,” i.e., that a series of discrete facts may be public, but their aggregation may violate privacy rights. Kerr dissed the D.C. Circuit’s mosaic ruling, but Cato’s Julian Sanchez was a fan.

The Ninth Circuit got in on the GPS-Fourth Amendment throwdown too. As noted by How Appealing, a Ninth Circuit panel — consisting of two of the court’s more conservative members, Diarmuid O’Scannlain and Randy Smith, and Judge Charles Wolle (S.D. Iowa), sitting my designation — ruled that police officers who placed a GPS device on the underbed of a suspected drug dealer’s car while it was parked outside of his house did not violate his constitutional rights.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski was not happy about their decision. He wrote an angry dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc, accusing the judges of “cultural elitism,” by granting privacy rights to the rich but not to the poor…

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Calls his fellow judges ‘cultural elitists’ when it comes to privacy.“

Quote of the Day: The (Fabulous!) Silver Lining to Delayed Gay Marriage

By David Lat

We’re excited, but we’re also sad. At least we’ll have a little more time to prepare and dress up.

– Ryan Dooley, a 24-year-old Latin teacher in California, upon learning that he’ll have to wait longer to marry his fiancé.

Pls Hndle Thx: Building Your Book of Business

By Marin

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

Dear ATL,

In my review, I was told that a sixth year, I need to start working on business development and bringing in clients to the firm. Given that my last name isn’t Vanderbilt or Trump, I’m not sure how to go about doing this. Any suggestions?

– LinkedOut

Dear LinkedOut,

I am freaking exhausted this week. I went to a 30th birthday party on Monday and got hit on by a guy wearing a shell necklace from Hollister. I got food poisoning on Tuesday and Wednesday night I stayed out drinking Pimm’s Cups which are humiliating to order but refreshing to drink and then I rolled up to my apartment drunk as a skunk at 1:30 a.m. and found my dog cowering in the corner texting Child Protective Services….

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Job of the Week: Broker Dealer Attorney in NYC

By Above the Law

The recent financial uptick is good news for a few attorneys who have stuck it out through the downturn to keep their skills and experience fresh. Here’s the latest Job of the Week, from Lateral Link.

Position: Broker Dealer Attorney

Location: New York, New York

Description: Our client, an investment management company with more than half a billion under management, is one of the world’s foremost bond fund managers, overseeing more than 70 mutual funds invested in corporate paper, emerging markets debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and credit default swaps. The company seeks a Broker Dealer Attorney with 5-8 years of experience in and knowledge of broker-dealer SEC rules, securities laws, and FINRA rules applicable to principal underwriters of 1940 Act registered funds. Working with one other attorney and paralegal staff, the successful candidate will review and negotiate fund intermediary agreements, participation agreements, authorized participant agreements and vendor contracts as well as assist in applicable FINRA and SEC matters, including necessary filings, coordination with the Compliance staff, and regulatory issues.

For attorney candidates interested in this position or others like it, please register for Lateral Link and schedule a time to chat with one of our seventeen recruiters. If you are a general counsel or recruiting manager looking to hire for your legal department on a permanent or short term basis, please contact Michael Allen directly, at 213.785.2344, by email, or via LinkedIn, to learn more about how Lateral Link can assist you.

The Real World: Corporate Law Edition

By Kashmir Hill

I have been writing for Above the Law since March of 2008. This Monday, though, will be my last day as a daily contributor. I am heading over to Forbes to write about privacy, law, social media, and technology (aka The Not-So Private Parts). For those who will miss my daily presence on ATL, please feel free to check me out there, or to friend me on Facebook, or to follow me on Twitter. I’ll also be writing a weekly column for Above the Law.

Lat, Elie, and I are going to be getting drinks after work at The Ninth Ward to help numb the separation pain. Please feel free to join us if you’re in New York. Though only if you’re not a weirdo. (You know who you are; but to clarify, weirdos are not those who would show up, but are among those who voted this up.) We’ll be there from six to eight p.m.

As many of you know, unlike my co-editors, I’m not a lawyer. I’m just a little journalist. I appreciate that, despite this moral and educational failing on my part, all of you lawyers and law students have put up with my writing about your profession. Professors Lat and Mystal have offered excellent legal lessons, as have the real law professors I have had the pleasure of interviewing. Plus, I date spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out with lawyers outside of work, and so have a solid appreciation for the terror of living under the reign of the billable hour.

I also did some hourly billing myself way back when; my first job out of college in 2003 was as a paralegal in the D.C. office of Covington & Burling, an experience that convinced me not to apply to law school (despite having rocked the LSAT). During my first summer in D.C., I lived in a five-bedroom apartment in Van Ness with four summer associates — from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Georgetown. We were five corporate law strangers picked to live in a house (vacated by the Georgetown law student’s roommates for the summer). That was where I picked up some useful stereotypes about students from these elite law schools. I came away from the summer with a strong dislike for HLS kids…

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Dude, You’re Getting A Dell… Runaround?

By David Lat

Discovery disputes, like a certain other thing, happen. But it’s not often that these happenings make the pages of the New York Times. An article on the front page of the business section reports:

Dell has been accused of withholding evidence, including e-mails among its top executives, in a lawsuit over faulty computers it sold to businesses, according to a filing made Thursday. Advanced Internet Technologies filed a motion in Federal District Court in North Carolina asserting that Dell had deliberately violated a court order by failing to produce documents written by its executives, including the company’s chief executive and founder, Michael S. Dell.

The filing is the latest twist in a three-year-old lawsuit brought by A.I.T. that accuses Dell of selling at least 11.8 million faulty PCs over three years and then trying to hide problems with the computers from customers. A.I.T., an Internet services company, says it lost business as a result of the broken Dell machines.

Ironically enough, one of the apparent victims was the law firm representing Dell in the case….

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Morning Docket: 08.13.10

By David Lat

Elizabeth Warren

* Law professors Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman argue against extending copyright protection to fashion designs. [New York Times]

* DLA Piper suffers a reversal of fortune — and a reversal of a fortune, to the tune of $22 million. [Am Law Daily]

* The Alabama Attorney General, Troy King, has sued BP — over the objections of Governor Bob Riley. [Mobile Press-Register via ABA Journal]

* Is Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, a top candidate to lead the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, a “supremely smart crusader for middle-class families, or “a fiery zealot disguised in professorial glasses and pastel cardigans”? [Washington Post]

* Lindsay Lohan may be getting out of court-ordered rehab early — and heading for New York. [ABC News; Los Angeles Times]

* Oracle files a lawsuit claiming that Google is being evil, by violating patents and copyrights. [Gizmodo]

* David Johnson, the aide to New York Governor David Paterson whose domestic violence case the governor got involved in, is charged with misdemeanor assault and five other offenses. [New York Times]

* Is everyone a winner against Nixon Peabody? A former NP associate suing the firm over his bonus certainly hopes so. [Am Law Daily]

Can Stanford Become the #1 Law School? Outlook Not So Good.

By David Lat

Late last month, we posed a question: Can Stanford overtake Harvard and Yale and become the #1 law school? We consulted our Magic 8 Ball, which gave this answer: “Outlook Not So Good.”

And it’s not just the Magic 8 Ball. Professor Bill Henderson, one of the leading academics studying the legal profession, constructed a simulation model of the U.S. News rankings. He used this model to figure out what Stanford Law School would have to do to top the list.

For starters, it would need to get its hands on at least $350 million dollars….

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