Just like Flannery O’Connor’s good man, ethics credits for Continuing Legal Education can be hard to find. Luckily, today’s highlighted CLE offering, handpicked by your ATL editors from the extensive CLE catalog of our friends at ALI-ABA, offers the opportunity to fulfill the requirement.
It’s a course called Lawyer Professionalism: Identifying the Fundamental Values of Law Practice, and it’s being offered as a video webcast tomorrow, December 14, from 12 noon to 2 p.m. (EST). It’s also one of ALI-ABA’s Daily Deals, so it has been marked down from $169.00 to $89.00 (until midnight tonight).
Speaking of discounts, we’ve arranged for a special discount on ALI-ABA offerings for Above the Law readers. Now through the end of the year, ATL readers will enjoy a 30% discount on (1) live webcasts and (2) telephone seminars. Just enter the coupon code MCLEATL in your shopping cart.
To check out the ethics course for tomorrow, please click here. To look through all of ALI-ABA’s offerings, including the live webcasts and telephone seminars that are subject to the 30 percent discount, please visit their website.
Happy Holidays!
Lawyer Professionalism: Identifying the Fundamental Values of Law Practice [ALI-ABA]
It seems that Cahill Gordon isn’t the only firm putting the 2010 Cravath bonuses to shame. The elite litigation boutique of Susman Godfrey — founded in Texas, but now with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, as well as Houston and Dallas — is paying out associate bonuses as big as the Texas sky.
And, like good Texans, the folks at Susman Godfrey aren’t afraid to brag about their success. Unlike many other law firms, which play a ridiculous cat-and-mouse game with their bonus news, SG issued a press release about their bonuses. Such candor is refreshing — and shows that the firm has nothing to hide.
So how much are Susman Godfrey associates taking home this year in bonuses?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Susman Godfrey Shatters the Cravath Bonus Scale”
Don’t say I never did anything for you — I’m creating jobs. Okay, I’m creating a job. Well, not a full-time job, just a freelance writing gig. (But at least it pays more than this legal job or this one.)
Yes, after some deliberation, I’ve decided to step away from writing the small law firm column I helped start back in September. What alternative endeavor, you ask, could possibly draw me away from the highly lucrative world of blogging?
Glad you asked. In lieu of my twice-a-week column here (and my day job), I’ve accepted an offer to join the Army’s JAG Corps as a full-time, active duty sold… lawy… soldier-lawyer. Yes, like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men (except less attractive and not the Navy).
Yes, this is something I want. No, I’m not crazy — just want to do something awesome. The government is going to pay me to undergo weapons training, learn land navigation, stay in shape, and — oh yeah — be a lawyer. It’s a four-year commitment, and if anyone is interested, I’m going to try and chronicle with my journey over at my personal blog: (A)musing Dick. (I’m not sure how that will go because, as Lat knows, blogging and government work don’t always mesh very well.)
The important thing here is that there’s a writing opportunity available. Read on if you’re interested….
Continue reading “Goodbye Josh Dickinson… and Hello Job Opening (Above the Law Seeks a Small Firm Columnist)”
Barack Obama: The doctor is... out?
Virginia 1, Obamacare 0. Ian Gershengorn must be pacing up a storm.
Judge Henry E. Hudson (E.D. Va.) just struck down a key provision of President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law — namely, the requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance. Judge Hudson held that the insurance mandate exceeds Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause. Links to coverage are collected below; Judge Hudson’s 42-page opinion is available here (PDF, via Dahlia Lithwick).
Congratulations to Virginia and to its crusading attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Federalist Society festivities a few weeks ago).
Of course, we’re still near the beginning of a long road of litigation — which will likely end at One First Street, two (or more) years from now.
Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional [New York Times]
Judge Strikes Down Part of Health Care Law [ABA Journal]
Virginia Federal Judge Shoots Down Part of Health Care Law [WSJ Law Blog]
Every now and then we conduct reader surveys, to learn a little more about you. Today’s survey, aimed at practicing lawyers, seeks information about your practice area.
The survey is anonymous. The results will be used by us for a variety of purposes, some of them business-related and some of them editorially oriented (e.g., figuring out which practice areas we should cover more).
Please take the survey by clicking here. Thanks!
ATL Practice Area Survey [Survey Monkey]
Maybe Demi Moore - and Ashton Kutcher, not Michael Douglas - will play them in the movie.
Last week, we started hearing about an amazing email making the rounds. In this email message, a male associate at a large law firm allegedly described, in excruciating detail, a supposed sexual encounter with a married female partner at the firm.
Apparently the raunchy email was making like an STD and going viral within the firm. Concerned about this development, the firm tried to crack down on dissemination by distributing a hard-copy memorandum to lawyers and staff, warning them about recent “spam” containing inappropriate language that was being circulated between several firm email accounts. Memo recipients were directed not to forward the “spam” if they received it, and they were also told not to disseminate the paper memo warning of the “spam.”
Meanwhile, the firm’s information-technology team was frantically trying to put the horse back in the barn. Members of the firm’s IT department were working overtime to locate and delete all copies of the email that they could find.
Alas, they didn’t work fast enough. The sexually explicit message — WARNING: stop reading here if such talk might offend you — finally found its blessed way to the Above the Law inbox….
Continue reading “A Racy (But Fake?) Email About An Associate’s One-Night Stand With A Married Female Partner”
On Friday, the firm of Fried Frank announced associate bonuses. This year’s announcement was just like last year’s, i.e., something of a black box. The firm memo, reprinted below, states that FFHSJ will be paying “year-end bonuses to New York associates in varying amounts up to $40,000″ — but doesn’t say much more than that.
So nobody at Fried Frank really knows how much anyone else is getting. According to one source, though, “the news is that bonuses are generally in line with other firms and are being paid by year end.” In addition, “[r]umor is that bonus structure may not be lock-step and might (heaven forfend) be based in part on performance.”
The full memo appears after the jump. Fried Frank folk, feel free to compare your bonuses in the comments.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Announces Bonuses ‘Up to $40,000′”
* Hiscock & Barclay cut Andrew Cuomo a $45K check and one of the firm’s lawyers got a deal. Does pay-to-play go both ways in New York? [New York Daily News]
* John du Pont: millionaire, maniac, murderer… miracle worker? He died just in time to avoid the return of the 55% IRS death tax. [Los Angeles Times; TaxProf Blog]
* I ❤ boobies, you ❤ boobies, but this school thinks that they’re lewd. Come on, even the New York Times ❤s boobies. [Legal Intelligencer]
* Calling a client a “cheap lunatic” isn’t a very good idea, especially when your firm is overcharging by $540K. Just ask Goodwin Procter. [Boston Globe]
* Time to find a new fetish to deposit in your spank banks, sickos, because animal crush videos have been banned (again). [CNN Politics]
* Despite Mark Madoff’s suicide, Irving Picard still has him on a short leash is pursuing litigation against the Madoffs. All clawback lawsuits against the family will continue to move ahead. [Wall Street Journal]
Although the matter is still being contested — Northland has asked a court to reduce its bill still further, to zero — the arbitrator’s finding calls into question the business model Goodwin and many other large law firms have relied on for decades: Deploying huge legal teams to pursue clients’ cases, often assigning more than a dozen lawyers to compile research, conduct depositions, and draft motions.
— an article in the Boston Globe about a recent fee dispute between Northland Investment Corp. and Goodwin Procter, in which an arbitrator concluded that Goodwin overcharged Northland by more than $540,000 (gavel bangs: ABA Journal and WSJ Law Blog).
Mark Madoff, R.I.P.
Mark Madoff, the oldest of Bernard Madoff’s two sons, committed suicide on Saturday, by hanging himself in his Manhattan apartment. Saturday was a significant day: the second anniversary of Bernie Madoff’s arrest for running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Mark Madoff’s lawyer, prominent Paul Weiss partner Martin Flumenbaum, issued a statement yesterday: “Mark Madoff took his own life today. This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy…. [Mark Madoff was] an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.”
Flumenbaum wasn’t the only powerful Paul Weiss personage named “Martin” with involvement in this case. Mark Madoff’s body was actually found by legendary litigator Martin London, a longtime partner at the firm who is now of counsel at PW.
As noted on his Paul Weiss website bio, “[t]he gamut of Mr. London’s successes is vast.” But his experience is primarily on the civil side, with occasional forays into white-collar criminal work. His docket generally doesn’t include violence and death; he’s not the kind of lawyer who sees dead people (e.g., a homicide prosecutor).
So how did Marty London come to find Mark Madoff’s body?
Continue reading “Madoff Son Found Dead in Suicide (By Legendary Litigator Martin London)”
When we launched the ATL Courtship Connection in New York, we received a number of plaintive emails from lawyers in other cities asking us to give matchmaking a whirl in their towns. Judging from these emails, Chicago, L.A. and D.C. are all cities with numerous single lawyers desperate enough adventurous enough to turn their love lives over to Above the Law.
Loyal Courtship readers know that we had a mixed track record setting up legal types in the Big Apple. There were a few duds, a couple of studs, one make-out session, and one utter FAIL. To our knowledge, though, there were no LTRs (or STDs) as a result of our playing Cupid.
We’ve decided we might have better luck in another city, so we are bidding Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs farewell for now, and taking this matchmaking service down I-95 to Washington, D.C., a.k.a. the best city in which to be a lawyer.
Read on for details…
Continue reading “Capital Courtship Connection: Calling Single Lawyers in D.C.”
* An issue previously raised on South Park: Can a high school wrestling move rise to the level of sexual assault? (Read Bridget Crawford’s post — am I the only one who finds this more than a bit titillating?) [The Faculty Lounge]
* So who is replacing Ho — James Ho, who recently announced his departure — as Texas Solicitor General? Don Cruse has the news. [Supreme Court of Texas Blog]
* If you think Cravath associates are overreacting to their anemic bonuses, check out the latest viral video: “Pizza Girl.” [Gawker]
* Thinking of using Twitter to market your law firm? Why not just try pictures of topless women? [Ross Fishman's Marketing Blog]
* Some new features in the recent IOS 4.2 update for the iPad that attorneys might find helpful, according to Brian Malcom. [Young Lawyers Blog]
* There’s still time to RSVP for the ATL holiday party taking place next week, here in NYC, and kindly sponsored by Practical Law Company and ELR Search. [Above the Law]
This week, when I wasn’t thinking about how to crack down on lunch thieves and trying to recoup the money I paid former Judge Porteous over the last few years (which put me in a bit of a financial bind, but I’ll be fine because I’m on the short list for a job at Skadden’s San Francisco office), I found time to piece together another Rundown of legal technology for the week.
In this edition, we go back to the future to discuss “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There is also a free download addressing European privacy and e-discovery, as well as other related content.
In addition, the most famous plaintiff in e-discovery will be speaking in Boston. And have you ever wondered what the legal industry will look like in ten years?
Continue reading “The Rundown: This Week in Legal Technology – 12.09.10″
And just like that, it’s December. Flurries fill the sky, Wham’s “Last Christmas” saturates the airwaves, and the list of weddings in the New York Times shortens dramatically. Quality tends to decline along with quantity, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised to find plenty of comment-worthy nuptials (and attractive brides!) over the past couple of weeks.
Here are the three weddings that most caught caught our eye:
Elizabeth Kronick and Michael Kleinman
Alexandra Endelson and Michael Bassik
Lucy Martinez and James Sullivan Jr.
Check out these couples’ pictures and write-ups, including one jaw-dropping wedding registry — plus a list of all the recent legal eagle weddings — after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Registry Error”
Columbia Professor David Epstein
We know that part of the appeal of Ivy League schools is the incestuous nature of the high-end job market. People like to hire their own, and if successful Ivy League graduates prefer to work with or mentor fellow Ivy League alums, then the whole Ivy system becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
See, it’s fun to talk about “incest” when you are using the word to make a creative intellectual analogy. It’s much less fun to use the word incest when you are talking about… incest. Revoltingly, David Epstein, a political science professor at Columbia University who also occasionally teaches legal seminars, has been accused of having a consensual sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. According to the New York Daily News, Epstein has been charged with a single count of felony incest.
Epstein is (or perhaps “was”) popular with his students. He was also a news commentator and occasional blogger on the Huffington Post.
I’m find myself wishing he was accused of having inappropriate sex with one of his college-aged students, or using an escort service, or having sex with donkeys, or something other than allegedly doing it with his daughter. Because that’s just a gross perversion of nature.
And now I have to make jokes about it….
Continue reading “Columbia Poli Sci Professor Accused of Diddling His Daughter”
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com
Hi:
I’m an associate at a small firm with a very specialized practice area. My firm shares a client with a Biglaw firm that handles most of the client’s litigation and other work. As such, there are a couple of partners at the Biglaw firm that I work with fairly frequently, when my little niche overlaps with matters they’re handling for our mutual client.
I like these partners – they seem like nice guys – and I think they like me too; at any rate, we have a good working relationship and they seem to respect my work. One of their associates recently left and I’d love to jump into his place. I haven’t seen a posted opening anywhere, so I don’t feel like I can just send them my resume out of the blue, saying “in case you need someone to fill Departed Associate’s position…” – or can I? What’s the best way to go about this?
Also: Departed Associate left without having another job lined up, saying it just “wasn’t the right fit” for him. I know: huge red flag that possibly these partners aren’t the nice guys they appear to be. But not necessarily – right? It would be different for me, right??
– I Want That Job
Dear I Want That Job,
When someone leaves a law firm job without something lined up in this still-shitty economy, there are only three possibilities…
Continue reading “Pls Hndle Thx: There Are Daggers Behind Men’s Smiles”
When we last discussed Kumari Fulbright, the Arizona beauty queen and law student turned felon, we mentioned that she was going to be sentenced in early 2011 for her role in the kidnapping and torture of her ex-boyfriend. Well, it looks like Christmas came early for Kumari — her sentencing hearing took place yesterday.
Fulbright was sentenced to two years in prison and six years of probation. She also has to pay $15,000 in restitution. The sentence itself wasn’t a surprise, since it was consistent with the plea agreement we previously mentioned.
Far more shocking was the truly hideous hairstyle that Kumari sported at sentencing….
Continue reading “The Sentencing of Miss Kumari Fulbright”
So, let’s say that an intelligent child does do everything that she is told to do from kindergarten through high school, and then goes to Harvard and then to a very good law school, and then into a high-powered law firm, and ends up making $180,000 a year by the time she is thirty. So what? Her life will have been a life of drudgery piled upon drudgery, with no sense of freedom or self-knowledge.
– A commenter on the New York Times responding to a Times article about the Race to Nowhere movie.
Here’s some nice news to counteract all the unhappiness over associate bonuses (not Cahill’s, which were great, but Cravath’s and all the Cravath followers).
There’s no word yet, at least as far as we know, on bonuses at Winston & Strawn. But for incoming associates who just passed the bar, Winston is congratulating them with bottles of champagne.
You’re lawyers; you suffer from status anxiety. So right now you’re all wondering: What brand of champagne?
Continue reading “Biglaw Perk Watch: Winston & Strawn Breaks Out the Bubbly for Bar Passers”
