Friday afternoons are for bad news. When you have some news that you want to disappear into the ether, you announce it on Friday afternoon. It’s a favorite time for disgraced D.C. figures to resign from office in order to “spend more time with their families.”
So why did Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the world’s most prestigious and profitable law firms, decide to announce good news — namely, generous spring bonuses for its associates — late on a Friday afternoon? (Was it perhaps in response to the Latham bonus news from earlier today?)
Yes, Cravath and Skadden and Davis Polk associates, you read that right. S&C is paying out healthy springtime bonuses. They’re supplemental to the 2010 year-end bonuses that S&C announced back in December.
So how much are we talking about? And when will these amounts hit associate bank accounts?
Let’s find out….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Sullivan & Cromwell Pays Generous Spring Bonuses!”
Here at Above the Law, we’re still enjoying the awesomeness of 1Ls and 2Ls going to war over the appropriate use of a listserv.
Today we’ve got an email more mundane in subject matter, but no less objectionable. It’s from a 1L (of course), who is trying to “network” with fellow 1Ls.
And it’s written by a 1L at Thomas Jefferson Law School, which had a starring role in the recent, widely read New York Times article on the dangers of going to law school. So our more elitist readers are about to have a field day…
Continue reading “Networking 101: Don’t Send Networking Emails Like This One”
Sometimes lawyers at Cadwalader are the victims of theft. And sometimes they’re the ones doing the stealing.
Here’s the promised follow-up to yesterday’s post about Cadwalader’s successful raid on the energy law practice of McDermott Will & Emery. It’s big news in Biglaw. As of now, nine partners are moving — Paul Pantano, Karen Dewis, Greg Lawrence, Greg Mocek, Tony Mansfield, Ken Irvin, Rob Stephens, Daryl Rice and Doron Ezickson — but if they’re followed by associates, a few dozen lawyers could be involved.
In an email sent out on Wednesday by MWE leaders Jeff Stone and Peter Sacripanti, reprinted in full after the jump, McDermott tried to minimize the losses. Stone and Sacripanti pointed out that “[t]his group of partners focused mainly on one aspect of our overall energy practice, which was commodities and derivatives trading for financial clients,” and that “the departing partners’ total collections in 2010 amounted to about three percent of overall firm revenue.”
Still, three percent of total MWE revenue is nothing to scoff at. In 2009, McDermott had total revenue of $829 million, according to the American Lawyer. Assuming that 2010 revenue is similar (the Am Law numbers aren’t out yet), three percent amounts to $24.87 million. Dividing that out over nine partners yields revenue per partner of about $2.8 million — not a bad book of business.
Let’s check out some reader views on this news….
Continue reading “More on Cadwalader’s Capture of Energy Lawyers from McDermott”
Last month, when the world was bemoaning the Biglaw associate bonus market after Sullivan & Cromwell’s bonuses more or less fell in line with Cravath’s bonuses, I wrote as follows: “I’m keeping my eye out for Latham. It fits with their model. In bad times, suffering to all. In good times, models and bottles…. Latham survivors might get 2010 bonuses that trounce the former market leaders like Sullivan & Cromwell.”
Well, Latham & Watkins just announced its associate bonuses. Latham is a firm that gives out individualized bonuses, but the median payments by class year seem to be higher than the bonuses given out by Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, and the firms that followed them.
UPDATE: The preceding sentence was written before S&C’s springtime bonuses were announced.
So what is the Latham lucre looking like?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Latham Bonuses Are Out (and Looking Good)”
Jed? Yes, Jed. Ms. Chua’s husband plays a large role in this story, even if he is made to sound like her hapless foil. He is presented as a handsome, charming and amazingly patient man, especially since his mother and wife had some similar traits. (His mother, according to the book, was once “aghast” at the cheeses Ms. Chua chose for a party and demanded better ones.)
Jed is the fixture without which Ms. Chua’s book would not be possible. And he is often wrong, wrong, wrong about child rearing, which means that the reader will think he is right.
— Janet Maslin, in her New York Times review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the new parenting memoir by Yale law professor Amy Chua (wife of fellow YLS professor Jed Rubenfeld).
A dry Cathy Cruz Marrero.
Hopefully everybody had a chance to see “Fountain Lady” before YouTube removed the clip. It’s the kind of thing that made YouTube famous: a woman is texting and walking and she falls right into a fountain at a mall.
It’s funny. And the woman walks away soaked, but unharmed.
Normally, that would be the end of the story. But in a classic example of a person who doesn’t understand how “the internet” works, Fountain Lady Cathy Cruz Marrero has decided to exponentially extend her own embarrassment by hiring a lawyer. She wants to know who allowed her watery tumble to become public, and bring them to justice.
What happens now? Well, unless Cathy Cruz Marrero gets elected president or something, the clip showing her falling into a fountain will be the first thing people see when they Google her name for all time.
And even though YouTube has now removed the clip, I’m about to link to it via any number of mainstream media reports now showing the footage…
Continue reading “Potential Lawsuit of the Day: ‘Fountain Lady’ Might Sue the Mall”
We’re only a few weeks into 2011. If your new year’s resolution is to dress better, there’s still time to act.
Valentine’s Day is also not far off. Make your dinner reservations now, if you haven’t done so already — and make sure you look good for your night out on the town. This year, wear something that she (or he) will want to take off.
Above the Law is here to help. We’ve arranged a special deal for ATL readers with Blank Label — an online tailor buzzed about in The New York Times, Forbes, and Time Out New York, among other outlets — that lets you design your own shirt.
That’s the fun part. You (or your secretary) can design your own shirt. So hop in, design and purchase. And then send ATL a picture of you in your custom designed attire, by email (subject line: “Shirt Design”). Love and accolades are sure to follow!
Under the offer, $50 gets you $100 towards a custom-designed men’s dress shirt. But the deal expires soon, so don’t delay. Click on the link below to access it — and take on the fun role of fashion designer. Happy shopping!
Blank Label: Design Your Own Custom Men’s Dress Shirt [Buy With Me]
Every year, Fortune produces a list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, and every year a handful of law firms make the list. And every year I wonder why some law firms made the list, while others did not, and whether Fortune actually has any idea about what they’re talking about.
We cover this list every year (click here for our posts in 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007). Last year, six firms made the list. But this year only four law firms are among the top 100 companies.
Again, I can’t figure out what the two firms that dropped did wrong. But let’s congratulate the four firms that did stay on the list.
So, which firms made the cut?
Continue reading “Annual ‘Best Companies to Work For’ List Includes Four Law Firms”
* How does it feel to get laughed at by the Supreme Court? Ask AT&T’s lawyer. He shouldn’t feel bad, though, it was nothing personal. [Washington Post]
* “Michael J. Devereaux and has earned a reputation in New York’s legal and business community for excellence.” And sextortion. Don’t forget the sextortion. [New York Post]
* This prisoner is trying to dethrone the King of Pro Se Litigants, but the Kardashian sisters weren’t outrageous enough for him to steal the crown. [Riptide 2.0 / Miami New Times]
* Have a nice trip, see you next fall. A sue-happy woman proves that one of the dangers of texting while walking could be exposing yourself as a felon. [New York Daily News]
* It’s no secret that your private life isn’t private if you broadcast it all over the internet. But can you get fired over it? Apparently you can. [Wall Street Journal]
* Forcing a 5-year-old to eat a penis instead of a tasty donut is just plain mean, but expecting to get off because you’re a lawyer is just plain stupid. [Courthouse News Service]
Ted Cruz
A new year, a new job. That seems to be the thinking of many within the legal profession, based on the proliferation of professional moves we have to report (and not just out of Howrey).
We’ll start with one move that’s aspirational rather than actual. Legal and political superstar Ted Cruz — the Morgan Lewis partner who heads the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, and who was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past 25 years — will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the good senatrix Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Check out the announcement on his website, or read this BLT post.
Like many lawyers turned politicians, including our current president, the 40-year-old Cruz is a Harvard Law grad (and one of The Elect — Rehnquist / OT 1996). Graduates of HLS’s rival to the south, Yale Law School, tend to take more quirky paths.
Yul Kwon
That brings us to the second move of the day. YLS grad Yul Kwon — a former Second Circuit clerk and McKinsey consultant, the first Asian-American winner of Survivor, and one of People’s “sexiest men alive” (in 2006) — has left the Federal Communications Commission. Kwon served as deputy chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau at the Commission.
Instead of working at the FCC, Kwon, 35, will be regulated by it: he’s going to be the host of a new television series on PBS, America Revealed (which sounds pretty cool). Read more from the FCC (press release), Bloomberg, and the Washington Post.
More moves — a Cravath partner’s jump over to Wall Street, and the defection of many McDermott energy lawyers to Cadwalader — after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Legal Celebrities on the Move
(Including the energy lawyers going from MWE to CWT.)“
* Awesome diary of a rich wife trying to cut back on expenses. [Going Concern]
* Justice Elena Kagan — who currently lives in D.C., and apparently plans to stay there — was called for jury duty by the District. She wasn’t seated, since we don’t let supremely qualified people sit on juries. [ABC News]
* Bros at George Washington have been charged with being bros. Given what I think about bullying, you can imagine how little tolerance I have for anti-hazing laws. [Jezebel]
* Real prison time for a virtual bully. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Elective leg amputation? Somebody’s been watching too much House. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]
* Is patent law so easy a caveman could do it? Probably not — but a 15-year-old has a shot. [Kansas City Star]
Ed. note: Gabe Acevedo will be covering LegalTech for Above the Law this year. If you are interested in communicating with someone from ATL about LegalTech coverage, please contact Gabe at gabe@abovethelaw.com. Thanks.
It seems that judges are no longer afraid to unleash the power of the gavel when it comes to e-discovery violations.
There has been quite a buzz in the e-discovery community this week about an article in the Duke Law Journal by attorneys Dan H. Willoughby Jr., Rose Hunter Jones, and Gregory R. Antine, of King & Spalding LLP. Willoughby is the partner in charge of the firm’s Discovery Center, and Jones and Antine both practice in the e-discovery arena.
The article, entitled Sanctions for E-Discovery Violations: By the Numbers, was mentioned in the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog, tweeted extensively, and summarized in vendor blogs such as Catalyst and Clearwell.
So what are the authors’ findings? Let’s take a closer look…
Continue reading “Judges Making More of a Case for E-Discovery Sanctions”
The best time for law school emails is right before spring semester finals. People have been stressed for an entire year and things are just about to get worse, so you see law students just breaking down. The Crimson DNA affair came to light last April; hopefully we’ll get something good this year too.
The second best time to gawk at law students is right now — after Christmas break, but before spring break. Students come back to school and momentarily feel like they matter, like they’re important, like they should speak up when things happen to them.
Like a bear, I feast on the salmon run that comes at the end of the semester, but I’m more than happy to sample the berries and other fruits that become available at this particular time of year. Just this week, we’ve seen a Georgetown kid tell his classmates he is no cheater. We’ve got the BU kid who posted his grades on Facebook.
Today we’ve got pure gold from the University of Tennessee College of Law. Law students can bring the crazy on their own, but they’re so much more interesting when you can put two of them in a room together. Then you can just watch the sparks fly.
Continue reading “Law Students Tangle Over Prestige, Machine Guns, and Books; Hilarity Ensues”
When asked for some 2011 predictions by the folks over at Hellerman Baretz, I had this to say (among other commentary): “Although business is generally picking up, some firms still haven’t managed to shake off the effects of the recession — and they are now seeing significant defections, as their partners leave for firms that have weathered the storm better. So, in the next year, look for at least one large — i.e., Am Law 200 — law firm to either dissolve or be swallowed up by another firm as an alternative to dissolution.”
One firm that has been experiencing some major partner departures and general upheaval is Howrey. This post is the first of what we expect to be a series of stories about the firm. If you have information about Howrey that you can share, please email us or text us.
It’s getting hard to keep track of all the partner defections at Howrey. But let’s give it a shot, as well as talk about various Howrey offices that might not be long for this world….
Continue reading “Howrey Going To Fix This? (Partner Defections, Office Closings — Not Good.)”
It makes sense for anyone contemplating law school to make sure he or she has a passion for the profession. Your friend would have to consciously be avoiding stories about unemployed law school graduates if she knows nothing about this. But perhaps, since you say she is a worrier, she doesn’t want to dwell on what the world will look like three or more years from now when she graduates. She wants to be a lawyer, so there’s no reason for you to fill her with your doubts.
— Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, answering a Slate reader’s question about whether she should warn her friend and roommate about the perils of going to law school.
It’s the new year – time to dust off that résumé. Even if you are happy with your 2010 bonus and not ready to jump ship just yet, you never know when you might get a call about a job opportunity that you simply can’t pass up. Or maybe you have been searching for a new job for a while now, with no luck.
With recruiting departments receiving hundreds or even thousands of résumés for a single job opening, your résumé only has a 30- to 60-second window to be reviewed before it gets forwarded to the hiring attorney or ends up in the trash. Is your résumé ready to land you an interview?
This week’s Expert Insights article, brought to you by Lateral Link, gives you advice to help you re-evaluate your résumé to make it an effective marketing tool in your job search….
Continue reading “Career Center: Your New Year’s Résumé Checkup”
Everybody loves law school rankings, but these are special. These rankings are not based on a formula developed in secret by statisticians or prestige gurus. These rankings are put together by you. By us. By the mass of humanity that makes up the general mob. These rankings are crowdsourced.
The Conglomerate is putting together rankings based on what we think. But they’re not going with a straight popular vote. Instead, they’ve got a brilliant set up where they ask you to make a series of comparisons. Which law school do you think is better: SMU or Maryland? The rankings are based on answers to almost 200 questions like that.
I only answered 20 questions, but I’ll do the rest as soon as I get a free moment. It’s fun. Widener or Arkansas? Connecticut or Hastings? Screw what U.S. News thinks, what do you think?
And the results so far are pretty cool too…
Continue reading “Law School Rankings: Crowdsourcing Makes Them More Awesome”
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.
“No surprises.”
When you interview for an in-house job as head of litigation, that’s what everyone — CEO, CFO, General Counsel — is likely to say: “All we want is to know in advance what’s happening. Don’t hit us with last minute litigation surprises.”
That characterization is only half true. Half the job is what you would actually expect, and why someone would actually pay money for a person to do this gig: Half the job is to minimize liability. That task, at least, requires a law degree and a little bit of skill.
But, remarkably, the other half of the job — avoiding surprises — is the aspect that seemingly draws the ire of the folks who run the joint. And that task is one that the kid down the block ought to be able to do with about fifteen minutes of training: How hard can it be to avoid surprises?
Piece of cake, right? Just track developments in all of the pending cases, estimate settlement values or likely verdicts, and flood the C-suites with information. Put together a calendar of every major event in every major case over the coming six months. Winning cases can occasionally be hard, but just tracking them? Nothing to it.
Remarkably, that isn’t true. There are five main reasons why it’s hard merely to track cases (and their values) and thus to avoid surprises, and outside counsel are responsible for three of the five….
Continue reading “Inside Straight: The Sins of Outside Counsel — Creating Surprises”
* Modesty reared its ugly head after Jersey Shore’s JWoWW discovered that she might not be able to cash in on her naked photos. [New York Law Journal]
* Which is Mayor Bloomberg more pissed about — that some more ice melt could’ve saved a life, or that it could’ve saved $20 million? [Wall Street Journal]
* No more time outs for federal prosecutors behaving badly. Thanks to Eric Holder, they’ll be subject to a much swifter spanking. [USA Today]
* You really can get anything on Groupon, even legal services. What you can’t get is your dignity back after peddling coupons for cash. [ABA Journal]
* A lawsuit that’s sure to balloon into notoriety. If copying Jeff Koons is wrong, then I don’t want to be copyright. [New York Times]
* Failing the bar exam is one thing, but failing to sell your law degree on eBay is quite another. Resume Goddess did both. [Out of the Storm News]
* R. Sargent Shriver, former Fried Frank name partner, R.I.P. [Associated Press]
