Earlier this month, the son of Joseph Flom — name partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and a legendary figure of the M&A bar — wrote a moving tribute to his father. He explained that the 87-year-old Flom was gravely ill and not far from death.
This morning, Skadden confirmed the sad news of Joe Flom’s passing….
Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon.
My client was sitting at her desk, drafting a complicated, rushed memo. The topic was an obscure derivative. She’d worked all weekend, then come in again early. Her head hurt. It was due at 5 p.m. She could barely focus and was feeling panicked. It was 4 p.m.
The phone rang. Not thinking, she picked up and barked her last name, sharply, like the partner she worked for did.
“Jones.”
It was her ninety-two-year-old grandmother.
“How are you, Sweetheart?”
My client couldn’t stop crying.
“All she did was ask how I was,” she told me. “That’s all it took. I fell apart.”
When you enter the world of Biglaw, you pass through a ritual of initiation – LSAT, law school, bar exam, interviews.
Then you enter the bubble…
* If I had a nickel for every federal judge who dismissed a challenge to Obamacare, I’d have fifteen cents. Come to think of it, phrasing it that way doesn’t illustrate a whole lot. Oh well. [New York Times]
* Tennessee seeks to outdumb every other state with a proposal that would make it a felony for any person to follow sharia law. Your move, Mississippi. [The Tennessean]
* Albany Law School of Union University is downsizing, but will likely still keep all three T’s. [National Law Journal]
* The Supreme Court ruled that a 1986 law precluded plaintiffs from suing vaccine-makers in state courts. In your face, Jenny McCarthy. [WSJ Law Blog]
* “Top SEC lawyer and his bros inherited $1.5M in Madoff profits.” [New York Post]
* The FBI is being sued for sending an informant to infiltrate a California mosque. Instead of War on Poverty, they got a War on Terrorism so the police can bother me. [Washington Post]
* New York City parks are the newest places to go smoke-free. If we smoke, do we not bleed? [CNN]
Last week, we briefly mentioned the situation of Lawrence Connell. Connell is the Widener Law School professor who wrote a hypothetical involving him killing the dean of Widener Law.
Was the hypo in poor taste? Probably. At the very least it was somewhat disrespectful to his boss. But people are making a huge deal about this. I mean, it wasn’t like Connell wrote a fantasy, or a theory. He wasn’t plotting to kill the dean. He wrote an exam question, a law school hypothetical. I had a professor “hypothetically” fail me during an exam question (I got a B-something in the class I think). These hypos really aren’t that big of a deal.
I don’t expect laypeople to understand this, but I’d expect law students and professors to get it.
But not the educational professionals at Widener. In fact, the school is still kind of fanning the flames of this issue…
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
* Umm… did Wisconsin get transferred to North Africa or something? I think we need a speech from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker where he says he’s in Madison but we all know he’s in Toronto. [The Awl]
* Screw this. I’m going to write a “Tiger Mother” book. Battle Hymn of the Angry Black Man. [The Conglomerate]
* This is probably racist for me to say, but for some reason this post made me think of the old Living Color sketch on the invention of “Git It Yo Self Service.” [Securing Innovation]
* Here’s some more analysis of the NFL labor situation. It’s pretty interesting, but if you thought I was going to get through the whole day without saying Carmellllloooooooo ANTHONY, you just haven’t been listening to me. [Huffington Post]
* Five very obvious reasons you should think carefully before going to law school. [Everything to Win]
* When I see the “peace” symbol, I don’t think of peace. I think of LSD. Am I alone on that? And why does my spine hurt? [Work Product via Blawg Review]
If you’re a law student and think you’ll make $140,000 right out of law school, you’re an idiot.
– Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis, in an interview with the Indiana Lawyer (subscription).
How long do we have to live under the world view of this prude?
Well now this would be interesting. Can you imagine living in a world where the United Kingdom wasn’t the worldwide meeting place for pissed off celebrities with no grounds for defamation/libel lawsuits?
It could happen. According to reports, Deputy British Prime Minister Nick Clegg is sick of England being a “laughing stock” when it comes to its plaintiff-friendly libel laws.
That would be awesome. I’m sick of living in fear that Harvard will sue me in the U.K. for defaming their existence by possessing their degrees…
Continue reading “U.K. No Longer Your One-Stop Shopping Spot for Libel/Defamation Issues?”
For all you know, everybody in this picture hates each other and are about to engage in gladiatorial combat.
We all know how important the U.S. News Law School Rankings are to our system of legal education. The jobs of law school deans depend on the rankings, and they therefore significantly impact what law schools are willing or able to do. It’s crazy that a for profit magazine has so much power over the future of legal education, but that power is well established and undeniable.
Given the importance of U.S. News, I understand why diversity proponents want the publication to start counting “diversity” as a data point when compiling the annual rankings. If you want law school deans to pay attention to something, you have to use small words and speak in the language of U.S. News. If the magazine started caring about law school diversity today, law schools would really start caring tomorrow.
But that doesn’t mean including a “diversity” component in the rankings would be a good idea. That’s just a half measure (and a confusing one to boot) that doesn’t get the heart of any kind of real problem…
Continue reading “Adding ‘Diversity’ to U.S. News Rankings Wouldn’t Accomplish Much”
Last month, we reported that 66% of survey respondents had to work on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, with 32% of respondents’ firms not even recognizing it as an official firm holiday. In today’s Career Center survey, brought to you by Lateral Link, we want to find out whether you were on or off the clock on Presidents Day.
Check back later this week for the survey results.
Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor
Oh, condominiums. To own your own box of air in the sky, subject to the terms and conditions of your neighbors and building managers. Lex Luthor always had this right: either you own land or ponces wearing underwear on the outside can swoop in and ruin your good time.
We’ve got a couple of lawyer/condo issues floating around, so let’s tackle them together. We’ve got a Miami judge who allegedly likes to kick in doors to her own unit. And we’ve a New York lawyer who wants satisfaction over 109 missing square feet…
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.
Nor does it create an attorney-client relationship between you and Above the Law. It may also constitute attorney advertising, depending on the state you’re in (such as boredom or apathy). Please consult the laws of your jurisdiction. If you have received this post in error, please print it and mail it to Elie. Then delete it (the post, not Elie) from your computer.
That’s right kids: I’m writing about email footers. Squee! I noticed that when Mark Herrmann wrote about email subject lines, he whipped the Commenting Class into a frenzy. Well, get out the chum buckets, Captain Quint.
Nothing says “lawyers” like a good generic email footer. They first appeared around the turn of the century, soon after law firms begrudgingly accepted that “The Email” was here to stay. (Though I’ve heard that some firms still use fax machines. Perhaps only because their telex machines are busted.)
Like most things lawyers create, standard email footers were born out of fear. Such as fear that a single email exchange would lead some moron to think that he’d entered into an attorney-client relationship. Or fear that the authorities would consider an email about lunch plans to be improper attorney advertising. Or fear that an email containing a drunk-kitty YouTube video would somehow destroy someone’s attorney-client privilege.
As if.…
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Disclaimer — This Post Contains No Tax Advice”
* Something called the “Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act” is moving through the Minnesota Legislature and is described thusly: “If you eat too much and get fat, you can’t sue the food retailer.” The Scales of Justice. [Grand Forks Herald]
* Lat’s alma mater has started an initiative called “Don’t Filter Me, Bro.” [Yale Daily News]
* Qaddafi’s definitely a lunatic war criminal. A lunatic war criminal with serious swag. [New York Times]
* Labor law, the Wisconsin constitution, representative democracy. Sure, sure, that’s all very important. But what about the human angle? Tell me more about these toiletries you speak of. [Chicago Tribune]
* The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that appears to have been taken straight out of one of Sonia’s favorite telenovelas. [Washington Post]
* A New York couple is suing their lawyers because the kid the couple adopted is defective. I’m not a religious man, but maybe God didn’t allow these people to conceive for a reason? [Daily Mail]
* This Wayne State law student has devoted her life to making all of us look bad. [Detroit Free Press]
* Squash enthusiast Arlen Specter has returned to legal practice as a solo practitioner. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
* After the revolution, Tunisia naturally has moved onto the important business of deciding what to do with the whores. Sex Cauldron??? I thought they closed that place down years ago. [New York Times]
* This article asks why American law enforcement officials aren’t allowed to carry guns in Mexico after two ICE agents were shot there last week. Bunch of sad guitar cases with nothing but guitars. [Examiner.com]
* An Alabama Law grad is attempting to heal the rift between Auburn and Alabama fans caused after the attempted murder of two trees. Roll Tide! It’s rolling, baby! It’s rolling! [ABA Journal]
* Customs officials can go ahead and frisk my hard drive if they want. All they’ll find are lolcats and a folder full of pornography, titled “Tax Documents ’07.” [New York Times]
[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 four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]
Evan here. Please check out our daily blog at www.theasiachronicles.com where we will have more posts than those that appear here. Today, for example, we have this post and also a post from Alexis Lamb regarding the Singapore market – “Singapore Swing.”
Please note that Robert Kinney and I will be working from our Hong Kong offices for a few weeks later this month and can be available for meetings with our readers then. Alexis, of course, is based permanently in Hong Kong.
Three Quick hits of the day (a new feature at theasiachronicles.com): One US firm in Hong Kong now has an expat / cola allowance of over $90,000 for single associates and over $100,000 for married associates; Almost every strong US cap markets practice in HK / China is hiring lateral associates now; It has recently become more common for US and UK firms in Singapore to offer an expat / cola allowance, albeit much smaller than in HK (for years, most firms offered no allowance in Singapore).
While interviewing for a US associate position in Asia can be quite different from interviewing for a spot down the street in New York or another major domestic market there are also some similarities to a job search in any domestic market. The key determining factors on whether you will have a chance at interviewing are top firm experience and impressive law school academics. The other obvious factor determining whether you will be asked to interview, at least for most positions in Asia, is language skills (Mandarin, Korean, Japanese).
Amazon Eve
* Freakishly tall woman would like to be a lawyer if modeling doesn’t work out. More importantly, here are some pictures of a freakishly tall model. [AOL News]
* Goat poo securities. [Dealbreaker]
* At some point, we’re going to have to take a closer look at the alleged horse rapist. [News Times]
* Republicans, once again, prove they are made of sterner stuff than wussy liberals. [Huffington Post]
* I just refuse to dignify Malcolm Gladwell with a response about his stupid rankings article. [WSJ Law Blog]
* I’ve been enjoying this caption contest all day long. [Forbes]
* Rick Santorum is getting Googled but good. [Roll Call]
* I feel like Groupon should be much more fun and sexy than it is. [The Lawyerist]
* I don’t want to make fun of Mel Gibson. He’s really not that bad of a dude. He’s looking at me right now. He keeps telling me I’m a darky with a Jewish name. Help Please. [L.A. Times]
A report surfaced yesterday claiming that Howrey has now more or less given itself an end date: March 1, according to the report on Shark Tank Legal.
Partners who have received offers to join Winston & Strawn are expected to accept them by March 1st. After that, Howrey will be in full dissolution mode.
Even Howrey people must want this thing to just be over already. But before the end, we could see more ugliness, like segregated floors to keep the partners with safe landing spots safe from their desperate colleagues…
This is a little bit surprising. Not that Linklaters matched spring bonuses. We’re getting to the point that pretty much every firm that wants to be taken seriously is going to have to match spring bonuses.
No, the weird thing is that Linklaters matched the lower level of spring bonuses set by Sullivan & Cromwell, not the more generous spring bonuses adopted by Cravath (and the many firms that have rushed to join them).
Does that strike anybody else as strange? Why get into the spring bonus game at all if you can’t afford the extra thousands of dollars it takes to make a market level payment?
From “concept searching” to “cloud computing,” every year there are new buzz words and catch phrases that enter into the lexicon of legal technology. Of course, when you are dealing with technology of any sort, you should expect to update jargon regularly (such as from 3G to 4G to 5G, whatever that means).
2011 is shaping up to be no different. This year’s “it” phrase is already emerging in the industry. It evolved from the buzz words of yesteryear, and if this new phraseology is worth its salt, these new advances could drastically change how law is practiced for years to come.
So what is legal technology’s newest terminology?
Continue reading “The Next Big ‘Buzz Words’ in Legal Technology”
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.
Dear ATL,
One of the things I don’t like about your blog is that you never have anything for Biglaw Bros who are just looking to use their jobs and money to score chicks. It’s fine to talk about women’s issues, debt issues, layoff issues and all that stuff. But aside from casual references to “models and bottles” you don’t seem interested in actually helping dudes who want to find pretty, young, not-too-intelligent slam pieces “on the reg.”
– What About Us?
Marin, the usual author of this column, is on vacation this week — which is probably why I get to address this question that was hurled at me while I was trying to watch the AFC Championship game. I’ll do my best Marin impersonation (if you promise not to tell her), and see if we can’t get the “bros” in our audience pointed in the right direction…
Today’s Job of the Week is for an Associate General Counsel at a top Major League Baseball team.
Position: Associate General Counsel
Location: Confidential
Description: Description: Working directly under the SVP-GC, the successful candidate will have 3-5+ years of general corporate and transactional experience with a major law firm advising corporate clients, or equivalent experience with an in-house corporate legal department. In this role, responsibilities will include negotiating, drafting, and summarizing various agreements; providing legal advice for all aspects of the team’s operations; managing outside counsel and litigation matters; drafting resolutions and governance documents; and staying on top of the sports and entertainment industry.
For more information about this position, please view Position # 7921 on Lateral Link. Current Members may contact their personal recruiter for more information.
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.
