By the middle of second semester of that first year, everyone saw the system for what it was. We were furious. We realized that statistically, because of the curve, there was no way for many of us to keep our scholarships. But at that point, you’re a year in. They’ve got you. You feel stuck.
– Alexandra Leumer, a 2009 graduate of Golden Gate University School of Law, quoted in an interesting and provocative New York Times article suggesting that law school “merit scholarships” can be a bit of a scam unfair in the eyes of some recipients, due to the fact that so many students lose them after their 1L year by not achieving the required GPA.
(We’ll probably have more to say about this piece, entitled Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win, on Monday — but in the meantime, feel free to discuss it in the comments.)
The official title of the NALP conference panel that I attended on merit-based compensation contained a playful shout-out to Sarah Palin: “How Is That Performance-Based Compensation System Working for Ya?”
The panel was originally supposed to have featured a representative of the now-defunct Howrey law firm. So the snarky answer to the question presented might be, “Not well.” (In fairness to merit-based compensation, however, Howrey’s dissolution didn’t have much to do with its model for training, promoting, and compensating associates.)
No mention of Howrey was made during the introductory remarks (or anywhere else in the discussion, for that matter). Rather, the panel focused on the positive — and offered useful advice for firms that are contemplating adoption of performance-based systems….
Continue reading “NALP 2011: Performance-Based Compensation Systems”
Best. Pro-Smoking Campaign. Ever.
* I want to smoke so badly. Maybe tonight will be the night that I light up again, and then continue until I die. But if I do, that’ll be my fault, not the tobacco companies’. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Mike Tyson’s face tattoo artist is holding up the release of Hangover II. Surely the Hangover people have enough to pay this guy to go away. [Gawker]
* Strippers to Minimum Wage! [Suits & Sentences]
* A wonderful visualization of law firm profitability and leverage. [Law.com]
* If you understand Lord of the Rings, you can understand legal technology. [Law & Technology/Forbes]
* Additional thoughts on the earlier NALP panel on law firm transparency, from Mary Kate Sheridan of Vault. [Vault's Law Blog]
Maybe RBG is still very young at heart.
Here’s the question swirling through the blogosphere today: Should Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign now — because if she dies under a Republican president, it will be a disaster for every ideal she fights for?
The question was teed up on the WSJ Law Blog this morning after an AP report noted that some liberals were “clamoring” for her resignation (and that of Stephen Breyer, to a lesser extent), just in case Obama loses in 2012.
You can see why liberals are nervous. The Court already has a 5 – 4 conservative majority (if you really think Justice Anthony Kennedy is a “swing” vote, you’re a Republican who likes to pretend to be an independent). Justice Ginsburg has had health problems, and some are not confident that she’ll last until 2016 — and it’s unlikely that either the 78-year-old RBG or the 72-year-old Breyer would make it to 2020, if a two-term Republican president is on the horizon.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Which is why I think my answer is going to surprise people…
Continue reading “Should Ruthie Stay Or Should She Go?”
King & Spalding’s willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives.
– Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, in a letter firing the law firm of King & Spalding.
A second quote of the day, from the New York Times, after the jump.
Continue reading “Quotes of the Day: When Ken Cuccinelli and the New York Times agree you screwed up, you screwed up.”
Yesterday, we devoted some coverage to the devastation down in Alabama due to the terrible storms there earlier this week. In the National Law Journal, Karen Sloan has an excellent report about how the tornadoes are affecting operations at the University of Alabama, including its law school.
It appears that the storms affected the college more than the law school. But we are hearing students at Alabama law complaining that Dean Kenneth Randall is pushing too hard to maintain a normal schedule.
We understand that finals at the college have been postponed indefinitely. But at the law school, tests are supposed to resume Monday.
Whether or not that is the correct decision, Dean Randall’s method for communicating his directives has rubbed some students the wrong way…
Continue reading “Alabama Law Dean: Efficient Manager or Callous Task Master?”
Many people, especially law school administrators, bemoan the U.S. News law school rankings. Sure, they have their pedagogical reasons for hating the rankings, but there are larger issues here. When schools drop in the rankings, heads tend to roll.
Of course, law schools deans rarely admit they were ousted because of the U.S. News. But now is the season of administrative resignations. There are a couple of them floating around out there, but one in particular caught my eye. The dean of a law school that took a substantial hit in this year’s rankings has resigned. Not to take a job elsewhere or spend more time with his family. No, he’s putting down the deanship to rejoin the faculty.
Interesting…
Continue reading “Looks Like The U.S. News Law School Rankings Cost Someone A Job”
No bonus for you!
It’s April 29. Monarchists have long circled this day as an opportunity to praise the vestigial structures of imperial domination. But this day means a lot to people who earn their fortune through work instead of birth. Today is a huge day for Biglaw associates. For many, today is the day spring bonus payments hit their bank accounts.
Don’t spend it all in one place.
But as we all know, not every Biglaw associate will be enjoying a spring bonus this year. With the payments out, we’re no longer looking at which firms are “lagging” behind in their spring bonus announcements. Now we’re looking at firms that have simply decided they are not paying spring bonuses, regardless of what the market says. Apparently, keeping up with Cravath really will be ruinous to some firms.
So who has officially announced they will not be paying spring bonuses this year? We’ll tell you what we know about three Biglaw firms, and hopefully you can fill in any gaps…
Continue reading “Which Firms Are Definitely NOT Paying Spring Bonuses?”
I’m done whining about Facebook privacy issues. Everyone should know by now that Facebook and privacy are basically mutually exclusive.
But every once in a while, someone does something stupid relating to Facebook privacy in a new, exciting way — like stealing a computer and posting photos of yourself on the owner’s page, or uploading placenta pics from your nursing-school class. We enjoy mocking covering such special occasions. It’s even better when Facebook bungles have larger implications.
Last week, an emergency room doctor in Rhode Island got reprimanded and fined $500 by the state medical board. (She had been fired from her hospital last year.)
Why? She posted information about a patient on Facebook….
Continue reading “ER Doc Forgets Patient Info is Private, Gets Fired for Facebook Overshare”
* In Connecticut, going to grade school in a rich white neighborhood while black is now a crime. Brb, putting on my chunky racebaiting heels. [New York Times]
* People in glass houses shouldn’t throw Air Jordans. A pair of new sneakers settled a wrongful death suit in Baltimore this week. [Baltimore Sun]
* Florida puppy foreclosure mill Ben-Ezra & Katz laid off more than 400 employees, following in the footsteps of David J. Stern. [Palm Beach Post]
* Workplace harassment is way more sexy when you blog about it. Just ask Dov Charney. Allegedly. Ask him allegedly. [Los Angeles Times]
* Not so smart, are you? A 16-year-old college graduate wants to go to law school. Wait, it gets better — she wants to go to law school online. [King 5 News]
* Chicken sex. No, really. Chicken sex. [New Jersey Star-Ledger]
Ed. note This is the final installment in London-based journalist Alex Aldridge’s series of stories for Above the Law about the royal wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton. You can read the prior posts here and here.
Well, they got married.
Best man Prince Harry remembered the ring. None of Wills’ disgruntled exes opted to speak now rather than forever hold their peace. And Kate — who has been made a Duchess rather than a Princess — even smiled. So now for the party!
Unless, that is, you work at one of London’s U.S. law firms, where lawyers staffing American deals are missing out on the public holiday everyone else in Britain is enjoying. “There are no celebrations here,” one cheery soul told me this morning in that weird Madonna accent Yanks acquire when they’ve been in London too long.
Don’t worry, though, the joke will be on us on next week, when we enter the existential crisis that customarily follows royal hysteria.
“What the hell happened there?” we’ll mutter, warm beer still on our breath.
“Oh no, we’ve only gone and got over-excited about that bunch of royal weirdos again,” we’ll groan, as we remove our commemorative Wills & Kate mugs from view and pour our tea into alternative vessels.
“Why do we, the country that brought the world the rule of law, have a royal family at all?” we’ll wonder indignantly, gnashing our yellow teeth and feeling a touch murderous….
Continue reading “The Royal Wedding: A Legal Look (Part 3)”
This is what you see in the law firm world. Law firms try to keep up with Cravath, but it might not be financially prudent. You try to keep up with Cravath, and then two or three years later you go bankrupt.
– Dean Frank H. Wu of UC Hastings Law, discussing the legal profession’s (perhaps unhealthy) status obsession, in an interesting panel about diversity and federal clerkships at the annual education conference of the Association for Legal Career Professionals (aka NALP).
Roll Tide!
* Here are some first hand accounts from Alabama Law students about the tornadoes. Finals have been pushed back until Monday. [National Law Journal]
* This post contains some notes on the tornado relief efforts, as well as information on where you can help. [An Associate's Mind]
* Skadden will make Forbes’s list of largest private companies. But not Baker & McKenzie with its fuzzy math. [Forbes]
* The government settled a huge class action with native American farmers. The farmers are going to receive a lot of cash, but unfortunately they’ll have to burn most of it to make sure that it’s not covered in Smallpox. [WSJ Law Blog]
* I’m sure NBC is pissed at Lawrence O’Donnell right now, but if Keith Olbermann were still there homebody would already be counting down the “days since NBC started owing equal time to Trump’s opponents for public office.” [Huffington Post]
* I’ve never tried the “McRage” but I bet I’d like it. [Slate]
* During tonight’s NFL Draft, I think it would be awesome if they could add some courtroom drama to the proceedings. Mel Kiper could say things like “I find Carolina GUILTY of getting poor value with the first pick.” Chris Mortensen could interrupt with breaking “evidence.” And every time a new team was on the clock, they should use the Law & Order sound. [Blackbook Legal]
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Size Matters, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.
I recently saw the Whoopi Goldberg commercial for Poise and I wondered to myself, why would she take part in such an ad. Maybe I am missing something, but I think it is a bad thing that we all now know that Whoopi leaks and uses an adult diaper. I know they say that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but come on.
Thanks to a reader, I was introduced to another advertisement (of sorts) that caused me pause. It is the website of New York criminal lawyer Giovanni Rosania. I think it might even be worse than Whoopi’s admission of leaking.
Find out why it is so bad after the jump….
Continue reading “Size Matters: What Not To Do With A Small Firm Website”
If you already know what I’m talking about, I’m sorry — I don’t have very much to add. The deposition is so damn short, the transcript doesn’t contain case-identifying information, and the pdf has been stripped of its metadata. Really, I only know what you know: a hilarious deposition took place earlier this month.
For those who are in the loop, there’s been this deposition making the rounds on various lawyer listserves. From what we can tell, it’s a real deposition in what appears to be a divorce or some other type of family-law proceeding. The deponent is named Kevin Phillip Gartner; of all the Kevin Gartners in Google, we can’t be sure of which one. The lawyer taking the deposition appears to be Denise Watson, a Jacksonville area lawyer. When I tried to contact her, I was told she is “unavailable, this week.” The lawyer valiantly trying to represent Kevin Gartner and defend the deposition is known only as “Mr. Dorsey.”
That’s all I got: a name, a no-comment, and the mysterious Mr. Dorsey. Normally, that wouldn’t be enough for a full post. But you’re going to want to see the depo transcript for yourself….
Continue reading “Shortest Deposition Ever”
In the throes of the recession, many Biglaw firms jumped on the bandwagon to kill lockstep compensation in favor of a more merit-based system (though some have already fallen off the bandwagon). With a variety of compensation models currently in use among firms today, we want to hear from you about how you get compensated at your firm — and how you prefer to get compensated.
Please take our short survey, brought to you by Lateral Link, and tell us how you are compensated at your firm. Then check back later for the survey results. As always, your survey responses will be kept completely confidential.
Check out the survey, after the jump.
Continue reading “Career Center Survey: Comparing Compensation Systems”
Family friendly firms are fun!
At the begining of 2011, there were a bunch of stories about Biglaw women and their struggles to have (or produce) a family while hanging onto their jobs. We saw some important information about the rampant sexism in the legal profession. And there were the familiar cries from women who professed to “have it all” (because there always have to be some women who make all the other women feel bad).
But yeah, from the prospective of January 2011, it looked like Biglaw women were really ready to think critically about what they wanted both professionally and domestically, and how they were going to force some change onto the system.
Then, ostensibly the holiday hangover wore off and everybody got back to work grinding away the hours. Spring bonuses showed up, the masses were placated and the machine kept rolling on.
Well today, the day before spring bonuses actually hit the bank accounts of most of the people lucky enough to get them, the Yale Law Women are out with their annual list of top family-friendly firms. You’ll note that most of the firms on this year’s list are not exactly “market leaders” when it comes to total compensation. In fact, most of the firms on this list had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the spring bonus party, if they are paying bonuses at all.
And so ladies (and gentlemen who want children that have the ability to spot “daddy” in a lineup), here’s a pretty interesting choice. Do you have a preference for these family friendly firms? Or do you just want to go to whatever place pays you the most amount of money at all times?
Continue reading “Top Ten Family Friendly Firms According to Yale Law Women”
