Archive for April 2011

Non-Sequiturs: 04.05.11

By Elie Mystal

The only book in the world I'd actually consider burning in public.

* Harvard Law School exams used to be easier. Think about that the next time you hear about grade inflation. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* Speaking of things getting harder, this seems like proof that the Bluebook exists to propagate sales of the Bluebook. [Josh Blackman's Blog]

* And yet the Bluebook hasn’t been updated to include a special citation form for Wikipedia. Weird. [An Associate's Mind]

* Howrey going to WARN them that there are more of these lawsuits coming? [Am Law Daily]

* A professor at John Marshall Law School (Atlanta), Lucille Jewel, has written a law review article about the ability of scam blogs to impact legal education. I’m just going to sit very still until Leonardo DiCaprio confirms that I’m already dreaming. [Legal Skills Prof Blog]

* “People’s preferences can sometimes override their principles.” No, that’s not the subtitle of my upcoming book, “Bush v. Intellectual Consistency: The Antonin Scalia Story.” [Blackbook Legal]

* Yuck Fale. [CBS New York]

Judge of the Day: A Bed Sheet Is Not a Robe

By David Lat

A memo to judges: we do not want to see you naked (with the possible exception of the Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary). Please keep your clothes on, Your Honors.

We’re not talking just about Madam Justice Lori Douglas, the Canadian jurist whose nude photos surfaced on the internet. This message goes out to male judges too.

Like Pennsylvania judge Douglas Gummo, 42, who was arrested after he was apparently discovered naked, wrapped in nothing but a bed sheet, trying to access the hotel room (and maybe more?) of a female colleague….

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Associate Bonus Watch: What Did Wachtell Do?

By David Lat

The law firm of Wachtell Lipton is not the nation’s coolest firm, having been knocked out by Davis Polk in Above the Law March Madness. But the bonuses paid out by WLRK in 2010 were still plenty hot — about as sizzling as some DPW associates, one might say.

Should they have been even better, though? Not everyone at 51 West 52nd Street was thrilled about the 2010 payouts (even though Wachtell associate bonuses still exceed those at almost every other firm).

Let’s take a look at what WLRK doled out last year….

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Lawyer of the Month: March Reader Poll (Still Breathing Edition)

By Elie Mystal

Our first two lawyer of the month polls in 2011 were dominated by death and despair. Several high-profile, wonderful attorneys died in the month of March — e.g., Warren Christopher, Bill Stuntz — but we’re not including them in this month’s contest. This month, the lawyer of the month reader poll is 100% alive.

And we’ve got some very strong nominees this month. We’ve got standard bearers for salaciousness, uplifting entrants, and deranged douchebags.

Should be fun. Let’s check out the nominees for March…

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 1)

By Above the Law

The current installment of the Career Center “Tip of the Day” series focuses on helping associates evaluate the counteroffer. Since most law firms have trimmed the “fat” and reduced the number of attorneys on their payrolls, associates have been working harder and billing record hours. It is not surprising that many associates will be searching for jobs at new firms — and some will be fortunate enough to secure new positions. For the first time since the recession began, firms may actually be disappointed when one of their associates gets hired at another law firm, and are more likely to present these associates with tempting counteroffers.

We all know the studies and employment reports: it costs a firm more to hire new employees than to retain current employees. This fact is especially true for firms operating with fewer associates and an increased amount of work projected in 2011. It is important to be prepared and know how to react when presented with a counteroffer.

These tips will assist you in case you are ever put in the unenviable (or maybe enviable?) position of dealing with a counteroffer from your current firm. Now, on to the first tip….

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Courtship Connection: Likes – Cooking; Dislikes – Kissing

By Kashmir Hill

What’s more hopeless than sending two lawyers out on a blind date and hoping they hit it off? Answer: Sending thirty-something lawyers out on a blind date and hoping they hit off.

It’s safe to assume that a person (and especially a woman) still single in their 30s is a picky type. As Elie recently lectured a trio of spinsters +30 single ladies, “You could have gotten married at some point in your 20s and you chose not to. There’s not something wrong with the guys you date; there’s something wrong with you.” It’s possible that Elie learned all that he knows about women from Lori Gottlieb.

Despite odds being stacked against me, I decided to match up two D.C. lawyers in their mid 30s. They have different political stripes, but both named Atticus Finch as their favorite legal character, and would gladly give up gavels for spatulas. Asked for three words about themselves, he said he was a “funny nerdy cultured chef” and she said she was a “city-dwelling chef/policy-wonk.” They sounded like they should be able to come up with a recipe for romance…

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Size Matters: How Are Small Law Firms Like Oscars After-Parties?

By Valerie Katz

Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Size Matters, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.

I am getting tired of hearing about all these large law firms and their unnecessary spring bonuses. This weekend I went on a trip with friends who all work in Biglaw, and the topic came up (and, in turn, everyone shared how he or she was going to spend that extra money).

One of my friends is planning on going on vacation to South America (sometime in 2019, when he has the time). Another told us that she is going to get “the Bentley of couches,” for the guest room in her giant condo. I did not have a similar Biglaw big-money story to share, so I instead shared my ideas for the top ten free activities I had planned for the spring. (In case you’re wondering, they are: 1. Breathe Air. 2. Walk. 3. Eat Free Samples At Whole Foods.)

I had to admit that I was a little jealous of my friends and their surprise bonuses. But then I heard a story that touched me right where it counts — in the wallet. I have learned that some small firms give their employees big perks….

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This Is Why Law Students Shouldn’t Play Sports

By Elie Mystal

GULC students go way over the line.

You might think that watching law students play sports would be like watching U. Conn. and Butler play basketball. You know, undersized, intense people playing in an ugly and painful style. You’d think that watching law students play a pick-up game of 21 would be indistinguishable from watching Butler unsuccessfully try to throw a ball in the ocean.

But you’d be wrong. Because at some point in the athletic competition, law students would undoubtedly halt competition and begin arguing over rules and regulations. Granted, halfway through the second half of the National Championship game, I wanted somebody to file an injunction on behalf of the rims in Houston that were being murdered. But in general I like my athletic competitions to be devoid of brief writing.

Which means it’s a good thing I didn’t go to Georgetown University Law Center….

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Morning Docket: 04.05.11

By Juggalo Law

Kaga, L., dissenting

* Did Malcolm Gladwell’s endorsement lead to an increase in Colorado Law applicants? Malcolm Gladwell, a man whose book Blink was described by Richard Posner as “written like a book intended for people who do not read books.” [Law Week Colorado]

* A litany of legal challenges faces the Obama administration now that they’ve backtracked on Khalid Sheikh and the boys. [msnbc.com]

* The Supremes ruled against Arizona taxpayers who claimed a tax credit for religious school donations was unconstitutional. Justice Kagan popped her dissent cherry on this one. [NPR]

* Connecticut looks to “add teeth” to a law that attempts to determine whether racial profiling exists in the state. Sorry, I don’t find anything funny about racism. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the basketball scene in Soul Man. [Hartford Courant]

* Google has bid $900 million on a whole bunch of patents. Meanwhile, the patent to Google Wave is being peddled for two dollars and a box of envelopes. [Financial Times]

* “Police have nabbed the second prepubescent punk wanted for trying to rip off the religious headdress of a Muslim schoolgirl on Staten Island.” [New York Post]

Musical Chairs: A Departmental Defection at K&L Gates in Seattle

By David Lat

We’ve previously discussed the trend of partners leaving Biglaw to launch their own firms. We’ve seen a lot of this action in New York and D.C., home to such well-regarded boutiques as MoloLamken, started by former Shearman & Sterling and Baker Botts partners, and BuckleySandler, started by former Skadden partners.

It’s happening out on the West Coast, too. In the fair city of Seattle — one of my favorite places in the entire United States, especially when it’s not raining — about half a dozen partners are leaving K&L Gates to start their own shop. One Queen Emerald City tipster described this news as “the most exciting thing that has happened here since Kurt Cobain died.”

UPDATE (4/5/11): The official press release about the new firm, Pacifica Law Group, appears after the jump.

Who are the lawyers that are leaving, and why? Let’s find out….

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.04.11

By Elie Mystal

* Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried by a military commission at Guantanamo, but John Yoo is still not satisfied. He wants to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial proof that the Obama Administration can conduct terror trials successfully. Obviously, the elegant solution is to make KSM live in Yoo’s basement until one of them begs for an impartial arbiter. [Ricochet]

* If you ever read the warnings on your prescriptions, I think this is what you’ll see (by Jeremy Blachman). [McSweeney]

* There is an epidemic of people slamming automobiles into legal structures. [ABA Journal]

* Stephen Colbert interviews a former Cravath attorney, Roy Den Hollander. I wish Colbert would do a “better know a law firm” series. [The Careerist]

* From Skadden to Dickstein Shapiro to stay-at-home mom. [But I Do Have A Law Degree...]

* This April Fool’s Blawg Review is no joke. [Fools in the Forest via Blawg Review]

* How would you describe a typical day in the life of an associate? (Hint: it’s a trick question.) [YouTube via Schola2Juris]

ATL March Madness: The Finals

By Elie Mystal

It is time for the finals in Above the Law’s Coolest Law Firm Contest.

While the real NCAA men’s basketball tournament has devolved into a three-point shooting exhibition, the ATL bracket pits an irresistible force against an immovable object: Davis Polk versus Sullivan & Cromwell, or hot versus rich.

Check out the bracket below and start mulling things over. One of these firms will be named the “coolest” in all the land…

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Inside Straight: On Lawyers’ Garnitures

By Mark Herrmann

Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Lawyers in private practice collect things.

The lawyers use those collections to adorn professional biographies that appear on firm web pages. The garnitures generally include (1) experiences (which are trumpeted in the form of “deal lists” or “representative engagements”), (2) publications, and (3) speaking engagements. After you pick off a case in the Second Circuit, or publish an article in the National Law Journal, or give a talk to an industry group, you go home and polish your online image; you update your bio.

When you’re in private practice, it makes sense to do this. You are, after all, trying to attract business, so your online bio is essentially your calling card. Strangers may visit the website and see your bio; you may send a link to potential clients; you may print the bio and hand it out during a beauty contest.

In an odd way, for many people, assembling these collections marks the passage of time. (“2005? I was up to my eyeballs in MDL 1150.” “1997? That was when we tried the Doe case.”) You’re nuts, of course, if those professional moments even begin to approach the significance of truly important stuff — marriage, the birth of a child, a death in the family — but those events mark time, in the same way that changing seasons do.

Ultimately, who’s to say that collecting stuff is wrong? People collect stamps, and coins, and books, and they take some pleasure there. Maybe collecting experiences, or achievements, fills the same psychic need. Or maybe the need to achieve, and to prove your achievements to the world, is hard-wired into many people who spent their early years in college, law school, and law firms, pursuing a succession of brass rings….

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Mistrial After Judge Is ‘Astonished’ By Touro Grad’s Incompetence

By Elie Mystal

Look, Touro Law students and alumni, please don’t get mad at me. I’m just the messenger.

The Washington Post is reporting that a D.C. Superior Court judge, William Jackson, declared a mistrial in a murder case on Friday so that the defendant could fire his lawyer. The attorney, Joseph Rakofsky, a 2009 graduate of Touro Law School, showed “numerous signs” that he “lacked knowledge of proper trial procedure,” according to the judge.

If you are wondering why people sometimes make fun of Touro and other very low-ranked law schools, it’s because this kind of stuff is straight-up embarrassing. Good schools try to not let people like this into to law school, and they certainly don’t let them depart so poorly trained.

But most damning of all is that Joseph Rakofsky doesn’t even seem to understand how totally embarrassing this result is for him. The kid is bragging about the result, on Facebook…

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Most Creative Way To Shame Your Office of Career Services

By Elie Mystal

We spend a lot of time with soon-to-be-unemployed 3Ls who are looking for some way to express their dissatisfaction with their law school and the career services they received. When people pay or borrow over $100K for three years of legal education and their employment future still comes down to how they perform during McDonald’s supersized hiring day, it makes people bitter.

Recently, UVA Law students have been putting in requests to be named Kings of the Bitters. We understand that their T-shirt based protests continue (can a brother get a link to buy a shirt?). We don’t know how effective they’ve been at steering 0Ls away from UVA Law, but then again, it seems like the only thing that effectively impacts 0L decision making is more paperwork.

Once you get to law school, you realize that the important pieces of paper are the ones you get in the mail informing you whether or not you have a job. But many UVA Law students are receiving thin rejection letters. One student pushed all of his rejection papers together into perhaps the most creative display of student dissatisfaction we’ve seen during the recession.

The 3L has taken the marble facade off of one top law school, exposing the sad reality lying underneath…

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Six Steps to Becoming an Expert

By Jay Shepherd

Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.

So you’re at a small firm and you want to be successful. Good. Why you wouldn’t want that is beyond me. But if you want to be a successful lawyer, you need to make a name for yourself. If you don’t want to be a successful lawyer, you can leave this post now. We’ll wait. [Waits while the preternaturally mediocre leave ATL for Dlisted or whatever.] OK? The rest of you stick with me.

Look. You didn’t end up at a big firm, because you didn’t go to a top law school or because your first-year grades weren’t as stellar as they could have been. So you’re not going to be making a huge salary in exchange for billing 2,500 hours a year. Deal with it. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a very successful career as a lawyer. It just means that you need to take a different approach.

The most important thing you can do to make a name for yourself as a lawyer is to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Here are six tips on how to do it.…

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Associate Bonus Watch: Ho-Love Gives Bonus Love

By Elie Mystal

Every day that major law firms do not announce spring bonuses makes them look like below-market, “non-peer” institutions. It has become very clear that firms claiming to pay market compensation need to be providing spring bonuses.

The latest firm to yield to market realities is Hogan Lovells. The relatively new Ho-Love, formed by the merger of Hogan & Hartson and Lovells, showed love to its hos on Friday. The firm matched the Cravath scale for spring bonuses.

You can read the full memo below. But you should also listen to how surprised and happy Ho-Love associates are about the bonuses. Hogan associates are like bizzaro Sidley associates….

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The Asia Chronicles: HOUSING / COLA ALLOWANCES IN HK / CHINA ON THE RISE AGAIN

By Kinney Recruiting


[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 Jowers here. There is nothing like expat package discussion to get our readership up. It seems like we have recently written on this topic, but there has since then continued to be an uptick in housing / cola, as well as a lot of momentum for a cross the board market shift upwards regarding what is considered a competitive expat / cola allowance in HK / China.

First, please check out our recent press at CNBC, where our Alexis Lamb is the only recruiter interviewed for the March 7 ’11 article “Law Graduates Head to Asia as IPO, M&A Boom Creates Talent Shortage,” by Ansuya Harjan. We will be featured / interviewed in several other national and global publications, regarding Asia biglaw, in April as well.

Usually when the top US or UK firms in HK / China are considering an expat / cola raise, they will contact Robert Kinney, Alexis Lamb, Yuliya Vinokurova and / or me for information on other expat / cola allowances in the markets, recent changes we have seen, and what we are expecting in the near to medium-term future. We have been taking such calls on a just about daily basis recently. Why are we such a great source of information for these hiring partners? Well, it is known that we are the market leaders and are the most informed recruiters in the HK / China biglaw market and each year we see offer letters from just about every top US or UK firm in HK / China. Routinely, Robert and I are asked to meet with senior partners in both Hong Kong and New York in order to discuss the state of the lateral hiring market in Asia, including cola / housing allowances.

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Morning Docket: 04.04.11

By Juggalo Law

* Duke alumnus Richard Milhous Nixon (Law, ’37) is being celebrated at his alma mater with a bit of musical theater. Sock it to him? [New York Times]

* Harvard alumnus Daron Roberts (Law, ’07) is now the wide receivers and special teams coach at West Virginia. [Charleston Daily Mail]

* Two law professors, who successfully sued West Publishing after the company slapped their names on a text they didn’t author, saw their sizable punitive damages award slashed by a judge. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State is about to get a whole lot more expensive, thanks to state budget cuts. Loosen up, Sandy baby. [The State Press]

* This article details baller extraordinaire David Boies’ work for the NFL, but omits my favorite Boies fun fact. Namely, that he had an affair with a professor’s wife while attending Northwestern Law. [New York Times]

* In hate crime news, a homeless man was arrested for beating up a gay man, but now claims to be gay himself. Apparently, the producer of Bumfights promised the man he’d get to do straight stuff only after starting out in gay scenes. [New York Daily News]

* Above the Law was part of two April Fool’s Day pranks on Friday. Here’s a deconstruction of the second one. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

  • 03 Apr 2011 at 4:31 PM
  • Bar Exams

Recent Bar Exam Results: Open Thread
Illinois, Kansas — any others?

By David Lat

A few readers contacted us to mention that some states have announced the results of the February 2011 bar exam. It seems that Illinois and Kansas, for example, released results on Friday — i.e., April Fools’ Day, notorious for its pranks. That’s a bit cruel, no?

But if you’re an IL or KS bar taker who got good news on Friday, don’t fret — it appears to be the real deal. Congratulations to everyone who passed (and good luck to those who will have to retake the test).

Here’s an open thread for discussion of February 2011 bar exam results from Illinois, Kansas, and any other states that have already announced.

February 2011 Examination Results Released [Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar ... and YOU (IBABY)]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of the bar exam