It has been said that one has truly arrived as a small-firm superstar when he appears in this column. Who said that? Someone, I am sure. While I simply cannot confer that honor to all small-firm attorneys, there is a second place honor: a feature in the New York Times. Martin Singer — the “guard dog” to Hollywood royalty, and founder of the small firm Lavely & Singer — is one of these superstars.
Singer’s client list includes some major starpower: Charlie Sheen, Jeremy Piven (remember when Ari Gold had mercury poisoning?), Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Harry Reid, Quentin Tarantino, and (gasp) Sylvester Stallone. Through these relationships, Singer has developed a niche that anyone would want to scratch: “shielding stars and their adjuncts from annoyance.”
While Singer’s firm specializes in all things entertainment, “[n]othing gets Mr. Singer going like a whiff of defamation.” And when he gets going, he does what has made him famous: “kill, or at least maim, unflattering stories that have yet to surface.” Some attorneys do not believe the hype about Singer’s ability to kill said stories (e.g., noted First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus, who described Singer as a “blowhard”). But Hollywood publicists are convinced that Singer is the man to call when a story breaks about their clients’ love child or sex tape.
Do not be fooled by the glitz and glamour associated with representing celebrities. After the jump, see how Lavely & Singer is like many other successful small firms….
Continue reading “Size Matters: Hollywood Pit Bull Is Just Like Us”
* The family of a Giants fan who was brutally assaulted in the Dodger Stadium parking lot is suing the Dodgers. In related news, I’m trying to organize all of the Mets fans who have been orbitally violated at Citifield this year to take action against the Wilpons. [USAToday / Daily Pitch]
* How to put a summer associate to work for you. [Constitutional Daily]
* Black people who started their own firm and did well are now getting snapped up by Cozen O’Connor. What’s that I smell in the air, the American dream? [Tex Parte Blog]
* Female genital mutilation is bad and should be outlawed, while male genital mutilation is socially acceptable and even even preferable in most situations. Yes, it’s called a double standard. And no, I have no problem with that whatsoever. [Full Disclosure / Forbes]
* Speaking of double standards, my wife didn’t take my name when we married. But I’m cool with it. No really I am. I mean, the next time I’m at a mall carrying around my wife’s lipstick/purse/shopping will be my first time. Antiquated social structures you say? Right on, two can play at that game. [The Careerist]
* The LSAT discriminates against blind people because the logic games require spatial awareness? Dude, if the only way you can puzzle out the games section is by using the silly little diagrams, you might have larger problems. [WSJ Law Blog]
* I’ve seen a lot of talking twin babies stuff, but not one applied to law professors. [Law Librarian Blog]
* White people feel like they are more discriminated against than black people. I’ll give you a joke in a second, but first I want to finish this letter telling the entire United States Senate to go back to Europe or wherever the hell they came from. [Gawker]
Student prepares for job hunt.
The most important person in law school administration is the dean. That makes sense. He or she makes policy and is in charge of the academic and financial footing for the entire school.
But who is the second most-important administrator? The dean of students? The head financial aid officer? I say that the second most-important administrative position on a law school campus is held by the career services dean.
Sure, a lot of schools don’t think that way. And even most law students act like the career services people should be glorified secretaries, setting up appointments and staying out of the way.
But in this economy, if you can’t get a job, what was the point of going to law school? And right now there are far too many law students who can’t secure employment. Most of a law school’s administration is concerned with roping in the next herd of lemmings sheep students. But the career services dean is forced to think about what will happen to kids after they graduate. If career services deans are doing their jobs well, they are some of the most important people on campus.
And when a person who holds such a crucial position leaves to do something that makes you say “what,” it really makes you wonder if current law students have any chance at getting the kind of professional placement help they desperately need….
Continue reading “It’s Hard Out Here for a Career Services Dean”
June is just around the corner, the sun is shining, and many of our readers are hopefully enjoying their shiny new law degrees. Mazel tov! Unfortunately, the thousands of dollars you spent on three years of law school didn’t quite cover everything you need to pass that pesky bar exam.
The ink on your JD is still drying, but it’s already time to crack open the books again and sign up for bar review classes.
For the next two-odd months, three recent law school alumni will share their experiences with law school graduation, studying for the bar exam, and life in general. Welcome to Above the Law’s newest feature: The Bar Review Diaries.
Our illustrious contributors were chosen by Themis Bar Review. For their efforts, Themis has given them free tuition.
Let’s meet the trio of bar review diarists….
Continue reading “Bar Review Diaries: Of Sunshine and Studying”
The Career Center is featuring a special series this summer for law students who want to excel as summer associates and ultimately secure permanent offers. Starting today and continuing throughout the summer, we will feature tips to help you manage your assignments, juggle conflicting demands, account for your time, handle feedback and criticism, and much more. These tips, focused on helping you navigate your law firm and summer associate internship, are provided by Frank Kimball, a principal of the Kimball Partner Group – a Lateral Link company, and an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner.
Today’s tips focus on how to maintain an attitude that will help you win over the partners at your firm and put you on the fast track to success. While not known for offering useful legal guidance, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde: The Musical offers great advice to summer associates: “Be positive.” You have already passed the first test, by initially securing the summer associate clerkship. Now you need to show off your dazzling personality — or at least demonstrate that you are at least tolerable during late-night doc review projects that await your future.
Keep the following tips in mind, whether you are working on a legal memo or hanging out at a partner’s summer house in the Hamptons….
Continue reading “Career Center: Tips for Summer Associates”
If you’ve been watching the NBA playoffs, you know that there’s a new lawyer show starting this June. Well, I’m sure there are 15 new lawyer shows on USA that will all be terrible, but I’m talking about the new one on TNT. So far, the promos for Franklin & Bash have been hilarious. I’m excited about the show’s potential. I mean, I’ll probably watch any show with Zack from Saved By The Bell at least once, but between Mark-Paul Gosselaar, one of the Robot Chicken guys, and a producer who worked on Sports Night and The West Wing, I think this should be good scripted television.
I’m psyched for the show — so psyched that I think it’s time to fire up a fictional lawyer contest.
I’ll be needing some nominees to fill out a massive 32-lawyer bracket….
Continue reading “Nominees Needed For Best Fake Lawyer Bracket”
You'd smile too if you got home in time for dinner.
Today’s New York Times has a front-page story by Catherine Rampell entitled At Well-Paying Law Firms, a Low-Paid Corner. The article focuses on the phenomenon of “career associates” or “permanent associates” at large law firms. These lawyers are not eligible for partnership consideration and earn less than traditional associates, but they do enjoy a better “lifestyle,” in terms of more-reasonable hours and greater control over their schedules.
These positions generally pay around $60,000, significantly lower than the $160,000 that’s standard at top Biglaw shops. They are typically located not in New York or Chicago or L.A., but in more out-of-the-way places — such as Wheeling, West Virginia, where Orrick has its back-office operations, or Dayton, Ohio, where WilmerHale has “in-sourced” much of its work.
We mentioned the Times article earlier today. Morning Dockette was not impressed: “Career associates get to have ‘lifestyle’ jobs at Biglaw firms — but really, what kind of a lifestyle is it when you have to live in a crappy city with an even crappier salary?” Elie has also criticized these positions, characterizing them as “barely legal” jobs.
But such criticism might be overly harsh. Let’s look on the bright side….
Continue reading “Not on the Partner Track — and Maybe That’s Okay”
Did you take a BAR/BRI bar exam review course sometime in the past five years? Or are you taking BAR/BRI now, having paid for it prior to March 21? If so, keep reading.
As we recently mentioned, the deadline for joining or objecting to the proposed class action settlement in Stetson v. West Publishing Corp. is fast approaching (May 30). The lawsuit, alleging antitrust violations, was filed against West Publishing, which owns (but is selling) BAR/BRI, and Kaplan, the test prep company owned by the Washington Post. The class is defined as “[a]ll persons and entities who paid for a BAR/BRI full-service bar-review course from August 1, 2006, through and including March 21, 2011.”
Are you a class member? Let’s review your options….
UPDATE (5:30 PM): Please note the updates added to the end of this post.
Continue reading “Signing Up For, Or Objecting To, The BAR/BRI Class Action Settlement”
You just wonder if Jones Day could try recruiting adults instead of making a bunch of rules to regulate the kids they have there. Think about it: one of the defining features of Jones Day is its policy of secrecy regarding attorney compensation. The firm is worried about petty jealousies sprouting up between competing attorneys over compensation. Other firms handle this problem by assuming their people can act like trained professionals, Jones Day thinks that its people can’t handle the truth.
This condescending view doesn’t just apply to salary information. Apparently, Jones Day employees cannot be trusted to dress themselves without explicit instructions.
Jones Day has so many nanny-state policies that I’m surprised Mike Bloomberg isn’t a partner in the firm…
Continue reading “It’s The Jones Day Dress Code”
* DSK did a very French thing and pulled out while getting screwed. I guess no one told him that being the Director of the IMF doesn’t mean you get to do to people what the IMF does to countries. [Wall Street Journal]
* Career associates get to have “lifestyle” jobs at Biglaw firms — but really, what kind of a lifestyle is it when you have to live in a crappy city with an even crappier salary? [New York Times]
* Opinion polls could influence the Prop 8 legal battle at the Supreme Court. It’s too bad that big, rising polls will gain no favor with our straight male justices. Justice Kagan, on the other hand… actually no, never mind. [Los Angeles Times]
* Why are there fewer women at top law schools? Because most of us are intelligent enough to know that it’s less expensive to get an MRS in college. [The Careerist]
* A New York appellate judge, James M. McGuire, will be joining Dechert, because he can’t afford his 3,500 square foot wife on just $144K a year. [New York Law Journal]
Katherine Forrest: Why isn't her net worth higher?
As I’ve previously mentioned, one of my favorite parts of the judicial nomination process is the attendant financial voyeurism. Judicial nominees are required to make detailed disclosures about their finances, allowing us to learn about their income and net worth. For example, thanks to her nomination to the Supreme Court last year, we got to learn about Elena Kagan’s net worth.
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee released financial disclosure reports for several of President Obama’s recent judicial nominees — including antitrust litigatrix Katherine B. Forrest. Forrest has been nominated to the mind-blowingly prestigious Southern District of New York, perhaps the nation’s finest federal trial court. As a highly regarded lawyer who has won numerous awards and accolades (listed in her SJC questionnaire), Forrest will fit right in if confirmed to the S.D.N.Y. — a superstar among superstars.
The fabulous Forrest currently serves as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s antitrust division. She joined the DOJ last October — a commendable public-service commitment that required her to relinquish her partnership in one of America’s mightiest and most prestigious law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore. When she left to pursue government service, Forrest had been a Cravath partner for over 12 years (since 1998), and had been with the firm for about 20 years in all (since 1990).
At the time of her departure for the Justice Department, Katherine Forrest had been taking home hefty paychecks for decades. First she was an associate at Cravath, which pays its people quite well, in case you hadn’t heard. Then she was a partner at the firm (reportedly one of the most well-liked and most powerful younger partners) — from 1998 to 2010, a period in which average profits per partner at CSM routinely topped $2 million and occasionally exceeded $3 million. And remember that Cravath is a lockstep partnership with a reported 3:1 spread, meaning that the highest-paid partners make no more than three times as much as the lowest-paid partners. So it’s not possible that she was earning, say, $400,000, while other partners were earning millions (which can be the case at firms with higher spreads).
In light of the foregoing, what is Katherine Forrest’s net worth, according to her Senate Judiciary Committee financial disclosures? Not as much as you might expect….
Continue reading “Ex-Cravath Partner Turned Judicial Nominee Has Underwhelming Net Worth”
Malori Wampler
* I might have stopped smoking, but I’ll never stop fighting against Mike Bloomberg’s nanny state laws that seek to turn New York City into a place that doesn’t tempt Mike Bloomberg into doing all the things he used to do. [CNN]
* Tyler Clementi’s former roommate, Dharun Ravi, pleaded not guilty to a bunch of things he wouldn’t have been charged with if Clementi hadn’t committed suicide. [Gothamist]
* Justice David Prosser officially won his judicial reelection in Wisconsin. [WSJ Law Blog]
* An ex-Indianapolis Colts cheerleader is suing the team because they fired her for posing in “risqué” photographs. Wait, back up a sec. A woman whose job it is to bounce up and down in a bikini while drunk men watch got fired from that job for being risqué? [Overlawyered]
* A higher-education bubble update, from Professor Glenn Reynolds: “if you’re paying full tuition, you’re basically a sucker.” [Instapundit]
* Hmm, I wonder which state will want all of the business that flees Tennessee if the governor signs a new anti-gay bill into law? I expect that most states only care about what people put in their bank account, not where they put it in their bedrooms. [Huffington Post]
* Today’s update on the foreign guy who had sex with that maid and is now in a bunch of trouble. Wait, that sentence wasn’t specific enough…. [ABA Journal]
* Blawg Review fires up one day after world goth day, which itself was one day after fake Rapture day. And we all know that fake Rapture day was just seven months prior to the end of the world. Though if it keeps raining like this, I don’t think we’ll make it that far without some kind of ark technology. [Siouxsie Law via Blawg Review]
There are very few people that change your life. Dick Ebersol changed mine. He brought me to NBC a few weeks after I was cut by the Bengals. He saved me from a life of torts.
– Cris Collinsworth — an NFL analyst for NBC, who went to law school in preparation for a post-NFL career — speaking about Dick Ebersol, who recently resigned as chairman of NBC Sports.
I’m telling you, the tide is turning against the American Bar Association and the weakness the organization shows when it comes to regulating law schools. People are starting to figure out that major American law schools purposely mislead prospective students about post-graduate outcomes. People are starting to figure out that the ABA hasn’t done enough to stop this practice. And people are starting to try to hold the ABA accountable for its failure to hold law schools accountable.
It’s not just former and current law students who are demanding changes. Right now the ABA is dealing with a U.S. senator who wants action from the organization.
That’s right, Senator Barbara Boxer is once again urging the ABA to do its job….
Continue reading “Senator Boxer Keeps Pressure On The ABA”
I’m a huge Red Sox fan. (That noise you just heard were all the Yankees fans skipping ahead to the comment section. Don’t wait, guys. I’ll be right there.) This season began with the highest expectations, after the Sox won the offseason by acquiring superstars Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford and by rebuilding their bullpen. Experts and fans alike were predicting a 100-win season (their first since 1946) and a nonstop flight to the World Series. Instead, the team got off to a horrific start, going 0–6 and 2–10. Since then, they’ve begun to turn it around, finally reaching .500 on May 15. Now they’re just half a game out of first place in the tight AL East.
Part of the reason for this turnaround has been excellent pitching. Jon Lester, the young lefthanded cancer survivor, sits atop the American League leaderboard with a 6–1 record; no AL pitcher has more wins. Josh Beckett, the veteran star rebounding off a couple down years, is 3–1.
Now just looking at wins, you’d think that Lester is outperforming Beckett. But you’d be wrong, because win totals tell you very little about how a pitcher is performing. Just as looking at hours-billed totals tell you very little about how a small-firm lawyer is performing.
Better ways to measure performance (for pitchers and lawyers), after the jump.…
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Small-Firm Wins”
I get that the legal profession has a drinking problem, if you will, but today we have an example of how a law school should not go about keeping young, would-be lawyers off the bottle.
Imagine you are a 1L. You just finished your first set of finals of your first year of law school, and so you decide to party a little bit. So you knock back a few beers on campus before heading out to whatever bar you are going to. It’s a time to celebrate, it’s a time to let your hair down. Maybe you get a little bit more drunk than you intended, maybe you have a beer (gasp) outside, but whatever — finals are done!
Did I say anything “unacceptable” above?
If you think that there’s no harm in the foregoing scenario, then boy do I have a law school for you to avoid. Apparently the administration at one law school was so freaked out by drinking on campus after first semester finals that the assistant dean of students felt compelled to send around an entire email reminding students of the school’s alcohol policy (reprinted in full below). We’re just getting this email now — it appears students wanted to be away for the summer before slamming their administration — but its existence is still shocking.
Somebody should ask Franklin Roosevelt if it makes sense to have draconian anti-alcohol policies during a recessionary environment…
Continue reading “Celebrating With Alcohol? Oh Noes!”
Justice Kennedy says: 'Open Sesame.'
It’s late May, so we’re entering the home stretch of the Supreme Court Term. Over the next few weeks, the Court will be handing down opinions in the most contentious, closely divided cases.
One such opinion came down today: Brown v. Plata (formerly Schwarzenegger v. Plata). In this high-profile case, a three-judge district court issued an order that directed the State of California to reduce its prison population — e.g., by releasing prisoners (as many as 46,000, at the time of the order) — in order to address problems with overcrowding and poor health care for inmates.
When SCOTUS granted cert, I thought that it did so in order to summarily reverse. Federal judges running penal institutions, ordering tens of thousands of convicted criminals to be let out onto the streets? The district court’s order reeked of the kind of Ninth Circuit liberal activism that doesn’t sit well with the Roberts Court. (Note that one of the members of the three-judge panel was the notoriously left-wing Judge Stephen Reinhardt.)
Well, I was wrong. The Court just affirmed, 5-4, in an opinion by (who else?) Justice Anthony Kennedy.
There were two dissents, by Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. Justice Scalia’s opinion in particular contains some stinging (but ultimately ineffectual) benchslaps….
Continue reading “Supreme Court Upholds Order Requiring Release of Thousands of Prisoners”
Well, there’s really nothing else to talk about this morning. Jezebel reports that a defense attorney has written a motion objecting to the people seated at the plaintiff’s table. Well, one person in particular — a “large breasted woman” who is seated next to plaintiff’s counsel.
Is there a law against having large-breasted women hang out with you? Of course not; this is America!
But since this motion is one of the most sexist things you are likely to come across, let’s give it a closer look…
Continue reading “Motion of the Day: No Law Against Having Big-Breasted Colleagues”
Several readers have sent e-mails asking for advice on how to deliver bad news to clients.
Here’s proof that, if ye shall ask, ye may receive.
Think first about the “bad news” that you’re delivering. You’re not a physician, so you’re not looking a person in the eye and explaining that he or she has just six months to live. That’s really bad news, and that’s hard to deliver. Your job is easy.
Even in the universe of bad news delivered by lawyers, if you’re working with a corporate client, you’re probably getting off easy. You’re not reporting to the client that “the Supreme Court just rejected the application for a stay of your execution” or “the appellate court just affirmed the conviction, so you’ll be doing the time.” The bad news that civil litigators are delivering to corporate clients just isn’t that significant. So calm down.
I’m also ruling out other bad news that folks deliver to, or receive from, in-house counsel. I’m not thinking about telling employees that they’ve been laid off or fired or delivering unhappy performance reviews. I’m not thinking about how you deliver bad news to your own law firm or to a court. And I’m ruling out situations where the bad news results from your own error, rather than an adverse decision by a court. (It’s much harder to tell a client, for example, “I blew the statute of limitations, and your claim is now time-barred,” than it is to tell a client, say, “The court denied our motion for summary judgment.”) So maybe I’m cheating here, by limiting the discussion, but the optimal way to deliver bad news will vary with the situation.
So what’s the best way to deliver news of an adverse judicial decision to a corporate client?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: Delivering Bad News”
* Indiana’s ban on Planned Parenthood funding means a change in providers, not in services, for women on Medicaid. The only problem is that the new provider is a coat hanger. [New York Times]
* Utah’s new law against being sexy is being fought by an attorney who looks like he just wants to keep those damn hookers off his lawn. [Washington Post]
* You’d think that with a giant clock around his neck, Flavor FLAAAAAAAV would know that it’s time to help a brother out on his fried chicken restaurant debt. [Businessweek]
* Would you want a woman referred to as a “square tit Grinch” stripping at your club? Apparently Scores does, and they’re willing to sue over it. [New York Daily News]
* Jersey Shore’s latest lawsuit is The Situation v. The Confrontation. The courts might want to think about consolidating these ridiculous lawsuits to In re The Retardation. [National Ledger]
* The release of The Hangover: Part II may be delayed thanks to a copyright infringement claim. When reached for comment, Mike Tyson said: “I want your heart! I want to eat your children!” [Daily Mail]
* With his cast of drug-addled celebrity clientele, Martin Singer could start a new realty television show. We’ll call it Suing with the Stars. Celebrity Rehab is already taken. [New York Times]
