Drums please:
Bonus, bonus, bonus time. Time to sit back and unwind.
The first bit of bonus news has leaked out of Biglaw. We’re not talking about spring bonuses, and we’re not talking about random mid-year bonuses. We’re talking about regular, end-of-the-year, take-it-to-the-champagne-room bonuses.
And sure, the early news is bad, but that’s to be expected. This first report is just what Biglaw wants you to hear.
But if the past year in bonus news proves anything, it’s that Cravath sets the bonus market, even when they do it late….
Continue reading “Biglaw Starts To Manage Expectations About Bonuses”
Back in June, when we spoke about the latest job data from NALP, it became clear that the class of 2010 — my graduating class — had some of the worst employment outcomes of the last 20 years. We knew this because of the way NALP categorized its data, differentiating between jobs that require and don’t require bar passage, and between full-time and part-time jobs.
But apparently the American Bar Association isn’t interested in helping people understand these outcomes on a school-by-school basis. The ABA doesn’t want you to know how schools fared in finding full-time legal employment for graduates of the class of 2010.
That’s right, the same folks who claimed just two short months ago that “no one could be more focused on the future of our next generation of lawyers than the ABA,” will now be removing those helpful job characteristics from the 2011 Annual Questionnaire….
Continue reading “The ABA Focuses on Losing the ‘Lost Generation,’ One Statistic at a Time”
* Police suspect that a client may have been the one to plant a bomb in attorney Erik G. Chappell’s car. Stay far away from family law, folks. [New York Daily News]
* “How come there’s not a school where people can go if they want to become trial lawyers?” How come you don’t know we already have 200 other law schools? [National Law Journal]
* I hope they signed a prenup, because AT&T and T-Mobile have added two more firms to their huge Biglaw wedding party — O’Melveny and Kellogg Huber. [Am Law Daily]
* “A lawsuit has been filed . . . by a female law clerk who alleges that [a] judge slapped her in the buttocks with a legal file.” And Lat wonders why law clerks hate their jobs. [Billings Gazette]
* LiLo may be behind on her court-ordered service hours, but surely she should be credited for the community service of wearing low-cut tops. [New York Post]
* Ninth Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, RIP. [San Francisco Chronicle]
Be careful about what you say in the airport, or on a crowded train, or on the subway. Above the Law’s spies are everywhere.
And be careful about what you place in the trash. Law firms have paper shredders for a reason; use them. Consider this your practice pointer for the day.
Earlier this month, an ATL reader sent us a collection of documents relating to Sullivan & Cromwell’s on-campus interviewing program at the University of Michigan Law School. For the record, our tipster didn’t have to go dumpster diving for this find. The documents were contained in a black binder that was conveniently placed on top of an outdoor recycling bin, where it caught our reader’s eye. (As we all know from California v. Greenwood, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in stuff you leave in the trash.)
So, what was in these documents? The contents will be of interest to partners and associates at other firms, as well as law students going through the OCI process right now….
Continue reading “An Inside Look at Sullivan & Cromwell’s Recruiting Process”
Which Supreme Court Justice does she remind you of?
* Airbag makes lawyer an airhead. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Antonin Scalia as Harry Potter? Antonin Scalia as Harry Potter? Justice Scalia as the rule-breaking boy-wizard who never lets the traditions and expectations of the past stop him from trying to do the right thing? Are you freaking kidding me? Scalia is the goddamn Dolores Umbridge of the Harry Potter universe. [Gawker]
* People need to stop bitching about our new robot army and start digging towards the Earth’s core, where it’s still warm. [The Volokh Conspiracy]
* Is this insider trading, or did the SEC just get confused? [Dealbreaker]
* Jail sucks for everybody, but it’s got to be even worse if you are the wife of the warden. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Happy Anniversary, Lawyer2Lawyer. [Robert Ambrogi's Law Sites]
With the departure of Jay Shepherd, I am now (at least temporarily) filling the role of small firm chica (Val) and small firm expert (Jay). Let me tell you, it is exhausting.
So, I am going to do what any smart, small-firm partner would do in this situation, and I am going to delegate. And, by delegate, I mean push the work off on you.
I have a few new features that I would like to unveil (and I swear, it will be better than the new Facebook)…
Continue reading “Size Matters: Announcements and RFPs”
At this point, the lengths companies go to in order to protect data, keep it secure, and prepare for e-discovery is old news. Data breaches — and the news coverage that usually follows — have frightened many companies into at least attempting to ratchet up data security policies. Likewise with retention practices. There have been enough e-discovery horror stories that most companies, and especially their lawyers, know they need to start prioritizing this stuff.
Strangely though, you don’t often hear much about data security within corporate boards. But it turns out that the boards of many multinational corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue are way, way behind the curve on data security.
Company boards are doing everything from printing out physical copies of thousands of pages of sensitive material, to sending unencrypted information to personal e-mail accounts, unsecured iPhones, and home computers. The Thomson Reuters report, released Wednesday, gives a harrowing account of disasters waiting to happen….
Continue reading “Many Corporate Boards Are Pretty Much Waiting to Get Hacked, Report Says”
We’re a little bit late on the draw with the harassment suit filed against Jesse Jackson on Tuesday. We wanted to see the complaint, and at first, the headline “Gay Guy Wishes Black People Weren’t Such D***s to Gays” seemed underwhelming. We all noticed the strange tendency of some otherwise liberal African-American civil rights leaders to get their panties in a bunch when gays and lesbians ask for the same rights everybody else is asking for.
I blame, God. Or at least, the people who claim to be speaking for him.
In any event, what I thought was a run-of-the-mill, he said, she said story of sexual harassment got a lot more interesting. It turns out that alleged victim, Tommy Bennett, also used his harassment complaint to unleash a full on character attack on the private sex life of Reverend Jesse Jackson. You don’t see Jackson — who was the leader of black people according to white people from when they killed Malcolm until Jackson failed to cut Obama’s nuts off — get attacked like this by people who don’t draw paychecks from Rupert Murdoch.
And yeah, I said the Reverend’s sex life.
Let’s go to the complaint, shall we….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Is Pink a Color in the Rainbow Coalition?”
With offer season well under way, some law students may be wondering how to tell the world that they’ve landed summer associate jobs without sounding like complete braggarts. These law students must have read a Miss Manners book or two, because thinking about the feelings of others is the polite thing to do.
Other law students just don’t care about trampling on the self-esteem of classmates. “Sorry about your tiny pink feelings, but I got an offer.” That was way harsh, Tai.
There is just one more category of law student: the law student who feels only slightly guilty bragging about a job offer, so he thinks up a creative way to broach the subject with peers. And one law student at a leading law school has got this method of breaking the news about offers on lock….
Continue reading “The Best Way to Brag About an Offer Is Under the Guise of Charity”
Law clerks aren't jumping for joy these days, especially when it comes to pay.
I spent last weekend in Portland, Oregon, where I attended the 25th judicial anniversary celebration and law clerk reunion of my former boss, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit. It was a warm and wonderful occasion, a chance to reconnect with old friends and to catch up with the O’Scannlains (Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain were joined by all eight of their children for the festivities). Former clerks shared happy memories from their time in PDX clerking for DFO.
Most former law clerks I meet — mainly law clerks to federal judges, whether Article III or magistrate or bankruptcy — recall their clerkships fondly. They praise the excellent experience, the clerkly camaraderie, and the training and mentoring they received from their judges (for the most part; a few describe judicial clerkships from hell).
It struck me as strange, then, that “law clerk” recently came in at #7 on CNBC’s list of 10 Most Hated Jobs. I can’t help wondering whether courthouse administrative personnel with the title of “clerk” were somehow mixed in with federal judicial law clerks. The median salary of $39,780 a year suggests that this might be the case, since federal law clerks (and many state law clerks) make more than $40K these days.
Then again, people don’t clerk for the money. Sure, clerkship bonuses, especially Supreme Court clerkship bonuses, can be considerable — but in most cases, a graduate who goes straight into a law firm will do better financially than her classmate who clerks after graduation.
If you’re planning to clerk or interested in clerking for a federal judge, you should be aware of the latest news about law clerk compensation….
Continue reading “Federal Law Clerks: No Pay Raise for You!”
This fall you will be invited to attend pre-interview receptions, post-OCI dinners, and various meals and receptions during and after callback interviews. How you handle yourself during these events can have an impact on whether you receive an offer and your reputation in the firm.
Follow these sensible rules, courtesy of Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, former hiring partner and expert recruiter, and you’ll never get yourself in trouble….
Continue reading “Career Center: Event Etiquette for Dummies (or Sloppy 2Ls)”
Two comments from folks who recently moved in-house prompt this post.
The first comment came from a guy who spent more than ten years with an Am Law 100 firm before moving in-house: “When I was reading the newspaper on Sunday, I realized something. Before I moved in-house, I never truly understood ‘Dilbert’ and the cubicle culture. Now, I do.”
The second comment came from a guy who spent more than 20 years with two different AmLaw 100 firms before moving in-house: “When I moved laterally between law firms, my new firm understood that my time had value. I arrived at 9 on the first day and was working on client matters before noon. My office was ready to go, and we held the bureaucratic stuff to a minimum.
“I moved in-house, and it took days before I could start working. I screwed around with immigration forms and health insurance; I needed computer passwords; when I arrived, my office didn’t have even a pen and pad of paper, let alone a telephone or a computer in it. You realize pretty quickly that you’re in a nonbillable world, and no one seems to care very much whether or not you actually do anything. I figure that, if they don’t care, why should I?”
Continue reading “Inside Straight: The On-Boarding Process”
We live in a country where some states have the death penalty. Capital punishment. The “ultimate justice,” people like Rick Perry say with a smirk, as if justice that ends in death is somehow preferable to justice that respects the dignity of human life.
Do you not know what those sanitized words mean? Do you not know what the death penalty is?
We live in a country that sanctions murder of supposed criminals. That’s what we’re talking about: murder. It’s not “self-defense.” Death row inmates are locked down, strapped down, and would be in jail for the rest of their natural lives but for our societal decision to kill them first.
And the people we kill, we suppose they are criminals. We have a system that spits out a verdict that a person is guilty. It’s a flawed, imperfect system. In any given case, witnesses, counsel, judges, or the jury could be wrong, stupid, or both. We, as a society, take their word for it because it’s the best way for dispensing justice that we’ve come up with so far.
But since we have this flawed system, and we do kill people, then it is inevitable that occasionally we’re going to murder the “wrong” person. To support the death penalty is to support the occasional murder of innocent people. That’s been true since the first barbarian hunter-gatherer thought it’d be a good idea to gather the whole tribe together to watch the death of another defenseless person who claimed innocence.
So my question is, why the hell are people so worked up over Troy Davis?
Continue reading “Did America Just Learn That We Have The Death Penalty In Some States?”
* It took SCOTUS more than four hours to write one sentence. But oh, to be a fly on the wall last night when they decided to deny a stay of execution for Troy Davis. [New York Times]
* AT&T wants to take the DOJ’s antitrust case to trial. This must be some sort of a joke, but the only punchline I can think of is the company’s crappy wireless network. [Bloomberg]
* Court-clogger or pocket-stuffer: Andrew Cuomo is debating signing a bill that could put more money into the hands of class action attorneys. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* GW Law ex-adjunct Richard Lieberman was disbarred this week. What is with all of these lawyers who try to seduce minors online? Such a weird casualty of this profession. [National Law Journal]
* Because Chanel No. 399 just doesn’t sound as classy as Chanel No. 5, the company has filed a massive trademark infringement lawsuit against nearly 400 defendants. [ABC News]
* Memo to our readers: You know our exploding car thing was just a caption contest, right? We weren’t anticipating a real life lawyer car bombing. [Forbes]
Chief Judge Edith Jones: Underneath her robe beats a judicial diva's heart.
Can you enforce civility by being… uncivil? That’s the question being raised, over and over again, by federal judges from Texas these days.
Before we get to the latest ridiculousness, let’s review. Back in August, Judge Sam Sparks (W.D. Tex.) benchslapped some rude lawyers with a snarky order inviting them to a “kindergarten party,” where they would learn such lessons as reasonableness and courtesy.
Ironically enough, some found Judge Sparks’s civility-seeking order to be… rude. Chief Judge Edith Jones (5th Cir.) issued an email reprimand to Judge Sparks, condemning his “caustic, demeaning, and gratuitous” order as “cast[ing] disrespect on the judiciary.” Some observers in turn thought it rude of Chief Judge Jones to call out Judge Sparks in writing, so publicly — she cc’d all of the other Western District of Texas judges on her email — when she could have just made a private phone call.
Chief Judge Jones is a highly regarded conservative jurist and a fixture on Supreme Court short lists, but she might not be the best authority on civility and etiquette these days. Check out the latest craziness — an en banc hearing before the Fifth Circuit that generated judicial fireworks, culminating in Judge Jones essentially telling a colleague to STFU or GTFO….
Continue reading “Judicial Diva Gone Wild? Chief Judge Jones Tells Judge Dennis to ‘Shut Up’”
* Eight Amish men were sent to jail because they refused to put bright orange safety triangles on the backs of their horse-drawn buggies, but the real crime here is THEIR HAIR. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Georgia seems eager to kill this guy without listening to any more pesky facts. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Our congratulations condolences go out to anyone with a clerkship offer. Bet you didn’t know that this was the seventh most hated job in America, did you? [D.C. Circuit Review]
* You know you’ve got a problem when the “important family items” your kid brings to school for show and tell are a bag full of meth and a crack pipe. [Legal Juice]
* The Galleon convictions have reached the “random men in tracksuits” stage. [Dealbreaker]
* Thanks to Paul Caron for a great round-up of articles on Obama’s new tax plan. You know, the one where the rich pay more taxes than they already do? [TaxProf Blog]
* Once the zombies get a whiff of that nitrous oxide, no law will stop them. [Brooklyn Vegan]
Kyle Bristow
Last year, we wrote about Kyle Bristow, a student at the University of Toledo College of Law. Bristow had been the chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom student chapter at Michigan State University when he was in college. The MSU-YAF was designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Hey, we’re living in a world where convicted murders get to go to law school. We can’t be surprised when the chairman of a so-called “hate group” gets in too.
But admitting a student with Bristow’s… colorful past, and holding him out as a representative of the law school, are two very different things. Toledo now seems strangely comfortable promoting Bristow and his views.
It’s an interesting choice. One that Toledo is certainly free to make. One that students who want to go to law school in an environment welcoming to minorities might want to notice….
Continue reading “Former ‘Hate Group’ Leader Chosen To Represent University of Toledo Students On Constitutional Panel”
Lawrence Ponoroff
It’s not against the law to have a glass of wine or two with dinner and then drive home.
– Michael Piccarreta, attorney for Lawrence Ponoroff, dean of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, discussing last week’s dismissal of a DUI charge against the dean. The legal blood-alcohol content limit in Arizona is .08; Ponoroff had a BAC of .047.
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Some say that the only people going to law school these days are the ones who have got both time and money to burn. At the end of three years, some will leave law school with the stark realization that their hopes and dreams have gone up in flames — figuratively, of course.
But apparently, someone took that phrase literally at a law school in Virginia.
Here’s the photo for our latest caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest: Money to Burn?”
