When you are a kid, curiosity is a positive thing. Even as adults, we expect effective people to exhibit at least a modicum of intellectual curiosity.
But you shouldn’t confuse your legal employer for the man in the yellow hat. Not unless you want this to happen to you. A few weeks ago, a summer associate at Baker Botts learned an important lesson about curiosity and its proper place in law firm life.
Multiple tipsters report that a summer associate in one of Baker Botts’s Texas offices was dismissed after he logged onto the firm document system to get a sneak peak at the summer associate reviews that were being prepared for his class. He also allegedly poked around the full-time associate reviews that were available in the system. Our sources report that he was let go for these transgressions.
None of these documents were password protected.
After the jump, our tipsters ask why the summer was fired when the firm made no efforts to keep these associate and summer associate reviews secured.
* California lawyer Ryan Kent has accused Dahn Yoga of being a cult and filed a class action suit against the Brain Wave Vibrators. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Ross Mitchell spent just $38,000 on his online law degree and became his own first client. He won his lawsuit to be admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. [Boston Herald]
* Richard Posner is bearish on newspapers and bullish on draconian copyright protection for online news. Permission to link? [The Becker-Posner Blog]
* Is 12 years enough for Bernie? [Am Law Daily]
* Law school is great preparation for doing something other than law. [Legal Intelligencer]
* Musical chairs: Morgan Lewis taps gas from Baker Botts. [Am Law Daily]
* Justice may be blind, but she needs to see your face in Michigan. [True/Slant]
* Lawyers for Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of a massive swindle, want Baker Botts off the case. [Reuters]
* Convicted terrorist Jose Padilla can sue John Yoo for the legal memos he wrote at the Justice Department defending torture. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Renowned legal scholar Lawrence Lessig stars in a new film. Stanford Law is getting the publicity shout-out in the articles about the documentary, but Harvard recently snatched Lessig for its faculty. [DCist]
* Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So hot right now. [Wall Street Journal]
* Is this year’s cutthroat BigLaw environment worse for summer associates or for the hiring partners they are stalking? [Fulton County Daily Report]
* Does Obama have big plans for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan? [Chicago Sun-Times]
Well, it appears Texas is starting to feel the burn of the global economic recession. And that is not good news at all. We received word from Baker Botts today that the firm has decided to fire attorneys. This is from a firm wide email that just went out:
We initially hoped that by imposing a hiring freeze last year, we would be able through attrition to match staffing levels to the business environment. The recession has been so deep and long lasti ng, however, that we regrettably have also had to reduce our lawyer and staff levels through selective layoffs, particularly in those areas most impacted by the reduction in demand. This has been a painful process for all of us involved. The individuals affected by these reductions are our colleagues and friends, and they have performed admirably for the Firm and our clients over the years.
The memo does not contain the overall number of people the firm will be letting go. Our sources tell us that the cuts will affect “around 30″ attorneys. We don’t have any information on how deep the staff cuts will be. There is also no word on how these layoffs will affect incoming first years.
But don’t get us wrong, just because layoffs are coming to Texas, doesn’t mean that Texas isn’t maintaining its Texas sized sense of pride:
Back in 1933, when the Great Depression was at its peak, many who worked at the Firm feared what the year had in store for them. In January of that year, then-Managing Partner Walter Walne wrote a memo to partners dedicated to that topic. The closing paragraph of that memo is timely, relevant and speaks eloquently across the decades about who and what we are at Baker Botts:
“With the character and ability possessed by each person in the organization; the splendid spirit of cohesive team work that we know exists; the inspiration that comes from the efforts and lives of those who have gone before; the idealism which our creed and our traditions instill, we face the new year resolutely and with the assurance that in our hands the standard of this institution will not be lowered and that our forward steps will not falter.”
We date our Firm’s origins back nearly 170 years, to just after Houston was founded and when Texas was still a nation, not a state. We have been through the U.S. Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression and countless recessions, and together, we will get through this.
Update (4:19): We are now getting reports that Baker Botts is offering a three month severance package, but associates have to pack up and leave by tomorrow night. It looks like most associates were prepared for the news when the arrived to work this morning. According to a tipster:
When I go to work this morning and noticed that we were losing our free parking, I knew we were in or a long day.
We’re back with another installment in our series of open threads on the Vault 100. This is an opportunity for insiders to sound off on their firms for the benefit of wannabe potential first-year and lateral associates.
Here are the next ten on the Vault list, with prestige scores in parentheses:
The most interesting set of “notable perks” in this bunch can be found at Boies Schiller. On the upside, there is an annual trip to Jamaica for attorneys and their families — in December, no less — but on the downside, it’s a “sweatshop run by a genius.” This makes us think of David Boies as the legal profession’s Santa Claus — who likes to take the elves to Montego Bay.
We invite the curious to ask questions about these firms, and for those in-the-know to take pity. Earlier:Vault 100 Open Threads – 2009
In last month’s ATL / Lateral Linksurvey we asked you which holidays you worked on, or expected to work on, during 2007. About half of you reported that you had worked on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Last week, we asked you how you fared this year. Did you take the day off to honor a champion of civil rights, or did you make it a “day on”?
We received just under 1,300 responses, and 44% of you reported that you took the day off. Associates in New York, Los Angeles and Boston were most likely to celebrate the holiday, while associates in Chicago, Atlanta, the Bay Area, and Texas were most likely to be working. (Respondents in the Bay Area were also most likely to work over Christmas and New Year’s. Is it time for them to get New York bonuses?)
How did it break down on a firm by firm basis? DLA Piper, Milbank, Sidley & Austin, Dechert, Hunton & Williams, Jones Day, Latham, Mayer Brown, McDermott, Hughes Hubbard, McGuire Woods, Morgan Lewis, Nixon Peabody, Paul Hastings, and Sullivan & Cromwell each had multiple happy associates who reported that they had taken the day off. Kirkland & Ellis, Baker Botts, Dewey & LeBoeuf, O’Melveny & Myers, Weil, and Winston & Strawn each had mixed responses. Associates at Skadden, however, uniformly reported that they had worked the holiday, as Martin Luther King Jr. day is a “floating” holiday for the firm.
Of those who spent the day at the office, about 54% reported that they weren’t actually asked to work the holiday, but had things they needed to get done. About a quarter reported that their offices were open. Another quarter said that partners told them to work on the holiday. About 8% were asked to work by clients. A surprising number of respondents wrote in that other associates had told them to work on the holiday.
A little over a third of respondents who worked on the holiday thought that the work did not justify the sacrifice.
Yesterday we posted an open thread on law firms that screw over no-offer lots of their summer associates. This post is about the flip-side: firms that dole out summer associate bonuses.
This topic has been raised by two tipsters, in two different contexts. First, this tipster reports on two firms that pay bonuses to summer associates, regardless of whether you previously summered with them:
I’m just starting to get offers, as callbacks are rolling along. I have offers from Baker Botts and Fulbright & Jaworski, both in Dallas — and both are offering a week’s pay ($3077 and $2700, respectively) as a bonus! Baker pays out on the start date, and Fulbright pays if you spend the first half with them.
And from a second source, news of bonuses paid to 1L summers who return to the same firm:
I received an offer to come back for a second summer at Foley & Lardner… with a catch: If I come back for the whole summer, and do not split or spend time anywhere else, I receive a $5,000 bonus. The bonus pays out when I accept this fall, not next summer. I have no idea if all the offices do this, but I should add that I am not at all in a major market.
Interesting. Are you aware of other firms that either (1) pay bonuses to summer associates or (2) pay bonuses to 1L summer associates who return for a second summer (and don’t split)? Please discuss, in the comments. Thanks. Earlier: Fall Recruiting Open Thread: No-Offer Factories
We’re pressing on with our series of open threads on Vault 100 law firms. We know that some of you are eager to discuss firms ranked in the 70′s, and we don’t want to disappoint you.
And a quick word from one of our sponsors, ATL’s Career Partner, Lateral Link:
“Lateral Link provides free access to the Vault firm information/career guides. Readers can get free access to the full information on our site as part of our career center.”
Without further ado, here are the five firms for this afternoon (in Vault 100 order, prestige scores in parentheses):
To $160K and $170K, for first- and second-years, respectively, effective August 1. Here’s the official table, which was an attachment to the email that just went around: Update: One commenter notes: “They have taken compression to a whole new level with the $2,500 raise between 3rd and 4th year.”
We agree. Just give the fourth years a gift certificate to the Olive Garden, and call it a day!
Memo from managing partner Walter Smith, after the jump.
From a verified source in the Washington office of Baker Botts:
Today, Baker Botts DC’s associates started receiving raise notices in the mail. They all appear to match the “real” DC market, not this V&E crap. Retroactive to July 1.
The notices only refer to the recipient’s salary; there isn’t a formal memo outlining all salaries, at least not one that I’ve seen yet.
So… What about Baker Botts back in Texas? Our Baker-DC source said:
I’ve heard nothing so far. The firm switched to the no-summary-memo trend after your site got popular. Coincidence? I doubt it.
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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When you are a kid, curiosity is a positive thing. Even as adults, we expect effective people to exhibit at least a modicum of intellectual curiosity.
