If you don’t have a lawyer, it is hard to really put their feet to the fire and make sure the banks have every ‘t’ crossed and ‘i’ dotted… We are going to make sure funding for those legal services is restored.
– New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, discussing the implications of a $2.7 billion hard-cash settlement under a nationwide mortgage servicing agreement.
As part of the settlement, New York State will receive a guaranteed $136 million, and New Yorkers who suffered during the foreclosure crisis will be eligible for an estimated $648 million in additional payments. Schneiderman said the settlement will help restore legal service programs that were cut back in recent years.
Not shown: the empty bottle of Jack in this guy's carrel.
Last week, I derisively noted that legal blogs were pushing a silly story in U.S. News about great careers that you can pursue with a law degree. No matter how bad legal hiring gets, law schools like pushing the “you can do anything with a law degree” angle, based on the anecdotal evidence of those who were lucky enough to parlay their J.D. degrees into something non-legal.
Obviously, I’ve got some anecdotes of my own.
But here’s a job, a real live job, that’s actually being offered to law students as we speak (or type). If you really want to know “what you can do with a law degree,” take a freaking look….
Continue reading “Things You Can Do With a Law Degree: Bank Teller”
Caveat: I did not write the following dialogue. It is from the “comments” section of one of my columns where I mentioned I’d be writing about HIPAA and GLBA. Unfortunately, I cannot attribute the comments to the persons who wrote them, as they are anonymous; however they are quite apropos of today’s subject:
1) “I wish vendors would get it into their heads that indemnity for being sued on a confidentiality basis doesn’t cut it for financial institutions and other customers/clients that have affirmative obligations without being sued in the event of a breach of confidentiality.”
2) “I wish financial institution customers would get it into their heads that the ‘customer information’ they’re obligated to protect is not the sort of thing they would ever disclose to the vast majority of their vendors, and stop using their ‘affirmative obligations’ as a tool to cram unnecessarily restrictive confidentiality terms down the throats of vendors.”
Perfect. Those two comments capture the schism between vendors and customers when dealing with private financial or personal confidential information….
Continue reading “House Rules: HIPAA and GLBA and Indemnity, Oh My!”
* Now that DADT has been repealed, the Ninth Circuit has tossed the Log Cabin Republicans case. How does that Paula Abdul song go? Two steps forward, two steps back? [Los Angeles Times]
* Is this a new way of protecting taxpayers? In early 2012, Bank of America is going to start charging $5 a month for debit card purchases. Thanks Dodd-Frank, thanks a lot. [Wall Street Journal]
* Bob Morse of U.S. News wants to know if the ABA will “take more steps . . . to ensure data integrity” in light of the latest admissions data scandal. Aww, you’re so cute. [ABA Journal]
* The DOJ wants Raj Rajaratnam’s medical information, but they probably don’t need it. Just pick some of the usual fat people diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure. [Bloomberg]
* If I only had a brain heart lower recidivism rate. A serial shoplifter is probably going to lose out on a heart transplant because her health insurance doesn’t cover inmates. [New York Daily News]
It’s hard out there for a 3L. That’s essentially the finding of our reader poll from a few weeks ago. Not many employers are interviewing third-year law students this fall.
But there are employment opportunities out there for enterprising third-year law students. We’ve recently mentioned judicial clerkships, the Justice Department Honors Program, and the Presidential Management Fellows Program.
Today we bring you information about another program that’s hiring graduating law students. The good news: the work/life balance is good, as are the benefits and the pay (six figures). The bad news: these positions aren’t easy to land.
So, what program are we talking about?
Continue reading “Another Job Opportunity for 3Ls”
What’s going on with clerkship bonuses? The last time we really checked was over a year ago. We might do a follow-up; if you have tips — not questions or requests for advice, but hard information about clerkship bonus amounts — please email us (subject line: “Clerkship Bonuses”).
In our last look at the subject, in February 2010, the going rate seemed to be $50,000. You can look back at our prior post for the names of at least 11 firms paying $50K clerkship bonuses. (If any of that info needs to be updated, in either direction, please let us know.)
We can confirm that at least one firm is paying a clerkship bonus in excess of $50,000: BuckleySandler, a young, highly-regarded firm that focuses on banking and financial-services law. We’ve written quite a bit about the firm before; it started with a bang, when Skadden partners Andrew Sandler and Benjamin Klubes left the megafirm to set up their own shop.
Let’s learn a little more about BuckleySandler, and check out the memo announcing the $60K clerkship bonus (along with other compensation-related information)….
Continue reading “Clerkship Bonus Watch: BuckleySandler to $60,000!”
Partners are on the move, and this time it’s major. Latham & Watkins is losing some serious firepower from its banking group, with the windfall going to Milbank. Am Law Daily reports:
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy made a rare venture into the U.S. lateral market Tuesday, announcing that it had lured five Latham & Watkins finance partners, including the co-head of Latham’s banking practice group….
Milbank chair Mel Immergut said the Latham hires will have “an enormously positive impact” on his firm’s leveraged finance practice, while the chair of Latham’s New York office released a statement wishing the partners well and assuring everyone that Latham retains “a very deep bench of talent” in New York, the NYLJ reports.
When banking partners are making major lateral moves, it’s got to be a good sign for the legal economy.
While Milbank was relatively restrained in its public comments to Am Law, the internal Milbank memo obtained by Above the Law shows that the firm is eager to crow about its new talent…
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Milbank Poaches Latham’s Global Banking Co-Chair and Four Others”
The financial services boutique of BuckleySandler, which launched just a little over a year ago, is expanding at a rapid clip. At the time of launch, it had about 50 attorneys (most of them from the firm formerly known as BuckleyKolar); now it’s approaching 100.
The two latest hires are noteworthy. From the BLT:
BuckleySandler is continuing its push to recruit top-level lateral partners. Today, the firm brought on David Krakoff, who previously co-chaired Mayer Brown’s white collar litigation practice, and Christopher Regan, also a former Mayer Brown partner.
Let’s learn a little more about them, shall we?
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: BuckleySandler Snags Talent from Mayer Brown”
We continue our lateblogging of the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention. The conversations at the conference are always interesting. As far as we’re concerned, this has to be one of the most painless ways to rack up CLE credits.
Here’s the next panel discussion that we attended:
Regulation of Financial Institutions
Hon. Paul S. Atkins, Congressional Oversight Panel and Former U.S. SEC Commissioner
Ms. Stephanie R. Breslow, Partner, Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP
Dean Paul G. Mahoney, David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, Arnold H. Leon Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Hon. Annette L. Nazareth, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Moderator: Hon. Edith H. Jones, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
A quick and dirty write-up, after the jump.
Continue reading “Regulation of Financial Institutions”
That’s the most shocking revelation in an interesting New York Times profile of H. Rodgin Cohen, the nation’s top banking M&A lawyer and chairman of the venerable Sullivan & Cromwell. From the NYT:
After [Cohen and his wife Barbara] had paid their [restaurant] check, they went to fetch the car, and Mr. Cohen, a Boston fan since his days at Harvard Law, glanced down at his BlackBerry to check on the Red Sox. He drives a Subaru, a humble ride for a man who earned millions last year arranging shotgun weddings for the busted firms of Wall Street, and standing next to Barbara in the darkness, Rodge Cohen, a titan of the banking bar, struggled with his automated key, initially unable to — woop woop woop — release the lock.
Unlocking car doors by remote control — where’s a good associate when you need one?
Now, in re Subarus, we have nothing against them; they are fine cars. Some of our best friends drive Subarus. One of our co-clerks — a member of the Elect, no less — drives a Subaru Forester. The judge for whom we clerked — Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.), a top feeder judge — used to drive a purple Subaru (affectionately nicknamed “Grimace” by his clerks).
But as we know from the judicial pay controversy, federal judges don’t get compensated like partners at Sullivan & Cromwell. And Cohen is no ordinary S&C partner — he’s the chairman of the firm and its top rainmaker, generating tens of millions in business every year. A Subaru is shockingly downmarket for him. We realize that true wealth doesn’t have to advertise itself, and six-figure cars are for the nouveau riche, but this still seems a tad extreme.
More to the point, why is Rodge Cohen even driving himself? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for him to have a chauffeur-driven Maybach — john quinn, holla — so he can spend every waking minute on the phone, negotiating billion-dollar bank mergers? Isn’t it a waste of the brilliant Cohen’s brain cells to have him paying attention to yield signs when he could instead be thinking about yield curves?
More tidbits from the Rodge Cohen profile, along with commentary, after the jump.
Continue reading “Breaking: Rodge Cohen Drives a Subaru!”
The general public really doesn’t understand what top-flight counsel does for their corporate clients. If they did, the pitchforks and torches crowd would be as angry at Wall Street lawyers as they are at Wall Street bankers.
Friday’s “revelation” about the advice given to Bank of America by Wachtell Lipton illustrates the point. Am Law Daily reports:
Amid the piles and piles of formerly privileged documents related to the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger, there are a few notes and e-mails from mid-December 2008 showing that BofA’s lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz were saying very different things to their client and to federal regulators.
What dastardly double talk did Wachtell Lipton allegedly engage in? Corporate Counsel reports:
The e-mails show that early on the morning of December 19 [Wachtell litigation partner Eric Roth] advised the bank’s chief executive, Ken Lewis, and its interim general counsel, Brian Moynihan, on how difficult and financially risky it would be to try to invoke a so-called MAC — or material adverse change — clause, which would allow the bank to get out of the merger with Merrill.
But another e-mail from associate general counsel Teresa Brenner to Moynihan, sent several hours later and on the same day as Roth’s e-mail, says, “Eric made a very strong case as to why there was a MAC” during a conference call with some officials from the Federal Reserve.
J’accuse!
Pitchforks on parade after the jump.
Continue reading “Is Wachtell in Trouble For Being Good Lawyers?”
Could the nomination of Judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.) to the Second Circuit be derailed by his ruling in Chiscolm v. Bank of America?
Click on the link below to read about this lawsuit filed by an irate customer (or purported customer) of the banking giant.
Area Man Has One Month To Prove Why Bank Of America Owes Him 1,784 Billion, Trillion Dollars [Dealbreaker]
It’s legal, so it’s within our jurisdiction. But our sister sites have written it up already, so we’ll simply refer you to their coverage.
UBS is Naming Names (Finally) [Going Concern]
UBS Eagerly Pays Extortion Money [Dealbreaker]
* Obama made the order to close Guantanamo within a year and former U.S. attorney David Iglesias has been hired to prosecute suspected terrorists held at the prison. [The Associated Press]
* Caroline Kennedy withdrew her Senate bid, so all that press was much ado about nothing. [The New York Times]
* The Chinese court sentenced two to death and one to a life prison sentence for their role in the tainted milk scandal. [The International Herald Tribune]
* SCOTUS refused to reconsider COPA Wednesday, and agreed that a Massachusetts family could sue the school district for sex discrimination.[The Associated Press]
* A Bank of America shareholder is accusing the bank of withholding information about Merrill Lynch’s $15.3 billion in losses before the shareholders voted on its acquisition. [Bloomberg]
* Are you in DC and looking for something cool to do later tonight? Attend the talk and book signing for Professor Daniel Solove’s latest work, The Future of Reputation (previously discussed here). [Concurring Opinions]
* Are lawyers really a**holes? Or are they just doing their jobs? [WSJ Law Blog]
* Some thoughts on possibly increased bank regulation, from our colleague, John Carney: “Resistance to a new wave of banking regulation requiring bank breakups and dividing Wall Street according to regulatory fiats rather than market demand is likely to be weak in an era when many think the financial supermarket model has failed…. No one expends much time, money or energy defending a right to do something they don’t want to do anyway.” [DealBreaker]
* Don’t forget to vote for ATL! Even if you did so before, you can do so again — once every 24 hours, ending November 8th. [2007 Weblog Awards]
* The National Bank Act preempts state regulation of mortgage lenders, even those that are operating subsidiaries of banks and not banks themselves. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
* Payphone operators can sue for compensation from long-distance carriers. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
* Department of Education can use number of pupils rather than number of school districts in determining which districts to ignore as statistical outliers for the purposes of the Federal Impact Aid Program. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
* Let’s see whether this any impact on pork whatsoever. [Jurist]
* The loner gunman. [New York Times]
* Can an IP expert explain how it is legal for Blockbuster to use Netflix’s name in this promotion?
(And the promotion continues until December 24.) [PRNewswire - FirstCall via Yahoo! Finance]
* Chelsea Clinton’s boyfriend’s dad — putting a face to those Nigerian e-mail scams. [ABC News]
* I would feel safer opening up one of those “Cash Your Check Without ID” storefronts between an adult video store and a pawnshop than cashing someone else’s check. [Consumer Law and Policy]
* I, for one, would rather have the monkeys than the rats. But, and I quote the Delhi High Court: “If you can’t control the monkeys, what can you do?” [Red Orbit]
* It’s just law school, not re-education camp. But I feel kind of inspired — f**k corporate law, I’m reclaiming my dream of banishing styrofoam from the earth once and for all. [Concurring Opinions]
The AEI panel discussion on Watters v. Wachovia Bank that we were liveblogging earlier has ended. Our quick thoughts on the question-and-answer session, after the jump.
Continue reading “The AEI Panel: A Final Dispatch”
If you don’t have a lawyer, it is hard to really put their feet to the fire and make sure the banks have every ‘t’ crossed and ‘i’ dotted… We are going to make sure funding for those legal services is restored.
