Previously, we brought you an important flowchart about when you are allowed to leave work from Rob Complains About Things. Rob’s a former Biglaw associate who now artfully describes his prior experiences.
Today, Rob is back with the accurate billable hour breakdown that clients aren’t allowed to see….
Continue reading “The Biglaw Pie Chart That Tells You Where All The Hours Went”
‘I’m excited because I can see my lawyer hasn’t slept in three days!’
Let the micromanagement begin! Clients always complained about bills, but over the last several years, clients elevated their complaints to outright micromanagement, objecting to “block billing” and refusing to pay for internal team meetings, even on massive projects.
I’ve said before that this billing regime saps lawyers of valuable efficiency. Not that lawyers are perfect, but constantly stopping to parse out billing for every individual task creates a bigger waste.
Now clients have a new technological tool to intrude upon the workday….
Continue reading “Do You Want to Micromanage Your Lawyers? There’s an App for That!”
Former Rep. Denise Majette
A former congresswoman faces possible disbarment for allegedly overbilling a client.
Now, obviously overbilling is terrible and the bar should protect clients, but the allegations, at least as reproduced in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sound damning only to the lay observer. As I read through the charges, it seemed like pretty run-of-the-mill litigation.
But whether the congresswoman engaged in overbilling or not, the story reminded me of the inherent shortcomings of believing the billable hour is objectively fair to clients….
Continue reading “Billable Hours May Get Former Congresswoman Disbarred”
‘Can’t a kid have a five-minute feeding break without a partner email?’
I can’t actually make this stuff up. Yesterday, a Labor associate became an impromptu midwife. (Is there a term for a male in this role? Midhusband? I don’t know whether it was a man or a woman that should be credited with the assist on this one, and I’m assuming “midwife” is gender neutral for these purposes). The action took place inside a law firm’s office after a fellow attorney in the employee benefits practice started giving birth, presumably while redlining some rider for the umpteen-millionth time.
The mother, we hear, was due in the next week or so. According to our tipster, mom was hoping to maximize her hours before having to go on leave. Well, she succeeded.
Apparently, she needs to turn her talents toward renegotiating the firm’s employee benefits. A couple days off before having a baby might be a good place to start….
Continue reading “Labor Lawyer Takes Job Literally, Delivers Baby”
* A new lawsuit asks, “Who owns Sherlock Holmes?” That sounds like a mystery suitable for… ugh, I can’t bring myself to finish that gag. [Courthouse News Service]
* The well-oiled train wreck that is the NCAA finds itself in hot water for ignoring legal advice and going after Miami using privileged information. Lawyers are often maligned by non-lawyers, so let’s enjoy this article from a sports columnist explaining why lawyers can be awesome. [EDSBS]
* There’s a new iTunes app to keep track of your hours! I’m assuming it has a Biglaw feature to pad hours. [Herald Online]
* A trilogy of articles about California’s prison “realignment,” described as “The Best Trilogy Since Star Wars.” I’m certainly hoping this isn’t a reference to Episodes I-III. [PrawfsBlawg]
* The previously discussed proposal to allow Arizonans to bypass law school and take the bar exam has been cut down. It was always ironic that the state most wrapped up in “they took our jobs!” rhetoric wanted to open the legal profession to everyone. [Verde Independent]
* The third in an ongoing series of posts covering the trial of DC superhero Firestorm. Too bad he doesn’t have that split personality defense to fall back on. For the three of you who got that joke, you’re welcome. [Law and the Multiverse]
Congratulations to the 11 new partners at Akin Gump. They’re an impressive and diverse group, hailing from offices all across the country.
But not all news out of Akin is happy. Last month, for example, the firm — a perennial contender in our annual holiday card contest — failed to take top honors.
And some Akin associates feel that they got coal in their stockings this winter. Let’s check out the Akin grumps….
UPDATE (2/15/2013, 9:30 AM): Full bonus memo added after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Bellyachin’ at Akin”
Over the last three weeks, we have heard from an In-House Insider, an opinionated source of insight into Biglaw-client relations — see here, here, here, and below. As with the three prior installments, the only changes I made to the Insider’s words were those done to protect their identity, and Insider was given the opportunity to revise their points once I added the questions and commentary. Again, I thank Insider for the candid observations and thoughtful opinions on these core issues….
AP: Any serious observer of Biglaw can see that firms continue to struggle adapting associate development to the new state of Biglaw-client relations. What can Biglaw learn from corporate clients like yourself on that front?
Continue reading “Buying In: An Interview with an In-House Insider (Part 4)”
We’re in the middle of what we previously referred to as the second wave of law firm bonus announcements. Later today, for example, we’ll write about the Latham & Watkins announcement from yesterday. (So far we’re hearing mixed things; if you’re at Latham and would like to opine on the bonuses, feel free to email us or text us (646-820-8477).)
Right now we’re going to discuss the bonuses announced at Goodwin Procter (which actually just hired a partner, Brynn Peltz, away from Latham). The Goodwin bonus announcement came out on Tuesday of this week.
So what do 2012 bonuses at Goodwin Procter look like?
Tom Wallerstein
“I am having a root canal this morning, so I’ll be working from home.”
Some attorneys use the expression “working from home” to mean that they are mostly taking the day off for one reason or another. In other words, they really mean that they are “not working.”
Other times, “working from home” really means “I’m still working, just not in the office.” I might do this, for example, to avoid a long commute or because I can better tackle my project at home, perhaps because my home will offer fewer distractions.
Assuming that “working from home” means that you still are working, albeit in a different physical location, should a firm care when or whether an attorney comes into the office, provided nothing time-sensitive needs to be accomplished that day?
Continue reading “From Biglaw to Boutique: Working from Home”
Over the last two weeks, we have heard from an In-House Insider, an opinionated source of insight into Biglaw-client relations — see here, here, and below. As with the two prior installments, the only changes I made to the Insider’s words were those done to protect their identity, and Insider was given the opportunity to revise their points once I added the questions and commentary. Again, I thank Insider for the candid observations and thoughtful opinions on these core issues.
AP: How firms are viewed from a value perspective is often very difficult to gauge from the outside. What criteria do you use to determine if a firm is delivering services to your company appropriately from a billing perspective?
Continue reading “Buying In: An Interview with an In-House Insider (Part 3)”
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.
Keep reading »
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
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