Bingham McCutchen

Morning Docket: 11.24.10

By

* Congrats to Boies Schiller and Bingham, for their client Oracle’s record-setting, $1.3 billion verdict against SAP. It’s the largest 2010 jury award, the largest for copyright infringement ever, and the 23rd-largest of all time. [Am Law Daily; Bloomberg]

* MC Hammer was wrong – the TSA can touch this. On the eve of Opt-Out Day, the first of what could be many body scanner and pat-down lawsuits has arrived. [Washington Post]

* When you submit a “poorly written brief” to the Supreme Court, maybe you do need to go to three years of law school before you can sit for the bar exam. [The Hoya]

* Zynga, the creator of Mafia Wars, made Walt Disney an offer it couldn’t refuse to settle its trade secret litigation. Isn’t Zynga’s only trade secret the art of creating game pop-ups? [Los Angeles Times]

* Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Lawyer’s Edition. Stealing $300K from your law firm to pay your mortgage will not only get you disbarred, but it will also get you jail time. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* Adrien Brody gets an injunction, and saves you the trouble of having to see him in another movie. Sorry, bro, your career already tanked, so no harm done. [ArtsBeat / New York Times]

* A lawsuit from the Bling King himself. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, except when you’re Courtney Love — then you just wish those rocks were made of crack. [New York Daily News]

19 Comments

Summer Associate Job Survey: The Kids Are Still Stressed

By

The American Lawyer just released its annual summer associate job survey. Back in the day, law students paid a lot of attention to how summers before them enjoyed their summer associate experience. Of course, back in the day the summer associate experience used to be a 12-week-long recruiting event.

Now, it’s a 12 (or 10, or 8) week job interview. And the stress of that showed up in the summer associate surveys.

But despite a difficult job market, some summers still found time to bitch about the lack of lavish recruiting lunches. And Am Law looked at all the surveys and came up with a ranking of the top summer program.

Let’s take a look at the best (and the whiniest) summer programs…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Summer Associate Job Survey: The Kids Are Still Stressed”

26 Comments

Will a Boo-Boo By Bingham Decide the Dodgers Divorce?

By

It’s actually not the divorce of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the divorce of real estate mogul Frank McCourt and his wife, Jamie. Some call it the Dodger Divorce, however, since this bitter litigation could determine the fate of the storied baseball team — an asset worth hundreds of millions.

The couple is fighting over ownership of the Dodgers in a Los Angeles courtroom, aided by a long list of leading litigators. Frank McCourt is represented by Stephen Susman of Susman Godfrey, among others, and Jamie McCourt’s legal team is led by David Boies of Boies Schiller. (For a more complete listing of the lawyers involved, see here.)

But right now Susman and Boies aren’t the lawyers in the limelight. Rather, all eyes are focused on attorneys from Bingham McCutchen. The Boston Globe reports:

The high-powered firm is suddenly at the center of the drama because of work done by its lawyers. At issue is the wording of a document signed by both McCourts six years ago. According to media reports, three copies of the marital property agreement use the word “inclusive,” which would make Frank McCourt the sole owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and three copies say “exclusive,” which would make Jamie McCourt the co-owner of the venerable Major League Baseball franchise.

This is not the first time we’ve covered how a tiny difference in language — just two little characters, “in” as opposed to “ex” — could mean millions. Remember the single-digit error that could cost a real estate company tens of millions? See also the $900,000 comma and the $40,000 missing “L.”

Yikes. This is such stuff as lawyers’ bad dreams are made of. Law truly is a game of inches. (When bloggers make typos, commenters make fun of us; when lawyers make typos, people die lose money — sometimes lots and lots of it.)

The lead lawyer from Bingham McCutchen, Larry Silverstein — no relation to the World Trade Center real estate developer, as far as we know — admits that he messed up in preparing the marital property agreement (MPA)….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Will a Boo-Boo By Bingham Decide the Dodgers Divorce?”

29 Comments

Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 41 – 60 (2011)

By

We’re doing our annual march through the Vault prestige rankings, to give ATL readers the opportunity to have their say about perks and pitfalls at these firms. If your firm actually let you swap your Blackberry for your iPhone, brag here. Or if your firm has such a strong stench that it makes you nauseous, vent here.

We’ve been doing open threads in batches of ten, but now we’re going to pick up the pace. Here are the Vault #41 – 60. This is when the prestige list gets a little more geographically diverse, with firms based in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Palo Alto and even Pittsburgh:

41. Winston & Strawn
42. Baker Botts
43. Jenner & Block
44. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
45. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
46. Proskauer Rose
47 (tie). Dewey & LeBoeuf
47 (tie). King & Spalding
48. Goodwin Procter
49. Baker & McKenzie
50. Fulbright & Jaworski
51. Vinson & Elkins
52. McDermott Will & Emery
53. DLA Piper
54. Morgan Lewis & Bockius
55. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
56. Bingham McCutchen LLP
57. Dechert LLP
58. Cooley LLP
59. K&L Gates LLP
60. Alston & Bird LLP

We took a spin through their Vault rankings and awarded superlatives, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 41 – 60 (2011)”

74 Comments

Bingham McCutchen’s High-Flying ‘Diversity’ Ad

By

Take a look at this picture and tell me how flying animals represent diversity:

via Copyranter.

I don’t even know what the hell is supposed to be going on in this picture, so I’ll let a professional in decoding advertising messages explain…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bingham McCutchen’s High-Flying ‘Diversity’ Ad”

79 Comments

Is In-House Not All That It’s Cracked Up to Be?

By

dan cooperman apple to bingham mccutchen.jpgThe common assumption is that corporate counsel positions are cushier than Biglaw gigs. One of the big reasons is that in-house hours are supposedly more humane. However, Daniel Cooperman, a former partner at McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now Bingham McCutchen), who left Biglaw to work as general counsel at Oracle and then Apple, suggests otherwise.

At Oracle for 11 years, he only lasted two at Apple before he burned out. He talked to the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog about his time getting housed:

Mr. Cooperman admitted that he needed a break from the intensity of the general counsel job, which he has held for a total of 13 years.
“It’s an extreme amount of responsibility and accountability and you need to be available fully 24 hours a day. After all that time, I really wanted a bit of sabbatical,” he said.

Cooperman is getting that “breather” by heading back to Biglaw. He’s returning to Bingham as of counsel in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. He told the WSJ that his mission is to help the law firm understand its corporate clients’ culture.

Lesson one: don’t be offended when people hang up on you…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Is In-House Not All That It’s Cracked Up to Be?”

76 Comments

Inside the Bingham McCutchen Bonus

By

Bingham McCutchen new logo Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgWhen you step into the killing lockstep zone, your bonus disappears into a black box. A while back, we reported that Bingham McCutchen adopted a lockstep-merit hybrid approach to associate compensation. Base salary would still be lockstep, but the bonus would be merit-based.

When we reported on the Bingham bonus, we noted that the firm intended to pay bonuses generally on the Cravath scale to its associates, based on a number of merit-based factors instead of hours.

But now our tipsters are telling us that some Bingham associates received much less than a Cravath-level payout:

A peek inside the black box, bonuses are generally well below the Cravath scale. The only associates receiving bonuses in the vicinity of the Cravath scale are those that exceeded the 2,100 hour minimum by a few hundred hours. Even bonuses in those instances were barely above the Cravath scale. Amazing considering JayZ just told the Boston Globe that the firm “had our best year ever.” Guess we know where all that money went. Morale is definitely at an all-time low. I would be shocked to see any associates making much of an effort to bill above the 2,100 hour minimum in 2010. I think “why bother” has become the most uttered phrase around the halls of Bingham over the last week.

“JayZ” refers to Bingham Chairman Jay S. Zimmerman, not the talented Mr. Shawn Carter.

But I suppose you could put Zimmerman’s positive outlook about the firm into a rap song …

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside the Bingham McCutchen Bonus”

30 Comments

Bingham McCutchen: Lockstep Base Pay, Merit Bonuses — It’s a Hybrid Plan That Seems to be Working

By

Bingham McCutchen new logo Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgMaybe Toyota should take a lesson from Bingham McCutchen: don’t try to cut corners when producing a hybrid.

Back in October, Bingham announced that it would be adopting a new “merit-lockstep” hybrid approach to associate compensation. The plan came with the stamp of approval from Bingham partners and associates. And a majority of Above the Law readers also approved of Bingham’s hybrid approach.

Today, Bingham rolled out its hybrid system. The firm is providing true-up, lockstep raises for people who hit 1900 hours. The double bump extends nationally, across all of Bingham’s offices. People who hit 1500 hours will only be getting a single class bump in salary. We understand that only a small percentage of Bingham associates were low enough on hours to be affected by this stratification.

At the low end, people who billed fewer than 1500 hours will have their salaries frozen again.

On the bright side, all of the people who are frozen will have their hours reevaluated in June. If they’re on pace, they’ll get their money.

The Bingham McCutchen lockstep base pay structure is clear and straightforward (see chart after the jump). For bonuses, welcome to the black box that is merit-based compensation.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bingham McCutchen: Lockstep Base Pay, Merit Bonuses — It’s a Hybrid Plan That Seems to be Working”

28 Comments

Bingham McCutchen’s New ‘Merit-Lockstep’ Hybrid

By

Bingham logo.jpgWe’ve devoted a lot of coverage to the few firms that are moving away from a lockstep compensation system. One consistent theme has been that the move away from lockstep appears to be an attempt to reduce overall associate compensation.
Not so at Bingham McCutchen. The firm just released its new compensation plan. Calling it a hybrid approach, Bingham is keeping lockstep compensation for base compensation but make bonuses heavily merit based. Our sources tell us that while nothing has yet been finalized, the firm’s intention is to hold the line on base compensation.

“Merit Lockstep” Base Salary Structure
After significant review, we have decided to modify our current associate base compensation lockstep structure slightly, moving to what we are calling a “merit lockstep” approach. We intend to retain a salary class level system. All salary class levels will remain subject, as always, to future market changes as well as our own internal determinations.

I’ve been critical of firms that announce they are moving to a merit-based system, without actually explaining what merit-based means. But at Bingham the firm seems to have a concrete plan for its new merit bonuses.
Details and a reader poll after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bingham McCutchen’s New ‘Merit-Lockstep’ Hybrid”

36 Comments

This Week In Layoffs: 10.04.09

By

pink slip layoff notice Above the Law blog.jpgEd. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks. Law Shucks has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.
For a while there it would look like the first consecutive weeks without layoffs since this time last year (by our reckoning, you have to go back to the weeks ending October 9 and October 2, 2008). Alas, one firm did come through with staff layoffs, about which more after the jump.

As usual, we begin with the US macroeconomic picture, and as usual, it ain’t pretty. For the week, the S&P 500 was down about 2%. That was the second straight week of losses, and the DJIA had its biggest weekly decline in three months. 263,000 net jobs were lost in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, despite perhaps the technical end of the recession. As with the stock market, bad results are one thing, but results worse than expectations are another, and that was the case here. Consensus estimates were net losses of 175,000, so the actual results were way short. August’s revised numbers were slightly better than original reports, though.

The poor results are creating pessimism around when things will start to turn around:

[T]he report also buttressed fears that economic expansion would be weak and hesitant, with scarce paychecks and economic anxiety remaining prominent features of American life well into next year.

“This is a weak report,” said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “The rate of job loss has tapered off, but we still haven’t reached the point where businesses are willing to hire.”

Could this create political difficulties for the president?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “This Week In Layoffs: 10.04.09″

40 Comments
Page 5 of 9123456789