Bingham McCutchen

An interesting and odd observation about law firm ad campaigns, from Copyranter:

What The F**k is up with all the law firms using goofy animal symbolism? Dykema thinks it’s a giraffe amongst zebras. Zuckerman Spaeder says I’m a canary threatened by a lion.

Bingham McCutchen animal advertising advertisements Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpg

And Bingham McCutchen (above) was, first, a lion-chasing zebra (where does the Dykema giraffe fit into this equation?) and now, a baby-coddling grizzly bear. Hey, if any of you crows want to see an idea using puffins, drop me a line.

(All ads scanned from the Wall Street Journal, the bear ad from yesterday’s edition.)

A commenter at Copyranter offers some great suggested captions for the Bingham ad. To read them all, click here. Our personal favorite:

“Bear lawyers who accept babies as payment.”

What, no sharks or leeches? [copyranter]

Bingham McCutchen 2 Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgRemember those Bingham McCutchen associates who took buyouts and left the firm? They’re royally p.o.’ed about this article, and they want to set The Record[er] straight about the circumstances surrounding their departures.
Check out their angry letter to The Recorder, plus additional information from an ATL tipster concerning how these buyouts were mishandled, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Hell Hath No Fury Like Ex-Bingham McCutchen Associates”

Bingham McCutchen 2 Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgYesterday we asked: “What’s Up With Bingham McCutchen?”
Associate salaries, that’s what. Last night, Bingham McCutchen sent around an email announcing that it “will be increasing 2007 base compensation in our domestic U.S. offices to match the base compensation structure in our New York office, consistent with the new national market.” The raise is retroactive to June 1.
That’s the good news. And the bad news?
Well, just check out this interesting (but depressing) article from The Recorder. The upshot: the litigation department is slow at Bingham, and the firm is offering buyouts to associates to leave.
We’ll probably do a more detailed write-up about the Bingham buyouts in a later post. If you have some information to share about the situation, please email us (subject line: “Bingham McCutchen”).
The Bingham pay raise memo, verified by multiple sources at the firm, appears after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Good News (and Bad) from Bingham McCutchen”

Bingham McCutchen Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgAs far as we know, Bingham McCutchen has not joined in the latest round of associate pay raises. Many people have been wondering why — even the media:

Add Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to the list of Cal Law 25 firms that now pay associates on the $160,000 scale.

The only real holdouts now are Bingham McCutchen and Reed Smith, both huge firms with big California presences and fairly high profits that could probably absorb the raise.

This comment is representative of others:

[I]t is time to turn your attention to Bingham. The firm has a national presence in four major markets that have all raised to 160k base (DC/SF/LA/Boston) and 2006 profits per partner well in excess of peer (and lesser) firms that are paying those market salaries.

What exactly is Bingham’s problem? Its associates deserve answers, and after one month of hearing about raise after raise, there is nothing but silence. Please do anything you can to squeeze some information from firm management before the firm starts bleeding associates and decimates its summer recruiting program for the year.

Any thoughts on why Bingham is sitting on the sidelines? Please discuss in the comments, or email us (subject line: “Bingham McCutchen”). Thanks.
Earlier: Morgan, Lewis follows the Salary Leaders (Legal Pad / Cal Law)

100 dollar bill Above the Law Above the Law law firm salary legal blog legal tabloid Above the Law.JPGThis will probably be our last salary-related post of the day, so you can treat it as the end-of-day open thread. We’ll post any memos we receive later today sometime tomorrow morning (unless they’re extraordinary for some reason).
Here’s a good short item about D.C. pay developments, by Nate Carlile of the Legal Times. According to Carlile, the firms that have raised to $145,000 for first-year in Washington are as follows:
1. Akin Gump
2. Arnold & Porter
3. Covington & Burling
4. Gibson Dunn
5. Hogan & Hartson
6. Latham & Watkins
7. O’Melveny & Myers
8. Patton Boggs
9. Sidley Austin
10. Steptoe & Johnson
11. WilmerHale
After the jump, confirmed pay raise announcements from Bingham McCutchen and McDermott Will & Emery.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Skaddenfreude: Bingham, McDermott, End of Day Open Thread”

amazons female lady warrior fighter.jpg
Congratulations to these five law firms, which just made Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For:

Alston & Bird (#19)
Arnold & Porter (#26)
Nixon Peabody (#49)
Perkins Coie (#64)
Bingham McCutchen (#94)

The Recorder has a write-up of the results, which contains some fun factoids. Did you know that each Perkins Coie office has a “Happiness Committee,” which throws surprise parties for lawyers and staff?
This is unusual. Many law firms have “Unhappiness Committees,” which are sometimes called “Personnel Committees” or “Associate Life Committees.” But we don’t know of any other firm with a “Happiness Committee.”
And here’s something we didn’t know about the #94 company on the list, Bingham McCutchen (whose name we keep on misspelling):

[A]t Bingham, women outnumber men two to one and make up 23 percent of the partner ranks — believed to be the highest percentage in the industry, according to the Fortune report.

No wonder the Bingham men are so happy.
Five Law Firms Score Places on Fortune Magazine’s ‘Best Companies’ List [The Recorder via Law.com]
100 Best Companies To Work For [Fortune]

musical chairs 2 Above the Law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFNothing huge today, like yesterday’s news about Harriet Miers’s departure; but a few interesting moves. The two most noteworthy ones involve transitions between the public and private sectors:
From politics to private practice:
* Asa Hutchinson has rejoined Venable’s Washington office. Hutchinson — a former Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Republican congressman, and chief of the DEA — left the firm in March 2006, to run (unsuccessfully) for Arkansas governor.
From private sector to government:
* New York’s brand-new Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, snags another former federal prosecutor for his “dream team.” Henry Greenberg is leaving the Albany office of Greenberg Traurig to serve as Cuomo’s counsel.
Law firm news, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Musical Chairs: 01.05.07″

musical chairs 2 Above the Law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFAt the White House:
* On the heels of Christopher Oprison and Cheryl Stanton, former Wilmer Hale partner Paul Eckert joins the White House Counsel’s Office.
Lateral Moves:
* Nicholas H. Politan, to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (NY), from Bingham McCutchen, where he served as co-head of the project and structured finance group.
(Wild guess: He’s the son of former federal judge Nicholas H. Politan (D.N.J.).)
* IP litigator Duane David-Hough, to Fish & Richardson, from Ropes & Gray (NY).
A few more moves, plus links, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Musical Chairs: 12.07.06″

musical chairs above the law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFNew Partners:
* Sullivan & Cromwell: Jeffrey Chapman, Michael Escue, Hydee Feldstein, Stacey Friedman, Brian Hamilton, Julia Jordan, Eric Kadel, Jr. and Juan Rodriguez.
The partnership promotions will be effective January 1, 2007. Congratulations, kids!
Like many other top New York firms, Sullivan still has a single-tier partnership structure. All partners are equity partners.
And all S&C partners are doing very well for themselves. In 2005, the firm enjoyed average profits-per-partner of $2.4 million. See here (subscription required).
Lateral Moves:
* Private equity lawyer Stephen Culhane, to Linklaters (10 points — Magic Circle!!!), from King & Spalding.
Government to Private Sector:
* Harry Sandick, to Jenner & Block, from the venerable S.D.N.Y. U.S. Attorney’s Office (where he served as deputy chief appellate attorney and, before that, as acting chief of the violent crimes unit).
* Hawyood Haywood Gilliam, to Bingham McCutchen, from the well-regarded San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office (N.D. Cal.).
[Ed. note: See this comment, and this juicy article. It appears that the office has slipped in the past few years.]
Haywood Gilliam headed the securities fraud section of the U.S.A.O. and worked on various stock options backdating cases. His move to private practice is timely, given the explosion of backdating scandals in Silicon Valley. But Gilliam will presumably be conflicted out of a bunch of cases that he worked on while at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
UK Firm Adds Another NY Partner [NYLawyer.com]
Former Federal Prosecutor Joins Firm in NY [NYLawyer.com]
In Timely Hire, Firm Grabs Backdating Prosecutor [NYLawyer.com]

musical chairs above the law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFWe have oodles and oodles of moves — some actual, and some rumored — to share with you today.
Lateral Moves:
* Antitrust lawyer Jeffrey Brennan and mass torts/products liability lawyer Kathleen O’Connor, to Dechert, from the FTC and Merck, respectively.
(Can O’Connor be the “Countess of Toxic Torts”? The title of “Queen of Toxic Torts” is already taken — by Skadden’s Sheila Birnbaum, with whom we are obsessed.)
* Leveraged finance lawyer Christina Ungeheuer, to Latham & Watkins (Frankfurt), from Milbank Tweed (Frankfurt).
* William Nordwind (legislative and government affairs) and Michael Volpe (labor), to Venable, from Capitol Hill (an interminable subcommittee name) and Clifton Budd, respectively.
* Financial restructuring lawyer Stephen Peppiatt, to Bingham McCutchen (London), from Shearman & Sterling.
* Trusts and estates lawyer Kenneth Page, to Hughes Hubbard & Reed, from Coudert Brothers (where he headed their T&E practice).
Also, here’s more detail about a move that we wrote about last week — the move of Dennis Orr and three colleagues from Mayer Brown (NY) to Morrison & Foerster (NY).
Shoes Waiting to Drop?
* Over at scandal-ridden computing giant HP, Ann Baskins “remains employed by the company as general counsel.” But her days may be numbered. (The commenters at the WSJ Law Blog are certainly calling for her head.) [WSJ Law Blog]
Think Tanks:
* William Gale has been named Vice President and Director, Economic Studies, at the Brookings Institution.
NY Lawyers Switching Firms [NYLawyer.com]
MoFo New York hires four-partner litigation team from Mayer Brown [Legal Week Student]
H-P Mess Casts Harsh Spotlight on Ann Baskins [WSJ Law Blog]
Gale Named VP & Director of Economic Studies at Brookings [TaxProf Blog]

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