1112 Park Avenue
Partners at high-powered Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where profits per partner in 2010 clocked in at almost $2.4 million, appreciate the finer things in life. These include $6 million houses in the Hamptons and the company of former Playboy models (who used to date movie stars like Matt Dillon).
Now, fabulous though they may be, beach houses in the Hamptons and Playboy model girlfriends sound… a bit flashy, a trifle arriviste. Some might view them as not very white-shoe, and not what you’d expect from partners of the oldest continuing Wall Street law practice in the United States. (Sure, some old-money people have places in the Hamptons, but these days the locale appeals more to celebrities.)
Thankfully there are some CWT partners who are kicking it old school. They live in exclusive prewar coops on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. No lofts in Tribeca or Soho — or, God forbid, Brooklyn — for these genteel types.
Let’s look at the Lawyerly Lair that a senior Cadwalader lawyer recently acquired — on Park Avenue, one of the world’s legendary thoroughfares — for just a shade under $6 million….
Continue reading “Lawyerly Lairs: A Cadwalader Castle in the Sky”
In our November edition of the Lawyer of the Month competition, we brought you three male candidates who just didn’t give a damn. We offered our readers an anti-military law professor, but he wasn’t able to rock the vote. Next up, we had a family law judge who beat his daughter on camera, but even this villainous act wasn’t enough to take the win.
At the end of the day, the man who didn’t want the title won it in a landslide victory, with 65 percent of the vote….
Continue reading “November Lawyer of the Month: Cheaters Never Win (Until Now)”
It’s beginning to look a lot like last year’s Christmas at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. CWT announced yesterday that it would be matching the Sullivan & Cromwell bonus scale. It starts at $7,500 for the class of 2010 and tops out at $42,500 for the class of 2003 and more senior. All bonuses will be paid in early February 2012.
But what about spring bonuses? And is Cadwalader planning to show any love for the class of 2011?
Let’s take a look at the memo and find out….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Cadwalader Matches S&C Bonus Scale”
November is typically a month where people give thanks for all of the good things in their lives. The vast majority of the scandalous lawyers featured in these pages seem to have forgotten about that small fact. They just don’t give a damn.
Family ties? Meh. The troops? Screw ‘em. Honorific ATL titles? Totally lame.
Who are these thankless men? Let’s check out the candidate pool for November’s Lawyer of the Month competition….
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Month: November Reader Poll”
The $215,000 engagement ring.
Voter turnout in our October Lawyer of the Month poll was not high: only 453 votes were cast. In the end, DLA Piper partner Laura Flippin, who allegedly blew a .253 on a breathalyzer test, narrowly edged out Cadwalader partner Ira Schacter, who reportedly bought a $215,000 engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny ex-fiancée — while refusing to pay for his teenage daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids.
A mere 11 votes separated the winner and the runner-up. Given the closeness of the vote, maybe Laura Flippin should have focused more on voter turnout, to boost the tallies of her rivals.
It seems that Ira Schacter did just that. Check this out….
Continue reading “A Prominent Partner Gets Out the Vote and Avoids ‘Lawyer of the Month’ Honors”
It seems like lawyers got a little wild last month, especially the ladies. In fact, our candidate pool for October’s Lawyer of the Month contest was mostly dominated by women. Score one for women’s equality in the legal profession, even if we’re out there embarrassing ourselves.
Only one of our candidates is a man, but given his choice in women, he’d probably love to be surrounded by all of these hot messes.
Last month, we offered you the sex, violence, and stupidity edition of the competition. We suppose you can call this one Lawyer of the Month: Drunk, Slutty, and Naked. Let’s check out our nominees for the month of October….
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Month: October Reader Poll”
Today we conclude our coverage of the top New York partners to work for, as selected by our readers (see earlier coverage here and here).
These seven partners are proof that you can be a good partner who is good to associates while working at premier Biglaw firms like Chadbourne & Parke, Cadwalader, White & Case, DLA Piper, Baker Hostetler, Weil Gotshal, and Cravath.
Let’s find out how they do it….
Continue reading “Career Center Survey Results: Top Partners to Work For – New York (Part 3)”
Biglaw bucks can bring the bling.
Some people just can’t stay out of our pages. Back in 2008, we wrote about Ira J. Schacter, a prominent corporate partner and major rainmaker at Cadwalader. Schacter earned Lawyer of the Day honors after he was accused of beating his wife. (He claimed he acted in self-defense and was ultimately cleared of the charges.)
Well, today Ira Schacter is back in the news. He’s accused of refusing to pay for his teen daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids, while dropping $215,000 on a diamond engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny fiancée. If true, that’s pretty shoddy behavior — the very embodiment of cheapness, from a big-time Biglaw partner who can easily afford twelve grand.
But I know what you’re all wondering right now: “How hot is that Playboy-model fiancée?”
Continue reading “A Cadwalader Partner, His Deaf Daughter, and His Playboy Bunny Ex-Fiancée”
Last week, the American Lawyer shined a spotlight on extensive partner departures from McDermott Will & Emery. According to Brian Baxter of Am Law Daily, a whopping 38 partners have left MWE in 2011 so far.
Some of these defections have come in clumps. Most notably, as we mentioned back in January, nine partners left McDermott for Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, as part of CWT’s raid on MWE’s energy law practice.
But that explains just a quarter of the year-to-date partner departures from McDermott. Let’s look at some of the others, explore possible implications for the firm, and discuss what might be motivating the movement toward the exits….
Continue reading “What’s Going on at McDermott Will & Emery?”
The law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe continues to do battle with its former client, MGA Entertainment. It seems that the maker of Bratz dolls is still acting in bratty fashion, by not paying its legal bills, and Orrick has moved to withdraw from representing MGA. (This is not the first time that Orrick has tried to fire its difficult client.)
Fortunately, things are happier on the transactional side for Orrick. The firm just announced that it’s picking up five bank finance and high-yield partners, for its New York office.
The new arrivals come from four different places, including three firms whose names you will definitely recognize….
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Orrick Assembles an Impressive Team of Finance and High-Yield Lawyers”
Dennis Block
Big news out of New York today: Dennis Block, a leading mergers and acquisitions attorney, is on the move. Known for being extremely successful — but notoriously difficult to work with — Block is stepping away from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and bringing his huge book of business to Greenberg Traurig.
This Brooklyn Law School graduate proves that you don’t need to go to a T-14 school to have a great career. Block has served as counsel on several big time affairs, including Pfizer’s $68 billion Wyeth takeover, and JPMorgan’s Bear Stearns buyout.
Let’s learn more about Block’s past, and see what Cadwalader has to say about this partner’s defection….
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Greenberg Traurig Snags a Major Player from Cadwalader”
Joran van der Sloot
* Bob Morse announces that new jobs data may be used to change the methodology for calculating law school employment rates. Because Bob Morse has to do the ABA’s job for them. HIYOOOO! [U.S. News & World Report]
* And speaking of employment (or lack thereof), it looks like UDel and SUNY Stony Brook have given up their plans to build new law schools. Did they smarten up and start worrying about jobs like we do? [Washington Post]
* Joran van der Sloot: rolling his eyes at murder charges since 2005. More than a year after his arrest, he’s been charged with the murder of Stephany Flores. [CNN]
* Representing a private company, Cadwalader’s antitrust case against Google got tossed. Even Biglawyers can fail to meet their burdens of proof. [CNET]
* ‘Cause tonight we’re robo-signing like it’s 1999? Mortgage paperwork screw-ups aren’t as new as you think – they’ve been around since flannel was still cool. [Associated Press]
* Remember that Oscar de la Hoya lawsuit? The settlement allegedly included $20M in exchange for getting his heels and fishnets back. You can’t keep a good crossdresser down. [New York Post]
One of my favorite law firm names is Freshfields — Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, to be precise, but I prefer Freshfields. It makes me think of rolling green hills, crisp laundered linens, or a dairy, producing the creamiest milk in all the land.
As it turns out, Freshfields is a law firm — a top international law firm, a member of the elite Magic Circle. And this Freshfields is rolling out the green, doling out crisp bills, and ladling out the cream — to its associates. As reported earlier today by Am Law Daily, yesterday Freshfields announced spring bonuses, on the top-of-the-market Cravath scale.
Freshfields isn’t alone. This afternoon, Cadwalader, which was publicly toying with the idea of spring bonuses, announced that it too would pay them, again on the Cravath scale.
These two moves are significant — far more significant than the earlier spring bonus announcements….
Continue reading “Spring Bonus Mania: Freshfields, Cadwalader…. Where Will It End? Could Your Firm Be Next?”
Fact: Spring bonuses have been announced at Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thacher, and Cleary Gottlieb.
Fact: It’s February 7th.
Fact: Skadden, Davis Polk, Weil, and Debevoise should be ashamed of themselves.
Honestly, I don’t know what the top-tier firms that haven’t announced spring bonuses think they’re doing. Do they hope that no one is watching? Everybody is watching.
You want proof? Last week, at a “state of the firm” meeting, Cadwalader announced that it is considering spring bonuses. If Cadwalader goes with spring bonuses, it puts a whole host of other firms in play for the big payout…
Continue reading “If Cadwalader Makes It Rain, Many More Firms Will Have to Follow”
Sometimes lawyers at Cadwalader are the victims of theft. And sometimes they’re the ones doing the stealing.
Here’s the promised follow-up to yesterday’s post about Cadwalader’s successful raid on the energy law practice of McDermott Will & Emery. It’s big news in Biglaw. As of now, nine partners are moving — Paul Pantano, Karen Dewis, Greg Lawrence, Greg Mocek, Tony Mansfield, Ken Irvin, Rob Stephens, Daryl Rice and Doron Ezickson — but if they’re followed by associates, a few dozen lawyers could be involved.
In an email sent out on Wednesday by MWE leaders Jeff Stone and Peter Sacripanti, reprinted in full after the jump, McDermott tried to minimize the losses. Stone and Sacripanti pointed out that “[t]his group of partners focused mainly on one aspect of our overall energy practice, which was commodities and derivatives trading for financial clients,” and that “the departing partners’ total collections in 2010 amounted to about three percent of overall firm revenue.”
Still, three percent of total MWE revenue is nothing to scoff at. In 2009, McDermott had total revenue of $829 million, according to the American Lawyer. Assuming that 2010 revenue is similar (the Am Law numbers aren’t out yet), three percent amounts to $24.87 million. Dividing that out over nine partners yields revenue per partner of about $2.8 million — not a bad book of business.
Let’s check out some reader views on this news….
Continue reading “More on Cadwalader’s Capture of Energy Lawyers from McDermott”
Ted Cruz
A new year, a new job. That seems to be the thinking of many within the legal profession, based on the proliferation of professional moves we have to report (and not just out of Howrey).
We’ll start with one move that’s aspirational rather than actual. Legal and political superstar Ted Cruz — the Morgan Lewis partner who heads the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, and who was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past 25 years — will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the good senatrix Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Check out the announcement on his website, or read this BLT post.
Like many lawyers turned politicians, including our current president, the 40-year-old Cruz is a Harvard Law grad (and one of The Elect — Rehnquist / OT 1996). Graduates of HLS’s rival to the south, Yale Law School, tend to take more quirky paths.
Yul Kwon
That brings us to the second move of the day. YLS grad Yul Kwon — a former Second Circuit clerk and McKinsey consultant, the first Asian-American winner of Survivor, and one of People’s “sexiest men alive” (in 2006) — has left the Federal Communications Commission. Kwon served as deputy chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau at the Commission.
Instead of working at the FCC, Kwon, 35, will be regulated by it: he’s going to be the host of a new television series on PBS, America Revealed (which sounds pretty cool). Read more from the FCC (press release), Bloomberg, and the Washington Post.
More moves — a Cravath partner’s jump over to Wall Street, and the defection of many McDermott energy lawyers to Cadwalader — after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Legal Celebrities on the Move
(Including the energy lawyers going from MWE to CWT.)“
Just like last year, we’re late in covering the bonus announcement of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, which apparently happened a few days after the Cravath announcement. But just like last year, the Cadwalader bonus news is nothing to write home about.
We haven’t seen the memo — please feel free to send it our way — but multiple sources advise us that Cadwalader basically matched Cravath. We say “basically” because there was an hours requirement, which we understand was essentially the same as last year’s (i.e., around 2000 hours, 1900 of them billable).
If you have additional information or background about bonuses at CWT this year, we’re all ears.
Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch 2009: Cadwalader (Plus news of some partner moves.)
So ends the legal career of Robert Link, former chairman of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The New York Law Journal reports that Link has retired from legal practice:
The unannounced departure took place July 1, Link, 55, said Thursday. Link, the firm’s former chairman and managing partner, left Cadwalader after being replaced as chairman in 2008 and later being left off of the firm’s management committee.
Speaking from one of his homes in Vermont, Link said the retirement was his choice. He said he has no plans to return to the practice of law, though he may take a job in the public interest arena.
“I don’t have to work if I don’t want to,” Link said. “But I will.”
Link made enough money for Cadwalader that many of his former partners don’t have to work if they don’t want to. Remember his fabulous $6 million Hamptons house? Now he has more time to enjoy it.
But Link also leaves behind a legacy that put many associates out of work…
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Bob Link, Former Cadwalader Chairman, Retires”
Here at Above the Law, we like to know what’s going to happen, before it happens. We therefore pay special attention to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The firm is a trendsetter of sorts — at least for things that are bad. Few remember, but Cadwalader faced down a bed bug epidemic back in 2007, long before every New Yorker lived in fear of the critters.
More people know that Cadwalader was one of the early adopters of massive associate layoffs, with the first sizable round all the way back in January 2008 — well before the fall of Lehman and the true start of the financial crisis. CWT was kicking people to the curb before it was cool.
Nobody knows why Cadwalader seemingly has this mystical power to experience calamities before they happen elsewhere, but one doesn’t have to be able to explain every thing that happens to be true. So ignore the following email sent around the New York offices of Cadwalader at your own risk — but don’t say that CWT didn’t warn you…
Continue reading “Always a Trendsetter, Cadwalader Now Experiencing Thievery”
