You’ve heard about lawyers who schedule depositions at Dunkin’ Donuts, but you’ve probably never heard about lawyers who get their nails and their briefs polished at the same time.
It looks like the latest trend for professional women in New York is the “manicure meeting,” a time when participants must sit and listen to each other, instead of sitting and pretending to listen to each other (while at the same time endlessly following the Bill Urquhart directive to CHECK YOU EMAIL).
But how did the manicure meeting come into existence? And more importantly, is this feasible for the women of Biglaw?
I believe the defendant failed a saving throw against berserker, so when he killed those people he didn't know right from wrong.
* Dressing shrinks as wizards when they testify would be an AWESOME idea. I’m serious. Why can’t we have this? And titles, too. “Your Honor, I call Dr. Freud — Ph.D in weakness management and keeper of the sacred staffs of Ivory guard — to the stand.” [Overlawyered]
* iTextbooks! Could be awesome, could widen the gap between the rich and the iPoor. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* Old lawyer accidentally smuggles a gun onto a plane, mainly because security — which noticed said gun — forgot to stop her. TSA doesn’t make us more safe, folks. It just makes us more molested. [Daily Mail]
* Apparently, LLMs go great with Brazilians. The people, not the grooming. Or maybe both — I don’t know, but I was only asked about people. [Live Mint]
* To be clear, putting slavery analogies into our math problems is bad… unless you are a college basketball or football star trying to work out how much you got paid in free tuition for last night’s game, versus how much the university made off of the performance of your team. Then the analogy is “apt.” [CBS Atlanta]
* White people problems, written by a former Cahill Gordon associate who quit to take a job in television. [Funny or Die]
* Additional impressive hires by an elite litigation boutique. How long before MoloLamken ends up on somebody’s hot list? [MoloLamken]
Last year, Cravath initially low-balled the bonus market, and Cahill Gordon made them look foolish by using the Cravath scale as a floor for its bonuses. This year, Cravath has come out with another crappy bonus scale, and Cahill is beating the bag out of it again.
This year, Cahill is making a “special bonus” payment right now, in time for everybody’s next paycheck. This is before they even delve into the regular year-end bonuses that Cravath has set at such a low mark.
Every couple of years, people need to be reminded not to have private conversations in public spaces. Who could forget Acela Bob, the Pillsbury partner who talked about firing people on a crowded train?
University of Virginia law students, that’s who. Yes, we have another installment of: when popping your collar goes real wrong. On the way back to Charlottesville from New York City, a group of UVA Law students were waiting for their flight out of LaGuardia. They started talking about how their callback interviews went. They started talking loudly.
Almost half (48%) of Career Center survey respondents said they were too busy billing on the Labor Day holiday to fire up the barbie. That’s more than the 35% of survey respondents who reported working on the Fourth of July, but less than the 73% of respondents who worked on Presidents’ Day, and the 66% of respondents who worked on MLK Day.
The most popular reasons given for skipping out on the Labor Day celebrations were:
56% said that nobody specifically asked them to do work, but they had work they needed to get done. 29% said a partner or associate asked them to do work. 14% said a client asked them to do work. 10% said they needed the hours. 7% said everyone else in their office was working. 3% said that Labor Day is not recognized as an official firm holiday.
Now let’s find out in which practice areas and at which Biglaw firms associates were most and least likely to work on Labor Day….
In late December 2010, the elite California law firm of Irell & Manella announced 2010 year-end bonuses that reportedly doubled the benchmark Cravath scale. Although some felt the firm could have been even more generous, given its strong performance in 2010, most Irell associates were quite pleased.
Discontent grew, however, over the following months. Sullivan & Cromwell announced spring bonuses, Cravath announced better spring bonuses, and most top firms followed suit. But not Irell.
Spring turned into summer. Some at Irell feared that the firm was done doling out bonuses until December.
But that fear was misplaced. Yesterday the firm announced “mid-year” bonuses.
Michetti is not the first former Cahill partner to join Paul Hastings in 2011. Just last month, Rich Farley, another leveraged finance partner, hopped over to Paul Hastings.
On the whole, Cahill has been flourishing as a firm — and sharing the bounty with its associates. Recall the firm’s recent mid-year bonuses, which were very well-received.
But do the departures of Messrs. Farley and Michetti reflect trouble in paradise? Let’s hear some of the scuttlebutt….
All right everybody, be cool, no need to break out the Drudge siren.
Yes, Cahill Gordon, which previously smashed the year-end associate bonus market back in December, has just announced “mid-year” bonuses. But this announcement is unlikely to start a trend. Remember, because Cahill’s bonuses were already so high, the firm did not announce spring bonuses. Spring bonuses really amounted to a bunch of other law firms trying to catch up with Cahill.
So today’s mid-year announcement is kind of just Cahill’s version of spring bonuses. And Cahill did mid-year bonuses last year. Am Law reports that associates will be getting between $5,000 and $25,000 bonus dollars from Cahill.
Wait a minute, what am I talking about? Of COURSE this is huge news! A bunch of associates just got a bonus from the partners for all their hard work… and right when the summer associates were around to see it. Somebody is making it rain up in here….
On February 27, 2009, Latham & Watkins laid off 440 associates and staff. These official layoffs came after months of quietly and stealthily laying off employees.
That year, Latham fell from #7 to #17 on the Vault 100 list of the most prestigious law firms. It was one of the biggest single year drops ever on the Vault list. At the time, I asked: “Is this as far as [Latham] will fall?”
Two years removed from that question, I’m staring at the brand-new Vault 100 rankings. Latham & Watkins is ranked #11.
Memory, my friends, is not something they screen for on the LSAT…
Recent news about Cahill Gordon has been very positive. In December, the firm announced year-end bonuses that made Cravth’s widely-adopted year-end bonus scale look paltry by comparison. Cahill can afford to be generous: last month, Am Law reported that the firm enjoyed record profits and revenue in 2010, with profits per partner last year of $3.23 million.
(This has caused some to wonder whether Cahill will be paying spring bonuses, like Cravath and many other firms. In light of the spring bonus phenomenon, how does Cahill compensation compare to Cravath et al.? One Cahill source suggests Cahill is still ahead, but we’d love to see the numbers run by someone who knows the full Cahill scale. Feel free to send us an email, or comment on this post.)
The most recent news out of Cahill, though, is strange rather than glowing. Last week, a prominent partner was escorted out of the building by security and removed from the Cahill website. A firm-wide email then went out informing all staff that he was no longer a member of the partnership. (We haven’t seen this email, but feel free to send our way.)
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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You’ve heard about lawyers who schedule depositions at Dunkin’ Donuts, but you’ve probably never heard about lawyers who get their nails and their briefs polished at the same time.
