Antonin Scalia
Society cannot afford to have such a huge proportion of its best minds going into the law.
– Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, commenting on the state of the legal profession at the 2012 Midyear Meeting of the American Bar Association in New Orleans.
(Justice Scalia comments on Biglaw’s flawed compensation system, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quotes of the Day: Mo’ Superior Legal Minds, Mo’ Problems!”
The freeze is melting away.
A friend who is a federal clerk just texted me: “I’m gonna buy new bras!”
Oh yes, it’s time federal clerks got back to the good life. A memo just went out from Senior Judge Thomas Hogan who heads the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. Hogan informed the system that the freeze on promotions, step increases, and cash awards for federal clerks has been lifted for this year.
It’s cool to be a federal clerk again! Well, it’s cool to be a federal clerk on a two-year or long term clerkship, again.
But maybe only for this moment. Austerity could rear her ugly head right around the corner….
Continue reading “All Rise: Promotion and Pay Freeze on Federal Law Clerks Has Been Lifted”
Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist, is available on Amazon, as is his previous book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy (affiliate links).
It’s hard to conjure up bad stuff to say about clerking. It’s an honor, and an all-expense-paid ticket on an exclusive legal gravy train. If you’re lucky enough to clerk for a federal district or circuit court judge, you can rest assured you’re looking good and feeling good. You might even shoot the moon and sing with the Supremes. In that case, you’re good to go: You’ll never have to practice actual law again. You can sign up now to teach a seminar on “Law and Interpretive Dance” at Yale or attend sumptuous international human rights conferences hosted by African dictators. Life is good at the top. Imagine the stimulation of interacting one-on-one with the mind of a Clarence Thomas (and acquiring access to his porn collection.) You could be the clerk who builds an ironclad case striking down universal access to healthcare – or witness the day Justice T opens his mouth to speak during oral argument….
Being a justice of the United States Supreme Court is a pretty great gig. You get to attend glamorous events like Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. You get to wear a snazzy black robe on said occasions.
Sure, there’s some work involved. SCOTUS opinions can be loooong! But at least the justices have their trusty Supreme Court clerks, three dozen or so of the nation’s brightest young legal minds, to help get everything done.
Thanks to everyone who responded to our recent request for tips about law clerk hiring activity at SCOTUS. Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned, shall we?
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: OT 2012 and OT 2013″
Many months have passed since our last report on the hiring of Supreme Court law clerks. We are getting ready to do a new report. If you have SCOTUS clerk hiring news for October Term 2012 or October Term 2013 that we have not yet reported, please email us (subject line: “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring”). In order to check whether or not we’ve already reported a particular clerk hire for OT 2012 or OT 2013, please go back and review our last hiring report before contacting us.
In the meantime, we have a special gift for you. Last July, we shared with you the Supreme Court’s official list of law clerks for the October Term 2011 (i.e., the clerks currently toiling at One First Street). We noted at the time that “this list does not include law school and prior clerkship information, which the [Public Information Office] will release later this year.”
We now have that updated list of OT 2011 Supreme Court law clerks, featuring law school and prior clerkship data, courtesy of the Public Information Office. Let’s look at the list, and count up which law schools and feeder judges sent the most folks over to One First Street….
Mountain Dew: a mouse could not survive in this environment, according to PepsiCo counsel.
* Pepsi lawyers offer a creative (if disturbing) defense to a lawsuit by a man who claims he found a mouse in his Mountain Dew. [Madison County Record via The Atlantic Wire]
* Will birther queen Orly Taitz get to depose — i.e., “rupture the jurisprudential hymen” — of President Barack Obama? That would be kind of awesome. [Columbus Ledger-Inquirer]
* Professor Ann Althouse raises an interesting “who decides?” question about Cleveland’s controversial ban on trans fats. [Althouse]
* Please, lawyers, stick to cocaine. Allegations of crystal meth usage are très déclassé. [NewsOK.com]
* Kudos to Kirkland & Ellis for coming to the defense of lesbian and gay public employees in Michigan. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
* It seems that the Montana Supreme Court isn’t a fan of the Citizens United decision. [Huffington Post]
* Jamin Soderstrom, a (rather cute) former S&C associate and current Fifth Circuit clerk, has written a book (affiliate link) analyzing the qualifications of presidential candidates and the relationship between résumés and presidential success. [Tex Parte Blog]
* If you’re a law professor / blogger who wants to get a rise out of fellow profs, write posts in praise of Paul Campos (just voted our 2011 Lawyer of the Year — congrats again, Professor Campos). [PrawfsBlawg]
Your bonus is freedom.
Here at Above the Law, we spend a lot of time talking about bonuses to associates working in Biglaw firms. As you might have noticed from our bonus coverage over the past month or so, the size of these payouts is underwhelming to many who are receiving them.
But that coverage only deals with those few, those happy few, who are lucky enough to receive any type of bonus whatsoever. For many in and around Biglaw, their bonus this year will be $0. Their spring bonus will not exist. And they won’t even have Cravath to blame for it.
We’re talking about paralegals. We’re talking about secretaries. We’re talking about government lawyers and law clerks and a bunch of other people who worked really hard in 2011 and might get no bonus at all.
We feel your pain….
Continue reading “A Shout-Out to All The Legal Types Getting a $0 Bonus This Holiday Season”
[We were going to call this post something like "Associate Bonus Watch: Susman Godfrey Beats Cravath Too." But then we felt bad for singling out Cravath for paying unsatisfying bonuses, when so many other Biglaw firms have followed suit. So we went with a tamer title instead.]
Just as it did last year, the powerhouse litigation boutique of Susman Godfrey announced associate bonuses that put the bonus scales of most other firms to shame. Happy Holidays, Susman Godfrey associates!
(By the way, Susman is a firm that celebrates the season in high style. The holiday party of its New York office, catered by acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud, is already legendary, even though it’s of fairly recent vintage.)
So, the Susman bonuses — what are we looking at here?
Ever since the UC Irvine School of Law opened its doors in 2009, the fledgling institution has been garnering rave reviews. It has already been labelled one of the most selective schools in the country. Every single member of its inaugural class had a job last summer. And that same first class goes to school for free.
Over the weekend, the emerging West Coast powerhouse added a new impressive statistic to its quickly filling trophy case. This year, the school boasts one of the highest federal clerkship placement rates in the country.
Keep reading to see which elite law schools have been edged out by UC Irvine….
Continue reading “UC Irvine Announces Better Clerkship Numbers Than Almost Everyone Else”
Congratulations to the 2012 Bristow Fellows, who learned of their selection earlier this month. These one-year fellowships in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office, awarded to recent law school graduates with outstanding academic records and top clerkships, are generally regarded as second only to Supreme Court clerkships in prestige (and often lead to SCOTUS clerkships as well). You can read more about the Bristow Fellowship, including the job responsibilities and application process, on the Justice Department website.
Let’s take a look at the next crop of Bristow Fellows. Which law schools did they graduate from, and for whom did they clerk?
Also: over the past three years, which law schools and judges have minted the most Bristow Fellows?
Continue reading “Congratulations to the 2012 Bristow Fellows”
If Learned Hand’s opinions are like the products of a bespoke tailor, the opinions coming out of the Ninth Circuit are like the products of a factory that is staffed by machines and menial workers who are overseen from afar by a handful of overworked managers.
– Justice Samuel Alito, in a recent speech at Rutgers School of Law (Newark), lamenting the decline of craftsmanship in judicial opinions.
(An interesting fact about Justice Alito and the Ninth Circuit, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Benchslap of the Day: Justice Alito on the Ninth Circuit”
Several prominent judges, like Richard Posner (left) and Alex Kozinski (right), hire 'off-plan.'
Over the weekend, we mentioned a very interesting New York Times article on the chaotic state of the clerkship application process, and said we’d have more to say about it later. Well, now is later, quite a bit later — so let’s discuss.
The piece — by Catherine Rampell, who has written about the legal world before — paints a depressing picture of a dysfunctional system. Rampell reports that the clerkship process “has become a frenzied free-for-all, with the arbiters of justice undermining each other at every turn to snatch up the best talent.”
Let’s look at the reasons behind this, and discuss whether the process can be fixed….
Continue reading “The Price of Prestige: Clerkship Application Chaos”
At birth.
– Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, explaining when he begins recruiting law clerks.
(Chief Judge Kozinski is quoted in a very interesting New York Times article on the chaotic state of the clerkship application process, which we’ll have more to say about later.)
UPDATE (9/27/11): Here is our commentary on the NYT piece.
Judge Wayne Phillips: He likes clerk butt and he cannot lie?
When I learned about this lawsuit out of Montana (via Morning Docket), I thought it might be from The Onion or an old episode of Ally McBeal. Reports the Billings Gazette: “A lawsuit has been filed against Fergus County District Court Judge E. Wayne Phillips by a female law clerk who alleges that the judge slapped her in the buttocks with a legal file.”
If the clerk’s allegation is true, was Judge Phillips’s action inappropriate? Certainly. Was it rude? Most definitely. But should it spawn a civil lawsuit, as well as possible criminal charges? Absolutely not.
And wait until you hear what the clerk is claiming in damages….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: This Law Clerk Needs Thicker Skin”
Law clerks aren't jumping for joy these days, especially when it comes to pay.
I spent last weekend in Portland, Oregon, where I attended the 25th judicial anniversary celebration and law clerk reunion of my former boss, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit. It was a warm and wonderful occasion, a chance to reconnect with old friends and to catch up with the O’Scannlains (Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain were joined by all eight of their children for the festivities). Former clerks shared happy memories from their time in PDX clerking for DFO.
Most former law clerks I meet — mainly law clerks to federal judges, whether Article III or magistrate or bankruptcy — recall their clerkships fondly. They praise the excellent experience, the clerkly camaraderie, and the training and mentoring they received from their judges (for the most part; a few describe judicial clerkships from hell).
It struck me as strange, then, that “law clerk” recently came in at #7 on CNBC’s list of 10 Most Hated Jobs. I can’t help wondering whether courthouse administrative personnel with the title of “clerk” were somehow mixed in with federal judicial law clerks. The median salary of $39,780 a year suggests that this might be the case, since federal law clerks (and many state law clerks) make more than $40K these days.
Then again, people don’t clerk for the money. Sure, clerkship bonuses, especially Supreme Court clerkship bonuses, can be considerable — but in most cases, a graduate who goes straight into a law firm will do better financially than her classmate who clerks after graduation.
If you’re planning to clerk or interested in clerking for a federal judge, you should be aware of the latest news about law clerk compensation….
Continue reading “Federal Law Clerks: No Pay Raise for You!”
Now that Labor Day is behind us, fall is fast approaching. You can tell by the chill in the evening air.
Or is that just the cold offers we’re feeling? Last month, we asked you for stories about firms giving out cold offers to summer associates. As we explained, a “cold offer” or “fake offer” is, in the words of NALP, an employment offer made “with the understanding that the offer will not be accepted.”
This “offer,” made with a wink and a nudge, allows the employing law firm to report (and boast about) a 100 percent offer rate, when in reality it isn’t welcoming back 100 percent of its summer associates. It also has an advantage for the recipient: when she goes through 3L recruiting, she can truthfully say, “Yes, I received an offer from the firm where I summered.”
We recently heard a story about a pretty cold offer (not from summer 2011, but from not too long ago summer 2010). This summer associate, who wasn’t the most popular person in her class, received a full-time employment offer “contingent upon obtaining a federal clerkship.” Given how hard it is to land a federal judicial clerkship, that’s a pretty cold offer — especially considering that the student in question, now graduated, didn’t go to a law school known for cranking out lots of clerks.
But wait, it gets better….
Today is Friday, September 9, 2011. Do you know why today is special? Here’s the answer:
Yes, that’s right — we’re smack dab in the middle of the clerkship application season. Today was the first date and time (10 a.m. Eastern) when judges could contact applicants to schedule interviews, pursuant to the official law clerk hiring plan.
Let’s talk more about the process — and hear from those of you who are going through it….
Continue reading “Clerkship Application Season: Open Thread”
Walking the hallways at One First Street.
Last month, the Supreme Court law clerks for October Term 2010 finished their clerkships, turning over their clerkly duties to the October Term 2011 class of clerks. As in past years, many of the OT 2010 clerks are joining private law firms — which welcome them with six-figure signing bonuses. These bonuses are paid on top of base salaries reflecting their seniority (many SCOTUS clerks join firms as second- to fourth-year associates), as well as the usual year-end bonuses.
For the past few years, at least since 2007, law firm signing bonuses for members of The Elect have hovered around $250,000. But this year, at least a few firms are offering even more.
So how much are we talking about?
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Bonuses Are Heading Higher”
First an earthquake, and now a hurricane. If the world is coming to an end, let’s go out doing what we love: talking about Supreme Court clerks.
Since our last round-up, which was over a month ago, there have been a few new hires. And some of them are for the distant future — namely, October Term 2013. Hopefully the world will still be around by then.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Say Hello to 2013″
Many prominent people, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Harry Edwards, have raised their voices about the increasing irrelevance of academic writing to practicing lawyers and judges. Yet, despite railing at the academy, those judges — and law firms, and sophisticated purchasers of legal services — all rely on the academics to identify talented lawyers. Law schools brand the beef, and purchasers buy based on the brand. What do I mean, and why is that process natural and appropriate?
Let’s start with an example for people coming right out of law school: How should judges pick law clerks? One way — perhaps even the “fair” way — would be for judges to assume that each of the 45,000 people graduating from law school is equally likely to make a fine clerk. Judges would solicit applications from all 45,000 and then start the process of sorting the good from the bad.
That cannot work, of course. Judges don’t have the resources (or, necessarily, the ability) to study transcripts, read writing samples, conduct interviews, and do the other spadework needed to assess all of those candidates comprehensively. And judges can’t externalize the cost of the screening process; there’s no person or institution that would play that role for an acceptable price.
What are judges to do? They rely on law schools to brand the beef.
Rant as they may about scholars producing unhelpful scholarship, most judges rely essentially unthinkingly on those same scholars to have separated the potentially gifted lawyers from the crowd. Judges assume that the best students went to the best law schools; that, after arriving, the more talented law students outperformed the less talented ones; and thus that the best performers at the best law schools will make the best clerks. Judges typically pick their clerks from among the top graduates of the elite schools. Judges may think that professors are insane when they’re selecting topics for their scholarship and then devoting months to researching and writing on those subjects, but those same judges rely on the same professors to brand the beef astutely. Whatever criteria law schools are using within the asylum to rank their students, the outside world seems quite happy with it.
Is that fair?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: How The Legal System Brands The Beef”
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
Happy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.
The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
