MOAR BONUS NEWS!
Enough with all this sadness about these pathetically low bonuses that Cravath has engineered for everybody. Let’s try to be positive. People are getting money. Yay money. Who can be sad when they are getting more money?
In fact, I have a great idea: instead of just writing checks that reflect the general New York bonus scale, Clifford Chance and Covington & Burling should pay the bonuses out in single dollar bills. The partners should sneak into each associate’s office at night and just spread the money around. If you share an office, well, the early bird gets the worm.
See, then it’s fun. It’s a like a game. And it distracts the mind from how ridiculous it is to give the same bonus from 2010 in 2011….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Clifford Chance and Covington Play the Match Game”
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…
Continue reading “The 2012 Vault Rankings: Proof Of Short Memories”
No bonus for you!
It’s April 29. Monarchists have long circled this day as an opportunity to praise the vestigial structures of imperial domination. But this day means a lot to people who earn their fortune through work instead of birth. Today is a huge day for Biglaw associates. For many, today is the day spring bonus payments hit their bank accounts.
Don’t spend it all in one place.
But as we all know, not every Biglaw associate will be enjoying a spring bonus this year. With the payments out, we’re no longer looking at which firms are “lagging” behind in their spring bonus announcements. Now we’re looking at firms that have simply decided they are not paying spring bonuses, regardless of what the market says. Apparently, keeping up with Cravath really will be ruinous to some firms.
So who has officially announced they will not be paying spring bonuses this year? We’ll tell you what we know about three Biglaw firms, and hopefully you can fill in any gaps…
Continue reading “Which Firms Are Definitely NOT Paying Spring Bonuses?”
Let’s all take a deep breath. Associate bonus season, which usually wraps up sometime in January, looks like it’s been extended well into April. This is just more proof that Biglaw firms don’t actually collude. No rational business person would want to be making decisions in April 2011 about how much to pay employees for 2010 performance.
For those trying to keep score, there seem to be the following categories of firms (roughly using a letter-grade system):
A – Firms that are paying Cravath-level spring bonuses in all offices. (Example: Cravath.) [FN1]
B – Firms that are paying Sullivan & Cromwell-level spring bonuses in all offices. (Example: S&C.)
C – Firms that are paying spring bonuses in New York but not elsewhere, like California or D.C.. (Example: Read more below.)
D – Firms that are not paying spring bonuses because their year-end bonuses beat the Cravath year-end bonuses, and they’re hoping their associates can’t add. (Example: CHECK YOU QUINN EMANUEL.)
F – Firms that are not paying spring bonuses and invite disgruntled associates to S some D if they don’t like it. (Example: Jones “We can still hear all the poors who live inside your black box” Day.)
Right now, we want to focus on Group C. Group B gets a pass because they started the spring bonus phenomenon and goddamnit we’re going to respect that. Partners at firms in Groups D & F will have to examine their own motives for why they want their associates to secretly hate them.
But Group C is weird. Why create inter-office jealousy and rage when most top firms are paying spring bonuses in all of their offices? Why look that desperate to save a little bit of money?
And you can’t spell “Weird Cost-Cutting” without White & Case…
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Which Firms Are Springing Only in New York?”
We will have a new winner in this year’s Coolest Law Firm contest. When Above the Law first ran this bracket back in 2008, you picked Latham & Watkins as the victor. This time around, they got… Lathamed, in the first round. Cravath crushed Latham by a 60% – 40% margin. That was the second-highest margin of victory among all of the first-round match-ups.
So, for those playing along at home, paying a spring bonus is “more cool” than not paying a spring bonus.
As we move into the Elite Eight, some of our readers are asking us to give a more clear definition of what is “cool.” We respectfully decline to do so. It’s up to you to tell us what makes a top law firm cool. Is it job security, making maximum bank, prestige points? It’s really up to you. Personally I think the coolest law firm would be the one most likely to represent bad-ass clients on the correct side of moral issues, but… eeek, that’s not really what Biglaw is all about.
So bring your own prejudices to the table when you vote in the next round of the Coolest Law Firm Tournament. Use whatever reasoning makes sense to you. Just don’t go with chalk because you can’t be bothered to actually form an opinion — don’t be boring, son….
Continue reading “ATL March Madness: The Coolest Law Firm Elite Eight”
Working Mother just released its annual list of the top 100 companies to work for. As we are (hopefully) coming out of the recession, it is possible that people might actually start caring again about family issues and work/life balance issues.
This year, four law firms made the list. Before we get to the “winners,” let’s take a look at the process required to be up for consideration. To be on the list, first you have to fill out an application with 600 questions.
What is the magazine looking for? Here’s the explanation from their methodology section:
Eight areas are scored: workforce profile; benefits; women’s issues and advancement; child care; flexible work; paid time off and leaves; company culture; and work-life programs. An essay regarding best practices to support working mothers is also evaluated…
Working Mother considers not only the programs, benefits and opportunities offered by companies but also recently settled, decided or still-pending gender discrimination lawsuits.
An essay, do you say? Well, so much for rigid objectivity in list making.
Still, the four law firm winners should be proud. Let’s highlight them from out of the other top 100 companies…
Continue reading “Four Law Firms Make List of Best Companies to Work For
(But Do Law Firms Still Discriminate When It Comes to Pay?)”
If you are new to Above the Law, you might not remember Yolanda Young. She’s an African-American woman who used to work as a staff attorney at Covington & Burling. Some time ago, she sued the firm for racial and gender discrimination. You can read all about her claims here.
Regular readers of this site are already thinking: “Wait, didn’t that suit get dismissed?” ATL veterans are working on their obese/race-baiting/marine mammal mad libs as we speak.
But before we get to those fresh horrors, you all should know something: a federal judge has reinstated part of Yolanda Young’s case against Covington…
Continue reading “Yolanda Young Is Once Again in Covington’s Face”
I have been writing for Above the Law since March of 2008. This Monday, though, will be my last day as a daily contributor. I am heading over to Forbes to write about privacy, law, social media, and technology (aka The Not-So Private Parts). For those who will miss my daily presence on ATL, please feel free to check me out there, or to friend me on Facebook, or to follow me on Twitter. I’ll also be writing a weekly column for Above the Law.
Lat, Elie, and I are going to be getting drinks after work at The Ninth Ward to help numb the separation pain. Please feel free to join us if you’re in New York. Though only if you’re not a weirdo. (You know who you are; but to clarify, weirdos are not those who would show up, but are among those who voted this up.) We’ll be there from six to eight p.m.
As many of you know, unlike my co-editors, I’m not a lawyer. I’m just a little journalist. I appreciate that, despite this moral and educational failing on my part, all of you lawyers and law students have put up with my writing about your profession. Professors Lat and Mystal have offered excellent legal lessons, as have the real law professors I have had the pleasure of interviewing. Plus, I date spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out with lawyers outside of work, and so have a solid appreciation for the terror of living under the reign of the billable hour.
I also did some hourly billing myself way back when; my first job out of college in 2003 was as a paralegal in the D.C. office of Covington & Burling, an experience that convinced me not to apply to law school (despite having rocked the LSAT). During my first summer in D.C., I lived in a five-bedroom apartment in Van Ness with four summer associates — from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Georgetown. We were five corporate law strangers picked to live in a house (vacated by the Georgetown law student’s roommates for the summer). That was where I picked up some useful stereotypes about students from these elite law schools. I came away from the summer with a strong dislike for HLS kids…
Continue reading “The Real World: Corporate Law Edition”
Some summer associates are ending their summers on a very positive note. Quite a few firms have already informed law school students that after this summer fling, they’re interested in a more serious relationship.
Since our last round-up of offices extending offers to 100% of their summer associates, we’ve heard from a few more contented summers…
Continue reading “More Summer Associate Classes With 100% Offer Rates”
Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, like the rest of the nuptial media, is in a state of giddy anticipation over Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming wedding, scheduled for tomorrow in Rhinebeck, NY. We’ll be gobbling up all the juicy details as they leak out, just like the lucky guests will be devouring the vegan and gluten-free fare. Yum!
Chelsea’s big day is one of the social events of the season and is estimated to have up to a $2 million pricetag. This week’s featured weddings may not quite reach that stratospheric territory, but they do have lawyers out the wazoo (unfortunately, neither Chelsea nor her fiancé has a JD; her parents, of course, have two).
Our contestant couples:
1. Farah Peterson and Eugene Sokoloff
2. Julia Lipez and Nolan Reichl
3. Lauren Sasser and Scott McCulloch
Read on for details on these fabulous newlyweds.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 6.27 – 7.4: Circuit Circus”
When I wrote the open thread on the Vault top ten, I wanted to say that none of the top firms froze salaries during the recession. But I couldn’t, because back in November Covington & Burling surprised many people by freezing associate salaries outside of New York.
But as we mentioned at the beginning of this month, salary shenanigans are so 2009. 2010 is the year of salary normalcy.
It appears that Covington received the memo…
Continue reading “Covington & Burling: Salaries Thawed in D.C.”
On Sex and the City, Samantha was never seen scrolling through comments on news blogs to make sure her clients’ reputations weren’t being maligned. Instead, she attended fancy New York parties and talked up her roster of good-looking clients.
But SATC is dated. The work of public relations professionals has been made harder (and less glamorous) by the explosion of online news sources. We know that law firm PR folks spend a healthy amount of time monitoring the legal blogosphere to do damage control for their firms. Another place they need to watch is Wikipedia.
The crowd-source encyclopedia has become the go-to reference site for most Internetters. Society’s sages often warn people not to take everything they find in Wikipedia at face value — since the information does not necessarily come from experts and is not systematically vetted — but that advice often goes unheeded.
Because Wikipedia is such an important source of information, and so easily edited, some try to manipulate entries to give them a positive or negative spin. Lawyers at certain firms have been found guilty of this before (e.g., Wachtell). Sometimes dueling manipulation of an entry reaches the level of what Wikipedia calls an edit war — when two or more editors are continually overriding one another’s changes.
The Wikipedia gods ordered an end to the war on the page of Latham & Watkins. BLY1 noticed that the page was put on lockdown. A note from the Wikipedia war god says:
NOTE: IF YOU HAVE COME HERE TO EDIT ABOUT LAYOFFS, THINK TWICE. EDITS MUST BE FACTUALLY VERIFIABLE, AND NEUTRAL. IF YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THIS COMPANY IN ANY WAY WE ADVISE YOU *NOT* TO TOUCH IT.
Someone kept inserting references to Latham’s layoffs and how hard hit first-year associates were. That info has now been scrubbed from the page.
We decided to take a stroll though the revision history of other law firm pages to see who needs to do clean up, and who has done clean up. Cravath, for example, had a very interesting description for a short time…
Continue reading “Law Firm Wikipedia Wars”
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news: Covington & Burling is thawing out salaries in California. Yay!
The bad news: Covington is keeping salaries frozen in D.C. Why? Because they can. Many tipsters report:
FYI, Covington’s Management Committee informed the associates last Tuesday that it was increasing salaries (retroactive to March 1), but only in its California offices. Mentioned as justification that Latham and Munger are its “peer” California firms, while Steptoe, Howrey, and A&P are its “peer” DC firms.
For the record, Covington never froze New York salaries in the first place — so the thaw only affects California, and the continued freeze only adversely affects D.C.
We’ve got a statement from the firm about this West Coast bias …
Continue reading “At Covington, It’s Always Sunny in California. On the East Coast, Not So Much.”
This morning, we wrote about the partners at DLA Piper sharing in the pain of 2009. The trend at many firms reporting 2009 numbers has been the revenue line heading south while the profits-per-partner line heads north. At DLA, however, revenue and PPP were down at the firm, so Elie gave them a shout-out for not cutting deeply enough.
But perhaps more striking is Covington & Burling: Last year’s revenue was actually up at the D.C.-based firm — but PPP was down.
Covington is über white-shoe, but this seems oh-so-radical-populist. What happened?
Continue reading “Covington & Burling Partners Did Not Plunder in 2009″
Philip Howard wants to “liberate Americans from too much law,” even though the law has served him well. The UVA Law grad is a partner at Covington & Burling. He made a strident argument for legal reform in his book last year, Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick reviewed the book. Though she shares some of his concerns, she concludes that “the cure for ‘too much law’ should not be too little.” But some people think Howard’s ideas are worth spreading. Among them are the organizers of TED. The TED conference invites presentations from leading thinkers in Technology, Entertainment and Design. (Sometimes leading thinkers are god-awful, though.)
Howard spoke at TED about “four ways to fix a broken legal system.” And he did it in just 18 minutes. He said:
Law is supposed to support our freedom, not undermine it. Somehow over the last few decades the land of the free has become a legal minefield. Hardly any social interaction is immune from legal implications. A pediatrician told me matter-of-factly, “I don’t deal with patients the same way anymore. You wouldn’t want to say something off-the-cuff that might be used against you.” My own law firm has questions we’re not allowed to ask interviewees, including such suspect questions as “Where do you come from?” In the land of the First Amendment, spontaneity can land you in a lawsuit.
Well, Covington-wannabes, you don’t have to worry about fielding that question at OCI.
Video from the conference and the bulletpoints, after the jump.
Continue reading “Covington & Burling Partner Wants to Fix the Broken Legal System”
* Part of Yolanda Young’s discrimination suit against Covington & Burling will move forward. [BLT]
* Controversial New Orleans lawyer Ashton O’Dwyer is back in the news. He’s gone from cursing out judges to threatening their lives. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
* The Third Circuit has taken an interest in at least one claim in the Boring lawsuit against Google Street View. [Business Week]
* The National Conference of Bar Examiners must accommodate the testing needs of a blind UCLA law grad, even if it does potentially expose the bar questions to “hackers and thieves.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Massachusetts decides this week whether Southern New England School of Law can merge with the University of Massachusetts to create the state’s first public law school. Many are opposed including three private competitors. Rep. John Quinn says those three law schools should be investigated for potential antitrust issues. [ABA Journal]
* A mini-controversy in Virginia. Should the attorney general , Ken Cuccinelli II, have tried a private case? [Washington Post]
* Blackwater to get more attention from the Justice Department. [New York Times]
Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks, which has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.
This week, economists missed on the good side — initial jobless claims fell by more than expected. The 502,000 applicants are the fewest since January 3, and the four-month rolling average is at the lowest level since November 2008.
It’s tough to grasp half a million people filing for first-time benefits as good news, but these are troubled times, so we have to cheer where we can. Don’t get too excited, though. Even news that looks good at first glance probably isn’t. The 139,000 people who came off the continuing-claims roster more likely did so as a result of benefits running out or giving up the search than actually finding work.
But don’t be surprised if that number starts creeping back up. A bill was passed last week that will extend benefits by 14 weeks in all states, and six additional weeks in states where the unemployment rate is greater than 8.5%.
All in all, it was a relatively good week in BigLaw, with no layoffs reported. Nonetheless, firms continue to flail about trying to fix their economic models, and we document the efforts after the jump.
Continue reading “This Week in Layoffs: 11.14.09″
Oh no. Is it really time to crank up the salary freeze watch again? I thought that the big question this winter would be whether firms that froze salaries last year would be unfreezing pay for 2010. And whether or not the raises were a “true up” raise that put people up to where they would have been absent last year’s freeze.
Instead, could we be looking at a winter where firms that did not freeze last year decide to freeze this year? A tipster reports on some disturbing news coming out of Covington & Burling:
Covington just announced salary freeze for all offices but NY; NY TBD. All-associates meeting.
Above the Law reached out to spokespeople at Covington. Read the firm’s statement after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Salary Freeze Watch: Covington & Burling”
The stalk-and-eventually-marry-your-doorman phenomenon continues to enthrall the NYT weddings editors. This week they shine the spotlight on yet another bride — this time a producer at CNN — who found love in the lobby. LEWW encourages female Biglaw associates to embrace this trend. You’re in and out of office buildings all day, ladies — open your eyes to the lusciousness perched behind those security desks!
And now, this week’s finalist couples:
1. Monique Mendez and Graham O’Donoghue
2. Ashlee Conley and Andrew Veit
3. Anne Claiborne and Andrew Grotto
Read all about these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.27: 31 Flavors”
For those who have been following the Supreme Court case American Needle v. NFL (previously blogged about in more detail here, here, and here), this Friday clothing manufacturer American Needle Inc. will file its opening brief, arguing that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to define the NFL as a single-entity under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
As many of you know, I have long agreed with American Needle’s view that the NFL should be treated as a collection of 32 separate clubs, and not as a single entity. To me, this issue was best resolved by the Second Circuit back in the 1982 case North American Soccer League v. Nat’l Football League, in which that court held “the sound and more just procedure is to judge the legality of [sports league] restraints according to well-recognized standards of our antitrust laws rather than permit their exemption.”
Currently, the Second Circuit’s view remains in the overwhelming majority, as seven previous courts have upheld this view and rejected the NFL clubs’ single-entity argument. The Seventh Circuit meanwhile remains alone in its iconoclastic position that single-entity status should be determined one league at a time, one function at a time.
American Needle’s counsel on this matter in the law firm Jones Day. The National Football League meanwhile is represented by Covington & Burling LLC–a firm where former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue serves as Senior Of Counsel.
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Marc Edelman is a Professor at Barry Law School in Orlando, FL. He previously was a Visiting Professor at Rutgers School of Law-Camden. His bio is available here, and his publications, here.
