Cravath

Does Cravath Need to Match Sullivan & Cromwell?

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2009 Associate bonus watch above the law.JPGA funny thing happened on the way to Cravath setting the 2009 Biglaw associate bonus. They didn’t. When Cleary matched Cravath’s bonus, 83% of Above the Law readers said that all other large New York firms would follow Cravath. But 83% of our readers were wrong.
Sullivan & Cromwell topped Cravath’s bonus by $5,000 for senior associates (class of 2002). Sure, it’s only $5,000. But that is $5,000 more than senior associates get for staying at Cravath. Call it a $5,000 retention bonus.
Does Cravath — and all the firms that rushed to follow Cravath — need to go back in and up the bonus payout to its senior people?
More discussion after the jump.

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Breaking: Cleary Matches Cravath Bonuses
Is it all over? Reader poll after the jump.

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2009 Associate bonus watch above the law.JPGWe have confirmed the news of a Cravath bonus match with multiple sources at Cleary Gottlieb. One exchange went something like this:

ATL: Any good news today?

CGSH: No. Cravath news. Bonus FAIL.

So the 2009 bonus market is probably going to coalesce around the Cravath-level bonuses — unless S&C shows up and trumps CSM. Stay tuned.
The timing of the announcement is telling. Usually bad news is saved for Friday afternoons, so it gets lost in the pre-weekend shuffle. Did CGSH view its bonus numbers as potentially disappointing to the recipients?
Perhaps. In our reader poll on the Cravath bonuses, a majority of respondents said the CSM bonuses made them either “unhappy” or “very unhappy” (the most popular choice). Approximately 30 percent said the bonuses made them “neither happy nor unhappy.” Under 20 percent said the bonuses made them “happy” or “very happy.”
The Cleary memo and another READER POLL, after the jump.

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Is it all over? Reader poll after the jump.“

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Breaking: Cravath Bonuses Are Out (and Down)

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Year-end bonuses have been announced at the market-leading firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. And they are even lower than last year’s Cravath bonuses.

But look, this is 2009. Welcome to the Great Recession. Your true bonus is: you get to keep your job. That shouldn’t be taken for granted, even at Cravath.

Anyway, here’s the Cravath bonus scale for 2009 (via the WSJ Law Blog):

Class of 2008 — $7,500
Class of 2007 — $10,000
Class of 2006 — $15,000
Class of 2005 — $20,000
Class of 2004 — $25,000
Class of 2003 — $30,000
Class of 2002 — $30,000

Cravath’s bonus announcement is always important because the market tends to follow Cravath — as it did last year. Skadden’s 2008 bonuses, at roughly twice Cravath’s levels, were ignored.

Could this year be different? Are the Cravath bonus levels low enough such that a firm of similar or even lower prestige will try to better CSM? Or will other Biglaw shops simply avail themselves of the political cover provided by Cravath — which is arguably what happened last year, when Skadden’s generous bonuses went unmatched (excluding Wachtell)?

So, readers, what do you think? Read the FULL MEMO, take a READER POLL, and COMMENT — after the jump.

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Deal Talk, Texas Style

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Jim Woolery Cravath.JPGDeal work isn’t just about substance. Style points will help you go far, at least according to Jim Woolery of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. In an interview he gave to the Dallas Morning News (gavel bang: ABA Journal), Woolery explains that his success is due in part to his ability to look like a New Yorker but talk like a Texan:

“They like me in Texas because I’m from this fancy New York law firm, but I talk Texan,” says the 40-year-old partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. “When [Dallas attorney] Phil Smith from McKool Smith tells me, ‘Things are going to get Westerned,’ I know he means things are going to get sideways or upside down.”

My friends, this is why it is important to have diversity in the partnership ranks. Sometimes you need a guy like Woolery to make that special Love Connection.
Just how much has Woolery’s western charm been worth to Cravath?

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 8.17 and 8.24: Astrophysical

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champagne glasses small.jpgLEWW is fascinated by ATL’s Douchiest Law School contest. Official results haven’t been announced yet, but based on our preliminary read, Yale seems to have notched a decisive first-round victory over the University of Texas, and it looks like Harvard has trounced UCLA. Stanford Law School, however, appears to have been decisively out-douched by lowly Georgetown. Conclusion: The relationship between douchiness and prestige is not linear.
This week’s weddings feature two YLS grads and two SLS grads, so these lawyer newlyweds are undeniably prestigious. But are they also representative of their respective institutions’ reputations for d-baggery? We’ll let you make the call.
Here are the couples:

1. Wendy Katz and Matthew Waxman
2. Megan Wall-Wolff and Joshua Younger
3. Julia Kripke and Matthew Kellogg

Read all about these couples and vote for your favorite, after the jump.

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Summer Offer Rate Open Thread: Are We Back to 100%?

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summer associate program offer rate no offer.jpgSummer programs at many firms are shorter this year than last year. That means the summer is over at a lot of places, and summer associates are starting to learn their fates.
So far, there is some surprising news. Summers are getting offers. Many people have reported that their firm has given full, 100% offers to 2009 summer associates. Summers at Sullivan & Cromwell and Davis Polk are just some of the people reporting good news:

Davis Polk & Wardwell and Sullivan & Cromwell have extended offers to all of their summer associates.

Update (12:35): Additional tipsters inform us that Davis Polk has only given 100% offers to the summers that have already left. That is about half of the summer associates. The rest of the SAs leave on Friday, so we’ll see.
We also have received word that Cravath is making 100% offers.
After the jump, let’s look at a few more firms that we believe are making full offers to this year’s summer associates.

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On-Campus Interviewing at UVA: Hunton In, Cravath Out

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Hunton Williams logo.JPGEarlier this week, we reported that Hunton & Williams wasn’t on the list of firms conducting on-campus interviews — or, to be technical, “on-grounds interviewing” (OGI) — at UVA Law School. That appears to have changed. From an email sent out yesterday afternoon by UVA Law’s office of career services:

[A] number of employers have signed up for OGI just this week. We have provided a list below. If you prepared your rankings previously, you may want to consider working these employers into your schedule. For example, contrary to what was reported on AbovetheLaw.com, Hunton & Williams is, in fact, interviewing during the OGI process and has been added to the system as of this afternoon.

The wording of the memo is misleading to the extent that it implies our original report was not correct at the time it was published. We have confirmed with UVA’s career services office that Hunton & Williams signed up for OGI after our original post went up.
Of course, that’s just a matter of chronology, not causation. But some readers think we might have played a role. From one law student tipster (representative of about half a dozen who expressed the same sentiment):

Apparently the ATL shaming was enough — Hunton and Williams now has a
bid page for UVA OGI.

More discussion, including the full UVA career services memo, after the jump.

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Everyone’s Favorite Cravath Alum Feeling Overtaxed by Sex Offenders Program

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James Colliton Jim Colliton Cravath Swaine Moore Above the Law blog.jpgJames Colliton — the ex-Cravath tax lawyer who, in the words of the AP, “paid a woman so he could have sex with her two underage daughters” — has served his time, and is now living in a motel “on Route 9.” Apparently, he’s getting too many visits from town police officers who stop by frequently as part of a county program to monitor sex offenders.
Colliton plans to file a $100 million federal suit against the town of Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County. From the Poughkeepsie Journal (via Tax Prof Blog):

Colliton claims the program violates state law and deprives him of his constitutional right to privacy and his Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches.
Describing police visits as the “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” Colliton recently served town and county officials with a notice of claim — often a precursor to filing suit.
In his eight-page claim filed last month, Colliton indicates he intends to seek $3 million in compensatory damages and $97 million in punitive damages in federal court.

Although he practiced as a tax lawyer, Colliton clearly likes litigation. He previously sued American Express for giving police the credit card information that led to his arrest, and he sued Cravath for stiffing him on his bonus.
Watch out, Jonathan Lee Riches. You’ve got competition for the title of most ridiculous pro se litigant of all time.
Sex Offender Fights Police Visits [Poughkeepsie Journal via Tax Prof Blog]

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Stealth Layoff Watch: Laid Off Cravath Associates Will Not Be Ignored

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Cravath Swaine Moore LLP logo small.JPGOn Friday, we reported that Cravath offered a voluntary deferral option to up to 50% of its incoming class of first year associates. People who are not yet associates can count on $80,000, health care, and loan repayment assistance from the firm in exchange for taking a year off.
Apparently, that was the last straw for associates that have been laid off from Cravath over the past several months. Tips started pouring in to Above the Law reporting stealth layoffs that have been taking place at the firm since December 2008.
Tipsters — including sources that claim that have been laid off — report that at least 25 people have been let go from Cravath for “performance” reasons. And sources still at the firm expect more layoffs to come this month:

Cravath Swaine & Moore has been doing stealth lay off of associates since December ’08 (using performance evaluation as the excuse). Since January of 2009, they have been doing stealth lay offs more aggressively. Rumor has it that stealth layoffs of staff will be happening this month (June).

We directly asked the firm whether or not these reports were true. But to this point, the firm has declined to comment.
So if the firm has a performance reason for letting these people go, it is not sharing it with us. But regardless of why people are being let go, some laid off associates are annoyed that they are not getting the same treatment during the recession as 2008 summer associates.

I was fired. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m not getting $80,000 to wait out the terrible economy.

After the jump, sources tell us exactly what happens when you get fired from Cravath.

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Cravath Announcement Causes Immediate Reaction At Harvard Law School

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Harvard Law School seal logo.jpgDon’t get too close to any Ivory Tower in your town today. The news that Cravath is leaving the class of 2010 out of work for a year has sent monocles flying as students at top law schools learn a powerful lesson about free market capitalism.
Harvard Law School sent out a letter to all of its rising 3Ls in the wake of the Cravath announcement. It essentially warned them that you can’t trade in an HLS degree for food and shelter:

Dear Rising 3Ls:
We hope you are getting off to a great start in your summer jobs. We write to alert you about a situation that may require action on your part. As you know, many law firms deferred the start dates of class of 2009 associates from 2009 to 2010. Without clear indication that the economy will turn around by 2010, some firms are planning ahead and already notifying summer associates from the class of 2010 that their start dates are likely to be deferred until 2011 or later. See, e.g., Cravath and Skadden. Generally firms have been generous in providing fellowships or stipends to the class of 2009 given the surprise to that class, but firms may not provide such options to you in the class of 2010 because you have more advance notice about economic conditions. If you are at a law firm this summer and hope to return after graduation, you should ask yourself now what you might do to fill the 2010-2011 year if necessary. [Emphasis in the original.]

What should the class of 2010 do for post-graduate employment, “if necessary”? Stipends look like they are going to be less generous, so people might actually need to earn some money for a year.
So, what can you do with a law degree once Biglaw decides that they don’t want you? I hear law firms in Baghdad are booming right now.
Harvard has its own ideas, after the jump.

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