Cravath

Biglaw Perk Watch: Working Abroad

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London Bridge small Tower Bridge of London Fergie Abovethelaw Above the Law online legal tabloid.jpgOur posts on the perks or fringe benefits of law firm life continue to generate interest and good comments. Here is today’s topic:

Why don’t you guys do an open thread on working abroad? I know of several firms that send their associates for some period of time to work [overseas].

For example, Allen & Overy has a program in which they send their senior associates to London to work for something around six months. A friend of mind who worked for Shearman went to Asia, and some others from Baker McKenzie have been sent to other offices around the world.

One advantage of working abroad: a generous cost-of-living allowance. Last month, Cravath raised its London COLA:

Cravath Swaine & Moore has raised the cost of its living allowance (Cola) for London office associates from $85,000 (£41,000) to $110,000 (£53,000), The Lawyer can reveal. The 30 per cent hike at the elite firm takes remuneration for the most junior lawyers in Cravath’s City office to potentially in excess of £150,000.

At current exchange rates, that works out to a starting salary of $300,000. Not bad. And a Cravath source tells us that the firm is eager for people to head over there: “[T]hey are super busy and trying to get more people to go and stay longer…. [T]hree hundred grand is a lot of dough, no matter how expensive London is!”
Your thoughts on overseas Biglaw gigs are welcome, in the comments.
Cravath hikes London cost of living allowance [TheLawyer.com]
Earlier: Biglaw Pay Raise Watch: Weil and Cleary to 180, Latham to 190!

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Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 1-5

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Worldwide Plaza World Wide Plaza Cravath Swaine Moore Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgHere’s an idea that we liked, from a thoughtful and helpful reader:

I was a big fan of your recruiting threads by city. Same goes for the firm benefits/perks threads. One problem, however, is that people often say what it’s like at their firm but fail to mention which firm those perks apply to. I understand the need for confidentiality, but it defeats the purpose of finding out what certain firms are like.

One possible way to remedy this is to do similar posts, but to list just a handful of firms to discuss for that day. Probably the best way would be to go down the Vault 100, since most people consider this gospel. For instance, the first day you could start a thread about the top 5 firms on Vault, to discuss perks, hours, recruiting, firm life, etc.

This way, if someone who posts does not want to discuss which firm they are at, people can still have a general idea [of what firms in that tier are like]. There aren’t too many differences between the top 1-5 firms, and same goes for the next five and the next five.

We like this idea, and we like Vault. They publish a great guide to law firms, they advertise on ATL, and they have a shout-out to us in their write-up of Wachtell Lipton (which you can see after the jump).
So we’ll give this a try. If the discussion is anemic and/or insipid, then we’ll just write it off as a failed experiment. But if the discussion is robust and informative, then we’ll keep on going. Here is today’s quintet of law firms (with Vault prestige scores indicated parenthetically):

1. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (8.780)
2. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (8.732)
3. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (8.224)
4. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (8.197)
5. Davis Polk & Wardwell (8.126)

Please discuss and compare these firms in the comments. Thanks.
The Vault Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]
Vault Guide to the Top 100 Law Firms (2008 Edition) [Vault]

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Lawsuit of the Day: Legal Fight Over Ladies’ Night

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Ladies Night party girl Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgSo what do lawyers do when they leave the hallowed halls of Cravath, Swaine & Moore?
Some move on to smaller firms. Some, like former corporate partner Robert Kindler, go into investment banking (and make even more money).
But some take more surprising paths. From the current issue of the New Yorker:

A former associate at Cravath, Swain [sic] & Moore, [Roy Den Hollander] had moved to Russia to work as a private investigator. There he met a woman, with whom he returned to New York. They were married in March, 2000, and separated by December. In Den Hollander v. Flash Dancers Topless Club et al., Den Hollander sued his ex-wife and her employer under the auspices of a civil RICO statute. The suit was dismissed.

Did that romantic misadventure leave Hollander with hostility towards women? It might explain his latest legal quest, which is our Lawsuit of the Day:

In June, [Hollander] filed a federal lawsuit alleging that ladies’ nights constitute a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Citing invidious discrimination, he named as defendants the night clubs A.E.R., Lotus, Sol, China Club, and the Copacabana—which charged lower admission fees for women at, respectively, their Remix Thursdays, Velvet List Wednesdays, Models and Bottles Fridays, Metropolis Fridays, and College Party Thursdays.

What do other crusaders for gender equality make of the case? Karen DeCrow, vice-president of the Greater Syracuse chapter of the National Organization for Women, agreed with Hollander’s legal theory — even if, she noted, “it probably wouldn’t be very fun to go out to dinner with him.”
On the Docket: Hey, La-a-a-dies! [New Yorker]
N.Y. Lawsuit Calls ‘Ladies’ Night’ Discriminatory [National Law Journal]

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Lawyerly Lairs: Cravath Re-Ups at the Death Star

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Worldwide Plaza World Wide Plaza Cravath Swaine Moore Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgThe typical Lawyerly Lairs post offers a voyeuristic peek inside the luxurious residence of a prominent lawyer. Today’s post, in contrast, is about an office building. But since lawyers at Cravath, Swaine & Moore pretty much live in the office, the home/office distinction doesn’t matter.
From the New York Observer:

Cravath is staying right at home in their Death Star.* The white shoe law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore has signed a 15-year renewal at the Worldwide Plaza at 825 Eighth Avenue that will cost the firm $900 million….

Bloomberg reports that Cravath will retain its nearly 600,000 square feet at a little less than $100 per square foot, a far cry from the $39 per foot it paid for a lease it signed in 1989. When Cravath moved to the Hell’s Kitchen building back in the 1980′s, it was a risk for a high-powered law firm to move that far west, even if it was in a brand-new tower. Twenty years later, with the West Side firmly established, the deal was clearly a steal, especially over the last few years.

We offer some additional observations of our own, after the jump.
* We’ve been over this before, people. The Observer has it right. Skadden hasn’t been referred to as the Death Star ever since they moved into the Conde Nast Building at Four Times Square, home to dozens of fashion models — who walk on real runways, not the Skadden support staff runway.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 06.17: Picture This

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LEWW logo.jpg

LEWW is so devoted to you, dear readers, that we haul out our scanner every week so we can show you pictures that the Times doesn’t post in its online edition. But this week the NYT was showing no photographic love for the lawyers. All three of our featured couples are picture-less!

We hate it too, but to borrow a way overused line from recent TV criticism, “Whaddya gonna do?” Just try to picture them in your minds or something. Here are our finalists:

1. Eva Temkin and David Lehn Jr.
2. Sophia Lynn and David Frederick
3. Amanda McCormick and Matthew Bacal

More about these couples, after the jump.

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A Correction About Cravath

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Cravath Swaine Moore LLP Above the Law blog.JPGIn yesterday’s post about Cravath, Swaine & Moore starting up a bankruptcy department, to be launched by lateral hire Richard Levin (from Skadden), we wrote:

Cravath isn’t big on lateral hiring. When they hired tax lawyer Andrew Needham away from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in 2005, he was their first lateral partner in more than six decades (per Wikipedia).

Nor has Cravath been into bankruptcy work. Even though many other white-shoe firms have entered that historically “icky” practice area, CSM has stayed on the sidelines.

The statement that Cravath has avoided bankruptcy work was in error. From a knowledgeable tipster:

I want to correct your assertion that Cravath has traditionally stayed away from bankruptcy. Cravath historically has been very involved with bankruptcy and insolvency — Paul Cravath himself was the leading railroad insolvency lawyer of his generation, helping JPMorgan and the like swindle railroad bondholders out of billions.

For the bankruptcy geeks among you, our source schools us further, after the jump.

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Musical Chairs: Cravath Snags Lateral from Skadden

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Richard Levin Richard B Levin Above the Law blog.jpgCravath isn’t big on lateral hiring. When they hired tax lawyer Andrew Needham away from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in 2005, he was their first lateral partner in more than six decades (per Wikipedia).
Nor has Cravath been into bankruptcy work. Even though many other white-shoe firms have entered that historically “icky” practice area, CSM has stayed on the sidelines.
Update/Correction: Actually, Cravath’s relationship with bankruptcy practice is a bit more complicated. And that last paragraph may be somewhat misleading. Click here for more.
At long last, Cravath is starting up a bankruptcy practice. And it’s bringing in a heavy hitter to get things up and running.
From a Cravath press release (just sent around the firm by email):

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP has announced that Richard Levin (at right), one of the authors of the 1978 U.S. Bankruptcy Code, will join the Firm as a Partner on July 1, 2007 to head its newly established restructuring and insolvency practice.

Mr. Levin joins Cravath from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where he was a partner in that firm’s corporate restructuring department.

So Cravath is moving into bankruptcy work. Is this a bad sign for the U.S. economy — the Biglaw equivalent of, say, rising home foreclosures?
Update: Perhaps. Some thoughts on the subject are now up at the WSJ Law Blog. DealBook also has this post.
The complete Cravath memo, after the jump.

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Skaddenfreude: So How Much Do Partners Actually Take Home?

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100 dollar bill Above the Law Above the Law law firm salary legal blog legal tabloid Above the Law.JPGWe’re all very familiar with the average profits-per-partner figures that are published as part of the AmLaw 100 law firm rankings. But since they’re just averages, they do raise some obvious questions:

– What’s the average take-home pay for a typical Biglaw partner?

– How much do newly minted, junior partners earn, compared to the most senior or most highly compensated partners of a large law firm?

– How much can superstars with enormous books of business rake in?

Information that goes a significant way towards answering such questions appears in this fascinating article, by Andrew Longstreth for the American Lawyer. You should read the whole thing for yourself; it’s socioeconomic voyeurism at its best.
A few excerpts, and some quick thoughts from us, appear after the jump.

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Skaddenfreude: The $50K Club Welcomes Cravath, Swaine & Moore

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100 dollar bill Above the Law Above the Law law firm salary legal blog legal tabloid Above the Law.JPGToday brings more happy tidings for law clerks, emanating from The Death Star.
Check out the Cravath website (navigate through Career Information: Law Students, Life at Cravath, and Associate Life):

Incoming associates, in fall 2007, who have completed a U.S. Federal district court, Federal appellate court, or state highest court clerkship receive a bonus of $50,000 and credit for a one-year clerkship.

What about for two clerkships or two years of clerking? Or clerkships that don’t fit one of the foregoing categories?

Those associates who complete a clerkship of two years or two one-year clerkships will receive (in lieu of the $50,000 bonus described previously) a bonus of $70,000 and class credit for each year of a clerkship, up to two years. Credit and bonuses for a magistrate, a state lower court or a clerkship outside of the U.S. are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Good stuff. We commend Cravath for its transparency with respect to these matters. And we congratulate them on joining Weil Gotshal at the top of the bonus market for two clerkships: $70,000. (More on Weil in a later post.)
So now the $50K Club has five members (in order of their joining): Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thacher, Paul Weiss, Weil Gotshal, and Cravath.
Correction: The paragraph below, which now appears in strikethrough text, was based on erroneous information. We were previously advised that Cravath paid different clerkship bonuses for district and circuit court clerkships. That was incorrect. The old Cravath clerkship bonus structure was $15K across the board, up to a maximum of $30K.
One other observation on the Cravath news. It removes the firm’s former two-tier system with respect to clerkship bonuses ($15K for district court clerkships, $35K for circuit court clerkships). This makes sense to us. While circuit court clerks may have, on the whole or as a general matter, more impressive credentials than district court clerks, a district court clerkship is usually a more educational experience (at least viewed from the perspective of a future litigator).

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Deposition Train Wreck Stories, Please

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tape office tape Scotch tape Cravath Swaine Moore Above the Law blog.jpgYes, we linked to it previously. But we love this video clip so much, we’re going to link to it again. Check it out here.
Speaking of hilarious depositions, we’d like to solicit your funny stories about depositions gone awry. Please submit them to us by email (subject line: “Deposition Story”).
Most of the depositions that we attended back in the day were pretty boring affairs (and once we fell asleep in one). But lately we’ve heard some amusing deposition anecdotes.
We heard an especially good one involving a Cravath partner who couldn’t keep her hands to herself. Or maybe she could — and that was precisely the problem….
Anyway, check it out, after the jump.

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