“I thought Freshfields [Bruckhaus Deringer] was a supermarket when I got here,” says Kirsty Grant, a fourth-year associate in the London office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. Happily, Grant — a fast-learner who got through law school in L.A. while working full-time during the day — quickly figured out that the Anglo-German law firm, a member of the Magic Circle, wasn’t the place to fulfill her grocery needs.
The cultural assimilation enjoyed by the UCLA and Loyola graduate since she arrived in London last March hasn’t stopped there. “At first I couldn’t believe the drinking culture here,” she recalls. “The first Friday after work that I went to the pub, I thought, ‘I haven’t had any food; I can’t do this.’ And then the London lawyers went on until 5 a.m. I just don’t have the liver for it, but it shocks me less now.”
Not that Grant, 33, has oceans of spare cash to splash on boozy nights out. How do her finances as an American abroad compare to those of her Biglaw counterparts back home?
Continue reading “Letter from London: ‘I Thought Freshfields Was a Supermarket’”
Benedict Arnold was a general during the American Revolutionary War who started out in the Continental Army but later defected to the Brits. So when in the early 1990s U.S. lawyers Jeffrey Golden and Thomas Joyce quit, respectively, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Dorsey & Whitney to join U.K. firms Allen & Overy (A&O) and Freshfields, the pair were jokingly likened to Arnold.
Having found themselves ostracised from their old club of U.S. securities lawyers, “The Ad Hoc Committee,” in the wake of their traitorous moves, they founded a new association for the growing band of turncoats like them populating London firms. Its official name was “The Permanent Committee,” but it quickly attracted the moniker, “The Benedict Arnold Society.”
These days, with the one-man U.K. firm U.S. legal practices started by Golden and Joyce now employing hundreds of American lawyers, the Benedict Arnold Society is going stronger than ever; its Yank expat members meeting for dinners that go late into the night every month at the offices of their adopted British law firms.
Jeff Golden, who retired from A&O in 2010 and is now a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), still sometimes struggles to believe the level of change that has taken place since he and Tom Joyce set up the club in 1993….
Continue reading “Letter from London: The Benedict Arnold Society”
It takes a while to get over squandering an empire. As our habit of placing the prefix “Great” before “Britain” suggests, we’re still not quite there yet. But deep down we know we blew it. The evidence is everywhere: from our dentists, who don’t really know what they’re doing anymore, to our universities, which are crumbling, just like our schools, hospitals, and public transport.
Somehow, though, the U.K’s legal system has avoided being dragged into this spiral of decline. Yes, we’re still good at law — so good, in fact, that London is the top destination in the world for international companies to settle disputes, and English law the most popular among international in-house counsel (40% use it, with just 14% opting for New York law). And, in spite of the relatively tiny size of the British domestic legal market, our law firms manage to give yours a run for their money, with the Magic Circle quartet of Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Freshfields and A&O outdoing most of their U.S. rivals in terms of turnover and profits.
Doubtless part of this success stems from the fact that Britain is the home of the Common Law, which, unless some joker on Wikipedia is deceiving me, was invented around the 1150s by King Henry II. And as we saw during the April nuptials between Prince William and his bride Kate, our “Ye Olde Ingland” nostalgia sells very nicely to foreigners….
Continue reading “Letter from London: How To Squander an Empire”
Ed. note This is a special report on the London riots by Alex Aldridge, our U.K. correspondent. He previously covered the royal wedding for Above the Law.
When the London riots began on Saturday, few were overly troubled. The violence was, after all, in Tottenham, a poor neighbourhood up on the north edge of town which most middle-class people avoid.
But when it spread over the last couple of days to partially gentrified areas like Brixton and Hackney, we began to take notice. These places are our Lower East Sides and Williamsburgs, populated by young professionals who spend their weeks in Biglaw and other similar jobs, and weekends flouncing around in hipster uniform.
As you’d expect, the relationship between the young professionals and the Brixton/Hackney natives has never been great. But amid the current craziness — which has partly been generated by Britain’s awful record on social mobility — there’s been genuine fear that years of pent up anger could turn into blood-letting.
So it must have been with mixed feelings that Freshfields lawyers greeted the firm’s edict yesterday to leave work (and the relative safety of London’s financial district) early and go back to their riot-enveloped homes….
Continue reading “The London Riots, From a Legal Perspective”
One of my favorite law firm names is Freshfields — Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, to be precise, but I prefer Freshfields. It makes me think of rolling green hills, crisp laundered linens, or a dairy, producing the creamiest milk in all the land.
As it turns out, Freshfields is a law firm — a top international law firm, a member of the elite Magic Circle. And this Freshfields is rolling out the green, doling out crisp bills, and ladling out the cream — to its associates. As reported earlier today by Am Law Daily, yesterday Freshfields announced spring bonuses, on the top-of-the-market Cravath scale.
Freshfields isn’t alone. This afternoon, Cadwalader, which was publicly toying with the idea of spring bonuses, announced that it too would pay them, again on the Cravath scale.
These two moves are significant — far more significant than the earlier spring bonus announcements….
Continue reading “Spring Bonus Mania: Freshfields, Cadwalader…. Where Will It End? Could Your Firm Be Next?”
This was a year of small summer classes. Fewer summer associates mean a greater likelihood that all will get offers… unless a law student does something egregious. (Good news for rising 2Ls: There are signs that next year’s classes will be larger.)
Latham & Watkins and Gibson Dunn had the biggest summer associate classes this year, with 110 law students each. We’re told that Latham gave offers to all of its summer associates. What about Gibson? Will it match Latham one for one? One commenter claims that 24 in the firm’s NYC office have already gotten offers. What about the rest?
We have heard 100% news from a few other brand-name firms. Some came with champagne, others with firm-wide emails…
Continue reading “The 100% Summer Associate Offer Rates Keep Rolling In”
We’ve gotten away from plowing through the latest Vault Rankings, but fear not. Your firm is coming up soon.
We’ve been through the top 30 firms. But now we’re getting into a group of firms that really utilized the cost-cutting measures of salary cuts and layoffs to weather the recession of 2009. Did these guys take a big prestige hit? Not really. Here’s the next batch of firms:
31. Mayer Brown
32. Milbank
33. Paul Hastings
34. Akin Gump
35. Allen & Overy
36. Fried Frank
37. Irell & Manella
38. Freshfields
39. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
40. Willkie Farr & Gallagher
Just off the top of my head, does anybody else think that Irell is coming in a little low?
Anyway, let’s get into these firms…
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 31 – 40 (2011)”
* Jurors friending each other on Facebook and doing Wikipedia research cause mistrials in Maryland. [ABA Journal]
* A candid conversation with Elie Mystal. Bonus: a slideshow! [Legal Broadcast Network]
* University of Massachusetts board ignores Elie’s warning and approves first public law school. [Telegram]
* Blago’s defense attorney gets his stolen laptops back. [Chicagoist]
* “How can we help a 47-year-old female lawyer who is still living with her parents and cannot go anywhere without her mother?” [Boston Globe]
* Freshfields warns that hedge funds will flee Europe. [Financial 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″
As we roll through the next segment of the 2010 Vault rankings, we get into some firms that have been caught testing the stealth layoff waters. To refresh your memory, here is the next list of firms:
31. Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy
32. Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker
33. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
34. Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson
35. Winston & Strawn
36. Allen & Overy
37. Willkie Farr & Gallagher
38. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
39. Baker Botts
40. Munger Tolles & Olson
Check out the big move by Munger. It’s up 11 spots on this year’s list. And let’s not forget about the firm’s #1 A-List ranking by Am Law earlier this year. Munger’s managed to do all of this without laying off a massive number of associates. Hopefully other Biglaw firms (and current 2Ls) will take note.
We know people have strong opinions about some of the firms on this list. Let’s get into them after the jump.
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 31 – 40 (2010)”
As you know, many international law firms are affiliated with local counsel based around the world. The magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has an affiliation with a Saudi firm named, The Law Firm of Salah Al Hejailan, or LFSH.
LFSH is hiring a new attorney. The firm sent out an email to the recruiting agencies it works with. But the firm was looking for someone with very specific qualifications. Some might argue that the qualifications were too specific. Here is the email that LFSH sent to recruiters:
We are interested in recruiting one senior Anglo-Saxon lawyer (with 7+ PQE), preferably with Saudi, but at the very least with GCC work experience to play a corporate/commercial role in our Jeddah office. By Anglo-Saxon we mean of Caucasian ethnicity as opposed to lawyers from the MENA or Asian Sub-Continent who happen to have UK or US nationality/qualifications. Please bear in mind that, as a general legal practice, we expect the successful candidate to have sufficient maturity/acumen to handle a broad range of legal work rather being specialised in one particular field.
We are also keen to recruit one junior Anglo-Saxon lawyer (with 3 – 5 years PQE) for the Riyadh office to support our general corporate/commercial practice. [Emphasis in the original]
I’m a big fan of affirmative action, but it seems like something got lost in translation.
After the jump, both Freshfields, The Law Firm of Salah Al Hejailan, and Salah Al-Hejailan himself, responds and apologizes for the poorly worded email.
Continue reading “Freshfields’s Affiliated Counsel in Saudi Arabia Makes a Recruitment Mistake”
Welcome to another post in the 2009 Vault 100 open thread series. You all seem to like having the law firms listed in groups of ten, so we’ll keep it up. Here are the thirty-something firms from the Vault 100, with prestige scores in parentheses:
31. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP (6.461)
32. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (6.327)
33. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (6.313)
34. Winston & Strawn LLP (6.275)
35. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges LLP (6.235)
36. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (6.174)
37. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (6.173)
38. Allen & Overy LLP (6.147)
39. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft (6.131)
40. Proskauer Rose LLP (6.102)
Fried Frank and Cadwalader have been on the ATL radar of late. We broke news of staff layoffs at Fried Frank earlier this week, and news of the attorney bloodletting at Cadwalader last month. As noted in Cadwalader’s notable perks: “ouch, layoffs.” (Speaking of, in going through the Vault 100 list, we’ve discovered that Vault’s definition of “perk” is very different from ours.)
In the comments, the curious can pose questions, and the insiders can share insights. More threads to come.
Earlier: Vault 100 Open Threads – 2009
From the London Times:
Lawyer aims for KO
A City solicitor who swapped the boardroom for the boxing ring is to make her professional debut. Laura Saperstein, 36, from Tottenham, North London, was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer with Freshfields, earning £75,000 a year. Three years ago she left to train full-time and won the British lightweight amateur title. Her bout, against a Swedish opponent at Tooting Leisure Centre, will be on November 18.
We’re guessing that Ms. Saperstein is enjoying her new career, in which she’s already encountered significant success. But perhaps she misses her old job, or at least the paycheck of her old job, this time of year.
Her former employer, the Magic Circle firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, just announced bonuses for its New York and D.C. “fee earners.” The memo appears after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Freshfields Matches”
Here are this morning’s firms (in Vault 100 order, prestige scores in parentheses):
36. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (6.308)
37. Linklaters (6.301)
38. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (6.244)
39. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (6.204)
40. Proskauer Rose LLP (6.195)
You’ll note that one of these firms is Linklaters, which we recently wrote about. We reprint two emails from Linklaters sources, taking issue with our prior coverage, after the jump.
The Vault Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]
Earlier: Vault 1-5; Vault 6-10; Vault 11-15; Vault 16-20; Vault 21-25; Vault 26-30; Vault 31-35
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 36-40″
