Today we head into the nation’s capital to bring you six of the best partners to work for as chosen by our readers.
These partners go above and beyond the call of duty, and do so while working at some of the finest law firms: Akin Gump, SNR Denton, Hogan Lovells, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, Fried Frank, and Chadbourne & Parke.
Who are these phenomenal partners?
We have been tracking — as have other news outlets, such as the New York Times — which leading law firms offer the perk we’ve nicknamed the gay gross-up. If you’re inclined towards formality, you can call it the “tax offset for domestic partner health benefits.” For an explanation of what this perk is all about, read this prior post.
Since our last round-up, additional prominent law firms have adopted this policy. Let’s check out the latest list….
UPDATE (9/7/11, 12:30 PM): We’ve added to our list since it went up yesterday.
Continue reading “Biglaw Perk Watch: More Firms Adopt the Gay Gross-Up”
Matthew Kluger aka Big Gay Matt
“Aww, Matt, why do you have to go around giving us a bad name?”
Ever since Matthew Kluger was charged in a massive insider trading case, involving an alleged conspiracy that spanned 17 years and generated more than $32 million in profit, the foregoing question could be asked by many groups: Cornell grads, NYU law grads, Cravath lawyers, Skadden lawyers, and Wilson Sonsini lawyers.
Tonight we can add more groups to the list: Fried Frank lawyers, and gays — specifically, gay dads.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier tonight, Matt Kluger worked at yet another major law firm: Fried Frank. After he was fired by the firm in 2002, he sued, claiming that partners there discriminated against him because he’s gay — and a father of three, with parenting responsibilities.
Just when you thought this case couldn’t get any weirder, it just did. Matthew Kluger is gay. And a dad. With three kids. Thanks for sending America such a positive image of LGBT parents, Matt!
Let’s take a closer look at Kluger’s suit against Fried Frank — and additional details about Matt Kluger’s complicated personal life, gleaned from ATL tipsters….
Spring bonus news seemed to slow down last week. But New York firms are still having their feet held to fire of spring payments. On Friday afternoon, Fried Frank announced that it would be joining the spring bonus parade.
Fried Frank will be matching the Cravath scale for spring bonuses.
I hate to bring this up, since Sullivan & Cromwell was nice enough to start the spring bonus trend in the first place. But really S&C, Fried Frank is now paying a bigger bonus than you guys. Isn’t it just about time to step up?
UPDATE: Bonus memos for New York and for D.C. — where spring bonuses are also being paid — after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Grills Up Spring Bonuses”
* Modesty reared its ugly head after Jersey Shore’s JWoWW discovered that she might not be able to cash in on her naked photos. [New York Law Journal]
* Which is Mayor Bloomberg more pissed about — that some more ice melt could’ve saved a life, or that it could’ve saved $20 million? [Wall Street Journal]
* No more time outs for federal prosecutors behaving badly. Thanks to Eric Holder, they’ll be subject to a much swifter spanking. [USA Today]
* You really can get anything on Groupon, even legal services. What you can’t get is your dignity back after peddling coupons for cash. [ABA Journal]
* A lawsuit that’s sure to balloon into notoriety. If copying Jeff Koons is wrong, then I don’t want to be copyright. [New York Times]
* Failing the bar exam is one thing, but failing to sell your law degree on eBay is quite another. Resume Goddess did both. [Out of the Storm News]
* R. Sargent Shriver, former Fried Frank name partner, R.I.P. [Associated Press]
On Friday, the firm of Fried Frank announced associate bonuses. This year’s announcement was just like last year’s, i.e., something of a black box. The firm memo, reprinted below, states that FFHSJ will be paying “year-end bonuses to New York associates in varying amounts up to $40,000″ — but doesn’t say much more than that.
So nobody at Fried Frank really knows how much anyone else is getting. According to one source, though, “the news is that bonuses are generally in line with other firms and are being paid by year end.” In addition, “[r]umor is that bonus structure may not be lock-step and might (heaven forfend) be based in part on performance.”
The full memo appears after the jump. Fried Frank folk, feel free to compare your bonuses in the comments.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Announces Bonuses ‘Up to $40,000′”
And just like that, it’s December. Flurries fill the sky, Wham’s “Last Christmas” saturates the airwaves, and the list of weddings in the New York Times shortens dramatically. Quality tends to decline along with quantity, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised to find plenty of comment-worthy nuptials (and attractive brides!) over the past couple of weeks.
Here are the three weddings that most caught caught our eye:
Elizabeth Kronick and Michael Kleinman
Check out these couples’ pictures and write-ups, including one jaw-dropping wedding registry — plus a list of all the recent legal eagle weddings — after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Registry Error”
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)”
In our recent caption contest, there were quite a few captions that alluded to the members of the Supreme Court being in bed with conservatives. As we reported this morning, Clarence Thomas is most definitely in bed with a conservative. Ginni Thomas is the President and CEO of the newly launched 501(c)(4), Liberty Central Inc., with the mission statement to “serve the big tent of the conservative movement.”
Since the judiciary prefers the appearance of nonpartisanship, the Los Angeles Times found her Tea Party-inspired group worth covering:
“I think the American public expects the justices to be out of politics,” said University of Texas law school professor Lucas A. “Scot” Powe, a court historian.
He said the expectations for spouses are far less clear. “I really don’t know because we’ve never seen it,” Powe said. Under judicial rules, judges must curb political activity, but a spouse is free to engage.
Not shockingly, Clarence Thomas has nothing to say about this. Eugene Volokh points out that Ginni Thomas is far from the first politically-engaged judicial spouse:
Of course, Justice Thomas is not the only judge to have had a spouse in a prominent political role. Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s wife, Ramona Ripston, has just stepped down from being head of the Southern California ACLU. Third Circuit Judge Jane Roth’s husband was a U.S. Senator; Third Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell’s husband is a governor. So I’m not sure that there’s really a judicial norm that judge’s spouses should stay out of politics, whether partisan politics, advocacy group politics, or public interest litigation (itself a form of politics, at least when done effectively).
All this talk of justices’ second halves made us think it was time for a rundown of the other Supreme spouses. The Honorable Husbands and Wives, and their careers, after the jump.
If you happen to be on the frigid East Coast today, currently experiencing the coldest temperatures of the season, grab yourself a cup of cocoa and a copy of the Sunday New York Times. The NYT often has articles of interest to a legal audience, but this weekend’s edition has an especially high number of stories either by or about the boldface names of the legal profession. To wit:
1. Power of Attorney: Questions for John Yoo. Deborah Solomon interviews John Yoo, the Berkeley law professor perhaps most well-known for his authorship of the so-called “torture memos.” Considering her liberal politics and modus operandi as an interviewer — we’ve previously described her as “snarky, cranky, exceedingly direct” — we were expecting her to go to town on Yoo.
But Professor Yoo actually comes across very well in the short Q-and-A (and is looking newly svelte in the accompanying photo). He’s smart, funny, and charming — not a surprise to us, based on our personal interactions with him, but perhaps a surprise to some who know only the cartoon villain depicted by the mainstream media.
2. The 30-Minute Interview: Jonathan L. Mechanic. An interesting interview with real estate super-lawyer Jonathan Mechanic, chairman of the real estate department of Fried Frank (and previously profiled here). We learn that Mechanic, in addition to being a top real estate attorney, is also a real estate investor: he owns retail and commercial properties in Bergen County, NJ (where we grew up).
Three more stories, after the jump.
Julie Kamps graduated from Harvard Law School in 1998 and moved to New York to work for Fried Frank. She spent 10 years as a litigation associate at the firm and was let go in January 2009.
Anyone who spends ten years at a firm without making partner might be tempted to sue. In Kamps’s case, she alleges that Fried Frank discriminated against her because she is a lesbian, that she was sexually harassed by two partners — male and female — and that false promises of impending partnership were made to her over the last four years.
Kamps previously filed an EEOC complaint, describing herself as an “openly lesbian, non-gender-conforming female.” Now she’s suing the firm for $50 million, plus interest, plus attorneys’ fees, plus reinstatement as an associate at the firm, plus promotion to partner. She appears to be representing herself (just like Aaron Charney, who initially proceeded pro se when he sued Sullivan & Cromwell).
Though she apparently wants to return to the firm, she does not hold back in ripping the firm a new one. She describes Fried Frank as misogynistic, anti-minority, tolerant of female-on-female sexual harassment, and, worst of all, partnership teases. After reading through her lawsuit, we wonder why she would want to go back to a firm that she tears to shreds in her complaint.
We were distracted from this wondering, though, by the loud ripping sounds. Hell hath no fury like a lesbian tenth-year associate scorned. We’ve got excerpts and the full complaint available for your perusal, after the jump.
* The decade’s 25 biggest legal stories. [National Law Journal]
* A former Fried Frank litigation associate, Julie Kamps, who previously filed a employment discrimination claim, is now filing a lawsuit against the firm, alleging sexual harassment by a female partner and discrimination because she is gay. She’s suing for $50 million and partnership. If granted the latter, that could be awkward. [AmLaw Daily]
* Hedge fund Fortress Investment Group sues Dechert. And it’s Marc Dreier’s fault. [Wall Street Journal via ABA Journal]
* A benchslap for California AG Jerry Brown’s office from the Ninth Circuit. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* An interview with Mark Herrmann, formerly of Drug and Device Law, about lawyerly blogging. [Chicago Tribune]
* Being forced to remain male is cruel and unusual punishment? [Associated Press]
This morning brings associate bonus news from Fried Frank. The firm’s bonus announcement reflects the broader Biglaw trend of moving away from a lockstep compensation system.
Last year, Fried Frank employed a standard bonus schedule, along Cravath lines, with bonuses paid out in accordance with seniority. This year, the firm has ditched the traditional class-year bonus schedule, instead paying “year-end bonuses to New York associates in varying amounts up to $35,000.”
So the firm is doling out bonuses “in varying amounts,” up to $35,000 — the top of this year’s Sullivan & Cromwell bonus schedule. But Fried Frank provides no information as to distribution of bonuses, mean or median amounts, etc. (unlike, say, Latham, which does provide such distributional info about bonuses).
What determines the amount of your bonus at Fried Frank? Several factors, including “seniority, levels of activity, quality of and hours worked, client service and contributions to pro bono activities.” Translation: the firm reserves complete and total discretion with respect to bonuses. There isn’t even a bonus guarantee based on hitting certain billable-hours targets.
The full memo appears after the jump. If you’re at Fried Frank, feel free to compare notes about your bonuses in the comments. Is this opacity a way for Fried Frank to get away with paying out less in bonuses? Or is the firm paying out basically the same as under a lockstep system, but just rewarding the high performers and punishing the laggards?
As always, please send us law firm bonus news to us by email (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus News”). Thanks.
P.S. The Fried Frank bonus announcement is for New York. We don’t know what FFHSJ plans to do for its D.C. or international associates.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank’s Black Box of Bonuses”
What role do lawyers have in advising their clients on business matters? Some might say: None.
“The client decides on the business objective, and the lawyer helps the client reach that objective, as long as it’s legal,” this line of thinking goes. “And why would you want lawyers giving business advice anyway? They have no business training — and judging from how large law firms have fared in the Great Recession, they don’t seem to be particularly good at business either.”
On the other hand, one thing we commonly hear from the in-house lawyers we speak with is that they do give a combination of legal and business advice (not surprising, given that they have one client, which they want to see prosper). And some top law firm lawyers also get involved in the business side of things; they’re dealmakers in their own right, not just the folks who “paper up” the deals dreamed up by investment bankers. E.g, H. Rodgin Cohen of Sullivan & Cromwell, who played a major role in various bank M&A deals last fall.
Fried Frank partner Jonathan Mechanic (pictured) — chair of that firm’s high-powered real estate group, with a top ranking from Chambers and Partners — is arguably the real estate world’s answer to Rodge Cohen. In the New York Observer, Dana Rubinstein began an August 2008 interview with Mechanic by citing a study declaring him to be “the best-connected and most powerful real estate lawyer in the world.”
But at least one ATL reader holds the opinion — a minority opinion, it should be noted — that Jon Mechanic’s track record isn’t so stellar.
The bill of particulars against Jon Mechanic and Fried Frank, after the jump.
Continue reading “Do Jon Mechanic and Fried Frank Have the ‘Un-Midas’ Touch?”
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)”
Late last week, we told you that bad things were coming down the pipe at Fried Frank. This morning, the firm announced that 99 people will be let go:
Effective today, we are implementing changes that will result in an overall reduction of 41 associates and 58 administrative staff from our U.S. workforce. This decision is one we worked very hard to avoid. But we must respond responsibly to the current environment. We would like to express our appreciation to everyone impacted by these decisions for all they have done for our Firm and our clients.
The economy is so bad that even firms that “don’t do lawyer layoffs” are having to do lawyer layoffs.
It’s not even surprising anymore that the firm is deferring all incoming first-year associates to January 2010. Fried Frank is also following the trend of asking associates to defer until the fall of 2010:
Additional steps announced today pertain to our fall 2009 class and our 2009 summer associate programs in the U.S. The start date of our fall 2009 class has been deferred to January 28, 2010. All incoming associates whose start date is deferred until January 2010 will receive a $10,000 stipend. We are also offering an opportunity for members of the fall 2009 class to defer until the fall 2010. We are encouraging those associates to develop their legal skills by pursuing a public interest or government position or by volunteering with a legal, political or community-based organization. Those who elect this deferral will receive a stipend of $70,000 plus health benefits.
And Fried Frank is cutting its summer program from 12 weeks down to 10.
Ninety-nine layoffs. Shortening of summer programs. Deferral of incoming associates:
I don’t like,
I don’t like,
I don’t like Mondays.
Read the full memo after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Fried Frank Public(!) Layoffs”
As many of you know, part of the problem firms are facing during these challenging times is that clients won’t pay their bills. Lawyers can’t get paid unless clients pay.
Whether or not clients are willing or able to pay, it certainly won’t happen unless they are billed. Hence, as most associates already know, the days of delinquent time entry are at an end.
But Fried Frank is taking it to a whole new level. Instead of making sure your time is up to date every month or every couple of weeks, Fried Frank wants attorneys to accurately close out their time every single day. This is from a firm-wide memo that went out last week:
The importance of accurately billing and recording time – both from an economic and an ethical standpoint – cannot be overemphasized. Accuracy is essential both for the Firm and its clients. To ensure accuracy, it is Firm policy that attorney time must be entered and released on a daily basis. This memorandum covers the Firm’s current client billing policies and guidelines.
Most of Fried Frank’s billing policy is pretty standard and common sense stuff (you can download the full policy after the jump). But there are some significant changes.
After stealthily laying off at least 30 associates, the Fried Frank bonus announcement should come as no surprise:
Nobody expected Fried Frank to break into Skadden territory on bonuses. But at least there is a nod towards the reason for paying the low-end bonuses championed by Cravath:
Current global economic conditions have presented new challenges for our clients and your contributions play an important role in our ability to work together to meet these challenges.
Let’s close off the Fried Frank loop after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Wades Into Half-Skadden Pool”
… And now back to our regularly scheduled programing …
We are now able to report that at least 15 litigation associates at Fried Frank have been laid off in the past week.
At least 15 litigation associates, but the numbers could be higher. Multiple tipsters report that there are many “skeletons” in the Fried Frank closet right now.
Over a week ago, we reported that 15 corporate associates had been let go. At that time, we also said that the number of corporate layoffs could be higher than 15. We’ve received information since then that more than 15 corporate associates were laid off, but we can’t get a handle on the true number. So, conservatively speaking, we’re reporting 30 associates that have been let go from Fried Frank over the past two weeks.
More about Fried Frank’s layoffs after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Fried Frank Stealth Layoff Update”
We’ve gotten credible information that Fried Frank has laid off at least 15 associates from their corporate department, including 6 in the real estate practice group. A tipster collects the information in a clear way:
They are veiled as performance-based reviews, but virtually everyone is getting a negative review (mostly, it seems, to justify in a paper-trail [a decision] to not give bonuses)….
There has been no formal review process announced, and no one knows what directive came from management last weekend at the partner retreat, but it seems that each group was told to make cuts. People were completely taken off guard when they started getting calls earlier in the week calling them in for their reviews, some of which dredged up years-old information to use as justification for lay-offs, and many of which lasted only 5 minutes or so. Most of the layoffs have been mid-level associates and up, but most junior associates have not yet been reviewed.
The axe is expected to fall on the litigation side of the firm today.
The firm has not responded to voice messages or emails left earlier today. The number of layoffs could be higher than what we are reporting, but right now the best number is 15.
We understand that a three-month severance package has been offered.
Every single tipster (and there are a lot of them) said that the laid-off attorneys were told that they were being let go for performance reasons.
But that’s not all they were told. Read the rest, after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Stealth Layoffs at Fried Frank”
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.
