In late February, bonuses were announced at Jenner & Block. The firm has an individualized bonus system, so there’s no table to pass along.
And it’s harder to assess associate reactions to bonuses in a non-lockstep system. But we’ll give it a shot, and we’ll also share with you some information provided by the firm itself….
Lawyers like to complain about the billable hours requirements at their firms. A common question seems to be what will count and what won’t. In this line of work, time is money, and many associates want to know if they’re wasting their time.
If the firm makes you go to a professional development event, are you losing out on hours? If you get wrangled into doing pro bono work, are your weekly billables for paid clients going to plummet? And will that ultimately get reflected in your bonus check?
Yesterday, we lamented the fact that we often report on depressing news about the state of the legal profession in this country. Today, we actually have some good news. Jenner & Block realized that their lawyers shouldn’t be toiling away in their dungeons offices and forgoing pro bono opportunities in order to meet their billable hours requirements.
The firm remembered that this profession is supposed to be about helping the less fortunate, and it has adjusted its policies accordingly….
Continue reading “And the Associates Rejoiced: Now Almost Everything Is Billable at Jenner & Block”
Ebony and ivory, billing together in perfect harmony.
We’ve talked a lot in these pages about the value of diversity. It’s important to clients, it’s important to law firms, and it’s important to the legal profession as a whole.
Given the significance of diversity, it’s not surprising that several organizations and news outlets focus on it, especially with respect to large law firms. In the past few weeks, we’ve discussed diversity data from Building A Better Legal Profession and from the American Lawyer, for example.
Today brings news of more diversity rankings, this time from the ranking gurus over at Vault. They’ve compiled a list of 25 best law firms for diversity.
Which firms made the cut? Is your firm on the list?
There was a threat of a filibuster, but it was averted. Last night, the Senate confirmed Donald Verrilli Jr. to serve as U.S. solicitor general, by a vote of 72-16.
As one might expect of an SG, Verrilli has an incredible résumé. He graduated from Yale College and Columbia Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review, then clerked for two legendary judges, Judge J. Skelly Wright (D.C. Cir.) and Justice William Brennan.
And that was just the start of a long and phenomenally successful legal career. Let’s go drool over Don Verrilli’s credentials — and check out his net worth, which is quite robust….
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Don Verrilli Confirmed As Solicitor General”
Is your law firm this transparent?
Greetings from lovely Palm Springs, California, home to the 2011 annual education conference of the Association for Legal Career Professionals (better known to many of you as NALP). The setting is beautiful, the weather is fabulous, and the conference panels have been stimulating thus far. Who needs SXSW?
Yesterday I attended a very interesting session, covering a topic near and dear to the hearts of many Above the Law readers. The apt title of the panel: “From Black Boxes to Glass Houses: Evolving Expectations of Law Firm Transparency.”
The lively discussion covered a wide range of topics — and also offered some advice for law firms for dealing with the increased transparency of the digital age….
Continue reading “NALP 2011: Law Firm Transparency – From Black Boxes to Glass Houses”
Donald Verrilli
* Obama plans to nominate Don Verrilli as the next Solicitor General. He’s currently working a former partner at Jenner & Block, currently working at the White House. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Through his attorney, Judy Clarke, a smiling and nodding Jared Lee Loughner pleaded not guilty today to charges arising out of the Tucson shootings. [Washington Post]
* Just like Justice Elena Kagan, Vice President Joe Biden was called for — and quickly dismissed from — jury duty. [Delaware Online]
Hannibal didn't need a college degree.
* A divorce lawyer points out that Amy Chua’s parenting techniques would likely break down if she got divorced. [Huffington Post]
* This is easily the best thing I’ve read about the situation in Tunisia. Call the country a casualty of the higher education “bubble” — and consider yourself warned. [NetNet / CNBC]
* A cyberlaw-centric Blawg Review, on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the first Apple Macintosh sales. [Cyberlaw Central via Blawg Review]
We were somewhat surprised to learn that this actually isn’t the most depressing day of the year. That honor goes to the third Monday in January, not the first. There’s a whole mathematical formula about it. Anyway, here’s some LEWW cheer to brighten your gray Monday.
Administrative note: Signs are indicating that LEWW will soon be presenting Mr. LEWW with another heir. Wedding coverage will be scaled back somewhat while we recover from the blessed event, but you won’t care because it’s January, and nobody gets married in January.
But some got married in December — like these three couples:
1. Ellen Tobin and Todd Kaminsky
Check out their bios and photos, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Jews Versus Episcopalians”
Our last installment of the Wedding Watch was almost unbearably non-elite, but we’re happy to announce that the Times weddings section has bounced back. Three prestigious law firms beautify our wedding update today: Jenner & Block, Boies Schiller, and the ever-fabulous Skadden Arps. And two of our grooms (there are four) are partners!
Here are our lucky finalists:
DeVere Kutscher and Duane Pozza Jr. (Stanford, Jenner)
Esther Lederman and Scott Gant (Harvard, Boies Schiller)
Elana Bernstein and Geoffrey Bauer (UPenn, Skadden)
You can read much more about these couples, plus check out our round-up of all the legal nuptials, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Thunder in the Night”
So, where’s it at?
Which firm is harboring the most luscious buttocks in all of Biglaw?
Might it be yours?
We’re doing our annual march through the Vault prestige rankings, to give ATL readers the opportunity to have their say about perks and pitfalls at these firms. If your firm actually let you swap your Blackberry for your iPhone, brag here. Or if your firm has such a strong stench that it makes you nauseous, vent here.
We’ve been doing open threads in batches of ten, but now we’re going to pick up the pace. Here are the Vault #41 – 60. This is when the prestige list gets a little more geographically diverse, with firms based in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Palo Alto and even Pittsburgh:
41. Winston & Strawn
42. Baker Botts
43. Jenner & Block
44. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
45. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
46. Proskauer Rose
47 (tie). Dewey & LeBoeuf
47 (tie). King & Spalding
48. Goodwin Procter
49. Baker & McKenzie
50. Fulbright & Jaworski
51. Vinson & Elkins
52. McDermott Will & Emery
53. DLA Piper
54. Morgan Lewis & Bockius
55. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
56. Bingham McCutchen LLP
57. Dechert LLP
58. Cooley LLP
59. K&L Gates LLP
60. Alston & Bird LLP
We took a spin through their Vault rankings and awarded superlatives, after the jump.
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 41 – 60 (2011)”
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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