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Musical Chairs: Legal Celebrities on the Move
(Including the energy lawyers going from MWE to CWT.)

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Ted Cruz

A new year, a new job. That seems to be the thinking of many within the legal profession, based on the proliferation of professional moves we have to report (and not just out of Howrey).

We’ll start with one move that’s aspirational rather than actual. Legal and political superstar Ted Cruz — the Morgan Lewis partner who heads the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, and who was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past 25 years — will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the good senatrix Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Check out the announcement on his website, or read this BLT post.

Like many lawyers turned politicians, including our current president, the 40-year-old Cruz is a Harvard Law grad (and one of The Elect — Rehnquist / OT 1996). Graduates of HLS’s rival to the south, Yale Law School, tend to take more quirky paths.

Yul Kwon

That brings us to the second move of the day. YLS grad Yul Kwon — a former Second Circuit clerk and McKinsey consultant, the first Asian-American winner of Survivor, and one of People’s “sexiest men alive” (in 2006) — has left the Federal Communications Commission. Kwon served as deputy chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau at the Commission.

Instead of working at the FCC, Kwon, 35, will be regulated by it: he’s going to be the host of a new television series on PBS, America Revealed (which sounds pretty cool). Read more from the FCC (press release), Bloomberg, and the Washington Post.

More moves — a Cravath partner’s jump over to Wall Street, and the defection of many McDermott energy lawyers to Cadwalader — after the jump.

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(Including the energy lawyers going from MWE to CWT.)“

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Morning Docket: 07.15.10

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* JPMorgan Chase kicks off earning season with strong numbers. You wonder if this will give Jamie Dimon even more clout has he lobbies on the financial reform bill. [CNN Money]

* Argentina legalizes gay marriage. [New York Times]

* Hogan Lovells partner Scott McInnis admits he committed plagiarism in 1984. He’d still like to be Governor of Colorado, though. [ABA Journal]

* Some states are banding together to support Arizona. [Courthouse News Service]

* I bet looking under the hood at the Playboy financials isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. [Law.com]

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Morning Docket 12.05.08

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little orange juice.jpg

* Bad news for the big three: the New York Times says Congress “is suffering from acute bailout fatigue.” [NYT]

* There were 13 law firm mergers in the third quarter this year (not unusual). The largest number of combinations (5) were in the southeast. [The Birmingham News]

* O.J. Simpson is finally going to jail. He will be sentenced today in Nevada. This time, he stole back sports memorabilia from two people. Can you think of a more inelegant end to the Simpson saga? [The Associated Press]

* If you break the law in New York, at least you get free day care. Thanks to Judge Judith S. Kaye (New York State’s cheif judge), there are 34 children’s centers across the state in family, criminal, and civil courts. They provide a safe and happy place for children whose parents are involved in legal battles. [NYT]

* The shareholder lawsuit against the merger of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase was dismissed Thursday in the New York State Supreme Court. [Reuters]

* Singapore awarded Clifford Chance, White & Case, and Latham & Watkins licenses to practice law, as part of an attempt to compete with Hong Kong and other cities in China and the Middle East that have benefitted from having international law practices. [Bloomberg]

* Discover is mad at Morgan Stanley for secretly hanging-out with Visa and Mastercard behind Discover’s back. Sounds a lot like middle school, only in the real world, you can sue. [Bloomberg]

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International Layoff Watch: JPMorgan Chases Out Bear Stearns Lawyers

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Bear Stearns BSC Above the Law blog.jpgLawyer layoffs: they’re not just an American phenomenon. Last month, for example, DLA Piper laid off lawyers in London. Here’s more layoff news from that fair city, from TheLawyer.com:

More than half of the UK lawyers at US investment bank Bear Stearns have been axed since the ­collapsed bank was taken over by JPMorgan.

Out of 23 lawyers in ­London’s legal department, only 10 were offered new positions by JPMorgan, with nine accepting.

Fortunately, Bear Stearns refugees are landing new jobs without too much apparent difficulty. The Lawyer reports that ex-Bear Stearns attorneys have landed at Bingham McCutchen and Brown Rudnick, in New York and London, respectively.
JPMorgan cuts Bear’s headcount [The Lawyer]

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Nationwide Layoff Watch: Misery Loves Company

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pink slip layoff notice Above the Law blog.jpgWe’re not the only ones obsessed with layoffs these days. So is the New York Times, which has published two meaty articles on layoffs in the past few days — one in the Business section, and one in Sunday Styles.
The upshot of the business piece: Wall Street firms are increasingly relying upon “stealth layoffs” (like their brethren in the law, as we’ve discussed). Louise Story and Eric Dash report:

[E]xactly how many jobs have been or will be eliminated [on Wall Street] is unclear. In the past, banks typically made sharp reductions all at once. After the 1987 stock market crash, for example, employees were herded into conference rooms and dismissed en masse.

This time, companies are making many small cuts over the course of weeks or even months. Some people who have lost jobs, and many more struggling to hold them, say banks are keeping employees in the dark about the size and timing of layoffs.

Sound familiar, law firm associates?
Read the rest, below the fold.

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