An old white male and his younger diverse peeps.
Law firm diversity matters. It matters to corporate clients, many of them public companies that want to demonstrate their commitment to diversity through their selection of vendors and service providers — which is what law firms are, at the end of the day. It matters to the law students and lawyers that firms are trying to recruit — which is the premise behind the data collection conducted by Building A Better Legal Profession.
So there should be keen interest in the latest edition of the American Lawyer’s Diversity Scorecard 2011, which the magazine just released. As Am Law explains, the Scorecard constitutes its annual ranking of large law firms by their percentage of minority attorneys and minority partners.
Let’s take a look at the top firms for diversity. Did your firm make the list?
Continue reading “Which Law Firms Are Most Diverse? Let’s Look at the Rankings”
Remember back in May when we told you that Kilpatrick Stockton was in merger talks with Townsend and Townsend and Crew? But we had to say they “might” be in talks because nobody would go on the record confirming them? Then in July we told you that they definitely had been in talks, but the firms said: no, no, no, those talks have fallen apart?
Well, here we are in November and, surprise, Kilpatrick Stockton is merging with Townsend and Townsend and Crew.
The lesson: you can believe Above the Law or you can believe the double-speak nonsense coming out of the mouths of firm leaders…
Continue reading “Law Firm Merger Mania: Kilpatrick Stockton Merges with Townsend and Townsend and Crew”
Mmm... burger...
* Professor Dan Filler offers an interesting proposal for how to handle laptop access in class. [The Faculty Lounge]
* Trial started today in Steptoe & Johnson v. Rogue States (aka Super-Smelly Burger Joint). [Young & Hungry / Washington City Paper]
* Marquette Law School Dean Joseph Kearney discusses the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s recent reaffirmation of the “diploma privilege” (which allows graduates of Wisconsin and Marquette’s law schools to become licensed attorneys without taking the bar). [Marquette Law Faculty Blog via Proof and Hearsay]
* When corporate law professors attack: J.W. Verret goes after Brad DeLong for going after Todd Henderson (of $250,000 ≠ rich fame). [Truth on the Market]
* Do law firms have “embarrassingly low” standards when it comes to client service? [What About Clients?]
* Kilpatrick Stockton swallows up a 10-lawyer construction law firm (Bell, Rosenberg & Hughes). Golf claps. [ABA Journal]
* Will Eliot Spitzer talk about being Client #9, or will he just stick to his CNN talking points? [Fordham Law]
Back in May, we reported on merger rumors involving Kilpatrick Stockton and Townsend and Townsend and Crew. As it turns out, the firms were in talks — but now those talks have fallen apart.
As the two firms told the Daily Journal, the talks were called off because of a familiar reason: potential client conflicts. According to a statement issued by Kilpatrick’s co-managing partner, William Dorris, “We explored merger discussions with our friends at Townsend, but clients always come first. When client-related conflicts could not be resolved, we could not proceed further.”
What made the merger alluring initially?
Continue reading “Law Firm Merger Mania: Townsend and Kilpatrick Kill Talks”
One merger is an accident. Two mergers … well, that could be a trend.
The merger of Hogan & Hartson and Lovells is in the books. The new firm is up and running, and it’s already saying goodbye to people. The Blog of the Legal Times reports that Hogan Lovells had some departures over the weekend:
A six-lawyer insurance litigation group left Hogan to launch a D.C. office for Hartford, Conn.-based Shipman & Goodwin. James Ruggeri, who leads the group, said that the move was made because of conflicts created by the merger for his group’s chief client, The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. Ruggeri serves as The Hartford’s national counsel for complex insurance coverage matters. He had been at Hogan since 1991.
Hogan Lovells has gotten a lot of attention in part because it is the highest-profile law firm merger to take place after the recession fully took hold.
But over the weekend, a tipster reported that there might be another notable merger on the horizon. Our source tells us that Townsend and Townsend and Crew and Kilpatrick Stockton are in talks…
Continue reading “Law Firm Merger Mania? Townsend and Kilpatrick Might Be in Talks; Hogan Lovells Officially Debuts”
What goes up, must come down. Nearly two years ago, Above the Law broke the news of Kilpatrick Stockton raising starting salaries to $145K in Atlanta and North Carolina. At the time, the firm said:
As you know, starting salaries for new associates have recently increased, for the second time this year in some of our markets. Consistent with our philosophy of paying competitive salaries, we are announcing today increases in the starting salaries in some of our offices and markets, to be effective January 1, 2008.
Effective on that date, we will pay a starting salary of $145,000 in Atlanta and North Carolina and $160,000 in Washington, D.C., New York, and IP Patent.
But in an even more shocking sign of the times, that August 2007 memo also noted:
We are studying the market in the capital markets practice to determine if any adjustments are warranted with respect to the existing capital markets scale. We remain committed to paying competitive compensation to our lawyers who practice in that area, but are not currently making any changes to the existing capital markets scale.
But today is not 2007. What do you think the existing capital-markets attorney pay scale is today? A pat on the back and a fish sandwich?
Today, Kilpatrick announced that it was scaling back starting salaries to $130K in Atlanta and North Carolina.
But that is not the full extent of the cuts. More details and a statement from the firm after the jump.
Continue reading “Salary Cut Watch: Kilpatrick Stockton Takes Away Previous Gains”
* As we told you last night, Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a 1990 Bush appointee, plans to bid One First Street farewell in June. Last night, we pointed you to BLT’s speculation on possible nominees. Here’s speculation from the AP. [Associated Press]
* The Supreme Court experts at SCOTUSblog write with the most insight into Justice Souter’s decision to retire now and speculation on who Obama will nominate. Souter’s replacement “has to be a woman… Race and ethnicity seem less important” as considerations, says SCOTUSblog. [SCOTUSblog]
* Justice Souter is only 69. Why is he stepping down before he even needs a cane to get around the hallowed halls? Because he hates the nation’s capital. [CBS News]
* Will President Obama’s list of 13 million e-mail addresses help make the SCOTUS nomination process go smoothly? [Washington Post]
* More on the sad suicide of Kilpatrick Stockton layoff Mark Levy. [Washington Post]
We’re not entirely sure of all the details, but there appears to be a very sad situation developing at Kilpatrick Stockton in D.C. today. Everybody in Kilpatrick’s building received this email this morning:
Good morning,
Please remain in our space until further notice. Metropolitan Police Department are currently responding to an unconscious male with a gunshot wound to the head on the 11th floor of Kilpatrick & Stockton. We are contacting building management to determine further information.
We will keep you posted. Thank you.
Kilpatrick is located at 607 14th Street, NW in D.C.
After the jump, we have another email from building management and a statement from the firm.
Update (1:54 PM): We also have reports from tipsters, after the jump.
Continue reading “Breaking: A Sad Day at Kilpatrick Stockton”
Last month, K&L Gates fired 115 people: 36 associates and 79 staffers.
But since then, K&L Gates has made a number of smaller staff cuts in a number of its offices, including Pittsburgh and Chicago.
The firm refused to comment on its latest reductions. But our sources report that around 20 staffers have been let go from the firm today and over the last couple of weeks. The cuts are coming in the departments you’d expect when a firm is trying to reduce costs. Mailroom staff, the floating secretarial pool, these are the people getting hit right now.
Tipsters also report that in Chicago at least, the recent cuts are Bell Boyd & Lloyd legacy staffers.
Still, it’s got to be particularly tough to survive the K&L Gates March cuts, only to be caught on the backswing now. Nobody is truly “safe” in this economy, but you’d like job security to be a little more than a month-to-month proposition.
Kilpatrick Stockton fires associates after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Kilpatrick Stockton and K&L Gates Make Cuts”
Marking a new low for the legal industry, there was only one practicing lawyer in the NYT weddings section this week. We were able to round out our contestant list with a 3L and a non-practicing JD, but LEWW remains alarmed about this decline in our profession’s visibility. We hope there is no truth to the rumor that couples are staying out of the NYT to avoid exposure on ATL. If that’s the case, we may have to cast a wider net for material — in fact, many commenters have suggested we do just that. We’ll keep you posted.
Here are the three finalist couples:
1. Christie Love and J. Lee Hill Jr.
2. Kathryn Fleming and Garrett Ederle
3. Monica Lesmerises and John Leibovitz
Get the scoop on these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 3.1: Love, Sweet Love”
Yesterday’s staff layoff post generated a lot of tips and rumors. Please keep them coming. It appears that staffs are taking it on the chin even worse than associates and partner profit margins.
While we are still playing “fact or fiction” with some of the rumors, we can now report these additional staff reductions around the world of Biglaw.
First off, Julie Kay at the National Law Journal reports that Squire Sanders laid off a number of staff from a variety of positions:
Alvin Davis, managing partner of Squire Sanders’ Miami office, said on Friday that Miami employees laid off at the firm on Thursday include “a couple runners, some staffers and a few people in accounting.”
Times are so bad firms can’t even afford the accountants who tell them how bad times are.
There were conflicting reports as to whether any attorneys got caught in the crossfire:
But while Davis said no lawyers were laid off, sources inside the firm said that lawyers indeed had been laid off, but were still working at the firm until they find jobs elsewhere.
After the jump, more staff layoff news.
Continue reading “Staff Layoff Watch: Roundup Number 2″
This marks the end of our review of the firms in the Vault 100. This is the final bunch up for discussion (with prestige scores in parentheses):
91. Lovells (4.494)
92. Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP (4.489)
93. Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP (4.478)
94. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP (4.459)
95. Kilpatrick Stockton LLP (4.452)
96. Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP (4.439)
97. Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP (4.421)
98. Seyfarth Shaw (4.399)
99. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC (4.394)
100. Fenwick & West LLP (4.373)
Discuss. Dissect. Compare. Contrast. Most of all, enjoy.
Earlier: Vault 100 Open Threads – 2009
We broke the news of the Kilpatrick Stockton pay raise earlier this month. Today’s Fulton County Daily Report has an article about it here.
The Kilpatrick move is old news — it was actually announced before Labor Day — but Meredith Hobbs’s piece does contain a helpful summary of where the big Atlanta firms stand:
Alston & Bird sparked this round of Atlanta pay raises on Aug. 1 when it increased associate pay across the board, starting at $145,000 for first-years and rising to $190,000 for seventh years—the same scale that Hunton & Williams instituted in February during the year’s first round of associate salary increases. At that time, most of the city’s big firms increased first-year pay from $115,000 to $130,000. That followed a similar $15,000 pay increase at the beginning of 2006, also sparked by Alston.
Other firms that have announced they will raise local first-year pay to $145,000 in January include Troutman Sanders, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. Jones Day will raise first-year pay to $150,000 at that time.
Kilpatrick first-years join the $145K club [Fulton County Daily Report]
Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Kilpatrick Stockton
One of the firms from this morning’s open thread, Kilpatrick Stockton, recently announced associate pay raises.
We heard the news from multiple sources. Here’s what one had to say:
Kilpatrick Stockton raised salaries on Friday, effective 1/1/08 (in all markets). 145K in Atlanta and all NC offices, 160 in NY, DC and for IP associates firm-wide.
Only first year numbers have been released. Presumably, the NY, DC and IP scale with be the standard uncompressed 160 scale. The firm, like many others, is waiting for things to settle in Atlanta and expects (based on the need to match others) to substantially exceed Alston Bird’s scale.
From a second tipster:
[H]ere is Kilpatrick Stockton’s memo on raises (issued at 4:34 on the Friday before the long weekend). Note that it looks as though the capital markets group will not be getting the same raise as everyone else (they are now 15K/yr ahead of everyone but IP).
The complete memo appears after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Kilpatrick Stockton”
We hope you enjoyed the Labor Day holiday and long weekend. Alas, now it’s back to work — for you and for us.
We’re still digging ourselves out from an email avalanche, as well as trying to figure out what’s going in the world (and what we should write about today). This may take us a little while, so please be patient.
In the meantime, let’s conclude our series of open threads on Vault 100 law firms. Here are the firms to talk about today:
96. Dickstein Shapiro LLP (4.595)
97. Fenwick & West LLP (4.545)
98. Kilpatrick Stockton LLP (4.538)
99. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC (4.496)
100. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP (4.459)
Please discuss these firms in the comments. Thanks!
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; Vault 36-40; Vault 41-45; Vault 46-50; Vault 51-55; Vault 56-60; Vault 61-65; Vault 66-70; Vault 71-75; Vault 76-80; Vault 81-85; Vault 86-90; Vault 91-95
