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.

* 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.

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.

There are still firms that are just now announcing start dates, even though we’re nearing the end of April.

Kilpatrick Stockton has the most interesting news. Yesterday, incoming first years were informed that they would not be able to start until April 2010. It’s a mandatory deferral. Above the Law received this statement from co-managing partner Diane Prucino:

Kilpatrick Stockton announced today that it will delay the start date of the firm’s Fall 2009 entry associates class. Entry associates are scheduled to join the firm in April 2010. Firm departments will have flexibility to have their entry associates join their teams earlier, depending on work levels. All entry associates will be offered a two-month salary advance.

Though the firm remains strong in this challenging and volatile business environment and had a solid financial year in 2008, this difficult decision is structured to further improve the long-term success of the firm and to enhance the achievement of our strategic goals through more efficient use of personnel and realignment of our expense structure. We, like other leading law firms, believe these measures are necessary to adapt to changes in the economy and to the demand for certain legal services. There is an intense commitment to enhancing the firm’s first-rate, innovative and cost-effective client service. With these goals in mind, Kilpatrick Stockton is dedicated to continuing to identify strategic growth opportunities to expand our world-class firm and improve our competitive position in the marketplace.

Kilpatrick’s deferral stipend isn’t very competitive compared to what other firms are offering for shorter deferment periods. As we understand it, Kilpatrick is only offering $17,000 to its incoming first years. It’s not even a deferral “stipend,” it is a deferral advance. Associates will have to pay the money back once they start at the firm.

Hopefully Kilpatrick Stockton won’t cut salaries over the next year on its incoming first years who suddenly have more debt.

News from Andrews Kurth, Bingham McCutchen, and Dechert after the jump.

* AIG’s $33.6 million bonuses paid last week to 418 employees will be under intense scrutiny this week in Washington. Barney Frank does not look pleased. [The New York Times]

* Obama names moderate U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. [The Washington Post]

* U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will undergo precautionary chemotherapy after her pancreatic cancer surgery. [Reuters]

* I guess my call to reform naughty judges was answered…the nation’s federal judges adopted new ethics rules yesterday. [The Associated Press]

* There is growing concern amongst some judges and lawyers that twittering jurors are threatening the integrity of cases presented in court. [CNET]

* Clifford Chance is subletting 25,000 square feet of excess office space to Kilpatrick Stockton. [The New York Observer]

* Some of the assets of Madoff’s now-defunct firm may be in Gibraltar—why is this interesting to you guys? It probably isn’t, but there are lots of lawyers involved. [Bloomberg]

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.

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.

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.

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