Kirkland & Ellis

Associate Bonus Watch: Kirkland & Ellis

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stack of bills cash money.jpgThe latest bonus news comes from Kirkland & Ellis. Like Wachtell, K&E is sui generis. Kirkland associate bonuses are individualized, rather than lockstep by class, so they’re harder to get a handle on.
As alluded to by this comment, there’s a Magic Table — closely guarded, not even seen by the firm’s (non-share) partners — setting forth the various bonus ranges. The range that you fall into depends upon your seniority, your hours billed, and your rating — below class, with class, above class, etc.
For more details, check out this comprehensive explanation (courtesy of generic fungible item).
Some ballpark figures have been appearing on the message boards. And the numbers, if true, look good for K&E associates. A general observation from the detailed summary:

It seems this year that an average-billing junior associate [at Kirkland & Ellis] gets about $10-15K over market (the firm’s billable-hours average is about 2050). An average-billing midlevel-to-senior associate gets at least $20K-$30K over market. [T]he precise accuracy of numbers is hard to verify as it is based on a collection of data points and not the full grid.

The Kirkland system raises this question: Unless you’re a slacker, is an individualized system better than a lockstep one? Consider this pithy comment: “Kill lockstep. Firms use it to play off of our fears of getting screwed royally, and instead screw us regularly.”
If you can enlighten us further on K&E bonuses — or if you have a bootleg copy of the Magic Table — please email us, or append a comment.
Kirkland Bonus System Explained [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
Kirkland rocks [Infirmation / Greedy Chicago]

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Musical Chairs: 12.07.06

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musical chairs 2 Above the Law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFAt the White House:
* On the heels of Christopher Oprison and Cheryl Stanton, former Wilmer Hale partner Paul Eckert joins the White House Counsel’s Office.
Lateral Moves:
* Nicholas H. Politan, to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (NY), from Bingham McCutchen, where he served as co-head of the project and structured finance group.
(Wild guess: He’s the son of former federal judge Nicholas H. Politan (D.N.J.).)
* IP litigator Duane David-Hough, to Fish & Richardson, from Ropes & Gray (NY).
A few more moves, plus links, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Musical Chairs: 12.07.06″

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Lawyer of the Day: Robert Wayne Hallock

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man in suit grabbing cash.jpgYou’re a partner at the Chicago powerhouse law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, which generally ranks as the most profitable non-New York Biglaw firm in the country. But you decide that a six- to seven-figure income isn’t enough for your needs. So you do this:

1. Sell fraudulent certificates of deposit for $1.8 million.
2. Set up a bank account in the name of an LLC in Florida for the money.
3. Hire somebody to use the money to buy cashiers checks.
4. Proceed to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on a girlfriend, a wedding, a honeymoon, and his Barrington, IL. lifestyle.
5. Leave the money off your tax return.

This is the scheme hatched by former K&E partner Robert Hallock. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work:

A Chicago-area attorney was convicted of tax evasion in federal court Wednesday for attempting to hide more than $1 million from the IRS. Robert W. Hallock, 62, a former partner at Kirkland & Ellis, was convicted in a bench trial of earning some $1.8 million in 1997 from the sale of fraudulent certificates of deposit.

Hallock funneled the money through a Florida bank account and used it to buy two cars, a truck and nearly $145,000 in jewelry, said Atlanta-based U.S. Atty. David Nahmais, whose office handled the case. He also gave $150,000 to his girlfriend and her parents, prosecutors charged.

Hallock sounds like a criminal and a moron. But he does get points for cojones and creativity. Here’s what he argued at trial:

[Hallock] argued that since [he] was obligated under the UCC to repay the money, he did not have any income — in his words, “a good faith belief, even if crazy, negates willfulness.”

Leave it to a tax lawyer to come up with an argument like that.
Former Kirkland & Ellis Partner Convicted of Tax Evasion [TaxProf Blog]
Bad Barrington Barrister Busted [Roth & Company, P.C.]
Chicago-Area Attorney Convicted of Tax Evasion [Chicago Tribune]

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Musical Chairs: 10.06.06

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musical chairs above the law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFThe second half of today’s legal professional moves.
Lateral Moves:
* Robin Weisman, to NASDAQ, where she will serve as director of government relations,from Akin Gump, where she was counsel.
New Partners:
* Kirkland & Ellis. A boatload of new partners — fifteen of them, in fact.
Here they are, per the New York Law Journal (middle initials omitted, in a shameless bid for Google traffic from their names):

Colin Adams, restructuring; John Armbruster, corporate; William Brashares, corporate; Iskender Catto, energy; Mukang Cho, real estate; Eric Dittmann, intellectual property; Helena Huang, restructuring; Jordan Malz, intellectual property; Andres Mena, corporate; F. Christopher Mizzo, intellectual property; Young Park, intellectual property; William Sorabella, corporate; Kester Spindler, corporate; Michael Stadnick, intellectual property; Christopher Torrente, corporate.

Are these 15 only New York-based lawyers ? And are they equity or non-equity partners? We know that the brilliant litigatrix Susan Engel (nee Susan Kearns) just made non-equity partner in K&E’s Washington office — en route, surely, to equity partnership if she wants it. But Susan’s name doesn’t appear on this list.)
* Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel: Land use and environmental litigation lawyer Jeffrey Bruan; litigatrix Jennifer Rochon; corporate lawyer Terrence Shen; Douglas Schneller, who specializes in “claims trading and distressed investing advice” (that sounds cool); and litigator Norman Simon.
Earlier: Musical Chairs: John Martin + Otto Obermaier = $$$

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Musical Chairs: 09.13.06

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musical chairs above the law legal blog above the law legal tabloid above the law legal gossip site.GIFThe latest news on the most notable moves within the profession:
Government to Private Sector:
* Seth Silber, to Wilson Sonsini (as counsel), from the FTC. (Quips our tipster: “What a lovely week to join that particular firm!”)
New Office Openings:
* Crowell & Moring — aka “Cruel & Boring”*** — is opening a New York office. They’ve grabbed litigator William McSherry, from Arent Fox, and patent lawyer Janet McLeod, from Dorsey & Whitney, to kick things off.
* The exceedingly profitable, Houston-based Susman Godfrey is opening a New York office, headed by name partner Stephen Susman.
Lateral Private Sector Moves:
* Bankruptcy guru Paul Basta, to Kirkland & Ellis, from Weil Gotshal & Manges.***
* Patent litigators Joseph O’Malley and Bruce Wexler, to Paul Hastings (NY), from Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto.
*** “Cruel and Boring” is just a silly nickname for Crowell & Moring that we’ve heard around town. We have no idea as to whether it has any factual basis. We just think using nicknames for law firms is fun.
Other law firm nicknames we’ve heard: Weil Gotshal & Manges = “We’ll Getcha & Mangle Ya” (self-explanatory); Cravath Swaine & Moore = “The Death Star” (self-explanatory); Davis Polk & Wardwell = “The Teahouse on Lexington Avenue” (for their penchant for hiring geishas attractive Asian-American females — don’t get mad at us, we didn’t make it up).
(Feel free to add more law firm nicknames in the comments to this post.)
On The Move [Antitrust Review]
Basta Says Hasta to Weil Gotshal [WSJ Law Blog]
DC Firm Opens NY Office [NYLawyer.com]
Houston Firm Opens Manhattan Office [NYLawyer.com]
Firm Adds NY Patent Litigators [NYLawyer.com]

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Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Prestigious of All?

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prestige.jpg

Each year, just in time for fall on-campus recruiting season, Vault releases its prestige rankings of the nation’s biggest law firms. Here’s a report on the results of the latest survey, from The Recorder:

In big law, prestige is important. And an annual survey from career-oriented Web site Vault attempts to gauge just how impressive it is to work at the country’s top firms by asking more than 15,000 associates to rank their prestige factor.

The top ten firms were: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Sullivan & Cromwell; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton; Latham & Watkins; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Executive summary: New York firms rule the roost. Nothing new there.
But lawyers at Latham & Watkins, based out in La-la-land, were happy with their top 10 finish:

“It’s certainly important and it is impressive that Latham has the reputation it has,” said Kimberly Posin, a fourth-year associate in Latham’s Los Angeles office. “Clients look to and appreciate the prestige factor.”

It’s also a key factor for law students who are interviewing at various firms and scouring the rankings to help make decisions, she said.

Within the firm itself, it was fun to get the e-mail detailing the results.

“It’s something that’s nice to talk about,” Posin said, “[to] call our friends at competing firms and say ‘Look at this.’”

Calling your friends to brag about how your firm is more prestigious than their firm? Isn’t that a tad obnoxious, Kimberly?
Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]
Associate Survey Finds NY Firms Win Bragging Rights [The Recorder]

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