We know it’s difficult for laid-off attorneys to find new Biglaw jobs. Very few firms are hiring — and many of the firms that are hiring do not want to look at résumés from associates that have been previously laid off.

RollOnFriday has the news from London:

RollOnFriday can reveal that there is blatant and widespread discrimination throughout the City against lawyers who have been made redundant.

Last week’s report that a recruitment consultant wouldn’t consider redundant lawyers who for a job seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Readers deluged RollOnFriday Towers with complaints about both rec cons and law firms. All had the same experience: their attempts to apply for a job had been stymied when they revealed they’d been made redundant. The firms who came in for the most criticism were American, with several big names being accused of discrimination.

Legal Blog Watch asks if the same phenomenon is happening here in the states. Recruiters we have spoken with say that it is.

Reports from recruiters and tipsters in the U.S., after the jump.

Although the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis is having some issues — e.g., layoffs in Chicago, New York, Washington, and San Francisco — the firm still has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. When you’re involved in a must-win litigation or a major bankruptcy matter, K&E is the firm to see.

But are Kirkland & Ellis lawyers also the people to call when you need a table at a hot restaurant, or last-minute tickets to a sold-out show? Maybe so:

From: [A secretary to a senior partner in Chicago]
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:19 PM
To: All Chicago attorneys

Justice Ginsburg’s granddaughter is having her 19th birthday on October 3rd and wants to celebrate with 5 friends at her favorite restauraunt — Topolobampo. Unfortunately, they are booked solid on that date. Does anyone know Rick Bayless (the owner of Topolobampo and Frontera Grill) who could possibly make a table available for her.

Topolobampo — good choice! When we did our series of open threads on summer associate lunch suggestions, back in 2008 — when law firms still had summer lunch programs — Topolobampo was mentioned frequently and favorably in the Chicago thread.

So, were the K&E concierges able to come through for the Supreme Grandchild?

Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks. Law Shucks has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.

We’ll actually be hitting a week and a half in this roundup, going back to August 1. As we’ve been saying for a while, September is not likely to be as tranquil as August was (3 layoffs, 126 people in total), and the layoffs have already started. Eleven days in, and twice as many firms have laid off almost twice as many people.

Let’s step back and start with the big picture.

The really bad news came just before the Labor Day weekend, as unemployment hit 9.7%, a 26-year high. If you really want to find a silver lining, the net job loss for August was less horrible than expected, coming in at 216,000 jobs lost for the month. The decrease in total unemployment in July is now just a blip on a 16 out of 17 month streak of worsening employment numbers. It’s not even like the improvement in July was a result of actual new jobs, either — it came from people becoming so disaffected that they stop looking for jobs entirely, which takes them off the rolls of the unemployed. Hurray for government math!

Coincidentally, BLS reported 100 jobs lost in the legal sector for the month, which is right in line with the tracker (although they’re measuring two entirely different things).

Overall, 6.9 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of 2008 — which, coincidentally, is also the beginning of the Law Shucks layoff tracker (we count from Cadwalader’s first round). Major firms account for just over 13,000 of those.

So what has been going on so far this month? After the jump, we analyze the looming surge.

Last week, news broke about layoffs at Kirkland & Ellis. The firm has not released an official statement about the layoffs. A Kirkland source says that associates not on track to make partner were let go. Since the firm won’t say, we’ve been trying to cobble together the full extent of Kirkland’s layoffs. We’ve already reported on layoffs in New York, D.C., and San Francisco.

Just before Labor Day weekend, Kirkland & Ellis got around to making layoffs at its main office in Chicago. We are still gathering numbers, but as of now we know that at least 12 people were let go. Other tipsters suggest that the number is higher.

Did these layoffs fit in with K&E’s performance review philosophy? After the jump, tipsters weigh in.

It’s not really a “black Wednesday,” but it is certainly very dark. After a day full of layoffs, the firm of Kirkland & Ellis decided to get in on the action. The WSJ Law Blog reports:

Kirkland & Ellis earlier today laid off more than 20 associates in its New York office, according to a person familiar with the matter. Associate layoffs also hit the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.

The layoffs came at the end of the firm’s annual associate-review process. Associates deemed to have not been on track to make either equity partner or non-equity partner were asked to leave, the person familiar with the matter said.

We don’t know how many D.C. associates were let go. But earlier this summer, we reported that the associate review process at Kirkland had been moved up this year. By the end of July, associates were already buzzing that the “layoff list” had been circulated around to Kirkland’s partners.

So we hope that the associates let go today didn’t work that hard during August.

We can also report that the laid off associates will be given a four-month severance package.

The only problem in Kirkland’s performance review logic is this quote from one of our sources:

[Layoffs at Kirkland] are happening today. First years and second years hit hard in the corporate group.

Is it normal for Kirkland to make partner track decisions after just one or two years of work? We’ve heard about “up or out” policies, but that seems harsh.

But we take Kirkland at its word. Nothing to see here, just the normal review process for first years who were not going to make partner.

Good luck, Kirkland friends.

After the jump, an update from San Francisco.

We’ve compiled a lot of information about the summer associate offer rates at Kirkland & Ellis and at Orrick. Overall, summer associates had a pretty good chance at nailing down an offer at these firms — though individual results varied significantly depending on which you summer at.

At Kirkland & Ellis, sources report that the firm’s offer rate was a solid 85% firm wide. In Chicago and New York, that offer rate climbed to around 90%.

But out west, things were not as rosy. Multiple tipsters reported that the offer rate out of Kirkland’s Los Angeles office was between 60% and 65%. In Palo Alto, things were even worse. Sources there report a 50% offer rate.

Firm wide, a summer class of around 158 summer associates yielded approximately 135 offers for full time employment. In this market, those are good odds.

After the jump, let’s take a look at Orrick.

Moving right along with our Vault open threads, it’s time to take a look at the firms ranked #6 - #10.

6. Weil Gotshal
7. Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett
8. Cleary
9. Covington & Burling
10. Kirkland & Ellis

Weil’s strong move up the Vault charts — the firm was ranked #9 last year — shows the power of high profile work. The Lehman bankruptcy and the General Motors restructuring were just two of the many recognizable matters Weil has had its hands on in the past 12 months.

But Weil also seems to have timed the Vault rankings quite well. The firm didn’t start deferring incoming first years until March, didn’t start laying off staff until May, and didn’t start laying off associates closing offices until the end of June.

Regardless of whether or not those moves catch up with Weil next year, right now is Weil’s time to shine in the warm recruiting light of sixth place. Congrats.

Let’s look at the other firms after the jump.

The rumor mill is churning over at Kirkland & Ellis this week. While we’re unable to confirm that the firm is poised to grind down associates, we are hearing from sources worried that layoffs are coming.

The first warning sign came last week, when we learned that Kirkland had decided to move up annual performance reviews. A tipster reported the news this way:

Kirkland and Ellis has moved up its annual review process by 2-3 months. Look for layoffs (stealth or otherwise), likely starting sometime in August.

In this market, changing the timing of performance reviews is often interpreted as a move by the firm to set up for layoffs. But associates are so generally terrified these days that just having a partner look at an associate the wrong way can make a person freak out.

Other evidence suggesting that Kirkland is gearing up for a round of layoffs, after the jump.

This seems like a stressful time to be enrolled at Duke Law School. The news of firms pulling out of on-campus interviewing at the school continues to grow. The latest big name firms to partially pull out of Duke recruiting are DLA Piper and Kirkland & Ellis. Here’s the email Duke students received late last week about DLA:

We received notification from the employer, DLA Piper (Austin, Dallas, CA offices), that they will be canceling interviews. You will not need to contact them as we have forwarded your resume on file to them (unless you wish to send an updated resume). In addition, they have posted a resume collections via Symplicity for your convenience. They will review your resume and contact you if they are interested in speaking with you further.

There is nothing else that you have to do at this point. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused and wish you well in your other interviews. You will be removed from this interview and your interview schedule will reflect this change.

At least they can still interview for DLA New York.

But today, Duke students found out that K&E was also dropping them. K&E Chicago never signed up to recruit on-campus. K&E D.C. dropped out today:

Unfortunately, Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington, DC, office just contacted us to say they will be canceling their on campus interview schedule. We know this news is frustrating for you. They have posted a position and are soliciting resumes on Symplicity, and we strongly encourage you to apply.

To reflect the change, you will soon see the firm removed from your interview schedule. As you plan and conduct both your on-campus interviews and outreach to employers, please stay in close touch with the Career Counselors so we can help you maximize your success.

But as summer opportunities continue to dry up, Duke Law students are still trying to figure out whether they’ve made it onto law review. And once again, what should be a simple notification process seems totally screwed up.

More details after the jump.

We’ll bottom-line this week’s contest, folks: The SCOTUS clerk wins. Yep, after a long absence, LEWW’s favorite credential makes a welcome appearance in the NYT weddings section, and we’ve got the details for you.

But first, congratulations to Sabrina Charles and Jamie Dycus, who readers overwhelmingly voted Legal Eagle Couple of the Month for May, demonstrating that — in the words of one commenter (and apparently, in the minds of ATL readers) — “Wachtell > Sotomayor > Olympic medal.”

Here are our finalists:

1. Kathryn Whitfield and Adam Fotiades

2. Christina Krause and Peter Henderson

3. Pamela Bookman and Jeffrey Perlman

More about these couples, after the jump.

The National Law Journal reports that some firms are hiring lawyers — including associates — in Chicago. The ABA Journal summarizes the good news:

Three law firms are moving into new offices in Chicago and seeking to fill the space with new lawyers.

The firms getting new digs are Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Nixon Peabody; and Cozen O’Connor, the National Law Journal reports.

Happy Friday indeed.

According to the NLJ, despite all the hits the Chicago legal market has taken during this recession, the city is in an expansionary mood:

While law firm expansion has slowed in Chicago during the recession, particularly compared to the accelerated growth in the prior five years, many national firms that set up shop in the city since 2000 are still looking to add lawyers. Efforts to recruit partners with business has been a constant, but firms in the past month have started to look for associates in certain practice areas, including finance, banking, litigation and bankruptcy, said Amy McCormack, who leads the Chicago recruiting firm McCormack Schreiber.

Does that include Kirkland & Ellis? Let’s take a look inside (its new offices), after the jump.

* Musical Chairs: Kirkland & Ellis loses the majority of its West Coast bankruptcy and restructuring team to Jones Day. Six L.A. lawyers and one N.Y. associate are making the Jones Day jump. [American Lawyer]

* A personal injury firm in Connecticut has sued Google for selling its name to a competing firm. Stratton Faxon is also trying to get an injunction to prevent Google from selling law firm names as adwords at all. Note that this firm specializes in personal injuries and not IP law. [Connecticut Law Tribune]

* SCOTUS lifts restrictions on questioning suspects without their lawyers present. [Seattle Times]

* A transcript of a conversation between Roland Burris and the brother of Rod Blagojevich proves that Burris likes Titanic quotes. The Senate Ethics Committee and a state attorney get to decide if it also proves Burris made improper offers in exchange for Obama’s vacated seat in the Senate. [Courthouse News Service]

* A 53-year-old martial arts instructor in Texas is quite the middle-aged ladies’ man. He has his hair, a flat stomach, a Corvette, and a French accent. Unfortunately, he also has AIDS and has been convicted of six counts of sexual assault for knowingly infecting his partners. [Dallas Morning News via ABA Journal]

* Back in her Yale days, SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor had a nasty OCI with the firm formerly known as Shaw Pittman, now Pillsbury. [Los Angeles Times]

Law firms are dealing with the Great Recession in many different ways. As we’ve chronicled in these pages, layoffs and salary cuts are commonplace, practically clichéd.

Some firms are cutting costs more creatively. From a source at Kirkland & Ellis:

We just got a memo from K&E about a massive increase in our health care premiums. I’m not happy at all…. By my rough math, my deductible tripled, but the cost increased $100/month. So they’re screwing us two ways. Again, if my math is right.

From a second tipster:

This change effectively reduces associate salaries by approximately $1,000-$2,000 per year, although made under the guise of a change in the health care plan (perhaps in attempt to avoid blog coverage of salary cuts?).

K&E’s health care coverage was already pretty poor compared to other biglaw firms. This change makes their health care for associates (and other employees earning more than $90K) even worse. Also disturbing is that part of the justification for the change is to “bring the amount paid for health care coverage for associates closer to the amount paid by partners of the Firm…..”

My (albeit limited) understanding of health care coverage for partners in partnerships is that by its nature it is always different from the partnerships’ actual employees (i.e., associates)…. Additionally, we all know K&E partners make a ton of money (as evidenced by their high ppp, which have not been reduced). While associates at Kirkland are definitely well compensated, they work brutal hours for that money, and enacting a salary cut in the guise of bringing partners health care cost “in line” with associates seems greedy and ill-advised.

Full memo, in all of its hyper-technical glory, after the jump.

When the New York Times stands up and takes note of law firm partner defections, you know you are talking about the kinds of people who are capable of making rain in the Kalahari:

David Fox and Daniel E. Wolf, two top partners at the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have defected to Kirkland & Ellis in a move likely to send shockwaves through the Wall Street legal world.

The loss of Mr. Fox, 51, who was among the highest-paid lawyers at Skadden, is a blow to the firm, where revenue has fallen across nearly all practice areas. A prominent mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, Mr. Fox is leaving after more than 20 years with the firm, founded in 1948. It is rare for an established firm to lose such a senior lawyer to a less-known rival, and the move is the first time a partner in Skadden’s New York M.& A. practice has jumped to a competitor.

A “less-known rival”: were Kirkland & Ellis attorneys able to hear the compliment over the crack of the back of the NYT hand?

After the jump, the Times makes it sound like Skadden just lost Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.

Incoming associates at Kirkland & Ellis got good news today. They get to start in 2009! November, to be exact. We’ve added the firm to our start date round-up, after the jump.

New associates heading to Sidley Austin, on the other hand, got “optional deferral” news. The firm e-mailed incoming associates yesterday announcing the “Pro Bono Assistance Program:” a January 2011 start date with a $75,000 stipend attached. Says one tipster:

very unclear to what extent each office is effected, what happens if you DONT choose the option, etc. etc.

It looks like at least 17 New York associates will be taking the year off to do good works. From the e-mail that went out yesterday:

The economic downturn has led to a slowdown in workflow for most law firms. As a result, many law firms, including Sidley, are seeking challenging professional alternatives for a number of the lawyers in the class of 2009 - alternatives that will provide a worthwhile experience for our new lawyers and much needed service to the community at large. For this reason, the Firm and the Sidley Austin Foundation are establishing a new Pro Bono Assistance Program (the “Program”). We anticipate establishing between 17 to 20 of these positions under this program in New York. Our other offices will be participating in the Program as well. The Program will enable incoming Sidley attorneys to spend approximately one year working full time for a public interest organization while deferring arrival at the Firm. Participants will be paid a salary of $75,000 per year and will receive benefits from the organization by whom they are employed.

It is anticipated that participants will work on a full-time basis commencing sometime in November of 2009 (subject to adjustment by the employing organizations) and would be welcome to rejoin the Firm effective January 3, 2011, if they choose to do so.

That “if they choose to do so” is a little ominous.

We’re not sure how many associates will be deferred in other offices, as Sidley has not yet responded to our inquiries. If you know more, e-mail us.

Check out the full memo from Sidley, and our updated start date and deferral table, after the jump.

There are certain phrases you don’t expect to encounter in the same wedding announcement. “U2’s The Edge” and “associate counsel to President George W. Bush” probably fit that bill. And yet one of this week’s weddings manages just that curious alchemy, and more.

Here are this week’s finalists:

1. Robyn Neblett and Jermaine Fanfair

2. Elaine Stuart and Nirav Shah

3. Leslie Fahrenkopf and Thomas Foley

Get all the details on these couples, after the jump.

Last week, we reported on staff layoffs at Kirkland & Ellis. At the time, we didn’t know the full scope of the Kirkland cuts. While the firm still declines to comment on its layoffs, our sources have been hard at work.

It now appears that at least 80 staffers were let go from Kirkland. Most of them were informed on Friday, but additional people who were not in the office on Friday were told on Monday. The cuts only took place in Chicago, New York, and D.C.

No attorneys have been let go, and our tipsters report that attorneys feel relatively secure in their jobs. People we spoke to claimed to be on track with their hours.

Secretaries were the main focus of the layoffs. But a tipster also reports that mail room staff and record keeping personnel were also hit pretty hard.

Earlier: Staff Layoff Watch: Kirkland & Ellis

Reports started flowing in this morning about a round of staff cuts taking place today at Kirkland & Ellis.

Above the Law has now been able to confirm that staff layoffs did take place at Kirkland today. Staffers in Chicago, New York and D.C. were let go. Sources at the firm report that the layoffs were a “small percentage” of the firm’s overall staff complement, but weren’t able to tell us the final number of cuts.

We understand that no attorneys will be let go in this round of layoffs.

Other sources report that Kirkland is calling staff into a large conference room to break the news. All of the staff that are being let go should know by the end of the day.

We don’t know what kind of severance the staff is getting.

Earlier this week, we reported that Kirkland moved into its new, shiny, Chicago office. At least there will be more room for the staff that comes into work on Monday.

Earlier: Kirkland ‘Perk’ Watch: Starbucks AND Dunkin’ Donuts at the New Chicago Office
What’s Going On at Kirkland?

* Starwood Hotels sued Hilton Hotels yesterday, accusing its rival of using “stolen confidential Starwood documents” to develop a new chain of lux hotels. Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal reports that Hilton’s in-house legal team unknowingly came across the boxes of stolen documents while preparing for a different case. Since the documents were unrelated to the case, the lawyers sent them back to Starwood in an “abundance of caution,” not realizing they were part of a devious corporate espionage plot. Whoops. [Wall Street Journal (subscription) and USA Today]

* Nationwide Same Sex Marriage Watch: New York Governor David Paterson wants New York to join the list of states with wedding bell rights for all. [New York Times]

* The Pirate Bay crew were found guilty in Sweden of violating copyright law for the file-sharing services their site provides. [New York Times]

* WilmerHale sends yet another attorney from its ranks over into the open arms of Obama. Partner Stephen Preston, who spent the Clinton years at the Pentagon and the DOJ, will be nominated to be the CIA’s general counsel. [BLT/Legal Times]

* Nationwide Bankruptcy Deal Watch: Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is pressuring the MGM Mirage to fold its hand and file for bankruptcy. Earlier reports suggested Dewey & LeBoeuf would be the firm to help reshuffle those cards. [Wall Street Journal (subscription) and Associated Press]

* In other bankruptcy news, Weil and Kirkland are teaming up to help General Growth become General Restructuring. [Bankruptcy Beat/Wall Street Journal]

* Northwestern University steps up to the plate for its deferred 3Ls. The school is helping with the pro bono deferral job search and offering up loan forbearance programs. [Chicago Tribune]

* Minnesota should have two sitting Senators in Washington. However, while Amy Klobuchar holds down the fort in D.C., Norm Coleman and Al Franken continue to vie for the other Senate seat and are spending their time sitting in lawyers’ offices in Minneapolis. It’s the legal battle that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on, my friends… [New York Times]

* Financial disclosure forms give us a peek at the salaries of attorneys and partners at Biglaw’s safest firm, the “notoriously tight-lipped” Williams & Connolly. [Legal Times]

* Judge Richard Posner pleasures Eliot Spitzer… with his opinion on executive compensation. [Slate]

* No need for concern. Turns out Texas billionaire Allen Stanford can afford a lawyer. [Reuters]

* … But Rod Blagojevich is not so lucky or, rather, flush. [City Room/Chicago Public Radio]

* Jenner & Block opens L.A. office. Steals Recruits two Kirkland partners to do it. [National Law Journal]