K&L Gates

Morning Docket: 12.04.12

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* “Maybe in the future you could let us know when something as definite as that comes [at the last minute.]” It would appear Chief Justice John Roberts has yet again been angered terribly by a lawyer from the Department of Justice over policy changes. [CNN]

* G’day, mate! Perhaps Peter Kalis was telling the truth about his firm, because everything really is great at K&L Gates after last night’s announcement. Partners at the Biglaw firm just approved a merger with Australian firm Middletons. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The commission overseeing the revisions to Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code will focus their energies on labor and benefits. Aww, how nice of them to think of the little people. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The suit over job stats against Thomas Jefferson School of Law lives to fight another day. The school was “disappointed,” but probably not as disappointed as the students it allegedly duped. [National Law Journal]

* And speaking of disappointment, people are still pissed off about Case Western Law Dean Lawrence Mitchell’s defense of going to law school, aka “a full-throated defense of the indefensible.” [New York Times]

* If you’ve made a mistake on your law school application, fret not, because there’s a way to correct it. (Note: some would say the real mistake was applying in the first place.) [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Another day, another lawsuit filed against the much-sued and oft-creepy Dov Charney. This time, an ex-store manager alleges the American Apparel CEO choked him out and tried to rub dirt in his face. [Huffington Post]

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A Peek Behind the K&L Gates: More Comments from Peter Kalis

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Peter Kalis

As we head into the weekend, we’re happy to bring you additional commentary from Peter Kalis, the chairman and global managing partner of K&L Gates. Earlier this week, the colorful Kalis was unanimously reelected to his leadership role by the 60 voting members of the Management Committee.

The delightfully opinionated Kalis recently gave an interview to Am Law Daily, in which he shed additional light on the state of K&L Gates. His remarks weren’t as forceful as the beatdown he administered to the firm’s anonymous detractors last week, but they are interesting….

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K&L Reinstates: Peter Kalis Elected to Fifth Term as Chairman and Managing Partner

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Peter Kalis: hail to the chief!

Much like the similarly named Kelis, his milkshake brings all the boys (and girls) to the yard. Peter Kalis, the chairman and global managing partner of K&L Gates, just won a fifth consecutive term at the helm of the global mega-firm. As noted in the firm’s press release, which we received here at Above the Law, the 60 voting members of the Management Committee supported Kalis unanimously.

Kalis assumed leadership of the firm in 1997, back when it was called Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. On Kalis’s watch, the firm conducted eight mergers, including the combination with Preston Gates & Ellis that resulted in the “K&L Gates” moniker. When Kalis took the helm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart was a regional firm with six offices, all in the Eastern time zone of the United States. Now K&L Gates boasts almost 2,000 lawyers in 41 offices on four continents.

But growth brings with it growing pains. Let’s discuss those, and get some information about partner capital contributions at the firm….

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Everything Is Great, K&L States: Peter Kalis Comes Out Swinging

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Now this is how you handle negative rumors about your firm.

As we mentioned last night, in the past week or so we’ve seen media reports of possible trouble at K&L Gates. Stories in Law360 and Crain’s Chicago Business speculated about “an alarming rate” of partner departures and “attorneys increasingly los[ing] faith in the firm’s leadership and strict compensation policies.”

The chairman and global managing partner of K&L Gates, Peter J. Kalis, isn’t taking all this sitting down. Very early this morning, the famously outspoken Kalis sent around a firm-wide memo that powerfully refutes some of the claims made about the firm.

If you’re at all involved in law firm management, you should read it. The Kalis email offers a master class in how to thoroughly respond to negative rumors….

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Partners Streaming Out Of The K&L Gates?

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On multiple days over the past week or so, one of the top ten search terms bringing visitors to Above the Law has been K&L Gates. For whatever reason, people seem keenly interested in what’s going on right now at this major international law firm.

(But maybe we shouldn’t read too much into such queries. Also in the top ten search engine terms: “pictures of tacos.”)

So what is going on at K&L Gates? A significant amount of partner attrition, as various news outlets have recently pointed out….

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Everything’s Bigger in Texas — Including the Lack of Diversity in Biglaw

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Back in July, we brought you some news about the law firms that you should be considering if you’re in search of diversity — the latest Vault rankings for the Best Law Firms for Diversity. In an ideal world, everyone would be able to work at a firm that’s open, inclusive, and welcoming to all.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the world that we’re living in. Now that you’ve seen which Biglaw firms are the biggest on diversity, let’s head down south to the Lone Star state, where it’s anything but a small world after all.

Eighteen of the 20 largest firms in Dallas, Texas, just received failing scores for diversity in a report issued by the Dallas Diversity Task Force. The other two firms received grades of C+. Let’s see which firms made the grade….

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Lawyerly Lairs: The Five Most Expensive Attorney Abodes in Washington, D.C.

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This $10 million house is owned by a lawyer at a top law firm. Which one?

What can we say? We can’t get enough of Washington real estate. And neither can you, judging from the traffic generated by our recent look at some million-dollar homes in the D.C. area. So let’s return to that well.

Our last story was about homes in the $1 million to $3 million range. Let’s class it up a bit and look at Lawyerly Lairs ranging in value from $7 million to $10 million….

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Morning Docket: 05.16.12

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* When Dewey tell the world that we’re dead, but not yet buried? The firm filed a notice with the New York State Department of Labor listing its closing date as yesterday. And what’s their reason for doing so? “Economic.” [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* Dewey have anyone left in the Office of the Chairman? Apparently not: Charles Landgraf has moved on to greener pastures. There is no longer a captain at the wheel of the S.S. Dewey. [The Hill]

* “The continuing loss of revenue-generating partners and Dewey’s debt load has culminated in the imminent demise of Dewey.” Damn, the PBGC certainly doesn’t mince words. Meet the firm’s latest lawsuit. [Reuters]

* A judge reinstated Le-Nature’s $500M case against K&L Gates for failure to detect fraud. Hope the firm has a half-billion lying around — they haven’t been doing too well with the whole honesty thing lately. [Businessweek]

* You stay classy, DSK! Your aggravated pimp hand is strong! Dominique Strauss-Kahn filed a $1M countersuit against Nafissatou Diallo because she “ruined his life, personally and professionally.” [Wall Street Journal]

* Conspiring to price fix? There’s an app for that! A federal judge denied Apple’s and several book publishers’ motions to dismiss a consumer class-action lawsuit about e-book pricing. [Media Decoder / New York Times]

* Like FernGully in reverse? A judge refused to dismiss Chevron’s racketeering and fraud lawsuit against New York attorney Steven Donziger for his work done in Ecuador. [New York Law Journal]

* Thomas Jefferson Law will be the site of the next solo incubator. This is a great way to keep your grads from suing you (not to mention a great way to increase your employed-at-nine-months rate). [National Law Journal]

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One Less Lawyer in the Presidential Race

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Rick Santorum

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is suspending his presidential campaign. He made the announcement at 2 p.m. in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (nice venue choice there).

For Above the Law purposes, this means that there’s one less lawyer in the presidential contest. Senator Santorum graduated with honors from Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law in 1986, was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, and practiced for several years at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (now part of K&L Gates). He left full-time legal practice after being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990.

I must confess that I’m of two minds about Santorum leaving the race….

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Morning Docket: 03.09.12

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* With its lawsuit dismissed, Jacoby & Meyers won’t be accepting non-lawyer equity investments in New York any time soon. Not even from used Mercedes-Benz dealers. [New York Law Journal]

* Former Quarles & Brady partner Jeffrey Elverman has been sentenced to five years of probation for swindling money from a little old lady. Does that count toward PPP? [Journal Sentinel]

* K&L Gates is suing a casino in Macau to recover client funds that were allegedly gambled away by former partner Navin Kumar Aggarwal. Silly Biglaw firm. Don’t you know the house always wins? [Am Law Daily]

* “I am not a lawyer. I’m a server. Lawyers do lawyer things. Lawyers work at law firms. Lawyers do public policy work… Lawyers don’t serve pizza.” Ah, the plight of the New York Law School graduate. [CBS News]

* Cooley Law: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. A former student’s suit over the school’s alleged attempt to keep him from transferring was dismissed this week. [National Law Journal]

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