Many law firms have figured out that the best way to stop the spread of swine flu is to have their sick people stay home from work. Last week, we mentioned that Akerman Senterfitt had explicitly told its associates that staying home because of swine flu would not count against their vacation time.

The stay home message has also gone out at K&L Gates. But apparently one associate didn’t get the memo and showed up to work despite having flu-like symptoms. The associate was eventually diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

The associate drew the ire of K&L Gates managing partner Peter Kalis. All associates at K&L Gates then received a blistering email from the managing partner.

Our inaugural Law Firm Swag Contest was about quality rather than quantity. We had just four entries, but they were goodies.

Eschewing trinkets and baubles, K&L Gates took the high road, urging recruits to change their world through an innovative website. Perkins Coie went green, arranging for trees to be planted in honor of interviewees. And who doesn’t like a customized iPod, the swag doled out by Dobrowski LLP, the Texas litigation boutique?

But in the end, dear readers, you voted with your feet. Following in the footsteps of the “Sex and the City” gals, or maybe Imelda Marcos, you made it all about the shoes. The customized Nike footwear doled out by Mayer Brown scored a runaway victory, with over 55 percent of the 2,100 votes.

Props to the person in the Mayer recruiting office who came up with the brilliant idea for this Niketown summer associate event. If you’re looking for new running shoes — or, for that matter, the opportunity to do appellate litigation in New York — then sprint in the direction of Mayer Brown!

Earlier: Law Firm Swag Contest: The Finalists
ATL Contest: Best Law Firm Swag of 2009

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times. We received a whopping four (4) entries in our inaugural law firm swag contest. Is law firm swag, like subsidized soda or staff attorney programs, another casualty of the recession?

But if we cancel the contest, then the terrorists win. So, onward!

We realize, of course, that not everyone approves of swag. See, e.g., this comment:

This is fairly disgusting…. I find this article particularly untimely, given that most law students are struggling to find good jobs, and many practicing attorneys are struggling just to keep the jobs they have.

Jeez, commenter 58 — lighten up! Considering that we cover law firm layoffs in excruciating detail, to the point where many accuse us of doomsaying and fearmongering, we are aware of the tough job market. But, even in the Great Recession, some people are still getting offers — along with a little swag to sweeten the pot. So what’s wrong with some fun to balance out the gloom?

In defense of law firm schwag, here’s a trend worth noting: “going green.” Firms are trying to be environmentally conscious in their swag selections, as well as more socially responsible in general. This may make schwag less “disgusting” to its critics.

A second theme of swag this year: customization. In this age of individualism and/or narcissism, firms are letting swag recipients have a say in what gets given away. Just as firms are moving away from lockstep in terms of pay and promotion, so too are they allowing for greater tailoring in terms of swag.

Check out the finalists, and vote for the best law firm swag, after the jump.

As we get back to the Vault rankings, we encounter more firms that have engaged in stealth layoffs. And a firm that conducts mass transit layoffs.

To refresh your memory, here’s the next group:

61. Cooley Godward
62. Pillsbury
63. Sonnenschein
64. Cahill
65. Holland & Knight
66. K&L Gates
67. Nixon Peabody
68. Foley & Lardner
69. Kaye Scholer
70. Steptoe & Johnson

The penalty for having a partner announce layoffs on a train was six spots according to Vault. There have been other Pillsbury cutbacks. But the Acela incident happened when associates had Vault surveys sitting on their desks.

After the jump, let’s take a look at some of the other firms in this group.

Last night, George Sodini, 48, walked into an LA Fitness Center near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened fire on those exercising inside. Early reports say he killed three women and injured up to 15, including his ex-girlfriend. He then turned the gun on himself.

Sodini’s LinkedIn profile says he was a systems analyst at K&L Gates. We reached out to the firm this morning. A spokesperson responded to say:

K&L Gates is deeply saddened by last night’s events, and offers its condolences to the families and friends of all who were involved in this terrible tragedy.

ABC News has found Sodini’s online diary. We ran a WhoIs search and determined that the diary is not a hoax. A George Sodini of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, registered the website in August 2000.

It is incredibly disturbing.

* ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was secretly taped by a peephole videographer. Now the naked tape has made the rounds on the Internet. (Before you search, beware of viruses.) Her lawyer says Andrews plans to pursue criminal and civil charges against the peeper. [Fox News]

* “Morgan Lewis signals Armageddon.” [AmLaw Daily]

* Deutsche Bank allegedly tried to plant one of its lawyers as an intern at another law firm in order to gather intelligence. [Bloomberg]

* The Washington Post gets the first post-Gatesgate interview with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The incident has made the race scholar want to study race. In criminal justice. [Washington Post]

* Oregon court rules that divorce when kids are involved can be just as messy for same-sex couples as it is for heterosexual couples. [Courthouse News Service]

* Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS is back on and e-mails between K&L Gates and CBS experts are discoverable. [Reuters and New York Times]

Multiple independent sources report that K&L Gates had a minor spate of staff layoffs late last week. One particular tipster sums up the move nicely:

In the Dallas office last week, five staff members are given the boot, very stealth-like.

Reason given: Not enough work to go around.

As the staff numbers sharply decrease, many attorneys are doing a larger portion of clerical (a/k/a non-billable tasks.

Naturally one would wonder is the time spent filling in for an ever-decreasing staff being billed to clients?

Five legal staffers isn’t necessarily front-page news, but you have to check out how K&L Gates went about this round of cuts.

“Screaming” details, after the jump.

* The Supreme Court short list has been leaked. Surprise: There’s a man on the list! Under consideration are Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood, and California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. [Associated Press]

* Bill Gates is firing his dad’s firm. Microsoft has dropped K&L Gates from its preferred legal providers list. [Seattle Times via ABA Journal]

* A murdered lawyer in Guatemala left behind a video blaming the president of the country for his assassination. [Wall Street Journal and Associated Press]

* Obama may not comply with the 2nd Circuit’s ordered release of detainee abuse photos. [Washington Post]

* “Michelle Obama: Why I left a ‘big ol’ fancy’ Chicago law firm.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

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.

It’s not unusual for Biglaw partners to find themselves on opposite sides of the ring when they face off on behalf of clients in litigation. But Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Evan Chesler and K&L Gates’s Peter Kalis are staring each other down for a different reason: their opinions on law firm billing structures. Not as sexy as fighting over Lady Justice, but we’ll take what we can get.

UK-based legal publication The Lawyer is hyping the fierce match between the two Biglaw heavyweights to promote an upcoming issue of the magazine that will explore “whether the current economic downturn represent[s] a paradigm shift for the world’s leading firms.”

In one corner, we have Cravath presiding partner Evan Chesler, an NYU Law grad (‘75) and a “Leading Litigator” per the Lawdragon. In the other corner, we have K&L chairman Peter J. Kalis, a Yale Law grad (‘78) who has also been recognized by the Lawdragon but is, more importantly, a member of the Elect (clerked for Justice Byron White).

See the fight unfurl, after the jump.

The week is off to an ugly start in law firm layoff land. K&L Gates sent the following memo out this morning announcing a “workforce reduction” of 36 associates and 79 staff:

To: All K&L Gates Personnel
From: P.J. Kalis on Behalf of the Management Committee

As with other enterprises adjusting to the global economic downturn, including dozens of major law firms, we have had to adopt measures to strike a balance between the size of our workforce and the demand for certain of our services.

Today, with regret, we announce a reduction in workforce involving 36 associates and 79 staff in the United States. In addition, six lawyer posts are being considered for redundancy in the London office. These reductions (including the possible reductions in London) represent 4.9% of our associate lawyers and 4.3% of our staff. Each of the affected individuals will be personally notified today and informed of transitional arrangements.

For the affected individuals, there is little that can be said here that will not ring hollow. Although impersonal economic forces are sometimes difficult to understand, their highly personal effects are all too easily understood. Good people will be searching for jobs.

We hate to say it, but laying off just 4.9 percent of associates is almost something to brag about these days, with firms like Latham cutting as high as 10 percent in one fell swoop. Full memo, after the jump.

Well, it looks like we are going to make it through another day without K&L Gates announcing layoffs. We’ll note that K&L Gates has still not responded to any of Above the Law’s inquiries. The sword of Damocles continues to hang ominously over the firm’s employees.

But while management at K&L Gates continues to make everyone wait for the inevitable, the human resources department still looks like they are preparing employees for major layoffs. On Friday, we noted that the firm reminded employees about their options for mental health. Today, employees were reminded about COBRA benefits.

Just like on Friday, under normal circumstances an email like this could be totally benign. But in this information vacuum where K&L Gates will neither confirm nor deny layoffs that many people expect are coming, you have to be worried when the firm starts reminding you about benefits you won’t need … unless you get fired.

Read the full COBRA message after the jump.

We reported yesterday that K&L Gates was likely to announce layoffs today. There is still no comment from the firm.

Firm chairman Peter Kalis’s “out of office” reply is somewhat curious given the news swirling around the firm today. Here’s what we received when we emailed him (again) today:

I will have infrequent access to email today. I will respond to your email as soon as possible. Thank you.

Peter Kalis
K&L Gates LLP

This has led some tipsters to believe that the layoff announcement will come Monday instead of today.

But whenever the news comes — if it comes — it looks like the firm doesn’t want associates jumping out of windows. Literally.

Details after the jump.

Could Friday end up being another Valentine’s Day Massacre? We’re already waiting to see if Latham will announce its layoffs tomorrow, but now we’ll also be waiting to see what K&L Gates does.

We believe that K&L Gates will announce layoffs on Friday. We believe it will affect most of the firm’s offices — even the ones in Texas.

The news broke late last night. We don’t have any conference room bookings to report, but there was an emergency partner meeting yesterday:

This rumor was sparked around last minute emergency Partner meetings yesterday afternoon. Some big decisions were going down in those meetings.

Tipsters from many K&L offices have written in about expected layoffs tomorrow.

Managing partner Peter Kalis did not respond to our requests for comment on the reports.

But K&L Gates has already indicated that layoffs were a possibility. Details after the jump.

Earlier today, associates at K&L Gates attended a town hall meeting with Peter Kalis, chairman and global managing partner. Kalis provided an overview of where the firm stands and announced steps that will be taken to deal with the recession (in addition to skimping on toilet paper).

Several sources sent us reports of the proceedings. Here are highlights:

Possible layoffs: No associate layoffs — yet. At the end of February, management will evaluate how things stand at that point, and there may be a reduction in headcount after that.

Salary freeze: Salaries will be frozen for all associates. This decision will be reviewed at the July Management Committee meeting (so think “slurpee freeze”). According to Kalis, clients were asking him why K&L Gates hadn’t frozen salaries, in response to the freezes of other firms.

Delayed start dates: Incoming first-year associates will have their start date deferred to January 4, 2010. They will get health care prior to that. But Kalis did not say anything about a stipend (a point several sources noticed). The First-Year Academy (training for new associates) and the Associates Symposium have been canceled.

Billing rates: The firm will be raising billing rates (interesting, in light of the salary freeze — pay associates the same, but charge clients more for their services). According to Kalis, rates at K&L Gates are currently lower than those of peer firms, so this is a chance to catch up.

Firm finances: K&L Gates is one of only two Am Law 100 firms with no debt, per Kalis.

That’s the hard news. Colorful quotes and fun stuff, after the jump.

In early December, we reported that K&L Gates was engaged in merger talks with Bell Boyd. Today, the firms made it official. An email just went out to K&L Gates associates from Peter Kalis:

Colleagues: We wrote you in December to announce that our firm and the Chicago-based law firm Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP were in discussions with a view to combining the two firms. We are now pleased to report that the two firms’ partnerships have voted overwhelmingly in favor of the combination. I have appended below the news release that is being distributed to media outlets throughout the world. Please feel free to forward the release outside the firm to clients and other friends of the firm with your own message instead of mine. Thanks. Pete

You can read the official press release after the jump.

Good news on a Friday? Yay!

K&L Gates associates have not heard about their 2008 bonus or their 2009 raises yet. Bonus news is historically late at the firm, and raise news should come in March.

In the meantime, associates got an unexpected bonus along with their second paycheck of the year. This is an excerpt from the e-mail associates received yesterday:

Please see the email below regarding an error with the direct deposit of the January 22nd payroll. In short the issue is that your payroll appears to have been deposited 3 times and the firm is in the process of request [sic] 2 of those be returned. So, please be careful not to spend more then your normal pay until you see that they [sic] corrections have been made to your account.

On the downside, K&L uses an inept payroll company. On the upside, the firm’s cash flow must be nice and healthy if it can afford to triple pay all of its associates. Indeed, as we reported yesterday, profits per partner at K&L are up.

The associate who sent the e-mail along to us is a brave one:

they said they’d take it out by early next week. i think i could head up to atlantic city. triple it. then put it back in my account by next monday.

Sounds like a plan to us. Not a good plan, but a plan. Full e-mail from the director of payroll after the jump.

A couple of internal emails came across our desk today, heralding good news — at least for the partners.

Profits per Partner are up at WilmerHale:

PPP are $1,080,000, which is up from last year by a little bit. Also, 6.7% of total hours billed by the firm were to pro bono matters.

And the firm is passing some of those profits back down to associates. Individualized bonus memos are making the rounds at WilmerHale today, and at 2000 hours associates will be receiving a Cravath level bonus. Our Boston based sources are pretty happy with that.

Perhaps more importantly, WilmerHale announced that they will not be freezing salaries. So while associates at Goodwin Procter will be getting a better bonus, WilmerHale associates will be getting pay raises that are reflected in their February paychecks.

White & Case also shows a revenue increase after the jump.

We’ve been caught up in bonus announcements and coverage of that-which-must-not-be-named, so we’ve neglected to mention that a bunch of firms have gotten hitched in the last month.

Since there are so many, we’re giving it to you LEWW-style:

1. Greenebaum Doll & McDonald (Louisville) and Ice Miller (Indianapolis)

2. Bradley Arant Rose & White (Birmingham) and Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry (Nashville)

3. Frost Brown Todd (Louisville/Cincinnati) and Locke Reynolds (Indianapolis)

We have two Louisville-Indianapolis pairings. The result of the Green Ice pairing is a merged firm of 443 attorneys, while Frosty Locke will have about 450 attorneys. Bradley Arant Boult Cummings will be comprised of 350 attorneys, mainly in Bible Belt offices.

We reported last week on the latest feast in the K&L Gates merger feeding frenzy, joining forces with Chicago’s Bell Boyd & Lloyd, and taking its numbers up to 2,000 lawyers in 30 offices.

Lateral Link survey guru Justin Bernold provides some recession merger insight:

Ah, the recession merger. No matter the industry, here’s the method:

Step one: Discover that one rock doesn’t float.
Step two: Tie it to another rock.
Step three: Fire the employees if it doesn’t float.

Adding, “If Cravath merges with SullCrom, those rocks are gonna float. On big bags of money.”

Report says Greenebaum plans merger with Indianapolis firm [Business First]
Indianapolis-based law firm Ice Miller’s merger follows national trend [Indiana Economic Digest]
Bradley Arant and Boult, Cummings to merge [Charlotte Business Journal]
Locke Reynolds: new name, clout [Indianapolis Star]
K&L Gates, Bell Boyd Consider Merger [American Lawyer]

Earlier: Law Firm Merger Mania: K&L Gates In Talks To Acquire Bell Boyd

* Bad news for the big three: the New York Times says Congress “is suffering from acute bailout fatigue.” [NYT]

* There were 13 law firm mergers in the third quarter this year (not unusual). The largest number of combinations (5) were in the southeast. [The Birmingham News]

* O.J. Simpson is finally going to jail. He will be sentenced today in Nevada. This time, he stole back sports memorabilia from two people. Can you think of a more inelegant end to the Simpson saga? [The Associated Press]

* If you break the law in New York, at least you get free day care. Thanks to Judge Judith S. Kaye (New York State’s cheif judge), there are 34 children’s centers across the state in family, criminal, and civil courts. They provide a safe and happy place for children whose parents are involved in legal battles. [NYT]

* The shareholder lawsuit against the merger of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase was dismissed Thursday in the New York State Supreme Court. [Reuters]

* Singapore awarded Clifford Chance, White & Case, and Latham & Watkins licenses to practice law, as part of an attempt to compete with Hong Kong and other cities in China and the Middle East that have benefitted from having international law practices. [Bloomberg]

* Discover is mad at Morgan Stanley for secretly hanging-out with Visa and Mastercard behind Discover’s back. Sounds a lot like middle school, only in the real world, you can sue. [Bloomberg]