After making our way across the country, which included stops in New York, Washington, D.C., and California, the final leg of this Career Center series on the Top Partners to Work For will cover some of the smaller legal markets.
Today we head back to the east coast to focus on Boston’s best Biglaw partners who work at the following top firms: Foley Hoag, Proskauer Rose, Skadden, Mintz Levin, Cooley, Greenberg Traurig, and Ropes & Gray.
Let’s see which partners made the cut….
The world of large law firms isn’t all about prestige and pay. Although the Vault 100 prestige rankings and the Am Law 100 profit-per-partner rankings are closely watched, there are other ranking schemes out there — and some of these frameworks adopt a kinder, gentler outlook on Biglaw.
For example, take the American Lawyer’s A-List. Although the A-List rankings take law firm financial performance into account, they also factor in diversity, pro bono work, and associate satisfaction.
Associate satisfaction: that’s the driving force behind another important set of rankings, Vault’s just-released “Best Law Firms to Work For” list. The notion of “quality of life” at a law firm might seem laughable to some — but let’s face it, some firms are generally better workplaces than others. (Of course, your mileage may vary: some lawyers have great experiences at firms known for being awful, and some lawyers have awful experiences at firms known for being great.)
Let’s check out the Vault top ten, shall we?
When it comes to deferring incoming associates, what is the new normal? A couple of months ago, we reported that Mintz Levin was deferring its class of 2010 associates to 2012. At the time, Mintz Levin didn’t reveal any information about its deferral stipend.
Today, tipsters are telling us about the Mintz Levin stipend. Let’s just say that 2010 graduates waiting for a job at Mintz Levin should strongly consider driving a cab or something. They’ll need an extra source of income to make ends meet…
For the past five years, Yale Law School has produced a list of the top “family friendly” law firms. And for the past five years, men have acted like “family” issues are something only women need to worry about.
Maybe that’s true if you are a committed bachelor who never intends to procreate or know the love of a real woman. Maybe that’s true if you subscribe to some kind of 1950′s television ideal where the man works and the woman is exclusively a stay-at-home mom. Mind the pool boy, fellas.
But the majority of men will one day marry and spawn. In many cases, they’ll marry a woman of equal career ambitions. At that point, being able to take some paternity leave might be very important. Maybe their wife won’t even be a lawyer, and thus make more money than her husband (have you seen what legal salaries are like these days). Most likely we will see more and more male primary care givers, and the firms will have to adjust. We’ve heard a lot about the “mommy track,” in our professional lifetimes one expects the “daddy track” to become just as important.
So which firms are already ahead of the family friendly curve?
During the recession, Mintz Levin froze associate salaries and deferred 2009 summer associates all the way until 2012. Not good times.
But the recession is starting to lift its death grip on law firms and the lawyers who work there, and Mintz Levin is in the mood to share the wealth. We spoke with Mintz Levin Managing Partner Robert Bodian today. He told us that the firm enjoyed a strong fiscal year — which ended this past Saturday:
Revenue and profits per partner were up around 3% [last year].
He said that work was picking up and the second half of last year was good for the firm.
Which means it’s time to give some money back to the hard working Mintz Levin associates…
If you spent your summer at Mintz Levin in 2009 and received an offer, congratulations! You must be very proud. Now wrap it up very tightly and put it in a safe place, because you won’t be pulling it out again until 2012. Multiple sources report that Mintz just deferred its 2009 summer associate class to 2012 — but the deferral is to January 2012, so those associates will taste a little bit of Biglaw life before the rapture.
One tipster put it this way:
We just found out that we are not starting until January 2012 at the earliest. This is ridiculous and they said that we still have to wait until April to find out if more information. They say nothing about stipends or salary advances or anything. Only that they will pay for the bar course and bar exam. Please publish this info because we are all pretty freaked out.
I’m not sure how publishing this story will make you less freaked out. I mean, you’re not starting until 2012. It just seems to me that as you sit there and just stare at the numbers, 2-0-1-2, and contemplate just how far away that is, and think about what you could possibly do to fill that time in the middle of a recession — well, if it were me I think having it published would make me more freaked out.
Mintz Levin has confirmed this news. We have a statement from the firm.
Continue reading “Mintz Levin: Defers Class of 2010 to … 2012″
Here we are. The end of the Vault 100.
To be on the Vault 100 is to be a well-known firm. Sure, maybe not well-known to law students or junior associates who can’t see past the mountain of doc review boxes in their windowless conference rooms. But known to partners … and clients. Look down your nose at these firms if you wish, but remember the old African proverb: “The smallest elephant can still crush your Lexus.”
Here is the final batch of top law firms for discussion:
91. Stroock & Stroock & Lavan
92. Blank Rome
93. Seyfarth Shaw
94. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
95. Manatt Phelps & Phillips
96. Squire Sanders & Dempsey
97. Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
98. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler
99. Wiley Rein
100. Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo
What say you about these fine firms? Some final thoughts after the jump.
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 91 – 100 (2010)”
Do you remember the class of 2009? You know, the kids who should be gearing up to start work in a couple of weeks but are instead sitting around, waiting to get out of purgatory? Don’t look now, but a couple of firms have decided to extend the deferral period for these people, and that can’t be a good thing.
Proskauer Rose’s New York office kicked off the round of deferment extensions last week. A tipster from Proskauer in Los Angeles reported the news:
Proskauer just told incoming L.A. associates that [incoming associates] in New York are getting their start dates pushed back again. It’s all the way back to November now. They told us [in L.A.] before they told New York because they didn’t want us to “hear it on Above the Law first.” [Sheesh.]
The letters have now gone out to all the incoming New York associates informing them of the news. The new start date is November 2, 2010.
Proskauer had already pushed back the class of 2009 to March 2010. But Proskauer has also told the class of 2010 that the earliest they will be able to start is “fall” 2010.
So can we assume that rising 2Ls considering interviewing with Proskauer won’t be able to start until late 2012? For that matter, are incoming Proskauer associates confident that they will ever be able to start at the firm? We reached out to Proskauer, but the firm did not respond to our request for comment.
After the jump, Mintz Levin joins the deferment extension party.
Continue reading “Proskauer Rose and Mintz Levin Kick Off ‘Deferment Extension’ Season”
Two weeks ago, Mintz Levin laid off 15 associates. But apparently those cuts were not deep enough. Above the Law has been able to confirm that Mintz Levin has cut associate salaries. A tipster explains it this way:
Salaries will be adjusted as follows (firm-wide, all departments) based on this 12-month period:
* Hours greater than 1635, salary reduced by 5%
* Hours between 1445-1635, salary reduced by 15%
* Hours between 1250-1444, salary reduced by 25%
* Hours less than 1250, salary reduced by 35%
Associates who were employed by the firm for the full fiscal years ended March 31, 2007 and 2008 and who met or exceeded target (i.e. 1925 hours) will have their salaries reduced by only 5%, regardless of their hours for the 12 month period (i.e. this safe harbor effectively only applies to 4th yr associates and above).
To make these cuts Mintz is looking at hours billed over the last 12 months. And we all know what has happened over the last 12 months:
[The cuts are] based on their utilization during the prior 12 months – August 1, 2008 through July 31, 2009. Why the arbitrary period? It’s a snapshot of the recession at its height.
But the firm will make people whole and return the money at the end of the fiscal year if their projections are wrong. For people on track to make their hours in FY 2009 who nonetheless fall below the threshold if you count the entire recession against them, they will have an opportunity to get some of their money back. So they should consider it simply loaning money to the firm right now at a 0% interest rate.
Feel better? More details, including a statement from Mintz Levin, after the jump.
Continue reading “Nationwide Salary Cut Watch: Mintz’s Levy on Salaries”
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
Can’t we all just get along? This is our second story today about an associate claiming discrimination by her law firm. No wonder Kirkland & Ellis has adopted a new mandatory arbitration policy.
From Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly:
An associate in the employment, labor and benefits section of the Boston firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination charging that colleagues discriminated against her because of her gender and status as a wife and mother.
Mintz, Levin associate Kamee Beth Verdrager also alleges in her MCAD filing against the firm and ML attorneys Robert M. Gault, Donald W. Schroeder and David Barmak that she was the target of retaliation when she complained about the treatment accorded her by certain members of the employment section and that she was subsequently demoted and placed on probation.
Commenting on behalf of the firm, Public Relations Director Gina Addis said that “the reality is from time to time allegations like these are made against all businesses, including law firms. Our firm has and will deal with any such allegations in the ordinary course and at the appropriate time and in the appropriate forum.”
More discussion, including highlights from Verdrager’s complaint, after the jump.
Continue reading “‘I suppose we have your honeymoon to blame for this?’”
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
We’re a little tardy with this memo. It was issued on Wednesday, but we didn’t receive it until late yesterday.
Anyway, better late than never. The Mintz Levin pay raise announcement appears below the fold.
You know how losing the last five pounds is always the hardest? The same could be said for the last few firms on the LIST OF SHAME. Don’t count on these firms melting away anytime soon.
We still haven’t seen a Mintz Levin memo. But we’re taking them off the list, since (1) numerous commenters have insisted they’ve matched the market raises, and (2) nobody has disputed this.
So here’s the latest, official LIST OF SHAME (ranked by Vault 100 placement; AmLaw 100 placement indicated parenthetically):
43. Baker & McKenzie (3)
50. Fulbright & Jaworski (36)
77. Bryan Cave (56)
82. Reed Smith (33)
83. Dorsey & Whitney (68)
86. McGuireWoods (65)
90. Baker & Hostetler (73)
100. Seyfarth Shaw (66)
Fridays are big days for announcements. Perhaps some news will break later today?
If you see any errors in this list, please email us (with supporting documentation, if any). Thanks.
The ATL front page has no post about associate compensation developments. That’s unacceptable.
So here’s an open thread for you to discuss the latest firms to announce associate pay raises. If anyone drops off the LIST OF SHAME — or if any major legal news breaks while we’re gone — this is the place to mention it.
P.S. Can someone please take a screenshot of the rumored Mintz Levin memo, and send it to us? We will then remove the firm from the next LIST OF SHAME. Thanks.
Nothing huge today, like yesterday’s news about Harriet Miers’s departure; but a few interesting moves. The two most noteworthy ones involve transitions between the public and private sectors:
From politics to private practice:
* Asa Hutchinson has rejoined Venable’s Washington office. Hutchinson — a former Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Republican congressman, and chief of the DEA — left the firm in March 2006, to run (unsuccessfully) for Arkansas governor.
From private sector to government:
* New York’s brand-new Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, snags another former federal prosecutor for his “dream team.” Henry Greenberg is leaving the Albany office of Greenberg Traurig to serve as Cuomo’s counsel.
Law firm news, after the jump.
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
Happy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.
The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
