Old People

Mandatory Retirement Age for Partners: An ATL Debate

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old man partner.jpgThe older generation of Biglaw partners is starting to see retirement staring them in the face. At firms that have a mandatory retirement age, getting old means getting out — forced out.

This phenomenon is affecting some big-name attorneys. Word on the street (and in our comments) is that Bob Bennett left for Hogan & Hartson in part because he simply became too old for Skadden. And today the ABA Journal reports that Michael Sohn, former managing partner of Arnold & Porter, is leaving for Davis Polk & Wardwell because of A&P’s retirement age.

ELIE: To which I say: “Yay!” With all due respect to our Baby Boomer forebears, their time on the world stage is almost up. They’ve had a good run, what with getting the bag beat out of them in Vietnam, totally selling out during the 80s, and electing two different Bushes three different times. It’ll be almost sad to see them go. They won’t be forgotten, of course. No, we’ll be paying for their extended life expectancy and Cadillac health care long after they once again kill any movement towards health care reform.

I’m surprised anybody would support these aging partners hanging on, and on, and on, in the law firm context where Biglaw is facing a real problem with attrition. Young people are being fired or held back because older people won’t gracefully move and get out of the way. Boomer partners are trying to exert dead-hand control over their firms, preventing the next generation from climbing the ladder to leadership.

I’m not saying that everybody over the age of 70 should be forcibly marched to manicured concentration camps in Florida and Arizona. There are a lot of awesome things you can do with your “golden years.” Spend time with your family, start a blog, write op-eds of significance.

But for the love of God, stop getting in the way of the younger generation that is eager to take their shot at making decisions (and profits). I know you old guys don’t see the point of Facebook, Twitter, and a totally revamped fall recruiting program — and that’s fine. Nobody is asking you to totally change your way of thinking; we wouldn’t want you to break a hip. Just admit that with age comes a certain ossification of the brain that makes it resistant to necessary change, and ease your way out of positions of power.

Of course, not everybody agrees with me; some people like it when the old guys stick around. Next up: Kash explores her Daddy issues….

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Quote of the Day: That sounds a lot better than law school…

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Most of the time, the other students acted like I wasn’t even alive. Some of them asked if I was really serious. I told them I could take a first-class trip around the world and not spend as much money and not have to work as hard.


– Alice Thomas, 79, who will graduate from McGeorge School of Law in May. And yes, she has an offer. At a Reno law firm, where she will work on legal issues involving the elderly.

Morning Docket 02.02.10

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old man partner.jpg* Kelley Drye has been hit with an age discrimination suit for forcing its partners to de-equitize at 70, raising the question once again of whether law firms that force retirement on their partners are breaking the law. [Chicago Tribune]
* Big pay day for J&J. Boston Scientific will pay Johnson & Johnson $1.73 billion to settle stent patent dispute. [Wall Street Journal]
* UC San Diego and California Western School of Law are getting ideas from Massachusetts. They’re in talks to establish a public law school. [San Diego Business Journal]
* The SEC sued Stephen Czarnik, a partner at Cohen and Czarnik LLP, yesterday for allegedly writing bogus opinion letters to help promote “penny” stocks. [Dow Jones]
* On white collar crime defense fees. [Dealbook/New York Times]
* Steven Tyler will sue if Aerosmith replaces him. [Rolling Stone]

Justice Ginsburg’s Dozing During SOTU

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg cancer surgery.jpgHere’s one talk that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn’t fall asleep during: her own, a conversation with Nina Totenberg at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday night.
We took note of the fact that RBG dozed off a bit during President Obama’s State of the Union address. As it turns out, Justice Ginsburg has an explanation.

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SCOTUS Retirement Watch? Zzzzzz…

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Justice Alito was barely able to contain himself during Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech. Justice Ginsburg, on the other hand, was barely able to stay awake:

For Obama, a polite State of the Union [Washington Post]
Earlier: SCOTUS Slammed at SOTU
Breaking: Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized (Again), But Released
Ginsburg Falls Asleep: Media Pretend Not to Notice [News Busters]

J.D. Salinger, R.I.P.

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Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger.jpegJ.D. Salinger, the celebrated (and reclusive) author of The Catcher in the Rye, passed away yesterday. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire, according to a statement from Salinger’s literary representative.
Is there a legal angle here?

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Musical Chairs: Former New York D.A. Bob Morgenthau to Wachtell Lipton

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Robert Morgenthau Robert Morris Morgenthau Robert M Morgenthau Bob Morgenthau.jpgPerhaps Herb Wachtell and Marty Lipton wanted some company as Legendary Old Dudes at 51 West 52nd Street. From the Associated Press:

Former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has joined the New York-based law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Morgenthau retired at age 90 as district attorney, after 35 years in the job.

In a release Wednesday, Morgenthau said he’s long admired Wachtell Lipton. He said it has helped to advance the law and the legal profession.

As well as the residential real estate markets in Manhattan and Westchester County. Wachtell Lipton routinely tops the American Lawyer’s list of the nation’s most profitable large law firms. The firm had profits per partner of just over $4 million in 2008, according to the 2009 Am Law 100 survey.

The firm represents many financial institutions.

That’s an understatement. The firm’s financial institutions group, led by the unstoppable Ed Herlihy, is second to none in the field of banking M&A (with the possible exception of Sullivan & Cromwell’s FIG group, headed by Rodge Cohen).
So what can Bob Morgenthau expect while working at the CBS Building?

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Las Vegas Courthouse Shooter Had Murderous Past

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Las Vegas federal courthouse Lloyd D George federal courthouse.jpgMonday’s shootout at the Lloyd George Courthouse in Las Vegas can be described as tragic, frightening, and now, surreal. Reports are out this morning that the gunman, Johnny Lee Wicks, previously served prison time for killing his brother. The ABA Journal collects the information:

Stories by the Associated Press, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal detail Wicks’ criminal past.
Wicks killed his brother after an argument escalated over whether his motorcycle could outrun his brother’s car, according to the Commercial Appeal account. Wicks had claimed he killed his brother in self defense, although no weapon was found near the body. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to 12 to 15 years, and Wicks was paroled after serving six years.

I’m not a huge fan of taking legal advice from the Bible, but surely killing your brother because you’re jealous over his sheep car deserves a harsher penalty than six years.
But we’re not done with Johnny Lee Wicks’s past. More after the jump.

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Las Vegas Shooter Follow-Up

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Las Vegas federal courthouse Lloyd D George federal courthouse.jpgDetails continue to roll in about Johnny Lee Wicks, the shooter during yesterday’s gunfight at the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse in Las Vegas. Apparently Wicks set fire to his own house before heading to the courthouse. ABC News reports:

The senior citizen who is being blamed for a Las Vegas courthouse shooting that killed a security officer had set his condo on fire in a fit of rage before the attack.
Friends and family told ABC News that Johnny Lee Wicks, 66, was so upset that his monthly Social Security check was being reduced that he set fire to his home in a gated retirement community around 5 a.m. Monday.

Wicks had filed a racial discrimination suit against the Social Security Administration because his benefits were cut. The suit got tossed and, apparently, that is what set him off. Over on True/Slant, Michael Roston hopes that Wicks’s deranged understanding of race in America isn’t used by neocons as a polemic against tolerance:

Of course, I’m still trying to be hopeful that the fact that Wicks was a black man shooting at a federal building won’t also be worked into the kulturkampf by agents of conservative histrionics. Rush Limbaugh is taking a few days off after his brush with the medical system, so he won’t be going on air tomorrow to declare that crimes like this happen only in “Obama’s America.” If anyone else out there was thinking about saying something like that, please, don’t. Let’s just all be thankful that there weren’t any more senseless deaths from this tragedy today.

Hear, hear. Bullets don’t care about skin color. An Above the Law reader who works at the Lloyd George Courthouse provides an eyewitness account of the harrowing minutes during the shooting.
The story after the jump.

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Update: Grandma May Have Been Triggerwoman in Howrey Associate Murder-Suicide

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Elizabeth Fontaine Howrey LLP.jpgIn yesterday’s post regarding the tragedy that left a Howrey associate, Elizabeth Fontaine (pictured), and three of her family members dead, we promised to keep you posted on new developments. We now bring you this update, from the Orange County Register:

Sheriff’s investigators believe they know how four people, including two young sisters, died in a bloody heap Monday inside a million-dollar home in Talega.

Grandmother Bonnie Hoult, 67, fired the gun that killed her daughter and grandchildren before turning the .357 magnum on herself, a senior homicide investigator told the Register, citing the department’s prevailing theory behind the killings that rocked a gated community.

He said her daughter Elizabeth Fontaine, 38, appeared to have been a willing participant in the killings, with both she and her mother choosing death for themselves and the girls instead of allowing the sisters to be sent temporarily into the custody of a sister of their father.

More about these modern-day Medeas, after the jump.

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Discharging Law School Debt in Bankruptcy Doesn’t Get Any Easier When You Are Old

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Crushing Debt Obligations.jpgI spent all day yesterday trying to summon the rage, trying to figure out a way to trumpet the cause of a sixty-something, recent law school graduate who is still having trouble discharging her student loans in a bankruptcy proceeding. The National Law Journal has the tear-jerking story:

When she graduated four years ago with a law degree at the age of 61, Denise Megan Bronsdon likely did not foresee bankruptcy court in her future. But that’s where she ended up — as a debtor.

The former farmer’s wife, who operated a tractor before going to Southern New England School of Law in 2002, convinced a Massachusetts bankruptcy court in January that repaying the more than $82,000 she owed in student debt would create an undue hardship. However, the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, considering an appeal by the lender, Educational Credit Management Corp., found on Nov. 20 that Bronsdon’s decision not to participate in a loan repayment assistance program should be part of the bankruptcy court’s undue hardship analysis.

If I was half the man I used to be, I’d take a flamethrower to this place. Hoo-Ha!
But the problem with my flamethrower is that I do not know where to point it. I could get angry at the entire system that makes student loans so difficult to discharge through bankruptcy. Or I could get mad at the law school that essentially stole this woman’s money. Or I could get angry at the woman herself — who failed the Wisconsin bar three times.
Oh, I know, let’s get pissy at all of them.

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Breaking: Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized (Again), But Released

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg cancer surgery.jpgThe Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Health Watch continues. This just in, from the AP:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery earlier this year, was briefly hospitalized overnight after having a bad reaction to some medicine.

A statement from the court says Ginsburg was taken to the Washington Hospital Center Wednesday night and released Thursday morning.

Doctors say Ginsburg had an adverse reaction to a sleeping aid combined with cold medicine. She took the medicine in preparation for an overnight flight to London, but was taken off the airplane after she experienced extreme drowsiness causing her to fall from her seat.

At least she didn’t fall asleep on the bench this time. We’d wish RBG a speedy recovery, but it seems that she has already recovered.
Ginsburg Briefly Hospitalized, Released Thurs. [Associated Press]
Earlier: Breaking: Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized
Update: Justice Ginsburg Is Back on the Job