Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe

Musical Chairs: Lanny Davis Out at McDermott Already?

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Back in October, we wrote about D.C. powerhouse lawyer Lanny Davis moving from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to McDermott Will & Emery. He was joined in his Orrick-to-McDermott move by Eileen O’Connor, the journalist-turned-lawyer who worked with him in his crisis management practice.

Now, just a few months later, it appears that Davis is striking out on his own. From the Washington Post:

Lanny J. Davis, the former White House counsel and longtime Clinton booster, is launching his own eponymous law-and-lobbying shop, according to a draft announcement obtained by The Post. Lanny J. Davis & Associates LLP will provide “a unique combination of traditional legal and litigation services plus media/crisis management, and legislative/public policy strategies to solve U.S. and international client problems,” the announcement says. Davis, a cable television staple who has often run afoul of more liberal Democrats, highlights his avowed centrism as a prime benefit for potential clients….

The new venture means Davis will step down as partner at the global law firm of McDermott Will & Emery, but he says he will continue to write a column for “The Hill” newspaper and contribute to a legal strategies blog that he began last year.

We reached out to McDermott, and a firm spokesperson confirmed that Davis is leaving the firm.

So who else is going with him, and what prompted the move?

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Associate Bonus Watch: Orrick, A Case Study in Merit-Based Bonus Payments

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2009 Associate bonus watch above the law.JPGA number of firms have adopted a merit-based pay structure, and other firms claim they want to. But few firms have thought through how to make a merit-based structure work as much as Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has. And nobody is addressing the new scheme with quite as much transparency.
Orrick sent around its merit-based bonus memo today. If you have gotten used to firms using merit compensation to hide what they are paying their people, prepare to be surprised:

82% of all US associates received a bonus. As previously communicated, we did not apply an hours threshold in determining bonus eligibility.
The following tables provide information about our US 2009 bonus distribution by new talent model role for all US associates.

That’s right, Orrick actually provided a chart showing the general bonus payouts to its associates. This is not entirely new — Latham comes to mind — but it’s certainly nice. Here are the overall numbers:
Orrick 2010 bonus chart 1.jpg
Do you want more transparency? Orrick has you covered.
The firm even provided a bonus comparison chart, so its employees know where they stand.

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Orrick’s New Compensation Structure

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Orrick logo.JPGAt an all associates meeting today, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe revealed its much talked about new associate compensation structure. Starting in 2010, Orrick will be moving away from lockstep in a big way.
Essentially, Orrick has separated associates into three classes: associates, managing associates, and senior associates. Advancement from one level to another will be based on merit — not time served at the firm.
The biggest news is that starting salaries are going to remain at the $160K level. Orrick wants to recruit and compete for top talent. The firm isn’t using the move away from lockstep as an excuse to cut first year pay.
And the firm will still pay the prevailing market bonus. In fact, the firm will pay the market bonus, plus a little extra to its highest performing associates. The goal appears to be giving their superstar associates a big reward for good work, instead of reducing costs on the back of associate compensation.
Check out the new salary structure chart from Orrick after the jump.

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Orrick is Recruiting Again

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Orrick logo.JPGBack in July, Orrick told people exactly what it was going to do regarding recruiting for its 2010 summer program. Here is the crucial part of Orrick’s July announcement:

[W]e believe it would be irresponsible to recruit a class for the summer of 2010 – a class that would normally join us in late 2011 or early 2012, the same time our current class of summer associates would be joining us after the one year deferral – until we know how many of our 2009 summer associates accept their one-year deferred offers. We need to prioritize the interests of our current Orrick summer associates over the law students whom we have not yet met and who would otherwise be competing for the same positions.
For these reasons we have decided to shift our on-campus recruiting efforts from the normal time-frame to November 15, 2009 through March of 2010. After the November 15th NALP deadline, we will know how many of our current summer associates accept their deferred offers, and we will be able to better assess our needs for recruiting 2L associates for a 2010 summer program. We expect to reach out to 2L and possibly 1L students during this shifted time frame to meet our summer 2010 recruiting needs.

Well, we’re getting pretty close to November 15th. And Orrick has been placing recruiting ads at a law school near you. But some Above the Law tipsters are surprised that Orrick is doing exactly what Orrick said it would do:

I assumed that was BS though and figured it was just a way to avoid saying they weren’t recruiting at all. Given how things are going, why would they basically go to recruit fromt the bottom half of the class?

You know, when this whole recession is over, we are going to need to have some trust building exercises between firm management and employees.
Orrick didn’t lie back in July. They really are recruiting. Check it out after the jump.

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A Look at Orrick’s Crisis Management Practice

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Orrick logo.JPGLast week we wrote about the move of prominent D.C. lawyers Lanny Davis and Eileen O’Connor from Orrick to McDermott Will & Emery. Am Law Daily described the jump as follows: “Lanny Davis, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer who supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and was a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, is taking his unique practice from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to McDermott, Will & Emery.”
It’s not the case, however, that the entire practice moved. As noted by one commenter, the rest of the legal strategic and crisis management practice remained with Orrick. Consistent with this, an Orrick spokesperson issued the following statement to ATL:

We wish Lanny and Eileen well, but Orrick’s law, policy, media, and crisis management practice remains vibrant and strong with continuing plans for expansion and will keep delivering its unique blend of legal, public relations and government affairs counsel to our clients around the world.

Remaining at Orrick are partners Adam Goldberg, who was co-chair of the practice with Davis, and Joshua Galper. Goldberg and Galper will head the practice going forward. In addition, the associates who work in and with the law, policy and media group are staying at Orrick.
As for clients, it’s not yet clear which ones will stay with Orrick and which will move to McDermott. “Thankfully, this is a practice where we’ve always had plenty of work, so that’s not an issue,” Galper said. (We’d guess, however, that certain clients closely tied to Davis — like CEAL, the Honduras business group supporting the coup in that country — will travel with him.)
Get to know Messrs. Galper and Goldberg, and read more about Orrick’s very interesting and unusual practice area, after the jump.

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Musical Chairs: Lanny Davis and Eileen O’Connor Leave Orrick for McDermott

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Lanny Davis Eileen OConnor Lanny J Davis Eileen M OConnor Orrick McDermott.jpgLast week we participated in a panel discussion at Georgetown Law that was skillfully moderated by Eileen O’Connor, the Emmy-nominated journalist turned high-powered lawyer. After the talk, we tried to play the “name game” with O’Connor regarding colleagues of hers over at Orrick. But O’Connor seemed strangely uneasy about Orrick, and she quickly changed the subject.
Could this have been why? From Am Law Daily:

Lanny Davis, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer who supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and was a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, is taking his unique practice from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to McDermott, Will & Emery.

Davis, who previously moved to Orrick in 2003 from Patton Boggs, will bring counsel Eileen O’Connor, a former ABC News and CNN reporter, with him.

Beltway dwellers know that Lanny Davis is a big deal. He served as White House Special Counsel during the Clinton Administration, but he has friends on both sides of the aisle. As Bobby Burchfield, cohead of McDermott’s Washington office, told Zach Lowe of Am Law Daily, “Lanny is the only person I know who considers both Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush good friends.”
In addition to practicing law, Davis writes for the Washington Times and for The Hill. In one recent column, he scolded bloggers for inadequate fact-checking. If anything in this post is inaccurate, Mr. Davis, please email us and we’ll fix it ASAP.
Press release after the jump. Good luck to Davis and O’Connor in their new professional home.

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Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 41 – 50 (2010)

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comparing.jpgAs we finish off the Vault top 50, we look at some firms went through some tough layoffs.
Here’s the list:

41. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
42. Baker & McKenzie
43. Goodwin Procter
44. DLA Piper
45. King & Spalding
46. Jenner & Block
47. Dewey & LeBoeuf
48. Proskauer Rose
49. Vinson & Elkins
50. Irell & Manella

It might not look like it, but there is a lot of carnage on this list. Orrick is down four spots. Proskauer is down four spots. King & Spalding is down 3 spots.
And many of the firms here that are marginally up or holding steady still went through significant layoffs.
After the jump, Law Shucks offers some stats.

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Nationwide No Offer Watch: Numbers from Kirkland and Orrick

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no offer factories.jpgWe’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.

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Pet Killers, Beware of Orrick

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Orrick logo.JPGIf Michael Vick can learn to love animals, “be they a dog, or a cat, or … a reptile,” then surely the American courts can’t be far behind.
A couple of weeks ago, we brought you the story of a New Jersey appellate panel which declined to view the family pet as mere property in a divorce proceeding. Now a Virginia court is being asked to award damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from a pet-icide. The Wall Street Journal reports that there is some high profile pro-bono legal counsel taking up the cause of not treating animals as replaceable goods:

A lawsuit slated to go to trial next week down in Virginia could help redefine the theory — at least in that state — on what how a pet-owner should be compensated if a pet is wrongfully killed. In many states, tort law provides the owner simply gets the replacement value of a pet.
But the plaintiff in the Virginia case, represented pro bono by Orrick partner and former White House counsel Lanny Davis, feels the amount should be much higher in certain circumstances. Davis likened the case to that of a family heirloom, which has worth well beyond its street value.

Go Orrick. Family heirloom status is just the first step. It won’t be long now until I can bring my dog into the Duane Reade with the same disregard for other people’s shopping experience as parents enjoy now with their no spatial awareness/no vocal modulation street urchins.
Either that or we’ll soon see strollers tied up to stop signs up and down the east side of Manhattan.
After the jump, even the defendant in the civil suit agrees that family pets are worth more than their store bought value.

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Lawyerly Lairs: Orrick Shacks Up With Wachtell

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CBS Building 1 Black Rock Blackrock Wachtell Lipton WLRK Orrick.jpgMega-fraudster Marc Dreier, who recently traded a magnificent penthouse for a cell at the MCC (look him up in the handy Inmate Locator), isn’t the only New York lawyer with new digs.
The iconic CBS Building (aka “Black Rock”), longtime home of Wachtell Lipton, has another prestigious legal tenant. From the New York Observer:

Law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe was expected Thursday to sign a lease for approximately 220,000 square feet at CBS’ 38-story granite slab known as Black Rock, at 51 West 52nd Street, according to industry sources.

As part of the deal, Orrick is taking the space being vacated by UBS and Cushman & Wakefield, which will consolidate its midtown offices at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Sources say that UBS paid more than $32 million to terminate its lease early, money which CBS applied to the Orrick deal to absorb the costs of Orrick’s build-out of the noncontiguous space to the tune of $150 a square foot, and which will reduce the firm’s rent in the building.

It’s a great building, with handsome, elegant architecture (courtesy of Eero Saarinen). Because the footprint is relatively small, it doesn’t have the impersonal, warehouse-like feel of many other New York office buildings. The midtown location is super-convenient, and the higher floors offer amazing views. (We know Black Rock well, having spent several thousand hours in it while working at Wachtell.)
An Orrick spokesperson confirmed to ATL that the deal, described by the Observer as “expected,” has closed. Congratulations to Orrick on the fabulous new digs!
Links and press release, after the jump.

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