* Law students or legal education customers? [Concurring Opinions]
* Philip K. Dick’s daughter is not a fan of the Google phone. [Wall Street Journal]
* This guy took Partner Emeritus seriously. [Underbelly]
* Perhaps unsure what to get Gilbert Arenas for his 28th birthday, NBA Commissioner David Stern opted to indefinitely suspend the Washington Wizards star for packing heat in the locker room. [ESPN]
* Elie opines on Agent Zero’s gun obsession and suggests that a small mind, rather than a small penis, is to blame for it. [True/Slant]
* Connecticut AG wants Christopher Dodd’s seat. [BLT]
* Prisoner escape on Planet Adorable. [Buzzfeed]
* During that dead week between Christmas and New Years, we did a post on our ten most popular stories of 2009. In case you missed it, here’s a link to the page view glory. [Above The Law]
Latest Stories
Last month, associate bonuses were announced at the super-elite firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson — aka the West Coast home of The Elect, with about two dozen former SCOTUS clerks lying around. The firm is well-known for its exceedingly high hiring standards and intellectual (if somewhat nerdy) atmosphere.
One would expect a firm as picky as Munger to reward its recruits handsomely. But word on the street is that some MTO associates, unlike their counterparts at Irell & Manella, are not pleased with their 2009 bonuses.
Munger didn’t have lockstep in the past, but this year they decided to have it for first-year associates (from the class of 2008). Those associates received $5,000, below the market rate of $7,500. Second-year associates, i.e., class of 2007 graduates, received bonuses between $7,500 and $10,000, at or below market. (But note that Munger makes 3% contributions to some associates’ 401K plans, which most firms do not these days.)
The firm memo provides official ranges for bonuses. One tipster claims the ranges are somewhat misleading because most people received bonuses on the low end and very few receive bonuses on the high end, but we have not verified this.
The complete MTO memo, plus added explanation for associate discontent, after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Munger, Tolles & Olson”
Last month we mentioned the civil RICO lawsuit filed against billionaire financier Steve Cohen by his ex-wife, Patricia Cohen. The suit is just a few weeks old — Mr. Cohen has yet to file an answer — but there’s already a new development.
Patricia Cohen has replaced her original lawyer — prominent trial lawyer Paul Batista, author of a treatise on RICO — with Gaytri Kachroo, a former partner at McCarter & English in Boston. Kachroo has some experience with high-profile, Wall Street-related engagements; she represented Harry Markopolos, a Madoff whistleblower, before Congress and the SEC. But she is primarily a transactional lawyer, whose practice focuses on emerging markets in India and Southeast Asia.
It’s all a bit… strange. Check out the details, along with Batista’s somewhat snarky motion to withdraw as counsel, over at Dealbreaker.
Paul Batista Claims Patricia Cohen Left In The Middle Of The Night And Didn’t Even Have The Bedside Manner To Say Good-Bye [Dealbreaker]
Earlier: Ex-Wife Goes After Deep Pockets
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to [email protected].
Deferred associates are starting soon at my V100 firm… which is *odd* because there’s not enough work to go around. At least not for junior level associates, because the mid levels and senior levels hoard work for themselves. So if my firm is going to downsize juniors, do you think they’re more apt to fire these incoming associates or other junior level associates with slightly more tenure?
How Will I Know if He Really Loves Me
Dear How Will I Know if He Really Loves Me,
Luckily this question came in over the holidays, so I had the chance to go home and consult my sister’s Ask Zandar game and get what you really need, which is a wizard’s opinion. I first asked, “Zandar, will this person’s firm fire incoming associates first?” Zandar did not reply. I then asked, “Zandar, is it unacceptable for my 17 year-old cousin to have Neytiri from Avatar as his screensaver?” And when Zandar once again failed to reply, I realized that he had no batteries.
As you may have noticed, things are looking up these days. Bonuses are hitting people’s TD Banks, there’s salary thaws, “true-up” raises* — and the whole global warming trend turned out to be just a weird ’90s phenomenon. On ATL, we’ve traded in Bloody Tuesdays or Outplacement Thursdays for lighter fare about holiday greeting cards and courthouse shootings. Unless executives go back to stealing from their companies — which they won’t be doing because we have rules in place now to deal with that sort of thing — the days of mass layoffs are over. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
So, to those of you who have spent the last year afraid to jinx yourself by unwrapping your 2009 BNA Tax Code — RELAX. The Committee of Public Safety isn’t blocking off conference rooms anymore. But if they do, they’ll certainly fire you first, because if they wanted to fire the people they’re bringing in, they just wouldn’t have had them start. Also, they’re cheaper.
Your friend,
Marin
The cast of Hair lunges into the audience and awkwardly forces you to participate, after the jump.
Continue reading “Pls Hndle Thx: The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius?”
Lawyerly Lairs: Boies’s Bargain
The legendary litigator snaps up an $8 million apartment.
By
David Lat
In between Christmas and New Year’s, while most of us were stuffing our faces, celebrated litigator David Boies was stuffing his own stocking — with a magnificent New York apartment. Last year was a good one for Boies Schiller associates, at least based on their bonuses. And it probably was a good one for their boss, at least based on his latest real estate purchase.
There’s no need for Boies to feel guilty, though, since it seems he got a bargain. From Bloomberg:
David Boies, the antitrust lawyer who took on Microsoft Corp. and represented Al Gore in the contested U.S. presidential election of 2000, bought a seven room apartment overlooking New York’s Central Park for $7.75 million after the price was reduced by more than 20 percent.
Boies, chairman and founder of New York-based law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, purchased a two-bedroom unit at the Sherry-Netherland hotel on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, according to city property records. The original asking price was $9.95 million, according to listing service StreetEasy.com.
More details, plus photos of the fabulous pad, after the jump.
Would you swap corporate securities work for chipotle seasoning? Nancy Andrade did. The Catholic University ’93 grad quit her job at Katten Muchin in 2001, to start a family tamale-making business called Mexifeast. Their tamales are sold at Walmart, Whole Foods and Jewel.
So how did Andrade go from handling derivative claims to hawking corn-husked deliciousness? She tells the Chicago Tribune that her tamale-loving colleagues at Katten were part of the push in the frozen food business direction:
When I started at Katten (Muchin Rosenman) and people discovered I was Mexican-American, they’d ask me where to get good tamales.
Thank goodness for ethnic food stereotypes. Did Justice Sotomayor’s new colleagues ask her where to buy burritos in D.C.?
So how did Andrade respond to the tamale inquiries from her co-workers?
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Tamale Maker”
Career Cast has compiled a list of the Top 200 Jobs for 2010. Here’s how the Career Cast came up with its (totally arbitrary) first to worst rankings:
How does Jobs Rated determine which professions rank better than others? Data on each job is broken down into five key categories: Physical Demands, Work Environment, Income, Stress and Hiring Outlook. Jobs receive a score in each individual category, and when these are added together, the career with the best overall score is ranked 1st, while the one with the worst overall score is ranked 200th.
The number one job to have in 2010? Actuary! Wow, I almost fell asleep while I was writing that word.
The top ten jobs are … wait a minute, what do you care? Let’s skip all the way down to where “attorney” comes it.
Attorney is actually well outside the top ten. Let’s take a short break while I rappel down the list to find the legal profession.
Monday’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.
Continue reading “Las Vegas Courthouse Shooter Had Murderous Past”
* Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) — a lawyer, like a number of his Senate colleagues (University of Louisville ’72) — won’t seek reelection this year. [Washington Post]
* The D.C. Circuit rules in favor of the presidential war power to hold Guantanamo Bay detainees, with Judge Janice Rogers Brown swatting away a request for release by a former chef for the Taliban. [New York Times]
* Speaking of Gitmo and the D.C. Circuit, Neal Katyal — who won a celebrated victory before in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld — will be arguing against the detainees before the circuit court, later this week. [Politico]
* A successful appeal gives ex-Sonnenschein partner Douglas Rosenthal the opportunity to relitigate damages in a compensation dispute with his former firm. [National Law Journal via Am Law Daily]
* Judge Rakoff thinks he can dance — and apparently he’s right. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Sharon Stone will play a prosecutor on Law & Order! Expect some memorable interrogation scenes. [ABA Journal]
Congratulations to the associates at Irell & Manella. The firm announced its 2009 bonuses last week, and they were good — very good.
Irell took the Sullivan & Cromwell bonus scale, which is effectively “market” for the top New York firms, and then DOUBLED IT. There was no memo — the information was communicated in an associate-wide meeting — but we have confirmed the following:
- To associates who hit the billable hours target of 1900 hours, Irell paid bonuses that, in total, were double those paid by Sullivan & Cromwell and similar New York firms. Bonuses ranged from $15,000 for the class of 2008 to $70,000 for the class of 2002.
- The bonuses were lockstep by seniority — i.e., not just paid to a handful of star performers or super-high billers. If you hit 1900 hours, you got the designated bonus for your class year.
The success of lockstep firms like Irell raises the question: Is lockstep the way to go? If you’ll be in Irell’s hometown of Los Angeles this Thursday, Elie and yours truly are doing two events, and one of them is a debate about lockstep. For information and RSVP details, see here.
The full Irell bonus table, plus additional information, after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Irell & Manella Pays Twice S&C”
* Well, my resolution to be hopeful about the future of Biglaw in 2010 lasted all of five days. Thanks, Larry Ribstein, I guess I’ll still need to hang onto my Lexapro prescription. [Ideoblog]
* Why do lawyers make so much money? Kash and Lat’s cover story for Washingtonian magazine, which addresses this question, is now online (along with the list of D.C.’s top lawyers). [Washingtonian]
* Do law school career services operations need a complete overhaul? [Lawyerist]
* An old tale of sex in the champagne conference room at Skadden. [Clusterstock]
* Interested in making the transition from law to media? Above the Law’s sister site, Dealbreaker, is looking for an additional writer. [Dealbreaker]
* Thanks to all the readers who voted for Above the Law in ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 contest. Above the Law won the News category. We’ll keep it coming in 2010. [ABA Journal]
Our latest Eyes of the Law celebrity sighting involves a household name: former White House counsel and Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. She may not have succeeded in getting on to the SCOTUS, but apparently she has joined another D.C. institution. We received this tip from a reader yesterday:
FWIW…. Just got sworn into the D.D.C. federal bar this morning. None other than Harriet Miers was also there getting sworn in. There were about 30 of us total. Pretty weird!
First things first: what was she wearing?
Continue reading “The Eyes of the Law: Harriet Miers Gets Sworn In”
-
Sponsored Content
Business Is Booming in Hong Kong and China and What It Means for U.S. Associate Lateral Hiring There
Presented by Kinney Recruiting
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: [email protected].
Since late last year, things have been booming in Hong Kong / China in cap markets, especially Hong Kong IPOs. M&A deal flow has recently been getting a bit stronger as well. Although one can’t predict such things with any certainty, all signs are pointing to a banner entire 2014 for the top end US corporate and cap markets practices in Hong Kong / China. This is not really new news, as its been the feeling most in the market have had for a few months now and things continue to look good.
The head of our Asia practice, Evan Jowers, has been in Hong Kong for about 10 days a month (with trips every other month to both Shanghai and Bejing) for the past 7 months, and spending most of his time there meeting with senior US hiring partners at just about all the major US and UK firms there, as well as prospective candidates at all associate levels and partner levels, and when in the US, Evan works Asia hours and is regularly on the phone with such persons, as our the other members of our Asia team. Our Yuliya Vinokurova is in Hong Kong every other month and Robert is there about 5 times a year as well. While we have a solid Asia team of recruiters, Evan Jowers will spend at least some time with all of our candidates for Asia position. We have had long standing relationships, and good friendships in some cases, with hiring partners and other senior US partners in Asia for 8 years now.
Keep reading »Sponsored Content
Women Legal 2014 – New York
The evolution of relationships between the genders continues. Currently, in law firms, there is an interesting conundrum; balancing the desire for a gender-blind workplace where “the best lawyer gets the work and advances” and the reality of navigating the complicated maze created by the fact that, in general, men and women do possess differences in their work styles. These variations impact who they work with, how they work, how they build professional connections and how organizations ultimately leverage, reward and recognize the talents of all.
Featuring Key Contributions and Candid Real-World Illustrations From:
Keep reading »
Patricia Gillette, Partner, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLPSponsored Content
How A Fictional Story Of Henry Ford Will Help You Stop Giving Business Away
Presented by B3 Legal
Henry Ford sat on his workbench and sighed. A year earlier, he had personally built 13,000 Model Ts with his own hands. Fashioning lugnuts and tie rods by hand, Ford was loath to ask for help. Sure, there were things about the car that he didn’t quite understand. This explains the lack of reliable navigation systems in the Model T. But Ford persevered because he knew that unless he did everything, he could not reliably call these cars his own.“Unless my own personal toil is responsible for it, it may as well be called a Hyundai,” Ford remarked at the time.
The preceding may sound unfamiliar because it is categorically untrue. And also monumentally stupid. Henry Ford didn’t build all those cars by hand. He had help and plenty of it. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, Henry Ford opened up the most technologically advanced assembly line the world had ever seen. Built on the premise that work can be chopped up into digestible pieces and completed by many men better than one, the line ushered in an age of unparalleled productivity.
Today, an attorney refers business because he can’t do everything the client asks of him.
There are three reasons why this is way dumber than a made-up Henry Ford story…
Keep reading »
