* Sticks and stones, soon to be outlawed. [MSN]
* But we can always make fun of heads of state without repercussion. [Cearta]
* Everybody’s favorite ugly-sexy guy (or just mine?) is safe for now. [USA Today]
* Inordinate amounts of time spent on any one activity does not a professional make. If so, there’d be a lot of professional Wikipedians and a lot of questionable tax returns. [TaxProf Blog]
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We’re short on time, so we’ll have to be brief. But we expect that you will have plenty of comments on this post.
First read this. Then read this. Thoughts?
Our two reactions:
1. This wins the Gallion & Spielvogel award for Self-Aggrandizement by a Boutique Law Firm:
Addison & Butler LLP is a full service law firm with its primary office located in the City of Chicago. Incorporating years of experience practicing law at two of the nation’s largest and most prestigious law firms, the attorneys of Addison & Butler LLP offer a full range of legal services for businesses and individuals nationwide.
“Primary office”? From their contact info page, it looks like it’s their ONLY office.
2. We think that Stephan Addison and Benjamin Butler will work well as a team. They’ve been through a lot together. And it sounds like they certainly have affection for each other, too.
Addison & Butler LLP [official website]
Earlier: Biglaw Boys Up To No Good
From the new March issue of The American Lawyer. Both are by the fabulous and fashionable Vivia Chen. Go Vivia!
1. “Antigay or Antihuman?” [American Lawyer]
Yes, this is an article about Sullivan & Cromwell. Money quote:
“We can’t fire everybody who might say something inappropriate, who does something foolish under pressure,” says [firm chairman H. Rodgin] Cohen, adding that partners and associates who step out of line receive counseling. “[But] I’m 100 percent convinced that this firm is no worse than others.”
Maybe; maybe not:
In the last two years, S&C has scored near the bottom in The American Lawyer’s midlevel associates survey. And according to an S&C memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal in January, the firm had a 31 percent attrition rate among its associates in 2005.
See also:
“Every word of that complaint rang true to me,” says one former lawyer. “They [M&A partners] are just vulgar.”
“I don’t think it’s discrimination; M&A is just a brutal group,” says the former lawyer. “I think this guy was treated badly and unprofessionally.” Sums up another former M&A associate: “S&C isn’t antigay, just antihuman.”
2. Rainbow Revolution [American Lawyer]
This article is adequately summed up by the subhed: “Despite the lawsuit against Sullivan & Cromwell, these are the best of times to be a gay lawyer.” Our favorite quote:
One reason that accurate data [about gay lawyers at large law firms] is hard to collect is that GLBT individuals can stay below the radar screen. “It’s not obvious; I don’t sing ‘YMCA’ when I walk into a room,” says Joseph Hall, 43, the only openly gay partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell. Unlike gender or race, revealing sexual orientation is a matter of choice.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell (scroll down)
Yesterday we posted the female nominees for America’s hottest law librarian. But we know it’s the men you really want to see. From an email:
We’re all waiting for the male nominees with bated breath. I’m sure there’s a Daniel Craig hiding in a row of US Reports somewhere….
We’ll let you be the judge. The hot male law librarians are a smaller group than the women. But there are still some impressive contenders in the bunch, despite its modest size.
You can check them out, in all of their masculine-yet-bookish glory, after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Librarian Hotties: Your Male Nominees”
If you’re trying to schedule a fundraising benefit and want gay lawyers to attend. Tout le gay legal monde already has plans for that evening:
Some observations:
1. This benefit dinner invitation has to be one of the ugliest-ass invites we have ever seen (and we’ve seen many).
LeGal is an organization of gay lawyers. And it looks like this invite was designed by the lawyers rather than the gays. C’mon, LeGal board members — don’t any of you have boyfriends who are graphic designers or party planners?
(We realize that perhaps (a) we didn’t get the best quality scan from our tipster and (b) it looks much better in color rather than black-and-white. But still, even the fonts they picked are kinda homely.)
2. Yes, you’re remembering correctly. LeGal — aka the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Law Association of Greater New York” — is the group that embarrassed itself a bit at an earlier stage in L’Affaire Charney. Its former president, Jack Scheich, made some prematurely pro-S&C statements to the news media — statements that LeGal subsequently repudiated.
3. As you can see from the invitation, Sullivan & Cromwell is once again ponying up the big bucks for a table. We hear that a Platinum table goes for $5,000 — which seems like a fairly modest premium to pay for insurance against charges of anti-gay bias.
4. Will Aaron Charney make an appearance at the dinner? How awesome would that be? We’re sure he’d look very dashing in a tux.
5. We’d be interested in attending and writing about this event. If you have an extra spot at your table and might be willing to have us as your guest, please drop us a line.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Law Association of Greater New York (LeGaL) [official website]
This week we’re on a mini-publicity tour of sorts.
On Tuesday evening, we spoke before the Yale Law School Association in Washington, DC. This morning we’re writing to you from a hotel room in lovely (but rainy) Bloomington, Indiana, where we’ll be delivering a talk later today at the Indiana University School of Law.
We’ll be posting throughout the day. Our hotel, as well as the entire IU campus, is blessed with wi-fi. But we will be offline at times as well, especially around the lunch hour (which is when we’ll be speaking).
Go Hoosiers!
* MySpace hacking case reaches a plea agreement that, among other things, restricts the defendants to one email address each. [CNN]
* Federal judge benchslaps U.S. Marshal service. [Boston Globe via How Appealing]
* A North Carolina judge completely flipped earlier this week. Seriously, he did a cartwheel in his robe. [CNN Video]
* Anna Nicole case to stay in Bahamas for now. [MSNBC]
* “You’ll be hearing from my attorney, Dan Marino.” [WSJ Law Blog]
* Lawsuit filed over use of phrase “That’s so gay.” [MSNBC]
* Paris Hilton busted for driving without license, possible sentence includes jail time. In fairness though, she is preparing to film for “Simple Life 4: California State Penitentiary.” [CNN]
* 96-year old mobster pleads guilty in federal court. [CNN]
This is what you’d to say your mom when you were five years old, and you accidentally broke her favorite vase while playing freeze tag in the living room. But apparently it works for prosecutors charged with ethical violations, too.
Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong didn’t say these exact words. But “I didn’t MEAN to” isn’t a bad summary of the response he just filed in the ethics case against him.
For detailed dissection of the Nifong motion to dismiss and answer, check out what KC Johnson has to say over at Durham-in-Wonderland.
Nifong Says He Didn’t Intentionally Break Rules [Associated Press]
North Carolina State Bar v. Nifong: Motion To Dismiss and Answer [WRAL.com]
* “Living in sin” is a sex crime in North Dakota, which is absurd really, since people who live together end up leaving the door open when they’re using the toilet and spending Friday nights bleaching their facial hair while watching Law & Order, which seems conducive only to latent resentment and bitterness. [Bismarck Tribune]
* Oh, Prince Charles. Like your mother, you live in a bubble, except that yours is full of tampons, horses and Duchy Originals. [Yahoo! News]
* We girls do like them bad boys. Or maybe she saw one too many Prison Break episodes. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
* Janitor accidentally gets locked in a courthouse; sadly, this was no legal version of Career Opportunities (no girl) or From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (no co-conspirator), because he was there all by his own, lonesome self. [Poughkeepsie Journal]
Earlier this month, we began accepting nominations in Above the Law’s exciting Law Librarian Hotties Contest. We received some excellent submissions — librarians so hot that if you saw them in the stacks, you’d drop that Am. Jur. on your foot.
Now it’s time to announce the nominees. We’ll start with the women; the men will follow in due course. To kick things off, some words from a librarian at the U.S. Supreme Court:
To quote President Bush, “As Sam [Alito] and I both know, you can’t go wrong marrying a librarian.” Good luck to all your contestants!
You may not agree with most (or any) of George W. Bush’s actions. But marrying Laura Bush — who did have a “real job,” as a librarian (sorry, Teresa Heinz Kerry) — was probably one of the Decider’s best decisions.
If you’d like to follow the president’s lead, and find a librarian of your own to marry, we have some candidates for your consideration. To “check out” (hehe) America’s hottest law librarians, take a peek at what lies after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Librarian Hotties: Your Female Nominees”
It’s time for a new thread on associate compensation developments, since the last thread was some time ago.
There doesn’t seem to be much to report lately. But here’s some fodder for discussion: a recent post at the WSJ Law Blog, concerning a Crain’s New York Business feature entitled “The Business of Law Report.” Money quote:
Following on our “Good Time for 2Ls” post last week, there’s a story, “2nd-Tier Schools Merit a Second Look.” “With demand for lawyers skyrocketing, recruiting and hiring on local campuses ranging from New York Law School to Hofstra, Rutgers and St. John’s has become as important to many elite firms as visiting high-echelon schools. Firms are learning to appreciate the background and experience of many students at these second-tier schools.”
We see that Loyola 2L has already condemned this as a siren song, luring the unwary to the rocks of a tier two law school. But we suspect that his is a minority view.
A Report on a Business of Law Report [WSJ Law Blog]
Good Times for 2Ls [WSJ Law Blog]
Up in Cambridge, the students of Harvard Law School are trying to get those pesky undergraduates out of Hemenway gym.
But in New York’s Greenwich Village, the students of NYU Law School have a much more welcoming attitude towards college-age youngsters. In fact, that attitude may be TOO welcoming.
Yesterday a memo went out to all NYU law students from Yvette Bravo-Weber, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. It concerned the upcoming “Spring Fling” party, scheduled for March 8, and various changes being instituted this year — due to some, er, misbehavior from last year.
The memo is mildly amusing, due to the dry, clinical manner in which it discusses what we imagine was a bunch of drunken law students — and their underage guests — puking their guts out. You can check out the full NYU memo — with commentary from us, questioning the wisdom of these “reforms” — after the jump.
Continue reading “NYU Law School Administrators Impair the Student Body’s Professional Development”
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Hong Kong/China and Singapore US Associate Lateral Markets Improving With New Openings In Cap Markets, M&A, Fund Formation, Project Finance And FCPA / White Collar Litigation
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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: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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