On Wednesday, Professor Orin Kerr sarcastically mocked — and also analytically attacked — the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Carrington v. United States (PDF). In an opinion by liberal stalwart Harry Pregerson, the court authorized resentencing in two cases from the Mesozoic Era the 1990′s. We wrote about the decision here.
We expressed interest in hearing what sentencing guru Doug Berman would have to say about the case. And now Professor Berman has kindly obliged, in a quasi-snarky post that asks, What’s wrong with equitable Booker retroactivity in the Ninth Circuit?
Consider the gauntlet thrown down. Professors Berman and Kerr are two of the biggest crim-law bloggers around. And they kinda look alike, too. (See photos — Professor Berman at right, Professor Kerr at far right.)
Will Professor Kerr take up Professor Berman’s challenge? Might we have a blogospheric battle of the titans on our hands?
(To be sure, you have to be a bit of a sentencing law geek to appreciate this. If you are, then you might also enjoy this post by Professor Berman, Proof the guidelines are reasonable — a riff on our recent post about Justice Breyer writing the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines on Professor Charles Fried’s dining room table.)
Carrington v. United States [Volokh Conspiracy]
What’s wrong with equitable Booker retroactivity in the Ninth Circuit? [Sentencing Law and Policy]
Carrington v. United States (PDF) [Ninth Circuit via How Appealing]
Earlier: Judge Harry Pregerson Is Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
Latest Stories
- 9th Circuit, Advertising, Blog Wars, Douglas Berman, Harry Pregerson, Law Professors, Orin Kerr, Sentencing Law
Sentencing Law Smackdown: Berman v. Kerr?
By David Lat* But the judge said that blind items (à la Page Six) are just fine. [Mirror of Justice]
* Wouldn’t it be great if judges would curl up with reading material like this, instead of the latest John Grisham? [PrawfsBlawg]
* Law students, your worst fears have been confirmed. [Concurring Opinions]
(Unless you’re an average or below-average student, in which case, cross your fingers! (That was my studying strategy of choice. And I always made sure to be a good person. And look where I am today!))
* Please have a lead-free Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwaanza. And may I recommend the always safe Ugly Dolls? I love Babo, because I, like him, am small of brain but large of heart. [TortsProf Blog]
* Professor Childs is a man after my own heart. He produces an indie music show with his kid, AND he uses issue-spotting as an excuse for watching TV. Today, he writes about sports injuries and torts claims in Friday Night Lights. [TortsProf Blog]
A source at at Weil, Gotshal & Manges just forwarded us this email, which made the rounds at 4:46 PM Eastern time:
As you know, announcements regarding year-end associate bonuses have been made by a few large New York firms. Many of our peer firms have yet to make an announcement. As has been our practice, we will not finalize year-end associate bonuses until early January. However, we wanted to let you know before year-end that the Firm’s 2006 U.S. associate bonuses will not be less than 2005 U.S. associate bonuses. U.S. associate bonuses will be paid on January 26, 2007.
Best wishes for a happy holiday.
Perhaps this is good news, insofar as it leaves the door open — even if just barely — to above-market bonuses.
We have to run; we’ll be back later tonight. Hence the open thread. If any major announcements come down the pike while we’re gone, you know what to do. Thanks.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of bonuses (scroll down)
Judges can get themselves in trouble when they get too involved in the lives of the individuals they supervise as part of probation. Remember Judge Manuel Real (C.D. Cal.), who almost got himself impeached for being a little too supportive of one Deborah Canter, attractive female probationer?
Well, at least Judge Real never took Ms. Canter home with him (as far as we know). That’s more than can be said for today’s “Judge” of the Day, Justice George Head, of Keeseville, New York. From the NYT:
Like many teenagers in this bleak old mill village near Lake Champlain, Michael C. Burrell had been in trouble before. But when an attempted assault case landed him at age 19 in the courtroom of the village justice, the experience was unlike anything he had faced before….
He said the justice, George J. Head, insisted that they meet each week outside court, in what people around here call his “judge’s probation” program.
There is no such thing as judge’s probation, and private sessions between a judge and a defendant facing jail violate the rules of judicial conduct.
But Justice Head seems to have stretched the rules in a number of ways. When he sentenced young men to regular probation, he sometimes drove them to their appointments. One young man was discovered driving the justice’s car, and others say they met with the justice at his home. One said he even wound up moving in for eight months.
Read the whole article. Okay, are you done? Here’s what we want to know: Is it just us, or is there a “Chester the Molester” subtext here?
Ah, the MSM. You must resort to subtext, since you can’t just shoot your mouth off, blogger-style. You’re required to rely upon actual facts to back up your statements. What fun is that?
* We put “Judge” in scare-quotes because Justice Head is not a lawyer by training. He’s a retired state trooper with no legal background. The position of village justice is an elected one in Keeseville that is not restricted to lawyers.
** Also, this is not a picture of Judge Head. It’s what we got when we went to this image database and entered “dirty old man.”
Small-Town Judge’s Personal Justice Stirs Concern [New York Times]
Judge Tells Congress He Did Nothing Wrong [Daily Journal via How Appealing Extra]
We were wrong in predicting that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) would be stepping down from the Judiciary Committee. (And we were not alone in making this mistake.)
Earlier this week, we had heard rumors that various deals had unraveled — Senate committee assignments are a complex, delicate ecosystem — and that Hatch might actually be sticking around Judiciary. Now that news is official.
The other members of the committee: Specter (ranking member), Grassley, Kyl, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Brownback, and Coburn. It’s the same line-up as in the 109th Congress, except without Mike DeWine (who lost his reelection bid).
We’ll miss Senator DeWine. But he has earned a place in history, as the erstwhile employer of Jessica Cutler, aka Washingtonienne.
McConnell Announces Republican Committee Assignments [Senator Mitch McConnell via How Appealing]
Earmaking Kansas [American Spectator]
Assessing Roberts’ re-election prospects [Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence, KS]
Earlier: Senator Hatch Is Leaving Judiciary
- Biglaw, Crime, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, Money, Plaintiffs Firms, Steven Schulman, William Lerach
Milberg Weiss Death Watch: More About Steve Schulman’s Departure
By David LatAfter we mentioned the departure of indicted partner Steven Schulman from the indicted law firm Milberg Weiss, some of you had funny things to say. See, e.g., this comment.
As it turns out, there were reasons unrelated to federal criminal charges for Steve Schulman to leave Milberg. From Legal Pad:
Schulman’s deal with the firm required that upon his departure, he receive a sum based on Milberg’s income during his last year at the firm. With 2005 a considerably better (as in, indictment-free) year for the firm than 2006, the partner had a real incentive to leave. Indeed, we’re told that by departing before the end of 2006, he’s in line to get about $5 million more than if he had waited.
It’s all about the benjamins, baby. You can take the lawyer out of the plaintiffs’ firm; but you can’t take the plaintiffs’ firm out of the lawyer.
And that $5 million could come in handy if Schulman does strike a plea deal — something that, according to lawyers familiar with the case, has not happened yet, but very well could. We hear that Schulman is open to the idea, and his switch of attorneys earlier this year — from the NY brawler Ed Hayes to former federal Judge Herb Stern — would seem to lend itself to negotiations. The hitch is that if he were to flip, Schulman would probably have to offer up a superior or two, namely Melvyn Weiss or William Lerach.
Very interesting. We know many lawyers who have worked with Judge Stern, and some say that at times he can be difficult, controlling, and arrogant (although you’d be too if you were an ex-Article III judge). But it’s certainly true that he’s not as much of a street-fighter as Ed Hayes, one of the deans of the Mafia defense bar (along with Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel).
The prospect of Schulman flipping on Mel Weiss or Bill Lerach is dizzying. The glee among Fortune 500 general counsels and Biglaw securities lawyers — and the Schadenfreude among less successful plaintiffs’ lawyers — would be boundless. Happy Kwanzaa!
5 Million Reasons to Quit Milberg [Legal Pad / Cal Law]
Partner at Law Firm Resigns to Focus on Criminal Charges Against Him [New York Times]
Steven G. Schulman bio [Milberg Weiss]
Earlier: Musical Chairs: 12.13.06
Time for a quick break from Biglaw and bonuses. Earlier this week, Judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.) dismissed a lawsuit by a Florida man who blamed the Atkins diet for his heart troubles. As the WSJ Law Blog points out, Judge Chin offered some dieting tips in the opinion:
In a footnote, Judge Chin wrote that he has had success with his own “much simpler diet, which can be described in four words: Run more, eat less.”
We’d like to supplement this coverage. Judge Chin is one of many federal judges who enjoy running, and he runs regularly with his law clerks. They go for a vigorous morning jog through downtown Manhattan or along the Hudson River, then stop for steamed Chinese pork buns on the way back to chambers.
(But given all the weight that Judge Chin has successfully lost since taking up the sport, we’re guessing he consumes the Siu Bao in only moderate quantities.)
Judge Chin took up running only seven years ago. Since then he has completed the New York City marathon four times. How fast was he?
As helpfully noted by a commenter, the news is now official. As previously rumored, the law firms of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham and Preston Gates & Ellis are getting hitched. The merger will be effective January 1, 2007.
According to the official press release, the new entity will be called “Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP,” but the firm will be BRANDED as “K&L Gates.” Because these days it’s all about the branding, kids.
We’ll have more to say later. For now, we provide you with the press release announcing the merger, kindly sent to us by a law firm publicist. It’s rather lengthy, and it reads like a geography lesson mashed up with a management consultant’s PowerPoint presentation.
(Now we feel like real journalists. We’re getting blast emails from PR folk!)
Check it out, after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Firm Merger Mania: Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, Preston Gates”
We’re stepping away from our computer briefly. Normally we’d just do so, without comment; but this is bonus season. So if Simpson, Skadden, or some other Biglaw firm makes an announcement while we’re gone, please post it in the comments, with a link to your source. We don’t want to be accused of the capital crime of not having bonus information up immediately (even if that information isn’t verified).
In the meantime, if you’re looking for amusement, read this post by “sandra” at Greedy NY, then the various responses. Hilarious stuff. Is “sandra” for real, or is she a prankster or troll?
Word on the street is that Whachtell [sic] raised the boni bar? [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
Ah yes, the legendary bonuses of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Tout le monde wants to know: So, just how big were they?
Very big (and bigger than yours). We can’t give up specific numbers for specific classes, because that might get our sources in trouble (and WLRK is a pretty small firm).
But we’ll just make these general observations:
1. Wachtell Lipton pays base salaries that are at (or even slightly above) market.
2. Earlier this year, they paid out midyear bonuses ranging from $15,000, for the newest associates, to $50,000, for the most senior classes.
3. When you add the midyear bonuses to the year-end bonuses that were paid out earlier this week — on Tuesday, December 12 — every class at Wachtell received 2006 bonus compensation equal or slightly greater than 100 percent of base salary.
4. This year, the percentage of bonus as base varied a bit from class to class. Historically this hasn’t always been the case; when we were there, it was pretty much constant.
Executive summary: Take your base salary, double it, and that’s what your law school classmate who went to Wachtell earned in 2006, “all in” (base salary + mid-year bonus + year-end bonus).
A shameless plug for our former firm, based on the time that we spent there (2000 – 2003), after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Wachtell Lipton Windfalls”
- 9th Circuit, Benchslaps, Consuelo Callahan, Douglas Berman, Harry Pregerson, Howard Bashman, Orin Kerr, SCOTUS, SCOTUS Potential, Sentencing Law, Stephen Reinhardt, Supreme Court
Judge Harry Pregerson Is Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
By David LatOr at least a big benchslap upside the head, courtesy of the Supreme Court. Per Orin Kerr:
A lot of people have talked about the Supreme Court’s small docket; Judge Harry Pregerson of the Ninth Circuit is actually doing something about it. He handed down an opinion today in Carrington v. United States that has “Destination: One First Street” written all over it.
Read the rest of Professor Kerr’s devastating critique here. Howard Bashman also doesn’t think highly of the opinion.
Professor Kerr concludes by quoting George Will: “[t]here should be two Supreme Courts, one to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the other to hear all other cases.” Will’s article was about a “Reinhardt special.” But as Carrington shows, Judge Stephen Reinhardt isn’t racking up reversals all by himself; he gets by with a little help from his friends.
One final note: Carrington gave Judge Consuelo Callahan, the luscious Latina sometimes mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, the opportunity to write an impassioned, high-profile dissent. Judge Callahan should be grateful to Judge Pregerson for giving her the chance to develop conservative street cred. If she gets nominated to the SCOTUS someday, she should thank Judge Pregerson at her investiture.*
(We’d be curious to hear what Professor Doug Berman, sentencing guidelines guru, thinks of Carrington.)
Update: Professor Berman weighs in. Interesting! Are the conservatives now guilty of putting their policy preferences ahead of the letter of the law?
* Best correction ever, from Slate: “Our article originally identified Consuelo Callahan as Consuela Callahan.”
Because, you know, all Latinas in the state of California are named “Consuela.” They’re all maids. And they’re all played by Lupe Ontiveros in the movies.
Carrington v. United States [Volokh Conspiracy]
Carrington v. United States (PDF) [Ninth Circuit via How Appealing]
This morning’s news is that Shearman & Sterling announced bonuses that match Milbank. We haven’t confirmed this yet, but we have no reason to doubt it, since it’s what everyone else is doing. If you have a memo, please send it our way.
While we were over at Greedy NY, our eye was caught by this plaintive post:
I hope this year of bonus numbers causes a revolt. But it wont. Because, lets face it we are all total dorks. The guys that never got dates, that got beat up in the playground. Thats why we sit here and take this beating and just gripe about it. As much as we hate bankers, they have the chutzpah to step up and do something about being wronged. We go into law because its a “safe” profession, the one where we are “guaranteed” a job.
Seriously, if you went to a top 5 law school as I did, if you compared the student bodies of our law school and the business school, the B-school students were better looking, more confident. The law school students, on the other hand, were total geeks. The partners know this, since they themselves are dorks and losers and make a living out of getting yelled at by 25 year-old bankers and as such there will be no Revenge of the Nerds this year (or any other year). So lets stop talking as if we are hard.
Whether you agree or disagree, it’s one of the most well-written and thoughtful postings we’ve read in a while (although, to be sure, the standards for message-board discourse aren’t set very high). If you have any reactions, please feel free to add them in the comments.
Shearman announced this morning [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
No revenge of the nerds [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
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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.
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Virtual Canary in the Digital Mine #3: Total Pre-Cull (Part 1 of 3), Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Predictive Coding
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In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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