* Princeton Reviews Top 50 Law Schools [TaxProf Blog]
* Indiana Law Student Shoots Real-Estate Finance Casebook [Law Blog]
* Blawg Review #131 on business blog, Passion, People and Principles [David Maister via Blawg Review]
* Joe Torre and Contract Incentives [Conglomerate]
* Seen in White and Case’s NY boardroom last Thursday… [The Adventure Of Strategy]
* A Great Law Firm “Driven to [Self-] Destruction”? [Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices]
* The Boy Who Cried “National Security”: The Need for Greater Skepticism About Government Secrecy [Concurring Opinions]
* IntLawGrrls In Our Own Names [IntLawGrrls]
* Female Teachers Who Have Sex With Minors [Feminist Law Professors]
* Which Came First, the Lawyer or the Stable Boy? [New York Times]
* Gov. Spite-zer needs more EQ [f/k/a]
Latest Stories
The ABA Journal has put together a well-intended list of 50 ways to market your [father's] law practice. Here’s just a few to get a conversation started with the older partners in your firm:
1. Join your local chamber of commerce. It’s great for networking and community credibility.
5. Offer to write an article for your local paper on a topic such as why everyone should have a will or questions to ask a contractor. Make sure the byline includes the name of your firm and, if possible, your e-mail address.
7. Try to get a local reporter to use you as a legal expert. Send an e-mail offering commentary on a court case. Learn to translate legalese into English and reporters will love you.
18. Advertise in school and church newsletters and local marketer newspapers. This sort of advertising is usually cost-efficient and such publications are surprisingly well-read by their target audiences.
19. Post your business card on the bulletin board at your barbershop, beauty salon, grocery store, community center and house of worship.
22. Donate last year’s Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory or other slightly outdated law books to your local library with a bookplate bearing your name and firm name.
23. Donate magazines to your local jail, nursing home or school and hand over your business card when you drop them off.
32. Send out press releases. Small local newspapers are especially interested.
38. Write down a 30-second description of your practice and commit it to memory. This is called the elevator speech. Use it whenever someone asks, “What type of law do you practice?” Everyone in the firm should have a copy of the description.
And my favorite way to market a law practice:
50. Give vinyl or nylon briefcases to clients at their first visit. This will encourage clients to keep important papers for their case in one place and to bring everything to each office visit. Add a pen, key chain, pad of paper and some business cards to the case.
Read all fifty and let us know which ones you think are the most ridiculous. To be fair and balanced, do let us know if you find any of them worthwhile.
Oh, here’s a tip you won’t find anywhere in that list of 50 ways to market your practice: blog.
While you’re visiting the ABA Journal’s website, check out their Blawg Directory, which the authors of that list of fifty ways to market your practice failed to notice.
David didn’t expect me to get the scoop. No doubt, he’s been reading the reviews of Dan Solove’s new book, The Future of Reputation Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet.
I downloaded a free copy of Chapter 1.
Don’t know if Lat has read this review by PajamasMedia’s culture critic, David Freeman, who writes:
Shame and gossip and questions of personal reputation have been with us for millennia. In our time, however, they’ve gone electronic. The resulting change in the way the world communicates with itself is as significant to speech as anything since the invention of moveable type.
David probably noticed that Frank Pasquale posted a mini-review of the book he calls “a fun read that also manages to be a scholarly work on cyberlaw.”
Solove draws us in with the old classics of humiliation–South Korea’s infamous “dog poop girl,” Jessica Cutler’s embarrassed paramour, and the Star Wars kid. Each sparked an avalanche of comedy, critical comment, spoofs. . . . and, like hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box, a tiny bit of sympathy as we wonder: will we be next?
Pace Andy Warhol, that’s not likely, but Solove uses the titillating stories to explore a deeper question: do we have any right to control true information about ourselves? Or influence the way we are portrayed? If somebody posts a vicious lie, they can be liable for defamation. But what about disclosure of private facts–should we have any right to stop that?
Okay–titillating stories–we’d buy the book to read more of that, but when do we get to read about David Lat?
“The parts about David have not been excerpted or discussed elsewhere,” teased Solove, in an exclusive interview with Above the Law. “It basically tells his story – then the rest of the chapter launches into a discussion on the good and bad aspects of anonymous blogging! In the same chapter I also discuss the legal protections on anonymity, Wikipedia, the trade-off between anonymity and accountability, how anonymous bloggers can be unmasked if not careful, and the clash between privacy and free speech.”
“If only I could get the poop on David Lat, I’d be able to write a preview for the book,” I cajoled, “It’s a tough audience! Gimme something to placate the fanboys.”
Okay, after the jump…the excerpt about David Lat…
Continue reading “Professor Solove gives us the poop on David Lat”
“Put Life on Your To-Do List and consider McInnes Cooper. In a nation-wide survey, McInnes Cooper was rated by its associates as one of the top firms to work for in Canada.”
You’ve got to give McInnes Cooper credit for using real lawyers in their video, unlike Allen & Overy.
The video has two story lines interwoven; a serious look at the firm and comedic episodes of the prospective student interview. Does it work?
They’ve got comments disabled on the YouTube page for the video, so it’s hard to know what the feedback might be from students they’d like to recruit. I suppose the agency that produced this video must have run it by some focus groups.
I think the firm comes off looking good in this one. And the interview scene where the lawyer takes a hair blower to the student’s… I won’t spoil it for you.
Anyway, you’ve got to give McInnes Cooper full marks for closing the pitch with a real hot Asian associate giving the ol’ “come-on and call me” in French!
Allen & Overy in the UK has over-produced a hiring video that uses real actors to portray A&O solicitors engaged in really interesting work for global clients.
Watch the video here at RollOnFriday, which offers this take on it:
Presumably the prosaic reality of 15 hour days drafting intercreditor deeds and dealing with IT problems would not make great TV. And my, what a lot of TV there is: it goes on for an age, and watching it is like wading through treacle as cast members mention “the deal” every five seconds.
The film laboriously tracks “the deal” in minutes, hours, and days, walking us through the boring lives of A&O partners, associates and trainees in the split-screen style of 24. The performance of the associates falls well short of the drama of Boston Legal. In the end, it would have been a more believable if the deal had collapsed in the last-minute negotiations, like in the real world, where heads would roll on Friday.
Anyone seen better–or worse–law firm recruitment videos?
This just in from a tipster. It can’t possibly be true, so we’re taking it as a joke.
If you’re an associate at the firm, or work for Mr. Grinch at Biglaw, please let us know in the comments below. Tell us this can’t be true.
Tell us you’ve seen worse. What is your firm’s policy for the upcoming holiday season?
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We have had an unprecedented number of lawyers requesting vacation during the Christmas week this year (24-28 December). Although it is always difficult to predict what our respective work levels will look like so far in advance, given the number of vacation requests received to date, it is unlikely we can accommodate them all.
To those of you who have requested time away during this period, to those of you planning to do so, and to those of you who have received a tentative approval to be away during this particular period, I would ask that you consider taking your vacation at another time or being both patient and flexible as we determine as we get closer to Christmas, how best we can meet the needs of the firm and of our clients – which are paramount – while trying to accommodate, as we would very much like to do, our associates.
Please feel free to call me should you wish to discuss.
Regards,
Neal
Neal F. Grenley
White & Case LLP
1155 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-2787
A few of the more-alert readers here have noticed there’s an unusual name in the byline, today.
Let me introduce myself. My nom de plume is Piercie Shafton, an evocative moniker for a guest-editor of Above the Law, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Don’t bother to Google me. I’m not that Piercie Shafton: “the meddling tool of wise plotters–a hair-brained trafficker in treason–a champion of the Pope, employed as a forlorn hope by those more politic heads, who have more will to work mischief, than valour to encounter danger.” But I imagine that, in another time and place, I may well have been a figment of the imagination of a lawyer who published controversial writings under an assumed name.
And so, I find myself at the keyboard, today, unexpectedly blogging away about stuff that is none of my damn business.
I feel this inordinate amount of social pressure to be a bastard.
Comments are open for suggestions…
Yesterday’s tip about K&L Gates no longer making contributions to attorney 401k plans has been confirmed. We’ve obtained the memo, which our source introduced as follows:
Here’s the memo re: today’s post on K&L Gates. No further materials or communications have since occurred, save a videoconference from firm Chairman [Peter] Kalis, where in response to an associate questions as to why this benefit was cut, he essentially said that it was to make partners’ compensation packages more competitive due to required combined firm IRS changes.
I like how it says firm compensation remains competitive. Check out what the firm pays in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. How is that competitive?
In case you’re wondering, K&L Gates is not at the market rate of $160,000 in San Francisco and L.A. They instead pay associate starting salaries of $145,000 in those cities. See here and here.
The 401(k) memo appears after the jump.
Earlier: Biglaw Reversed Perk Watch: K&L Gates Cuts off 401(k) Contributions?
Biglaw Perk Watch: Retirement Benefits and Financial Planning
Continue reading “Biglaw Reversed Perk Watch: The K&L Gates 401(k) Memo”
* “Jesus, He’s a Quadripeligic, Not an Opossum.” [QuizLaw]
* On Michael Mukasey’s “top ten” list: Dial-A-Porn? [Washington Briefs; Washington Briefs]
* Peter Lattman has gotten a hold of Elana Elbogen’s complaint in the Case of the Pastel Hydrangeas. Still at large: a copy of the “Party Pants” article. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Not yet legal, but quite the legal eagle. [Los Angeles Times via Blogonaut]
* NY to 190K — Canadian! The Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar. Is that loonie, or what? [Soloway]
* TV Links, a Napster of sorts for television and movies, RIP. [Guardian Unlimited]
For the limited but passionate segment of the ATL readership that avidly follows the federal judiciary and clerkship news, the past week has been a good one.
First, there was this very interesting Legal Times article by Joe Palazzolo, about the debacle known as the law clerk hiring process. Executive summary: “As in most family feuds, it’s the kids who suffer most. In interviews, newly hired law clerks rated this year’s hiring frenzy on a scale from ‘unfortunate’ to ‘an utter mess.’”
At the D.C. Circuit, lights shone in the windows of some judges’ chambers before dawn on Sept. 19. They had scheduled their first interviews between 6:45 and 7 a.m.
[Yale Law School Professor Christine] Jolls, who is a member of a committee of professors and deans that advises the Judicial Conference on the hiring process, says she got a 2 a.m. e-mail from one of her students who had just emerged from an interview with a 2nd Circuit judge. The judge had scheduled the interview for Sept. 19 at 12:01 a.m.
If you know, feel free to identify the judges who scheduled these insanely early interviews, in the comments.
Second, for those of you follow clerkship bonus developments, on Tuesday the ever-helpful Law Clerk Addict posted an updated Vault 100 clerkship bonus chart. You can access it here.
Third, today the National Law Journal serves up a delightful profile of the nation’s #1 judicial superhottie (male), Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit. As of December 1, make that CHIEF Judge Kozinski. Congratulations, Your Honor!
Links to the aforementioned sources, plus excerpts and commentary on the Kozinski profile, appear after the jump.
Update: Also after the jump, some scuttlebutt about which judges were conducting the midnight and early morning interviews.
Continue reading “Freshly Baked Crack for the Clerkship Addicts Among You”
Readers of ATL are obsessed with lawyer compensation. But so is the mainstream media, it would appear — even in places outside New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.
From a piece by John-Laurent Tronche in the Fort Worth Business Press:
While local law firms are staying competitive, it doesn’t always pay to follow the nationwide trend to raise salaries for first-year associate lawyers.
A Texas pay raise explosion was sparked in mid-July when Houston-based Vinson & Elkins raised its first-year associate pay from $135,000 to $160,000, part of a nationwide move to match New York salaries. The firm’s pay hike prompted fellow Houston firm Andrews Kurth to raise salaries the next day, followed by a host of other big Texas law firms, including Dallas firms Haynes Boone and Thompson & Knight….
The move to match New York salaries is a matter of reputation, said David Lat, editor in chief of abovethelaw.com, a Web site that has been tracking the nationwide pay raise. But that reputation to “play ball with the big boys,” he said, isn’t always economically sound.
You can read the rest here. And a few days ago, the Des Moines Register “rewrote the WSJ story about lawyer salaries,” as one of you put it. (Well, Amir Efrati, remember what Coco Chanel once said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”)
The Register article begins:
Jason Fernandez never expected to be delivering flowers six months after he graduated from law school. But there he was – a graduate of the top-tier University of Iowa College of Law – navigating Washington, D.C., streets to deliver bouquets at $8 a pop.
Hey Jason: as long as you don’t deliver flowers to this gal or this guy, you’ll be fine.
(As it turns out, Jason won’t have to worry about sending flowers to difficult customers. He subsequently made the leap up from flower delivery to personal injury law.)
Sometimes dollars don’t make sense [Fort Worth Business Press]
Law school graduates finding soft job market [Des Moines Register]
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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.
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How A Fictional Story Of Henry Ford Will Help You Stop Giving Business Away
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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…
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Business Is Booming in Hong Kong and China and What It Means for U.S. Associate Lateral Hiring There
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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: as[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.
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