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Outsourcing: Is It Good for Associates?

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I Can Has Your Job? (I Don't Eat Cheeseburgers.)

There’s been a lot of negativity surrounding the first steps of Biglaw into the outsourcing market. For obvious reasons: the U.S. legal job market is soft, and recent graduates are terrified that their entry-level jobs will flow out of the country.

And they’re probably right. If outsourcing catches on, the structure of a law firm in 2020 could be wildly different from the structure of a law firm in 2010. But maybe that’s a good thing. Let’s face it: whether you’re being paid $145K, $160K, or even (dare to dream) $190K, spending 2,000 hours a year on menial document monkey tasks is no fun. If some of these rote, mind-numbing functions can be done by attorneys overseas, attorneys in the U.S. might have a reason to actually bring their brains to work, along with their mouse-clicking index fingers.

That’s the argument, at least. And it’s being made by former Kirkland & Ellis partner Stephen Harper in today’s Am Law Daily…

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Should Biglaw Deferral Programs Become Permanent?

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Sow your wild oats for a year -- and come to the firm when you're ready to work.

With apologies to Langston Hughes, we have to ask:

What happens to an associate deferred?
Does he dry up, like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore — and then run?

Run, run — away from Biglaw. That seems to be what at least some deferred associates are doing, as reported last week by the New York Times in an article about how they spent their deferral years — and how some of them aren’t returning to the well-feathered nests of private law firms when called back.

The Times interviewed two deferred associates who aren’t going back to their firms. Nathan Richardson, a 2009 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who was deferred by Latham & Watkins, spent his year doing environmental law research at Resources for the Future — and plans to remain in public interest. Avi Singh, a 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School who was deferred by Quinn Emanuel, went off to the Santa Clara County public defender’s office in San Jose — and is staying there.

Due to deferrals, Latham and Quinn just lost the services of two bright young attorneys. And maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a bad thing — not just for these lawyers, but for their law firms….

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Morning Docket: 08.23.10

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Ed. note: This post was compiled by one of our seven Morning Docket finalists. The finalists will be handling MD all week. As always, we welcome your thoughts in the comments.

* New York’s umm…working class, weighs in on the mosque debate. [Metropolis]

* Do lawyers really need new ways to ruin a marriage? [ABA Journal]

* Don’t be afraid to bite the hand that feeds you – or at least the one that was supposed to feed you and decided not to. [Am Law Daily]

* Someone’s going to have a really interesting “What I did this summer” report to give. [WSJ Law Blog]

* It seems like this list should be longer and include things like “Post grades in a timely manner.” [Volokh Conspiracy]

* What do 380 million bad eggs look like to a plaintiff’s lawyer? Cash. [NLJ]

* The creator of Girls Gone Wild has lawyers, and he’s not afraid to use them against Jerry O’Connell. [NY Post]

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This Week in Biglaw: 08.22.10

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Ed. note: Law Shucks focuses on life in, and after, Biglaw, including by tracking layoffs, bonuses, and laterals. Above the Law is pleased to bring you this weekly column, which analyzes news at the world’s top law firms.

The road to BigLaw has always been difficult, whether you’re an undergrad posing for Playboy who ends up in the middle of a scandal 30 years later, or someone on the more traditional path, we’re coming out of one of the worst runs in the industry’s history. The side effects of some of the measures taken by firms to stop the bleeding are still being felt.

One of the stopgap measures adopted by firms was deferring associates. Most of the deferred will end up at their firms, albeit more than a year after their expected start dates. Some have lingered on, with perpetual deferrals and no updates on start dates. And some have had their offers rescinded.

That stringing-along was too much for one California woman, so she sued Howard Rice after it deferred her then rescinded her offer. Usually it’s the firms deciding who doesn’t come back, but sometimes it’s the would-be associates who change their minds. The New York Times and ABA Journal wonder whether deferred associates who don’t return to their firms will have to repay their stipends.

We called BS on that back in February. We can’t imagine any firm is going to be so penny-wise pound-foolish as to go after a lawyer they don’t have to hire (cheap severance!) and who found her calling in public service (good PR!).

After the jump, we catch up on the latest activity in BigLaw — including another week with layoff news — and try to sort through the mixed signals.

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.20.10

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Look deep into her insight.

* The reigning Miss USA, Rima Fakih (pictured), is Muslim — and she thinks the Ground Zero mosque is a bad idea. So… she just found a way to become relevant for 15 minutes. [Color Lines]

* Meanwhile, the New York City Bar has come out in favor of the mosque. As long as it’s okay to have a public debate about what private building should go up next to Ground Zero, can we also talk a little bit about what gets built, you know, on Ground Zero? Because the GIANT HOLE just isn’t doing it for me. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Note to the fellas: if you have tasted breast milk — yes, Lat, I’m looking at you — please don’t talk about it at work, or else women might get offended (and sue). Note to the ladies offended by conversations regarding breast milk: really? [Washington Post]

* Dealbreaker readers react to Bonobos. [Dealbreaker]

* You want to feel better about going to a school that is not highly ranked? Here you go. [Consumerist]

* Anonymous commenters can cause all sorts of mischief, especially when you piss them off. [Forbes]

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Quote of the Day: Nailbiters Need Not Apply?

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Looking for confidential minded person that is a people person and well manicured. We do some work with the adult entertainment business so it is not for everyone. Looking for the classic super manicured secretary at a younger progressive firm.

– a Craigslist ad for a legal secretary in northern New Jersey

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In Defense of A Woman: Some Thoughts on the Judge Gertner Book Controversy

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Federal judges are people too — and I have proof. Earlier this week, one federal appellate judge accepted my friend request on Facebook. Another circuit judge emailed me — from a Gmail account (although we didn’t Gchat; that would have been too cool for words).

Judges are real people — with opinions, not just of the judicial kind, and with personalities. They have interesting lives — off the bench, and before they’re appointed to the bench. Judges are not grown in petri dishes, and donning the robes cannot and does not erase their personal or professional histories.

So I’m not quite sure why everyone is getting their proverbial undergarments [FN1] in a wad over a forthcoming memoir by Judge Nancy Gertner (D. Mass.). The pot was first stirred by the Boston Globe, which began its article as follows: “US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has a memoir coming out in April, and it bears a very unjudicial title: In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate.”

“[A] very unjudicial title.” Really? Is this the Boston Globe, or the Boston Herald?

Let’s delve into the controversy….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Man Says Video Game Made Him Unable to Function

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I know a little something about video game addiction. While working in Biglaw, I was a respected guild member in Everquest II — before I realized that I was wasting giant amounts of time and had more than enough money to be able to interact with fellow humans in the flesh. In law school I once played 28 seasons of Madden (every game, ten minute quarters, including preseason; I would even make up a draft board). In college I played enough Civilization 2 that I thought it should count for one of my history core requirements. I legitimately fear for my job when Civilization 5 drops one month from now.

I’m serious about the Civ 5 thing. I quit my job at Debevoise just before Civilization 4 was released. I can’t truthfully say that the one thing had nothing at all to do with the other. I’m considering not even buying Civ 5, just because I like writing for you guys. I’m married, for Christ’s sake. A wife, a job, and a new Civ game? Something’s gotta give.

See, I know what I’m getting into when I open the box on certain video games. Hawaii resident Craig Smallwood claims he did not. He’s sued the makers of Lineage II, claiming that the game makers didn’t adequately warn him that its game was addictive.

Shockingly, his lawsuit has survived a motion to dismiss…

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Pls Hndle Thx: Gather Ye Rosebuds

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Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to [email protected]

Dear ATL,

The recruiter calls are picking up, and I want out. However, it’s August, and that bonus payout is getting very close. I have an option to get out of here just after Labor Day, but the position might not be open in February.

Should I leave now, or should I hang on, get my bonus, and restart my search in the new year?

– It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Dear It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,

A few months ago, I would have said some Chicken Soup for the Soul crap, like “your bonus cannot buy you happiness.” That was before my associate friend bought an amazing NYC apartment, and I spent three weeks in a jealous rage…

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A Hot New Trend: Leaving Biglaw to Start Your Own Firm

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People are talking about an interesting Slate article entitled “Leaving Big Law Behind: The many frustrations that cause well-paid lawyers to hang out their own shingles.” It’s currently the most-read piece on the site. But it’s actually quite similar, even down to some of the sources, to an article that appeared a few days earlier in Crain’s New York Business:

A lawyer’s hourly billing rate used to be a badge of pride — the higher the number, the more valuable (and supposedly brilliant) the lawyer. But over the past 18 months, a strange phenomenon has been sweeping the legal arena: Partners at major law firms are quitting because they want to be able to charge less for their services.

This is, of course, not a new development. Kash and I wrote about it in a December 2009 cover story for Washingtonian magazine, in which we interviewed a former member of the $1,000-an-hour club who left a large law firm and started his own shop so he could offer clients better value. But all the recent coverage — in Crain’s, Slate, and elsewhere — suggests that the trend is picking up steam.

Which kinds of lawyers are leaving Biglaw to hang up their own shingles? Why are they doing it? And how’s it going for them?

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Dear Law Firms: Canceling Summer Programs After People Bid on Those Programs Is Bad Form

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Late last night, we received a tip that has become all too common in the dog days of August. This tipster sent us this letter from the career services office at Georgetown Law:

Haynes and Boone, LLP has just informed us that they will no longer have a summer program in their Washington, DC and Austin, TX offices. Please contact me if you are interested in switching your interview to either the Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, or New York, NY offices or if you would like us to cancel your interview.

These late-breaking summer program cancellations, partial cancellations, or substantive summer-program changes really need to stop…

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Morning Docket: 08.20.10

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* And here’s the catch: sign up for the BP settlement fund, waive your right to sue BP and other major defendants. [New York Times]

* The only publicly owned law firm seems to be doing well. [Legal Week]

* You know how New York City works; when we run out of space, we just build up. Such is the plan at Fordham. [ABA Journal]

* Massachusetts order regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been put on hold while the DOJ decides whether or not to appeal. [National Law Journal]

* Ground Zero strippers don’t have a problem with the Ground Zero mosque. [Wall Street Journal]

* Beware of 100% offers from firms who conducted layoffs not too long ago. [The Careerist]

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