A female associate at a large law firm recently sent us a message along these lines (we’ve tweaked and paraphrased her original email in places):

In these tough economic times, people are (1) having trouble finding jobs as they come out of law school, (2) recently laid-off, or (3) miserable in the jobs they still have, given how low morale is and how many hours they’re expected to work now (given the “be grateful for your job” mentality).

People in such situations are often unable to make a change, given how few jobs there are out there and how much competition there is for them. But they’re scared to just up and quit, because very few employers would actually buy that they had resigned and not been fired.

What’s a girl to do? Make babies. That’s what.

Making the case for making babies, after the jump.

Working Mother magazine has released its annual review of law firms and named the 50 Best Law Firms for Women. No shame on these firms (unlike the one in our caption contest), at least when it comes to “flex-time, reduced-hour and other family-friendly policies”:

[O]ur winning firms have more lawyers working reduced hours (8 percent versus 5 percent nationwide) and also employ more female equity partners, who share in their firm’s profits (20 percent versus 16 percent nationwide)—and that’s just for starters. We salute these firms for recognizing that making the legal profession work for women is good business for everyone.

As pointed out by the ABA Journal:

A bad economy may be hurting law firms, but it’s opening up more flex-time opportunities for male as well as female lawyers.

Only one firm from the top five most prestigious — as ranked by Vault last year — made the cut.

Stroking of breasts can (eventually) culminate in pregnancy. But, as far as we know, the breaststroke can’t.

Magdalena Kwiatkowska might disagree. She’s filing a lawsuit because her teenage daughter became pregnant during a recent trip to Egypt. From the Daily Mail (via Transracial):

A mother is suing a hotel claiming her teenage daughter fell pregnant simply from using a hotel swimming pool.

Magdalena Kwiatkowska says the 13-year-old conceived after coming into contact with ‘stray sperm’ in the water of an Egyptian resort.

We’re sure her daughter encountered sperm somehow at the resort, and maybe even in the pool, but it likely wasn’t “stray.” Still, her mother insists “‘that her daughter didn’t meet any boys while she was there,’ a travel industry source said.”

This lawsuit makes us feel slightly less guilty about the “dumb Polack” jokes we used to tell in elementary school.

UPDATE: Kash does not condone racial or ethnic slurs, but she does admit to poor joke judgment as a second-grader in Floriduh.

My daughter, 13, got pregnant by swimming in hotel pool, claims mother [Daily Mail]
VACATION VIRGIN: Mama Says Stray Sperm in Hotel Pool Got Daughter Pregnant [Transracial]
Mother Claims Hotel Pool Got Her Daughter Pregnant [Hotel Chatter]

If you’re sick and tired of paternity tests on every episode of Maury Povich, join the club — the baby mamas club, that is. In a decision by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the court ruled that the trial court’s use of the term “baby mama,” along with other comments about the African-American defendant’s habits, could lead to the reasonable perception that the defendant’s sentence was impermissibly influenced by race.

A quick review of the exchange between the trial court and the defendant reveals that the trial court judge (the Honorable Joseph Wall) is a jerk. But damned if he isn’t a hilarious one:

THE COURT: Where are you working now?
THE DEFENDANT: I’m unemployed right now.
THE COURT: You’re unemployed still?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Have you gotten a job since January?
THE DEFENDANT: No, sir.
THE COURT: You’re kidding.
THE DEFENDANT: No.
THE COURT: What do you do all day?
THE DEFENDANT: I just stay at home with my daughter and that’s it.
THE COURT: Where is her mother?
THE DEFENDANT: At work.
THE COURT: So the mother works and you sit at home, right?
THE DEFENDANT: Yeah.
THE COURT: And watch the child?
THE DEFENDANT: I got all types of things goin’. My personal family.
THE COURT: Where does the baby’s mama work?
THE DEFENDANT: Metro Market.
THE COURT: Did she finish school?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Is she going to college, too?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Where do you guys find these women, really, seriously. I’d say about every fourth man who comes in here unemployed, no education, is with a woman who is working full-time, going to school. Where do you find these women? Is there a club?
THE DEFENDANT: No.

Wait, it gets better… after the jump.

Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: time to announce Above the Law’s top two stories for 2008, on the gossip front. We’ve also been recapping the top stories on the business side of the fence, but stories about the business of law are available from many other outlets. Juicy law firm gossip is harder to come by.

Our two leading gossip stories were broken here at ATL. They were subsequently picked up by mainstream media outlets, but we covered them first.

Read about the two stories, after the jump.

We’re doing a series of “2008 in Review” posts here at ATL. We’ve previously declared a Lawyer of the Year, as well as two three Law Students of the Year.

We will now announce what we view as the year’s ten biggest stories in law-firm land. We’ve divided them into two groups: the top five stories on the business side, and the top five stories on the gossip side. Collectively these stories reflect the combination of edification and entertainment that we seek to provide here at ATL. We’ll start with the #5 stories in each group and work our way up.

The year that’s about to end has been full of “business and the law” stories. Most of the news has been terrible. But it really hasn’t been all doom and gloom.

Our fifth-place story on the business end of the legal industry is objectively positive news. Read about it after the jump.

Actually, no. We’re not naming John Edwards — the prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer and former Democratic presidential candidate, and possible Obama running mate — our Lawyer of the Day. We don’t view the reports of his alleged conduct to be sufficiently substantiated just yet.

Right now the story appears only in the National Enquirer:

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer — met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn’t leave until early the next morning.

You can read the full piece, which contains a number of highly specific details that make it seem more credible, over here.

Additional discussion of the article, after the jump.

Two pieces of good news from Winston & Strawn. First, like many other leading law firms, they’ve raised their maternity leave to 18 weeks (from 12 weeks). To see where your firm stands, check out our maternity leave table, continuously updated by surveys guru Justin Bernold.

Second, for all of you iPhone-atics out there:

You guys might be interested in this little tidbit. Beginning August 1st (provided there are no issues with compatibility or supply), Winston & Strawn will include the iPhone as part of its supported mobile devices. Last summer, Winston announced it would start purchasing BlackBerry devices for attorneys on a 2 year replacement cycle (prior to that time, attorneys were required to purchase their own devices but the firm reimbursed for data charges).

As noted in the announcement below, the Apple iPhone will now be among the supported devices, and the firm is even willing to purchase it for eligible attorneys (i.e., if you are not subject to a 2 year contract). For those attorneys who want the 16GB model, the firm will pay the first $200 (representing the cost for the 8GB model) and charge back the $100 additional cost to the attorney’s personal account.

Check out the full announcement — plus a handy chart comparing the iPhone with the Blackberry 8100, Blackberry 8800, and Blackberry 8830 — after the jump.

Today, over at TaxProf Blog, Paul Caron passes along a law prof story that’s an oldie, but a goodie.

Retired University of Arizona law professor Jack Rappeport was sued by his former cleaning lady for child support. Maryann Ortiz claimed that she and Professor Rappeport had a sexual relationship during the time that she worked for him.

Professor Rappeport disputed her claim. From his testimony (elicited by Gary Kneip, counsel to Ortiz):

Kneip: How is it possible that you could be the father of this child without having had sexual contact with Maryann Ortiz?
Rappeport: There are a number of ways. One is artificial insemination.
Kneip: Did that happen in this case?
Rappeport: I don’t know.
Kneip: You don’t know whether artificial insemination happened?
Rappeport: That’s correct.
Kneip: Are you a donor at a sperm bank here in town?
Rappeport: No, I’m not a donor.
Kneip: Okay. How would Maryann artificially inseminate herself with your sperm, Mr. Rappeport?
Rappeport: I’m not quite certain if it even did occur, but there was a possibility of it occurring.
Kneip: How would she get ahold of your sperm?
Rappeport: She cleaned my office from time to time … and there was refrigerated sperm in the refrigerator during that time—during that period of time.

Whoops. You mean that wasn’t a coconut popsicle?

Kneip: And so your theory—excuse me, your theory is Maryann got into your refrigerator and inseminated herself with your sperm. That’s your testimony?
Donald E. Gabriel (Rappeport’s lawyer): Object to counsel’s manner of asking the question—laughing.
Kneip: I’m not trying to be facetious. Is that your testimony?
Rappeport: I don’t have any theory. You’re asking how it’s possible and that’s what I told you, among other things. I don’t know.

Read the rest of the exchange — including the part where Professor Rappeport suggests another possibility, namely, that Ortiz might have had her way with him while he was heavily sedated — over here.

Law Prof’s Paternity Defense [TaxProf Blog]
Unhappy Father’s Day [Phoenix New Times]

Several firms have announced new parental leave policies. We’ll highlight them here, and Justin will be adding the information to his maternity leave and paternity leave cheat sheets.

1. Allen & Overy is one of the three firms to comply with what is becoming the industry standard of 18 weeks paid maternity leave. Paternity leave is 4 weeks. A&O also included parental leave for support staff in its e-mail: maternity leave of 12 weeks and parental leave of 4 weeks.

2. Heller Ehrman is upping its paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, while paternity leave will stay at 6 weeks.

3. Ropes & Gray is giving moms 18 weeks of parental leave (up from 13 weeks) and giving dads 4 weeks (up from 2 weeks).

The firms’ parental leave announcements are available after the jump.

If you’re tired of reading about Shinyung Oh, the former Paul Hastings associate who sent a now-famous farewell email, fear not. The story is on its last legs.

We just wanted to tie up a loose end. Earlier this week, we wondered about whether she was still at Paul Hastings. Here’s the answer, courtesy of Shinyung Oh herself:

I’m no longer with Paul Hastings. Because I didn’t sign the release, my termination was effective as of sometime last week. If I had signed the release, I would have technically stayed on (on an inactive basis) until the end of July.

We wish Shinyung the best of luck in her future endeavors.

We also contacted the firm for comment; they had none. (An aside: Contrary to what some folks apparently think, we welcome hearing from the law firms that we write about. We often reach out to them for comment, especially on sensitive items, but they should also feel free to contact us sua sponte.)

One final thing. In the comments on our various Paul Hastings posts, there was occasionally a “piling on” quality, with lots of commenters lambasting PH (and some attacking Shinyung Oh as well).

But the comments are not necessarily representative of the ATL readership at large. Please take our two quick polls. Feel free to take whatever considerations you want into account when casting your vote (i.e., the polls aren’t based solely on the recent controversy).

We received 1,669 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on children and careers.

Quite a few readers are pessimistic about the impact having a child would have on their careers. One comment summed it up:

Having a child would not, in itself, hurt anyone’s career. Raising one almost certainly would, as would taking up stamp collecting or any other non-career-advancing hobby.

But just having a child, provided it was promptly deposited at a nearby orphanage (between conference calls), should not be too problematic.

Ouch. Another comment was a bit more hopeful:

I recently returned full-time from 5 months of maternity leave at my Vault 5 firm. At the end of the day, I don’t think that the length of a single maternity leave is that big of a deal. No one is going to remember or care how long you were gone, particularly if you are junior and still more or less interchangeable with your peers. That said, my experience was that, with all of my matters having closed about 3 months before my due date, it was really tough to find work during that time because I looked like I was going to pop at any moment. So the time I was out of the game and not able to build skills was longer than the maternity leave alone. And reminding everyone of who I am and the good work that I do has had to happen a bit more since I returned, but none of this is career-ending. It just takes patience, but that kind of perseverance comes quite naturally to me now that I am a mother.

I worked until a week before the baby was born. Though 16-hour days or longer are possible for most of a normal pregnancy, they are not a good idea in the late stages (the last 6 weeks or so). Even a normal pregnancy is a lot of work, don’t get me wrong, but, honestly, the talk [in the comments] about using surrogates because you don’t want a pregnancy to slow you down is just silly, and clearly the idea of a childless person who has not seriously contemplated what surrogacy involves. A few months of being pregnant, and then taking maternity leave, in my experience, just isn’t going to kill your career.

Read more — the rest of this very thoughtful email, plus the overall survey results — after the jump.

The folks over at the WSJ Law Blog have just given us a late-night treat: an interview with Shinyung Oh of Paul Hastings.

Oh is the author of the famous (and fabulous) PH Farewell Email — aka The Email That Launched A Thousand Blog Comments — and a heroine in the eyes of many Biglaw associates around the country. Here are a few highlights from the interview:

[T]he former associate, Shinyung Oh (University of Chicago ’93, Georgetown Law ’98), a commercial litigation lawyer…. says she sent the now-infamous email because she didn’t want other associates who may be laid off because of downsizing by the firm – but told it is because of their performance – to doubt their own abilities.

“I want them to feel like they’re not completely alone and not to worry about their own performance when it’s the firm doing something for economic reasons” and because of a “desire to increase partner profits,” she said.

Inducing crippling self-doubt among associates is one of the most pernicious things about “stealth layoffs,” in which economically-driven dismissals are cast by firms as purely performance-based. We know this from having spoken to stealth-layoff victims, who have described how their self-confidence was shattered when their firms dismissed them, purportedly for poor performance.

While there may be a “six of one, half-dozen of another” quality to this debate — as Dan Weiner of Hughes Hubbard & Reed just told the WSJ Law Blog, “is it economic or is it performance-related is a false dichotomy,” since if you have to make cuts, “you’re not going to pick people randomly” — we still think it’s the better part of valor for firms to take the reputational hit, rather than stick it to their associates. At any rate, it’s certainly fair for law students and lateral candidates to shun firms that get called out for being less-than-candid about their personnel decisions.

Back to the interview. Here’s the $64,000 — or three-months-severance — question: What was Shinyung Oh thinking when she sent out that email?

[Oh said] she knew that the email, which was sent to associates firm-wide, litigation partners in her office and the top management of Paul Hastings, could ruin her chances of landing another big-firm job. She said she isn’t considering suing the firm, and said she doesn’t feel she was discriminated against because of her pregnancy.

Oh Shinyung, are you sure? After Aaron Charney settled with Sullivan & Cromwell, he got himself a nice new apartment. Then again, if you were planning to sue, you probably shouldn’t have told the Wall Street Journal that you didn’t feel discriminated against on account of your pregnancy.

As for what’s next, Oh, who immigrated from South Korea when she was eight and grew up in New York and Houston, said she’s not sure. But she said that since the email was posted online, she’s received an outpouring of support from lawyers in the Bay Area and across the country. Several are trying to help her find a new job.

Shinyung, if you’re looking for headhunter recommendations, drop us a line — we can hook you up. And if you ever get the urge to send out another barn-burning, firmwide email, definitely give us a heads up. Based on the way that your email resonated with readers, it’s clear that you have writerly talent that deserves a wider audience.

In all seriousness, we wish Shinyung Oh the best of luck. We commend her for the courage it took to write that farewell email. We have every confidence that she will land on her feet — recall our prior post, quoting a colleague who praised her as someone who “ran a huge class action and got excellent results” — and we look forward to following her career in the years ahead.

Update: Jane Genova shares our optimism about Oh’s future. She writes: Oh “has almost an infinite number of fresh career options, within and outside law…. [enumerates options]…. Being the good solider, girl scout or boy scout has no payoff in the current career marketplace. Bold risks do…. Wild risk is the only secure path.”

P.S. Congrats to Amir Efrati on the interview. Read the full post over here. Check out a copy of Shinyung Oh’s 2006 performance review, also obtained by the WSJ, over here (PDF).

A screencap of her firm bio is saved for posterity, after the jump.

Fired Paul Hastings Associate Talks to Law Blog [WSJ Law Blog]
The New Risky Business - Shinyung Oh’s E-Mail Strategy [Law and More]

Earlier: Breaking: A Dramatic Farewell Email (And proof of Paul Hastings layoffs.)
Miscarriage of Justice at Paul Hastings? The Blogosphere Reacts
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Paul Hastings

The latest law firm to adopt a policy of 18 weeks of maternity leave: Kramer Levin. The email announcing the change and the new policy, after the jump.

Tables of law-firm policies on maternity leave and paternity leave, maintained by ATL surveys guru Justin Bernold, are available here and here, respectively.

In other Kramer Levin news, there is a rumor making the rounds that a certain high-profile young New York lawyer recently interviewed there for a job. If you think you know who we’re talking about, and are in a position to confirm (or deny), please email us. Thanks.

Update: Yep, the commenters are correct. Aaron Charney recently interviewed for a job with Kramer Levin.

Today’s ATL / Lateral Link survey asks a question that a number of associates have been asking lately: Will your firm let you have children and a career at the same time?

Or, for that matter, are you even comfortable trying?

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.

—
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this survey.

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has a feature article that is particularly timely in light of this week’s firing debacle at Paul Hastings. The article, by Noah Schaffer, discusses cases filed by female attorneys in Massachusetts alleging pregnancy-related discrimination.

One recent complaint was filed against Mintz Levin in Boston. A female associate, Kamee Beth Verdrager, was offered a choice between termination or demotion shortly after returning from maternity leave. We discussed her case in more detail here.

Howard P. Speicher, of the Boston firm of Davis, Malm & D’Agostine, discusses the building of a discrimination claim in a different case, brought against the firm of Wynn & Wynn:

Typically, he says, the discrimination is “an inference that you have to draw. In that case, we had these two female attorneys who were horrified when they heard this statement made by the managing partner of the firm at a meeting. The partner had implied that [plaintiff Jill Carmichael] was having babies instead of concentrating on the law.”

Such cases are usually much harder to prove, Speicher notes.

“It’s an evidence issue,” he says. “Usually, if a woman thinks she was fired because she’s pregnant, she’s not going to have anyone admitting that — like we had” in the Carmichael case. “Usually there is going to be the claim by the employer that it was for other reasons, like job performance.”

That leaves the employee with the difficult task of convincing a judge, jury or hearing officer to draw an inference based on evidence that might not be as obvious, he says.

We don’t know if this Paul Hastings associate plans to file a discrimination claim against the firm, but from the sounds of her e-mail, it seems likely. The Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly article says some firms settle discrimination claims “quickly and quietly to avoid negative publicity.” Um, too late for Paul Hastings.

[Employment attorney Ellen] J. Messing says pregnancy discrimination cases are actually easier to prove than other types of discrimination, such as age bias.

“There tends to be a before-and-after picture where people report that they are treated as professionals until it is known or evident that they are pregnant,” she says. “And then they are treated as bellies.”

Surprisingly, some of the firms that have been hit with claims are known for their “family-friendly” policies. In fact, Mintz Levin was named as one of Working Mother magazine’s best law firms for women attorneys.

Case in point. The diversity section of the PH website points out that they are “one of the top family-friendly firms in America.”

Pregnant Pauses: Women’s claims of bias persist despite family-friendly policies [Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly]

Earlier: ‘I suppose we have your honeymoon to blame for this?’
Breaking: A Dramatic Farewell Email (And proof of Paul Hastings layoffs.)

Don’t worry, commenters. We have every intention of giving the recent controversy arising out of layoffs at Paul Hastings the wall-to-wall coverage it deserves.

We’re preparing a more detailed report on associate layoffs and the general state of affairs at PH. If you have information to contribute, please email us (subject line: “Paul Hastings”). We’ve been following the comments (750 and counting) on the post, but we prefer email, due to the greater accountability and opportunity for follow-up. (We keep our email tipsters anonymous, of course.)

Our Paul Hastings scoop has reverberated throughout the blogosphere. A sampling of reactions (excerpts; click on each link to read more):

1. Jezebel. From Moe Tkacik:

[A] female lawyer was laid off by the big law firm Paul Hastings days after suffering a miscarriage because they didn’t want her to get pregnant again. This sort of s**t happens all the time in a lot of industries, of course, but in a firm whose specialty is employment law it’s kind of outrageous….

“If this response seems particularly emotional, perhaps an associate’s emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off,” she writes.

Also, it really isn’t that emotional in light of the fact that a male employee of the firm killed himself and his ex-girlfriend, a Paul Hastings secretary, at the firm’s Atlanta office.

Excellent observations — the past few weeks have been rough for Paul Hastings. And it is somewhat ironic that PH — a leading employment-law firm, counsel to Sullivan & Cromwell in the Aaron Charney discrimination litigation — now finds itself in hot water over how it treats its own employees.

2. Instapundit. From the ever-pithy Professor Glenn Reynolds:

WHEN NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS don’t work.

3. Volokh Conspiracy. From Professor Orin Kerr:

It’s David Lat’s World, and BigLaw Partners Are Just Living In It: Remember the old days when law firms worried about getting sued if they fired an attorney? These days, I would think the greater fear is that the firing will get ugly and end up featured on Above the Law.

Thanks to Professor Kerr for the kind words.

Read more, below the fold.

This is, like, WOW. We don’t quite know what to say.

This departure memo, sent by an associate leaving the San Francisco office of Paul Hastings, is extraordinary. It also confirms the rumors — which have swirled about for quite some time, but without confirmation until now — of associate layoffs at PH.

We’re reaching out for comment to the associate in question and to Paul Hastings. But we wanted to put this up ASAP, to break the story first.

Farewell email below (with a handful of minor typos corrected). “Transition Agreement and General Release,” after the jump.

*******************
From: [Redacted]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 10:14 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: My departure

The circumstances surrounding my departure from Paul Hastings have been deeply disappointing. It is one thing to ignore an email sent as a colleague is waiting to have her uterus scraped after a miscarriage, but it is wholly another level of heartlessness to lay her off six days after that. [Partner X] is the only one who expressed any sympathy after my miscarriage, and I am grateful to him for that.

A business is a business, but it takes very little to convey some level of humanity to carry out even the most difficult business decisions. We are human beings first before we are partners or associates. Had you simply explained that the department is unable to sustain the number of associates in the office, I would have completely understood. Had you explained that the office had been directed to reduce the number of associates and I was chosen because of my high billable rate and low billable hours, I would have appreciated such directness, even though the consequences of blindly raising billable rates to an unsustainable degree is plainly predictable. What I do not understand is the attempt to blame the associate for not bringing in the business that should have been brought in by each of you and to hide your personal failures by attempting to tarnish my excellent performance record and looking to undermine my sense of self esteem.

The last few months have been surreal, at best. Just last year, I had celebrated my engagement and marriage with many of you. In fact, during the engagement party, the head of the department took my then-fiancée aside to express to him what a great attorney I am and what a great future I faced. Indeed, less than a week before this year’s bizarre performance review, I was again told by the same partner that my work is great and that the slow business in no way reflected on my performance. A week later, I was given a mediocre performance review and told that I should worry about whether I have a future at Paul Hastings. When I asked for specific examples of my alleged deficiencies, I received no response. When I asked for an explanation as to why I had been downgraded in so many performance categories when I received absolutely no criticism throughout the year and my prior year’s review was stellar, I was told that my prior year’s performance assessment may have been “over-inflated.” What a startling response.

After my miscarriage, I had discussed my concern with several associates that Paul Hastings may use that opportunity to lay me off quickly before I have a chance to get pregnant again. Those associates thought it unfathomable that a firm would be so callous and assured me that Paul Hastings isn’t that kind of a place. What a lesson this has been for them - and for me. I would not have anticipated that a partner would tell me one thing and completely renege on his words a week later. I would not have anticipated that a female partner (whom I had looked to as a role model) with children of her own would sit stone faced as I broke into tears just days after my miscarriage. Even a few words of sympathy or concern would have made a world of difference. What kind of people squander human relationships so easily?

If this response seems particularly emotional, perhaps an associate’s emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills — and cowardice — on your parts. If you should ever have the misfortune of suddenly losing something or someone precious to you, I hope you don’t find similar heartlessness as I have.

As for your request for a release, non-disclosure, and non-disparagement agreement in return for three months’ pay, I reject it. Unlike you, I am not just a paid mouthpiece with no independent judgment. I will decide how and to whom to communicate how you have treated me. I find it ironic that you would try to buy the right not to be disparaged after behaving as you have. Your actions speak volumes, and you don’t need much help from me in damaging your reputation.

I attach the proposed release for any associate who may be interested in reviewing its details.

[Redacted]

*******************
And that’s all she wrote. The release that Paul Hastings wanted this associate to sign, after the jump.

Update (5:10 PM): We have heard back from the associate in question, who had no additional comment.

Update (8:20 PM): Previously posted in the comments, but now we can bring it up to the main page. Here is Paul Hastings’s statement, from Eileen King, Global Director of Public Relations:

“We disagree with the person’s description of what occurred, but unfortunately we don’t comment on internal employment matters.”

Update (5/6/08): Blog reactions to this story are collected here. Additional discussion of pregnancy discrimination cases appears here. Lawyer layoffs at Paul Hastings are covered here.

Further Update (5/9/08): The author of the email, Shinyung Oh, has gone public and given an interview. See here.

Some of this information is — or soon will be — reflected in Justin Bernold’s nifty tables of maternity leave and paternity leave. But in the spirit of positive reinforcement, we thought that we should separately highlight — and commend — the following firms for recent enhancements to their parental leave policies:

1. Akin Gump: Now at the industry-standard 18 weeks for “[b]irth or adoptive parents who serve as primary caregivers.” Memo after the jump.

2. Andrews Kurth: Also now at 18 weeks. More details in this press release.

3. Morrison & Foerster: They moved to 18 weeks last month, actually, but we haven’t noted it until now. Several MoFo tipsters wrote in requesting a shout-out, including one who pointed out:

[T]he new policy has something I’ve not seen elsewhere: an automatic option to go on reduced hours for the first year after a child is born. Can’t say whether that’s the de facto policy elsewhere, but it is the first time I have seen any firm put it in writing.

Memo and more details, also after the jump.

One subject that we’ve covered extensively here at ATL is parental leave. If you’re lucky enough to be blessed with children, presumably you want to spend time with them, despite the demands of law-firm life.

But what about individuals who want to have kids, but are having difficulties? A few readers have submitted inquiries about infertility treatment. This one is representative:

Your posts on maternity and paternity benefits are interesting; thanks for posting. One benefit that I don’t think you’ve touched on — if you have and I’ve missed it, I apologize — is the availability of coverage for infertility treatment. Not the sexiest topic, I know, but certainly significant.

How significant? Some details:

For example, one IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycle might cost $15,000 or more, and many people have to to go through several tries before any success (everyone’s always hoping for success). Some firms offer this coverage as a part of their insurance packages. Baker & McKenzie in Chicago, for example, is a firm I’ve heard of that has this coverage available. [Ed. note: This is just hearsay, which we haven’t confirmed with the firm. If it’s important to you, you should verify it before acting upon it.]

If you’re unfortunately in the position where you have to seek infertility treatments, they are ridiculously expensive. Doctors visits, fertility drugs, IVF, etc. Ridiculously expensive. My firm does not offer the option of insurance coverage for these expenses, meaning that I may be out $20k to $50k (who knows how it will go) over the next year, whereas an associate at Baker might have full coverage (in addition to what is probably a higher salary in the first place).

It might be an interesting piece of info for folks to know. Not one that everyone needs to consider in law firm decisions, but maybe more than you’d expect. People don’t like to advertise infertility.

True enough. So here’s an open thread, where you can discuss the subject of infertility — and which firms will cover the cost of infertility treatment — on an anonymous basis, in the comments.