During Kash’s brief foray into the world of corporate law at Covington & Burling, she was initially surprised by the party-hard culture at firm events. Once the majority of the partners left one Friday roof-deck happy hour, the event turned distinctly frat party-esque, with patio tables pushed together for rounds of beer pong.
A tipster sends word of a Proskauer Rose firm event turned Animal House scene. The summer associate class in the Boston office of Proskauer had no problem snagging offers this year — and some Proskauer attorneys were willing to risk their coronary health to bring them on board.
The full tale, with photographic evidence, is available after the jump. It involves lots of drinking, a lot of beef, and excessive eating — all the hallmarks of the summer associate experience.
Proskauer Rose
Yes, LEWW hears the howls of protest from our readers about the weeks we skipped recently. We’ll do a makeup post soon, we promise. The weddings pages have been such a wasteland lately that it’s been hard to pull together the kind of legal and nuptial excellence you’ve come to expect here. And it’s crushing our spirit.
Take this week. The NYT featured just seven weddings total, with only two LEWW contenders and one Ivy degree (from U. Penn). Here are the two finalists:
More about these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 2.3: Sterling Reputation”
- Biglaw, Fish & Richardson, Latham & Watkins, Proskauer Rose, Skadden Arps, Summer Associates, White & Case, Wiley Rein
The Summer Associate Recruiting Sweepstakes: Winners and Losers (continued)
By David LatHere’s an update to last week’s post about how various law firms fared in recruiting summer associates for this year. That post, including the comments, featured oodles of info about the expected summer class sizes at different Biglaw shops.
Now we bring you a few more data points. First, just a few short hours after our post went up, this email went around the New York office of Latham & Watkins:
As we move forward into 2008, the Recruiting Committee and the Recruiting Department would like to thank each of you for your support and participation in last year’s recruiting efforts. Your involvement in the summer program and our fall recruiting efforts was “priceless”. Thanks to your efforts, our summer program and fall hiring results were incredibly successful. The recruiting efforts resulted in 61 first years (not including judicial clerks, which we are currently in the midst of recruiting) starting next fall and a summer class of 80 summer associates (our largest to date!). Thank you all again and a very happy and healthy 2008 to each of you.
It’s nice when firms are so responsive to our inquiries.
In addition, a few tipsters emailed us unofficial information about how their firms did in the recruiting process. Check it out, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Summer Associate Recruiting Sweepstakes: Winners and Losers (continued)”
The latest Biglaw bonus announcement to cross our desk is that of Proskauer Rose. The firm is paying year-end and special bonuses, according to the familiar scale, consistent with the firm’s “established merit and hours guidelines.” The non-New Yorkers among you will be pleased to see that the Proskauer bonuses are the same across the New York, Boston, and Los Angeles offices.
Also, congratulations to Proskauer’s eleven new partners (and four senior counsel), whose promotions were recently announced. A special shout-out to Jon Oram, our law school classmate, and a leading young sports lawyer. Jon’s clients include the NBA, the NHL, Major League Soccer, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the New Jersey Devils. Congrats, Jon!
P.S. For the record, Jon was not our source for the Proskauer bonus memo — which we’ve posted for your reading pleasure, after the jump.
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Proskauer Shares the Wealth With Boston and L.A.”
- Biglaw, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Job Searches, Linklaters, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Proskauer Rose, Wilson Sonsini
Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 36-40
By David LatHere are this morning’s firms (in Vault 100 order, prestige scores in parentheses):
36. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (6.308)
37. Linklaters (6.301)
38. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (6.244)
39. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (6.204)
40. Proskauer Rose LLP (6.195)
You’ll note that one of these firms is Linklaters, which we recently wrote about. We reprint two emails from Linklaters sources, taking issue with our prior coverage, after the jump.
The Vault Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]
Earlier: Vault 1-5; Vault 6-10; Vault 11-15; Vault 16-20; Vault 21-25; Vault 26-30; Vault 31-35
- Judge of the Day, Judicial Divas, Marian Shelton, Proskauer Rose, Rudeness, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns
Judge of the Day: Marian Shelton
By David LatOkay, she looks like a cross between Chelsea Clinton and your fourth-grade English teacher. But make no mistake about it: Judge Marian Shelton is a true judicial diva, and not to be messed with.
From the New York Daily News:
Bronx Family Court Judge Marian Shelton allegedly yelled at a lawyer to “shut up,” tossed a woman from court for wearing “inappropriate” clothing, told a Caribbean man to “take those stupid things out of your hair” and said a lawyer had “mental health issues.”…
“Go to therapy, but don’t act out in my courtroom,” Shelton allegedly snapped at one law guardian in a 2005 case.
In another instance, she allegedly mocked the accent of lawyer Mariana Toledo-Hermina.
“How is Toledo-Hermina an attorney when you cannot understand what she is saying?” Shelton allegedly said.
But Judge Shelton has her defenders. Like her husband:
In May, anticipating the [disciplinary] charges, Shelton’s husband, wealthy former Proskauer Rose lawyer Saul Cohen, took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to bash the commission.
Full-page NYT ads aren’t cheap. But then again, neither is chivalry.
Bronx judge scorn to be wild? [New York Daily News via Gothamist]
As several commenters mentioned, Proskauer Rose has raised associate salaries. Here’s the announcement memo (originally posted by an anonymous commenter, but subsequently confirmed for us by multiple Proskauer sources).
To: New York, Los Angeles and Boston Associates
CC: Partners, Senior Counsel
From: The Executive Committee
Date: January 25, 2007
Re: 2007 Salaries
We are pleased to announce that we have increased compensation effective January 1, 2007, as follows:
Class Year Adjusted Base Salary
2006 $160,000
2005 $170,000
2004 $185,000
2003 $210,000
2002 $230,000
2001 $250,000
2000 $265,000
1999 $280,000
1998 and earlier $290,000
This increase is retroactive to January 1, 2007, and will be reflected in the February 15, 2007 payroll. Bonuses for 2007 will be determined at year-end, as usual.
Base salaries and compensation for Senior Counsel will continue to be determined on an individual basis.
We continue to highly value your contributions to the Firm and thank you for your dedication and hard work. We look forward to another successful year.
Law firm bonus season is over, at least in terms of announcements (even though some firms won’t dole out the cash until next year). We’d like to use this quiet week to do some final follow-up and housekeeping on the bonus front.
Please email us, at tips AT abovethelaw DOT com, with any of the following:
(1) any significant New York bonus announcements that we missed;
(2) any bonus announcement memo that we’re missing — e.g., the Proskauer memo (if there was one) — because we like to archive these for posterity; and
(3) any non-New York bonus news you’d like to pass along (since we realize we’ve been neglecting legal markets outside NYC).
You can see what we have and haven’t covered by clicking here, and scrolling down through our past bonus coverage. Or you can search the entire site for the name of the firm in question.
Also, if you haven’t done so already, please take our Biglaw bonus poll. We’ll keep the voting open until at least January 2.
Re: Low Bonus? No Bonus? Anyone hear of this? [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
- 4th Circuit, Baker Botts, Biglaw, CIA, Deaths, Goodwin Procter, Judicial Nominations, Musical Chairs, Proskauer Rose, William Haynes, Wilson Sonsini
Musical Chairs: 11.15.06
By David LatNew Partners:
* Proskauer Rose: Fourteen new partners, three new senior counsel. Names here.
* Baker Botts: Eighteen (!) new partners. Names here.
* Wilson Sonsini: Thriteen new partners. Names here.
(Only two members of the class of 1998. How long is the WSGR partner track as a practical matter?)
At Risk:
* Some are speculating that William Haynes II, general counsel to the Department of Defense, will be replaced after CIA Director Robert Gates gets confirmed as Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s successor (as expected).
But with his Fourth Circuit nomination in limbo, where would Haynes go? The Legal Times suggests that he’ll end up with “a high-powered legal job at one of the nation’s top defense contractors,” which sounds likely to us.
Deceased:
* Anthony Lapham, counsel at Goodwin Procter and former general counsel to the CIA, at the age of 70, of a heart attack.
Proskauer Rose Promotes 17 Attorneys [Proskauer Rose LLP]
Baker Botts Announces New Partners for 2007 [Baker Botts LLP]
Firm Names 10 New NY Partners [NYLawyer.com]
Firm Raises 13 to Partnership [NYLawyer.com]
Will the Pentagon’s Top Lawyer Follow Rumsfeld Out the Door? [NYLawyer.com]
Law Blog Obituary: Goodwin Procter’s Anthony Lapham [WSJ Law Blog]
Anthony A. Lapham, 70, Former C.I.A. Lawyer, Dies [New York Times]
“Small is beautiful.” That seems to be the trend with cell phones, digital cameras — and, of course, law firm names:
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary has officially shortened its name to DLA Piper.
One of the world’s largest law firms with 3,100 lawyers, DLA Piper is the culmination of a series of mergers, beginning with the 1999 combination between Baltimore’s Piper & Marbury and Chicago’s Rudnick & Wolfe. At the beginning of last year, the firm then known as Piper Rudnick officially merged with both Palo Alto, Calif.-based Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and British legal giant DLA, which had 1,800 lawyers.
The firm said it had always planned to shorten the name after a transitional period.
Here’s our question: Why stop there? Why not just call the firm “DLA,” “DL,” or just plain “D”? Law firms have become huge businesses; they might as well sound like them — like GM, GE, IBM, etc.
This is only the latest example of a law firm streamlining its moniker by chopping off unnecessary or unwieldy partner surnames. Some years ago, the venerable “Dechert, Price & Rhoads” turned into “Dechert” — a sign that it had arrived, like “Madonna” or “Cher.” And “Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn” became “Proskauer Rose.” (What prompted that change? Was it to avoid any negative associations with subway shooter Bernhard Goetz?)
Sometimes firms change their names not to make them shorter, but just to avoid being the butt of jokes by opposing counsel. Take one of New Jersey’s largest law firms, Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger, & Vecchione. It used to be “Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger, & Vecchione.” But when former Third Circuit Chief Judge John J. Gibbons (re)joined the firm, they quickly dumped “Crummy” and replaced it with “Gibbons.”
W can hardly blame for that. But we still feel bad for poor Andrew Crummy.
Two Across, Eight Letters: Firm Its Shortens Name [New York Law Journal]
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