What role do lawyers have in advising their clients on business matters? Some might say: None.

“The client decides on the business objective, and the lawyer helps the client reach that objective, as long as it’s legal,” this line of thinking goes. “And why would you want lawyers giving business advice anyway? They have no business training — and judging from how large law firms have fared in the Great Recession, they don’t seem to be particularly good at business either.”

On the other hand, one thing we commonly hear from the in-house lawyers we speak with is that they do give a combination of legal and business advice (not surprising, given that they have one client, which they want to see prosper). And some top law firm lawyers also get involved in the business side of things; they’re dealmakers in their own right, not just the folks who “paper up” the deals dreamed up by investment bankers. E.g, H. Rodgin Cohen of Sullivan & Cromwell, who played a major role in various bank M&A deals last fall.

Fried Frank partner Jonathan Mechanic (pictured) — chair of that firm’s high-powered real estate group, with a top ranking from Chambers and Partners — is arguably the real estate world’s answer to Rodge Cohen. In the New York Observer, Dana Rubinstein began an August 2008 interview with Mechanic by citing a study declaring him to be “the best-connected and most powerful real estate lawyer in the world.”

But at least one ATL reader holds the opinion — a minority opinion, it should be noted — that Jon Mechanic’s track record isn’t so stellar.

The bill of particulars against Jon Mechanic and Fried Frank, after the jump.

Law professors generally don’t earn as much as Biglaw partners. Legal academic salaries, while generally in the low six-figures, rarely go over, say, $400,000.

But some law profs own very, very nice homes. See, e.g. (in descending order by value):

• Columbia professor Hans Smit ($30 million mansion — yup, that’s seven zeros);

• Yale professor James Whitman ($5.7 million co-op);

• NYU professor Cathy Sharkey ($5.2 million apartment);

• “Feldsuk,” aka Harvard professors Jeannie Suk, who has a new book out that looks quite interesting, and Noah Feldman ($2.8 million mansion);

• Columbia professor Edward Morrison ($2.6 million townhouse); and

• Columbia professor Sarah Cleveland ($2.5 million townhouse).

  Sometimes the professors get financial assistance for these purchases from the schools that employ them. But sometimes the professors buy them on their own, without any university help.

  For example, as reported in the New York Observer, Daniel Fischel, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, just picked up an $8.45 million Manhattan pied-à-terre. As breathlessly described by writer Max Abelson, the apartment features “custom electric shades, a steam shower, and a Sub-Zero wine refrigerator.”

  Sounds fabulous! Maybe Professor Fischel can donate a weekend in this apartment to the CLF public interest auction?

  Fischel’s famous neighbors, plus the story of how he got this rich — being a law school dean pays well, but not that well — after the jump.

Are billing disputes between law firms and their clients on the rise in the recession? We feel like we’ve seen a lot of them lately.

The most recent disagreement involves Bingham McCutchen. A Boston-area investment company, Tuckerbrook Alternative Investments, has sued Bingham, claiming it was overcharged for legal services provided in connection with preparing an SEC registration statement.

The case isn’t that exciting — it seems like a garden-variety fee dispute — but this aspect struck us as interesting. From Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (subscription):

The Sept. 16 complaint accuses Bingham of stacking the case with young associates who had “inadequate” experience. “The billing statements reflect that these junior lawyers in essence were enjoying the benefits of on-the-job-training at Tuckerbrook’s expense,” the complaint states.

So the allegation is that young lawyers were being trained on the client’s dime. But is that an indictment of Bingham McCutchen, or of the billable hour?

Grumpy in-house lawyers regularly complain about paying for the training of Biglaw’s junior associates. This is why some corporate counsel explicitly refuse to pay for first- and second-year associates (and provide for that in their retainer agreements; presumably Tuckerbrook could have done that here).

More news about Bingham, including its summer associate offer rate and its real estate needs in New York, after the jump.

If you’re looking for options beyond Biglaw, we’re here to help. We continue our series of open threads covering small law firms focused on different practice areas. To see the fields we’ve covered so far, click here and scroll down.

We’ve received encouraging feedback from readers — and suggestions. Like this one:

I really like the small firm series you’re running, and I’m hoping you can make the next post about real estate law. I know there are lots of high-end boutiques specializing in commercial real estate out there, and I’m curious about what kind of hours they work and what kind of money the junior to midlevel associates make.

My current practice area involves long and very unpredictable hours, but I’m pretty junior, so I can still switch into another area. Real estate is at the top of my “escape options” list because I’ve heard that, even at larger firms, real estate involves less stress and fewer hours than litigation or corporate.

Is this true? Is real estate really free of “fire drills”?

Readers, can you provide information for our correspondent? If you can, please contribute to this open thread about REAL ESTATE LAW.

Some half-baked musings to start the conversation, after the jump.

Earlier today, we wrote about Schiff Hardin sending a mass e-mail to its retired partners letting them know that they were being moved to temporary offices during a renovation of the firm’s Chicago office. The e-mail read as if the partners were not getting their own offices upon their return and were being asked to cut back their time at the office.

Schiff got in touch with us this afternoon with an update. Despite the language in the e-mail, in fact, all special partners will be getting their own offices when renovations are complete, according to Schiff’s spokesman. They just won’t be in the same offices as before. There will be no change in the partners’ status with the firm, he added.

Schiff’s spokesman could not explain why the e-mail read like a dismissal letter

Earlier: Nationwide Layoff Watch: Partners Emeriti at Schiff Hardin?

We’ve noticed in comment threads that many of you would like frequent commenter Partner Emeritus to retire. But he’s a persistent one. Perhaps frustrated readers should take a page from the book of Schiff Hardin.

The 400-attorney firm found an interesting way to get rid of its partners emeriti in the firm’s Chicago office. It will move its “special partners” to temporary offices while its main building is being renovated, and then not move them back.

The firm notified its retired partners, referred to as “special partners,” on Sunday. And not in a very nice way. They got the message via mass e-mail:

Dear Special Partners,

As you know, we are about embark upon the renovation of our space in Chicago. We will move to temporary space two floors at a time and then return to our improved floors. We will use this opportunity to reshuffle offices

Some of you have volunteered to move offices when we return to the renovated space. I have not, however, had an opportunity to speak with all of you about this topic. With one exception, you will not be returning to your present office.

The mass e-mail that Schiff Hardin’s (not-so special?) partners emeriti got, plus a clarification from the firm, after the jump.

Earlier this year, Latham & Watkins laid off some 400 employees (190 associates and 250 staff). This caused many to wonder about how tough times were getting at Latham.

Well, don’t shed tears for LW partners just yet. From the New York Times:

If a tourist passing along the Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame just looks up, it is not hard to glimpse, through the open windows above, the rich colors of old master paintings that have been stretched across a ceiling in Linda and Bryant Edwards’s first-floor apartment.

And from the home itself, in an elegant Haussmann building dating to 1905, the family has its own view — of the garden behind Notre Dame Cathedral….

When her husband, 54, presented her with the apartment as a gift for her 40th birthday, Mrs. Edwards envisioned a kind of “Tale of Two Cities” life, split between Paris and what was then the couple’s home in London.

The generous husband in question, Bryant Edwards, is a partner at Latham & Watkins. Last year he moved to Dubai, where he serves as managing partner of the firm’s Middle East office. The Edwardses now use their Paris apartment as a pied-à-terre when they return to the Continent.

So, the question you’re all wondering: How much did this amazing apartment cost?

I guess Justice Souter no longer has to play the role of humble civil servant, and can now start living the life of a former uber-powerful person. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Souter is getting new digs:

When he retired from the Supreme Court in June, it was expected that Justice David H. Souter would return to his beloved family farmhouse in Weare, N.H., a rustic abode with peeling brown paint, rotting beams and plenty of the solitude he desired….

On July 30, he bought a 3,448-square-foot Cape Cod-style home in neighboring Hopkinton listed at $549,000. The single-floor home, for which he paid a reported $510,000, sits on 2.36 well-manicured acres.

The ABA Journal notes that Souter needed more space for his books.

At least he’s staying in New Hampshire. But his neighbors in Weare are acting like Souter is leaving the neighborhood to move to Havana or something. More details, plus photos, after the jump.

Remember James Ferraro, aka the Runaway Groom? He’s the multimillionaire trial lawyer who, back in January 2008, left his wife — Patricia Delinois, a well-known real estate broker — standing at the altar.

Their story ended happily: Ferraro and Delinois reconciled and eventually did get married, a few weeks later. And Mrs. Ferraro is probably very glad they did.

At least if she likes nice real estate. From the New York Observer:

James L. Ferraro, the prominent Miami trial lawyer who owns the Cleveland Gladiators arena football team, is finally buying a nice Manhattan apartment. This week he’s spending $8,175,000 on a penthouse at the glassy Park Imperial on West 56th Street.

Even though Mr. Ferraro owns places in Miami and a 14-bedroom Martha’s Vineyard mansion, it had been years since he felt he could get a good bargain in New York. “I thought about it after 9/11, but I didn’t want to buy on a calamity—be a vulture on someone’s property; not that it’s bad karma, it is what it is. But this now is the best buying opportunity you’re going to have in the next 25 years.”

So, how much did he pay per square foot?

We realize that Elie makes we make our fair share of typographical errors here at ATL. But this is just a blog, not a document being sent to a client or filed with a court, and we’re more focused on substance than style, due to the speed of the news cycle and our desire to be… FIRST! So please cut us some slack.

(But do continue to point out typos to us, either in the comments or by email. Readers are our unofficial copy editors, and we frequently fix typos after they’ve been brought to our attention.)

In any event, at least our typos don’t cost anyone millions. From the New York Times:

The Rushmore, a new 41-story glass and stone condominium tower on Riverside Boulevard at the Hudson River, seemed serene on a recent visit. The flowers in the interior courtyard were in full bloom; the ground-level pool had been filled. Sixteen buyers had already moved in.

And yet an error of a single digit in an arcane document — the densely worded 732-page offering plan — could upset that happy picture, and cost the sponsors, the Extell Development Company and the Carlyle Group, tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue, lawyers say.

Of course, this isn’t the first example of an expensive typo (assuming it’s a typo; this is open to debate). Remember the $900,000 comma, or the $40,000 missing “L”?

But, if given effect, the glitch in the Rushmore offering plan will certainly be one of the more expensive ones. Find out the nature of the mistake — and the law firm responsible — after the jump.

Mega-fraudster Marc Dreier, who recently traded a magnificent penthouse for a cell at the MCC (look him up in the handy Inmate Locator), isn’t the only New York lawyer with new digs.

The iconic CBS Building (aka “Black Rock”), longtime home of Wachtell Lipton, has another prestigious legal tenant. From the New York Observer:

Law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe was expected Thursday to sign a lease for approximately 220,000 square feet at CBS’ 38-story granite slab known as Black Rock, at 51 West 52nd Street, according to industry sources.

As part of the deal, Orrick is taking the space being vacated by UBS and Cushman & Wakefield, which will consolidate its midtown offices at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Sources say that UBS paid more than $32 million to terminate its lease early, money which CBS applied to the Orrick deal to absorb the costs of Orrick’s build-out of the noncontiguous space to the tune of $150 a square foot, and which will reduce the firm’s rent in the building.

It’s a great building, with handsome, elegant architecture (courtesy of Eero Saarinen). Because the footprint is relatively small, it doesn’t have the impersonal, warehouse-like feel of many other New York office buildings. The midtown location is super-convenient, and the higher floors offer amazing views. (We know Black Rock well, having spent several thousand hours in it while working at Wachtell.)

An Orrick spokesperson confirmed to ATL that the deal, described by the Observer as “expected,” has closed. Congratulations to Orrick on the fabulous new digs!

Links and press release, after the jump.

A certain big-time lawyer turned big-time fraudster — Marc Dreier, aka “Mini-Madoff” — will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars. He must miss his days of house arrest, when he got to hole up in 34C — not just a great bra size, but also a great apartment — at One Beacon Court.

That apartment is no longer his. The New York Law Journal reports:

The luxury midtown Manhattan apartment of disgraced attorney Marc S. Dreier was sold at auction for $8.2 million, about $2 million less than the $10.43 million he paid in 2007.

The sale of the condominium at 151 E. 58th St. came just one week after Southern District Judge Jed S. Rakoff sentenced Mr. Dreier to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a multi-year Ponzi scheme that fleeced more than $400 million from clients of Dreier LLP and investors to whom he sold bogus promissory notes.

Forty-six bidders registered for the auction held at Southern District Bankruptcy Court. In just five minutes, the price of Mr. Dreier’s 3,000-square-foot apartment in the Bloomberg Building at One Beacon Court rocketed to $8.15 million from an initial bid of $3 million.

Eight million isn’t chump change. But look at everything the buyer is getting!

We know of quite a few lawyers who are trying to downsize their lifestyles, whether because of being laid off or opting for a sabbatical-sized salary. We thought you would appreciate this note and photo from an ATL reader:

A lawyer in my building was having trouble selling an apartment and posted the attached sign in the elevator.

UPDATE (5:48 p.m.): The author of the note really is unwinding his assets. We’re told the apartment is in White Plains, New York, and is owned by “an associate from a city mega firm who just got laid off.”

A former Mayer Brown associate, Venus Yvette Springs, has filed a complaint against the firm. She alleges Mayer Brown discriminated against her and eventually fired her in 2008.

Springs was an associate in the real estate group of Mayer Brown, Charlotte. In her complaint, she claims that the head of the group, Frank Arado, said that he would make her a partner with the firm as recently as March 2008. But in May 2008, she was informed that she would be fired. She was officially terminated in September of 2008. The heart of her discrimination claim seems to be this paragraph:

In a statement obtained by Above the Law, Mayer Brown strenuously denied the claims:

Mayer Brown has not yet been served with the complaint filed by former employee Yvette Springs. However, based on our current review, we believe her claims have no merit. We will defend ourselves vigorously in this matter. Consistent with our policy of not commenting on personnel matters or pending litigation, we have nothing further to say.

Additional details after the jump.

When the economic meltdown started picking up steam last year, we were having brunch in the West Village with friends from the legal and financial worlds. One of the lawyers upset the financial folks at the table by rejoicing over the fall of Wall Street.

“Your massive salaries inflated the real estate market here. With financial folks being fired, Manhattan property prices will fall, and lawyers will be able to afford nicer places,” said the J.D. holder, who might not be as smug these days after the waves of law firm layoffs. Still, those words may well have been prophetic.

The Sunday New York Times just had a piece on Manhattan’s sinking housing prices, focusing on the real estate search of personal injury attorney Matthew Glassman and his wife. With their children out of the nest, they’re moving from a house in Long Island — which they sold for $1.61 million, a nice chunk of change — to a condo in Manhattan. They scored a place in Chelsea for less than a million dollars. From the Times:

It was sunny when they visited the Cheyney on West 23rd Street. A two-bedroom condo of around 1,150 square feet, it had two exposures, to the street and to a garden courtyard, but needed a complete renovation…. [T]hey focused on the good layout, with a hallway separating the bedrooms from the living room. There was a real second bedroom, not just a windowless office….

And the price, which started at $1.45 million in September, was steadily falling. The Glassmans paid $998,000 and closed in February. The common charge and taxes are $1,667 a month.

Only six figures! But the condo is a little bit of a fixer-upper, requiring $100,000 more in renovations.

Perhaps Glassman hoped to help pay that bill with the business drummed up by the NYT article. As the tipster who sent it along to us noted:

Gotta love the PI attorney who wore a shirt with his website on it while being photographed by the NY Times.

Will it work? Due to the wife’s blocking the shirt, we were misled and went first to Glassmanlaw.com. We were initially surprised that a personal injury attorney would specialize in immigration law and fiancee visas. But then we found the right site, Mglassmanlaw.com. We like that “Animal Bites” has its own category.

The Suburban Transplants [New York Times]

In these dire times, academia is regarded as a refuge. Sure, endowments are down, some schools have imposed hiring freezes, and budgets are being trimmed here and there. But the academy, especially the legal academy, hasn’t seen anything like the carnage experienced by Biglaw.

Take the ivory tower of Columbia Law School, which apparently remains an impregnable fortress against the recession. Despite a few budget cuts at the university, the law school still provides professors with delicious digs. From the Sunday New York Times:

Many buyers say that jumbo mortgages are hard to come by these days. But don’t tell that to Edward R. Morrison, a law professor and economist at Columbia University, who is something of an expert on these troubled times.

Last month Mr. Morrison and his wife, Anne, bought a restored two-family town house at 357 West 121 Street in Harlem for $2.575 million. Brokers said it was a record price for a town house in the neighborhood — just down the hill from the Columbia campus in Morningside Heights, near Morningside Park — and one of the top 10 town house sales in Harlem in recent years.

As we’ve told you before, to the Elect go all the spoils. (Ed Morrison clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.)

Now, a $2.6 million townhouse is pretty sweet — but it’s not the nicest piece of real estate owned by a CLS faculty member. That title surely belongs to Hans Smit’s $29 million mansion.

(Actually, make that $30 million, the price reflected in the current version of the listing. What recession?)

More details about the Morrison manse, plus a picture of the super-cute professor, after the jump.

Remember Kathleen DeLaney and Courtney Thomas? Almost a year ago, this comely couple was named an ATL couple of the week. In the words of Laurie Lin, “Team DeLaney-Thomas, you’ve shaken LEWW out of our winter doldrums with your sterling credentials and sizzling good looks. Congratulations!”

Now ATL would like to congratulate the DeLaney-Thomases on something else: a fabulous new home. Once again, they make their appearance in the New York Times:

For three years, Kathleen DeLaney Thomas and her husband, Courtney Thomas, lived in a Chelsea rental of 900 square feet. “That apartment felt big when we moved in and small when we moved out,” Mrs. Thomas said….

The place had scarce closet space and an unnecessarily large second bedroom, carved from the living room, that made for a claustrophobic feel. Wedding gifts were stacked in the hall or stored at Mr. Thomas’s mother’s house in New Jersey.

ATL readers from Texas, this is your cue: “In Texas, you could live in a 5,000 square foot mansion for the same amount!”

The sluggish elevator drove the couple mad. If they were paying so much in rent — around $3,300 a month — they would rather get a return on their outlay. Once they saved enough for a down payment on a condominium, Mrs. Thomas said, “we were totally ready to go.”

And go they did — to Brooklyn, where all the cool kids live nowadays.

Read more about their fabulous new pad, after the jump.

Talks between Thacher Proffitt and King & Spalding, a story we broke here, remain ongoing. From the Legal Times:

Atlanta-based King & Spalding is in talks to acquire most, but not all of Thacher Proffitt & Wood’s lawyers, say two sources aware of the discussions. In order to avoid dissolution, New York-based Thacher hopes to find a partner to acquire it, these sources say.

One New York legal consultant says the discussions have been ongoing for the past three to four months, and that the firms hope to reach an agreement by year-end. The consultant says King & Spalding is considering taking on about 100 of Thacher’s 195 lawyers, but that it’s not yet clear which practices and offices the 100 lawyers would come from. “There’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty about who’s going to be invited to the party,” says the consultant, who asked not to be named.

Not sure we’d call it a “party.” But the alternative to a K&S acquisition isn’t appealing:

[Thacher’s] overall headcount is down more than 100 lawyers compared to last year — and so are its profits. Profits per partner fell more than 22 percent in 2007 to $1.02 million, according to the Am Law 200.

The firm has had a constant stream of high-profile departures, including its vice chairman Thomas Leslie, who decamped for Greenberg Traurig in October, and Washington managing partner Richard Schaberg, who left for Hogan & Hartson’s D.C. office last month. The New York consultant and another individual familiar with the discussions say that if the deal falls through, Thacher Proffitt will likely go under.

It’s worth noting that TPW has placed its New York headquarters up for sublease (as reported by Lindsay Fortado and David Levitt of Bloomberg). If TPW is seeking a subtenant for all five floors it leases at Two World Financial Center, then one has to wonder if the firm plans to continue operations (at least in its current form).

As for King & Spalding, it’s growing strategically, despite the downturn. The firm recently snagged three energy partners from Kirkland & Ellis. KS hopefully has room in the lifeboat for Thacherites seeking a new home.

To Avoid Dissolution, Thacher Proffitt Talks With King & Spalding [Legal Times via WSJ Law Blog]
Thacher Proffitt Puts Up New York Office Space for Sublease [Bloomberg]
King & Spalding Adds Three Energy Partners in Washington, D.C. [King & Spalding]

Heller Ehrman continues to stave off involuntary bankruptcy, despite not being able to pay employees their accrued vacation time. But Heller’s breakup continues to take weird twists.

The latest bizarre news comes from Seattle, where some associates have wondered whether they are about to be evicted from their offices. Tension was so high that Heller management had to send around a clarification email:

TO ALL HANDS (SEATTLE):

I have heard various rumors in the hallways to the effect that the Seattle office will close imminently and therefore that everyone needs to move out pronto. To clarify, here is the status.

The landlord has not issued a notice to vacate. If such a notice were issued, the notice period would be ten days. For reasons too long to explain, we overpaid rent throughout 2008. When those overpayments came to our attention, the firm asked that they be applied to cover (completely) the October rent obligation. The landlord has since asserted that the overpayments instead should be applied toward a fee that was due in connection with our give-back of space on 58. The Dissolution Committee is working with our outside counsel and communicating with the landlord to hopefully resolve this issue, and to clarify with the landlord any issues relating to removal of property from our space. To the best of my knowledge, closure of this office is not imminent and the date of closure remains to be determined, based on the pace of collections versus ongoing costs and also based on the banks’ decisions about what spending they will approve.

A law firm on the edge of solvency “overpaid” their rent? We hope that the explanation for this oversight is too long and difficult to get into, but we wonder if it is just too embarrassing.

Meanwhile, the Heller refugees that ended up at Covington have officially started .

Associates that we are speaking to say that it is just starting to sink in that they will be out of a job soon. Hopefully the Seattle associates will get as much time as possible to come to grips with this reality, instead of showing up at the office one day only to find locks on the door.

Update: The Blog of the LegalTimes reports that Arnold & Porter has picked up the latest Heller refugees. The big fish is Kenneth Chernof, Heller’s managing partner in the D.C. office. Any associates coming along for the ride?

Homeless In Seattle? [Heller Highwater]
Heller partners join Covington & Burling [Business Journal]
Arnold & Porter Picks Up Heller Partners [The BLT: Blog of the LegalTimes]

Earlier: Anatomy of a Dissolution: BoA & Citi Tell Heller Ehrman There’s No Money For Vacation Time

Here’s an idea for how Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft — America’s Firingest Law Firm™, which laid off 35 lawyers in January, and then 96 more last month — can keep its surviving attorneys (plus all those incoming first-years) gainfully employed.

Have them work on the litigation over managing partner Robert Link’s Hamptons house.

Cadwalader Managing Partner In Hamptons Real Estate Squabble [Am Law Daily]
Robert O. Link, Jr. v. Richard Sarcona: Complaint (PDF) [Am Law Daily]
3 Halsey Path, Southampton, NY [Zillow]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Robert Link (scroll down)
Prior ATL coverage of CWT (scroll down)