Shearman & Sterling

Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 21 – 30 (2010)

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comparing.jpgYou can still call yourself prestigious if you work at the firms that make up today’s fall recruiting open thread. But once you are outside of the Vault top 20, people start talking about “firm culture” at least as much as they talk about prestige.
Here’s the next batch:

21. Shearman & Sterling
22. O’Melveny & Myers
23. Quinn Emanuel
24. Ropes & Gray
25. Hogan & Hartson
26. Clifford Chance
27. Morrison & Foerster
28. Mayer Brown
29. Linklaters
30. Boies Schiller & Flexner

The slide continues for Shearman & Sterling. The firm was ranked #19 last year, and is down two spots this year. Is there any specific reason for the fall?
After the jump, let’s look at the firms rising up through the rankings.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 6.21: The Thorn-Nerds

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Gentleman, how emasculated would you feel if your future father-in-law shuttled your bride down the aisle, and then, instead of pecking her on the cheek and handing her over, actually turned around and performed the wedding ceremony? Talk about control issues. That’s exactly what this groom endured last Sunday, as he was married by his father-in-law, United States Federal District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
The Rakoff wedding didn’t make our final three. Neither did a couple of lesbian unions, a WGWAG, and several other worthy contenders. Here are the three who made the finals:

1. Devon Quasha and Jeffrey Thorn
2. Saralisa Brau and William Van Horne
3. Linda Cho and James Brennan

More about these impressive legal-eagle newlyweds, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 6.14: Chemistry Lesson

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We’ll bottom-line this week’s contest, folks: The SCOTUS clerk wins. Yep, after a long absence, LEWW’s favorite credential makes a welcome appearance in the NYT weddings section, and we’ve got the details for you.
But first, congratulations to Sabrina Charles and Jamie Dycus, who readers overwhelmingly voted Legal Eagle Couple of the Month for May, demonstrating that — in the words of one commenter (and apparently, in the minds of ATL readers) — “Wachtell > Sotomayor > Olympic medal.”
Here are our finalists:

1. Kathryn Whitfield and Adam Fotiades
2. Christina Krause and Peter Henderson
3. Pamela Bookman and Jeffrey Perlman

More about these couples, after the jump.

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Shearman & Sterling Start Date Watch: You Better Hurry

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Incoming first years at Shearman & Sterling have been trying to figure out when they can start at the firm. A couple of months ago, the firm said that December 2009 would be the earliest start date. But Shearman also encouraged its incoming first years to defer until September 2010, while promising those deferrals that the incoming class of 2010 would not be starting on time.
Was the firm’s ambiguity about its regular start date a subtle attempt to get more people to take the year long deferral?
We don’t know how many incoming first years took the year long deferral option. But today, we have news that Shearman has confirmed its regular start date(s). But you’d better hurry to secure your space now.
More details after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.3: One Word: “Awesome”

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champagne glasses small.jpgSix impressive lawyers headline our survey of this week’s NYT wedding pages. Even more impressive is that four of them are still clinging to Biglaw jobs — assuming, of course, that bad news does not await any of our returning honeymooners.
Here are the finalists:

1. Neda Karamouz and Stephen Vander Stoep
2. Danielle Cohen and Bradley Friedman
3. Leslie Tobin and Nathan Ostrander

Click on the link below to get the story on these newlyweds’ degrees, jobs, and china patterns.

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Shearman & Sterling Offers Voluntary Year-Long Deferral to All Associates

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Shearman & Sterling logo.gifShearman & Sterling has decided to mimic the Skadden Sidebar program and offer all of its associates the option to defer for a year. The program is essentially the same set of options that Shearman offered its incoming first year associates a month and a half ago.
The money from Shearman’s “External Development Program” is not as good as what Skadden offered:

Participants in the External Development Program will receive a stipend of $65,000. Associates participating in the program will not be employees of the firm during the program year, but the firm will pay for medical benefits during the program year.

That works for junior associates. But Skadden offered all associates one third of their salary, making the option more viable for mid-level and senior associates.
Shearman’s health care benefits are a nice touch (Skadden made COBRA contributions). But one of the nice perks from Skadden’s program was overlooked in the mainstream media gushing over “$80,000 to do nothing!” Skadden also offered $1,000 a month for student loan repayment. Shearman does not.
Some additional details and the full memo, after the jump.

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Stealth Layoff Watch: 5% Litigation Cuts at Shearman & Sterling

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Shearman & Sterling logo Above the Law blog.jpgStealth layoff rumors have been swirling around Shearman & Sterling for months. We’ve reported on the quiet cuts before. But today, it looks like the firm cut a little too deep to keep it under the radar.

Shearman & Sterling has not responded to our multiple requests for comment, but several sources independently confirm that Shearman is laying off roughly 5% of its litigation associates and some associates in other practice groups.

According to our sources, all of the cuts are coming in the guise of an April performance review:

Shearman & Sterling has started another round of “reviews.” These reviews are resulting in so-called merit-based probations and firings and do not seem to discriminate by class year.

Generally, litigators have been more safe than their corporate brethren. After the jump, we try to explain why Shearman is disproportionately firing litigators now.

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The Latest and Greatest Nationwide Start Date Round-up

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Last month, we brought you Open Thread: Nationwide Start Date Round-up. After a flood of tips in response to that, we brought you an Expanded Nationwide Start Date Round-up. After that post, we got another deluge of tips. So now we bring you the latest and greatest round-up: more firms, more 2010 start dates, more pro bono deferral opportunities, more great taste, less calories…. whoops, wrong post.

Proskauer Rose announced start dates yesterday. Incoming associates have got some time to kill and some money to spend, says a tipster:

Proskauer [is] pushing their new associates back to March 2010. They’re offering a $20K stipend, or the option to get a public interest job, start Jan. 2011 and get a $60K stipend. They’re also still honoring a $10K salary advance they had previously offered.

Most firms, like Proskauer, have offered baby associates deferral stipends when pushing back start dates. However, a few disgruntled 3Ls have written to ATL saying that stipends are not forthcoming at their firms. Here are reports from tipsters:

Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell not offering any stipends [not even salary advances] to deferred Class of 2009 associates. Deferred Associates are still receiving their graduation bonuses ($1500), I guess that’s supposed to carry them through until January 2010.

You guys got to say something about the fact that Shearman, unlike most of the other firms, isn’t paying any kind of a stipend to those it is deferring until January ’10.

King & Spalding, all offices, has been pushed to January 19, 2010. Incoming associates were informed in late March. No stipend, and the salary advance is also not an option anymore.

Goldberg Kohn gave their incoming associates a $7500 bar stipend (which was reduced from the originally promised $8,000); they paid for Bar Exam fees; and they gave them a hand wave goodbye. As for their reported “pushing back start dates”, Goldberg Kohn has told their incoming associates that their start date was INDEFINITELY deferred. They said that March 2010 was a possibility but that the date was arbitrary and they are making no promises at all….They have offered no deferral stipend.

We would like to note that Shearman is paying a $65,000 stipend to those deferred to September 2010.

We wanted to call this post “The Final Round-up,” but that seemed overly optimistic. Check out the newest additions to the nationwide start date watch, after the jump. This time around, we’ve included firms (that we know of) that have not yet announced start dates.

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Shearman & Sterling Pushes Back Start Dates: Class of ’09 v. ’10 Can Now Begin Fighting In Earnest

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Shearman logo.JPGShearman & Sterling is the latest firm to ask incoming first years to voluntarily delay their start dates. According to a firm wide memo that went out today, the firm is offering $65,000 (plus the standard bar stipend) for incoming associates who are willing to start in September of 2010.

But there’s an interesting wrinkle. According to the memo:

Incoming Class of 2009 associates who choose to participate in the Delayed Start Program will have an offer to join the firm as a first year associate in the Class of 2010, with the option to start on the first start dates for Class of 2010 associates.

So, officially now, Shearman is asking people not just to give up a year of Biglaw salary, they are also asking them to lose a full class year. That will affect their raises (assuming those will still exist at some point), bonus payouts, and put even the superstars a year behind in their quest for partnership.

According to NALP, Shearman made 128 offers to its 129 participants in the 2008 summers program out of its New York office. This year, the firm expects just 54 summers. But it certainly looks like those 54 people are now directly competing against a significant number of the 128 people the firm now hopes will defer until 2010.

I think it’s safe to assume that the firm doesn’t want 182 people starting in September 2010, so something will have to give.

More details from the Shearman memo, after the jump.

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NALP’s Numbers on 2009 Summer Programs

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NALP logo.JPGYesterday, we mentioned a NALP “glitch” that allowed users to get a sneak peak at the organization’s 2009 statistics about law firms. The problem, whatever it was, was fixed soon after we alerted NALP to the problem. Here’s the quick statement we obtained from NALP:

Legal employers provide this data to NALP each winter. NALP is pleased to be able to publish this free online searchable database each spring once the data submissions are finalized.

Excellent. It’s a great resource.

As promised, today we take a look at some of the overall summer program numbers from the firms that are ranked 11 through 20, according to Vault (check out firms 1 – 10 here).

The moderately surprising fact is that this next batch of firms didn’t decrease their overall summer associate offers as much as the Vault top ten. Looking at the firm’s New York offices, there was a 14% decrease in offers to 2Ls, compared with a nearly 20% decrease in the V10.

But, one firm really does skew those numbers. More details after the jump.

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Open Thread: Cravath & Co. to Shorter Summers

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summer associate program ATL Above the Law blog.jpgDaylight savings is on. The weather keeps flirting with the idea of getting warmer. And area stores are starting to put miniskirts on display in their front windows. You know what that means: Summer’s a-coming. Law students bound for BigLaw summer associate gigs may already be packing their bags. Except it looks like many will be able to pack less clothing, because this year’s summer gigs are going to be a little shorter.

Firms won’t comment on this E-mails are pouring in from law students across the land telling us that a 12-week program is just a summer dream now. According to tipsters, Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and Kirkland & Ellis are shortening their summers to 10 weeks; and Shearman & Sterling has confirmed that it is rolling it back to just nine weeks. Here’s what we’ve heard:

Cravath just called all of their upcoming 2L Summer Associates and informed us that the summer program would be cut to 10 weeks. They asked that we go online and reschedule our dates accordingly. No explanation given. I’m sure that they made calls rather than emails to avoid a paper trail.

We think the explanation is likely a financial one. Firms are cutting back, and they can get to know you just fine in 10 weeks rather than paying to have you stick you around for 12. Gibson-bound 2Ls got calls as well:

I received a call from the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher summer coordinators today, as did many of my soon-to-be colleagues. The start date moved up to May 18th (instead of the 11th) and the end date moved back to July 24th (instead of the 31st). They tried to sell it as a “good move” for everyone because the recruitment season start so early now (August); they think both the firm administration and the summer associates will appreciate some time to prepare for recruitment season. Is this some sort of signal? Should 2L summers be planning to interview in the fall?

C’mon now. Let’s not totally freak out. Or let’s, but in the comments. Here’s an open thread to discuss which firms are scaling back their summer programs.

Update: Shearman & Sterling on Shearman & Sterling’s Corporate Practice

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Shearman logo.JPGShearman & Sterling declined to comment on the rumors of “performance based” layoffs we reported on, yesterday. However, they did want to comment on our characterization of their faltering corporate practice:

The current environment has presented significant opportunities for Shearman & Sterling across its platform. We have been involved in many of the most complex situations that have arisen in recent months and continue to be active on a large number of those transactions throughout the world, including the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America, Allianz’s sale of Dresdner to Commerzbank, numerous engagements for financial institutions and hedge funds arising under the Lehman insolvency (including our worldwide representation of Bank of America), and Hypo Real Estate in its German restructuring. We also have seen a substantial increase in the demand for our litigation and international arbitration practices. In response to your comments, activity levels in our Capital Markets practice have indeed slowed somewhat, as they have at all major firms, but other practices, as evidenced above, are very busy. Consistent with our normal practice, we are actively allocating associate staffing to areas of the firm where there is the greatest need.

So, there’s that. We’ll try to keep on top of how Shearman’s performance reviews go as they get started over the next couple of weeks.

Earlier: Nationwide (Stealth) Layoff Watch: Shearman & Sterling and Loeb & Loeb