As you can see from the time of our first post of the day, we’ve been in front of our computer for about twelve hours. Our eyes hurt. And we’re hungry.
We need to stand up. Maybe we’ll be really daring and leave our apartment.
Hence this open comment thread. Some of the biggest Biglaws — Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, Paul Weiss — have already announced their bonuses. But if Skadden comes along and blows the top off the bonus market while we’re gone, please post it in the comments (along with a link to your source).
We’ll follow up when we return. Thanks.
P.S. We realize this is unlikely. First, Skadden will probably do what everybody else has done, and match the market bonuses (as set last week by Milbank). Second, based on the buzz over at Greedy NY, it seems that a Skadden announcement will probably come tomorrow.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of bonuses (scroll down)
Skadden Arps
- Admin, Biglaw, Blogging, Bonuses, Cravath, Milbank Tweed, Money, Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, Sullivan & Cromwell
Associate Bonus Watch: Wednesday Open Comment Thread
By David LatRight now a heated debate is raging in last night’s open comment thread. The subject: public interest law, and the people who practice it. The debate is aptly summarized by this comment:
This comment thread is a microcosm of the unhappy lawyers out there. The big firm lawyers comfort themselves by telling themselves that public interest lawyers are incompetent, self-righteous, don’t make enough money, and sit around smoking pot and complaining about how little respect they get.
The public interest lawyers comfort themselves by telling themselves that big firm lawyers are egotistical, immoral, don’t do real work, and have sacrificed “real life” for money on the assumption that either they can just purchase love, friends and happiness, or that cocaine is an acceptable substitute.
For those of you who do follow public interest, here’s some important news: announcement of the 2007 Skadden Fellows!!!
These extremely prestigious fellowships, funded by Skadden Arps, are awarded to 25 outstanding individuals each year (selected from hundreds of applicants). The fellows spend one year — or two, if renewed — working on a project of their own design, at public interest organizations around the country. For more details, plus the history of the program, see here.
Skadden fellows don’t make a ton; the class of 2006 fellows earned a salary of $46,000. As one ATL correspondent bitterly notes, “They will make almost as much per year as those stupid third-year associates will get as a ‘bonus.’” But then again, from the perspective of the lucky organizations who get the help of fully-funded fellows, it’s found money.
The list of 2007 fellows is available here. One of the new fellows is Georgetown Law 3L Miriam Lederer (pictured at right), whom we had the pleasure of meeting at the recent Breyer-Fried event. A tipster described Miriam as a “raven-haired beauty,” and we concur in that assessment.
Congratulations, Skadden Fellows!
List of 2007 Skadden Fellows [Skadden Fellowship Foundation]
About the Foundation [Skadden Fellowship Foundation]
- Biglaw, Cooley Godward, Gibson Dunn, Kronish Lieb, Law Firm Mergers, Musical Chairs, Skadden Arps, White House Counsel
Musical Chairs: 11.30.06
By David LatAt the White House:
Positions in the White House Counsel’s office are some of the most prestigious and interesting jobs in the entire legal profession. And now two new lawyers are coming on board as associate counsels to the president:
* Christopher Oprison, formerly of Skadden Arps (Washington, DC); and Cheryl Stanton, a former law clerk to then-Judge Alito, and most recently of Olgetree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart (Morristown, NJ).
The arrival of Oprison and Stanton will mean that the lawyers in the office will reshuffle their portfolios for judicial nominations. We hear that Stanton will be in charge of Fifth Circuit nominations — a subject of great interest to us.
* Also, a third lawyer — Alan Swendiman, previously general counsel of the GSA, everybody’s favorite government agency — is joining the White House staff. He’ll serve as special assistant to the President and director, Office of Administration.
At Google (which is arguably more powerful than the White House these days):
* John Kent Walker Jr., formerly deputy GC of eBay, joins the search engine giant as general counsel.
Unusual structure: Walker will report to David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president of corporate development, who will take on the title of “chief legal officer.” But hey, Google is an unusual company.
Biglaw moves, after the jump.
- Biglaw, Canada, Eliot Spitzer, Football, Harvard Law School, Non-Sequiturs, Politics, Skadden Arps, Tax Law
Non-Sequiturs: 11.10.06
By Stella Q* A rather innocuous profile of New York’s new first lady, ex-attorney Silda Wall Spitzer (who was an up-and-coming corporate superstar at Skadden, but aren’t they all). She was previously married to a Harvard Law classmate for 29 days. Another HLS classmate, Jim Cramer, thinks she’s pretty, and the journalist probably does not understand the notion of billable hours. [New York Times]
* They’re much stricter about using office services for personal use up north. [The Globe and Mail]
* A headbutt is fined $15,000, and a groin-kneeing $25,000. If I were a pro athelete, I’d say that was an extra $10,000 well spent. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
* You can still stand firm and refuse to hand over your taxes. After all, you have balls and they don’t. [Washington Post via TaxProf Blog]
* While Gawker seems obsessed with the social-climbing aspiration of ex-Skaddenite Melissa Berkelhammer, hopefully we’ll soon find out what makes her any worse than the others. [Page Six via Socialite Rank]
* Denmark let the little mermaid stay, and yet they won’t let foreign-born spouses of Danish nationals cross the “Love Bridge.” [Bloomberg].
* Lovin’ might be a mistake, but it’s worth making. (Sorry we didn’t cover the Hilary Duff stalker story, but there are some celebrity stories even we don’t care about.) [AP via Yahoo! News]
* Something(s) undoubtedly went down, but it couldn’t have been as bad as this. Please, Dr. Huxtable, say it ain’t so. [AP via NY Lawyer]
- Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Clifford Chance, Holland & Knight, Latham & Watkins, Magic Circle, Milbank Tweed, Musical Chairs, O'Melveny & Myers, S.D.N.Y., Skadden Arps, U.S. Attorneys Offices, Willkie Farr
Musical Chairs: 10.31.06
By David LatTons of moves to report today — and these are just the highlights:
New Partners:
* Latham & Watkins — which, as discussed yesterday, is very popular with Supreme Court clerks — has elected 26 new partners, in offices around the country. That’s enough lawyers to start a whole new law firm.
You can check out their names here. If you graduated from law school around 1998, you probably know some of them.
“Magic Circle” Hiring Spree:
The top British law firms — aka the “Magic Circle” firms — continue to cast spells over U.S. practitioners, who have been flocking to their American offices in droves.
* Louis Kimmelman, former co-chair of O’Melveny & Myers’s international arbitration practice, is heading to Allen & Overy’s rapidly growing New York office. Kimmelman regularly appears before the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, the American Arbitration Association, and other tribunals.
* Finance lawyers Zarrar Sehgal and Anthony Lopez III, to Clifford Chance (NY), from Milbank Tweed and Cahill Gordon, respectively.
Lateral Moves:
* Corporate and securities lawyer Michael Student, to Brown Rudnick, from Holland & Knight.
* Tax lawyer James Tander, corporate lawyer Patrick de Carbuccia, and real estate lawyer Michael Pollack, to Reed Smith (NY). They come from, respectively, Skadden Arps, Willkie Farr, and Withers Bergman of (New Haven, CT).
Government to Private Sector:
* Sharon McCarthy, a former deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District, to litigation and tax boutique Kostelanetz & Fink, as a partner.
Internal Promotions:
* Paul Tvetenstrand, a partner in the structured finance practice group, has been elected chairman and managing partner of Thacher Proffitt & Wood.
Latham & Watkins Elects 26 New Partners [Latham & Watkins]
NY Partners Switching Firms, NY Lawyers On the Move [NYLawyer.com]
More NY Partners Switching Firms [NYLawyer.com]
Firm Promotes 26 to Partnership [NYLawyer.com]
NY Practice Leader Switches Firms [NYLawyer.com]
- Harold Koh, Litigatrix, Pictures, Separated at Birth, Sheila Birnbaum, Skadden Arps, WSJ Law Blog, Yale Law School
Separated at Birth: Sheila Birnbaum and Harold Koh?
By David LatWhen we surfed over to the WSJ Law Blog a few minutes ago, quickly scanned the page, and saw the photo for this post, we thought it had to do with Yale Law School. But upon closer inspection, we learned we were wrong.
Instead, it was a post about Skadden Arps partner Sheila Birnbaum. Birnbaum, who heads Skadden’s Complex Mass Tort and Insurance Group, has a nickname reflecting her expertise: “The Queen of Toxic Torts.” The superstar litigatrix attended the Supreme Court oral arguments this morning in the Philip Morris punitive damages case.
So why did we think, for a few brief seconds, that the post was about Yale Law School? Here’s why:
Sheila L. Birnbaum [Skadden]
Dean Harold Hongju Koh [Yale Law School]
- Biglaw, Cleary Gottlieb, Fried Frank, Legal Fee Voyeurism, Money, Nauseating Things, Skadden Arps, Wilson Sonsini
Legal Fee Voyeurism: Seeking Submissions
By David LatLast week, the New York Law Journal brought us news of this sizable transaction:
Freescale Semiconductor Inc., the third-largest chipset maker in the nation, has been acquired by a consortium of private equity groups, led by The Blackstone Group and consisting of The Carlyle Group, Texas Pacific Group and Permira Funds. The Austin, Texas company is valued at $17.6 billion; the purchasers will also pay off Freescale’s debts, amounting to $1.25 billion, making the total worth of the transaction roughly $19 billion.
Here are the firms involved in the deal, a veritable legal fee bonanza:
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom led representation for the entire consortium, while Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton assisted in advising every group except Blackstone and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson counseled Permira. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented Freescale.
WOW — more law firms than you can shake a stick at. This deal’s a permanent employment act for corporate lawyers.
And Freescale isn’t the only eleven-figure transactions announced in recent weeks. It’s small potatoes compared to the $33 billion HCA buyout over the summer.
Now, the important stuff: How much did these firms earn for their work on this transaction — or any other recent transactions you’re aware of?
Unlike the (much larger) fees of investment bankers, the advisory fees of law firms in M&A deals are usually not disclosed in public filings. So if you have any reasonably informed guesses — or, better yet, actual knowledge — of the filthy lucre firms have bagged for this or other recent deals, please email us (subject line: “Legal Fee Voyeurism”). Thanks!
NY Partners and Associates Working on Billion Dollar Deals [New York Law Journal]
- Greenberg Traurig, Morgan Stanley, Musical Chairs, Peter Lattman, Shearman & Sterling, Skadden Arps, Wall Street Journal, WSJ Law Blog
Musical Chairs: 09.21.06
By David LatLateral Moves:
* Tax litigators B. John Williams, Jr. and Alan Swirski, to Skadden Arps (DC), from Shearman & Sterling (DC).
The WSJ Law Blog refers to the two men as “Tax Litigation Studs.” First: What do these guys look like? Second: Is using the word “stud” conduct unbecoming an MSM blog? (Just kidding, Peter.)
* Geroge Sullivan, to Greenberg Traurig (NY), from Morgan Stanley (where he headed litigation at the firm’s retail brokerage and investment management arm).
Government to Private Sector:
* Mark Feldman, to BDO Seidman’s litigation and fraud investigation practice, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (where he headed the office’s organized crime and racketeering section for over 10 years).
Shearman Tax Litigation Studs Decamp to Skadden [WSJ Law Blog]
Morgan Stanley Litigation Chief to Join Firm in NY [NYLawyer.com]
Organized Crime Prosecutor Joins BDO Seidman [NYLawyer.com]
Those big law firms — they’re all the same, right?
Yeah, pretty much. But let’s keep that as our little secret. Here’s our next amusing interview story.*
A law school classmate had been on what seemed like a zillion second-year callbacks and was having trouble keeping all the interviews straight in his head. At a Cravath, Swaine & Moore callback, three rather stuffy and reticent lawyers took him to lunch at an upscale French restaurant. Trying to make conversation, my classmate piped up, “So what’s it like to work at Skadden?”
The seniormost lawyer arched an eyebrow and replied icily, “You’re interviewing at Cravath.” Without missing a beat, my classmate replied, “Well, do you know what it’s like to work at Skadden anyway?”
His comment was prescient – he ended up at Skadden.
We can understand his confusion. Both Skadden and Cravath have laid claim to the “Death Star” nickname. (Around here, we use it to refer to Cravath, since Skadden has moved into new offices.)
* We agree this commenter — not all of these anecdotes qualify as “horror stories.” That just happens to be the catchy title we’ve bestowed upon this ongoing series of posts.
Earlier: Prior Interview Horror Stories (scroll down)
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