Billable Hours
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Biglaw, Billable Hours, In-House Counsel, Money, Partner Issues
6 Fun Facts From A Billing Survey Of In-House Counsel
What trends can we see from looking at a recent survey of legal spending by corporate clients? -
American Bar Association / ABA, Antitrust, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Crime, Cyrus Vance, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Facebook, Job Searches, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Morning Docket, U.S. News
Morning Docket: 03.25.14
* Demand is down, but fees are up. The good news is that Am Law Second Hundred firms saw gains in billable hours purchased by corporate clients — and that’s about it for the good news. [Am Law Daily]
* OMG, Dewey want to see the unsealed case records against D&L’s ex-leaders. DA Cy Vance wants our prying eyes to see all but one document. Secret seven identities… incoming! [Bloomberg]
* It looks like that time Sheryl Sandberg refused to lean in is really paying off in court. Facebook is a witness, not a defendant, in an antitrust case about non-poaching agreements between tech giants. [Reuters]
* Gaming the rankings for dummies? Law school deans are now pushing the ABA to require that law schools post their transfer students’ LSAT and GPA credentials. [Capital Business / Washington Post]
* The easy way to decide whether you should be working in law school is to determine what you like more: money or grades. One will help you get the other later in life. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]
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Biglaw, Boutique Law Firms, Small Law Firms
Beyond Biglaw: The Price Is Right
Pricing expertise is one of the only Biglaw job skills with a growing rather than shrinking potential employment base. Why?
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Billable Hours, Crime, Holidays and Seasons, Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 03.17.14
* The many legal perils of being undead. [The Legal Geeks] * A rundown of the St. Patrick’s Day crime in Chicago. Bravo. [Crime In Wrigleyville + Boystown] * Why don’t clients do more to embarrass lawyers for billing to research mundane, obvious legal principles? [Inside Counsel] * The real-life detective story that solved a 1407 murder. It’s like Murder, She Wrote: The Early Years. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * Mmmmmm. Delicious, delicious evidence. [Lowering the Bar] * It may not seem like it, but the Obama administration has done a pretty good job on antitrust matters. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * Yes. Pay your interns. [Law and More] * Erie Railroad is 75 and here’s a look back at its illustrious run. Well, it turned 75 last year, but it takes some time to publish a journal about it. Just pretend it’s last year and read the damn articles, all right? [The Journal of Law, Economics & Policy via the American Enterprise Institute] -
ACLU, Billable Hours, Insurance, Legal Ethics, Non-Sequiturs, Patents, Sex, Tort Reform
Non-Sequiturs: 03.11.14
* Missouri lawyer is hauled into a disciplinary hearing about his practice of showing a picture of a naked woman to a female client. He says it wasn’t about sex and he was just showing her the kinds of pictures that come up in a divorce proceeding. That sounds like a fine explanation. I mean, every divorce involves autographed photos of strippers. He also commingled funds. That’s less easy to explain. [Inside the Ozarks] * Hey look! They brought back Debtors’ Prison. The prison-industrial complex has gotta get paid somehow. [Bergen Dispatch] * Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are now looking into David Samson, the chair of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a Christie appointee. If government agencies aren’t for petty revenge and plunder, then what are they for? [Talking Points Memo] * Insurance company cronies threaten that insurance company may have to get out of the business because of all the lawyers winning cases making the insurance company actually pay their contractual obligations. Don’t they understand the purpose of litigation is just to collect premiums? [Legal Newsline Legal Journal] * How ACLU attorney Ben Wizner became Snowden’s lawyer. [Forbes] * “One of the reasons I could never imagine being a lawyer is because you have to account for your time in 15-minute increments.” Thankfully she was corrected and told that lawyers are actually more irritatingly measured in 6-minute increments. [Dear Prudence / Slate] * With all the talk of patent law reform coming from the President, this is an excellent time to look back at eight dumb patents. [Mashable] -
Akin Gump, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Bonuses, Money, Partner Issues
Associate Bonus And New Partner Watch: Akin Gump
Why are folks so happy about the bonuses at Akin Gump? -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Bonuses, Money, Silicon Valley
Associate Bonus Watch: Discontent At Wilson Sonsini?
How are bonuses looking at Wilson Sonsini? Some associates aren't happy.... -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Bonuses, Money
Associate Bonus Watch: Muted Reaction At Latham & Watkins
How are Latham bonuses looking this time around? Here's the memo. - Sponsored
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use. -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Bonuses, Money, Pro Bono
Associate Bonus Watch: Goodwin Procter
How good were Goodwin's bonuses for 2013? -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Bonuses, Money
Associate Bonus Watch: Dechert's Price For Associate Talent
How generous are Dechert's 2013 associate bonuses? -
Biglaw, Bonuses, Money
Associate Bonus Watch: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
How were bonuses at Orrick in 2013? -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Money, Partner Issues
The Biglaw Firms With The Highest Partner Billing Rates
Some partners are edging closer and closer to a $2,000 per hour rate. Which firms do they hail from? -
Bar Exams, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Clerkships, Crime, Gender, Job Searches, Kids, Law Schools, Money, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, Rape, Ted Olson, Women's Issues
Morning Docket: 01.13.14
* While we’re celebrating recently anointed Biglaw partner classes, let’s take a minute to call out the firms that haven’t bestowed the honor upon a single woman this year. Cheers, jerks. [Am Law Daily]
* The results of the NLJ’s Law Firm Billing Survey are out, and lo and behold, one of the top partners in the country is pushing $2,000 an hour for his services. Congrats, Ted! [National Law Journal (sub. req.)]
* Everyone’s buzzing about the federal law clerk who’s been accused of attempted aggravated rape and solicitation of a minor under 13. Don’t let that legendary 4.0 GPA go to waste. (More on this later.) [Times-Picayune]
* Congratulations to Gerchen Keller Capital, the litigation finance firm founded by former SCOTUS clerks and hedge-fund alumni, on raising $260 million for its new fund. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Iowa is thinking about allowing law school grads to practice immediately instead of having to take and pass a bar exam. Paired with its recent tuition cuts, the Hawkeye State is looking better and better. [Des Moines Register]
* If you’re in the unfortunate situation of still having to look for a law job once OCI has ended, then you might want to start considering applying for some of the other law jobs that don’t want you. [Mashable]
* The incarceration of a blogger known for making salacious allegations against federal judges raises First Amendment concerns. [New York Times]
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10th Circuit, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Crime, Gay Marriage, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, Pro Bono, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, Supreme Court, Texas, Weddings
Morning Docket: 12.26.13
* The Tenth Circuit will not be blocking same-sex marriages from occurring in Utah, so the next stop will be Supreme Court intervention. Sorry, but we have a feeling that Justice Sonia Sotomayor isn’t going to be too helpful with that. [MSNBC]
* Winston & Strawn, if you’re overbilling on pro bono motions and you want fees, you might want to be more descriptive. Please tell this judge what “preparation for filing” even means, and why you spent more than four hours doing it. [New York Law Journal]
* This judge felt she was “being played with,” so she took a man’s kid away from him during Christmas. Now a judicial ethics commission is showing her that it’s not one to be played with. [Texas Lawyer]
* Yay, happy news! Chapman Law’s associate dean for student affairs really takes her job responsibilities to heart. She’s performed several wedding ceremonies for both students and alumni. [National Law Journal]
* The Indian diplomat who got strip-searched was arrested over a silly mistake, says her lawyer. It’s too bad that a lack of reading comprehension can result in having to bend over and spread ‘em. [Bloomberg]
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Billable Hours, Contract Attorneys
Want Ad Seeks Lawyers Willing To Sell Out Other Lawyers
Another blow to the dignity of contract attorneys. -
Billable Hours, Contract Attorneys
Padding and the Contractor
If padding hours is a problem in Biglaw, imagine what would happen if you paid lawyers by the hour. -
Arnold & Porter, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Career Files, Intellectual Property, Labor / Employment, Law Students, Litigators, Rankings, Reader Polls
The Best Of Hours, The Worst Of Hours: ATL Survey Ratings
According to the ATL Insider Survey, which practice areas and law firms offer the best (and the worst) hours? -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Paralegals
Shocking -- Or Not -- Tales of Wasteful Biglaw Billing
Do clients really know what associates are doing during all those billable hours? Because a lot of the time it's not helping get the job done. -
2nd Circuit, Billable Hours, Non-Sequiturs, Privacy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shira Scheindlin, Supreme Court
Non-Sequiturs: 11.07.13
* The trial of a Utah doctor accused of murdering his wife-to-be with a mistress 20 years his junior has kicked off a battle of medical experts trying to guide the jury through the competing theories about the cause of death. See, this was all easier when you could just introduce a new sister wife into the equation. [The Expert Institute] * Is it acceptable to interrupt Justice Ginsburg’s dinner to show her something on your phone? [Slate (second item)] * Case against Iowa law school for barring a student training a service dog will go forward. They should have just been happy it wasn’t a llama. [Des Moines Register] * This week in clever footnoting: citing The Chairman of the Board in Footnote 2 (page 17). [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit] * Professor Eric Posner reviews Professor Rahul Sagar’s new book, Secrets and Leaks (affiliate link), which posits that people may be overreacting when they call for tearing down the NSA. [The New Republic] * Jay Edelson and his associate Chandler Givens explain why the billable hour is the first thing that must go. Don’t they mean “Reason Number 1″ to reform the legal profession? [Reuters Legal Solutions] * Judge Scheindlin is lawyering up, and Bloomberg looks at the various legal experts — including our own David Lat — who have spoken out about the case. Video embedded after the jump… [Bloomberg Law via You Tube] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Paralegals, Secretaries / Administrative Assistants, Small Law Firms
7 More Ways To Pass The Time While Working At A Law Firm
Seven more ways of staying (or at least looking) busy, while you put in your law-firm face time.