Springtime for Hitler? No, silly — Springtime for Associate Bonuses! And just like the (in)famous “show within a show” from The Producers, this production is a huge hit.
This afternoon, Cleary Gottlieb announced spring bonuses on the Sullivan & Cromwell scale. They’re payable on April 29, just like those of Simpson Thacher.
What else is there to say?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Cleary Gottlieb Matches S&C Spring Bonuses!”
Amy Chua
If you’re going to be a diva, then own it. Was this lesson lost on Yale law professor Amy Chua, the author of an incendiary essay in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, and a new book about Eastern versus Western parenting styles, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?
Professor Chua seems to have it all: brains and beauty; an incredible academic career, with an endowed chair at Yale Law School; a hunky husband, fellow YLS prof Jed Rubenfeld; and two lovely and accomplished daughters. (Speaking of Chua’s kids, does anyone know where her oldest girl, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, is attending, or applying to attend, college? To Asian parents, sending a child to a top college is the ultimate vindication.)
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld
But Amy Chua may need to work on her bitch-goddess qualities. After her controversial essay about the superiority of Chinese mothers and hard-ass Asian parenting set the blogosphere on fire — and sent her book rocketing to #5 on the Amazon bestseller list — Chua backtracked a bit, instead of defiantly standing her ground.
In interviews with the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, among other outlets, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” seemed to turn into a pussycat….
Are we really going to live in a world where the firms that consistently rank highest on the Vault surveys are paying a smaller bonus than the firms just one tier down? Are we really going to live in a world where partnerships at Cravath, Skadden, and Davis Polk are paying smaller bonuses to many of their people than Kirkland, Sidley, and Cahill?
Perhaps so. Cleary Gottlieb just announced its bonus scale, and the firm is doing its part to keep the associate bonus market as low as possible. It’s a straight match of Cravath….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Cleary Matches Cravath”
Partnership: the proverbial brass ring.
‘Tis the season — for new partner elections at large law firms. Although there are some exceptions, most firms pick and announce their new partner classes around November and December, with partnership effective on January 1 of the following year.
These partnership announcements sometimes contain interesting information, if you read between the lines. As we’ve previously observed, “Partnership decisions often shed light on the current state of a firm, its prospects for the future, and its priorities. How many new partners did a firm make? How does the number of new partners this year compare to past years? In which practice areas did it make new partners? How many of the new partners are women or minorities?”
After the jump, we look at new partner news from ten top firms — perhaps you know some of these law firm superstars (and soon-to-be millionaires)? — and we invite you to discuss the new partners at your firm….
Continue reading “A Look at New Partner Classes at Ten Top Firms (and an Open Thread)”
Now this is a list that matters. Corporate Counsel (an American Lawyer publication) has complied its annual list of the firms that Fortune 100 companies use as outside counsel. This is a list of which firms are getting work from clients with deep pockets. If you care at all about the business end of the law, then you care about this list.
And while the firms that are tapped for this kind of work won’t surprise anybody, it’s always good to take a look at who clients want to be with.
For general corporate law, these are the firms that were mentioned most by clients reporting to the magazine:
Cleary: 12 mentions
Davis Polk: 11 mentions
Cravath: 10 mentions
Simpson Thacher: 10 mentions
Yep, no real surprises there.
But what about some other practice areas? Well, the names start to change…
Some summer associates are already halfway through their Biglaw summer experiences. We hope that Northwestern’s “No More I Love Yous” is not ringing true for you, and that your offices don’t bear any resemblance to the photo from our last Caption Contest.
We have heard that you’re not eating out as often or spending as much on lunch. That is inexcusable! Sure, times are tough, but the firms have brought in far fewer SAs this year, so they should be able to splurge a bit.
Skadden and Paul Weiss both had 102 summer associates in 2009, and have just 34 and 58, respectively, this year. Cravath cut its summer class from 121 to 22. Weil dropped from 96 in 2009 to 20 this year. With those drastic reductions in numbers, being a summer associate this year should be like being an only child — you get spoiled.
(By the by, we hear that a San Diego office dropped its numbers by one this month — anyone with information, email us!)
Please tell us about your spoils. Which firm has the best summer associate event this year? We’re holding a contest: make your submissions for Biggest & Bestest Biglaw Event of Summer 2010 by email or in the comments.
We had five finalists for the prize last year: Cleary Gottlieb, Sidley Austin, Cadwalader, Carlton Fields, and Fish & Richardson. Which firm won?
Continue reading “ATL Contest: Which Is the Best Event for 2010 Summer Associates?”
It’s summer time! A lucky few are being paid to warm seats in law firms across the land. (Very few — thanks to the minimal numbers of offers extended to law students in Recession Land.)
Some firms are very excited about their summer associates, to the point of issuing press releases about them. Firms are planning fun events. Hopefully, Williams & Connolly offers cooking classes at a culinary institute again this summer (for those who don’t get offers and may not be able to afford to eat out one day). We’ve got a round-up of our favorite summer “happenings,” after the jump.
But one thing firms may not plan to do this year is bill for summer associates’ time. Nate Raymond reports in the New York Law Journal that Citigroup Inc. has told its outside counsel that it will not pay for law students’ time. Citi does not stand alone:
J. William Dantzler Jr., a tax partner at White & Case who oversees hiring in New York, said with regard to billing clients for summer associates, it has been “a slide for 10 years.”
“More and more clients don’t want summer associates to bill to them,” he said. “When I started almost all clients would accept it. And it’s evolved to where a lot of clients don’t.”
Ironically, because of the huge decline in the number of summers brought in, they’re more likely to actually do substantive work this year. One Biglaw firm, for example, instituted a requirement last year that every summer associate produce at least one piece of seriously impressive legal writing. Which firm is it?
Continue reading “Welcome, Summer Associates! We’re Glad You’re Here, But Clients Aren’t.”
Judge Jed Rakoff: A bank's nightmare?
Since Judge Denny Chin is moving on up to the Second Circuit, the S.D.N.Y. cases pending before him have to be redistributed. Lawyers for Bank of America, which has 15 civil shareholder lawsuits on Chin’s docket, sent the chief judge a letter requesting that the cases be reassigned using a lottery system. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk, and Wachtell Lipton all signed the letter.
Why did they need to send this special letter? Because they were scared of B of A landing again in the lap of Judge Jed Rakoff, says the Wall Street Journal:
Judge Rakoff disappointed bank executives last year when he rejected a $30 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had charged the bank with misleading shareholders about bonuses paid prior to the Merrill merger. The New York judge reluctantly approved a new $150 million agreement in February but called it “half-baked justice at best.”
One of the pending shareholder cases accuses the bank of failing to “disclose billions in Merrill losses before shareholders approved the deal in December 2008.”
Apparently, the lawyers debated whether or not to name Judge Rakoff in their letter, thus making it clear that he was the particular judge they hoped to avoid. They ultimately decided to name names.
They were successful in steering their cases clear of Rakoff, though the chief judge claims the letter wasn’t a factor in her decision to assign the cases to Judge Kevin Castel (aka the John Gotti judge). How did she decide?
Am Law Daily highlights the work of James Clark, a fifth-year at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, who took a two-month unpaid leave to volunteer for the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania.
Clark was a community organizer for three different townships in Bucks County, a county Hillary Clinton carried with over 60 percent of the vote. He felt that his Cleary litigation experience helped him in his campaign stint organizing local volunteers: “Volunteers are kind of like junior associates in that you have to clearly articulate what needs to be done so that everyone is on the same page.”
Also don’t make any sudden movements. Be firm, yet gentle.
Clark credits Cleary for allowing him the opportunity to work in rural Pennsylvania….
Continue reading “Cleary Associate Fought for Lost Cause in PA”
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
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