Cooley Godward

Biglaw Perk Watch: The Gay Gross-Up Is All the Rage

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Here in the great state of New York, marriage equality is the order of the day — as it is in five other states, plus D.C.. But due to the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal tax code does not recognize same-sex unions. As a result, as explained by the law firm of McCarter & English, “the Internal Revenue Code treats the value of employer-provided healthcare benefits for a civil union or domestic partner as ‘imputed income’ to the employee. This means that employees who elect domestic partner benefits must pay income tax on the value of those benefits, which is in direct contrast to employees with different-sex spouses.”

To address this inequality, a number of law firms — including McCarter & English, as of this June — have adopted what we here at Above the Law have dubbed the “gay gross-up.” This benefit consists of “a bump in income such that, post-tax, the employees are in the same position as similarly situated employees electing healthcare benefits for their opposite-sex spouses.”

In addition to McCarter, a number of prominent law firms have adopted this policy since our last report. Let’s find out which ones….

UPDATE (8/25/11): We’ve added to the list since it was originally published. See the updated list below.

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Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: West Coast Action

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We recently reported on Wilson Sonsini restoring associate base salaries to pre-recession levels. Wilson Sonsini associates in five major offices — New York, Palo Alto, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. — are now paid on what might be called the New York market scale or the $160K scale (a scale I’ve committed to memory: 160/170/185/210/230/265).

In our story, we quoted a WSGR associate who viewed the firm’s raise as a response to salary hikes by two Silicon Valley peer firms, Cooley and Gunderson Dettmer. At the time of our story, however, Cooley and Gunderson had not raised SV associate salaries to NYC market levels.

UPDATE: To be precise, Cooley had announced a raise at the time of the WSGR memo, but the raise had not yet taken effect. Gunderson did not announce until yesterday.

Let’s learn more….

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Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 41 – 60 (2011)

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We’re doing our annual march through the Vault prestige rankings, to give ATL readers the opportunity to have their say about perks and pitfalls at these firms. If your firm actually let you swap your Blackberry for your iPhone, brag here. Or if your firm has such a strong stench that it makes you nauseous, vent here.

We’ve been doing open threads in batches of ten, but now we’re going to pick up the pace. Here are the Vault #41 – 60. This is when the prestige list gets a little more geographically diverse, with firms based in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Palo Alto and even Pittsburgh:

41. Winston & Strawn
42. Baker Botts
43. Jenner & Block
44. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
45. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
46. Proskauer Rose
47 (tie). Dewey & LeBoeuf
47 (tie). King & Spalding
48. Goodwin Procter
49. Baker & McKenzie
50. Fulbright & Jaworski
51. Vinson & Elkins
52. McDermott Will & Emery
53. DLA Piper
54. Morgan Lewis & Bockius
55. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
56. Bingham McCutchen LLP
57. Dechert LLP
58. Cooley LLP
59. K&L Gates LLP
60. Alston & Bird LLP

We took a spin through their Vault rankings and awarded superlatives, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 2.24 and 3.2: Cancún Honeymoon

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Spring! Cherry blossoms, opening day, and pedigreed lawyers uniting in marriage. We’re pleased to be back with another installment of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, featuring these three impressive couples:

1.) Susannah Foster and Kenyon Weaver
2.) Kathleen DeLaney and Courtney Thomas
3.) Heath Kern and Joseph Gibson

More on our finalists, after the jump.

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And What About Mr. Lieb? An Update

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richard lieb.jpgIn our post last month about the merger of Cooley Godward and Kronish Lieb, we wondered aloud: And What About Mr. Lieb? His name was unceremoniously dumped from the moniker of the new entity, which will be known as “Cooley Godward Kronish.” Ouch.

Readers have subsequently informed us of what Richard Lieb is up to these days. He can be found alive and well, teaching a full load in the Bankruptcy LLM program at St. John’s University School of Law. He also still maintains an office at the firm, where he’s a retired partner (of counsel).

It seems that the academic life agrees with Lieb, at least according to one correspondent:

[H]e puts a lot of time and attention into his courses and, based on his reputation from many years of practice, has successfully enticed numerous”‘name” bankruptcy lawyers professors and judges to come and speak to his classes. As far as I know, St. John’s is the only LLM program in bankruptcy anywhere, and Mr. Lieb still has a remarkable command of legal principles and reported case law at his fingertips.

Glad to hear it. We hope to still have command of our bowels at age 76, to say nothing of “legal principles and reported case law.”

But still, the question remains: How does Mr. Lieb feel about having his name axed post-merger? According to time-honored law firming naming principles, one would expect the post-merger entity to be called either “Cooley Kronish” (a la “WilmerHale”) or “Cooley Godward Kronish Lieb” (a la “Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman”).

Our suggestion: Just call the firm “Suri Cruise LLP.” Publicity avalanche — and massive Google traffic — guaranteed!
(That would be almost as good a firm name as our reigning favorite: Saxena White.)

Earlier: And What About Mr. Lieb?
Richard Lieb [Kronish Lieb]
Richard Lieb bio [Martindale-Hubbell]

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