Gibson Dunn & Crutcher

Letter from London: ‘I Thought Freshfields Was a Supermarket’

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“I thought Freshfields [Bruckhaus Deringer] was a supermarket when I got here,” says Kirsty Grant, a fourth-year associate in the London office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. Happily, Grant — a fast-learner who got through law school in L.A. while working full-time during the day — quickly figured out that the Anglo-German law firm, a member of the Magic Circle, wasn’t the place to fulfill her grocery needs.

The cultural assimilation enjoyed by the UCLA and Loyola graduate since she arrived in London last March hasn’t stopped there. “At first I couldn’t believe the drinking culture here,” she recalls. “The first Friday after work that I went to the pub, I thought, ‘I haven’t had any food; I can’t do this.’ And then the London lawyers went on until 5 a.m. I just don’t have the liver for it, but it shocks me less now.”

Not that Grant, 33, has oceans of spare cash to splash on boozy nights out. How do her finances as an American abroad compare to those of her Biglaw counterparts back home?

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Associate Bonus Watch: Gibson Dunn Does Its Thing
(Or: Gibson Dunn Open Thread — 2011)

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Partners at Gibson Dunn are conducting associate reviews this week. Associates receive news of how they’re doing — and how much they’ll be getting, in terms of bonuses that will be paid out later this month.

As we’ve explained in 2010 and 2009, the GDC bonus system is not transparent and not lockstep. Instead, associates get individualized bonuses, based on such factors as hours and quality of work. The firm tends to use the Cravath scale as the starting point for its bonus scale.

What’s the early word about Gibson bonuses this year?

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(Or: Gibson Dunn Open Thread — 2011)”

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Morning Docket: 12.15.11

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* Guys in my high school White House dropped threats to veto defense bills authorizing infinite detention of U.S. citizens all the time, it was no big deal. Nothing like bastardizing the Sixth Amendment. [New York Times]

* So much for occupying the court system, eh? This judge won’t budge on dismissals, and more than half of the OWS protesters who appeared in court yesterday accepted an offer over going to trial. [Bloomberg]

* Gibson Dunn says that it will file a motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s Facebook suit in January. Now taking bets on whether Ceglia will have another lawyer by then. [Buffalo News]

* Just like Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray’s money was gone too soon. He’s requesting a public defender to handle the appeal of his conviction for involuntary manslaughter. [CNN]

* Lindsay Lohan was finally able to please Judge Sautner during her probation progress hearing. She was also able to please her adoring fans, because she reportedly flashed her bra. [USA Today]

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Congratulations to the Minority 40 Under 40

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Congratulations to the “Minority 40 Under 40.” This is a distinguished group of 40 minority lawyers, all under the age of 40, who have just been honored by the National Law Journal for their accomplishments within the legal profession.

Let’s learn more about them. Maybe you have friends or colleagues on the list?

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Morning Docket: 10.12.11

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* LSAC might start auditing the LSAT scores and GPAs that law schools report to the ABA. Now, which agency is going to handle their too good to be true employment stats? [National Law Journal]

* Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s lawyer asked a judge to ban the word “bomb” from his trial. The judge denied it, because, well, he’s called the Underwear Bomber. Duh. [New York Daily News]

* “Don’t sanction me, bro!” Paul Ceglia’s lawyers are begging the court to pass on Gibson Dunn’s request for discovery sanctions after multiple delays. Like. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* In a continuing battle over the market for slutty children’s dolls, Quinn Emanuel may have scored a big one for Barbie with this tentative ruling to toss MGA’s antitrust suit. [Washington Post]

* Apparently it’s unprofessional to put your colleagues on blast for allegedly having “sexual torture chambers” in their basements. Who knew? [Chicago Tribune]

* It’s also unprofessional to slap a man in the face during a deposition. And to think, this came after a confrontation about the impropriety of finger-pointing. [The State]

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Very Happy Campers: The Top 10 Summer Associate Programs

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Being a summer associate isn't a day at the beach, but it's still pretty awesome.

A summer associate program at a top law firm is like sex or pizza: even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

That seems to be the conclusion of the American Lawyer’s 2011 summer associate survey. Am Law polled 3,656 students at 138 law firms about their summer experiences and used the results to rank 108 summer programs. The lowest-ranked program — that of Chadbourne & Parke, in case you’re wondering — still emerged with a healthy overall satisfaction score of 4.142 (on a 5.0 scale).

If you’re a law student trying to figure out where to spend your summer, you’re probably asking: Which law firms came out with the highest scores?

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Morning Docket: 09.06.11

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Luis Mijangos: Sextortionist Extraordinaire

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 100 new jobs were added to the legal industry last month. About 40,000 students graduated from law school this spring. You do the math. [Am Law Daily]

* This Maryland law school dean thinks that the U.S. News rankings “generalize about things that are not generalizable.” Come on, lady, don’t bite the hand that feeds you. [College Inc. / Washington Post]

* Did you get an email from Paul Ceglia about enlarging your penis? If so, it’s because lawyers at Gibson Dunn exposed the fraudster’s passwords in a court filing last week. Oops. [Bloomberg]

* A computer hacker in California got six years for sextortion and cyberterrorism. Ladies, this is just another reason to save your nude pictures on your flash drive, not your hard drive. [CNN Justice]

* An Ohio man who stopped paying into the office lottery pool is suing for a share of his co-workers’ $99M jackpot. You get what you pay for, and in this case, it should be nothing. [Fox News]

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Summer Associate Offer Rates: Another Update
(Now we’d like to hear about the no-offering….)

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Welcome to our latest round-up of summer associate offer rate news. This post contains the latest list of law firms and offices with 100 percent offer rates. In future posts, we’re going to shift gears and focus on firms with lower-than-average offer rates.

An offer rate that’s lower than 100 percent is not necessarily newsworthy. The fall recruiting process by which summer associates are selected isn’t perfect. Sometimes candidates look great on paper and do well during interviews, but then do something during the summer — turning in disappointing work product, getting drunk and acting inappropriately — that causes them to get no-offered. And sometimes people get no-offered for reasons that aren’t their fault — office politics, discrimination. Stuff happens.

We’re not expecting 100 percent offer rates all around. At the same time, there is such a thing as an unusually low offer rate. If you know of an office with an unusually low offer rate — which we will arbitrarily define here as something under 66 percent, or two-thirds — please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Offer Rate”).

Now, on to the updated list of firms and offices with 100 percent offer rates….

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(Now we’d like to hear about the no-offering….)“

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Summer Associate Offer Rates: An Update

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Smile if you received an offer!

Since our initial call for information about summer associate offer rates at major law firms, a number of people have contacted us with reports. As it turns out, there’s a lot of good news floating around out there for summer associates.

This leads us to two conclusions:

  • Biglaw firms only brought in people they could actually hire.
  • You class of 2011 people are some boring individuals.

Honestly, listening to your summer stories is like looking at the Facebook photos of a Mormon school group’s vacation to Amish country. We know that people are worried about getting offers in this tough market, but the risk-aversion of the summers this year borders on cowardice.

Live a little, have a drink, ask her for her number. It’s a job interview, not an audience with the Pope.

In any event, 100% offer rates abound. Let’s round them up….

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Summer Associate Offer Rates: Open Thread

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Summer offer rates are back and better than ever.

Last week, summer associate programs began to draw to a close. After a summer of fun extravagance work, summer associates are eager to find out if they’ll be getting offers of full-time employment.

We expect the answer to be yes at most places. Sure, during the height of the recession, no offer rates spiked. But Biglaw firms seem to have corrected that problem. As almost any jobless 3L can tell you, firms simply started hiring fewer people to be summer associates in the first place.

What’s bad news for many 3Ls is good news for those who were lucky enough to snag summer associate positions. You know what they say: getting in is the hardest part. Right?

Above the Law has received various reports from summer associates at Biglaw firms, crowing about 100 percent offer rates….

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