A partner at Morrison & Foerster accidentally “replied all” to an email on which “List/Attorney/All” was cc’d. Emails sent to “List/Attorney/All” go out to all 1,000-plus MoFo lawyers around the world.
What the partner wrote in the email was probably not something that should have been shared with the rest of the firm….
Continue reading “MoFo Partner Offers Cautionary Tale in Use of ‘Reply All’”
Those of you who have been in the legal profession long enough remember the tale of Jonas Blank. While working as a summer associate at Skadden, he inadvertently sent an irreverent email, intended for a single friend, to the firm’s entire underwriting group (partners included). Whoops.
But the firm was forgiving of young Jonas. He received a full-time offer at Skadden, and he worked there for several years before moving on to Richards, Kibbe & Orbe, a well-regarded boutique (where he still works).
It makes sense that Skadden forgave Jonas. Partners in glass towers should not throw stones….
Continue reading “Skadden Partner Accidentally Emails Confidential Evaluations to Entire Department”
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.”
Remember Jonas Blank? He was the fellow who, while working at Skadden Arps as a summer associate in 2003, sent out this infamous email:
“I’m busy doing jack shit. Went to a nice 2hr sushi lunch today at Sushi Zen. Nice place. Spent the rest of the day typing emails and bullshitting with people. Unfortunately, I actually have work to do — I’m on some corp finance deal, under the global head of corp finance, which means I should really peruse these materials and not be a fuckup…”
“So yeah, Corporate Love hasn’t worn off yet… But just give me time…”
Despite this problematic email — which he meant to send to one friend, but instead sent to the firm’s entire underwriting group, partners included — Blank went on to full-time employment at Skadden after graduating from Harvard Law.
After several (no doubt thrilling) years at Skadden, Blank — accurately described by the New Yorker as “handsome” (see photo) — is moving on.* As reported by the Skadden Insider blog, next month Blank will be starting work as an associate at Richards, Kibbe & Orbe. We wish him the best of luck.
P.S. If you haven’t done so already, check out Skadden Insider, which started up in January. Here is its mission statement:
Welcome to the Skadden Insider, a blog created to collect and pass along (and sometimes comment on) the gossip and news making its way through the halls of a certain law firm’s offices. Whether its New York, Boston, Washington DC or Palo Alto, Skadden Insider will be your place to read the latest.
May similar blogs sprout up for every large law firm in the land! Especially Sullivan & Cromwell.
* If it appears in the New Yorker, you KNOW it’s true, because their fact-checking process is second-to-none. For purposes of this Talk of the Town item, a New Yorker fact-checker asked us: “Is it fair to say that you have ‘a boyish face’?” So presumably some recent Ivy League grad with literary aspirations had to ask Jonas Blank: “Do you consider yourself to be handsome?”
Jonas Has Left the Building [Skadden Insider]
OOPS [New Yorker / Talk of the Town]
Jonas Blank [Friendster]
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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