* First the Jones verdict, then the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Jose Padilla’s torture lawsuit. It’s enough to make ACLUers develop bipolar disorder. [Washington Post]
* Release the Kagan! The Supreme Court rejected Freedom Watch’s motion for time to argue that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the Obamacare case. [CNN]
* Biglaw problems: here’s a great round-up of 2012′s law firm lawsuits, starring Akin Gump, Crowell & Moring, Dechert, and Greenberg Traurig, to name a few. [Am Law Daily]
* After dropping a lawsuit challenging their forcible eviction from Zuccotti Park, supporters of Occupy Wall Street will go back to occupying the couches in their parents’ basements. [Bloomberg]
* Not interested in being a lawyer? Check out these suggestions for “unique” career paths (i.e., ones that you could have pursued after college, with half the debt load). [U.S. News]
* Not such a great alternative fee arrangement. A prosecutor turned solo practitioner is going to jail after accepting oxycodone pills as payment from a police informant. [Tampa Bay Times]
Mountain Dew: a mouse could not survive in this environment, according to PepsiCo counsel.
* Pepsi lawyers offer a creative (if disturbing) defense to a lawsuit by a man who claims he found a mouse in his Mountain Dew. [Madison County Record via The Atlantic Wire]
* Will birther queen Orly Taitz get to depose — i.e., “rupture the jurisprudential hymen” — of President Barack Obama? That would be kind of awesome. [Columbus Ledger-Inquirer]
* Professor Ann Althouse raises an interesting “who decides?” question about Cleveland’s controversial ban on trans fats. [Althouse]
* Please, lawyers, stick to cocaine. Allegations of crystal meth usage are très déclassé. [NewsOK.com]
* Kudos to Kirkland & Ellis for coming to the defense of lesbian and gay public employees in Michigan. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
* It seems that the Montana Supreme Court isn’t a fan of the Citizens United decision. [Huffington Post]
* Jamin Soderstrom, a (rather cute) former S&C associate and current Fifth Circuit clerk, has written a book (affiliate link) analyzing the qualifications of presidential candidates and the relationship between résumés and presidential success. [Tex Parte Blog]
* If you’re a law professor / blogger who wants to get a rise out of fellow profs, write posts in praise of Paul Campos (just voted our 2011 Lawyer of the Year — congrats again, Professor Campos). [PrawfsBlawg]
Earlier this week, Kirkland & Ellis associates started receiving phone calls about their bonuses. Many associates are reporting that their bonuses “shattered the market.” In the words of one K&E source, “It is mad money. Huge year for everyone here.”
It’s important to note that Kirkland has a “black box” bonus structure, in which the payouts are highly individualized and based on performance and hours. Every year, there are some winners and losers.
Right now we’re hearing a lot of chatter from K&E winners. Many are reporting bonuses that are significantly higher than Cravath — which really isn’t hard to do, given how terribly low the Cravath bonuses are this year (so low that partners at other firms are thanking their Cravath counterparts). More to the point, we’ve got K&E people saying they made more than they would have at Quinn Emanuel (which is impressive!).
But, there’s a catch. While some firms like Sullivan & Cromwell anticipate paying spring bonuses, some of our Kirkland friends are telling us that this bonus is inclusive of a spring payout. So K&E might not pay a spring bonus, even if other firms do…
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: A Nice Bonus At Kirkland & Ellis, Assuming Cravath Remains Cheap”
This morning’s news that Boies Schiller is making a mockery of the Cravath bonus scale simply reinforces the prevailing view (pace David Lat) around here that the 2011 Cravath bonus scale is fundamentally unfair.
Agreeing on this point is former Kirkland & Ellis partner Steven Harper (whose apparent pro-associate stance may make him a sort of Biglaw apostate). As Harper points out, “equity partner profit trees have resumed their growth to the sky. As the economy struggled, Cravath’s average partner profits increased to $2.7 million in 2009 and to $3.17 million in 2010 … That’s not ‘treading water.’ It’s returning to 2007 profit levels — the height of ‘amazing’ boom years that most observers had declared gone forever. Watch for 2011 profits to be even higher.”
And yet associate bonuses remain stagnant at 2009 levels. Furthermore, as ATL commenter “The Cravath Cut” is so fond of noting, when viewed as a percentage of profits, bonuses appear especially measly, at least from the associate p.o.v. (The current $7,500 market rate for first-years is just 0.23% of Cravath’s profits per partner. Back in 2007, first-year bonuses equalled 1.36%.) Despite these numbers, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone Biglaw’s rank and file will follow Cravath’s lead.
Cravath is among the most profitable firms in the world. We thought it would be interesting to see what the implications of matching Cravath are for those firms with much lower profit margins. Which firms’ partners willingly take the biggest hit by keeping up? Are these firms arguably more “generous”? After the jump, check out those firms that pay the largest percentage of PPP in bonuses.
Continue reading “Keeping Up With the Cravathians: The Ten Most Generous (or Foolish?) Law Firms”
Today we take one last look at some of the finest Washington, D.C. partners to work for (if you missed Part 1, click here).
Not only are these six partners great at what they do, but perhaps more importantly, they are great people as well. And they work at some of the top law firms in the nation: Dewey & LeBoeuf, Cooley, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Crowell & Moring, and Bingham McCutchen.
Kudos to these partners for making Biglaw a little less brutal….
Continue reading “Career Center Survey Results: Top Partners to Work For – Washington, D.C. (Part 2)”
Partners are usually best remembered for behaving badly, or worse, treating associates badly. But not the partners who made our “Top Partners to Work For” list.
Last week, we asked you to nominate the best Biglaw partners you work for, tell us why they are the best, and rate them in six categories: expertise within the practice area, quality of work given to associates, hands-on training given to associates, provision of feedback on associate work, respect for associates’ schedules, and professionalism with associates.
Over the next several weeks, we will reveal who these exceptional partners are in a multi-part Career Center survey results series, sponsored by Lateral Link. We kick off the series this week with the New York partners, and then we’ll make our way around the country.
Let’s get to know the first eight partners and find out why associates say they are the best to work for….
Continue reading “Career Center Survey Results: Top Partners to Work For – New York (Part 1)”
Karolina Stefanski
* Anna Nicole Smith is still screwing old white men from beyond the grave. Biglaw firms want Heller Ehrman’s claims to be decided in federal court, not bankruptcy court. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Kirkland & Ellis is pledging $2.75M to Stanford Law over the next five years in an effort to convince more students to take douchey pictures in front of their office signage. [Stanford Daily]
* Slow and steady wins the race, especially when it comes to reporting the news. A few news sites were eager to let readers know that Amanda Knox lost her appeal… except she didn’t. [Atlantic Wire]
* The Supreme Court has rejected yet another Obama birther lawsuit. Legal reasoning? “STFU, we’ll probably only have to deal with this dude for another year.” [CBS News]
* TWU to NYPD: Please don’t force us to listen to these Occupy Wall Street fools. We’d rather have our regular crazies on board. Of course, their lawsuit says it a bit more eloquently. [Wall Street Journal]
* Karolina Stefanski is being sued by an ex over some blank checks to the tune of $80K. Seriously, who cheats on a Playboy model? I mean, come on, boobs. [New York Post]
Say hello to the Global 100 for 2011. This is the American Lawyer’s list of the world’s 100 largest law firms, ranked by total revenue.
There’s a lot of economic anxiety these days, with fears of a double-dip recession running rampant. But looking back — the list is compiled based on 2010 revenue numbers — the legal business seems to be hanging in there. As noted by Am Law, total revenue for the Global 100 increased by 3 percent last year.
Lawyers are a competitive lot. So you’re probably less interested in the overall figures than in how different firms fared in the rankings….
Continue reading “The Biggest Law Firms in the World: Meet the Global 100″
Last week, we told you the story about a University of Chicago Law School student who received an offer and found a charitable way of bragging about it to his friends.
I should have known that we’d end up doing a series of posts about this. “Bragging” about getting an offer is something that everybody does in their own way, and something that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
And so our next installment of law student puffery involves photos, which is always fun. But in truth we can’t be totally sure if this guy is bragging about getting an offer.
Given the firm the kid is bragging about, he might just be happy to be there…
Continue reading “Best Way To Brag About An Offer: Now With Pictures”
Walking the hallways at One First Street.
Last month, the Supreme Court law clerks for October Term 2010 finished their clerkships, turning over their clerkly duties to the October Term 2011 class of clerks. As in past years, many of the OT 2010 clerks are joining private law firms — which welcome them with six-figure signing bonuses. These bonuses are paid on top of base salaries reflecting their seniority (many SCOTUS clerks join firms as second- to fourth-year associates), as well as the usual year-end bonuses.
For the past few years, at least since 2007, law firm signing bonuses for members of The Elect have hovered around $250,000. But this year, at least a few firms are offering even more.
So how much are we talking about?
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Bonuses Are Heading Higher”
'These MBE questions are way easier than the practice ones!'
We thought we had a winner for most gutsy bar exam performance of July 2011. On Thursday, a woman taking the New Jersey bar exam passed out during the test — then picked herself up off the floor, and went right back to typing.
That’s impressive — but we may have spoken too soon. Here’s a labor-intensive story that tops it.
“A friend of mine went into labor while taking the Illinois bar exam,” a tipster told us. “She calmly finished, went to the hospital, and had her baby an hour or two later. Girl’s a real trooper.”
“A certain Northwestern Law alumna went into labor during the second day of the Illinois bar,” said a second source. “She finished the exam and had her baby, her first, at 5:58 p.m. I think that is worth noting.”
You better believe it’s worth noting. If ever there was a baby immaculately conceived by a lawgiver, this might be the one.
We have all the details — including a picture of the Bar Exam Baby, whom we’ll nickname “Baby Bar”….
Continue reading “Pregnant Woman Takes Bar Exam While in Labor, Delivers Baby Right After!”
Ted Freedman
Last October, we wrote about the mysterious departure from Kirkland & Ellis of Theodore Freedman. Freedman was a prominent bankruptcy and restructuring partner at the firm, based out of the New York office.
As we mentioned in the story, our coverage of Freedman’s departure was prompted by “interesting rumors.” We hoped that our post would result in additional corroboration of what we were hearing. Alas, our write-up just prompted the usual attacks from Kirkland Kool-Aid drinkers, who accused us in the comments of harboring ill-will toward K&E and engaging in shoddy journalism.
Well, this time we’ll enjoy the last laugh (not because we have anything against K&E — we don’t — but because we like being proven correct). We can share what we know about Ted Freedman, because the rumors are now embodied in a federal criminal indictment….
Continue reading “Mystery Departure Solved: Ex-Kirkland Partner Hit With Federal Criminal Charges”
On February 27, 2009, Latham & Watkins laid off 440 associates and staff. These official layoffs came after months of quietly and stealthily laying off employees.
That year, Latham fell from #7 to #17 on the Vault 100 list of the most prestigious law firms. It was one of the biggest single year drops ever on the Vault list. At the time, I asked: “Is this as far as [Latham] will fall?”
Two years removed from that question, I’m staring at the brand-new Vault 100 rankings. Latham & Watkins is ranked #11.
Memory, my friends, is not something they screen for on the LSAT…
Continue reading “The 2012 Vault Rankings: Proof Of Short Memories”
Personally, I think it’s time for Biglaw associates in the class of 2010 to drink a tall glass of shut the hell up. They got jobs at a time when many of their classmates did not. They received $160K salaries just after there was a significant effort by some firms to push starting salaries down to $145K. Most of them got to start sometime in 2010… in the same year many of the people in the class of 2009 got to start. And, as far as we know, none of them have been Lathamed and had their careers aborted before they even started.
Are things as easy for the class of 2010 as they were for the class of 2006? No. But sometimes I think that the current n00bs forget that they could have been cast back down with the sodomites in the class of 2009.
But, that’s just me. And I’m old and irritable and have lost sight of the youthful exuberance that makes a person sing “I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.” It turns out that first-year associates don’t want to wait until they mature into a class worthy of a full bonus at the end of 2011. They want whatever bonus money they can get out of 2010, and they are angry at the firms that are not paying up.
The Cravath-level spring bonus for the class of 2010 is only $2,500 at the firms that are paying spring bonuses to first years. And so we have two disgruntled groups: people who work at firms not paying a spring bonus to first years, and people who feel the $2.5K is “illusory” because it’s prorated based on when the associate started at the firm.
Let the bitching begin…
Continue reading “Open Thread: Class of 2010 Associate Bonus Bitch-Fest”
It’s nice when law firms listen. Last week we highlighted a few firms that had been slow to pull the spring bonus trigger. It would seem that these firms have received the message that their own people were paying attention to spring bonuses at peer firms.
On Friday, Latham & Watkins announced that it would be paying spring bonuses. Later in the day, Ropes & Gray followed suit.
Today, Kirkland & Ellis announced that it also will be making spring bonus payments. Welcome, K&E associates; there is pie and punch in the corner.
We’ll let you know if Quinn Emanuel comes to the party, but let’s first check out what Kirkland is rolling in with…
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Kirkland & Ellis Announces Spring Bonuses!”
We will have a new winner in this year’s Coolest Law Firm contest. When Above the Law first ran this bracket back in 2008, you picked Latham & Watkins as the victor. This time around, they got… Lathamed, in the first round. Cravath crushed Latham by a 60% – 40% margin. That was the second-highest margin of victory among all of the first-round match-ups.
So, for those playing along at home, paying a spring bonus is “more cool” than not paying a spring bonus.
As we move into the Elite Eight, some of our readers are asking us to give a more clear definition of what is “cool.” We respectfully decline to do so. It’s up to you to tell us what makes a top law firm cool. Is it job security, making maximum bank, prestige points? It’s really up to you. Personally I think the coolest law firm would be the one most likely to represent bad-ass clients on the correct side of moral issues, but… eeek, that’s not really what Biglaw is all about.
So bring your own prejudices to the table when you vote in the next round of the Coolest Law Firm Tournament. Use whatever reasoning makes sense to you. Just don’t go with chalk because you can’t be bothered to actually form an opinion — don’t be boring, son….
Continue reading “ATL March Madness: The Coolest Law Firm Elite Eight”
Spring bonus stragglers: tick-tock, yo.
I’ve been trying to be nice. I’ve been trying to be positive. I’ve been trying to adopt a new, sunny, smoke-free attitude that assumes certain top firms will do the right thing by their associates and announce spring bonuses along the lines of Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, and a bunch of other top-tier firms.
Just last week, we reminded firms that it’s not too late to announce “spring” bonuses. Dewey & LeBoeuf announced spring bonuses that it will pay in the summer. And that’s okay, nobody is really complaining, associates just want their money. If top firms are paying out spring bonuses, associates who have been told they are working at a top firm want to see their cut.
But there are a number of firms that haven’t gotten the message. Did they think their own people wouldn’t notice that they are getting shortchanged compared to the market? Is this a way for those firms to force some attrition? Surprisingly, some of the firms that are being cheap with spring bonuses were lauded for being generous around Christmastime.
Those firms know how the internet works, don’t they? Information can be updated around these parts….
Continue reading “Spring Bonus Stragglers: Open Thread”
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Size Matters, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.
As I have previously discussed, one thing I wish to accomplish with this column (in addition to the instant boost of self-esteem I receive whenever I read a comment) is to provide specific information to attorneys considering small firms. To that end, meet Ray Prather and Daniel Ebner, principals of Prather Ebner LLP.
Ray Prather was a successful solo practitioner specializing in estate and trust planning. Dan Ebner, an HLS grad and former district court clerk, was a Kirkland & Ellis associate. Realizing that their backgrounds complemented each other — that Prather had experience in running a small firm, and that Ebner had a valuable referral source in Biglaw connections — these partners in life decided to become partners in law.
So how did they make it happen?
Continue reading “Size Matters: Meet Two Happy Partners In Law And In Life”
Mel Gibson
* Mel Gibson has reached a plea agreement in a battery case involving his ex-girlfriend. #losing #BeaverBlood [Associated Press]
* Meanwhile, Lilo isn’t accepting her plea deal. No ma’am. Not for all the Texas booger sugar in the world. Well, maybe for all the Texas booger sugar. But that wasn’t really offered. [New York Post]
* A look at Jowls McRaisinhead’s Arlen Specter’s move to solo practice. [Legal Intelligencer via WSJ Law Blog]
* The Wisconsin Senate passed sweeping curbs on collective bargaining yesterday. The protesters are still howling, but I wonder how loud they’ll be when Pinkertons shove batons in their faces. That’s not actually happening. I just have a fairly violent and anachronistic imagination. [Reuters]
* House Republicans have gone meta in promising a defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. [Los Angeles Times]
* State Senator Carl Kruger, of Brooklyn, will turn himself in on corruption charges today. Big up to Crooklyn. [New York Times]
* Coach Sweater Vest’s hilarious understanding of attorney-client privilege is hilarious. [The Lantern]
* Profits per partner at Kirkland & Ellis topped $3 million in 2010, and the firm boosted its revenue even though it shed some lawyers. I Can Has Spring Bonus? [Am Law Daily]
* Marc Randazza wants to feed the members of the Westboro Baptist Church into a wood chipper, but he respects their First Amendment rights; accordingly, “the Westboro Baptist Church is the first entity to receive both the First Amendment Bad Ass award and the Asshat award in a single blog post.” [The Legal Satyricon]
* Everyone’s talking about the Westboro Baptist Church case, but don’t overlook Chief Justice Roberts’s hilarious opinion in FCC v. AT&T, rejecting a corporation’s claim of privacy rights under FOIA (contrary to the alarmist predictions of certain overwrought, Citizens United-obsessed liberals). [Slate]
* Speaking of noteworthy cases, check out the latest precedent of Zoopreme Court: Justice Under Paws. [Zoopreme Court]
* New New Hampshire motto: Leave my junk free or die. [Huffington Post]
* Musical chairs: three real-estate partners leave Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago for Latham & Watkins. Speaking of these firms, will either pay spring bonuses? [Chicago Tribune]
* Meanwhile, on the South Side, UofC Law is encouraging young black high schoolers to go to law school. If B (# of black students) < P (Posner) + L (Liberals), then you've got to do some outreach. [University of Chicago Law School]
* If you enjoyed our recent post about Chief Judge Kozinski’s taste in movies, you can check out all of his mini-reviews over here. [IMDb]
* Some reflections by Jane Genova on politics, law firms, and the power game. [Law and More]
