Law Firm Merger Mania

  • Morning Docket: 07.01.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.01.16

    * In case you haven’t been keeping score like we have, these are the firms that recently raised salaries: Foley Hoag, Patterson Belknap, Venable (officially), and Seward & Kissel. If you’re worried you’ve missed any of our coverage on pay raises, you can check out our omnibus 2016 salary chart where we collect these stories. [2016 Salary Increase / Above the Law]

    * Thanks to the power of “a phenomenally strong public interest created by modern media” and an attorney who “fell below the standard of a reasonable professional judgment” in handling the case, Adnan Syed, whose murder conviction was the subject of the acclaimed first season of the “Serial” podcast, has been granted a new trial. [NPR]

    * First comes raises in the United States for the third-largest law firm by headcount, then comes yet another merger. DLA Piper is combining with Grönberg Advokatbyrå, a 21-lawyer Swedish boutique that practices litigation, corporate, and compliance work. If all goes well, the merger is expected to close in October 2016. [Big Law Business]

    * This list of the world’s wealthiest lawyers includes several Biglaw celebrities, a few current and former television judges, a handful of ex cons, and even people who have been disbarred. Some lawyers have higher net worths, but they don’t use their law degrees, so they weren’t included on the list. [Money Inc. via ABA Journal]

    * What’s it like to train for the Olympics and complete law school at the same time? Ask Ashley Higginson, who recently graduated from Rutgers Law. Today, the steeplechaser will be competing to qualify for the Rio Olympics. Best of luck from all of your friends here at Above the Law! You can do it! [NJ Advance Media for NJ.com]

  • Morning Docket: 05.25.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.25.16

    * Sorry to ruin your childhood, but a Pennsylvania judge found that there is enough evidence for Bill Cosby to stand trial for his felony assault charge in the Andrea Constand case. Cosby has waived his right to a formal arraignment, and could face up to 10 years in prison if he’s convicted. Cosby has been free on $1 million bail since December. [Associated Press]

    * “You need to have order in a courtroom. And there needs to be proper decorum with attorneys.” A Las Vegas Justice of the Peace ordered that a deputy public defender be handcuffed for interrupting him as she tried to represent a client. A tipster has referred to this judge as “demented.” We may have more on this. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

    * According to inside sources, Hunton & Williams is in advanced merger talks with Addelshaw Goddard, a London-based firm. These talks have reportedly been going on for months, and Addelshaw partners supposedly met last night to discuss the tie-up. If successful, the combined firm would have more than 1,300 lawyers. [Big Law Business]

    * Silicon Valley staple Fenwick & West is opening up an office outpost in New York City. The firm’s clients in Manhattan include BuzzFeed, FanDuel, Blackrock, Citi, and JPMorgan. Associates will be working around the clock in the city that never sleeps — with a roster like that, they won’t be getting shuteye anytime soon. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * AG Loretta Lynch announced yesterday afternoon that the Justice Department would be seeking the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the suspect alleged to have gone on a shooting spree in a Charleston church last summer, killing nine and wounding numerous others. It’s said Roof hoped to incite a race war as a result of the massacre. [USA Today]

    * Carl Buchholz, managing partner of DLA Piper’s Philadelphia office, RIP. [Philadelphia Business Journal]

  • Morning Docket: 05.09.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.09.16

    * Because he’d like to stop “freeriding on the services of Bryan Cave,” Stephen DiCarmine, Dewey & LeBoeuf’s former executive director, told a judge that he’d like to dump Austin Campriello as his lawyer and represent himself in the retrial of his criminal case. DiCarmine, a current textile design student, was warned that this likely wasn’t a very wise choice on his part. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Kaye Scholer’s managing partner “wouldn’t comment on any speculation or rumor,” but word on the street is that his firm and Arnold & Porter may potentially be discussing a possible merger. Information related to this merger is really just a game of Biglaw telephone at this point. Let us know if you have any credible details. [Big Law Business]

    * This seems like the plotline of a reality TV series: A trial date has been set for one of the three Trump University lawsuits, and if all goes according to plan for likely Republican nominee Donald Trump, it looks like we may have a president-elect taking the witness stand to testify about allegations related to fraud before his inauguration. [CBS News]

    * Just in time for law school commencement ceremonies, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has some depressing news about employment statistics. In April, the legal services sector lost 1,500 jobs. Thus far, the only month in 2016 when jobs were added in the legal services sector was March. Well… this really isn’t very encouraging. [Am Law Daily]

    * “It’s been one step forward, two steps back since [2009].” The job market for law school grads is still challenging, but due to the fact that class sizes are smaller now, job prospects may seem a bit brighter for some. Are things really looking up? This John Marshall Law grad — with a job! — thinks things are going to be fine. [Chicago Tribune]

  • Morning Docket: 05.02.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.02.16

    * Arizona Law’s plans to scrap the LSAT in favor of the GRE has angered the Law School Admission Council terribly. In fact, LSAC’s general counsel says the school’s new policy may violate the organization’s bylaws, so it may boot Arizona Law from its membership, thereby cutting the school out of its applications and admissions clearinghouse. We’ll have more on this news later today. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

    * Tom Brady of the New England Patriots hasn’t filed an appeal of the Second Circuit’s reinstatement of his four-game suspension yet, but you can bet your ass that it’s coming soon, because the quarterback just made the ultimate Hail Mary legal hire by adding Ted Olson to his team of lawyers. Sports fans can look forward to a bid for an en banc Second Circuit hearing, or even a possible flea flicker to the Supreme Court. [NBC Sports]

    * “Republicans haven’t been satisfied to simply hobble the court’s ability to function. In recent weeks, they have gone to remarkable lengths to impugn the integrity of the justices and thus the legitimacy of the court.” The New York Times Editorial Board has a piece that essentially begs Republicans to stop their shenanigans, give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, and “rescue the Supreme Court from limbo.” [New York Times]

    * Law firm merger mania is already in full bloom this spring, but which Biglaw firm was one of the first to bite the bullet? It looks like it’s Husch Blackwell, which is merging with Milwaukee-based Whyte Hirschboek Dudek, effective July 1. The combined firm will have more than 700 attorneys, 19 offices, and it will likely be among the country’s 100 top-grossing law firms. We hope redundancy layoffs won’t follow. [Journal-Sentinel]

    * “We respect other professors’ point of view, but it’s less than (8 percent) of the academic faculty.” Some professors are outraged over Mason Law being renamed after the late Justice Antonin Scalia, but the university isn’t budging, and plans to stick with its new name since administrators “believe that the Antonin Scalia Law School, once it’s approved, will be one of the top law schools in the country.” [Big Law Business]

    * Law students, you make think you know what a gunner is, but you haven’t met this prodigy yet. Eighteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed will be the first student to attend the University of Southern Florida College of Medicine and the Stetson University College of Law at the same time. If you hurry, you may be able to convince this genius to join your study group. You’ll surely be the envy of all of your new friends. [ABC Action News]

  • Morning Docket: 03.18.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.18.16

    * “In 2 to 4 years, a University administration will shut down a top law school and we may never see it coming.” Uh-oh! Is a top law school really going to close? This law professor seems to think so, and she’s pointing the finger at Minnesota Law, which has been experiencing a slew of financial troubles due to its enrollment issues. [Forbes]

    * “The employment numbers were very high in a huge economic downturn and it just felt suspicious. I decided to stand up for myself and others.” Anna Alaburda, who sued Thomas Jefferson School of Law over its allegedly deceptive job statistics, took the stand this week, where she spoke about her failed legal career. [Courthouse News Service]

    * “The record number of deals in 2015 is a reflection of the intense competition among law firms for new work, and we expect the market to remain hot in 2016.” Oh boy! If you think 2015 set a merger record, you ain’t seen nothing yet. We should apparently be expecting even more law firm merger mania this year. [Chicago Daily Law Bulletin]

    * Why on earth would a partner leave a firm like Munger Tolles, with profits per partner of $1.9 million, to go to a firm like Dentons, with profits per partner of $680,000, a considerably lesser amount? What’s in that Biglaw behemoth’s special sauce that’s so amazing? It’s the “irresistible” opportunities. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * As many of our readers have had the displeasure of experiencing firsthand, law school tuition can be absurdly expensive. If you’re wondering which school took home the prize of being the most expensive for the 2015-2016 school year, it’s Columbia Law, with a shocking sticker price of $62,700. Ouch, that’s painful. [U.S. News & World Report]

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  • Morning Docket: 02.23.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.23.16

    * It’s official: Justice Clarence Thomas hasn’t asked a question during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in a decade. No other justice in history has ever done something like this, but Justice Thomas is “confident enough in his own skin not to care.” [MSNBC]

    * Who would make a better SCOTUS justice, Judge Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit or U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara? President Obama may be wondering when deciding whether to appoint the high court’s first Asian-American justice. [New York Daily News]

    * Judge H. Russel Holland was presiding over the DOJ’s action against two allegedly discriminatory polygamous cities on the Utah-Arizona border when he was rushed away in an ambulance. He had a terrible case of bronchitis. Feel better, Your Honor! [AP]

    * Gowlings, Canada’s second-largest firm, merged with UK-based Wragge Lawrence Graham to form an international firm with 1,400+ lawyers in 10 countries. Accept our cautionary congratulations, since layoffs usually follow mergers of this size. [Reuters]

    * Aww, how cute! After working as a fully integrated firm for almost two years, Squire Patton Boggs has announced its first-ever merger with another firm. Welcome San Francisco-based firm Carroll Burdick & McDonough to the party. [Plain Dealer]

    * Mayer Brown is relying on a lateral associate to help its Cuba practice shore up client relations on the island through all of her connections there, which have been described as “hot property.” She even got her own press release. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

  • Morning Docket: 02.12.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.12.16

    * Riding high after his victory in New Hampshire, Donald Trump settled his $500 million lawsuit against Univision for the network dropping his beauty pageants. Ay dios mio, this must be some sort of a YUGE GRANDE ploy to win the Hispanic vote. [USA Today]

    * Dickstein Shapiro lawyers must be feeling pretty good about themselves right now. Their mass lateral move to Blank Rome isn’t a merger, it’s an “asset acquisition.” You see that? You’re all “assets”! Remember that next time a partner makes you cry. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

    * The ABA is considering toughening bar passage requirements for law school accreditation. Under the plan, schools would have to prove that 75 percent of graduates who took an exam within two years of graduation passed. Good luck! [ABA Journal]

    * Uh-oh! Are partners at large law firms getting screwed? Biglaw firms are asking for bigger capital contributions (30-35 percent of earnings on average), and holding on to that money for longer periods of time when those partners leave. [Am Law Daily]

    * Minnesota Law has been hit pretty hard by the law school crisis, with losses expected to hit $16.1 million by 2018. When the school’s soon-to-be ex-Dean first started in 2008, “everything was good,” but now, it’s a huge sh*tshow. [Twin Cities Pioneer Press]

  • Morning Docket: 01.07.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 01.07.16

    * The statute of limitations giveth, and the statute of limitations taketh away. Los Angeles prosecutors have declined to charge Bill Cosby in a case where a woman claimed that the comedian raped her in 1965 when she was 17 years old. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]

    * Apparently sick and tired of people continuing to just waive in, the D.C. Court of Appeals is considering allowing third-year law students to take the D.C. bar up to 190 days before they even graduate, making it the most permissive early bar program in the country. [Blog of Legal Times]

    * This is apparently the new way for law firms of all sizes to survive and thrive: Per Altman Weil, 2015 was yet another record year for law firm mergers and acquisitions, with 91 announced over the course of the year. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * Congratulations to Elizabeth “Betty” Temple, the first woman to serve as chair and CEO of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. She joins about two handfuls of other women who are leading some of the country’s largest law firms. You go, girl! [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “The food-borne illness costs extra. Is that okay?” Thanks to numerous food scares and an outbreak of norovirus, Chipotle now finds itself at the center of a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the Central District of California and the FDA. [AP]

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  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.24.15

    * It’s a Christmas miracle! It may still be too early to tell, but it’s beginning to look a lot like there’s going to be an increase in law school applicants. Per LSAC, almost 3 percent more people have applied to law schools than last year at this time. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * This is why more firms don’t hold IPOs: Slater & Gordon, the first firm to go public, may face two shareholder class-action suits — one for allegedly misleading investors and the other for its terrible performance on the market. [Guardian]

    * As 2015 draws to a close, it’s very obvious that Dentons had a “transformative” year as it gobbled up law firms left and right, and 2016 will be no different. The firm has its eyes set on Japan, Korea, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Africa. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

    * A Bahamian hacker almost released a celebrity sex tape, naughty photos, and television and movie scripts for an obscene price, but not to worry, because U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (S.D.N.Y.) was busy saving the world, one sex tape at a time. [New York Times]

    * UC Hastings College of Law has appointed an acting chancellor and dean in Frank Wu’s wake. Let’s welcome David L. Faigman to the world of law school administration. Hopefully he can ease the school out of its current bar exam passage funk. [UC Hastings]

    * Joe Jamail, richest lawyer in America, King of Torts and depos, RIP. [New York Times]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.16.15

    * Meow! Kitty’s got claws! Lawyers for Grumpy Cat have filed an infringement lawsuit against Grenade Beverage for violating an IP licensing agreement. Grumpy Cat has requested a trial by a jury of her purrs peers. [Fox News]

    * Always a bridesmaid, never a bride? Dickstein Shapiro, a Biglaw firm whose headcount was down by 23.2 percent at last count, wanted to have a merger partner by December 15. That date has come and gone, but to our knowledge, the firm still hasn’t found a match. What happens now? [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * Fox Rothschild has been in growth mode for quite some time, and it most recently decided to gobble up Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly, an 82-lawyer Minneapolis firm. The merger will be complete in January 2016. Happy New Year! [Philadelphia Inquirer]

    * “[W]orking in this courthouse is like being in the wild west. You just never know what is going to happen.” Last week, Oklahoma County DA David Prater brought down a fleeing defendant before he could escape the courthouse. [KWTV via ABA Journal]

    * If you’re one of the plaintiffs who filed suit pseudonymously against Ashley Madison after its massive data breach earlier this year and you expect your privacy to be maintained by the courts, then you may have another thing coming. [WSJ Law Blog]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 11.03.15

    * For the horde! If you thought Dentons was done gobbling up law firms to create its international legion of lawyers, then you were dead wrong. The firm will likely merge with 500-lawyer Australian firm Gadens and 200-lawyer Singaporean firm Rodyk & Davidson in 2016. [Reuters]

    * Thanks to this ruling, lawyers for model Janice Dickinson may depose Bill Cosby in the defamation case she filed against him after he denied raping her. Cosby’s former lawyer, Martin Singer, who the comedian recently dumped for Quinn Emanuel, may be deposed as well. [Los Angeles Times]

    * If daylight saving time has been messing with your head, you’ll feel better to know that even the Supreme Court was having trouble with the time. Both clocks in the SCOTUS courtroom were hours behind thanks to an electrical malfunction. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Law school graduates have been having a rough time when it comes to bar passage in recent years, but Biglaw firms likely have nothing to worry about — in fact, many partners didn’t even know a problem like this was happening. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * “[T]he Harvard crest . . . should be a source of shame for the whole school.” According to a student movement at Harvard Law that’s been dubbed “Royall Must Fall,” the school was endowed by a “brutal” slaveowner and yet still bears his family’s seal. [Harvard Crimson]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.30.15

    * “Say you’ll remember me, getting groped in a nice dress…” Uh oh! This pop star seems pretty pissed! Taylor Swift has filed a countersuit against a radio DJ who sued her because he claims he was fired for inappropriately touching the singer backstage at a concert. [Rolling Stone]

    * Charleston School of Law has a new president, and hopefully his tenure will be less wrought with disaster than that of his predecessors. He says he’ll be paid one whole dollar per year as his salary until he can turn things around. [Charleston Post and Courier]

    * At a speaking engagement at Santa Clara Law earlier this week, Justice Antonin Scalia proclaimed that the Supreme Court has been “liberal” throughout the entirety of his 30-year tenure. We’d like to beg His Honor’s pardon; that can’t be true. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * As this article so eloquently puts it, “[t]he Supreme Court is about to climb back into Americans’ bedrooms.” Today, the high court will review several petitions from non-profit groups that want to be exempted from ACA’s contraception mandate. [USA Today]

    * Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the number of firms that are trying to enter the market. To establish a presence in the Lone Star State, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is saying howdy to some new partners and merging with Crouch & Ramey. [ABA Journal]