Munger Tolles

Which firms demonstrate a true commitment to diversity? Check out the latest rankings from Vault and from Am Law.

* Hiring a Supreme Court clerk might not be worth a $500,000 gamble for some Biglaw firms. Some will take that sweet sign-on bonus and remove their golden handcuffs before a year is out. [Capital Comment / Washingtonian]

* Akin Gump partner and D.C. Circuit nominee Patricia Millett won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee by a margin of 10-8 along party lines, and now her nomination will head to the full Senate for a vote. [Huffington Post]

* President Obama nominated Michelle Friedland and John Owens, two young Munger Tolles & Olson partners, for seats on the Ninth Circuit. If confirmed, that’ll make three partners from the same firm on the bench. [The Recorder]

* Sorry, law firms, but it’s no longer cool to inflate hourly billing rates for contract attorneys when you pay them substantially less. You can thank Ted Frank for this judicial revelation. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education thinks that just about everything having to do with law schools is “deeply flawed” and needs “serious re-engineering.” How comforting. [ABA Journal]

* Law School Transparency is willing to assist schools with the reporting of their ABA post-graduation job placement statistics, for a price. How much is integrity worth these days? [National Law Journal]

* For $25K, Casey Anthony’s bankruptcy trustee won’t make her sell the worldwide rights to her story — like her theory of the crime she was acquitted of, it “exists solely within [her] mind.” [Sun-Sentinel]

Associate satisfaction scores will make you or break you in these rankings. How did your firm measure up?

Which firms had the highest revenue last year, according to the latest Am Law 200 rankings?

Ed. note: Due to the Presidents’ Day holiday, we will be on a reduced publication schedule today. We will be back in full swing tomorrow. We hope that you will enjoy your day off, but please feel free to lament your lack thereof in the comments.

* “[T]hey don’t want to hear nothing.” Vedel Browne, the man accused of robbing Stephen Breyer at machete-point while the justice was vacationing in his home in the Caribbean, now claims that he’s innocent, mon. [St. Kitts-Nevis Observer]

* You know what, the farmer in the Super Bowl commercial probably didn’t have to deal with bullsh*t like Monsanto’s seed patents, but today’s farmers do, and they’ll argue their case before the Supreme Court this week. [New York Times]

* “I’m a betting man. And I would bet and give odds that Sullivan & Cromwell has never said that publicly.” Who dares question S&C’s stance in the hot mess that is Herbalife? None other than Carl Icahn. [Am Law Daily]

* Here’s an important Biglaw math lesson that’s been provided to us via California-based firms like Irell & Manella, Munger Tolles, and Orrick: a little revenue minus a lot of partners equals profitability. [Recorder]

* Amid a flurry of filings on Valentine’s Day, love must’ve been a battlefield for the embattled Dewey & LeBoeuf refugees who were in desperate search of their once promised 2011 bonuses. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* From the department of things that suck: having to defend your office’s alleged “underhanded tactics” in a $150 million wrongful conviction case while you’re trying to get re-elected as district attorney. [New York Times]

* We got bitches in the office lawyerin’ on, and they ain’t leavin’ till six in the mornin’ — unless they want to be fired. An ex-Travers Smith trainee claims she was canned for leaving the firm “early”… at 6:30 a.m. [Telegraph]

* If it weren’t for Cosmo, this woman wouldn’t have known her landlord was an alleged creeper. A Maryland lawyer now faces criminal charges for allegedly filming his female tenants in the nude. [Washington Post]

* “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious!” The ABA officially put Florida A&M on notice that its law school accreditation may be in jeopardy if they don’t shape up in terms of bar passage. [Orlando Sentinel]

* What do you do the second you step off a cruise ship that’s been described as “a floating toilet, a floating petri dish, a floating hell”? You grab the very first lawyers you see, and sue! [Nation Now / Los Angeles Times]

* Munger Tolles & Olson recently announced a new partnership class, 75 percent of which is composed of women. Let’s hear three cheers for diversity in the practice of law! Oh, and uh… congratulations to the lone white guy, too. [The Careerist]

* Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition: in an opinion penned by Judge Richard Posner, a divided three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit struck down an Illinois law banning the concealed carrying of loaded weapons outside the home. [Bloomberg]

* Holy crap! Law students asked for change, and the Arizona Supreme court is giving them exactly what they wanted, which is impressive. 3Ls will now be able to sit for the February bar exam. [National Law Journal]

* And speaking of Arizona, the Phoenix City Council and state Board of Regents have approved ASU Law’s plans to move its campus, and the city even threw in $12M to sweeten the deal. [Phoenix Business Journal]

* Remember the defamation suit Cooley Law filed against a former student who anonymously criticized the school on his blog? His lawyer will defend his anonymity today in court. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Nevermind the fact that he’s a “person of interest” in a homicide case, because a Guatemalan judge ordered that antivirus mogul John McAfee should be released due to his illegal detention. [Los Angeles Times]

Which major law firms get top scores for diversity?

Which law firms made the latest list of best law firms to work for?

Which circuit judge has the most former clerks who are now judges themselves? And how is Judge Kozinski spending the Memorial Day weekend?

It’s late October, so Biglaw bonus news could drop any day now. In 2010, Cravath didn’t kick off the season until November 22. But back in 2009, Cravath announced bonuses on November 2. And in 2007 — yes, the glory days, before the Great Recession — Cravath announced bonuses, regular and “special,” on October 29. […]

* The AT&T/T-Mobile antitrust suit is so big that not even Big Government law can handle it. The DOJ is bringing in even bigger guns with a partner from Biglaw firm Munger Tolles. [Bloomberg] * Obama has nominated former Kozinski clerk, Paul Watford, to the Ninth Circuit. Way to go, because he’s kind of cute. […]

For some holders of the Juris Doctor degree, "J.D." has depressing meanings: Just Debt, Job Disabled, Justifiably Depressed. But for others, "J.D." stands for something happier: Just Dollars. Lots and lots and lots of them. The 2011 Forbes 400 list has been issued -- and it contains a number of lawyers and law school graduates....

Law firm diversity matters. It matters to corporate clients, many of them public companies that want to demonstrate their commitment to diversity through their selection of vendors and service providers — which is what law firms are, at the end of the day. It matters to the law students and lawyers that firms are trying […]

* The GOP is right — September is a totally arbitrary deadline to re-write No Child Left Behind. Really, why would we need a new education law by the time school starts up again for the year? [Washington Post] * Protip: if your client is suing a preschool over its TTT curriculum, you probably shouldn’t […]

Watch out, Warner Bros. and Munger Tolles: the machete-wielding, tiger-blood-fueled Charlie Sheen is coming after you. The seemingly deranged actor, who was recently fired from the CBS hit show “Two and a Half Men,” has filed a $100 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Chuck Lorre, the studio and executive producer of the show, respectively. […]

You don’t have to be a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars to have predicted that Warner Bros. — the company that produces Two and a Half Angry Men and, not un-coincidentally, Looney Tunes — would fire Charlie Sheen from the show. And on Monday, that’s exactly what happened. Writing on behalf of Warner Bros., […]

* Doing hood rat stuff with your friends is less likely to land you in the adult court system now. [New York Times] * The Quinnipiac Law School registrar might be headed to the pokey on mortgage fraud charges. Add/Drop is now… CLOSED!!!!! No idea what that means. [Hartford Courant] * Law prof Liu lingers […]

We’re rolling through the Vault 2011 list of the “prestigiest” firms in the land, so that you can comment on what it’s like to actually live, work, and breathe those firms (when you’re not choking on all the prestige in the air). We’ve covered #1-10 and #11-20. Here’s the next round-up. Now it’s time for […]