John B. Quinn, founding partner of Quinn Emanuel, is one of our favorites here at Above the Law. We like people who have personality.
We also like people who are so rich they just don’t give a f**k. Quinn seems to have gotten to the point where he can legitimately start a Twitter account called “rich people problems.”
We have evidence of his tribulations from the the San Francisco reception desk of Quinn Emanuel….
Continue reading “Can Somebody Break a Hundred for John Quinn?”
The $215,000 engagement ring.
Voter turnout in our October Lawyer of the Month poll was not high: only 453 votes were cast. In the end, DLA Piper partner Laura Flippin, who allegedly blew a .253 on a breathalyzer test, narrowly edged out Cadwalader partner Ira Schacter, who reportedly bought a $215,000 engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny ex-fiancée — while refusing to pay for his teenage daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids.
A mere 11 votes separated the winner and the runner-up. Given the closeness of the vote, maybe Laura Flippin should have focused more on voter turnout, to boost the tallies of her rivals.
It seems that Ira Schacter did just that. Check this out….
Continue reading “A Prominent Partner Gets Out the Vote and Avoids ‘Lawyer of the Month’ Honors”
It’s time to announce the winner of October’s Lawyer of the Month competition. Our readers had a motley crew of female lawyers behaving badly to choose from, and one male attorney who probably would have loved to keep company with them all.
But which kind of lawyer do our readers like the best? Drunk, naked, rich, or slutty ones? In this polling cycle, we learned that money can buy just about anything, except enough votes to win an ATL contest….
Continue reading “October Lawyer of the Month: Drunk and Disorderly”
A few years ago, the law firm of Nixon Peabody came up with a catchy jingle to celebrate its own fabulosity. You can listen to the song here, in case you’ve never heard it. The chorus went as follows: “Everyone’s a winner at Nixon Peabody!”
Alas, a recent lawsuit filed against Nixon Peabody by a former partner at the firm, David Tamman, does not put the firm in a very winning light. Instead, it just makes everyone look bad.
The allegations are seamy. What does Tamman allege?
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Everyone’s A Loser in Tamman v. Nixon Peabody”
Biglaw bucks can bring the bling.
Some people just can’t stay out of our pages. Back in 2008, we wrote about Ira J. Schacter, a prominent corporate partner and major rainmaker at Cadwalader. Schacter earned Lawyer of the Day honors after he was accused of beating his wife. (He claimed he acted in self-defense and was ultimately cleared of the charges.)
Well, today Ira Schacter is back in the news. He’s accused of refusing to pay for his teen daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids, while dropping $215,000 on a diamond engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny fiancée. If true, that’s pretty shoddy behavior — the very embodiment of cheapness, from a big-time Biglaw partner who can easily afford twelve grand.
But I know what you’re all wondering right now: “How hot is that Playboy-model fiancée?”
Continue reading “A Cadwalader Partner, His Deaf Daughter, and His Playboy Bunny Ex-Fiancée”
Do you believe in life after law? More specifically, do you believe in life after Biglaw?
Many former partners at major law firms spend their post-Biglaw years living large — as well they should. After all, they worked very hard, for many years, to amass seven-figure, eight-figure, or even nine-figure fortunes. After leaving behind the life of billing 2000+ hours a year, they finally have time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
But not all ex-partners find themselves on Easy Street. Take, for example, these two ex-partners in California — one whose civil suit against her former firm isn’t going so well, and one who might be going from Biglaw to the Big House….
Continue reading “Bad News for Former Biglaw Partners on the West Coast”
Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist, is available on Amazon, as is his previous book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy (affiliate links).
As The People’s Therapist, my door is always open. I don’t turn away poor clients.
“Pay whatever you can afford,” I tell them.
Naturally, they get what they pay for. If I’m a little sleepy, or staring at the clock – who are they to complain? Come to think of it, why do we have to talk about them all the time anyway….
Just kidding.
But let’s be real — are things any different with the the high-fidelity first-class traveling set than they are with folks flying “comfort class”? I ask myself that question a lot. I do it to stay honest….
I’m a man who likes to drink. In public. Often to the point of intoxication. So I’m not here to judge anybody who goes out and gets drunk. I’m not a hypocrite.
But I will say that it’s been a while since I went out on an epic bender. Something about getting older. You just feel the vomitous black-out coming on and it’s hard to push beyond that barrier.
Well, it’s hard for me. Maybe not so much for Laura L. Flippin. She’s a lawyer, a partner at DLA Piper. The Washington Post reports that last month she got charged with public intoxication.
The police report states that Laura Flippin’s blood alcohol level was .253, which is flippin’ epic…
Continue reading “DLA Piper Partner Picks A Penalty For Public Intoxication”
The month of August brought us a slew of disasters, both natural and otherwise. At the end of the month, we faced off against the Great D.C. Earthquake of 2011. Shortly thereafter, we got slammed by Hurricane Irene.
But August wasn’t just about natural disasters — there were plenty of man-made disasters to deal with in the legal world. From the egomaniacs to the technologically-impaired, August was full of candidates for our Lawyer of the Month competition….
Recently I talked to a fourth-year-associate friend of mine who’d been working at a new small firm for several months. When I asked him how it was going, he said “great” in a way that suggested anything but. So I pressed him for more. The work was fine, he insisted. The clients were fine. His associates were cool. Great, I said. So what was the problem?
Well, he finally let on, there was this partner.
OK, I said. What about this partner?
Well, he said, he’s making my life a living hell. In fact, my friend said, it was so bad, he was thinking of leaving the firm.
What made this partner so horrible?
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Supervising Partners and Teaching Partners”
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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