Pittsburgh

Collection Agency Is Just ‘Fee Shopping’ And Looking For Barely Competent Lawyers

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Low hanging fruit needs love too.

If you think collection agencies are mainly staffed with unscrupulous jerks who barely understand the law and care about it even less, you might not be wrong.

A tipster sent in a Craigslist ad for a foreclosure firm in Pennsylvania. It’s pretty straight forward in terms of what the agency is about, and what kind of lawyer they’re looking for. Let’s just say that they’re not looking for people who made law review.

In fact, they aren’t even looking for a lawyer who will prepare his or her own documents. If you can sign your name, you can be their lawyer….

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Associate Killed in Dramatic Drunken Car Crash

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Last night, a dramatic scene unfolded in the parking lot of a movie theater. A suspected drunk driver allegedly took off without his headlights on, hit two police cruisers, terrified several witnesses, and then slammed his car into a tree. The driver was killed.

“It was coming straight towards us and I didn’t know if he was going to stop or what he was doing,” said one witness. “He was going 70, 80 miles an hour. It was scary.”

The driver of the vehicle was a young lawyer, an associate at a law firm. He graduated not too long ago from a leading law school….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Morgan Lewis & Bucks-ius

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Thanks to everyone who responded to our recent request for information about 2011 bonuses at Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Here’s our report on bonuses at MLB.

As you may recall, Morgan Lewis pays individualized bonuses, so there’s no tidy table as there is for lockstep firms. Feel free to use this post as an open thread for MLB bonuses — you can compare amounts anonymously, in the comments.

How are Morgan Lewis associates feeling about their bonuses? We’ll get the ball rolling with some tips that we’ve received….

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Should This Young Woman Go to Law School?

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A bright, 23-year-old woman is thinking of going to law school. Should she do it?

Let’s learn about the particulars of her case….

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Administrative Shake-Ups At A Law School Falling in the Rankings

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Changing of the guard.

It’s the season for law school deans to step down. We never get to know exactly why deans step down, but when students relate stats like the one below, it certainly leaves an impression.

Our tipster reports: “When she took over, [our school] was ranked tier one, around 46 or 47. Now it hovers around the upper 70s…”

Yeah, not good times. And the dean isn’t the only one on the way out. The school is making a minor shake-up in its career services department too.

Which school?

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Ex-Reed Smith Partner Drops Sex Discrimination Suit Against the Firm

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JoEllen Lyons Dillon

Back in December, we covered a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by JoEllen Lyons Dillon, a comely corporate partner at Reed Smith, against the firm (where she still worked at the time). Dillon’s allegations were salacious. She claimed, for example, that “work was diverted … to female attorneys who were willing to engage in sexual relations with members of management” — and that her refusal to engage in such relations hurt her at Reed Smith.

Dillon’s case was filed by Samuel J. Cordes, a prominent Pittsburgh employment lawyer. Despite his somewhat cheesy law firm motto, Cordes is well-regarded and seen as “only tak[ing] good cases,” according to one ATL tipster. Cordes promised that his client would, over the course of the litigation, produce specific examples of sexual quid pro quos at Reed Smith. Delicious!

Alas, today brings word that JoEllen Dillon has dropped her case. What happened?

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