Quinn Emanuel

Who Are the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America?

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Today, the National Law Journal released its list of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. The NLJ releases a similar list once every few years, and each time, the nation’s top lawyers — some from Biglaw, some from legal academia, some from the in-house world, and some from the trial and appellate bars — celebrate their success in creating real change in the industry. That said, the people named to this list are relatively well-known to the general Above the Law readership, but they won’t exactly be household names to laypeople.

Which legal eagles soared into the NLJ’s list this time around? Well, the NLJ selected their influential lawyers based on their political clout, legal results, media penetration, business credibility, and thought leadership. We’ve whittled the impressive list of 100 down to our own top 10.

So who made our cut?

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ATL March Madness: The Law Firm With the Brightest Future

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Continuing our annual tradition honoring March Madness, Above the Law is running a law-related bracket, advancing law firms or law schools based on the outcome of reader polls. If you’ve been around for a while, you know the drill. But remember, I’m the new guy, so I’ve made a couple changes to the format this year.

Last year, you hoisted the Lantern of Diogenes to find the Most Honest Law School, and determined that the University of Michigan Law School was the most on the level. And they backed your faith by admitting that one of their graduates had become a shepherd.

This year, it’s time to talk about law firms. Specifically, your collective editors pose this question: Which law firm has the brightest future? The economy is still fragile and people are writing books with scary titles like The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis (affiliate link). The firms in our competition may look healthy today, but we all could have said the same thing at one time about Howrey, Brobeck, Heller, or Dewey.

What firm’s future is so bright their senior partners gotta wear shades?

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Contract Attorney Alleges He Wasn’t Doing Real Legal Work, Sues For Overtime

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I think everybody who has ever sat in a windowless conference room while staring at a screen and clicking through millions of documents has thought to themselves: “I wish I were dead.” “Somebody, please help me, it hurts.” “Zihuatanejo.” “I am not doing legal work.”

Whether you find yourself contracting after three years of law school or you were fired from a real legal job and are now contracting in lieu of moving back home with your parents, you don’t actually need a law degree to know that trained chimpanzees could be doing contract attorney work. In fact, the only reason they don’t use trained chimpanzees is that it’s much, much cheaper to train human beings to do it. And after a while, the chimps might revolt and kill their document room overseer while the humans will sit there in docile and vain hopes that one day they might get a real lawyer job.

Which brings us to the subject of today’s lawsuit challenging the Biglaw system of hiring contract attorneys to do menial, low-level, thoughtless work, and then not paying them overtime. Attorney Willian Henig has sued Quinn Emanuel alleging that contract attorneys should not be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act rules about overtime pay.

We’ve seen suits like this before, but this one is coming at one of the biggest and most well-known firms in all of Biglaw….

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Partner Profit Reports: Quinn Emanuel, Bingham, Perkins Coie

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The weather here in New York City has turned quite cold. How can one deal with the brutally frigid temperatures?

Well, if you’re a partner at Quinn Emanuel, maybe you should buy yourself a fur coat. Or fill a fireplace with hundred-dollar bills and get a nice toasty blaze going.

Given the firm’s financial performance in 2012, these options lie within the realm of possibility. CHECK YOU EMAIL for direct deposit notification.

Let’s take a look at 2012 financial reports concerning Quinn Emanuel, Bingham, and Perkins Coie. There’s some good news in each firm’s numbers….

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Enabler of Fashionistas

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In case you haven’t noticed this trend by now, lots and lots of lawyers are getting out of the practice of what they perceive to be boring, in favor of pursuing new careers in more creative professions — including the wonderful world of fashion.

Thus far, we’ve seen a man go from Biglaw to big pockets (a tech-enabled apparel creator), and a woman go from Biglaw to big breasts (a lingerie designer).

Next up, we’ve got a woman who went from Biglaw to making fashion designers’ big dreams come true. She’s young, she’s beautiful, she’s hip, and with her frequent usage of the word “like” as a filler word, she’s almost sure to be a huge a hit among fashionistas worldwide….

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.29.13

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Roppongi, Japan

* I’m not usually the editor to comment on the appearance of shirtless men, but this Aaron Tobey kid looks fine. And righteous. [Wired]

* That sound you hear could be the student loan bubble starting to burst. [FICO]

* The Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling will have an impact on immigration reform. I’m kind of interested to see what happens, given that the Court contains at least four conservatives who are immune to the rising electoral power of Hispanics and gays. [Buzzfeed]

* Recruiter Scott Love offers tips on lateral partner hiring. Here are mine. Step one: throw money at them. Step two: Hire a prostitute to make love to them on a beach, then take pictures you can threaten to send to their spouses. Hey, it worked for Bendini, Lambert and Locke. [Attorney Search Group]

* John Quinn (of Quinn Emanuel fame) wrote a great article about running in Roppongi. I had to Google that. Apparently “running” is a forward locomotion that people do for fun or fitness. [Wall Street Journal]

* There’s still room to meet with ABA president Laurel Bellows and talk about women’s issues like “how am I supposed to get a job in this f**king economy.” That’s not to be confused with men’s issues like “dude, how am I supposed to get a f**king job in this economy.” [Ms. J.D.]

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Above the Law’s Top Ten Most Popular Posts of 2012

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It’s the last day of December, so it’s a good time to look back on the year that was. We’ll do what we’ve done for the past three years (wrap-up posts from 2009, 2010, and 2011 can be found here, here, and here) and identify the ten biggest stories of the past year as decided by you, our readers. With the help of Google Analytics, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten posts for 2012, based on traffic (as represented by pageviews).

By the way, for the third year in a row, the most popular category page on Above the Law was Law Schools. People have now been intensely focused on the declining value proposition of going to law school for as long as it takes to earn a Juris Doctor degree. Isn’t it time that we graduate from the current educational model?

The second and third most-popular categories on ATL in 2012 were Biglaw and Bonuses. Although this year brought us the largest law firm failure ever, nearly all other firms indiscriminately doled out offers to summer associates, and bonus season looked better for the first time in years. While the legal profession is still in transition, things are certainly looking up, and through the highs and the lows, we’ve been there to cover it all.

So what were the ten most popular individual posts at Above the Law in 2012? Let’s find out….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Quinn Emanuel Cuts Extra Check For Top End Billers

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Merry Christmas, Quinn Emanuel billers.

Yesterday, we talked about the Quinn Emanuel bonuses. Many associates were angry, especially those who had billed a lot of hours in 2012. For some of those top billers, their bonuses were smaller than the same amount of work was worth last year.

Well, advocate and thou shalt receive. Quinn Emanuel just sent around a memo announcing that it will be increasing the top-end payments, to bring them in line with last year…

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Associate Bonus Watch: Not Enough Silver and Gold on the Quinn Christmas Tree?

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Partners: Alright you associates, ready to get happy about bonuses?
Quinn Associate: I’d say we are.
Cravath Associate: Yeah, let’s sing it now!
Partners: Okay, Kirkland?
Kirkland Associate: Okay!
Partners: Okay, Cravath?
Cravath Associate: Okay!
Partners: Okay Quinn? … Quinn? … QUINN EMANUEL!!!
Quinn Associate: OKAY!!

Yes, the Chipmunk Christmas Song is the perfect holiday analogy for Biglaw bonus season this year. And not just because Biglaw associates do work that talking chipmunks could accomplish [zing]. I’m looking at associate reactions from all these firms, and it just seems like expectations are playing a much larger role than the actual dollar amounts.

You’ve got Cravath associates in the role of Theodore. Maybe they’re not as sharp as some of the others, but they’re just kind of happy to be here. Kirkland associates are playing Simon — nerdy and a bit grumpy, but they’re not going to make a big scene about it.

And then you have Quinn associates, playing Alvin, the diva. Their bonuses came out just before Christmas, and they seem really angry about this situation. Even though most of them are making more than Cravath.

I guess they were expecting a hula-hoop….

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New Partner Watch: The Quinn Emanuel Ten

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In a recent ranking of the world’s most valuable law firms, the litigation powerhouse of Quinn Emanuel topped the chart in “value per partner” (total firm value divided by number of equity partners). For QE, the “VPP” figure came out to a whopping $17.7 million.

So you can understand why masochistic talented lawyers pursue partnership at the famously hardworking firm with such fervor. Sure, occasionally you’ll hear about a partner walking away from the riches. But for many a young lawyer, making partner at Quinn Emanuel is a dream come true.

Over the weekend, QE announced ten new partners. Who made the cut?

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