Those who toil in Biglaw need to spend more time out of the office. But these are not the ideal circumstances.
A fire and power shutdown have forced at least three leading law firms out of their offices….
Note the UPDATE after the jump, regarding a fire at another top firm. What is going on this week in New York City?
Continue reading “Electrical Fire Forces Evacuation of Several Biglaw Offices”
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?
Continue reading “ATL March Madness: The Law Firm With the Brightest Future”
A couple years back, Brazilian TV star Adriana Ferreyr, 29, filed a $50 million lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend in question is George Soros, known as a billionaire financier to liberals and Lord Voldemort to conservatives. Everyone agrees that the suit grew out of the couple’s breakup and Soros’s refusal to buy her a $1.9 million apartment (or a subsequent $4.3 million pad she found). He also gave the apartment that Ferreyr claims she picked out to another woman (new fiancée Tamiko Bolton), because Soros rolls like that.
To channel Kanye, I’m not saying that she’s a gold digger, but this image sums up the relationship. After seeing that picture, well, to paraphrase Jules from Pulp Fiction, that would have to be one very charming pig.
Now Ferreyr has hired a new high-profile lawyer to pursue her claim for the $50 million she’s obviously owed for dating a billionaire….
Continue reading “Adventures in Gold Digging: Soros Case Welcomes a New Lawyer”
It looks like the trusts and estates department at Debevoise & Plimpton needs a last will and testament. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the firm is pulling the lifeline on its T&E department.
The move surprised some, given the kind of place that Debevoise is. As Peter Lattman put it, “it seemed to run counter to Debevoise’s reputation for a strong partnership culture. At a time when many large law firms have discarded the traditional partnership model and embraced a more bottom-line approach, Debevoise has been seen as retaining an old-school ethos — a genteel law firm known for its camaraderie and decency.”
We have some additional information about the wind-down process. On the bright side, it’s being conducted in a genteel, decent, Debevoise sort of way….
Continue reading “Debevoise Ditches Its Trusts and Estates Practice”
Everybody’s a comedian.
Can you imagine what would happen if somebody who used to be an extra on Saturday Night Live tried to make a go of it as a Biglaw associate? I think it would be a spectacular failure. Law firms don’t usually reward things like “creativity” and “humor.” Biglaw values drones, and in many situations, you have to check your personality at the door.
But what if you got in on the “ground floor” of a firm that was growing into a Biglaw power? If you got lucky, you might stick, things might work out for you. And in that happy circumstance, you might end up being a partner in Biglaw who can let your personality flourish in all sorts of ways.
Today, we have a story about that kind of would-be comedian turned law firm partner. And somebody gave him an email account….
Continue reading “Funny Man Partner Now Spreads Joy With Reply-All Responses To Spam”
Here at Above the Law, we’ve been writing about the “Biglaw boys’ club” for quite some time. According to the latest report compiled by the National Association of Women Lawyers, when it comes to firm life in the fast lane, women continue to have difficulty ascending to the ranks of firm leadership. In fact, that study concluded that in the Am Law 200, women hold only 20 percent of the positions on firm governance committees. What’s worse is that only four percent of Am Law 200 firms have a firmwide managing partner who’s a woman. So much for girl power.
But when it comes to Am Law 100 firms, the American Lawyer recently conducted a similar study, and the results were less than awe-inspiring — in their discussion of the results, the editorial staff go so far as to refer to it as “the law of small numbers.” Lovely. Apparently the glass ceiling is still strong in Biglaw.
So what does the leadership hierarchy look like for women in the Am Law 100? Let’s find out….
Continue reading “Leading Lady Lawyers: Ranking the Am Law 100 By Women in Leadership Roles”
Less ‘mentally taxing’ than social events?
Things have definitely changed since the summer associate days of yore. There are no more Aquagirls, no more lesbianic lip-locks, and no more Katten kreeps. These days, we’re looking at a group of law students who were so scared about being no-offered that they actually wished their firms would’ve worked them harder instead of forcing them to have mandatory fun.
At least that seems to be the conclusion to be drawn from the American Lawyer’s 2012 Summer Associate Survey. Am Law polled 4,138 interns at 138 firms about their summer experiences and used the results to rank 111 summer programs. Truth be told, it seems like they were too anxious to really enjoy their time as summers, because when asked to rank their “worry level” on a 1-to-5 scale, the average was higher than it has been since 2009′s summer of discontent.
But even so, the overall rankings were still pretty good. If you’re a law student trying to figure out where to spend your summer, you’re probably asking: which law firms came out with the highest scores?
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s summer associate event contest. Many of you nominated events, and almost 1,500 of you voted in the reader poll to crown this year’s winner.
We had five fantastic finalists, coming from five leading law firms: Latham & Watkins, Quinn Emanuel, Ropes & Gray, Schulte Roth & Zabel, and Weil Gotshal & Manges. They covered a wide range of activities, from karting to karaoke and from hiking to Heat-watching (the Miami Heat, that is).
Which Biglaw firm took home the big prize?
Continue reading “ATL Summer Associate Event Contest: The Winner!”
We recently requested entries for our summer associate event contest. Even if being a summer associate at a large law firm is more work than play these days, there is still fun to be had.
Here’s a comment on the post from “Dewey & LeBoeuf Summer Associate”:
It’s tough to choose just one event from my summer to nominate for The Best Biglaw Summer Associate Event of 2012. First, there was “Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day,” which was so successful the firm extended the event for the entire summer. Another one of my favorites was the cooking class I attended, “Upgrading Your Kitchen: 101 Ramen Recipes.”
Some of the firm’s events were also educational. I particularly enjoyed the invaluable seminar “Dodging Your Debts,” featuring guest speaker Elie Mystal. And each week I looked forward to the “Friday Bonfire,” where the other summer associates and I gathered to roast off-brand marshmallows in the tall fire we’d built with that week’s haul of rejection letters as we basked in the glow of the flames of our legal careers.
Fortunately, most summer associates are working at firms that aren’t in bankruptcy. Let’s take a look at our quintet of impressive entries for this year’s summer associate event contest….
Continue reading “ATL Summer Associate Event Contest: The Finalists”
He got an offer. Did you?
Truth be told, I’m not a fan of law firms giving offers to 100 percent of their summer associates. Whatever happened to selectivity? Given how perfunctory the hiring process is, there has to be at least one mistake in any summer class of decent size, right?
A commenter on our last post about offer rates put it well: “[A] 100% offer rate is not always a good thing. If we don’t want to work with the little weirdo who managed to slip through by pretending he was normal in 20-minute increments in callbacks, there’s a good chance the other SAs don’t either. Firms shouldn’t be so captured by the desire to have 100% offer rates that they give offers to people with serious social issues or work product problems, particularly in small offices where their general offensiveness will really have an opportunity to shine.”
Another reason I don’t like 100 percent offer rates is that I enjoy hearing funny stories of summer associate misbehavior, which often culminate in a no offer or a cold offer. You can share such stories with us by email or by text message (646-820-8477; texts only, not a voice line).
Alas, Biglaw firms are not obliging me. Let’s find out which firms are indiscriminately doling out offers to their summers….
Continue reading “Summer Associate Offer Rates (2012): A Round-Up”
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.
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