In our last full post on Dewey & LeBoeuf, the fast-fading New York law firm, we tried to find some moments of humor in this generally depressing story. Now we’ll return to the hard — and gloomy — Dewey news. (We mentioned several D&L items in today’s Morning Docket.)
Without further ado, let’s find out what’s going on….
Continue reading “L’Affaire LeBoeuf: The Latest Links and News”
Schulte Roth & Zabel really came up with a creative way to make this terrible bonus season even worse for SRZ associates.
Schulte is matching the Cravath scale, but not all at once. Half of the bonus is being paid now, the other half in March. It’s Schulte’s way of issuing a retention bonus without actually spending any extra money.
It also sets Schulte up nicely to avoid paying spring bonuses next year. Not that Schulte management really cares what people think about them. The firm didn’t pay spring bonuses last year. Even though the firm is making people whole with a “spring bonus” payment to those who should have gotten one last spring, the money is still tied to hitting 2011 hours targets.
It’s really one of the most disingenuous bonus memos we’ve seen. While technically the firm is matching Cravath, it’s doing it in a nickle-and-dime way that makes it pretty clear the Schulte partnership begrudges every last cent they have to pay out in bonuses.
If the associates don’t like it, they know where the door is….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Schulte Roth & Zabel Leaves a Trail of Bonus Crumbs”
Just about all summer associate programs at large law firms have wrapped up by now, and 100 percent offer rates rolled in from firms across the country. That’s great news, but we were more than a little disappointed that we didn’t hear any lurid tales of summer associates gone bad this year.
Sadly, we didn’t hear about any fabulous summer associate events, either. With the high offer rates we’ve seen, we have to assume that there was enough money to go around for firms to host some excellent events, right?
Well, now that you’ve got your offer in hand (hopefully), you can spill the beans on what went down at your firm this summer….
Continue reading “ATL Summer Associate Event Contest: Which Firm Had the Best Event of 2011?”
Smile if you received an offer!
Since our initial call for information about summer associate offer rates at major law firms, a number of people have contacted us with reports. As it turns out, there’s a lot of good news floating around out there for summer associates.
This leads us to two conclusions:
Honestly, listening to your summer stories is like looking at the Facebook photos of a Mormon school group’s vacation to Amish country. We know that people are worried about getting offers in this tough market, but the risk-aversion of the summers this year borders on cowardice.
Live a little, have a drink, ask her for her number. It’s a job interview, not an audience with the Pope.
In any event, 100% offer rates abound. Let’s round them up….
* Oooh, Obama drama at the White House! They’re fighting with Congress over the legal definition of war “hostilities.” Can’t we all just celebrate good Obama (come on)? [New York Times]
* Schulte Roth’s tech-support crew would love nothing better than to blue screen the entire firm, but instead, they’re suing for overtime pay. [Thomson Reuters]
* At this point, it’s a shame that Charlie Sheen didn’t try to trademark “LOSING.” It looks like the actor won’t get his day in court after all. [Company Town / Los Angeles Times]
* Given my obsession with Lady Gaga, there was no way I was going to leave out this story about “Lawyer Gaga” and her role in the Casey Anthony trial. [WESH Orlando]
* It may be a bad sign for your case when the judge’s name is Thrash. How will Georgia’s tough new immigration law fare against this scary-sounding member of the judiciary? [Forbes]
* This is actually a bit of a surprise because it comes from the land of Jewish grandmas. A middle school in Florida is being sued by the ACLU over “Kick-a-Jew Day.” [Marco Eagle]
* With a motion critiquing opposing counsel’s grasp of the use of apostrophes, Richard Crites’s pleading is a potential candidate for Motion of the Day for sure. [Springfield News-Leader]
Katherine Forrest: You'd smile too if you were this rich.
I recently wrote about Katherine B. Forrest, the celebrated litigatrix nominated to a federal judgeship on the breathtakingly prestigious Southern District of New York. Forrest currently serves as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, but before joining the DOJ she was a longtime partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore — a premier, if not the premier, American law firm. Forrest was one of CSM’s most popular (and most powerful) young partners.
Katherine Forrest has a reputation as an incredible attorney, and she has the awards to prove it (see question 8). Not surprisingly, the ABA deemed her “unanimously well-qualified” as an S.D.N.Y. nominee.
So here’s what I wondered: Why did the amazingly accomplished Forrest, a partner at super-lucrative Cravath for over a dozen years, declare a mere $4.3 million on her net worth statement? Granted, $4.3 million is nothing to scoff at; KBF is rich (even by Elie’s standards). But it seemed to me that a lawyer of her distinction, who was a partner at a top firm for such a long time, should be even richer.
Thanks to information from helpful readers who saw my earlier post, I now know the truth. As it turns out, Katherine Forrest is considerably wealthier than that $4.3 million number suggests.
Way richer, in fact. Let’s find out….
Continue reading “Ex-Cravath Partner Nominated to S.D.N.Y. Is Pretty Stinking Rich”
The funny thing about spring bonuses is that nobody really planned on them. Firms really thought they were going to be able to get through bonus season paying Cravath’s lowball initial bonuses. Remember when Cravath seemingly set the market, and there was that one partner caught saying “thank God”? That’s what firms were thinking.
Well, spring bonuses have been with us for some time now, and most firms that are going to pay them have announced. Still, there are some firms that seem to be trying to figure out how to delay or avoid paying market compensation for as long as possible.
Schulte Roth is in that category. They’ll be paying spring bonuses, but only if you hit various 2010 and 2011 hours requirements.
And so while Schulte can say that it is “matching” the Cravath scale for spring bonuses, it seems like there are a lot of Schulte people who will not be seeing a single spring bonus dollar. These are the kinds of things that happen when firms are caught off guard by market forces…
We’ve been trying to figure out how many top New York firms will adopt spring bonuses. It doesn’t appear that Schulte Roth & Zabel will be one of them.
Multiple tipsters report Schulte Roth conducted staff layoffs earlier this week.
But maybe we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this means Schulte will not be paying spring bonuses. Is it possible that this move will free up money for a spring payout?
Continue reading “Staff Layoff Watch: Schulte Roth Has A Different Kind of Spring Surprise”
With fall recruiting gearing up, and the lateral market warming up, we continue our annual series of open threads about the law firms featured in the Vault prestige rankings. These threads provide ATL readers with a forum to discuss the different firms and their various strengths and weaknesses.
The end of the Vault 100 is in sight. We’re covering the firms in batches of 20 now. Here are the firms ranked #61 to #80, which will provide today’s discussion fodder:
61. Greenberg Traurig, LLP
62. Holland & Knight LLP
63. Fish & Richardson P.C.
64. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP
65. Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
66. Foley & Lardner LLP
67. Perkins Coie LLP
68. Nixon Peabody LLP
69. Patton Boggs LLP
70. Kaye Scholer LLP
71. Hunton & Williams LLP
72. Reed Smith LLP
73. Steptoe & Johnson LLP
74. Chadbourne & Parke LLP
75. Howrey LLP
76. Bryan Cave LLP
77. Lovells (US) [now part of Hogan Lovells]
78. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
79. Crowell & Moring LLP
80. Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP
This is a very eclectic group, including a few New York-centric firms, some D.C.-dominated places, and a bunch of national and even international giants.
Let’s take a closer look at some of these shops….
Continue reading “Fall Recruiting Open Threads: Vault 61 – 80 (2011)”
Most New York lawyer types have given up on the idea of cooking for themselves; they’re far more likely to get their dinner from Seamless Web than from their own fridge and stovetop. But not Serena Palumbo. She’s now in-house counsel for an Italian bank, and has persevered in making nightly home-made dinners, despite prior stints at Schulte Roth and Shearman & Sterling.
And her perseverance has led to a possible career opportunity: TV celebrity chef. She’s one of the competitors in The Next Food Network Star, a Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis-hosted reality competition, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Palumbo looks great in photos, but a former colleague who caught the premiere told us she struggled a bit in the first episode:
Wolfgang Puck told Giada that the Food Network might have to make room for a new Italian princess.
She did a good job with the food but struggled in front of the camera; she came across a bit forced so she’s not a front-runner but can probably turn things around.
Curses. Corporate lawyers don’t get to spend time in a courtroom, practicing their TV face in front of a jury.
We caught up with Serena by phone this week and asked her how she got onto the show, and more importantly, how she finds time to cook dinner every night at home in Manhattan…
Continue reading “Can In-House Counsel Serena Palumbo Be The Next Food Network Star?”
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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