Happy New Year from your ATL editors: David Lat, Staci Zaretsky, and Elie Mystal.
We were pleasantly surprised by how many of you seemed to be interested in the pictures from our New Year’s party, and because we’re gluttons for punishment, we’ve decided to give you some more of what you want. And this time, you’ll have the opportunity to offer your delightful insights and commentary on our pictures.
So without further ado, we present to you some additional party pics for your viewing pleasure….
Your ATL editors: David Lat, Staci Zaretsky, and Elie Mystal.
Thanks a lot to everyone who came out on Wednesday night to attend the Above the Law New Year’s party!
The festivities were well-attended, and the bar was full of action — no seriously, there may or may not have been a couple making out the whole night. Thanks to our sponsor, Lateral Link, for such a great evening.
Yeah yeah, we know, it’s the internet, so of course this post is “WWOP.” So let’s get some pics up in here….
* Go to BuzzFeed to see pictures of cute animals, or go to BuzzFeed to see some quality journalism — like Chris Geidner’s profile of Edith Windsor, plaintiff in one of the landmark gay-marriage cases before the Supreme Court. [BuzzFeed]
* “A python is fairly dangerous. There’s definitely a turn-on about hunting something carnivorous that could, in theory, eat you,” says the NYU law student heading to Florida to hunt pythons for prize money. [Bloomberg]
* Looking for work? It’s time to head south, before everyone else does. Word is starting to get out about Texas, which boasts a low cost of living, no state income tax, and jobs — yes, actual freaking jobs. [Instapundit]
* But there’s no shortage of jobs in the housewife sector. If that’s what you want to do, then be fruitful, multiply, and remove your résumé from consideration at the jobs you’ve unwillingly applied to. [The Careerist]
* Although a reference from this century would’ve been appreciated, both Lat and Elie agree that I’m pretty damn great at “mak[ing] everything be okay.” Where’s a cute hat to toss when you need one? [Law and More]
* Lat sometimes dabbles in Biglaw predictions (despite the risks of being wrong). If you’re interested in seeing more, watch him in this interview with Lee Pacchia of Bloomberg Law….
Your ATL editors: Elie Mystal, Staci Zaretsky, and David Lat.
Thanks to everyone who came out last night to attend the Above the Law holiday party. (We’d call it a Christmas party, but Christmas got stolen by the Ninth Circuit.)
The festivities were extremely well-attended. Temperatures in the packed bar at times approached the hotness of the Cravath bonus scale — for 2007. Thanks to our fabulous sponsor, the Practical Law Company (PLC), for such a great evening.
Here on the internets, some people like to say “WWOP.” So let’s get some pics up in this joint….
Most of my friends are lawyers. Forrealz. To be sure, an increasing number of them, like me, no longer practice. But most of them still do, and I still like hanging with them.
When I would go to Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, or the federal district court across the channel in Southie, I would bump into classmates or colleagues more often than not. Later in my practice, it became increasingly common that I would already be friends with my opposing counsel. Some lawyers don’t like litigating against their friends, but I always did. It made it easier to get things done, and you didn’t have to waste time with unnecessary gamesmanship.
If you already had a level of trust with your opposing counsel, you could skip all the silly things that slow down litigation and make it more unpleasant. Discovery disputes, for example, drop down to zero. Settlement talks start sooner and are more meaningful. Extension requests are automatically given. Cases get resolved faster and easier.
But do you know who doesn’t like it when opposing lawyers are friendly with each other?
Find out who — plus big news about this column — after the jump.
So Lat calls me up all excited about some Biglaw Midsummer Bonus or something, which I totally ignore, and also about some hysterical dicta that Judge Kozinski wrote, which I also ignore (although it probably was pretty funny), and then he starts asking me about my law career. Which, you know, ended. And he points out that I failed to get ATL approval of my decision to close my small firm, which means technically, my column should just be called “Big Lawyers,” which is a whole other kettle of fish.
Then Lat says he knows how we can fix it. “Go on,” I say. Lat says that I can tell our readers exactly how to start pricing their legal services instead of just billing their time. “But Lat,” I plead, “I can’t give away my secrets. I have a whole new consulting firm to tell people these secrets in exchange for scads of dollars.”
Lat is quick to admonish me. “We don’t keep secrets from our readers, Jay. That’s why our readers know all about my obsession with all things Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld and why they all know that Elie is as jovial as an Ewok in real life.” Then his tone sharpened: “Plus we can always get Staci to write your column in a tenth of the time it takes you. And we can even have her use your name as a pseudonym.”
Well played, Mr. Lat, well played. So here then are the secrets to pricing your legal wares in eight easy(ish) steps.…
My name is Staci Zaretsky, but most of you have known me as Morning Dockette for the better part (or worst part, depending on your opinion) of a year now. You must be wondering why I’m finally putting aside my absurd pseudonym and writing this post under my real name. Well, thanks to the powers that be at Above the Law, I will be joining the editorial staff as a full-time writer.
I’ll give you all a moment to groan and/or squeal and then soil yourselves with disgust and/or pleasure. Super! Now that we’ve gotten over that hurdle, let me assure you that you don’t have to worry, because my fabulous friend Juggalo Law will continue to write for ATL.
Since I started writing for ATL, I have learned a lot about the legal community that frequents the site. I’ve learned that some people just can’t take a joke. That’s pretty unfortunate, but most law types are lacking in the personality department, so it’s understandable. I’ve learned that our commentariat can determine what people look like, just from their style of writing. Apparently, I’m a hot Asian girl. Who knew?
The most important thing I’ve learned from my time here at ATL is that a lot of our readers have graduated from elite educational institutions and then moved on to even greater law firms. I’ve also learned that not everyone who makes the decision to enter the legal field is so lucky – and I’ve learned that from my own personal experiences.
Now, before you get your Google on, and if you really want to see if I’m a hot Asian girl, please read on after the jump…
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.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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