Last month, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan named a new partner and special counsel. Congratulations to these five worthy lawyers on their promotions.
Alas, not all the news coming out of Stroock is this happy. We’ve just learned that the firm is planning to cut the ranks of its legal secretaries….
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Staff Stricken at Stroock”
* Who will play starring roles in the Obamacare arguments before SCOTUS? A bunch of older white guys. Good thing this isn’t televised, because the ratings would probably suck. [Legal Times]
* The judiciary is on the cusp of a “financial crisis,” and some trials may be put on hold. That, or they’re just going to get rid of people. Which do you think it’ll be? [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* When rankings like these are available, who cares about U.S. News? Here’s a list of the law schools you should go to if you want to actually make bank as a lawyer. [Forbes]
* Covington & Burling is the latest Biglaw firm to sign up for an office in Seoul. Memo to partners: this is not the spring “bonus” your associates care about. [Capital Business Blog / Washington Post]
* The jury in the Dharun Ravi privacy trial is set to begin its deliberations this morning. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room — or, more on point, a webcam. [Statehouse Bureau]
* Thomas Puccio, a former Biglaw partner known for his notorious clientele, RIP. [New York Times]
Judge Terence Evans
* Professor Eugene Volokh poses this question to his readers (we considered a similar query before): “I Got Awful Grades My First Year in Law School. Should I Quit?” [Volokh Conspiracy]
* I’m not that familiar with canon law, but I don’t think it looks favorably upon alleged groping of teenage girls. [La Crosse Tribune]
* Professor Douglas Berman wonders if there should be a social networking website designed for use by prisoners. (Commenter challenge: come up with a name for this “Facebook for jailbirds” social network.) [Sentencing Law and Policy]
* Stroock stricken with lawsuit by former partner. [Am Law Daily]
* Professor Paul Horwitz’s (thoughtful and measured) response to the law prof turned scamblogger. [Prawfsblawg]
* Seventh Circuit Judge Terence Evans, RIP. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
No bonus for you!
It’s April 29. Monarchists have long circled this day as an opportunity to praise the vestigial structures of imperial domination. But this day means a lot to people who earn their fortune through work instead of birth. Today is a huge day for Biglaw associates. For many, today is the day spring bonus payments hit their bank accounts.
Don’t spend it all in one place.
But as we all know, not every Biglaw associate will be enjoying a spring bonus this year. With the payments out, we’re no longer looking at which firms are “lagging” behind in their spring bonus announcements. Now we’re looking at firms that have simply decided they are not paying spring bonuses, regardless of what the market says. Apparently, keeping up with Cravath really will be ruinous to some firms.
So who has officially announced they will not be paying spring bonuses this year? We’ll tell you what we know about three Biglaw firms, and hopefully you can fill in any gaps…
Continue reading “Which Firms Are Definitely NOT Paying Spring Bonuses?”
* Yes, we have seen the excellent GW Law Revue video based on the Cee Lo Green song (embedded above). No need to send it to us again. In fact, please do not send us links to any Law Revue videos until we announce the start of our third annual Law Revue Video Contest (perhaps next month, but stay tuned). [YouTube]
* The SEC’s general counsel, David Becker, gets involved in the Madoff litigation — as a defendant, in an action brought by trustee Irving Picard. [Am Law Daily]
* An update on the Stroock “typo” saga. [The Real Deal]
Stan Chesley and his wife, Judge Susan Dlott
* Lawyer of the Day: Stan Chesley. Being married to a federal judge, with whom you live in a 27,000-square-foot mansion, doesn’t protect you against possible disbarment. [Wall Street Journal via WSJ Law Blog]
* Well this is embarrassing, isn’t it? Several answers to questions on the U.S. citizenship test are just plain wrong. [Slate]
* Ted Frank isn’t a fan of DOMA as a policy matter, but he disagrees with President Obama’s decision to stop defending it. [New York Daily News]
* If you thought that my obituary for Skadden name partner Joe Flom was too kind, even sycophantic, then read this one from the WaPo. [Washington Post]
Some summer associates are ending their summers on a very positive note. Quite a few firms have already informed law school students that after this summer fling, they’re interested in a more serious relationship.
Since our last round-up of offices extending offers to 100% of their summer associates, we’ve heard from a few more contented summers…
Continue reading “More Summer Associate Classes With 100% Offer Rates”
We’ve previously covered a sticky situation involving an alleged drafting error by real estate lawyers at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. The dispute pits the buyers of luxury condos at the Rushmore, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, against the development company Extell, Stroock’s client. (Our prior coverage appears here, here, and here.)
When we last checked in, the New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, had sided with the buyers and ruled against Extell. But instead of just rolling over, which is what most folks do when attacked by the New York AG, Extell is fighting back. From the Real Deal (via Am Law Daily):
In a last minute and stunning move, the developers of the Upper West Side’s Rushmore condominium filed a federal lawsuit [on Monday] against state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo seeking to reverse his April rescission order to refund more than $16 million in escrow funds to buyers.
The developers, Extell Development and Carlyle Realty Partners, operating under the name CRP/Extell, also filed a motion in U.S. District Court seeking a temporary restraining order that would block the release of the funds, which include down payments for more than $110 million worth of apartments.
In its moving papers, Extell kind of throws Stroock under the proverbial bus — but just a little bit….
Continue reading “Stroock Strikes Back? The Firm’s Client Sues Andrew Cuomo in Federal Court”
Over the weekend — yes, we often publish over the weekend, so do check in with us — we wrote about the happy story of Jeffrey Fenster. Fenster, a 29-year-old lawyer who previously worked for a short time at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, was recently selected by Governor David Paterson to serve as executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State.
In the comments, a number of you wondered how Fenster landed this gig, despite what one former board commissioner described as “absolutely no administrative experience” and “no experience in workers’ comp or labor law.” One commenter speculated that Fenster might have been helped by Martin Minkowitz, a retired Stroock partner and expert in workers’ compensation law (which is what the New York Times hinted at).
As it turns out, it appears that Fenster was helped by connections — but not through Stroock or Marty Minkowitz.
Continue reading “How Jeff Fenster Landed on the Workers’ Comp Board
Or: How to Get a Government Job“
Earlier this week, we wrote about a serious drafting mistake by Stroock & Stroock & Lavan — maybe a typo, maybe not — that could cost Stroock’s client millions.
Could Stroock look to its malpractice insurer for help? Maybe not, according to the New York Post:
The gaffe exposes Stroock to the real possibility of having to pay back Extell and Carlyle out of its own pocket because sources said that if the developers sue Stroock, it’s unlikely its insurer will pick up the tab.
The basis for this prediction is not included in the Post article. If you have thoughts on the insurance issue, please do share. Stroock didn’t comment to the New York Times, which first wrote about the error, but they did offer brief comment to the Post.
Continue reading “A Very Expensive Typo? Stroock Isn’t Sweating It”
We realize that we make our fair share of typographical errors here at ATL. But this is just a blog, not a document being sent to a client or filed with a court, and we’re more focused on substance than style, due to the speed of the news cycle and our desire to be… FIRST! So please cut us some slack.
(But do continue to point out typos to us, either in the comments or by email. Readers are our unofficial copy editors, and we frequently fix typos after they’ve been brought to our attention.)
In any event, at least our typos don’t cost anyone millions. From the New York Times:
The Rushmore, a new 41-story glass and stone condominium tower on Riverside Boulevard at the Hudson River, seemed serene on a recent visit. The flowers in the interior courtyard were in full bloom; the ground-level pool had been filled. Sixteen buyers had already moved in.
And yet an error of a single digit in an arcane document — the densely worded 732-page offering plan — could upset that happy picture, and cost the sponsors, the Extell Development Company and the Carlyle Group, tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue, lawyers say.
Of course, this isn’t the first example of an expensive typo (assuming it’s a typo; this is open to debate). Remember the $900,000 comma, or the $40,000 missing “L”?
But, if given effect, the glitch in the Rushmore offering plan will certainly be one of the more expensive ones. Find out the nature of the mistake — and the law firm responsible — after the jump.
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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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