WilmerHale

Morning Docket: 11.11.11

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Angelica Marie Cecora, Oscar's latest lady-friend

* A bill to repeal DOMA made it past the Senate Judiciary Committee, but members of the Senate don’t do dick (unless it’s in an airport bathroom), so it’s probably not going anywhere. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Next on the gay rights news beat, after waiting around for 18 months, WilmerHale attorney Edward DuMont has refused to be the last belle at the ball. He’s asked Obama to withdraw his Federal Circuit nomination. [ThinkProgress]

* “Be careful of what you do, ’cause the lie becomes the truth.” Sound familiar? Conrad Murray says the King of Pop deceived him. Oh, boo hoo. Come on, MJ warned you about this stuff via song lyrics back in the eighties. [CNN]

* When a lawyer’s wife allegedly hires you to kill her husband, the easy way out isn’t to burn down his law firm. You kind of need to make sure that he’s in there first. [KBZK]

* Oscar de la Hoya’s got bigger problems than this kinky lawsuit. He’s probably more worried about getting runs in his stockings, to be honest. [New York Post]

* Snitches don’t get stitches in Mexico. They get their freakin’ heads chopped off. And now I wait for a drug cartel to come and murder me. [Daily Mail]

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Legal Technology Leadership Summit: Accepting Nominations for the Corporate Legal Technology Leadership Award

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Get excited, because the Legal Technology Leadership Summit is less than one week away. It is set to take place from September 6 – 8, on Amelia Island, Florida. You can access the full agenda here if you’d like to see the interesting programs that are in store for all Summit attendees.

It is only fitting that we would honor a leader in corporate legal technology at the Summit, so we are currently accepting nominations for the first Corporate Legal Technology Leadership Award. This award recognizes the legal department and the legal technology innovator(s) that identified a problem, championed a solution, and monitored the outcome. The individual winner of the award will receive a Dell Inspiron Duo Tablet PC + Audio Dock, as well as a plaque commemorating the award.

Corporate legal departments or the representatives of the department may submit nominations. There is no fee to enter. To submit a nomination, please complete the online form available here.

A special thanks to our generous Summit Ambassadors, who are making this event possible: Applied Discovery, Autonomy, Clearwell Systems (now a part of Symantec), Datacert, Dell, Ernst & Young, Falcon Discovery, FTI Technology, Guidance Software, Mitratech, Nextpoint, Nuix, Pangea3, Planet Data, ProSearch Strategies, QuisLex, Recommind, Robert Half eDiscovery Services, TCDI, Valora Technologies, and WestlawNext.

We would also like to thank our Law Firm Sponsors: Dorsey & Whitney, Shook Hardy & Bacon, WilmerHale, and Winston & Strawn.

Click here to register for the conference. We look forward to seeing you there.

Legal Technology Leadership Summit: Accepting Nominations for the Corporate Legal Technology Leadership Award

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Get excited, because the Legal Technology Leadership Summit is less than two weeks away. It is set to take place from September 6 – 8, on Amelia Island, Florida. You can access the full agenda here if you’d like to see the interesting programs that are in store for all Summit attendees.

It is only fitting that we would honor a leader in corporate legal technology at the Summit, so we are currently accepting nominations for the first Corporate Legal Technology Leadership Award. This award recognizes the legal department and the legal technology innovator(s) that identified a problem, championed a solution, and monitored the outcome. The individual winner of the award will receive a Dell Inspiron Duo Tablet PC + Audio Dock, as well as a plaque commemorating the award.

Corporate legal departments or the representatives of the department may submit nominations. There is no fee to enter. To submit a nomination, please complete the online form available here. Nominations must be received by August 31, 2011.

A special thanks to our generous Summit Ambassadors, who are making this event possible: Applied Discovery, Autonomy, Clearwell Systems (now a part of Symantec), Datacert, Dell, Ernst & Young, Falcon Discovery, FTI Technology, Guidance Software, Mitratech, Nextpoint, Nuix, Pangea3, Planet Data, ProSearch Strategies, QuisLex, Recommind, Robert Half eDiscovery Services, TCDI, Valora Technologies, and WestlawNext.

We would also like to thank our Law Firm Sponsors: Dorsey & Whitney, Shook Hardy & Bacon, WilmerHale, and Winston & Strawn.

Click here to register for the conference. We look forward to seeing you there.

Legal Technology Leadership Summit: Get a Ritzy Room Discount

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The Legal Technology Leadership Summit will be taking place in three weeks, from September 6 – 8, on Amelia Island, Florida. Rooms are still available at the Ritz-Carlton, and conference attendees will be able to take advantage of our special rate at the hotel for just $199 a night. This extended offer EXPIRES TOMORROW, so take advantage of it soon.

If you’re interested in attending, check out the full agenda here, where you can see some of the conference highlights:

A special thanks to our generous Summit Ambassadors, who are making this event possible: Applied Discovery, Autonomy, Clearwell Systems (now a part of Symantec), Datacert, Dell, Ernst & Young, Falcon Discovery, FTI Technology, Guidance Software, Mitratech, Nextpoint, Nuix, Pangea3, Planet Data, ProSearch Strategies, QuisLex, Recommind, Robert Half eDiscovery Services, TCDI, Valora Technologies, and WestlawNext.

We would also like to thank our Law Firm Sponsors: Dorsey & Whitney, Shook Hardy & Bacon, WilmerHale, and Winston & Strawn.

Click here to register for the conference. We look forward to seeing you there.

UPDATE (7 PM): We have just received approval for Texas CLE credit. So for those of you keeping track, the Legal Technology Leadership Summit now offers CLE for Alabama, California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Pricing Legal Services in Eight Easy(ish) Steps

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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.…

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Not on the Partner Track — and Maybe That’s Okay

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You'd smile too if you got home in time for dinner.

Today’s New York Times has a front-page story by Catherine Rampell entitled At Well-Paying Law Firms, a Low-Paid Corner. The article focuses on the phenomenon of “career associates” or “permanent associates” at large law firms. These lawyers are not eligible for partnership consideration and earn less than traditional associates, but they do enjoy a better “lifestyle,” in terms of more-reasonable hours and greater control over their schedules.

These positions generally pay around $60,000, significantly lower than the $160,000 that’s standard at top Biglaw shops. They are typically located not in New York or Chicago or L.A., but in more out-of-the-way places — such as Wheeling, West Virginia, where Orrick has its back-office operations, or Dayton, Ohio, where WilmerHale has “in-sourced” much of its work.

We mentioned the Times article earlier today. Morning Dockette was not impressed: “Career associates get to have ‘lifestyle’ jobs at Biglaw firms — but really, what kind of a lifestyle is it when you have to live in a crappy city with an even crappier salary?” Elie has also criticized these positions, characterizing them as “barely legal” jobs.

But such criticism might be overly harsh. Let’s look on the bright side….

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Quote of the Day: Classy Clement

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I think it’s important for lawyers on the other side of the political divide from Paul, who’s a very fine lawyer, to reaffirm what Paul wrote [in his resignation letter from King & Spalding]. Paul is entirely correct that our adversary system depends on vigorous advocates being willing to take on even very unpopular positions. Having undertaken to defend DOMA, he’s acting in the highest professional and ethical traditions in continuing to represent a client to whom he had committed in this very charged matter.

– Seth Waxman, former U.S. Solicitor General (under President Clinton) and current WilmerHale partner, commenting to Washingtonian magazine on the decision of fellow former S.G. Paul Clement to resign from King & Spalding and join Bancroft PLLC. At Bancroft, the D.C. boutique law firm founded by former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, Clement will continue to represent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives in its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Blade Runner and the Future of Law

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I’ve got news for you: The future of practicing law will not be about cloud computing. It won’t be about tablets or offshoring or client self-help or virtual law offices. It won’t be about e-discovery, or practice management, or paperless offices. Yes, these things will certainly all happen; many are happening now, and a number of them are helping to give small firms an advantage, or at least level the playing field. But they will not be the biggest change in our industry.

I recently gave a speech on what the practice of law would look like in 2019. I chose that year for two reasons. First, it’s the year that the classic sci-fi movie Blade Runner takes place, with a younger-than-Calista-Flockhart-is-now Harrison Ford playing a cop who rides in flying cars and hunts robots that look like humans.

I’ve got news for you, guys: There won’t be any flying cars eight years from now. (Which is probably just as well, as people will insist on texting while flying.)

But the other reason I chose 2019 is because it will be the hundredth anniversary of something nearly every lawyer deals with all day every day.…

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Shutting Lawyers Up, and the Power of Constraints

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.

I’m reporting to you live from Chicago at the 25th Annual ABA TechShow, where an amazing group of passionate lawyers from around the country have gathered to talk and teach about the future of law practice. While many of the programs deal with technology, the underlying theme seems to be that change is coming to our industry, and we should probably figure this stuff out before it’s too late.

As Elie reported yesterday, I had the chance to present at the IgniteLaw 2011 program, which made for a pre-Conference kickoff Sunday night. I’m not going to talk about my presentation here — suffice to say it included references to Blade Runner, cannibalistic English food, and Hale and Dorr’s WilmerHale’s invention of the billable hour in 1919. (That was the same year that Prohibition started. Coincidence? I think not.)

Instead, I’m going to talk about the constraints placed on every speaker — because they were frickin’ crazy.…

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Latham Officially Launches Its Boston Office

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It’s about time. We’ve been writing about the new Boston office of Latham & Watkins for weeks now (here and here), revealing a number of their top lateral hires.

On Wednesday, Latham made its official announcement — and confirmed the accuracy of our prior reporting. All of the partners we previously named as Latham-bound, taken from such top firms as WilmerHale, Proskauer Rose, and Bingham McCutchen, are mentioned.

Let’s take a closer look at the L&W crew, and also learn about additional attorneys who are joining up (including associates)….

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