Here we are. The end of the Vault 100.

To be on the Vault 100 is to be a well-known firm. Sure, maybe not well-known to law students or junior associates who can’t see past the mountain of doc review boxes in their windowless conference rooms. But known to partners … and clients. Look down your nose at these firms if you wish, but remember the old African proverb: “The smallest elephant can still crush your Lexus.”

Here is the final batch of top law firms for discussion:

91. Stroock & Stroock & Lavan
92. Blank Rome
93. Seyfarth Shaw
94. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
95. Manatt Phelps & Phillips
96. Squire Sanders & Dempsey
97. Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
98. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler
99. Wiley Rein
100. Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo

What say you about these fine firms? Some final thoughts after the jump.

Earlier this month, we told you that Hogan & Hartson was moving associates who are not on track to make their hours down to the firm’s lower paying 1,800 hours track. It appears that Wiley Rein is following that lead. We’ve received reports that Wiley is involuntarily moving associates not on track to bill 1,950 hours through the first quarter of 2009 down to its 1,800 hours track. The new base salary for those associates starts at $125,000.

The firm did not respond to Above the Law’s requests for comments. But Wiley Rein has long had two different tracks for associate compensation. According to the firm’s website:

Wiley Rein’s associate salaries are competitive with those paid by other major Washington, DC law firms. We remain committed to the goal of maintaining a healthy work environment, allowing our associates to make decisions in the office that have a positive impact on their lives outside the firm. We are also committed to allowing associates to choose their level of work and compensation.

In keeping with these twin goals, we have established a two-tiered salary structure based on billable levels— the current starting salary levels are $125,000 at the 1,800 billable hours level and $160,000 at the 1,950 level. Associates receive deferred compensation if they bill 1,950 hours. The firm also provides half of the deferred compensation amount for those who reach 1,875 billable hours.

Is this a salary cut? Tipsters weigh in after the jump.

In late October, we received this question from a federal clerk:

To date, I’ve seen at least six posts in a series ATL has been doing about firms rescinding unaccepted summer associate offers to 2L’s due to oversubscription of the summer class. I would be interested to know whether firms are actually, or at least contemplating, rescinding unaccepted offers for full-time associate positions that were being held open for former summer associates that are doing judicial clerkships this year?

I have an offer from a biglaw firm and was assured (albeit almost one year ago) that my offer would be held open until I had completed my clerkship and could formally accept. Needless to say, I am getting more than a bit nervous about whether my job will still be waiting for me come September ‘09.

At the time, we told the questioner that we hadn’t heard anything like that from any major law firm during this recruiting cycle. Nobody’s going to rescind offers to clerks!

We thought.

We hoped.

Yesterday, we had a couple of interesting conversations with folks over at Wiley Rein. We now believe that the chair of Wiley Rein’s recruiting committee placed a number of phone calls over the weekend to current judicial clerks. The recruiting coordinator was careful to say that Wiley was not “rescinding” offers, but that the clerks should seriously consider looking at other options for full-time employment when their clerkships are up.

More details after the jump.

Thanks for all of the tips in response to our Friday post on no-offers. We are investigating various leads and will bring you a series of posts based on what we learn.

We’ll start with Wiley Rein. The firm’s 2008 summer class was oversubscribed, but only four summer associates paid the price. We’d been hearing reports that Wiley gave offers to 34 out of 38 SAs, and the firm has now confirmed the news.

Kay Nash, director of professional development and attorney recruiting at Wiley, said over email:

As is always the case here, everyone who deserved an offer received one, despite our higher numbers this summer. We are confident that we can comfortably accommodate the excellent students to whom we extended offers. We always aim for approximately 25 new associates, but gave a significantly higher number of offers reflecting the strength of our summer class.

A few tipsters pointed out that Wiley’s class may have been oversubscribed due to the huge fees the firm earned as part of the 2006 Blackberry litigation. The settlement pushed Wiley’s profits per partner all the way to number one for 2006.

Thirty-four offers out of an expected 25 slots suggests that Wiley is doing the best they can. But that probably does not mean a lot to the four fallen. We pour out our 40 to the undeserving four.

Earlier: Fall Recruiting Open Thread: No Offer, No Cry

As we expected, celebrity professors Cass Sunstein and Samatha Power were the winners of last week’s July Couple of the Month voting, running away with over 60 percent of the vote. Congratulations to this nerdy-hot duo!

This week’s set of contestants might be the strongest we’ve seen this season. Their write-ups feature five Harvard degrees, a Rhodes, and one of Biglaw’s most exalted surnames. Here are the names of the newlyweds:

1. Geneviève Treuille and Daniel Wachtell

2. Melissa Langsam and Todd Braunstein

3. Amanda Schwoerke and Stephen Sachs

Read more about these couples — and see their pictures — after the jump.

Yesterday, we criticized law schools for slavishly following the dictates of U.S. News and World Report. But a law firm responding to associate concerns is a different matter entirely.

A tipster informs us that Wiley Rein associates were told that up to 50 pro-bono hours would be credited towards meeting billable targets.

Firm Chairman Richard Wiley delivered the message personally to associates at an afternoon lunch yesterday. The new policy could be a response to the firm’s low pro-bono commitment rating in this month’s AmLaw midlevel survey (subscription).

Is 50 hours a “commitment,” or merely lip-service? How does the new Wiley Rein policy stack up with your firm’s?

American Lawyer Midlevel Associates Survey [American Lawyer (subscription)]

Earlier: The American Lawyer Midlevel Associates Survey: Open Thread

Some of you have wondered about the delay in choosing finalists for the ATL Caption Contest. We did not forget about it; we just wanted to save a little Easter for April, the proper month for the holiday. Easter in March is just plain wrong.

As a refresher, this is the photo of President Bush and his White House Counsel — Fred Fielding, former senior partner at Wiley Rein (fka Wiley Rein & Fielding), dressed up as the Easter Bunny — at the White House Easter Egg Roll last month. Without further ado, out of 200 comments, these are our ten finalists. [FN1]

A. “I left a firm with over $4 million in PPP to do THIS???” -Anonymous

B. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare discuss the legality of waterboarding the Dormouse. -Klerk

C. “Mr. President, I wanted to let you know that I put the last of those White House e-mails down the rabbit hole.” -Anonymous

D. Yeah, well, nobody wants to be the guy that told the POTUS there is no Easter Bunny and Cheney said that if I play along I’ll get a Supreme Court nomination. Hey, whatever happened with that Harriet woman? -Anonymous

E. I dressed up in this bunny suit and all I got was a feature on ATL. -Anonymous

F. After ignoring the rule of law for seven years, President Bush finally found a use for the White House Counsel. -Anonymous

G. “Someone please tell me that’s not a wombat behind me.” -Anonymous

H. I guess that answers the question of whether its better to get a JD or an MBA. -Anonymous

I. Fred (thinking): “That f-n headhunter promised me I would be supporting the President on matters of national importance. G-d D-MN it!” -Anonymous

J. George: Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
Bunny: Why do you wear that stupid man suit? -133t

We invite you to vote for the winner after the jump. Poll closes at midnight tomorrow.

[FN1] There were many funny comments, but we exercised a bias in favor of those with a legal connection.

Earlier: ATL Caption Contest: Mr. Easter Bunny, White House Counsel Fred Fielding
The rabbit behind the man: White House counsel Fred Fielding [Washington Post]

Here’s a photo of President Bush and his White House Counsel — Fred Fielding, former senior partner at Wiley Rein (fka Wiley Rein & Fielding), dressed up as the Easter Bunny — at the White House Easter Egg Roll earlier this week:

Quips our tipster: “One can only hope Fielding isn’t splitting hares. Or giving hare-brained advice.”

Okay, you’re groaning. Think you can do better? Then enter the ATL caption contest. Same rules as before:

We welcome your suggested alternative captions, in the comments. Assuming sufficient response, we’ll take our favorites, incorporate them into a poll, and hold a caption contest.

We doubt we’ll receive as many submissions as we did for our last caption contest. But we’re going to limit the entries this time: we’re closing the comments if and when we hit the 100-comment mark. So if you’d like to enter the contest, don’t delay. Thanks.

Update (2 PM): Okay, we’ll let it get up to 200 comments. We especially appreciate suggested captions that are in some way law-related. What makes this picture relevant to ATL is the fact that the man in the bunny suit is President Bush’s chief lawyer (and a former name partner of a leading D.C. law firm).

If we just wanted to post a random, funny photo of the president with the Easter bunny, we would have used this one.

Update (4:50 PM): You seem to be having a lot of fun with this, so we will keep the comments open indefinitely. But in picking the finalists, we will focus on comments that have a connection to the legal profession (as opposed to comments that are more politically oriented or simply random).

Update (3/31/08): Thanks for all the excellent entries. The comments section is now closed.

The rabbit behind the man: White House counsel Fred Fielding [Washington Post]
Bush Hugging Bunny [Wonkette]

Here’s an update to last week’s post about how various law firms fared in recruiting summer associates for this year. That post, including the comments, featured oodles of info about the expected summer class sizes at different Biglaw shops.

Now we bring you a few more data points. First, just a few short hours after our post went up, this email went around the New York office of Latham & Watkins:

As we move forward into 2008, the Recruiting Committee and the Recruiting Department would like to thank each of you for your support and participation in last year’s recruiting efforts. Your involvement in the summer program and our fall recruiting efforts was “priceless”. Thanks to your efforts, our summer program and fall hiring results were incredibly successful. The recruiting efforts resulted in 61 first years (not including judicial clerks, which we are currently in the midst of recruiting) starting next fall and a summer class of 80 summer associates (our largest to date!). Thank you all again and a very happy and healthy 2008 to each of you.

It’s nice when firms are so responsive to our inquiries.

In addition, a few tipsters emailed us unofficial information about how their firms did in the recruiting process. Check it out, after the jump.

We now yield the floor to Laurie Lin. Who better to report on one of the year’s biggest social events than the writer of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch? Over to you, Laurie.

****************
Ambition and Old Spice wafted sweetly through the air last night at the Federalist Society’s 25th Anniversary Gala at Union Station — a kind of right-wing Golden Globes. Nearly two thousand G-ed up conservative lawyers packed the main hall to hear President George W. Bush blast the Senate on judicial confirmations:

“Today, good men and women nominated to the federal bench are finding that inside the Beltway, too many interpret ‘advise and consent’ to mean ‘search and destroy,’” Bush said.

Tickets to the black-tie affair were $250 — actually $249, because there was a new $1 Madison coin at every place setting — but that was a small price to pay to breathe the same oxygen as Ted Olson, Antonin Scalia, and Laura Ingraham.

More on the conservative legal fabulosity — including pictures of the people who didn’t hide when they saw us coming — after the jump.

What’s the hot new trend in Biglaw? Two-track systems for associates. They’re regarded as a sensible way for law firms to address the twin challenges of (1) higher associate salaries and (2) associate attrition (often due to a frustration with long hours).

Here’s word of the latest law firm to join the party, from NYLawyer.com (reg. req’d):

Chapman and Cutler, a Chicago-based firm with three offices and about 220 attorneys, has joined the parade of firms boosting first-year associate pay to $160,000, but the firm is taking a new path once associates reach their second year.

Second-year associates can opt for one of two compensation tracks at the firm under a new system that took effect last month, said Rick Cosgrove, who is chief executive partner at the firm. They can choose to work fewer hours at a lower pay level or more hours at a higher salary level, he said.

Cosgrove declined to specify the hours required and related pay rates under the new pay program for competitive reasons.

If you have info on the Chapman and Cutler scale that you’d be willing to share, please email us. According to a poster at Greedy Chicago:

The higher track is essentially Biglaw market, so long as you hit 2000 billables/year. The lower track is compressed to about $5k-$10k/year, depending on class year, and you need to hit 1850.

Other firms with two-track systems (click on each firm’s name for a memo and/or details): Hogan & Hartson, Wiley Rein, Fenwick & West, and Thelen (formerly Thelen Reid, and FYI, “Thelen” rhymes with “wheelin’”; see here).

Do you have an opinion about this two-tiered approach? If so, vote in our reader polls, after the jump.

Lawyers are living large, not just in Miami and New York, but in Washington, too.

The Luxury Homes column, in the current issue of Washingtonian magazine, features the recent real estate purchases of two prominent lawyers. First up: political and legal commentator Laura Ingraham, who has a pretty amazing resume (UVA Law, Clarence Thomas clerkship, Skadden), especially by radio personality standards:

Conservative pundit and radio host Laura Ingraham sold a three-bedroom, four-bath Colonial rowhouse on 28th Street in Woodley Park for $1.3 million. Built in 1922, the renovated home has an in-law suite, two kitchens, and a skylit master bedroom. The Laura Ingraham Show is broadcast on 340 radio stations nationwide.

Very nice. Next up: another conservative legal celebrity, Fred Fielding:

White House counsel Fred Fielding and his wife, Maria, sold a five-bedroom, six-bath Colonial in Arlington’s Country Club Hills for $1.8 million. The house has embassy-size entertaining rooms. Before joining the Bush administration in January, Fielding was a senior partner at Wiley Rein (formerly Wiley Rein & Fielding).

Despite the “embassy-size entertaining rooms,” a sub-$2 million house seems a tad underwhelming, especially for a former name partner of 2006’s most profitable law firm. Are the Fieldings trading up to bigger digs?

Using a combination of internet resources, we tracked down what we believe to be the houses in question, on Zillow. You can check out the listings, with pics, after the jump.

We haven’t given this cute little anecdote the full X-Summers treatment, since it doesn’t involve scandal, and it doesn’t conclude with anyone getting fired or no-offered. But we pass it along in case some of you might find it entertaining.

From a source at Wiley Rein in Washington:

We have an excellent summer class with no scandals — although one [female summer associate] did ask if all these signs in D.C. saying “No parking or standing” meant that there had been a real problem with people standing around a lot beneath them.

After explaining the meaning, we then asked whether this had in fact impacted her behavior — i.e., whether she had wanted to stand somewhere but felt she couldn’t because of the sign. Indeed it had.

Per our standard policy, please do not name this individual (or speculate about her identity) in the comments. Thanks.

So what’s Wiley Rein LLP going to do with its record-setting profits per partner from last year?

One possibility (for a small portion of the haul): Pay off the $1.25 million fine that Judge Alvin Hellerstein (S.D.N.Y.) just slapped them with, for allegedly withholding information about an insurance policy in the World Trade Center insurance coverage litigation.

Judge Fines Firms For Withholding Policy Information [New York Sun]

Earlier: Skaddenfreude: Wiley Rein Dethrones Wachtell Lipton as America’s Most Profitable Biglaw

Some hiring news from the White House counsel’s office, via the WSJ Law Blog:

Though many of these White House hires have been reported already elsewhere, its press office issued an official release — dateline “Rostock, Germany” — announcing nine lawyers White House Counsel Fred Fielding has added to his “great little law firm.”

President Bush has named J. Michael Farren, former general counsel of Xerox, to succeed William Kelley as deputy counsel. Kelley is returning to Notre Dame University later this month. Farren has long ties to the Bush family. He served in various roles under Bush I.

New special counsels are William Burck, who’s returned to the White House from the DOJ, and Emmet Flood, who comes from Williams & Connolly. The six new associate counsels are Kate Todd (pictured) , Amy Dunathan and Al Lambert, all from Fielding’s old firm, now called Wiley Rein (it dropped the Fielding); Scott Coffina, formerly a partner at Montgomery McCracken in Philly; Francis Hoang, an associate at Williams & Connolly and Michael Purpura, a top aide to deputy AG Paul McNulty. McNulty resigned amid the controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

A fun factoid: France Hong is one of D.C.’s most eligible bachelors, according to Washingtonian magazine. And he snagged that honor even before landing the coveted credential of a White House perch.

Personnel Announcement [White House]
White House Staffs Up Its “Great Little Law Firm” [WSJ Law Blog]
France Hoang, 32 [Washingtonian]

Earlier: Musical Chairs: Fred Fielding Beefs Up the White House Counsel’s Office
Prior ATL coverage of the White House Counsel’s Office (scroll down)

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin. The AmLaw 100 rankings — The American Lawyer’s closely watched, annual listing of the hundred largest law firms in the United States, ranked by revenue — are now available.

We’ll have more to say on the rankings later. Their release is a big story, deserving of multiple posts. They’re like the U.S. News and World Report law school rankings, but for the world of Biglaw, and they can be viewed from many different angles. Although the firms are ranked by revenue, the rankings are accompanied by other juicy data — including information about profits per partner.

For the time being, here’s the “money quote,” quite literally, from the WSJ Law Blog:

Wiley Rein broke the record for the highest profits per partner ever recorded by the magazine — $4.4 million. Why? The Washington, D.C., law firm represented patent-holding company NTP in its nearly five-year legal battle with RIM, and earned more than $200 million in fees from the case. It received approximately one-third of the $612.5 million settlement that RIM agreed to pay NTP to avert a potential court-ordered BlackBerry shutdown. The firm also shortened its name from Wiley Rein & Fielding after Fred Fielding left the firm to become White House counsel.

So New York’s Wachtell Lipton, which has sat atop the profits-per-partner rankings for many years, has been displaced. Interestingly enough, though, Wiley Rein didn’t beat Wachtell by THAT much, considering the massive contingency fee it received from the RIM-BlackBerry settlement. Wiley Rein had PPP of $4,435,000; Wachtell Lipton had PPP of $3,975,000.

(And if you look at the chart for Compensation — All Partners (subscription), WLRK still comes out on top, with $3.975 million per partner. Wiley Rein has a two-tier partnership, so its Compensation Per Partner figure, which reflects compensation paid to non-equity as well as equity partners, is only — only! — $2.7 million.)

The Wiley Rein windfall reminds of when Robins Kaplan got that huge, one-time payout for its tobacco-related work. In the AmLaw 100 rankings for 2000, based on 1999 revenue and profit figures, the Minneapolis-based firm boasted profits per partner of over $3 million — beating Cravath and all the other New York shops that year, except for Wachtell.

Do you have any juicy, AmLaw 100-related gossip? Tales of shameless attempts to manipulate the rankings? Stories about unhappy partners ranting over their firm’s placement over this morning’s coffee? Please send ‘em our way.

A table and links, after the jump.

Fred Fielding, the former name partner of Wiley Rein & Fielding who is now settling in as White House counsel (for the second time), has brought in some reinforcements. They come from his former shop, Wiley Rein & Fielding (now known simply as Wiley Rein).

Three former Wiley Rein-sters, a partner and two associates, are joining Fielding over at the White House. They are:

1. Kate Comerford Todd (top right). This brilliant and beautiful member of the Elect (OT 2000/Thomas), whose husband is a current Supreme Court clerk (OT 2006/Alito), was a highly regarded young litigation partner at Wiley Rein.

Now Kate Todd is moving over to the White House. We’re uncertain of her seniority level over there (deputy level?). If you know, please enlighten us.

2. Amy Dunathan. Comerford will be joined by the similarly delicious Amy Dunathan (at right). Dunathan worked on the Hill before going to law school, so she’s a smart pick, given that the White House will be tangling quite a bit with the ascendant Democrats. She worked directly with Fielding on several projects during her time as a Wiley Rein associate.

3. Al Lambert. Lambert, also a former associate at Wiley Rein, brings a significant amount of experience in white-collar investigatory work — which will come in handy at the White House nowadays. Lambert worked extensively on the David Safavian case, as well as other white-collar matters.

Congratulations and good luck to Comerford, Dunathan, and Lambert!

P.S. We can’t find a photo of Al Lambert, which is why we don’t engage in any lip-smacking over him.

Kathryn Comerford Todd bio [Wiley Rein via Google Cache]
Amy F. Dunathan bio [Wiley Rein via Google Cache]
Judge Throws Out Jury Verdict in Iraq Fraud Case [Wiley Rein]

We don’t have memos, but we can confirm associate pay raises at two large law firms:

(1) D.C. powerhouse Wiley Rein & Fielding, former home of the new White House counsel, Fred Fielding; and

(2) Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, home of Silicon Valley legal god Larry Sonsini (although a god who, in the past year or so, has shown signs of being fallible).

More details, plus your comments, after the jump.

* Oh good, Cully says pro bono is ok again. [Washington Post; Washington Post (letter to the editor) via WSJ Law Blog]

* “Two things made Christopher Willever’s drunken burglary of a Tobacco Hut even worse as he crawled across the store floor — a lousy belt and his camera-loving backside.” [MSNBC]

* U.S. Attorneys’ increasing rate of attrition. [Wall Street Journal via WSJ Law Blog (departures generally); WSJ Law Blog (Kevin Ryan)]

* Tennessee is tennetaxin’ illegal drugs. [Time]

* Time for new business cards and letterhead over at Wiley Rein & Fielding [Legal Times]

* The mystery raised here has been answered. Richard Posner isn’t the only federal government official who likes to blog. [Opinion Juris]

* Gay Sullivan & Cromwell partner David Braff, to the New York Times: “I’ve been openly gay since I arrived at this firm in 1984. There’s absolutely no atmosphere of hostility toward gay people here.”
[New York Times via DealBook]

* The fight over whether Judge Stephen S. Trott’s seat on the Ninth Circuit belongs to Idaho or California has been resolved — for now. [How Appealing]

Fred Fielding, the incoming White House counsel, did pretty well for himself when the Blackberry litigation was settled. His firm, Wiley Rein & Fielding, represented NTP, the patent holding company that won a $612.5 million settlement from Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry. Wiley Rein took the case on a contingency-fee basis. Ka-ching!

But some people did even better than Fielding — like Donald Stout (at right), patent lawyer to the late inventor, Thomas Campana. Here’s an explanation of how the Blackberry spoils were divvied up:

Biggest single winner was Joletta Campana, widowed second wife and former secretary of patent-holder Thomas Campana Jr., who received one-third [of the $612.5 million,] or about $200 million. Wiley, Rein & Fielding also received $200 million, a huge sum given that in 2004 the Washington, D.C. firm’s two hundred and fifty lawyers generated about $140 million in total revenue. The final $200 million was shared by Donald Stout and some colleagues at his Alexandria-based law firm.

So how did Donald Stout spend his windfall? On real estate, of course. From Washingtonian magazine, via Wonkette, here’s an account of “The Stouthouse”:

Lawyer Donald Stout put up $6.8 million for a 15,000 square-foot Georgian on more than four acres near the Madeira School in Great Falls, VA — this after his Arlington patent-holding firm won a settlement against the makers of BlackBerry and earned him $177 million. HGTV’s Dream Builders featured the six-bedroom, ten-bath house in a segment taped before the sale.

Here are some photographs (Zillow on the left, Google Maps on the right):

WOW. This place makes the Feldsuk house look like a law school dorm. At a Tier 4 school.

For those of you who share our obsession with high-end real estate, there’s more discussion of The Stouthouse, plus links, after the jump.