Above The Law's Top 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2016
Not all news years are created equal, and 2016 was a big one.
Whether you loved it or hated it, there’s no denying that 2016 was a banner year for legal news. Every year has its big stories, of course, but those of 2016 were particularly yuge. Thanks to all this news, Above the Law experienced an increase in traffic in 2016 over 2015, in terms of both pageviews and unique visitors, as well as a record for monthly uniques (almost 1.5 million visitors).
What were the biggest stories of 2016? Here are my four personal picks.
In February, we learned of the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia — a justice who was, at least in my opinion, one of the greatest to ever grace the Supreme Court. (Yes, progressives, your dissent is duly noted.) President-elect Donald Trump has promised us a SCOTUS nominee “pretty soon,” and that person will probably get confirmed by the Republican Senate, but there’s truly no replacing Justice Scalia.
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In June, Cravath Swaine & Moore, the archetypal Biglaw firm, raised associate base salaries, to a new scale starting at $180,000. This pay hike — the first salary increase in almost a decade, since Simpson Thacher’s move to the $160,000 scale in January 2007 — quickly reverberated throughout the industry and across the country.
In November, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, scoring a surprise win that stunned many (including veteran pollsters). Some might say this is more of a political than legal story, but there’s no denying that Trump’s election will have major consequences for the legal world, affecting everything from who will replace Justice Scalia (hint: probably one of these 21 people) to how much lawyers pay in taxes to diversity in the legal profession (at least in the eyes of my more pessimistic colleagues).
Later on in November, Cravath announced its 2016 associate bonuses. Cravath used the 2015 bonus scale, and many other firms followed suit. This move was more important than it might have seemed at first glance because it reified the raises from June. Some associates feared that their firms would raise base salaries but then reduce bonuses, but after Cravath rejected that approach, it closed off that option (at least for firms that consider themselves peer firms — and everyone likes to consider themselves a Cravath peer).
So those are my choices for the big stories of 2016. But that’s just me; what about you, the readers of Above the Law? You voted with your clicks, and we will now share with you the 10 biggest stories at ATL from last year (an annual tradition we’ve done in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009).
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Before turning to individual stories, let’s review the top general discussion topics here at Above the Law. After the homepage, our next most-visited destination was the category page for Biglaw — not surprising, given that this was a big year for Biglaw. This was followed by our 2016 law school rankings, the page devoted to the 2016 salary increase, the category page of law schools, and the category page for small law firms (which beat out the category page for bonuses, reflecting our increased focus on small and boutique firms here at ATL).
This brings us to our top 10 individual stories for 2016,[1] in ascending order of popularity, measured in pageviews as reported by Google Analytics. Click on the title of each post to be taken to the original story. Note that pageviews do not necessarily match up with importance or seriousness. For example, you won’t see any mention of Justice Scalia’s passing, even though that was one of the biggest legal news stories of the year (but also one where we had a lot of competition; most of the stories below are ones that we either broke or took the lead on).
10. The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak: The Top 50. Status-obsessed lawyers love their rankings, and the U.S. News law school rankings are some of the most loved — and loathed — in the entire legal profession.
9. BREAKING: The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak! What were we just saying about lawyers loving law school rankings?
8. Which Vault Top 25 Firms Have Not Yet Announced Raises? Also catnip to lawyers: money and prestige. A few days after Cravath announced its pay raise, we called out the most prestigious firms that had not yet followed suit.
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7. The Best Transcript Of All Time? You Be The Judge. Readers increasingly come to ATL for industry news (see most of the other top 10 stories) and career advice, but there’s still a place for hilarity and insanity, to help make those billable hours pass more quickly. Take this amazing transcript. How often do you hear a defendant tell a judge to go f**k himself — and, perhaps more stunningly, hear the judge tell the defendant that he “look[s] like a queer,” before urging the defendant to “jack off” in open court?
6. Associate Bonus Watch: Cravath Announces Its 2016 Associate Bonuses! I heard a funny story about a Biglaw partner speaking at a “town hall” and telling irate associates something like “every firm does bonuses differently” and “there isn’t really a ‘market scale’ for bonuses.” Sorry, but there is such a scale, and it’s this one.
5. Here’s Why You Don’t Deserve The Same Raise… In Pictures. My colleague Joe Patrice made the controversial case against nationwide adoption of the Cravath base salary scale (controversial to, for example, Texas associates, who enjoy salaries of $180,000-plus along with no state income tax and reasonably priced housing).
4. The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak: The Top 100. See #10 and #9, supra.
3. Salary Wars Scorecard: Which Firms Have Announced Raises? As a service to Biglaw associates (and hiring partners and recruiting coordinators), my colleague Staci Zaretsky prepared this handy chart listing which firms raised salaries post-Cravath and by how much.
2. City Attorney Spraying Anti-Trump Graffiti While Drinking Wine Is All We Have Left. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, my colleague Elie Mystal penned this eloquent column, simultaneously sad and hilarious, about a city lawyer, “wearing an ascot, holding a glass of wine, who tagged an upscale supermarket.” The post went viral on social media, with more than 61,000 shares.
1. Breaking: NY To $180K!!! Cravath Raises Associate Base Salaries!!! It’s no surprise that the Cravath pay raise was our biggest story of the year. It’s the biggest Biglaw news in a long, long time, with widespread implications for law firm recruiting, associate career paths, and partner profits. It also demonstrated Cravath’s continued leadership in the legal profession, reflected in its #1 ranking in both Above the Law’s Biglaw firm rankings and the Vault 100 prestige rankings (where CSM ended Wachtell Lipton’s thirteen-year reign at the top).
So those were the 10 most popular stories on Above the Law for 2016. Will 2017 be quite as exciting? Probably not.
But what kind of year 2017 shapes up to be will depend in large part upon you, our readers. Many of our biggest and best stories over the years have come from tipsters telling us what’s going on at their law firm, law school, or other setting within the legal profession. In the year ahead, please help us to enlighten and entertain lawyers and law students, and to bring transparency to an often opaque profession, by emailing us or texting us (646-820-8477) with noteworthy news.
Speaking of the number 10, last year Above the Law celebrated its tenth anniversary. As we start the new year, we’d like to extend our thanks to the readers, sources, and sponsors who have brought us to this milestone. With your continued support, our second decade will be even more fun and fabulous than the first.
[1] For purposes of this listing, intended to serve as a look back at 2016’s biggest stories, we excluded posts published in prior years that racked up major traffic in 2016 — e.g., so-called “evergreen content” like An Overview Of California’s New (And Improved) Medical Marijuana Laws (by star columnist Hilary Bricken), The Best Bar Exam Prep Courses (by ATL research director Brian Dalton), and 9 Non-Legal Jobs You Can (Really, Truly) Do With a Law Degree (by Casey Berman of Leave Law Behind).
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].
