Fenwick & West

When it comes to fighting disease, Fenwick & West partner Michael Shuster takes things personally.

Some junior associates fared well, but midlevel and senior associates seem unhappy.

There's surprisingly little change in this year's list, but it's still always interesting to see who's rising and who's falling.

Many Biglaw associates are happy with their bonuses -- but not some associates at these firms.

* SCOTUS seems divided over its greenhouse gas regulation case. Just remember, justices, there’s “no such thing as greenhouse gas,” and if you think there is, you can “go f@ck yourself and die.” [Legal Times]

* DLA Piper, Fenwick & West, and William Fry are advising on the King.com (aka Candy Crush) IPO. Cool. Know that the public will refuse to invest until those damn chocolate blockers go away. [The Lawyer]

* “Guys like them are the reason people hate lawyers.” When your lawyers do you this badly, you end up living in one of their homes as part of a settlement. Of course this happened in Florida. [Sun Sentinel]

* If you’re in the market for an apartment, we hear Brooklyn Law School just sold a bunch of its student housing to a real estate developer. Per the dean, the school is now so small the apartments were unnecessary. Yikes. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

* Amanda Bynes took a plea deal on her DUI charge. She’ll serve three years of probation and pay a fine. Maybe when she’s done, she’ll pull a Lohan and appear naked in a movie. Young men can hope. [CNN]

Which law firm prevailed in our 2013 holiday card contest?

Which of these law firm holiday cards is the best of 2013? Cast your vote!

* Congrats to @FenwickWest on landing the big Twitter IPO! #yaylegalfees [American Lawyer]

* The Deal Professor, Steven Davidoff, surveys the legal landscape around the Twitter filing, focusing on the #JOBSAct. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Jamie McCourt, a former family law attorney, strikes out in trying to set aside her divorce settlement with Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. She’s stuck with $131 million and several luxury homes. #richpeopleproblems [National Law Journal (sub. req.)]

* An inquest reveals that a Hogan Lovells partner who took his own life had warned a colleague that he was going to kill himself the day before his death. [Daily Mail via ABA Journal]

* Good news for the news business: the Senate Judiciary Committee approves a federal media-shield bill. [Washington Wire / Wall Street Journal]

* Nathan Myhrvold, the CEO of a patent holding company, warns that anti-patent-troll sentiment could have unforeseen consequences. [Corporate Counsel]

* Praise in the WSJ for Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare (affiliate link), the new book by Professor Josh Blackman (who recently wrote a guest post for us on Supreme Court beauty contests). [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Congrats to George Mason Law on its two high-profile hires: D.C. Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Covington antitrust partner Damien Geradin. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]

* If you’re in New York this weekend, go see Arguendo. Or buy tickets for the 7 p.m. performance on September 22, when I’ll be doing a talkback with artistic director John Collins after the show. Enter the discount code “ABOVE” for $35 tickets (a special rate for ATL readers). [Public Theater]

Which firms had the highest revenue last year, according to the latest Am Law 200 rankings?

What qualities should law firms look for in their leaders? Anonymous Partner shares his thoughts.

Here are the finalists for our fourth annual holiday card contest. Please vote for your favorite!

Which Biglaw firm faces more competition in the race to represent exciting new startups?

Which major law firms get top scores for diversity?

* With help from Fenwick & West, Facebook snatched up Instagram in a $1B deal that closed in just 54 hours. That’s a big accomplishment, but the bigger one was valuing a company that helps f**k up your photos at such a high price. [Am Law Daily]

* Senator Dick Durbin is trying to collect stories about soul-crushing law school debt in an effort to reform lending laws, but law students and new lawyers aren’t speaking up about the problem. Hey, Dick, it’s time to start reading Above the Law. [National Law Journal]

* Apparently sarcasm is lost upon mention of George Zimmerman, so let’s play this one straight. The man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin has set up a website to solicit money for his defense fund. Actually, that’s a pretty great punchline on it’s own. [MSNBC]

* A judge has refused to reduce accused “Millionaire Madam” Anna Gristina’s $2M bail. With her alleged clientele, you’d think she’d be able to afford it. Come on, John Edwards gets $400 haircuts. He’s probably willing to pay top dollar for his call girls. [Bloomberg]

* Amanda Bynes wasn’t drunk on alcohol, she was drunk on emotions, claims her daddy. That’s a defense that will totally stand up in court on a DUI charge. [New York Daily News]

* How many friend requests did these firms just get? Fenwick & West and Simpson Thacher are the Biglaw stars of Facebook’s S-1 filing for its $5B initial public offering. Like. [Am Law Daily] * The prosecution is expected to make its arguments today in Julian Assange’s appeal of his extradition from the U.K. to […]

Many law firms send out rather lame holiday cards, cards that marketing guru Ross Fishman would describe as “boring pieces of crap.” Thankfully that wasn’t the case for the eleven finalists in our third annual law firm holiday card contest. Some of these cards were clever, some were beautiful, and some were funny. All of […]

The field of contenders for our third annual law firm holiday card contest was more impressive than ever. It's not too late to vote for your favorite -- you have until January 3. Let's look at this year's finalists, and get to the voting....

Law firm diversity matters. It matters to corporate clients, many of them public companies that want to demonstrate their commitment to diversity through their selection of vendors and service providers — which is what law firms are, at the end of the day. It matters to the law students and lawyers that firms are trying […]

The official title of the NALP conference panel that I attended on merit-based compensation contained a playful shout-out to Sarah Palin: “How Is That Performance-Based Compensation System Working for Ya?” The panel was originally supposed to have featured a representative of the now-defunct Howrey law firm. So the snarky answer to the question presented might […]

Our law firm holiday card contest is still underway, but we’re in the home stretch. Voting closes tomorrow, January 9, at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern time). If you haven’t done so already, review the finalists and vote over here. In the our earlier post, we promised a post in which we’d (1) give shout-outs to some […]