Author: TSA Press

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) says Ecobank is responsible for releasing the wads of brand new notes circulating on social media.

A new report by the American Bar Association and ALM Intelligence, called “Walking Out the Door: The Facts, Figures and Future of Experienced Women Lawyers in Private Practice,” surveyed more than 1,200 Biglaw attorneys to find out why women are leaving the Biglaw life. Because while law schools are pretty regularly hitting between 45 and 52 percent women enrolled, it drops off in practice — only 20 percent of law firm equity partners are women in 2018. What they found was wildly differences in perceptions about what firms are doing to promote gender diversity.

For example, they asked managing partners if their firms were “active advocates of gender diversity,” and 82 percent said yes. Ninety-one percent of men surveyed agreed as well, but only 62 percent of women were on board. Similarly, 84 percent of managing partners agreed that their firms promote women into leadership. And while 75 percent of men also thought so, a dismal 55 percent of women agreed. When asked if their firms have success retaining experienced women, 74 percent of managing partners said yes, compared with 64 percent of men, and a mere 47 percent of women who agreed.

And as study co-author Stephanie Scharf told Law.com, this is a problem:

“The data suggests that firms may not understand how their own people are viewing the policy and practices that they are implementing with respect to advancing women,” said study co-author Stephanie Scharf, a partner with the women-owned firm Scharf Banks Marmor and chair of the ABA’s commission on women in the profession.

The other co-author, Roberta Liebenberg, senior partner at Fine Kaplan and Black, pointed to an overall culture of bias in Biglaw, calling it “death by a thousand cuts. It’s not one thing, but an accumulation of experiences they believe are different because of their gender.” For example, 50 percent of women surveyed said they’re satisfied with the recognition of their work compared with 70 percent of men. Only 45 percent of women reported satisfaction with their opportunities for advancement, yet 69 percent of men said they were satisfied with their opportunities. Plus a whopping 82 percent of women surveyed said they’ve been mistaken for a low-level employee. Ugh.

It’s pretty clear that firms have to do more than want a gender diverse work environment — they have to take real steps to make it happen.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

With the “Fall” Recruiting Cycle having come to an almost complete close, the legal recruiting world has hit a bit of a lull in the schedule.  Those of us in Career Services have likely shifted to working with 1Ls, and even that is not particularly intense at this moment as that cohort gears up for their first taste of law school final exams  — the notable exception being my peers who work with international LL.M.s, who are likely awash in résumés as the deadlines for LL.M. job fairs are either rapidly approaching or have just passed, depending on which job fair is at issue and how long it takes me to write this column.  On the legal employer side, with much of the Biglaw 2020 2L summer associate class locked in, one might be hard-pressed to find a Carribean beach without at least one legal recruiting professional having drinks with little umbrellas brought to them.

Without the same sort of day-to-day stressors prevalent in the late summer and early fall, this quieter period allows those of us in legal recruiting to be a bit more contemplative about bigger issues and more fundamental matters in this little slice of the legal profession.  Such big-picture thinking has only been amplified this year as we all live through the first iteration of the post-NALP Guidelines era.  One such macro question I have heard bandied about recently is whether On-Campus Interviews (OCI) still serve a purpose in 2019.

On its face, such an inquiry is borderline sacrilegious.  It is quite likely that many of those reading this column obtained their current position through OCI, or at the very least got their first job out of law school via the structured interview process.  Indeed, for many law students, especially those at the nation’s top law schools, going through OCI is an exhausting rite of passage.

From a historical perspective — strangely, actual histories of OCI and how it came to be an integral part of the legal recruitment process are seemingly nonexistent online, so if anyone is looking for a remarkably niche law journal/NALP Bulletin topic, be my guest — OCI makes sense.  Several decades ago, a law student in Boston who wanted to work in Minneapolis, or a Chicago firm looking for students in Texas, would have had a difficult time connecting.  The lone option very well could have been sending out résumés/firm solicitations by mail in the hopes they would be seen by the corresponding parties.

By having firms come to campus, it ensured that employers could meet with at least a subset of the population while students could have access to employers from across the country.

Of course, communication technology has significantly evolved over the last several decades.  An oft-used, but accurate, example is that the average cellphone that nearly everyone currently has in their pocket/purse has more computing power than the entirety of NASA during the Apollo program.  That same device allows a law student to contact all, or nearly all, employers for which s/he might want to work while similarly allowing legal employers to keep in near touch with certain targeted students.  Indeed, through email, text, social media, and more, legal employers can recruit law students at a level typically reserved for five-star high school athletes — hopefully, we can skip the recruiting diaries.

On top of the technological advancements, the last several years have seen an increasingly aggressive push by legal employers to try and snatch up the “top” law student talent earlier and earlier.  OCI calendars around the country have moved further into the summer, but even that has not been enough with firms seeking to collect résumés from students before the summer even starts and schools developing/taking part in off-campus job fairs that have cannibalized OCI.  Not to mention that the entire idea of using initial interviews to cull down the list of job applicants might soon be on its way out.

So with all of this in mind, does OCI still make sense in 2019?  I say yes for a few reasons.  First and foremost, at schools where OCI includes at least a partial lottery process, it provides an opportunity for all parties to go beyond their preconceived notions and what is found on a piece of paper.  By that, I mean that when employers are reviewing candidates, oftentimes they rely on a fixed list of traits in their quest for a “good” attorney.  High grades, top-ranked law school, law journal participation, etc.  Often times, there is a strong correlation between those traits and someone who will go on to become a valuable member of a law firm or other employer.  But the correlation is not 100 percent.  At each and every law school in this country, there are at least a handful of students who might not stand out when looking and their application materials, but once you sit down across from them in a room, they absolutely shine.  Without an at least partial lottery-based OCI, these future attorney gems will likely go undiscovered.  In fact, that is why I think ALL law schools who have an OCI program should make at least part of the interviews lottery-based.  Granted, this will lead to some awkward interviews between students and employers who are not well matched (see, e.g., my OCI interview with Cravath), but the benefits far outweigh the downsides.

OCI also provides an invaluable opportunity for legal recruiting professionals to actually interact in person with one another.  A lot of my job is done via email or, if absolutely necessary, via the phone.  While such basic levels of communication are valuable and can allow a CSO to function, truly strong relationships are developed when CSO staff and legal recruiters are in the same room and can have actual face-to-face conversations.  While there are non-OCI avenues for such interactions — on-campus professional development events, NALP gatherings — OCI provides a rare opportunity to have a large number of legal recruiters come to campus in a relatively short amount of time.  Conversely, it allows recruiters to visit an array of schools and strengthen those relationships.  It is not just legal recruiting professionals either, OCI allows attorneys, often alumni, to come back to campus.  This can strengthen their bond with the law school, a fact that will definitely please those in a law school’s Development Office.  The drawback is that OCI is an expensive endeavor for both law schools and legal employers, not only financially but also in the attorney time and staff resources that have to be invested.  However, it is clear to me that the investment is one that will reap a significant yield.

The legal recruiting world is currently undergoing some significant changes and the Class of 2022 is encountering a much different recruiting ecosystem than that of my colleagues in the Class of 2008.  OCI has long been a tentpole of legal recruiting and while changes and updates are valuable, I do not think we need to abandon the process entirely.  Legal employers, law schools, and most importantly law students would lose far more than they would gain in a world without OCI.

Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

It’s nice, if somewhat boring, to report when a Biglaw firm offers a straight match of the market standard set by Milbank earlier this month. There’s clarity for associates — current and prospective. Unfortunately, that’s just not how every firm rolls. Ropes & Gray announced their bonus schedule today, and while junior associates are clear on what they’ll take home (subject to some conditions, as described below), mid-level and senior associates are not afforded that clarity.

Here’s the bonus grid the firm circulated:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000

Anyone more senior than the class of 2017 is off the grid. The world of individualized compensation could be good, could be bad, or could be average for associates, putting them largely at the mercy of how busy their practice group was this year.

Additionally, Ropes & Gray is the first Biglaw firm to announce bonuses this year that have significant stipulations on them (there will be more before bonus season is over). The target for the bonuses is 1,900 billable and pro bono hours, and the firm may adjust the bonuses up if associates bill “substantially” more than that, or down if they fail to meet the target. Plus, the firm’s policy will automatically deduct from the bonus amount if the associate fails to diary their hours in a timely manner.

Bonuses will be paid by the firm on December 24th. (Full memo on the next page.)

Remember, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for all salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for your help!

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

One of the most difficult things about the explosion of legal technology is that it is a full-time job just to know what’s out there and how to find solutions that work for you and your firm or legal department. Although there are many solutions for document review, conducting thorough vendor evaluations continues to be a challenge.

What if there were something out there to help you navigate the ever-expanding field of eDiscovery vendors? Everlaw is proud to present the 2019 eDiscovery Buyer Guide, a blueprint that will help guide you through the sometimes complicated process.

Click here to download the white paper to learn the most thorough approach to ensuring that an eDiscovery solution will meet the overall needs of your organization.

It’s not a shock when an Am Law 50 firm moves to match the prevailing market bonuses within a week of the first announcement, but it sure is nice for the associates there. The bonus season began when Milbank took the plunge and announced bonuses last week. Even though Milbank announced earlier than usual, Cravath quickly matched that scale, and now the only real question is when the other elite Biglaw firms will announce their own bonuses.

The guessing game has ended for Skadden associates, as today they announced they were getting on board with the prevailing Biglaw bonus scheme, with the possibility of slight improvement for senior associates. The bonus schedule — which looks similar (though not identical) to other firms that have announced this bonus season — is as follows:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000 or $100,000
Class of 2012 and senior – $100,000 or $110,000

As you’ll notice, Skadden leaves some extra room on the schedule for senior associates who’ve had “extraordinary performance” this year to make $10,000 extra in their year-end bonus. Bonuses will be paid by the firm on December 13th. (Full memo on the next page.)

Remember, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for all salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for your help!

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

During early bonus season, Biglaw firms are usually pretty eager to fall in line to prove their financial prowess. Which firm decided to join the Milbank bonus scale earlier this week, but kept things so casual that the memo was sent from its presiding partner’s cellphone?

It’s Debevoise, and it looks like the firm has adopted the Milbank scale for its U.S. associates. On Tuesday night, associates received this message from Michael Blair:

On behalf of all of the partners, thank you for your dedication to serving clients and building the firm.

Michael

Sent from my iPhone

Bro. Debevoise’s cool factor just went up a little in our book.

Here’s the bonus scale that the firm will be using for its associates:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012+ – $100,000

Read the full bonus memo on the next page. Bonuses at Debevoise will be “payable in the usual mammer at year end.”

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

For someone who spends so much time bellyaching about due process, Donald Trump spends a lot of time trying to evade it.

After Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman’s on New York’s Fifth Avenue — an irony lost on no one — Trump said he never met her and accused Carroll of fabricating the story to gin up publicity for her book. On November 4, she sued the president for defamation, and then spent a week trying unsuccessfully to serve him with notice of the suit. 

Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan describes six attempts to effect process in an Ex Parte Application to allow for alternate service. On three successive days, the process server made multiple attempts to leave the papers at Trump Tower New York.

Upon arrival to Trump Tower, the process server passed through a Secret Service security checkpoint and spoke with the concierge. After making a call to a legal office, the concierge told the process server that they would not accept the papers. The process server then tried to leave the papers with the concierge himself. As the process server headed toward the exit, the concierge signaled to Secret Service agents to stop him. A Secret Service agent prevented the process server from leaving the papers at Trump Tower. The agent told him that the Secret Service “had been instructed not to allow process servers to leave papers with [the] concierge.” When the process server asked how process was to be served, the agent replied, “I am not going to do your job for you.”

After being told on the third day that “papers have to go to D.C.,” a different server was turned away twice at the White House visitors’ entrance, in circumstances that made it clear that attempting to post a bill using the regulation thumbtacks or tape “would surely be met with a swift, and potentially dangerous, response.”

Even Trump’s regular counsel at Kasowitz Benson Torres, who represent him in his other defamation suit arising out of an alleged sexual assault, refused to accept process. Apparently, the Commander in Chief is ducking service like a deadbeat dad.

On Tuesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Deborah Kaplan allowed Carroll to simply mail a copy of the lawsuit to Trump. Bloomberg reports that she can send it by U.S. mail to the White House, or Trump Tower in New York, or by email to one of the six known Trump attorneys listed in Carroll’s Application. (But not Rudy Giuliani, who would would probably just butt-text it to a reporter at 2 a.m.)

And that’s how Donald Trump finally got due process, despite his best efforts to avoid it like the plague.

Judge Rules Trump Rape Accuser Can Mail Complaint to White House [Bloomberg]
Affirmation of Roberta A. Kaplan in Support of Ex Parte Application for an Order Permitting Alternative Service [E. Jean Carroll v. Trump]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Bonus season is generally divided into three phases. In the first phase, every likely suspect tags along in seriatim, offering not a single surprise and eliciting most knowing Jeremiah Johnson nods from everyone.

In the second phase, we see firms make their swinging genitalia moves. This is where someone announces they’re giving big premiums on the scale, paying 1.5x or 2x over the prevailing scale. We all talk up the firm and marvel at their financial prowess. It’s a great run of recruiting press.

In the third phase — the most interesting phase — solid but not quite elite firms start announcing bonuses and we all rush to the tea leaves. A match? Wow, they must be doing better than we thought! Falling short? Uh oh, trouble on the horizon. Or the most common out: A match but paid out next July with a 3000-hour minimum billables requirement making you wonder if this is a “match” in anything but name only.

Well, we’re still in the first phase a mere week into bonus season so there will be no surprises that Davis Polk agreed to follow the Milbank scale precisely.

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012 and senior – $100,000

All U.S. associates in good standing will be paid out on December 13.

So… Davis Polk:

Memo reproduced on the next page.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.