SPEAKING OF GIFTS: How much should you give support staff.
I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THE TECHNOLOGY SUBSIDY: Law firms don’t really offer it anymore.
INDIVIDUALIZED BONUSES: Can create a culture of jealousy, but not if everybody is getting paid a lot.
STOP SUING SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES FOR TERRORISM: I get it, but it’s just not going to happen.
According to the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings data, which ranked law school has the smallest enrollment?
Hint: Though the School of Law at Concordia University’s enrollment is only 116, they’re currently unranked. The ranked school that is the answer to this question has 123 full-time students enrolled.
See the answer on the next page.
To make a good bonus announcement the money has to be there, that’s a given. But there are other factors that go into delighting associates — something Paul Hastings knows all too well.
First, the good news. They’re giving associates a match of the market bonus scale set by Milbank early last month. For those that need the reminder, the prevailing bonuses are as follows, by seniority:
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
The bad news is that associates won’t actually get that sweet, sweet cash until March. Even though the delayed payday is standard at the firm, it doesn’t mean folks aren’t pissed. From a tipster:
Even though they matched market bonuses, I’m very disappointed with the payment dates, and I’m sure other associates are as well. All of the other top firms pay bonuses in December (or January at the latest!).
Read the full memo on the next page.
Remember — we can’t do this without you, dear readers! 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).
Roberta Kaplan
The American Jewish experience and the freedoms we enjoy are currently threatened like never before. It’s been a very long time since the security of the American Jewish community was as much at risk as it is today.
—Roberta Kaplan, at the National Museum of American Jewish History, speaking on the reality of Jewish life in America. She went on to say, “The violence can and will happen again here in the United States,” and called on lawyers to “wake up,” and “take action to make it stop.” She said, “I believe in my Jewish heart and my Jewish bones that the law is one important tool for doing that.”
In the latest episode of The Jabot, I speak with Roberta D. Liebenberg and Stephanie A. Scharf. They’re the co-authors of a new study co-sponsored by the American Bar Association and ALM Intelligence that addresses why senior women lawyers are leaving law firms. We also delve into the results of the study which are simultaneously deeply upsetting and incredibly illuminating.
The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wears when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Happy listening!
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).
I would pay a lot of money to hear these two debate this issue live. [Checks student loan bill] Not that much money, though.
The macabre word “headhunter” found its first usage in the 1940s. Although the term seems a bit predatory despite its common usage today, the images of taking someone’s head may remain true for some recruiting shops out there. With low barrier to entry, many new shops can come and go and drag the remains of a poor associate and partner’s career in their wake out the door. I’ve compiled a list of four things to ask yourself when a no name recruiting company calls you coldly.
1) One Cravath Please. One of the hardest aspects of career management is being honest with yourself about the strength of your candidacy. Some recruiters will pitch you firms that sound appealing but in reality are aspirational. While you were fixated on your dream firm, the recruiter was busy loading the pellets to try to hit a bullseye with a sawed-off shotgun. This serves two purposes; once you inevitably are turned down for your dream position, they will present backup options, which you will choose to settle for or move onto your next recruiter. However, since they’ve now blasted your resume off to every firm in town, they’ve made the job of the next recruiter that much harder as they will try to claim origination credit. For a busy attorney, this is a frustrating waste of time; for a swamped recruiting department, this is a waste of resources and time; for a good recruiter, this would be a waste of their reputation with the firm and make it immeasurably harder to place another candidate in the future at that firm.
2) Every Rose Has It’s Thorns. You know that firm that you love that you’ve dreamed about working for your whole life? The one you can picture the golden elevators leading up to their marbel adorned floors on the 85th floor? Someone is walking out the door as soon as you walk in. The realities of any business are that there are pros and cons that create push and pull factors in an attempt to create a kind of workforce equilibrium. From a very superficial level, if you value free evenings, you’re not going to enjoy working for high powered litigation firms in Manhattan. As we’ve discussed in past articles, relying on the insight of current or former attorneys at a firm can be dangerous. An unbiased recruiter will be your best insight into the firm culture, fit, and your prospects there. If a recruiter tries to sell you two tickets to paradise, they’re probably going to leave you stranded and freezing in Paradise Newfoundland. An honest recruiter will be realistic about the firm, and not just because we’re altruistic. If we place you, and you leave, we would lose out on the placement fee and engender distrust from the firm about our ability to accurately represent the firm to the candidate and appraise their interest.
3) Tip Of The Joberg. Recruiters often serve as gatekeepers to the legal market. Though firms post their needs on their corporate websites, the posted needs are almost always just a fraction of their actual needs. The issue with listing all of these postings is that it invites a frenzy of resumes that legal departments cannot keep up with. If a recruiter tries to tell you there are no oil and gas openings in Seattle, that’s probably accurate. However, if they are trying to push you to a specific firm by telling you it’s one of your only options, and you’re not in a niche practice, the truth is that they probably have a favorable agreement with that firm. We believe in transparency and honesty which is why we list the available jobs on the market on our website, which you can register for here. The reality of the market is that recruiters often serve as the impetus behind new firm expansion by bringing to the firm stellar associates and partners that allow them to expand their services into new industries or take on new clients that require a higher leveraged structure.
4) We Got The Titanic Screeners. As firms eventually collapse (see Dewey, Bingham, et al.) the rumblings often reach legal recruiters first. Recruiting firms actually play a fairly significant role in firm mergers as they facilitate the mass exodus or influx of lateral talent to the firms, creating a quandary for recruiters. By assuming that the firm will collapse, and pulling out as many attorneys as possible, we participate in facilitating a self-fulfilling prophecy that can derail the careers of the attorneys caught on the sinking ship. However, by helping a firm try to navigate around the iceberg by stemming the outflow of lateral talent, we run the risk of derailing those careers as well if the firm collapses. Instead of running this ethical trolley problem down one of the paths, we generally try to stay off the trolley altogether. If there are clear signs that the firm will collapse, we will assist attorneys in escaping the wreckage. Above all, we are clear about our expectations for the firm with our clients so that there are no surprises. The recruiting shops that show up quickly to the scene with a thousand lifeboats are they ones preying on fear in hopes of making a quick buck, and you can often use this as a gauge for their trustworthiness.
Though the preceding paragraphs were reflective of the darker side of the legal recruiting profession, the goal was not to dismay you, but to enlighten you that there exist many superb, honest, ethical and trustworthy recruiting shops on the market – us included. Making a sound lateral move is greatly eased by using a good recruiter. If you or someone you know is interested in making a lateral move, my coworkers and I are happy to assist in any way we can.
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen is the CEO of Lateral Link. He is based in the Los Angeles office and focuses exclusively on Partner and General Counsel placements for top firms and companies. Prior to founding Lateral Link in 2006, he worked as an attorney at both Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Irell & Manella LLP. Michael graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego before earning his JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.
It seems a hedge fund manager in London can buy anything (well, almost anything): seats at the Royal Opera House with complimentary coat rest; a pool, gym, sauna and steam room for the basement of their iceberg houses (neighbors be damned); Charles de Gaulle’s old place; early access to the Brexit results. Oh, and a sneak listen to what the head of the Bank of England has to say after an interest-rate decision.
The Bank of England said the audio feed of its news conferences, maintained as a backup in case the video feed fails, had been “misused by a third-party supplier to the bank since earlier this year to supply services to other external clients.”
The audio feed provided traders a five- to eight-second advantage over the video feed….
While the Bank and the Financial Conduct Authority are looking into things, one thing is clear: Like Brexit, this is no longer Mark Carney’s problem. But maybe the new guy will have some insight into things when he takes over.
The government said Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, will assume the new role in March…. Like Jerome Powell, who took over at the Federal Reserve in February 2018, and Christine Lagarde who last month became the president of the European Central Bank, Mr. Bailey isn’t a specialist in monetary policy…. During his previous stints at the BOE, Mr. Bailey wasn’t directly involved in setting interest rates, and his views on monetary policy are unknown.
Given all of the other unknowns in the British economic future, that seems like a sound decision.
Bank of England Audio Was Leaked, Giving Some Traders an Edge [NYT]
With Brexit Looming, U.K. Government Picks Veteran as Central Bank Chief [WSJ]
Is my argument as strong as it can be? Are there better cases out there? And did I find every weakness in my opponent’s argument?
These types of questions can slow you down, but they don’t have to. Watch this webinar to get a first-hand look at the most advanced AI-based project Thomson Reuters has ever tackled: Westlaw Edge Quick Check. Quick Check goes beyond traditional research methods to uncover relevant authority that
may have been missed. Hear from one of the creators of Quick Check how this feature is helping researchers practice with a new level of confidence in their own work, gain a strategic advantage against their opponents, and ultimately deliver superior client value.
Legal research will never be the same.
(Image via Getty)
At this time of the year we spend a lot of digital ink at Above the Law waxing on about how much money lawyers at Biglaw firms are making. Associate year end bonuses are an important part of the Biglaw ecosystem, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t also talk about the money lawyers are giving out this season.
It’s generally a tradition for lawyers at Biglaw to give gifts — usually cash — to the support staff that make their job smoother. But how much you should give to that essential paralegal is not always clear. Our network of tipsters has reported a wide spectrum of support staff gifts, from a measly $20 on the cheap end to an impressive $1000 on the generous side.
We know there are a variety of norms at different firms. For example, some places pool attorney cash contributions that scale based on seniority and hand those out to the whole support team while others have a laissez-faire attitude towards attorney generosity and associates are left without a benchmark for what they should give.
So we are taking the question to you, dear readers. Let’s delve into how much you’re giving to the paralegal/admin/support staffer in your professional life.
For the purpose of this first question, assume you’re a midlevel associate (and that amounts would scale up slightly as a senior or down as someone pretty junior). So how much are you giving to a support staffer that is absolutely essential to your ability to get your job done?
Loading …Now lets see how much you give to support staff that’s on your team, but not part of your day-to-day workflow (think floater secretary that covers your group or a paralegal you only work with occasionally).
Loading …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).