An international digital publishing company with offices in the UK, Israel, and the US has retained Kinney Recruiting on a search for a US Corporate Counsel. This is a 100% remote position based anywhere within the United States. We are looking for a candidate with at least five (5) years of in-house experience ideally with a technology company, or a mix of in-house and top law firm experience representing technology, media or similarly nimble enterprises. This company has recently made notable acquisitions within the United States, so experience working on business acquisitions is ideal, as is experience drafting and negotiating commercial agreements with domestic and international business partners. The ability and desire to work independently with limited oversight is required, as the General Counsel is located outside the United States. A JD from a highly-ranked US law school and admission to the bar in the state the candidate wishes to sit are required. For confidential consideration, please submit your resume to jobs@kinneyrecruiting.com.
According to Bloomberg Law’s second iteration of the Attorney Workload & Hours Survey, what percentage of respondents reported burnout in the first quarter of 2021?
Hint: Respondents reported feeling burnout 40 percent of the time in 2020, but it’s on the rise in the first quarter of 2021.
The U.S. Supreme Court (by Joe Ravi via Wikimedia – CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Every SCOTUS season, I feel like I’m watching extremely strange ESPN commentary. The commentary hasn’t changed in decades, but the players change. What is currently being written about Justice Breyer was once written about Justice Ginsburg, for example. ’70s fashion eventually becomes Gen Z fashion. The circle of life continues.
I decided to combine my love of monster movies with my love of SCOTUS commentary. All SCOTUS commentary can be put into similar commentary about any monster. As an example, I’ll use Monster Zero, King Ghidorah. Each paragraph is a separate take on the monster’s activities.
Pack the court: If only Monster Zero had more heads, I think it would turn toward good. After all, we’ve only seen King Ghidorah with three heads. Expanding the number of heads will cause it to change its institutional structure and turn toward providing freedom for all Americans.
Retire, Justice Breyer: If only the middle head of Monster Zero were lopped off, it would be replaced by a younger and more human-friendly head.
If only Godzilla hadn’t bitten the one head off and if only the Merrick Garland head had grown as well, this would be a much different and friendlier King Ghidorah.
The Influence of the Federalist Society: I think Monarch Corporation has too much control over how the heads of King Ghidorah grow. Are they influencing the heads to think in one direction versus another? The process is quite opaque.
The Monarch Corporation will be holding a panel discussion, “Why Out-of-Control Monsters Are Good for America.”
Panel includes:
Cass Sunstein, “All Ghidorah Needs Is a Little Nudge”
Adrian Vermeule, “Common-Good Monsterism”
Josh Hawley, “Why Ghidorah Is Obviously a Communist”
Ted Cruz, “Why Ghidorah Never Visits Cancun”
John Lott, “More Guns, Less Ghidorah”
Predictions: King Ghidorah declined to knock down the Roe house today. That means it likely won’t tomorrow, either.
Commentators predicted that King Ghidorah would attack Arlene’s Flower Shop today. But he didn’t. I guess that shows people were wrongly concerned about Monster Zero.
Observing Alliances and Divisions: I personally think King Ghidorah acted very conservatively when he only smashed three of the buildings. This was obviously the influence of the middle head.
The heads of King Ghidorah don’t always agree. See the 1-1-1 split? Yeah, they are in equal voting blocks as they destroy Tokyo.
In a surprise twist, Head 2, which usually attacks with Head 1, opted to join Head 3 while Head 1 attacked alone.
Despite claims of partisan divisions, the heads of King Ghidorah act with surprising unanimity.
Driven by a two-thirds head majority, King Ghidorah attacks California, ignoring Arizona.
King Ghidorah’s actions have been so surprising, given the left head and the right head agreed with greater frequency. This perhaps signals the Monster’s desire to speak as one body.
Reform: A bipartisan commission has been formed to determine whether it would be useful to create a Mecha-Ghidorah, or perhaps have Godzilla assure a mandatory retirement age for each head.
Personally, I think if there were cameras closer to Ghidorah’s activity, we’d be better able to predict its behavior.
***
Don’t get me wrong, it’s all fun and good to read. But I can’t help but notice that we forget that the INSTITUTION continues, and one wonders what the path of that institution is. We can focus on the heads of Monster Zero all we want, but that body seems to continue in one direction. And the reluctance of some of the heads to go along gives all the more credibility to the body as it destroys Tokyo. Hey, at least some of the heads felt conflicted about it, right?
LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg). Email him atlawprofblawg@gmail.com.
The gold rush has begun. In the short period since the Supreme Court’s unanimous affirmance in NCAA v. Alston that existing restrictions on providing education-related benefits to student-athletes at NCAA schools were improper, a quick-fire series of developments has unfolded. On Wednesday, the NCAA issued a “uniform interim policy suspending NCAA name, image and likeness rules for all incoming and current student-athletes in all sports,” with near-immediate effect. And within minutes of the policy going into place after midnight last Thursday, the first sponsorship deals with NCAA student-athletes were struck. At a minimum, that flurry of deal announcements is evidence of the pent-up commercial demand for student-athlete endorsements, fueled both by the tremendous interest in college athletics by the general public, as well as the savvy use of social media by student-athletes themselves.
Unsurprisingly, much of the early endorsement activity involved student-athletes with established social media presences. In perhaps the highest-profile deal, Fresno State basketball stars and twin sisters Haley and Hanna Cavender signed with Boost Mobile, ostensibly on the strength of their millions of social media followers. But they were not the only ones to announce immediate deals. From the hundreds of current athletes who signed up with video-game matchmaker Yoke, to Auburn quarterback Bo Nix’s (nearly 100,000 Instagram followers) endorsement deal with a sweet tea company, to the list of athletes who announced the launch of their apparel lines, the floodgates are definitely open.
But with opportunity comes responsibility — and in my view the primary responsibility for ensuring that student-athletes don’t get exploited by more savvy commercial counterparties lies with the athletic departments at the NCAA schools. They are the ones who benefit most directly from the athletic prowess of the students, while also being entrusted by parents with the care of their children. At a minimum, athletic departments must make sure that student-athletes are fully informed about the different policies they need to comply with in terms of exploiting their names, images, and likenesses (NILs). Whether it is the NCAA’s interim policy, or school or athletic conference policies, or even with respect to the anticipated federal legislation coming down the pike, there is no excuse for athletic departments leaving their athletes to fend for themselves in this area. Just as they make sure that athletes get the best coaching in their sports, so should they ensure that student-athletes get access to guidance around their newfound freedoms.
For all the excitement, caution is also warranted with respect to commercializing NILs. Established brands will be wary of doing endorsement deals with sometimes-immature athletes operating in a college environment fraught with risks from a negative headline perspective. And athletes should resist the temptation to associate themselves with the first businesses showing interest, because no young person wants to become tainted because of an affiliation with an unsavory entity. Moreover, because of the regulatory uncertainty in this fast-developing area, resisting the temptation to jump into deals might be advisable — especially for athletes of some renown, whether because they are, for example, in prestige sports at big schools or Olympic hopefuls. In short, the more promising the prospects, the more a professional approach to deal-making is warranted. On the legal side of things, I would also hope that lawyer-alumni would be willing to donate some time to helping students at their alma mater avoid trouble in these uncharted waters as well.
While I tend to agree that for the vast majority of student-athletes the freedom to exploit their NILs commercially will be of limited financial value, there should also be no doubt that for many college students, even modest sums can have a disproportionate impact on their quality of life for the better. At the same time, we don’t want students to prejudice their educational prospects by focusing too much on NIL marketing efforts, especially since athletic pursuits are so demanding of their time in the first place. While college staff and families will surely help provide guidance to students, it also helps that so many of our youth are intimately familiar with social media and understand the value of being influencers when hawking products and services. For the new scheme to work, we must hope that bad actors looking to exploit students are kept out, that students learn to strike a balance between commercial activity and their educational/athletic obligations, and that those in a position to help students step forward.
Since I have long touted the value of educating youth in IP awareness, I must say that I am enthused at the prospects of these new developments with respect to college athletes helping to advance that cause. If they haven’t yet, student-athletes will quickly need to get up to speed on IP issues, from understanding copyright issues related to use of their likenesses, to trademark issues with respect to their personal brands — and much more. And as the market for amateur athlete endorsements matures, the need to educate student-athletes on IP awareness will arise even earlier in their careers, perhaps even at the middle school, if not the high school level for sure.
Ultimately, it is nice to hear that what many have long considered an exploited group will now be getting an opportunity for remuneration in some capacity. There is no doubt, however, that a lot of the NIL value ascribed to student-athletes arises by virtue of their association with well-known commercial brands (i.e., their schools). To what extent schools decide to regulate the activity of students with respect to NILs remains an open question. But we have already seen enough action to know that a run of deals in the best tradition of a gold rush is already underway, uncertainty be damned. And that for what seems like the first time in a long time, the NCAA has been shut out of its longstanding attempts to restrict student-athletes from making some side money. Let’s hope everyone puts the interests of the student-athletes first as we move ahead in this new environment.
Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.
Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner ofKroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.
“Eve. Eve, the golden girl. The cover girl. The girl next door, the girl on the moon. Time has been good to Eve. Life goes where she goes. She’s been profiled, covered, revealed, reported, what she eats and what she wears and whom she knows and where she was and when and where she’s going. Eve. You all know all about Eve.”
Over the seven months that I’ve been writing at Original Jurisdiction, I have covered some of the most prominent figures in the legal profession, including leading judges, law firm partners, in-house lawyers, and law professors. Who has been the best for ratings?
According to the list of my most popular posts, none other than Amy Chua. She’s the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School (YLS), although she’s most famous not as a legal academic but as the author of a controversial, bestselling parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. She also happens to be the wife of another longtime YLS faculty member, Jed Rubenfeld (and some refer to them collectively as “Chubenfeld”).
Over the past few weeks, articles about Chua have appeared in multiple major news outlets. Right now, it seems that every journalist in the country is chasing Amy.
Why is this 58-year-old law professor back in the headlines, more than a decade after the viral Wall Street Journal op-ed that propelled Tiger Mother onto the bestseller list? To catch up, check out my earlier story on Chua, or read this CliffsNotes version:
A few years ago, Chua was accused of acting inappropriately around students, getting tipsy and saying indiscreet or even offensive things to them. Her husband Jed Rubenfeld, 62, got in much bigger trouble — suspended from the YLS faculty for two years, after a university investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed multiple female students. That investigation concluded in August 2020, and Rubenfeld is in the middle of serving the suspension. (Rubenfeld denies sexually harassing anyone.)
After the complaints about her, Chua reached a 2019 agreement with the YLS administration in which she expressed “deep regret” for having offended anyone and pledged to stop drinking and socializing with students outside of class. She also agreed not to teach required courses until future notice; stepped down from Yale’s clerkship committee, where she played an important role in helping students land prestigious judicial clerkships, often launching pads for successful legal careers; and paid an undisclosed but “substantial” financial penalty.
Earlier this year, YLS students went to the administration with a “dossier” of evidence supposedly showing that Chua was hosting dinner parties for students at her home — during the pandemic, featuring alcohol, with federal judges in attendance — in violation of the 2019 agreement, as well as COVID-19 protocols.
Chua denied hosting any dinner parties, but admitted that she did have a handful of students over to her home during the pandemic, in order to help these students through personal crises. She said that this was part of her continuing commitment to supporting and mentoring students, especially students from minority or marginalized communities, and they met in socially distanced fashion, sitting far apart and with the windows open. One of the students brought a bottle of wine to one of the get-togethers; she opened it and poured him a glass, but stuck to Frescas herself. She may have served snacks, but not “dinner.” She denies violating the 2019 agreement, arguing that she agreed to refrain from socializing with students “for the foreseeable future” — a period that she submits was over by the time she had students to her home.
In the wake of the allegations about the drunken dinner parties, Chua lost the “small group” class she was set to teach this fall (either because it was taken from her or she relinquished it, depending on whom you believe). Tensions are running high between Chua, Rubenfeld, and the YLS administration, led by Dean Heather Gerken.
That’s my attempt to describe, in as objective a fashion as possible, what has happened to date in “Dinner Party-gate” or simply “Dinnergate.” This controversy has had Yale Law School — the nation’s number-one law school, alma mater to four out of nine Supreme Court justices, a breeding ground for future leaders — up in arms, for months.
If you don’t like my account of recent events at YLS, well, there’s no shortage of alternatives. In fact, the past six weeks have brought us at least five significant articles about Amy Chua, together totaling almost 20,000 words. I have read all of them, multiple times, and pulled out what’s most interesting or unique from each. For each piece, I’ve provided a “Juiciness Score,” with 1 being the least juicy and 10 being the most juicy; a “Pro-Chua Score,” with 1 being the most anti-Chua and 10 being the most pro-Chua; and my bottom-line assessment.
The goal of this summary is the same as that of Judicial Notice, the weekly legal news roundup that I send out to paid subscribers of Original Jurisdiction each Saturday: I read everything, so you don’t have to. After reading this one post, you’ll be all set for the summer, ready to walk into any Hamptons cocktail party or Martha’s Vineyard clambake and bloviate with the best of them over L’Affaire Chua. You’re welcome!
David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer and speaker about law and legal affairs. You can read his latest writing about law and the legal profession by subscribing to Original Jurisdiction, his Substack newsletter. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. Before entering the media and recruiting worlds, David worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, 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 davidlat@substack.com.
While you were grilling hamburgers and dosing your dog with CBD in preparation for the fireworks, Ol’ Rudy was busy celebrating America, too … in his own, peculiar way.
Just last week, Giuliani’s license to practice law was suspended in New York for telling a pile of whoppers about the election, both in and out of court.
He’s currently facing an investigation of his Ukrainian lobbying AHEM “not lobbying” in the Southern District of New York, and a special master is currently sifting through the contents of his office after the FBI raided it.
At the same time, he’s being sued for defamation by both Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for his false claims about the election. And as Bloomberg reported this morning, Dominion has just subpoenaed him for all documents pertaining to his appearances on Fox since 2016 — as if Rudy spent hours assembling data in preparation to hop on with Lou Dobbs or Maria Bartiromo and shout inanities.
Then, over the weekend, the Arizona Republic dumped audio recordings of messages the president’s lawyer left for election officials in the state in the days after the election that certainly seemed to suggest he’d welcome their help in perverting the outcome of the state’s official tally.
“I have a few things I’d like to talk over with you. Maybe we can get this thing fixed up,” he said to election supervisor Bill Gates after the Republican official let the call go to voicemail on December 24. “You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this kind of situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody.”
“I’d like to see if there’s a way that we can resolve this so that it comes out well for everyone. We’re all Republicans, I think we have the same goal,” he said the same day to election supervisor Jack Sellers. “Let’s see if we can get this done outside of the court, gosh.”
In fact, the state was already in multiple courts, which was perhaps why neither official returned his call.
Then this morning another excerpt from Michael Wolff’s upcoming book Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency (affiliate link) dropped in The Times of London with the juicy gossip that Rudy is on the outs with the Trump family and has been “cast out, cut off” from his former patron.
And Trump didn’t even bother to pay Rudy for his services before booting him off the island.
“Trump is annoyed that he tried to get paid for his election challenge work,” Wolff writes, describing the “cold shoulder” the loyal, if questionably effective, attorney got when he tried to press his case.
So much for that $20,000 daily fee Rudy sent his girlfriend to demand from the Trump campaign.
All of which could not come at a worse time. Unable to practice law, he can no longer hoover up cash from overseas oligarchs with the clever gambit of inserting a “just lawyerin’, no lobbyin’, no how” clause in his contracts. He’s in the middle of a slash-and-burn divorce from his third wife, Judi Nathan. And between the civil and criminal cases, Giuliani’s looking at millions of dollars in legal fees.
Luckily, he’s got his loyal fans to fall back on. They’ll never let America’s Mayor down, right?
Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense fund only has 92 online donations so far, totaling less than $8,000. They set a goal of $5 million by late August. And at this rate they won’t hit $100,000 by then. pic.twitter.com/E9l6qnh3Gu
I think firms should focus on revenue growth instead of cutting overhead. That is a better long-term strategy. But if they are going to lay people off, cutting staff while at the same time raising salaries for associates certainly sends a message.
If firms don’t part with people the right way, it opens them up to criticism. Law students are looking at sites like Glassdoor and seeing not just what associates are saying about the firm, but what the staff is saying as well. It is such a small and connected world.
— Deborah Farone, legal consultant and founder of legal marketing firm Farone Advisors, commenting on the rash of staff “rightsizing” that’s currently in progress across a number of Am Law 100 firms. If your firm or organization is reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).
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.
Enter your email address to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts.
This holiday weekend was a weird one, seeing as cataclysmic climate change turned a normally sweltering weekend into a blustery one with temps in the 60s. Yes, in July. EVERYTHING’S FINE. Anyway, out was the planned pool weekend, in was a nostalgia-based binge watching weekend.
All of which is to say, The Challenge is my jam. Originally born as Real World/Road Rules Challenge, it’s morphed over the years to become one part soap opera — complete with a recurring cast of characters with DECADES worth of history, one part professional sports league — complete with the highs of remarkable athletic triumphs and the lows of disturbing, season-ending injuries. Actually, just typing that out puts in stark relief *exactly* why I love it so — I’m the center of that Venn diagram of people that love soap operas (I grew up a Days of Our Lives fan) and sports (New York Giants/Oregon Ducks fan). But I digress. A pandemic gift to myself was a Paramount+ subscription (okay, there were a LOT of gifts to myself over the course of the pandemic… it turns out retail therapy is ALSO my jam), first for Picard then for back catalogue of The Challenge.
Anyway, this weekend I re-watched the classic Challenge season, Rivals. Seriously, making these reality athletes team up with a hated rival is GENIUS. It’s a well the franchise’s gone back to repeatedly (Rivals III gave us the absolutely iconic moment of Johnny Bananas stealing the prize money from his partner, the eminently likable Sarah Rice). And I’d be THERE for it if the show’s producers, in their wisdom, were to give us another installment of Rivals. But, yeah, back to Rivals the first.
The season is a moment of transition for the franchise. It’s the first season without any Road Rules competitors, losing that link to one of the shows that birthed it. It’s also a move towards the more competitive, modern Challenge. Gone are the backyard games that were played for laughs in early seasons, replaced with strenuous competitions, and, for the first time ever, an overnight final. Now the producers, largely through the mouthpiece of host TJ Lavin, seem to delight in torturing participants during the finale. Sleep deprivation? Check. Eating copious amounts of unfamiliar food? Check, check. Puzzle and mental games? Check, check, check. The actual athletic elements — be it kayaking, running, climbing, biking, whatever — are merely the icing on the decadent final. But in 2011, during the first Rivals, the overnight element of the last challenge took the endeavor to new heights. Now it’s de rigueur, but rewatching the shocked competitors take turns staying up all night just to have to hike up a mf mountain the next morning was just classic.
And, from a storyline perspective, the season is also top notch. The aforementioned Johnny Bananas partnered with his Key West roommate Tyler Duckworth to claim the men’s championship on his path to GOAT status — taking out a hulked up CT Tamburello and partner Adam King in a brutal and bloody elimination right before the finals. And it’s the season that took Paula “Walnuts” Meronek from lovable loser to champion on the women’s side. Her partner? Evelyn Smith, who previously won The Inferno 3 and The Island. Ev was always a strong player, considered a threat to win any season she was on, but after Rivals, she disappeared from the franchise.
Now, lots of characters have come and gone from The Challenge over the last 37 seasons of the show. But, except in rare instances, folks don’t announce their retirement from the show, it’s just a few season go by without being cast and then the competitor is mere memory. (And that’s a big lure of The Challenge: All Stars, which is another benefit of Paramount+ — see, I HAD to add the streaming service to my repertoire.) But, after watching Ev and Paula take down the competition on Rivals, I engaged my Google skills to find out what had happened to the former champ.
Ev started on The Challenge right out of high school, foregoing a softball scholarship at the University of Arizona to throw her lot with the Challenge gods. After walking away from The Challenge she earned her degree in history at the University of San Diego. But as nice as that is for her, this is Above the Law, so you’re right to ask yourself WHAT IN THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE LAW?
Well, after USD, Ev took her talents to Harvard Law School. How did Above the Law miss covering that? After graduating, according to her LinkedIn profile, she’s done human rights work in Cambodia and, more recently, she’s spent time getting Democratic candidates elected, working on Kirsten Gillibrand’s and Pete Buttigieg’s ultimately unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaigns. But all was not lost — in March of this year, Evelyn was a political appointee to the position of Special Assistant to the Office of the Administrator at USAID.
But despite this successful legal and political career, don’t write off Ev’s Challenge career. As I mentioned, The Challenge: All Stars has brought older and wiser former Challengers out of retirement. Though Ev was unavailable for the first installment of All Stars, Challenger competitor and Godfather Mark Long (he was the force behind the online campaign to start All Stars) says Ev just might make some time for future All Stars editions. If that happens expect some breathless coverage from yours truly — Above the Law would love to have the Challenger turned legal eagle take home that prize.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. 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 am in several solo and small-firm lawyer Facebook groups where the price of services inevitably comes up. The questions often go something like this:
“How much are you charging for an estate planning package?”
Sample responses follow:
“I charge $500 for a single person and $750 for a couple.” (6 Likes)
“I charge $1250 for a couple, but if their estate is more complex, the price goes up.” (2 Likes, 1 Heart)
“I charge $600 for an estate planning package for a couple as long as it’s simple.” (6 Likes, 2 Hearts)
“We are not supposed to talk about our fees.” (2 Likes, 1 Shocked Face)
I find myself biting my tongue in these virtual scenarios because it’s challenging to see lawyers, especially women lawyers, race to the bottom with pricing.
For many years I did this. I wanted to get clients in the door because they were “easy” or because I could do their work efficiently. After serving hundreds of clients at a discounted rate, I realized that I was constantly putting in the same effort — whether clients were paying me a nominal fee or paying me at a rate that compensated me for my skills, value, and know-how. I usually had the same number of questions, the same follow-ups, the same number of changes, and, on top of that, I sent the same client gift — you get my drift. Their matters were never (OK, rarely) simple, though I would use this rationale to justify my bargain-basement prices. My example is for estate planning, but you can easily substitute a “simple divorce” or similar “simple” service here. I wish the law were simpler!
This conversation triggers questions about flat fee billing versus hourly billing. I won’t discuss the pros and cons today, but know that I am Team Flat Fee, so this article assumes flat fees. I price my services based on value, not my billable time on a task. I justify this based on my experience, know-how, and other benefits my clients experience when working with me. To find more evidence to support my flat fee billing stance, you can purchase Brita Long’s book, “The Happier Attorney.”
Suffice to say, some of us would be happier if we’d raise our rates. Far too commonly, attorneys are barely making a livable wage when they slice and dice all of the overhead, including staff, resources, and effort it takes to serve clients. Notably, many solo and small firm women attorneys do everything themselves, and because they do everything themselves, they feel like they can’t justify a higher rate. Folks, we went to law school. We should not be compensated just for the time we spend drafting a motion or inputting a name on a will; otherwise, we can go work elsewhere and make a better living.
It shouldn’t be provocative for an entrepreneurial legal professional’s compensation to match her experience and skill in law practice. Yes, your firm should support your clients, but it must sufficiently compensate you for your expenses, services, and expertise. Pay yourself! Stop thinking that skipping out on payroll for yourself is a sustainable option. If you are in this boat a change is necessary to have a profitable firm. For most of us, paying our bills should not be the ceiling for earnings. Why not plan for a rainy day? The quickest way to not skip or underpay yourself is to raise your rates. With higher rates, you can even lower your volume of clients and have more time to give fewer clients a better experience.
I recently read an article on Above the Law about how a starting Biglaw associate salary is $200,000 in certain markets. I know attorneys who have skillfully practiced law — for decades — and have not broken six figures. While I balk at the idea of someone coming straight out of law school automatically making six figures, the market continues to support this salary. Someone or some organization values brand spanking-new associates at that rate — regardless of whether that skill is immediately apparent or if I agree. (Please don’t come at me on this one.) I do not doubt the $200,000 baby attorney. Instead, I’m arguing that if they can get that with little to no experience under their belts, why is it justifiable for small and solo attorneys to make pennies on the dollar to get the next client in the door?
As entrepreneurial lawyers, I advocate adopting more of the Biglaw salary money mindset (I said money mindset, not everything else). Then, we can more than support our basic living expenses and have something extra on top to put away for a rainy day. Of course, in doing so, show your value, but always stand by your rates; you will attract the right clients who will also appreciate working with you.
Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to hear your constructive comments or questions at iffywrites@ibekwelaw.com. I am always looking for topic suggestions! Did I mention that I signed with a literary agent for my upcoming estate planning book? You can read all about it here.
Iffy Ibekwe is the principal attorney and founder of Ibekwe Law, PLLC. She is an estate planning attorney evangelist for intergenerational wealth transfer with effective wills and trusts. Iffy scored a literary agent and is writing her first book on estate planning for regular folk, available in 2022. She graduated from The University of Texas School of Law and has practiced law for over 14 years. Iffy can be reached by email at iffywrites@ibekwelaw.com, on her website, and on Instagram @iffyibekweesq.
Even though July 1 has come and gone, Biglaw firms are still announcing compensation moves. This weekend, yet another firm made fireworks when it notified associates that salaries would be exploding, as well as bonuses. Exciting news all around, but there’s a little caveat on the salary news: nothing will be happening until 2022.
Vedder Price, a firm that grossed $255,000,000 in 2020, landing it at No. 127 on the most recent Am Law 200, announced a new bonus program for associates on Saturday. Those with at least 1,800 annualized chargeable hours as of December 31, 2021 (including up to 100 pro bono hours) as well as a performance rating of 3 or better will receive base performance bonuses on the following scale:
Class of 2020: $5,000
Class of 2019: $7,500
Class of 2018: $10,000
Class of 2017: $15,000
Class of 2016: $20,000
Class of 2015: $25,000
Class of 2014+: $30,000
High billers at the firm will receive an “additional hours” bonus that increases on a pro-rated basis for increments of chargeable hours over the 2,000 mark. For the classes of 2020 through 2018, those bonuses will be $15K, $25K, and $60K, capped as an aggregate of their base bonus plus additional hours bonus. For the class of 2017 and beyond, there will be no cap.
Those with 1700-1799 annualized chargeable hours and a performance rating 3 or better will receive 50% of the bonus for their class years. It looks like those who come in below 1700 hours won’t receive this bonus at all. A “collections” bonus will also be available. These bonuses are payable on April 15, 2022.
As far as the firm’s new base salary scale is concerned, it starts out at $205K, so it seems like everything will be on par with the market, but it turns out that compensation gets a little constricted for midlevel to senior associates, but on a range. Associates must have at least 1,850 annualized chargeable hours to be eligible for a raise. Here’s what Vedder Price associates will be working with, effective January 1, 2022:
Class of 2020: $205,000
Class of 2019: $210,000-$215,000
Class of 2018: $220,000-$240,000
Class of 2017: $235,000-$260,000
Class of 2016: $260,000-$280,000
Class of 2015: $280,000-$300,000
Class of 2014: $295,000-$315,000
Class of 2013+: $305,000-$325,000
The range here is “based on relevant market factors such as practice area and geographic area,” and when compared to the prevailing Davis Polk scale, salaries start to get crunched after the class of 2018. The more senior the associate, the more the scale deviates away from a dollar-to-dollar match. (Take, for example, Vedder’s highest eighth-year salary of $325,000. That’s $40,000 less than what’s being offered on the DPW scale.)
Associates at the firm may wish their new salaries and bonuses were coming sooner, but any raise and any bonus is nice, despite what may seem like an exceptionally long waiting period to get it.
(Flip to the next page to see the memo from Vedder Price.)
We depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. 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’ll 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.
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.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of 
Iffy Ibekwe is the principal attorney and founder of 
