Category: News Feeds

The COVID-19 surge in Colorado may be as devastating as the outbreak in neighboring (technically) Arizona, but the seven-day rolling average in new cases has doubled in less than a month. While the death toll in the state has, mercifully, remained low and ICUs are not presently overcrowded, we’ve already seen how quickly that can turn once infections begin to spike.

Faced with this, some graduates put together a petition boasting over 1,300 signatures begging for an alternative to the in-person July bar exam, offering emergency diploma privilege and a remote bar exam as possible options. Recognizing the threat to the safety of law school graduates, the Colorado Supreme Court flatly declined to take up the petition:

I know the mascot is the buffalo, but that doesn’t mean the state has to buffalo its prospective lawyers.

Earlier in the week, the bar examiners had amended the safety protocols, mandating that applicants wear masks throughout the exam — other states are attempting to provide enough social distancing to arguably allow masks to come off once seated — and reducing the occupancy at various testing sites, which will host between 36 and 122 people. Still, as University of Denver Law Professor Nancy Leong points out, “The conditions of the bar exam are IDEAL for a superspreader event.”

But they’re going to press onward and, at present, have not communicated any intention to adjust the cut score for applicants subjecting themselves to this circus. Which is interesting because…

Of course.

On Tuesday, hundreds of applicants registered their outrage when the attorney regulation counsel for the state’s high court was quoted in the Denver Post dismissing those calling for diploma privilege as “individuals who don’t want to take the bar exam.” For her part, she’s written Above the Law claiming to have been misquoted by the Denver Post, though declining in her email to state what she actually said. As of this writing, the Denver Post is still running with the quote as presented. We’ll let you know if that changes.

But, regardless of the precise quote, the message applicants took away from the story was that representatives of the state supreme court were openly hostile to their request. The decision to unceremoniously pass on the petition confirmed those fears.

The only equitable solution to this unfortunate episode comes from Willamette Law’s David Friedman:

Colorado’s justices are appointed by the governor but must stand in retention elections. Any justice that doesn’t show up and spend the whole test session in-person as a proctor should be roundly rejected at the ballot box next time up.

It’s the very least Colorado can do.

Earlier: Bar Exam Spokesperson Tells Newspaper That Folks Worried About Health Are Just Lazy
Colorado Accidentally Sent Out Bar Results, Said They Were Fake, But They Were Real

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.

I know a lot of people are suffering from quarantine fatigue, but just because people want to be done with this whole pandemic thing, it doesn’t mean COVID-19 is done with us yet. And while the spike in coronavirus cases across the country is proof the virus is still a pandemic, the economic ramifications of the disease are still happening too.

Such is the case with Am Law 200 firm, Miller Canfield. Last month, the firm instituted some temporary furloughs of both attorneys and staff, as well as some lay offs. As firm CEO Michael McGee said:

In the wake of the economic slowdown caused by COVID-19, particularly in the auto sector, the firm was forced to implement firm-wide cost-cutting measures consistent with industry experience, including temporary furloughs and a few separations. Of the temporary furloughs, two were full-time attorneys, including one associate. Of the separations, one attorney was a principal and six were non-principals, including three associates.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or 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).

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

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).

As we reach the middle of the year, the coronavirus pandemic and volatile financial conditions have substantially affected Chicago’s legal market, limiting both the volume and scope of hiring and triggering firm cost-control measures, such as compensation reductions and layoffs. Despite setbacks, the Chicago attorney hiring market has persisted — and now shows signs of increased activity in certain areas, as firms refocus and adapt to remain competitive in a COVID-19 economy.

We will discuss Chicago law firm associate and partner workforce and hiring trends and statistics in light of recent shelter-in-place orders, as well as how firms are proceeding with the search and interview process during the pandemic.

The Chicago Associate Market: Workforce and Hiring Trends Overview

With respect to the associate job market, some Chicago firms have unfortunately conducted salary cuts, layoffs, furloughs, and complete hiring freezes to lower expenses during the recession. Fortunately, thus far, recent associate layoffs have been on a much smaller scale compared to the 2008 Great Recession, both in terms of the number of firms conducting layoffs and the number of associates let go.

Of 95 Am Law 200 and Chambers-ranked midsize firms we have tracked in Chicago, only 10 firms have conducted layoffs, and they have done so in limited numbers (e.g., targeting specific practice groups compared to massive 2008 workforce reductions).[1] Also, of the 14 Am Law 200 firms headquartered in Chicago, only 4 firms have conducted associate layoffs. In this recession, more firms have opted to institute non-layoff expenditure controls. Approximately 44 percent (37 out of 85) of Am Law 200 firms with offices in Chicago have reduced or delayed compensation for all attorneys. Firms have most commonly reduced associate salaries by 15–20 percent. Some Chicago firms have also furloughed associates for several months.

Practice areas in Chicago that have slowed the most during the pandemic and resulted in more associate layoffs and furloughs are M&A, middle-market debt-finance, transportation finance, and real estate. Some Chicago law firms have avoided layoffs by moving under-utilized associates in slower departments to busier practice groups. This is most common with interrelated practice areas; for example, some Chicago restructuring groups have absorbed M&A and finance associates. M&A and finance associates have transactional and document drafting experience transferable to restructuring practices as well as exposure to restructuring-related deals, such as distressed asset acquisition, recapitalizations, and debtor-in-possession financing. Similarly, firms have moved commercial litigation associates to bankruptcy litigation practice groups.

For those Chicago firms that have conducted layoffs, in order to ease the transition, a few firms have provided associates with three to four months of lead time to find new opportunities, permitting the attorneys to remain as salaried employees. In addition to the financial benefit, these types of arrangements can also help in the lateral application process by avoiding resume gaps and allowing the associate to maintain their practitioner skills. Most associate severance packages provide three months of full or partial salary with healthcare benefits, and some firms provide up to six months of partial salary and healthcare benefits. For associates who have been affected by a COVID-19 related layoff, be sure to consider enrolling in our Bridge Program.

Some Chicago law firms have continued lateral associate hiring, primarily in predictably recession-friendly or COVID-19 driven practice areas such as restructuring, healthcare, labor and employment, data-privacy, and cybersecurity. We have also recently seen a minor uptick in associate interview activity with select finance and real estate practice groups.

In Chicago, we currently have associate candidates interviewing in the following practice areas: restructuring, bankruptcy, debt finance, real estate, labor and employment, healthcare, commercial litigation, healthcare (regulatory and FDA-focused), data privacy, and cybersecurity. Firms are interviewing both local associate candidates and candidates relocating from other markets. Motivations for attorneys lateraling during the pandemic have been both market-driven (e.g., associates laid off or from firms that have reduced salaries) as well as traditional reasons for lateraling, such as upgrading to a higher-ranked firm, or a firm with a larger presence in a desired practice area. Associates relocating to Chicago are often originally from the Midwest or attended a Midwest law school or college with a large Chicago-alumni network.

With respect to associate interview and hiring formats, firms are both interviewing and onboarding new associate hires remotely via Zoom. Firms have made a concerted effort to go above and beyond to welcome and integrate lateral associates to the firm, with significant involvement from firm, practice group, and diversity leadership.

The Chicago Partner Market: Developments and Hiring Trends

Consistent with national trends, learning from 2008, Chicago law firms have since increased capital reserves or have more recently reduced or deferred partner distributions to shore-up cash positions and avoid overreliance on credit lines. Of the 44 percent of Am Law 200 firms in Chicago that have recently lowered or deferred partner compensation, most have reduced equity partner distributions or draws in the range of 10–20 percent.

Chicago firms are still working to tactically invest in revenue growth through lateral partner hiring during the pandemic. Many Chicago law firms are proceeding with lateral partner searches targeting both countercyclical and mainstay practice areas. With that said, given the current economic climate, Chicago firms are more risk averse and are only selectively considering practice groups and partners with proven profitability track-records.

There have also been some notable headline lateral partner and group hires in Chicago over the past few months. Willkie, which opened its new Chicago office in March, has grown to 22 attorneys, adding partners in commercial litigation, IP litigation, and trust and estates. In restructuring, Kirkland & Ellis, the recently merged Faegre Drinker Biddle, and Sheppard Mullin have recently hired leading partners in Chicago. Winston & Strawn also recently hired a renowned Chicago class action litigation partner.

Chicago Partner and Associate Hiring by the Numbers 

To assess the impact of COVID-19 on the Chicago lateral market, we can look at recent Chicago associate and partner hiring numbers compared to this time period last year (looking only at Am Law 200 firms).

From March 15, 2020 (around the time Chicago office closures and shelter in place orders began) through July 8, 2020, there were 156 lateral attorneys hired into Chicago firms. Of those 156 hires, 97 were associates, 38 were partners, and 21 were counsels.[2]

Looking at this same period in 2019, during a robust legal economy, there were 220 lateral attorneys hired into Chicago firms. Of those 220 hires, 140 were associates, 54 were partners, and 26 were counsels.

Thus, since Chicago’s COVID-19-related business and law firm office closures, overall lateral attorney movement to new firms dropped by 29 percent, with associate hiring down 31 percent and partner hiring down 30 percent. Looking specifically at the three busiest attorney hiring practice areas during the same period in 2019, corporate hiring dropped most precipitously for both lateral associates and partners, down 54 percent and 50 percent, respectively. In litigation, associate hiring was down 40 percent in 2020 and partner hiring remained the same, with 10 hires during this period in both 2019 and 2020. IP associate and partner hiring essentially stayed at the same level during this period in 2019 and 2020.

Chicago lateral hiring activity has fared slightly better than Am Law 200 firms nationally during the pandemic. Chicago’s overall lateral attorney hiring decrease of 29 percent was 6% less than the national Am Law 200 lateral attorney hiring decline of 35 percent from March 15, 2020 through July 8, 2020. Chicago associate hiring decreased 6 percent less than the national rate of 37 percent, and Chicago partner hiring declined 6 percent less than the national rate of 36 percent.

Although actual associate and partner hiring declined relatively evenly in Chicago over the past few months, many of the hires were in motion pre-COVID-19, and the decrease in legal work volume tends to lag slightly behind declining client demand by a month or more. Therefore, we also need to look at the number and rate of new Chicago associate position openings to ascertain the lateral demand and hiring activity drop. New associate positions in Chicago (from our internal database, including published and non-published searches) were as follows:

• 72 new jobs from June 15, 2019 to September 15, 2019
• 104 new jobs from September 15, 2019 to December 15, 2019
• 103 new jobs from December 15, 2019 to March 15, 2020
• 33 new jobs from March 15, 2020 to June 15, 2020
• 11 new jobs from June 15, 2020 to July 8, 2020

The relatively sharp drop in new associate openings is evident. Looking at current open associate positions in Chicago compared to last year, there are currently 29 active open associate positions (published and non-published), compared to 87 open posted associate positions on July 8, 2019.[3] While the associate market has slowed significantly, as previously discussed, firms are moving forward with targeted searches in certain practice areas.

With respect to partner searches, we are working on a range of Chicago partners searches with top firms. These partner searches are rarely published, given the targeted and relationship-driven nature of the process.

Conclusion

Although the Chicago lateral market has slowed down during the pandemic, we anticipate that specific practice areas (e.g., restructuring, labor and employment, IP, litigation, and data privacy) will remain busy, particularly on the partner side. For Chicago’s transactional practice areas, with private equity firms and asset managers holding significant capital and with fewer structural banking issues than in 2008, we foresee deal activity returning along with attorney hiring as the pandemic subsides.

If you are an associate, counsel, or partner considering a lateral move or a firm or company seeking to hire attorneys please reach out to me at jhyde@laterallink.com or find me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessephyde/). My Lateral Link colleagues and I are always happy to assist.

[1] The statistics in this post regarding firms conducting layoffs and salary reductions are from reports from firms and attorney employees found in Above the Law, the American Lawyer, and our internal monitoring of firms.

[2] The statistics in this post regarding number of attorneys hired into Chicago Am Law 200 firms are from the Leopard Solutions database. It is possible not all firms report data and that there may be a delay in reporting as well.

[3] Unfortunately, comparable data from our internal database for the July 8, 2019 is not available.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. This post is by Jesse Hyde, a Director based in the Chicago office, where he oversees attorney placements and client services in Chicago and throughout the Midwest. He specializes in placing associates, partners, and in-house counsel with leading Am Law 100 and 200 law firms and premier corporations. With a proven successful track record, Jesse advises attorneys, law firms, and companies through all stages of the recruitment and hiring process to effectively reach their objectives. Jesse received his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law where he was on the Dean’s List and a Member of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. Jesse received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and majored in history. Before recruiting, he practiced as a commercial litigation attorney with a Chicago-based law firm for four years.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices worldwide, 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.

A write-on competition is bad enough. Ramming forward with it right after a Zoom semester, in the midst of a pandemic that’s disproportionately impacting Black and Brown students, while the most recent police killings ignited long-overdue protest and a violent response from law enforcement, is downright foolhardy. On the other hand, if the goal was to performatively simulate the experience of working on a journal — sacrificing all connection with reality to obsess over comma placement — mission accomplished, I guess?

But obviously that shouldn’t be the experience of working on a journal and it definitely shouldn’t guide the process of awarding positions that offer significant career enhancement. Given the circumstances and the disproportionate impact on some students — students who already face systemic career obstacles — a request was lodged with the school to offer some accommodation. The response was a 48-hour extension and the opportunity to tack on a 150-word personal statement, presumably banking on America banging out a solution to the whole “police brutality and global pandemic” thing over the weekend.

The lackluster response prompted a June 8 letter written to the administration on behalf of Concerned Students and Alumni and in solidarity with NYU’s BALSA explaining that the accommodation was not, in fact, remotely enough and noting that a competition held under circumstances that sideline Black students “would allow inequitable access to Law Review by constructing additional barriers for Black students to clerkships, fellowships, networking, and the highest-paying legal careers. Further, journals need representation by Black students to ensure rigorous academic discourse and fight the whitewashing of legal academia; Black students deserve far more than the burden of tokenized representation.”

The school’s response to this was a whole lot of not much.

So the students wrote a follow up earlier this week pointing out that the University of Texas, facing the same challenges, already announced a second writing competition. With NYU having abdicated leadership on this issue, the students took the matter into their own hands and organized. Roughly 150 students have now signed this statement of solidarity:

Those of us who are currently on or will be offered membership on any of the journals pledge that we will refuse to perform any of our membership duties until the above demands are satisfied.

Specifically, the statement demands that the journals “expand their membership, making available additional membership slots to the Class of 2022. Additionally, we demand the reopening of the submission period to allow all students an equitable opportunity to apply for those additional slots.”

Take a second to consider what this means. Getting 150 law students together to do anything is an accomplishment. Getting so many to put the most significant career chit of their nascent professional lives on the line requires impressive organizing. A lot of people don’t get the distinction between being an ally and being an accomplice when it comes to struggles for justice, but in a nutshell it’s easy to be an ally because allies aren’t risking anything. An accomplice, on the other hand, stands to go down with the cause and suffer some real consequences. It’s a testament to the effort that it succeeded in bridging this gap.

And yesterday morning, the Office of Student Affairs sent around a statement explaining that it will design a second writing competition, pledging to “communicate more details regarding the second competition, including which journals will participate, on Tuesday, July 14th.” It’s a safe bet that the Journal of Law & Liberty — the libertarian journal who sources say have remained markedly intransigent throughout the process — won’t be joining the second round. The leadership of that journal didn’t even sign the OSA statement, but maybe like “[their] very own Richard Epstein” they massively underestimated the numbers here.

The new competition won’t result in anyone already awarded a slot losing their position, which is nice, but also underscores how ridiculously easy this would have been to solve back in June if the school had wanted to do it. So while the school may be on the path toward resolving the immediate crisis — and one organizer cautioned that “there are a lot of ways that a second competition can replicate the issues of the first competition” — this shouldn’t put the underlying issue to rest. This isn’t really about writing on to journals as much as the failure of anyone in charge to recognize the problem in the first place and, once informed, offering little to no response. That’s the breakdown and what animates the organizing effort and that’s going to take a lot more than a second Bluebooking exercise to address — it’s going to require some fundamental reflection.

But it looks like there will be a sizable block of energized students prepared to push the school in this effort.

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.

* President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen is back in custody over a dispute about the conditions of his early release. Some think Cohen’s dinner out last week may have contributed to his legal woes. [USA Today]

* The Los Angeles City Attorney is accusing a nursing home of “dumping” patients onto the street to make room for COVID-19 patients for which the institution is paid larger sums of money. [Los Angeles Times]

* Disney World passholders have filed suit for being charged for months the park was closed due to COVID-19. These litigants have a lot of chutzpah challenging Mickey Mouse. [Spectrum News]

* A lawyer claims she never received a Zoom link to participate in a housing court matter, and as a result, her client was wrongfully evicted. [Cleavland.com]

* Jacksonville attorneys have filed suit in an attempt to prevent the Republican National Convention from taking place in the city next month. [CNN]

* New York lawyers are concerned over apparent plans to begin reopening courts next week. At least it looks like I’ll see all of my friends in CCP again soon… [New York Post]

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

According to data collected by Law.com, which NLJ 500 firms grew their headcount in 2019, but have laid off or furloughed employees during the economic turmoil caused by COVID-19?

Hint: At these firms, headcounts grew between 2.2 and 7.1 percent last year.

See the answer on the next page.

You think you’ve had skeevy managing partners? PFFFFT. Former SDNY head Geoffrey Berman has got you beat in a walk. Here’s how he described getting fired by Bill Barr in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon.

On June 18, 2020, I received an email from a member of the Attorney General’s staff stating that the Attorney General wanted to meet me the next day at the Pierre Hotel in New York. I was not told the purpose of the meeting.

Summoned to meet your boss in his hotel room? Hello, HR …

During a tense 45-minute lunchtime meeting in which nobody touched the tray of sad sandwiches, Barr told Berman that “he wanted to make a change in the Southern District of New York,” and that change was to promote Berman out of there ASAP.

He said that there was an opening in DOJ’s Civil Division created by the recently announced departure of Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt. He asked me to resign my position and take that job, saying that it would create an opening for SEC Chairman Jay Clayton to be nominated for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Berman protested that he “loved” his job at SDNY, and Barr assured him that he was “not at all dissatisfied” with Berman’s performance. Nonetheless, it was imperative to replace him immediately with U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Craig Carpenito pending Clayton’s confirmation. A confirmation which would take place never, since it would require the signoff of both Democratic senators from New York, an event slightly less likely than Donald Trump going an entire day without Tweeting.

I told the Attorney General that I knew and liked Jay Clayton but he was an unqualified choice for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York because he was never an AUSA and had no criminal experience.

It was at this point, after he’d already offered him the job as head of the Civil Division, that Barr asked Berman if he actually had any civil experience, suggesting that the promotion would help Berman “build his book” for when he returned to private practice.

The Attorney General pressed me to take the Civil Division position, saying that the role would be a good resume builder. He said that I should want to create a book of business once I returned to the private sector, which that role would help achieve. He also stated that I would just have to sit there for five months and see who won the election before deciding what came next for me. As part of this exchange he asked if I had done civil work at my prior law firm. I confirmed that I had indeed done civil work but that I did not want to lead the Department’s Civil Division.

But Berman said that he wasn’t leaving until his successor was confirmed by the Senate. He wasn’t going to be shoved out like Jessie Liu, the former U.S. Attorney for D.C. whose career got blown up so Barr could bypass congressional confirmation and put his pal Timothy Shea in there to ratf*ck the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn cases.

The Attorney General repeatedly urged me to take the Civil Division position. At one point I compared his request for my resignation to what happened with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia where the U.S. Attorney resigned and was replaced with someone from outside that office instead of the First Assistant. By referring to that resignation I intended to signal the Attorney General that I was not going to resign so that he could disregard normal procedure and appoint someone from outside the Southern District as acting head instead of our Deputy U.S. Attorney.

Barr offered him several other positions in the administration, but when Berman refused to budge, Barr threatened to fire him and tank his career: “He added that getting fired from my job would not be good for my resume or future job prospects.” Which is better than threatening to break both his knees with a baseball bat … marginally.

So Berman left the meeting and immediately called his own lawyer, since he knew he was about to get shivved. And after one more phone call offering to let Berman switch jobs with Clayton and move over to the SEC, Barr tried to force his hand by announcing late that Friday night that Berman was resigning. Which provoked one of the batshittier news cycles in an administration that produces guano by the ton.

And all that was just in Berman’s opening statement! His testimony took place behind closed doors, but it should probably leak right about …. NOW.

Opening Statement of Geoffrey S. Berman Before the House Judiciary Committee [via Politico]

Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.