Is this just my weird perception, or are law firm managing partners being surveyed constantly? It seems that every other week, some law firm lender or consultancy or recruiting firm is touting the results of a managing partners survey. Managing partners have things to do other than respond to surveys — like, well, managing law firms.
Despite the proliferation of such surveys, we do appreciate the information and insight they contain. So let’s check out the recently released results of one of the most prominent surveys, the American Lawyer’s annual Law Firm Leaders survey….
* “Biglaw Bonuses for Dummies: A Reference for the Rest of Us!” By Elie Mystal. [Bloomberg Businessweek]
* Just how quickly will state-by-state legal education be able to respond to changing market conditions? Thus far, both New York and California have proven themselves to be pretty damn nimble. [Legal Ethics Forum]
* Here’s a cute docket sheet entry from Judge Marcia Cooke in the Southern District of Florida. Thanks for not being a grinch this holiday season, Your Honor! [Southern District of Florida Blog]
* A town in Germany has started using “female friendly” parking spaces, because parking a car is just so hard for we womenfolk to do when we’re supposed to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. [Telegraph]
* Hiram Chodosh, once named as a law dean hottie, has been named the fifth president of Claremont McKenna College. Of course, the former title is cooler than the latter, don’t you think? [Sacramento Bee]
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, in the first of a two-part series, Joshua Stein gives some practical advice on how manage your workflow.
As your work piles up, you will often feel as if you can’t possibly finish it. Each project seems overwhelming when you think about it in the abstract. And as soon as you start work on a new project, and figure out what it will actually require, it can become even more overwhelming.
This article and its sequel share a few techniques I use to help gain some control over my workflow. Few of these ideas are original, but I’ve included my own variations and suggestions.
A. Managing Everything. You will feel less overwhelmed if you protect yourself from feeling physically overwhelmed by the projects on your plate. For example, don’t cover your desk with piles of active tasks. For each active task, collect the various pieces of paper in a folder. Put all your folders away. Keep a “to-do” list of all your active tasks — every one of them — without writing other reminders to yourself anywhere else. Your to-do list should include everything. My own to-do list consists of a Word document with three columns: client work; other work; and personal projects. First priority tasks go to the top of each list. Some people use Outlook or even dedicated software. In any case, keep track of what you need to do and your priorities in a way that you don’t unintentionally leave anything behind. You should, however, also stay flexible in reordering and adjusting the list as you go. Regardless of format, a to-do list will help you feel more in control of your agenda, inviting you to set priorities and take each job one at a time. It’s far better than living with a chaotic physical mess that constantly taunts you about what you haven’t done….
It’s December, and you know what that means: it’s time to deck the halls with boughs of holly, and offer jobs to law students that will make them fa-la-la-la-laugh their indebted little asses off.
It’s been a while since we last wrote about the ridiculous jobs law professors try to pawn off on students, but at least this one isn’t offering up an adventures in babysitting gig. No, this time, a law professor caught a whiff of the holiday spirit, and is offering students the chance to get involved with their very own holly jolly Christmas.
Perhaps the eggnog this law prof was drinking had a little too much whiskey in it, because you’d have to be drunk to think it was a good idea to offer up a job that offers no legal experience whatsoever….
The Defense of Marriage Act. California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage. These were two of the big issues that the U.S. Supreme Court was deciding whether to hear this Term.
The Court just issued its certiorari orders. What happened?
Still, who am I to say these cases are a mistake? I am straight and married. And I am white and well off. I got mine.
– SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein, commenting on the many gay marriage “test cases” that might get heard this Term by the Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog has a liveblog up right now, waiting for possible certiorari grants and denials in these cases.
Elections have consequences, and right now I’m waiting for Republicans to start paying the piper. I’m looking at you, Ted Nugent. You declared, nay promised, that if Obama was reelected, you’d either be dead or in jail within a year. Well, tick tock buddy, we’re all waiting.
In fact, there were many Republicans who promised to do all sorts of horrible things should Barack Obama win. And apparently some of them are following through. Nothing makes a political statement about the vibrancy of our democracy than petulantly firing people when democracy doesn’t go your way.
And heck, we don’t even know how many people will be “not hired” because, “Grrr… we have to pay for our employees’ health care because we were too partisan or stupid to support a single-payer system that would have shifted the burden of health insurance away from private employers.”
At least, we won’t know unless they tell us. Which, incredibly, one solo practitioner apparently did, in a rejection letter to somebody who applied in response to her Craigslist ad. It’s easily the best post-election rejection letter we’ve seen….
After much reflection and consideration, I am pleased to report that I have decide to leave this miserable in-house gig and return to glorious law firm life. I’ve recently accepted an offer to slave away work at the Big City office of the prestigious Biglaw, Biggerlaw & Biggestlaw LLP.
Did anybody else around my age first learn about bidets from Crocodile Dundee?
The Yale Law School Wall is consistently one of the best listservs in all of law school. Only the Michigan Law listserv can compete.
Today, the Yale Wall brings us a fun story of Yalies intellectualizing the etiquette of… picking a urinal to pee in.
In fairness, urinal etiquette is an important issue. It’s just that most guys kind of figure it out on their own.
But at Yale Law, there are no stupid questions. And it’s a very liberal, gender-neutral place. We know that because not only are urinal questions being asked on the listserv, the guy asking the question is seeking advice from a girl….
Remember Judge Wade McCree? How could you not! He’s the Michigan jurist who received our Judge of the Day honors back in April for sending nearly-nude photos of himself to one of his female bailiffs via sext message. When confronted with the issue, McCree told a Fox Detroit reporter he had “no shame in [his] game.” When confronted by the Michigan Supreme Court, McCree was issued a censure for bringing shame to the judiciary, if not himself.
Now, you’d think that the good judge would clean up his act after a brush with the law, but of course, you’d be wrong. We wonder if he’s got any shame in his game now that his alleged affair with a litigant has been exposed for all the world to see.
And you really won’t believe where this woman claims they got it on, repeatedly….
Last year, I complained that the complicated compensation system at Vinson & Elkins was giving me a headache. What’s wrong with a Cravath-style system of lockstep salaries and bonuses? Or a Kirkland- or Latham-style system of lockstep salaries and individualized bonuses? Is it really necessary, for purposes of paying associates, to utilize a system involving deferred compensation?
Luckily for me and my limited quantitative-reasoning ability, V&E has decided to streamline their system. Let’s learn about what they’re doing, which they revealed in the course of announcing their bonuses.
* “Did the imperative use of the F-bomb … threaten judicial authority?” Wow, seriously? This is perhaps the most entertaining question presented for review in a Supreme Court certiorari petition in the history of man. [National Law Journal]
* Boy, Dewey have some expensive paintings for you to buy! This failed firm’s art collection will be hitting the auction block in February, and the entire LeBoeuf lot is supposedly worth $2.3M, but most pieces are pretty damn ugly. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* When anonymous commenting goes wronger-er: Jim Letten, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has resigned amid the scandal caused by his underlings’ obnoxious comments. [Times-Picayune]
* Your employers really don’t want pictures of your office holiday party antics going viral online (but we do). Here are some of the many ways they’ll try to keep you from becoming internet famous. [Corporate Counsel]
* George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin, is suing NBCUniversal, alleging that the network and Today show reporters committed serious “journalistic crimes.” [Media Decoder / New York Times]
Andres Benach, Thomas Ragland, and Jennifer Cook had built one of the most productive and highly regarded immigration practices in the country. Their focus on complex matters established them at the top of the field, but they felt that finding a platform that would allow them to also handle routine immigration matters, and to build a practice tailored to their particular strengths and ideals, would allow them to take their practice to the next level. Finding a way to capitalize on this opportunity was monetarily important, but more importantly would take their careers in a more rewarding direction.
They decided to launch their own firm, and began to assemble a task list that quickly grew long and unmanageable. Many of the things they hoped to accomplish – putting together a business plan, establishing an IT platform, selecting an HR and benefits program, and engineering a finance and accounting system – were daunting and beyond their comfort zone. They decided to seek some help.
“We didn’t appreciate all that needed to be done before we found NexFirm,” said Andres Benach. “After they constructed a business plan for us and helped us to determine our operational structure, we were able to focus on the things that would make our firm a success.”
Among the points of discussion was a major business model change that would allow them to add to their focus the handling of routine matters. Thomas Ragland explains, “We built a platform that would allow us to service all types of immigration matters, from the straightforward to the highly complex. The genesis of this was a desire to grow our practice; the result has been a better experience for our clients and a more rewarding mission for our attorneys and staff.” Part of this expanded marketing strategy is Lifted Lamp, the immigration law blog created by the partners shortly after their 2012 launch. Lifted Lamp is already a preeminent voice for “DREAMers” on-line, and it is quickly becoming a productive case generation tool. “We wouldn’t have been able to do this as part of a big firm, and it’s one of the great services that Benach Ragland offers. Plus, I love to do it,” explained Andres Benach.
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
The US associate lateral hiring market in Asia for US and UK firms is in a severe down cycle, at least when compared to recent boom hiring periods (mid ’06 – mid ’08; mid ’10 to mid ’11). The bulk of the US associate hiring in Asia since ’05 at top firms has been in cap markets, especially in HK / China in china focused cap markets. This year lateral hiring in cap markets in HK / China has been extremely slow, for two obvious reasons: a) Many IPOs US cap markets groups have been working on in HK / China are on hold; and b) there was much more than usual lateral hiring in this practice area from late ’10 to mid ’11 (right before the slow down in IPOs). Most top US cap markets groups in HK / China are over staffed at present and a number of US firms have US associate hiring on hold in Asia in all practice groups because of this. With that said, we have recently made a few US cap markets placements in Hong Kong, but this is weak hiring area right now, so weak that some very impressive native Chinese US cap markets associates from top 10 US firms are having a hard time getting interviews, much less offers (and for most of the past 7 years in HK / China, this US associate background has been in very high demand, with such candidates usually having their choice of multiple offers quickly after starting a job search). When the market rebounds, hopefully in ’13, US cap markets associate hiring in Asia will bounce back strong. There are a lot of HK / China related IPOs on hold in and many of those deals will come back to life when the market rebounds, but for now things are very slow in US cap markets in HK / China, with there only being some pockets of cap market strength in Pan Asia (such as Philippines and Indonesia for example).
Coming out of the usual late summer period of hiring partners on holidays and slow interviewing and hiring, we usually get a pop of new openings in September. This year we were not expecting much, considering the market, but we have been pleasantly surprised. It is surely not a strong hiring market at present, but more new openings than to be expected (see below) while the HK / China market is still in a down cycle.
Is this just my weird perception, or are law firm managing partners being surveyed constantly? It seems that every other week, some law firm lender or consultancy or recruiting firm is touting the results of a managing partners survey. Managing partners have things to do other than respond to surveys — like, well, managing law firms.