The winner of Attorney of the Year is
@Sifill_LDF
for fighting for police reform, equitable education and election integrity, as well as the protection of voting rights and protesters in the face of growing opposition
#TALawards
This year, we not only have an Attorney of the Year, but a Highly Commended finalist. For his dedication tenacity and commitment to fighting for those with ALS, congratulations to Brian Wallach.
#TALawards
By ignoring negative conduct and bullying behaviors, law firms are paying a price in terms of employee engagement, higher attrition, diminished reputation and increased litigation risks
The latest gossip from
@lawcareerist
: Move over, Michael Cohen.
#BigLaw
is encroaching on your turf representing powerful men in their dealings with former mistresses and lovers
She reminded us that the work ahead is tremendous and said that in 2021, we must look with clarity at ourselves and our profession, and remain unafraid, committed and clear.
In compiling the
#AmLaw100
report each year, we dig through the numbers to compare the country’s largest firms across more than a dozen financial metrics. Take a closer look at all the numbers that mattered most at
Jessica Crutcher, a litigation partner at
@Mayer_Brown
, has chosen to publicly identify herself as the BigLaw partner who sued a Houston restaurant for $20 million, alleging she was raped by a bartender formerly employed there.
A special master tapped to review overbilling in a $75M legal fee award in a securities class action settlement faulted Labaton Sucharow and its co-counsel. Then the firm fired off criticisms of its own.
Tony West of Uber is our GC of the Year! He credits his team and his wife and says that as lawyers, we get to have something not everyone does: the chance to make the world a little bit better because we walk through it.
#TALawards
And the winner is Ted Boutrous! He couldn't be here in person, but sent a message praising attorneys who are defending the rule of law in difficult times
#AmericanLawyerAwards
While keeping the bonus scale in line with last year’s, Milbank has given associates a $10,000 raise, the firm announced today. The new salary scale is below:
In 2020,
@DavidLat
did what he has always done: bring transparency and vital information to many. But this time, the information was different—it was his story of survival.
With the rise of Twitter, a new breed of tech-savvy, loose-lipped lawyers has emerged. They’ve banded together, forming legal communities like
#LawTwitter
,
#TrialTwitter
and
#LadyLawyerDiaries
.
Veteran terrorism prosecutor Zainab Ahmad, who recently served on Robert Mueller III’s special counsel team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, is joining
@gibsondunn
in New York as a white-collar partner.
Good lawyers, bad managers: This is a source of unnecessary stress in many work environments, prompting trickle-down toxicity, downward-flowing distress and an unchecked proliferation of “just make it happen” moments.
Milbank has upped the associate compensation pressure with salary increases of $10-15K for all classes:
1st yr - $190,000
2nd yr - $200,000
3rd yr - $220,000
4th yr - $250,000
5th yr - $275,000
6th yr - $295,000
7th yr - $315,000
8th yr - $330,000
#BigLaw
Aaron Schlossberg does not have any history of public discipline (most attorney discipline is private). Will that change after his racist rant went viral?
The glacial pace of progress made by BigLaw in achieving diversity has pushed clients looking to fulfill lofty diversity goals elsewhere: They are hiring minority-and women-owned law firms.
Update: The
@SHBLaw
litigator who caused an uproar by objecting to opposing counsel's request for a continuance—the trial date was close to her due date—has been suspended by his firm
Congratulations to
@rcfp
for their work educating and protecting the news media and Tom Leatherbury of
@VinsonandElkins
, who has spent four decades demonstrating his commitment to the First Amendment.
.
@bakermckenzie
global chair Paul Rawlinson said the record results, with revenue hitting $2.9B, came from closer client relationships & more efficient service delivery.
Harvard Law School Lambda, Michigan OUTLaws, UCLA OUTLaw & Yale Law School OutLaws have severed ties with Gibson Dunn,
@PeoplesParity
said. "You can’t say you are LGBTQ friendly when you're using forced arbitration to cover up harassment & discrimination."
Jonathan Boies, a son of renowned trial lawyer David Boies who practiced at Boies Schiller Flexner until he left the law for entrepreneurship, died Feb. 22 of complications related to a rare vascular brain condition.
At a Jones Day summer associate event at a partner’s home, a female summer associate wearing a white dress was allegedly pushed into the pool, and the male summer associate who pushed her was “applauded and high-fived” by leadership, the complaint says.
.
@MorganLewisLaw
today debuted ML Well, a new initiative combining educational programming with physical health and community engagement initiatives. The firm has also brought on Krista Logelin as its first-ever director of employee of well-being.
"Weinstein’s wrongful and outrageous conduct has not just deprived Ms. Judd of the specific opportunity to play a prominent role in a blockbuster trilogy; it has had a long-lasting ripple effect on the trajectory of her whole career."
@BoutrousTed
Women law student associations at eight elite schools will no longer accept funding from firms that require employees to sign mandatory arbitration agreements or that do not disclose whether they use them, nor promote those employers to students.
"There is a tremendous about of data
#BigLaw
is sitting on. If law firms learned how to fully analyze that data, they would really be helping their clients," Deborah Read
@ThompsonHine
#Legalweek19
My husband took his life—our life—on Sunday, Oct. 14, one month to the day before our 10-year wedding anniversary. We had been planning a trip for over a year in anticipation of celebrating
Lawyer suicides sparked an industry wide conversation on attorney mental health & well-being in 2018 that is gaining steam. Expect the focus to intensify in 2019.
When Joanna Litt sat down to write about the death of her husband, Gabe MacConail, a Sidley Austin partner who died by suicide in 2018, she couldn’t have known how far her words would reach. It led us to name her the 2019 Attorney of the Year. Watch her acceptance speech:
Reed Smith is rolling out a new suite of initiatives for associates, including an app-based feedback process, opportunities to temporarily work in different offices around the globe and a “ramp up” program for lawyers returning from leave
@reedsmithllp
As clients look for diversity and firms seek to avoid pay discrimination & promotion claims, senior female lawyers are in high demand and short supply.
Women attorneys have always suspected it’s a boys’ club. Yet, seeing cold, hard data support that suspicion tapped a deep-seated fear: No matter how hard they try, women face daunting odds in developing business.
Shaking the stigma attached to
#mentalhealth
concerns will require an ideological shift within the legal profession. This requires the full engagement of law firms and lawyers.
.
@CooleyLLP
has welcomed aboard White & Case partner Kenneth Juster as the West Coast firm seeks to bolster its financial services regulatory practice in Boston and expand its East Coast bench
"We, as a group, will direct our substantial outside counsel spend to those law firms that manifest results with respect to diversity and inclusion, in addition to providing the highest degree of quality representation."
“They benefit from silence, and they don’t like that we’re making waves about this.” - Molly Coleman, a Harvard law student & leader of
@PeoplesParity
, which today protested DLA Piper's use of mandatory arbitration outside the firm's offices
"We see corporate law firms really standing up and offering their resources to help fight back,”
@KristenClarkeJD
said. “It speaks to how central the right to vote is in our democracy.”
“Like so many other things in life, you always feel like you benefit the most from things where people think that you’re giving back.”
@MorganLewisLaw
chair Jami Wintz McKeon, the sole firm leader participating in the Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership
Dear Dr. Ford: "As practitioners who interact with the judiciary on a daily basis, we thank you for coming forward to make that bench stronger through critical examination of those nominated to serve as judges."
Tony Mauro joins us to present the inaugural award named for him, the Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award, to Laura Prather of
@haynesboone
for her work protecting Texas' anti-SLAPP law
#AmericanLawyerAwards
BREAKING: Our Legalweek New York event is expanding in 2021 to include a yearlong slate of programming featuring a series of briefings, roundtable discussions, and more!
#Legalweek21
#Legalweekyear
BREAKING: Alma Asay is returning to her roots. Asay has joined law firm
@Crowell_Moring
as its senior director of practice innovation and client value.
Fully 89% of the class of 2018 found jobs within 10 months, and 71% were positions that required a law degree. Large law firms also upped their hiring last year.
ICYMI: 4-day work weeks aren't for every law firm, but they may be more doable than you think. Here's how one firm founder, who says he's as competitive as they come, made it work
If a lawyer annualizing 1,800 hours has a 30-minute commute each day, they’re already on the upper limit of what researchers define as a healthy amount of work.
A Thompson & Knight administrative employee has been fired over a social media post that objected to stores' mask-wearing requirements by threatening to show a Whole Foods security guard his shooting range results instead of his COVID-19 test results.
It's our anniversary! We're celebrating
#40YearsofAmLaw
with a look at the incredible evolution the legal industry has undergone over the course of four decades, and what's coming in the next one
"While everyone else in legal media is busy compiling names for the best lawyers for the year," Vivia Chen writes, "I have a list that’s much more fun and illuminating: the very worst of our esteemed profession."
One of the named plaintiffs in the suit against Jones Day says the firm allegedly froze her salary when she took leave for her first pregnancy, and forced her out of the firm days after she returned from her second maternity leave
"Whatever benefit of a doubt I had given to Brett Kavanaugh about his suitability for the U.S. Supreme Court has gone out the window. Seeing is believing, and what I saw at the Senate judiciary hearing was jarring." -
@lawcareerist
“The day I made partner (we had one tier at the time), one of my male partners came to my office to congratulate me. He closed the door and planted a big wet kiss on my lips and said, ‘I have been waiting for years to do that….now you can’t sue me.’”
“It’s difficult to convey the stress to attorneys of what we do. To try and convey how many balls we are juggling sounds defensive and lame, so we suck it up,” said one legal marketer