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Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!
According to data collected by the National Law Journal 500, by what percentage did the non-equity partnership ranks increase in 2020?
Hint: And yes, the equity ranks shrunk (but only by 0.3 percent).
See the answer on the next page.
For so many years, I looked at photos in CLE program brochures and wondered why all the speakers were white males and, at that point in time, older than I was. (No more.) No lawyers of color, no women. I asked the general counsel to whom I reported, who had bought tickets to a particular CLE program featuring neither women nor lawyers of color, to ask one of the organizers why that was so. The response was lame. (This was in the late 1990s or early oughts). The organizers claimed they couldn’t find any knowledgeable women or lawyers of color. Really? What a crock. What an insulting answer to those who had been practicing for years and who were equally qualified, if not more so, to participate on the various panels. In fact, the sponsors had only to look within their own Biglaw firms for smart, knowledgeable respected lawyers of color and women. But the old boy network was alive and well.
It’s only been in the past decade or so that things have started to change in terms of diversity and inclusion on CLE panels (ironic, isn’t it, when the profession is supposed to champion those ideas?) However, I never thought I would read about a state supreme court that clearly prefers the past to the present. But here we are. And the Business Law Section of the Florida Bar which, while trying to do something laudable, (i.e., diversifying CLE faculty composition) got whacked upside the head.
The Florida Supreme Court has, sua sponte, told the Florida Bar that, pursuant to its decision in: In re: Amendment to Rule Regulating The Florida Bar 6-10, Case No. SC21-284, it is prohibited from approving continuing legal education programs that use “quotas based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation in the selection of course faculty or participants.” In other words, a diverse CLE faculty is a bad idea. Florida Bar Rule 6-10.3(d).
Language in the court’s order talks about “certain means are out of bounds.” The court says that “Quotas based on characteristics like the ones in this policy are antithetical to basic American principles of nondiscrimination.”
And, by the way, this ruling may well impact not just programs that the Florida Bar puts on, but any program by any provider (ABA, PLI, and a host of others) that has a diverse speaker panel and for which Florida CLE credit is sought. What century are we in? The dissent comments that a simple letter to the Business Law Section of the Florida Bar would have sufficed, stating that the diversity requirement may well be in violation of United States Supreme Court precedent and that there was no need for a rule amendment on this point.
What is especially interesting is the language added to the Florida Rule on MCLE course approval. “The board of legal specialization and education may not approve any course submitted by a sponsor, including a section of The Florida Bar, that uses quotas based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation in the selection of course faculty or participants.” Exactly what is a “quota” in this context? Just because a CLE provider picks lawyers of color or women to panels does that automatically scream “quota?” What if those selected are the best qualified to speak on the topics to be discussed? Who makes those panel selection decisions? Should that change?
What does the term “course participants” mean? Should that be taken to mean that audiences can no longer be diverse? Isn’t the word “participants” redundant if the intent of the rule is to be applied only to faculty? What other participants are there who are not faculty except for those attending the program? Could the term “participants” mean vendors, co-sponsors? What if a minority bar, also a CLE provider, has a CLE program and draws faculty from its membership? What if a minority bar is a co-sponsor of a program? Would that CLE provider have to decline the co-sponsor participation, thus pissing off members and losing revenue because of the rule change?
Why this amendment? Is it nothing more than an attempt to roll back diversity and inclusion efforts to bolster the fragile egos of white male lawyers? Do any white male lawyers have fragile egos? I haven’t noticed that in all these years, in fact, just the opposite in my experience.
So, what now? The Florida Supreme Court held that the amended rule would be effective immediately — as of the date of its decision, April 15, 2021 — however, it would allow comments to its decision to be received until June 29, 2021. If anyone wants to comment on this absurd rule change, time’s a-wasting.
Aside from this ruling, who thinks that diversity in CLE is a bad idea? Of course, no one is going to say anything publicly that it’s not a good idea, but I would imagine that there are those among us who think that diversity in CLE is a bad idea. Those same lawyers probably also think that diversity, equity, and inclusion in our ranks is also a bad idea, but no one has the guts to say so publicly. Yes, appearing on a CLE panel is often a marketing opportunity. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it well beyond time for lawyers of color and women to have such opportunities to develop business?
Please tell me what century the Florida Supreme Court is in, because it sure doesn’t look like mine or does it?
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.
The global managed services company Integreon has been acquired by the private equity firm EagleTree Capital, the two companies announced this morning.
EagleTree, a middle-market PE firm based in New York, acquired Integreon from the PE firm NewQuest Capital Partners. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
EagleTree also owns ALM, the media company that is parent to Law.com, The American Lawyer, and other publications and services.
The companies said that Integreon will be a standalone platform investment in the EagleTree portfolio, and that there will be no change in Integreon’s operations, management team and personnel.
Founded in 1998 by Liam Brown, now chairman and CEO of Elevate, as Integreon Managed Solutions, Integreon provides a range of services including litigation, cyber incident response, contracts and compliance, creative, and legal administrative services.
The company specializes in process-driven, high-volume engagements to build efficiencies and economies of scale, it says. Its customers include law firms, corporate legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms.
Integreon CEO Bob Rowe said that EagleTree has a long history of investing in companies considered to be best-in-class in their respective industries and helping them accelerate growth.
“Integreon will continue to execute on its current strategy, now bolstered by EagleTree’s resources and expertise,” Rowe said. “We have experienced tremendous expansion in recent years and we look forward to working with EagleTree to continue that growth.”
In a joint statement, Anup Bagaria, co-managing partner at EagleTree, and Rohan Rai, partner, said: “Integreon has built a market leading position over the past 20+ years in the growing outsourced services sector as a result of world class customer service and innovative solutions provided by its talented employee base.
“We look forward to supporting Integreon’s strategic growth plan, both organically and through acquisitions.”
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Supporting women and parents in the workplace is obviously a vital element to any diverse workplace. But it is also essential to look beyond the platitudes about diversity and dive into what it is really like at elite law firms. Earlier this week, Working Mother released their annual list of the Best Law Firms For Women.
Every year, Working Mother puts out this list, but with all the garbage that folks had to deal with in 2020 due to the pandemic, they made some changes to their methodology:
[Working Mother’s parent company] Seramount’s 2021 Best Law Firms for Women application includes more than 300 questions about attorney demographics at different levels, schedule flexibility, paid time off and parental leaves, and development and retention of women. This year, in light of COVID-19, several questions were added about the success of working from home for lawyers.
So what do we know about the recognized firms? Well, 40 percent of attorneys at the firms are women, 34 percent of non-equity partners at the firms are women, and 25 percent of equity partners are women. The firms average 13 weeks of paid parental leave and 100 percent of the firms on the list let parents return to work on reduced schedules.
Without further ado, here are this year’s honorees:
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
Baker McKenzie
Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz
Ballard Spahr
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
Blank Rome
Chapman and Cutler
Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete
Cooley
Crowell & Moring
Davis Wright Tremaine
Day Pitney
DLA Piper LLP (US)
Dorsey & Whitney
Duane Morris
Epstein Becker & Green
Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath
Fenwick & West
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner
Fish & Richardson
Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
Goodwin Procter
Hanson Bridgett
Holland & Knight
Jackson Lewis
Kirkland & Ellis
Lane Powell PC
Latham & Watkins
Lathrop GPM
Littler
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
McDermott Will & Emery
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
Morrison & Foerster
Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Perkins Coie
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
Reed Smith
Ropes & Gray
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
Shook, Hardy & Bacon
Sidley Austin
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Stinson
Taft Law
Wiley
WilmerHale
Congrats to everyone on the list!
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
I’m not surprised that firms with less than stellar years are matching, because they think this will vault them into competitiveness. I’m also not surprised that firms with stellar years are matching, because they think they must do so to remain competitive.
— Tim Corcoran, a legal compensation consultant, commenting on the summer salary wars that have taken hold across the large law firm landscape, even at firms that are coming off a down year in 2020. “You’re looking for rationality in an irrational market,” he continued. “There’s no shortage of capable associates.”
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.
As a litigator, I never had to scour through hundreds of contracts to piece together the proper market language for clause 58(c)(6)(iii)(⏁), but it sounded horrible. Say what you will about trying to divine meaning from 10 years of easily distinguishable opinions, but it beats spending all night doing that. On the other hand, transactional attorneys are way more marketable on the back end so… maybe it would’ve been worth it.
Thankfully, there are a lot of tools out there now that make deal work less an exercise in drudgery. We’ve talked before about how all contract lifecycle products aren’t the same, so there’s no one magic bullet to solve all contract issues, but there’s a combination of tools that can make a remarkably efficient deal process.
And another tool on that market came out today with the announcement of LexisNexis Market Standards — Finance, a new solution for “researching and comparing recent and relevant transactions, finding on-point precedent and clause language, and evaluating specific deal points for more thorough document drafting and more successful negotiations.”
For LexisNexis, it’s the logical extension of the work they’ve been doing the last few years. The company launched its M&A tool back in October. Now the company’s extensive library of data and its analytics capabilities are being brought to the finance space. In a few weeks, the company promises to unveil an Employment solution. The steady march of analytics continues.
The new offering boasts more than 2,200 SEC-filed credit agreements over $50 million and more than 350 bank commitment letters filed since 2017. On that library — which is expanded with new deals every two weeks — Market Standards runs analysis up to 90 deal points within credit agreements and around 70 deal points within commitment letters.
The easy to use filter system allows users to limit to deals based on industry, purpose, size, date, and more. A user can filter it down to deals involving the same agents or borrowers to get a straightforward picture of what’s been agreed to in the past as well.
Per the company’s press release, “Market Standards – Finance is included at no additional charge for Lexis and Lexis+ customers who subscribe to the Corporate or Finance modules within Practical Guidance.” That’s not a shock as the Lexis+ platform has been at the forefront of pushing data-driven practice. Folks can learn more about how to get access to the product here.
It’s another exciting announcement out of LexisNexis. Stay tuned in a few weeks for the unveiling of the Employment product.
Earlier: LexisNexis Context Expands To AI Driven Attorney Insights
Just Calling A Product ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Isn’t Good Enough
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.
Biglaw firms come in all shapes and sizes, and even the smaller ones are quickly adopting the DPW’s money moves when it comes to associate compensation.
Brown Rudnick — a firm with just over 200 attorneys that brought home $$216,367,000 gross revenue in 2020, landing it at No. 144 in the most recent Am Law 100 ranking — will be paying out salaries on the new Davis Polk scale for associates at all of its U.S. offices. Here’s what that looks like at the firm:
As noted in the firm’s memo, summer associates will also share in the firm’s largesse when it comes to their salaries. What exciting news for law students.
Congratulations to everyone at Brown Rudnick!
(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Brown Rudnick.)
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.
At King & Spalding associates have been patiently wait (and counsel still are) for word that the firm would ante up the cash for raises. After all, with over a billion dollars in gross revenue last year ($1,529,418,000 to be exact) and ranking 21st on the Am Law 100, K&S sure seems like the kind of elite firm that will match market compensation.
Well, today the wait ended.
In a firmwide email, Chair Robert D. Hays announced that partner-track associates would be getting raises, and yes, they’re moving to the Davis Polk scale effective July 1:
You can read the full memo on the next page.
And remember, 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] Raises”). 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.
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).
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The New York Attorney Grievance Commission does not play. It just suspended Rudy Giuliani from practicing law citing “uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”
The AGC didn’t even hold a hearing first. They just listed a pile of his lies, including to a federal judge in Pennsylvania, said he was bringing the profession into disrepute and using his authority as a member of the bar to mislead the public, and kicked him to the curb. Sorry, Grandpa, no more driving for you. Take it up with the DMV!
In a per curiam holding, a five justice panel of the Appellate Division detailed “uncontroverted evidence of professional misconduct,” including Giuliani’s numerous false public statements and erroneous claims about voter fraud, despite the fact that the fraud allegations had been excised from the complaint, during that disastrous Pennsylvania hearing in front of U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann.
The AGC cited multiple bizarre falsehoods, including Rudy’s oft-repeated canard about Joe Frazier continuing to vote in Pennsylvania, despite having died in November of 2011 and being removed from the polls three months later. As proof that he had not knowingly lied, Rudy drew the AGC’s attention to a rando blog post from 2019. Which, even if it were a reliable source of information — and it wasn’t — could not have been a source for Rudy’s allegation that the deceased boxer voted in 2020.
In fact, the president’s lawyer appears to have shown the same due diligence in defending his license to practice law as he did in flogging those bogus election claims, relying heavily on affidavits and confidential sources not supplied to the presiding justices to prove that he didn’t actually lie.
In opposition to this motion, respondent refers to affidavits he has not provided. He also relies on a “confidential informant”. We do not understand, nor does respondent explain why, as a private attorney seemingly unconnected to law enforcement he would have access to a “confidential informant” that we cannot also have access to. At yet another point respondent claims he relies on a Trump attorney who chooses not to be identified. Respondent also refers to hundreds of witnesses, experts, and investigative reports, none of which have been provided or identified and an Excel spreadsheet, also not provided, purportedly listing the names of thousands of deceased voters who allegedly cast ballots in Michigan. [Citations omitted.]
Rudy’s secret Excel spreadsheet is so hot you wouldn’t believe it. But you don’t know her, she goes to another school. In Canada.
“Respondent cannot create a controverted issue of misconduct based upon what he does not submit to this Court,” the Justices responded drily, adding, “Nor will offers to provide information at a later time, or only if the Court requests it, suffice.”
They also point out that Giuliani cannot claim to have a valid belief in his own bullshit numbers when those numbers vary from hour to hour. In December, he claimed without evidence that 6,000 dead people had voted; by January that number had grown to 10,515, of whom 800 allegedly cast their zombie ballots in Georgia. Only two such fraudulent ballots were ever substantiated.
On December 17, he claimed that upwards of 10,000 undocumented immigrants voted illegally in Arizona. A week later he had revised his estimates upward, saying on his podcast “the bare minimum is 40 or 50,000, the reality is probably about 250,000.” By January, he was claiming 32,000.
When asked for evidence to support these wildly divergent claims, Giuliani claimed to have read “newspaper and records,” as well as information from Arizona State Senator Kelly Townsend. Naturally, no “newspaper and records” or affidavit from the Senator were ever provided.
Citing the “risk that respondent will continue to engage in future misconduct while this disciplinary proceeding is pending,” and his continued peddling of election lies even after the complaint was filled, the AGC opted to immediately suspend Giuliani’s license to practice.
The hallmark of our democracy is predicated on free and fair elections. False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society. When those false statements are made by an attorney, it also erodes the public’s confidence in the integrity of attorneys admitted to our bar and damages the profession’s role as a crucial source of reliable information. It tarnishes the reputation of the entire legal profession and its mandate to act as a trusted and essential part of the machinery of justice. [Citations omitted.]
Just last week the DC Bar stuck its fingers in its ears and refused to even docket a complaint against Bill Barr lest they be accused of meddling in politics. But in New York?
Fuhgeddaboudit.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
Padding hours is bad. No one is arguing that. But there are always gray areas where a 10-minute phone call can be rounded up or down. Or where a substantive epiphany hits during a commute. The point is there’s some acceptable leeway in the billing process and we rely on attorneys as professionals to ethically navigate those questionable waters.
That said, wherever that line is, billing over 2000 hours to a non-existent case would be over it.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission[1]
published its complaint against John Paul Paleczny, formerly of Lewis Brisbois. Lewis Brisbois has since fired Paleczny for the reasons detailed in the complaint, yet for some reason still has his bio up on their website (here’s the screenshot if and when the firm gets around to deleting it). That seems like a substantial oversight! And yet, the further we dig into the details, this will seem entirely predictable.
It all began with a pro bono matter representing an inmate in a civil rights suit. After the judge dismissed the inmate’s claims, the partner on the matter wrote the plaintiff informing him that the firm’s representation had ended.
This was January 3, 2020.
At that point, well…
13. Between January 3, 2020 and December 23, 2020, Respondent recorded 2,061.4 hours to the Robinson matter, even though the matter had been closed and LBBS’s representation of Robinson had ended. Respondent knew by at least January 21, 2020, the lapse of the 28-day period to appeal, that the firm would not be appealing the adverse ruling on behalf of Mr. Robinson. In records created to account for the time he purportedly spent on the matter in 2020, Respondent described the work he did as drafting, editing, and amending a motion for summary judgment. For each day that Respondent claimed that he worked on the Robinson matter, he entered a description of his purported legal services and the time that he claimed he spent, with each entry specific to the tenth of an hour. Any time that Respondent spent on the summary judgment motion prior to January 21, 2020 served no purpose because the case had been dismissed and no appeal had been filed. All of the entries for January 21, 2020 and later were false because Respondent had not worked on the Robinson matter since at least January 21, 2020. Respondent knew each time he recorded time to the Robinson matter between January 21, 2020 and December 23, 2020 that his time entry was false.
That’s 2061.4 hours. For some reason, the point-4 is the funniest part to me.
Obviously the attorney is going to get the lion’s share of the blame here, but can we take a second to wonder what the hell the firm was doing this whole time? They were getting his timesheets, which for a year continued to show time entries in which he “described the work he did as drafting, editing, and amending a motion for summary judgment” even though the firm had ended the representation. Is there a billing department? Is there a partner reviewing non-billed time? Who was supervising this? Is there an assignments committee keeping track of what associates are doing? How did this go on for more than a month, let alone a year.
Scratch that, more than a year. Because for the first five and a half weeks of 2021, he recorded 245.80 hours to the summary judgment motion. That means he was on track for a 2000-hour year in 2021 too. Putting aside that the matter was closed, what kind of summary judgment motion did the firm think he was drafting for over a year?
While dishonest, at least billing time to a pro bono matter isn’t defrauding any clients. Though it would have a tangible impact if the firm keys its bonuses to hours billed.
Guess what Lewis Brisbois does?!
14. In 2020, LBBS awarded quarterly bonuses to associates who met an annual “billable hours” requirement. For each quarter in 2020, Respondent falsely billed enough hours to the Robinson matter to demonstrate that he would achieve the annual billable hours requirement. Based on these false representations, LBBS paid Respondent a bonus each quarter totaling $12,000 for the year.
Associates who haven’t had their passion for helping the downtrodden systematically crushed by the firm yet always complain when firms cap the amount of hours that count toward bonuses at 100 or 200. It is a wretched policy that penalizes attorneys trying to fulfill their professional obligations. But this right here is why we can’t have nice things.
In one last instance of truly astounding grit and determination, the complaint says that two partners and an administrator confronted him over the status of the case in February and he went ahead and told them he’d been working on the summary judgment motion. That’s epic levels of chutzpah.
Lest this story get better for the attorney:
21. After Respondent’s termination from LBBS, he began to seek other employment. Respondent interviewed with at least four Chicago law firms. In the course of the interview process, each of those law firms asked Respondent about the circumstances surrounding his departure from LBBS. Each time, Respondent told the law firm with which he was interviewing that LBBS had laid him off because LBBS did not have enough work to support his continued employment.
22. Respondent’s statements to the law firms that he interviewed with were false because Respondent had not been laid off because LBBS had insufficient work to support his continued employment. Rather, Respondent had been terminated on February 11, 2021 by LBBS for the misconduct described in Count I, above.
In his defense, it’s a deceit that would be pretty easy to pull off when the old firm still hasn’t removed his profile. Frankly, he was being generous by admitting that he’d left Lewis Brisbois at all — he could’ve plausibly presented himself as still working there and linked to his bio and no one would’ve been the wiser.
In any event, this is a truly remarkable fact pattern, and one that should encourage Lewis Brisbois to do some serious rethinking of its protocols. Because it’s hard to deal with dishonesty, but dishonesty on the level of these allegations should be impossible to slip past the goalie.
[1] Do we have to put in a parenthetical before we start calling it IARDC? Wait, SCOTUS has even stopped doing that? Amazing!
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.
