Large Firm

Law Firm Pricing Directors Suggest Alternative Fee Strategies, Call for Focus on Profit, Not Hours

Many law firms might be surprised to find that corporate clients have better legal billing analytics than they do. That should change, according to a new breed of law firm executives known as pricing directors. As a starting point for creating new “value”-based billing models, law firms should know how…

Sep 28, 2012 5:27 PM CDT

Cozen O’Connor Announces New Chief, Discusses Plans for Future Growth

Once thought of as an insurance coverage powerhouse run by its name partners, Cozen O’Connor culminated years of expansion and development with a Tuesday announcement that a former chairman of its business law practice group has been elevated to the BigLaw firm’s top job. Effective Jan. 1 of next year,…

Sep 25, 2012 4:34 PM CDT

Skadden Partners with Companies and Legal Aid Groups to Bring ‘Critical Mass’ to Pro Bono

In an effort to make more effective use of the lawyer resources at its disposal, the Washington office of Skadden Arps has announced that it’s partnering with in-house teams at LivingSocial, Northrop Grumman and Cisco Systems and with three legal aid groups to better assist low-income residents with legal needs.…

Sep 25, 2012 11:15 AM CDT

Reed Smith Forms Strategic Alliance with Athens-Based Firm

Reed Smith announced this week that it’s formed a strategic alliance with Papapolitis & Papapolitis, a 15-lawyer firm based in Athens. The two firms have already been working together for two years, but the formal alliance will enable them to tackle larger projects as Greece confronts structural reforms, according to…

Sep 25, 2012 10:47 AM CDT

Meet the ‘Hot New Hire’ of 2012, Law Firm Pricing Directors

Toby Brown is the first to fill a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld that may sound a bit unusual. But not for long, predicts Susan Hackett in a lengthy Corporate Counsel article. Hired earlier this year as Akin Gump’s first director of strategic pricing & analytics, he…

Sep 24, 2012 10:11 PM CDT

Writer Recounts Career-Changing Revelation: Those Who Made Partner at Cravath Loved Their Work

James B. Stewart is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of a half-dozen books. But he was an associate at Cravath Swaine & Moore back in 1976, when $16,500 was a top New York salary for a newly minted Harvard Law School graduate like himself. His assignments were…

Sep 24, 2012 9:26 PM CDT

No ‘Deweyesque Charade’ at K&L Gates: Chairman Fights Bad Press in Impressive Memo

K&L Gates chairman Peter Kalis is responding to negative press coverage about lawyer departures in the Chicago office with a firm-wide memo touting the firm’s financial stability and its refusal to engage in a “Deweyesque charade.” Above the Law obtained a copy of the memo, and the blog is impressed.…

Sep 21, 2012 4:39 PM CDT

Attorney Who Slapped Paul Hastings Partner in Face During Depo Loses Suit Against Law Firm

A New York attorney who admittedly slapped a Paul Hastings partner in the face during a deposition last year in response to an alleged spittle-spewing, finger-wagging verbal meltdown on the partner’s part has lost a $1.1 million damages suit he filed against the law firm. Saying that statements made during…

Sep 20, 2012 11:03 PM CDT

6th Cir. OKs Civil RICO Class Suit Against Edwards Wildman, Client Insurer re Tax-Shelter Marketing

Reversing a lower court’s dismissal of a civil racketeering class action against a law firm and a client insurer, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati on Wednesday gave the lawsuit a green light. The suit was filed because of the defendants’ marketing of a tax shelter later determined by the…

Sep 20, 2012 4:15 PM CDT

Think $160K Is the Standard BigLaw Salary? Think Again, NALP Says

Those storied $160,000 paychecks for first-year BigLaw associates are no longer the norm. Though $160,000 paychecks are still doled out by large firms, particularly in larger cities, they represent just 46 percent of first-year salaries in firms with more than 700 lawyers, according to recent research by NALP–The Association for…

Sep 20, 2012 12:24 PM CDT

Partner Pay Gaps Growing in BigLaw; Average Compensation Is $681K

Updated: The pay gap is growing larger among different classes of partners at BigLaw firms, according to a new survey. Average compensation is $681,000, but the figure doesn’t tell the whole story, according to the survey (PDF) by Major, Lindsey & Africa and ALM Legal Intelligence. The Am Law Daily…

Sep 19, 2012 2:17 PM CDT

Disbarred Attorney Who Stole Another Lawyer’s ID to Land BigLaw Job Gets 15 Months in Club Fed

Disbarred by consent in 2007, a former Nevada attorney nonetheless found a way to get a job at a prestigious law firm within less than a year. Douglas Allen, simply assumed the identity of a California lawyer with a similar name who is also licensed in Nevada, the Las Vegas…

Sep 18, 2012 10:07 PM CDT

Dewey Estate Seeks to Pay $165K Bonus to Firm’s Onetime Finance Director

Dewey & LeBoeuf’s chief restructuring officer is seeking to pay bonuses to three former employees helping in the wind down, including a $165,000 payment to the firm’s former finance director. A court filing last week seeks that amount for Frank Canellas, along with $50,000 for the firm’s former director of…

Sep 18, 2012 12:10 PM CDT

Batman and Star Wars Provide Inspiration for Offices of Holland & Knight’s Lobbying Group

Holland & Knight’s 55-member lobbying and public policy group in Washington, D.C., is now housed in new office space with a high-tech and egalitarian feel. Associates and partners all have offices of the same size with walls of floor-to-ceiling glass, the Washington Post reports. Secretaries are located in curved clusters…

Sep 18, 2012 11:00 AM CDT

Proposed $71M Dewey Clawback Deal Gives Nod to Jones Day Partners’ Fraud Claims

In the latest development in a proposed $71 million plan to claw back some profits from former partners of the failed Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm, those in charge of the deal have agreed to give four high-profile bankruptcy lawyers leeway to pursue fraud claims against their former firm. The…

Sep 17, 2012 11:05 PM CDT