The Associate Pirate

The market’s march toward 18 weeks of paid maternity leave looks like it’s accelerating to a sprint, or at least a nice jog.

I’ve updated the maternity and paternity leave charts to reflect recent news at Dewey & LeBoeuf and WilmerHale, both of whom have moved to 18 weeks of paid maternity leave, as well as updates and corrections from various other firms.

I also updated the clerkship bonus chart to include Proskauer Rose.

(I’ll be updating the mirrors of these charts on Above The Law as well, but the server’s a bit flustered at the moment.)

Kudos to Milbank Tweed for increasing their paid leave for primary caregivers to 18 weeks, and for reassuring associates that there won’t be layoffs at the firm. (A hat tip to David Lat for breaking the news.)

I just updated the running table of maternity leave policies here and on Above The Law.

Kudos to Cooley Godward for growing yet again in Boston today. They just wooed Donald K. Stern, the former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, to join their Boston office. Considering the firm has been in Boston for less than a year, and is already up to 30 lawyers — including VC/start-up heavyweight John Hession as “Partner in Charge,” as well as quite a few other former Testa folks — it looks like they’re getting pretty decent traction.

It’ll be interesting to see if other recent Boston entrants like Locke Lord can follow a similar trajectory.

Meanwhile, longtime Boston resident Hale & DorrWilmerHale has brought on Rachel Brand (the Assistant A.G. for Legal Policy) and Mark Nelson (Counsel for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations) in the firm’s Washington, DC office, beefing up the public policy and strategy practice, and prompting some interesting political speculation on Above The Law.

As Dan Slater puts it,

When the Law Blog heard last night that Bear Stearns, the deflated investment bank that was torn to pieces by the mortgage crisis, had

agreed to be sold to J.P. Morgan Chase for a measly two buck a share, a couple thoughts came to mind. The first was, “Argh, we should’ve pooled our resources and made a topping bid.” The second was, “Who were the lawyers?”

And the winners were . . .

Sullivan & Cromwell, Cadwalader, and Skadden represented Bear Stearns.

Wachtell represented J.P. Morgan.

Cravath represented Lazard (Bear’s financial advisor).

Just updated the clerkship bonus table to reflect new info at Ropes & Gray and Covington & Burling. Covington moved to $50K in DC (take that, Arnold & Porter!), but left the bonus at $35K in San Francisco. Covington already had a $50K bonus in NY, but interestingly the bonus for two years of clerking appears to be $70K in NY but still only $50K in DC . . . if it’s really ever appropriate to say “only $50K.”

Meanwhile, Ropes & Gray is at $50K in New York and $35K everywhere else. The bonus for two years of clerking, however, is $70K in every office.

I’m a little surprised that Ropes’ clerkship bonus in Boston is lower than Bingham’s or Goodwin Procter’s, but they’ve got other stuff going for them (including a new Chicago office).

What with all the news about politicos and mala prohibita these days, this story might be a sign that we’ve jumped the shark: an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut was suspended, and stripped of his title as class vice president, after buying a bag of . . . Skittles.

Yes, the candy.

Politicians and their sweeties. The corruption starts younger and younger.

(Luckily, the decision was reversed after the first day of suspension and a meeting with the student’s parents.)

It took me a bit longer than usual to get out a post on ATL today. Interviewing scheduling and prep is afoot, and I was momentarily incapacitated by David Lat’s brilliant post about his Facebook woes.

But since the post features a running table of paternity leave, I’m mirroring that bit of it here:

Paid Paternity Leave Policies By Firm
Last updated July 9, 2008

*Cleary Gottlieb and Debevoise & Plimpton provide an additional 5 weeks paid leave to the primary caregiver, and Paul Weiss provides an additional 6 weeks paid leave to the primary caregiver (for a total of 10 weeks). Jenner & Block provides an additional 6 weeks paid leave to the primary caregiver, and Patterson Belknap provides an additional 8 weeks of paid childcare leave to the primary caregiver (for a total of 12 weeks). Fulbright & Jaworski provides 12 weeks of paid childcare leave to the primary caregiver. Akin Gump, Fenwick & West, and WilmerHale provide an additional 14 weeks of paid leave to the primary caregiver (for a total of 18 weeks).

**Leave is one week during the first year of employment, and two weeks thereafter.

***Also applies (to either parent) in the case of an adoption (or a surrogacy) or a court-appointed guradianship

****Firm provides 12 weeks of paid leave and 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

Also, the mighty Debra Cassens Weiss has an interesting post in the ABA Journal on a recent flextime study:

The study by the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers found that only 30 percent of the surveyed law firms had formal policies for part-time or flexible work. Yet 86 percent of women lawyers surveyed are interested in part-time or flexible work arrangements in the near future, a report on the study said.. . .Women made up about 28 percent of lawyers at the law firms surveyed, but comprised about 38 percent of the group leaving firms. When asked why they left, almost 44 percent of the lawyers surveyed said the reason was professional dissatisfaction, 25 percent said they wanted more money, and 24 percent said they wanted to work fewer hours. Nearly 40 percent also checked an “other” category and listed more specific reasons, including better career opportunities, the need for part-time or flexible work options, or the difficulties of raising a family while working as a lawyer.

The equally mighty Martha Neil had a post in January about the benefits of flexible hours, and also mentioned my own survey on benefits preferences (but, ahem, not me) in a great post last month about the great David Lat.

Legal Blog Watch just posted about my post on ATL today:

If you’re trying to figure out which practice areas are hot, why not go to the source: the law firm associates who work in those areas. And that’s what Above the Law’s David Lat has done. Last week, he asked readers to describe the current state of work at their firms, and today he offers this summary of the 550 responses received. According to the survey’s results, real estate and structured finance are slow, as are other transactional practices. But commercial litigation is heating up, as is bankruptcy work as I described in an earlier post. And nationwide, patent litigation is booming.

Woohoo! I’m in the news! I’m in the news! I’m in the — wait a sec. David Lat? Crap. Actually, though, I’m pretty honored that anybody confuses my writing for David’s. He’s a serious talent, and a great guy, too. And it seems like only yesterday that readers were reading my posts and asking “Who the f*ck is Justin Bernold?” So, I’m glad that at least Carolyn Elefant has seen the improvement in my style.But, for future reference, if you’re ever wondering if a post is by me or David, here’s a rule of thumb:

• David’s a world-class debater who went to Regis, Harvard, and Yale, clerked on the Ninth Circuit, worked for Wachtell and the DOJ, and blogged on Underneath Their Robes and Wonkette before starting ATL. If David writes a post, it will usually rock, and will likely encourage other posts to go to $190K and 18 weeks.

• I’m a recovering nerd who went to Fairfield High, Harvard, and UVA (although my middle name is, actually, Yale), clerked in the Eastern District of New York, worked at various firms and in-house in Boston, and wrote for Let’s Go before going to law school. If I write a post, it will probably be a bit long-winded and contain all sorts of information about Interlaken (which has an awesome fireworks display on August 1, by the way).

Oh, crap. Ok, fine. New rule of thumb: I have a beard. David doesn’t. (Also, I’m probably responsible for any ugly charts, and Dave’s probably responsible for any good pictures.) Update: Cool! ABA Journal and JDBliss have been mentioning the surveys, too! I’m totally famous! (In an unnamed sort of way.)

I posted some results from our clerkship bonus/hiring survey on Above The Law today.

As with the maternity leave table, I’ll be mirroring the table of clerkship bonuses here as well. (A hat tip to Law Clerk Addict for compiling the first exhaustive list of clerkship bonuses, which I’m now supplementing with survey results and tips from ATL.)

Bonuses For Judicial Clerks By Firm
Last updated March 26, 2008 at 11:45am

*Bonus may be lower in some offices.
**Bonus is only available to associates who previously summered at the firm.
***Bonus awarded for Federal Circuit clerkships only.
****Bonus may be higher in other cities.
++A higher bonus is available for 2-year clerks.

Ben Heineman Jr. and David Wilkins have a thoughtful article on Law.com today, about associate attrition and retention.

In addition to some suggestions about training and development, they have a couple of practice pointers:

To give young lawyers real practice experience, firms can also expand their pro bono work to a broad range of clients (nonprofits need tax or housing or “corporate” advice) and have a strong pro bono director who ensures that very young lawyers spend 20 percent to 30 percent of their time actually practicing, but with supervision. (This would be a natural extension of expanded law school clinical programs, which many graduates participated in.)

Firms can also secund young associates to public sector agencies (e.g., the county prosecutor’s office), where they can be paid by the firm but get far more hands-on experience than they would as twenty-first person on a multidistrict litigation team. They can promise students that they will have a law firm job after two or three years in the public interest world and not be penalized for starting with the firm “late” (indeed, such lawyers may be ahead of their peers in certain practical respects because of that experience).

Transactional pro bono work is a particularly good idea, but surprisingly hard to find at many firms. In addition to non-profit clients, try signing up for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (great way to get copyright experience), VITA (basic tax experience), or other volunteer lawyers’ groups in your area.

Secondment to district attorneys is actually fairly common in some cities, and firms have been expanding the practice of corporate secondment as well. Speaking as both an associate pirate and a former in-house counsel, I think secondment opportunities are a big deal for associates. Even a secondment of three or four months will make you a better lawyer, a better rain-maker, and a better potential in-house candidate.