Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP managing partner Mark Walker is old school when it comes to partner compensation. He sees no reason to change Cleary's seniority-based lockstep scheme, in which the spread between the highest- and lowest-paid partner is less than 3:1. It's a no-hassle system — no long meetings explaining bonus decisions and no disputes among partners over credit for bringing in business. And it is the foundation of Cleary's culture, Walker says, which emphasizes the collective over the individual. If the firm is not a magnet for hot lateral candidates who want to be paid like A-Rod, that's okay with Walker. 'My view is that if someone says I'm not going to Cleary Gottlieb because [another firm] is guaranteeing me a salary of X, then they don't belong at our firm anyway.'
- May 31, 2007Andrew Longstreth
Hide a dagger in a smile. Murder with a borrowed knife. Loot a burning house. If you cannot anticipate these and the other classic 'Thirty-Six Stratagems' that are widely studied and practiced in China, you may be perilously unprepared to pursue business, including legal business, in the world's largest market. And while China may be an extreme example, analogs of these deceptive and sometimes corrupt practices appear in other cultures worldwide.
May 31, 2007Joe DanowskyDiscussion and analysis of the latest rulings.
May 31, 2007ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |A solid grasp of financial and accounting fundamentals can enormously enhance the value of a young attorney's work product. I often saw evidence of this in my previous legal administrator role for a 50-attorney Denver law firm. In my current CPA practice, in which I serve more than 20 law firms on an ongoing basis, I see the same pattern in working closely with attorneys on tax planning and compliance, financial reporting, fraud investigations, forensic accounting, and business appraisals.
May 31, 2007Ronald L. SeigneurEverything contained in this issue in an easy-to-use list.
May 31, 2007ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |When the City of New York sells property subject to statutorily authorized conditions, what language in the deed is necessary to ensure that the conditions bind subsequent purchasers? That question confronted the Court of Appeals in 328 Owners Corp. v. 300 West 86 Oaks Corp. (NYLJ 4/4/07, p. 18, col. 1), in which the Court of Appeals held that successor purchasers were bound by deed language restricting the original purchaser to use of the property for rehabilitation or conservation of the existing building or construction of one to four unit dwellings.
May 31, 2007Stewart E. SterkOntario was the first province in Canada to adopt a UCC Article 9 type registration system called the 'Personal Property Security Act' or PPSA. During the early 1990s, Ontario refreshed its legislation, and other Canadian provinces soon followed with their own acts that were modeled on but not the same as the Ontario PPSA. As with any legislation, certain changes made by other provinces turned out to be superior to the act that it modeled.
May 31, 2007Jonathan Fleisher and Harvey Garman