The Looming Associate Crisis
An associate recruitment and retention crisis is looming for which there are no easy solutions. Law schools continue to graduate roughly 40,000 students a year, as they have over the last 20 years. The AmLaw 200 law firms have been steadily hiring an average of 4%+ more associates each year, resulting last year in a typical incoming associate class of 50. That means that AmLaw 200 firms now hire about 10,000 new associates a year, or about 50% of the graduates from the top 100 (hardly the Ivy League elite) of the nation's 200 law schools.
Toll Road Leasing Programs: Ready to Roll?
Part One of this series discussed precedent transactions and standard terms and conditions in the toll road leasing market. The conclusion continues the discussion of terms and conditions and addresses legislative developments.
Securities Industry Employment Disputes
Author Carol A. Wittenberg, who has served on the Major League Baseball/Players' Association salary arbitration panel for the past eight years, as well as mediating and arbitrating numerous financial disputes in the securities industry, explains the different methods of arbitration that work--and do not work--in the volatile securities industry.
New Career Paths for Lawyers
Many lawyers today seek unconventional career paths. Instead of career ladders that envision uninterrupted, full-time, upward movement toward partnership, lawyers now think in terms of career lattices that include lateral moves, flexible work schedules, and occasional periods away from practice altogether. This highly mobile 'free agent' lawyer population creates a dilemma for law firms. Firms need a stable group of lawyers to serve their clients and become the firm's future partners and leaders. Rather than risk losing lawyers, many firms are trying inventive approaches to create more flexible career paths. Here are five current trends.
Jumping Ship (and Taking the Crew): Can Law Firm Partners Solicit Their Firms' Employees?
Recently, several prominent partners have left their law firms to set up shop with a competing establishment. As was the case in each of these instances, a partner seldom leaves the firm alone — often staff, associates, and even other partners join the new endeavor. May a departing partner solicit others to join him or her without violating fiduciary duty to the original firm? At what point must the departing partner notify the partnership of his or her efforts to recruit firm employees? This article suggests that partners may solicit attorneys and staff of their original partnership without violating their fiduciary duty, as long as the manner of their solicitation conforms to their fiduciary duty.
Subordinate Bias Liability: The 'Cat's Paw' Doctrine
Everyone knows that a manager who expresses discriminatory views and then fires or disciplines an employee belonging to the disfavored group may create a claim against the employer. But what happens when an unbiased manager relies on the recommendation of another supervisor who, unbeknownst to the decision maker, is a raging bigot?
Lost in the Clamor: Final Code '415 Regulations
Times have certainly changed. The U.S. Department of the Treasury ('Treasury') issued two sets of regulations in early April that impact employee benefits. The first set was final regulations addressing the benefit and contribution limits for qualified pension plans under Internal Revenue Code ('Code') §415. The second set, issued a week later, was final regulations governing nonqualified deferred compensation under Code §409A.
Where Does All That Associate Money Go?
Kathryn Cole, a 25-year-old who earned her J.D. last year from the University of Michigan Law School, accepted a position at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP in Silicon Valley. Her starting pay was $135,000, but before she even began working she got a $10,000 raise. Then in January, just a few months into the job, her salary went up another $15,000.
