Posts on ‘July 6th, 2009’

Blank Rome has become the latest law firm to put the squeeze on associate salaries, with much of the focus on more junior associates. Effective July 17, first-year associates face a $15,000 pay cut. Other associate classes will see a 2 percent to 10 percent pay reduction, the firm said in a statement, adding that the cuts are a market adjustment. One recruiter predicts that first-year associate salaries will ultimately fall to a “natural level” of between $110,000 and $120,000.

Lawyers who work in the White House don’t talk much, but they can’t avoid having their salaries reported. The Obama administration, complying with an annual congressional requirement, has released salary figures for all White House lawyers, including more than 40 in the Counsel’s Office. White House Counsel Gregory Craig tops the list, at $172,200. By comparison, the former partner at Williams & Connolly made $1.7 million last year, according to a disclosure report released in April.

The Department of Justice, under pressure to mete out blame for the credit crisis, has wrapped up a deferred prosecution agreement with Beazer Homes USA. The Atlanta-based company has been under scrutiny for reportedly issuing questionable mortgages to local homeowners. As part of the agreement, the company agreed to pay $53 million in restitution and penalties and said it “accepts and acknowledges” that it was responsible for criminal actions taken by employees at its now-defunct mortgage arm.

In between the rush and flow of working as general counsel of global computer company Lenovo, Mike O’Neill realized that there are some basic principles that guide his work. He calls these tenets — some of them he’s learned along the way, and some he is still learning every day. He shares those at the top of his list, including the single most important rule for a successful in-house role: We don’t get paid for what we do — we get paid for what we get done.

Lawyers incur tremendous administrative costs in servicing clients who are resistant if not hostile to the idea of these costs being billed back to them. Mattern & Associates CEO and founder Robert Mattern brings to light trends in law firm cost recovery in an increasingly digital world.

Holding his first hearing Thursday on Proposition 8, the controversial state ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker repeatedly stressed the importance of establishing a record that will stand the test of time. Telling a packed courtroom that the challenge launched by high-profile litigators Theodore Olson and David Boies is presumably a “prelude” for things to come, Walker said: “How we do things here is more important than what we do.”