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September 26, 2007
Duval & Stachenfeld, salaries, real life: Value Movement?
Markets pay lawyers what markets will bear--and you need great young people to help you serve high-end clients with complex problems. Just the same, will it take strong partners with great clients bolting from firms to get some law firms off their knees? Besides, and (gulp) sorry, brilliant 27-year-old ex-law clerks don't know anything. Even they know that. And some of them will never get it and catch on. How about merit-based pay based on actual experience? The new Actual Value Movement ("AVM")?
See at Legal Blog Watch Carolyn Elefant's "Law Firm Salaries: If You Can't Beat Them, Retreat From Them" her report and links there about Duval & Stachenfeld LLP (NYC, LA and Las Vegas), which
pays starting associates $60,000--or $100,000 below the going rate. Salaries don't stay flat, however, and by their third year, D&S associates [the 50% who "prove themselves", according to D&S] can expect to match salaries of their counterparts at top firms.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
US court news (AP)
Parts of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional. Portland, Oregon judge strikes down two provisions which allow search warrants to be issued sans showing of probable cause. Ex-husband in Warren Jeffs polygamy case charged with rape. New case is based on trial testimony in Jeffs case in Washington County, Utah. Phil Spector mistrial in LA. "Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron. Yes, my heart stood still..."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Texas: Another reason not to popularly elect judges--ever, anywhere.
Re: courts and lawyer cluelessness. See at Overlawyered this one: "Furor over Mikal Watts 'judges owe us' letter".WAC?'s said before that popular election of state judges is an embarrassingly medieval institution that hurts us all. (See, e.g., Are federal judges "better" than state judges?)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)