Anonymous Lawyer

There was a letter to the editor in the New York Times yesterday:

By taking away the possibility of easy employment in high-paying jobs, the economic downturn may end up helping the current crop of law students.

Very few law students at elite schools make meaningful explorations of the broad array of career choices available to law school graduates. Instead, lured by prestige and a high salary, they march through on-campus interviews to large urban law firms, where a great many end up leading unfulfilled lives.

As the jobs with large salaries disappear, law students will draw on the thoughtfulness, intelligence and perseverance that got them into law school in the first place in order to find employment that they actually find rewarding. They will also find creative ways to pay their loans and other expenses.

Most law graduates already do not expect a starting salary of $160,000 and yet are able to make ends meet. Graduates of elite schools will adjust to the new financial realities and come out better for it.

What an insane, paternalistic point of view. Anyone intelligent enough to read this letter should be offended by it. Poor law students! They used to have so many employment choices! Good grief! First of all, no matter how you feel about law firms, how can you possibly make the argument that a law firm job, at $160K/year, is worse than no job, poverty, and sitting in front of your computer all day desperately sending out resumes? Second of all, is there a SHORTAGE of lawyers for all these other amazing jobs that this guy wants lawyers to find? No! The places people can find rewarding employment? Those jobs are already filled! And when there's a vacancy, you know who ought to get them? The people who would have wanted them enough in the first place not to be seduced by the lure of a law firm job that wasn't right for them. Why should an abundance of choice be blamed for people making bad choices. People who make bad choices deserve the outcomes they get. People who are intelligent enough to get into law school should be intelligent enough to live with the consequences of their decisions. If you can be swayed to come work for a law firm, you deserve the law firm life. And if we hire you even though you won't like it here, we deserve to have you, and to have to deal with you complaining all day.

Here's the problem. What about the law students at "non-elite" schools, who don't have these choices, and have long had to do what this author says. Who had to use their intelligence and resourcefulness to find a job. These graduates who have long been "able to make ends meet."

Well, they're shit out of luck now, because all of those jobs they really wanted are going to be snapped up by "elite" law school graduates who'd rather be working at firms. So all these jobs that probably ought to be filled by people passionate about doing them (instead of just upset they can't work for a law firm and settling for an inferior backup choice) will be filled by the "elite" and everyone else can go sit on the unemployment line.

Taking away choices is great! Law firms are worse than poverty! The recession has vanquished evil from the face of the Earth!

Ridiculous.

Fees in Broadcom Case Exceed the $118 Settlement

Posted by Brian Baxter

Broadcom has agreed to pay plaintiffs $118 million to settle allegations of stock options backdating, the second-largest settlement in a derivative action to date. But The Am Law Litigation Daily noticed the legal fees from the litigation could exceed the settlement itself.

The Lit Daily's Susan Beck reports that depending on how you look at the agreement, all of the settlement money will be used to pay plaintiffs and defense lawyers. A copy of a separate Broadcom settlement with its D&O insurers obtained by the Lit Daily shows that 19 Broadcom directors and officers, including cofounders Henry Nicholas III and WIlliam Ruehle, racked up a legal tab of $130 million for their defense.

According to Beck, the $118 million that Broadcom will receive from its D&O insurers to cover the derivative action will be eaten up by the $130 million defense tab, which the company is obligated to pay under indemnification agreements signed with officers and directors. Broadcom is also on the hook for another $11.5 million fee due plaintiffs lawyers. (Click here for a copy of Broadcom's derivative settlement.)

Irell & Manella's David Siegel, who represents Broadcom, gave a different account to the Lit Daily. Siegel says the company's insurers disputed their obligation to cover legal fees, so without a settlement, it wasn't certain that Broadcom could have recovered from insurers anything close to the full amount it has paid defense lawyers.

Before the settlement insurers had paid just $43.3 million of the more than $130 million sought by Broadcom to cover legal expenses--Beck reports that the $43.3 million is included in the $118 million settlement amount.

Broadcom was represented by Howrey's David Steuber in negotiations with insurers. Kaye Scholer served as counsel to Broadcom's special litigation committee.

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein served as lead plaintiffs counsel.

Morgan Lewis Hires Less Than 30 Percent of Summers

Posted by Matt Straquadine
Morgan Lewis & Brockius has offered full time jobs to just 28 percent of its summer associates, according to sibling publication The Legal Intelligencer. Those who did receive offers will be deferred until fall 2011.
The firm offered full-time jobs to just 28 of 102 eligible 2Ls working in its offices across the country. Morgan Lewis will provide those students not hired with a letter that can be made available to other prospective employers, explaining that being passed over is "not necessarily" a reflection on the student's performance.
This move is the latest in Morgan Lewis's many efforts to manage staff in response to the recession. In July the firm announced it was cancelling its 2010 summer associate program altogether; this came after the firm was among the first of the Am Law 200 to defer this year's incoming first year associates for another year.