Vocare

Thursday, August 27 -- 5 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Landmark Center, 75 West 5th Street, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102
Cocktail Reception, Cash Bar and Live Music

Speakers:
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (confirmed)
U.S. Senator Al Franken (invited)
Governor Tim Pawlenty (invited)
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Michael Davis (confirmed)
State Senator Patricia Torres Ray (confirmed)

Sponsors: Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Faegre & Benson LLP, Federal Bar Association, Fredrikson & Byron P.A., Hamline University School of Law, Hennepin County Bar Association, Infinity Project, Jesse Bethke Gomez, Latino Communications Network LCN, Leonard Street and Deinard P.A., Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association, Minnesota Women Lawyers, Ramsey County Bar Association, Redmond Associates, Rice Michels & Walther LLP, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP, Service Employees International Union SEIU, The White House Project, The Women's Foundation, University of Minnesota Law School, University of St. Thomas Law School, William Mitchell College of Law.

This event is free of charge, but space is limited. RSVP no later than Monday August 24, 2009 to: MNSotomayorevent@gmail.com.

Posted by at 2:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

FYI

Washington [State] Law & Politics 50 largest law firms list.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 9:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

FYI.

Minnesota Law & Politics annual 50 largest law firm chart.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 9:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From NY Lawyer – if you aren’t “registered,� fret not because it’s free.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 11:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Kiplinger Letter: Forecasts for Management Decisionmaking (December 12, 2008), opines as follows:

"Next year may well come to be remembered as the year of the lawyer. That's because contracts inked years ago will be reviewed with a fine-tooth comb as lenders look for ways to reopen deals so that they can call in outstanding loans or hike interest rates. Assume that almost anything that can be contested will be."

Posted by Susan Gainen at 11:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

What will law practice look like 10 years fromnow? It depends on who answers the question.
Paul Lippe from AMLAWDaily asked two questions of a group of law firm leaders:

"Over the last ten years, whose world has changed the most, clients or law firms?," to which 100 percent of the audience answered "clients."

And, "Over the next ten years, whose world will change the most, clients or law firms?," which resulted in 80 percent of the audience choosing "law firms."

He outlines two scenarios in Welcome to the Future. Add his perspective to your plans and strategies.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 7:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From law.com London Survival Lessons in a Downturn.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who has read history or who is sufficiently chronologically enriched to remember previous panics, meltdowns and financial crises can tell you that financial shenanigans always generate work for lawyers. The questions are:

When will the work start? Who will get to do it? How long will it last?

WHEN WILL THE WORK START? In a recent story about litigation layoffs, which are unexpected in this kind of market meltdown, a partner was quoted as expecting a tsunami of litigation which hadn't yet materialized.

Lehman Brothers collapsed exactly 30 days ago. Frankly, anyone who had expected a tsunami of litigation to begin by now is operating on the widely discredited Raman Noodles Principle of Practice Development. If the Giant Pile of Mortgage Backed Securities is in limbo, the depth and breadth of the economic problem is yet to be clearly identified, and the theories of fault and blame are still being developed, it is hardly likely that a tsunami or even a big wave of litigation could have begun.

WHO WILL GET TO DO IT? Part of that is being sorted out at the highest level of BigLaw and BigGov. In the end, however, each and every individual mortgage backed security and the underlying actual mortgages that have been enveloped by smoke and mirrors, will be wrestled back to reality by junior associates or cadres of lawyers hired by as-yet-undesignated-government entities. There will be work and there will be a lot of it.

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s was finally wrapped up in the mid-1990s when the Resolution Trust Corporation's duties were transferred to the FDIC. Yes, I know that the financial structures are different in today's financial meltdown, but I have no reason to believe that the tail of this problem will be any shorter than the RTCs.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 4:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Here is a great resource regarding legal podcasts that I came across at law.com.

Ten Legal Podcasts to Keep You Informed

By Robert J. Ambrogi
Law Technology News
October 10, 2008

Podcasts come and podcasts go -- and others merely lie fallow. Inconsistency is the curse of podcasting, particularly within the legal field, where lawyers have plenty enough demands on their time without trying to squeeze in a regular broadcast.

Launched with the best of intentions, podcasts often have a short half-life. In fact, when revisiting my 2005 column on this topic, I discovered that five of the 10 had disappeared or gone dormant.

Click here for the entire article.

V

Posted by Victor Massaglia at 9:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

June 13, 2008, Minnesota Lawyer reports that Corporate M&A takes a nosedive on local, national levels

But the news in this article is not entirely grim -- the Twin Cities legal community has a history of managing ups and downs in the economy, and -- no surprise to anyone who has watched the law biz for a while -- when one practice appears to tank, others come on strong.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 2:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Lawyer Satisfaction in the Process of Structuring Legal Careers

RONIT DINOVITZER
University of Toronto
BRYANT GARTH
Southwestern Law School; American Bar Foundation Law & Society Review, Forthcoming

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new approach to the study of job satisfaction in the legal profession. Drawing on a Bourdieusian understanding of the relationship between social class and dispositions, we argue that job satisfaction depends in part on social origins and the credentials related to these origins, with social hierarchies helping to define the expectations and possibilities that produce professional careers. Through this lens, job satisfaction is understood as a mechanism through which social and professional hierarchies are produced and reproduced. Relying on the first national data set on lawyer careers (including both survey data and in-depth interviews), we find that lawyers' social background, as reflected in the ranking of their law school, decreases career satisfaction and increases the odds of a job search for the most successful new lawyers. When combined with the interview data, we find that social class is an important component of a stratification system that tends to lead individuals into hierarchically arranged positions.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 11:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From NY Lawyer -- The Daddy Track (requires registration, but it is free)

Stanford Drops Letter Grades

In-House Counsel In House Counsel Discuss the Generation Gap

Posted by Susan Gainen at 8:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From New York Lawyer -- You have to register, but it is free.
Ross Guberman is a writing consultant whose advice is sound and "Summer Associates: Write Better, go farther" is great advice.

From New York Lawyer
Today's news: Layoffs at BigLaw

From Legal Times
A not-completely-grim view of summer associates’ future.

Posted by Susan Gainen at 8:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This past Monday, March 6, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in FAIR v. Rumsfeld, the litigation initiated by a coalition of law schools opposed to the federal legislation commonly known as the Solomon Amendment. For those of you unfamiliar with the statute, the Solomon Amendment requires universities receiving a host of federal funds to provide equal access to military recruiters in their facilities or otherwise face financial penalties. In its decision in FAIR, the Court rejected the law schools' claims that the Solomon Amendment unconsitutionally infringed on the law schools' First Amendment rights, since most schools are forced by the statue to provide access in violation of their own policies forbidding the use of their facilities to engage in discriminatory hiring (in this case, discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students interested in working for the military.)

While I leave it to members of the law faculty here and elsewhere to parse the language of Chief Justice Roberts' opinion, I would like to re-emphasize what has not changed as a result of the Court's decision. Without question, the military's hiring policies violate the Law School's stated policy against discrimination in hiring. Any other employer who would engage in such practices against any of our students would not be permitted to use the services of the CPDC. Nevertheless, as in the past, we are compelled by the federal legislation to provide equal access to recruiters from the military branches for the purposes of recruiting law students. That said, the Chief Justice's opinion clearly allows members of the Law School community, including the administration, to demonstrate their opposition to these hiring practices. We will continue to post disclaimer language on our announcements concerning military recruitment on campus and will be working with the Law School's Solomon Amendment Amelioration Committee to determine if there is a need to strengthen the language used. In addition, we will be working with the Committee to provide other amelioration steps in opposition to the coerced use of our facilities for the purposes of hiring in violation of the Law School's own policies.

We welcome your responses and thoughts. Please contact either Susan Gainen or me directly. In addition, we encourage you to contact Professor Beverly Balos, chair of the Solomon Amendment Amelioration Committee, with your suggestions regarding amelioration activities here on campus. For more information, please check the SolomonResponse.org website.

Posted by Steven Marchese at 9:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that universities that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, even if they oppose the Pentagon's policy barring people who are openly homosexual from serving. Minnesota Daily

The decision was unanimous to uphold the Solomon Amendment, as the fund-blocking provision had become known. This was a setback, although hardly unexpected, to a coalition of law schools that had brought the constitutional challenge. The schools had sought to deny military recruiters access to job fairs and other placement activities, citing the policy of the institutions' governing body, the American Association of Law Schools. Since 1991, the AALS has required adherence to a nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation as a condition of membership.

Although military recruiters are allowed in the Law School, signs stating the school’s stance on the Solomon debate are posted outside rooms used for recruitment.

Posted by Law School Career Services Office at 7:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)