On the Record

Happy Monday!

•  To put it mildly, fathers’ rights lawyer Dawn Bowie does not like the recent changes to Maryland’s domestic violence laws.
• “But if I wrote an editorial to the Miami Herald decrying the fact that Obama’s health care plan includes feeding small children to lions, would they publish that too?” Ron Miller sounds off about an anti-health care plan opinion column.
• Former congressman Dick Armey has left DLA Piper over backlash about his work to defeat the Democrats’ health care proposals.
• All together now: correlation does not imply causation! (States with a lot of lawyers also have a lot of cocaine use.)
• Break out the champagne: we went a whole week with no big firm layoffs.
• Don’t leave an employer off your resume!

According to AmLaw Daily, Harvard Law School is telling its students to consider widening their summer associate job search. To Baltimore.

Bloomberg, which first reported on the story, quotes assistant dean for career services Mark Weber as follows:

“If you are looking in D.C., consider Baltimore or Richmond,” he said. “If you’re looking in Chicago, try Milwaukee and St. Louis, too. You need to be casting a wider net in this market. “

Really? Baltimore? I can’t speak for Richmond, Milwaukee or St. Louis, but I can say that the Baltimore legal market, while probably in better shape than Washington or New York, is hardly immune to recession-itis. To my knowledge, no firms with a major presence here have yet canceled their 2010 summer programs, but there have certainly been layoffs, and several firms have postponed their 2009 first-year associates’ start dates. Where does Harvard think these developments will leave the would-be summer associate class of 2010? Even if no Baltimore firms call off their 2010 summer programs, how many of their summer associates can reasonably expect a job offer come August 2010?

One thing’s for sure: if students from the second-best law school in the country do listen to their dean’s advice and start taking a closer look at Baltimore, our home-grown law students will face stiff competition this fall in their bid for summer associate positions. I’m not knocking the University of Baltimore or the University of Maryland. But increased competition from anywhere would make it a tougher job market, and increased competition from Harvard students, even more so.

Hogan & Hartson has not been having a good week.

Last Friday, word got out that the firm had shown 30 senior associates the door. (I’ve made three calls to the firm since then to find out whether anyone in the Baltimore office was affected, but I haven’t heard back. Take from that what you will.)

Then yesterday, Above the Law posted a Hogan memo announcing that the current summer associates who get job offers in the Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia offices will come on board in the fall of 2011, not 2010. No word yet on Baltimore. (See above re: me not getting called back.) Hogan is not alone on this move, by the way.

It could be worse. This firm has canceled its on-campus recruiting for the fall and its 2010 summer associate program.

Bloomberg News, citing Above The Law, reports that DLA Piper has fired 21 junior lawyers and 100 staff, citing “the worst economic period in generations.”

As we’ve reported in the last few months, the firm let 80 associates and 100 staffers go in February and reduced associate salaries in May. The firm mentioned those moves in a statement Wednesday confirming the latest firings, in which it concluded the light at the end of the tunnel was further than it had thought.

Bloomberg writes:

The firings were not performance-based, and those who lost their jobs will received [sic] severance benefits and outplacement counseling, the firm said in a statement today.

“It is increasingly clear that major improvements in the U.S. and global economy will not occur before 2010,” DLA Piper said in its statement. “While the firm’s financial position remains strong, a tightly-managed cost structure is essential to compete effectively during these uncertain times.”

I’ll admit, what made me click on the link in this blog post was the line:”This reminds me of the brilliant Scooner [sic] Tuna solution at the end of Mr. Mom.”

My love of Mr. Mom aside, I was intrigued when I was directed to LexisNexis’s “Lend a Hand” program Web site. Recently laid-off attorneys — from firms with 50 or more lawyers — can sign up for the program and receive free six-month profiles on Lawyers.com and martindale.com along with six months of free access to Martindale-Hubbell Connected and the Martindale-Hubbell Career Center.

That’s almost as good a deal as receiving fifty cents off your can of tuna.

Hat tip: Above the Law.

Happy Monday! Here are a few law links to start your week:

• Prosecutors and judges in Anne Arundel County need to be tough on the robbers who have been plaguing the Arundel Mills Mall and the surrounding areas, Red Maryland says.
• Superlobbyist Bruce Bereano has gotten 22 traffic tickets in the last 13 years, 18 of those for speeding, explaining his vehement stand against the speed camera bill.
• The New York Times had a piece a few days ago on big law firms getting rid of lawyers.
• Law firms are vulnerable to embezzlement, The National Law Journal writes. Featured in the story is Columbia lawyer Michael Nagle, whose firm, Nagle & Zaller, lost $700,000 to a crooked employee.
• Tell your clients: don’t violate bail, especially when there’s a chance someone could post the evidence on Facebook.

Are you an employer looking to hire lawyers? As in, more than one? Do you know of someone who is?

Stop laughing. I’m serious.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the terrible legal job market, which just gets worse every time a firm lays off more lawyers. But there are law firms, companies, nonprofits and government agencies out there that are hiring, some of them extensively. I’ve already talked to a few for an upcoming Maryland Lawyer feature on why some employers are going against the conventional wisdom by actively seeking new attorneys.

But I’m still looking for more. So if you know of a Maryland employer who’s hiring, please drop me an e-mail.

From the American Lawyer by way of Texas Lawyer comes this short piece on how firms decide which associates to lay off. It’s worth a read, though there’s nothing earth-shattering. David Bario and Drew Combs write:

So how are associates marked for extinction? Who lives, who dies, and why?

It’s not simply a matter of hours. There is a calculus involved. Some firms really are “realigning,” or making up for lack of traditional associate attrition. Others are tossing deadweight as fast as possible from a sinking ship. But even though a number of agendas are at work, firms usually start at the same place: billables.

…

Still, firm leaders say it’s rare to simply draw a line and fire every single associate who falls below it.

The writers talk to one law firm chairman who tells them that one lawyer may be producing fewer hours than a colleague but doing better work. The competent attorney with low hours may be spared.

That’s a relief, at least. I know I’m hardly the first person to point this out, but isn’t there something wrong with a culture that rewards junior employees for taking a really long time to complete their work?

HT: ABA Journal.

Happy Monday! Here are a few links to start your week:

• John Bratt contrasts the discipline received by a lawyer who deceived her client and a doctor who deceived his patient, asking whether the Maryland Board of Physicians truly protects the public.
• Carolyn Elefant writes about small minority- or women-owned firms partnering with larger firms.
• Bitter Lawyer lists eight ways law firms pad their bills.
• Don’t breathe that sigh of relief. We may not be done with the layoffs just yet, says a blogger who’s been exhaustively chronicling the turmoil in the big-firm market.
• How many law firms do corporate legal departments employ? There’s conflicting data, says law department management expert Rees Morrison.

Womble Carlyle laid off a bunch of people yesterday, but relax: ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich was not among them.

First of all, the fired employees appear to have been associates and staffers. Second of all, none of the cuts affected Womble’s little 10-professional Baltimore office, a firm spokesman tells me. The spokesman, Russell Thomas, would not confirm how many people in Womble’s other offices were laid off. Third of all, laying off the former governor of Maryland might be considered a teensy bit poor form.

Ehrlich, a few of his former employees from the statehouse, and some of his political allies started Womble’s Baltimore office in 2007 after Ehrlich lost his reelection bid. (Some have speculated, but Womble has denied, that the Womble outpost is a “shadow government” and that Ehrlich and company spend their time planning a rematch with O’Malley.)

So no, Ehrlich won’t be hanging around his house in sweat pants and bunny slippers, eating Bugles and watching daytime TV any time soon. In case you were worried.

UPDATE: WOMBLE RESPONDS

Although blogs have reported that some of those laid off were associates, Thomas said they were all staffers. Some lawyer salaries have been reduced, he said, but the lawyers themselves have not.