Top Law Schools

Lists at http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2548639714 (NLJ 350) and http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2546739310 (NLJ 250 details)

I have two issues.

1. How should 2Ls and 3Ls treat the new 100 firms as far as mass mailings go? Some, like Seward & Kissel pay 160, recruit nationwide and have a decent summer class of 9-11. Other, like DGS, pay lower, but still market, recruit exclusively in their home market, have a summer class of 2-3 (almost all of whom go to CU/DU). Is it worth mass mailing firms like DGS from this list? Also, the bottom 100 have 13k lawyers while the upper 250 have 126k; are there different approaches or groups of students who are an ideal for "fit" with these 13k over the 126k?

2. Some firms had huge swings in lawyer headcount.

Gainers were Squire Sanders (+446), DLA (+398), Quinn (+190), Littler (+96), White & Case (+92), Latham (+83), Ogletree (+69), Baker & McKenzie (+67), Curtis Mallet (+66). Some of these make sense because of the size of the firm. But do the Littler/Ogletree numbers indicate unusual growth in L&E? Does Squire Sanders purchase of Hammonds and Curtis Mallet's growth mean those firms are likely to take smaller classes this fall?

Flip side are the losers. Mayer Brown (-122), O'Melveny (-118), Hogan (-110), Hunton (-103), Jones Day (-95), Davis Wright (-48), Bingham McCutchen (-46). Some of these are surprising given the alleged health of the firm. Are these normal variations and attrition or should people bidding be cautious?

I wonder if there will be a "NLJ 350 Go to school list) that would be interesting to see.

StarLightSpectre wrote:I wonder if there will be a "NLJ 350 Go to school list) that would be interesting to see.

I gather they haven't been surveying these smaller firms (I'm sure some surveys were getting sent to the 250-260 firms to account for changes), but will probably start surveying them next year. I doubt it will change SA numbers significantly. Firms of 250+ accounted for 79% of the lawyer headcount in the NLJ 350.

Also, according to NALP (http://www.nalp.org/uploads/PerspectivesonFall2011.pdf), reporting firms hired 2,224 SAs overall (they use rounded averages, but it's a good proxy). 1,965 of those were at 250+ firms, 181 were at 100-250, and 72 were at sub-100.

That all makes me think the impact of the 100 additional firms would be very very tiny to the "Go to school" list. Also, I'm sure some of these smaller firms took students who go to sub-50 law schools on the NLJ list and therefore wouldn't even get their schools up to a reportable threshold.

.

Biglaw just got bigger

rad lulz wrote:

StarLightSpectre wrote:I wonder if there will be a "NLJ 350 Go to school list) that would be interesting to see.

Since the smallest firm is 116 people, it will roughly correspond to the law school reporting category of "Firms off 100+"

I read the smallest as 112. There are 32 firms with 112-124 and 29 with 124-136. I would gather that means there are roughly 380 firms with 100+, although there might be a bunching effect exactly at 100.

Still boggles my mind that two of the twelve largest firms in the country are headquartered in Pittsburgh.

rad lulz wrote:

StarLightSpectre wrote:I wonder if there will be a "NLJ 350 Go to school list) that would be interesting to see.

Since the smallest firm is 116 people, it will roughly correspond to the law school reporting category of "Firms off 100+"

You're so wise.

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Holy shit there's an NLJ 350. What will they think of next?!

bk187 wrote:Holy shit there's an NLJ 350. What will they think of next?!

Survey ALL the firms

LawIdiot86 wrote: 1. How should 2Ls and 3Ls treat the new 100 firms as far as mass mailings go?

They aren't new. You should have been mass mailing these firms last year anyway. No different than any other firm office their size.

rad lulz wrote:

StarLightSpectre wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

StarLightSpectre wrote:I wonder if there will be a "NLJ 350 Go to school list) that would be interesting to see.

Since the smallest firm is 116 people, it will roughly correspond to the law school reporting category of "Firms off 100+"

You're so wise.

Well it's true. It wouldn't be much more relevant than the data we already have from almost all the schools that place a large portion of grads into "biglaw."

Then again, if we got a full breakdown of the lists of what grads the firms hired each year...

Btw there was no sarcasm intended. Can I be your padawan? or in legal terms are you taking SAs?

I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm not. They're massive. It's a shitty mill though.

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm baffled that more Shit Law firms merge into mega firms. Be the walmart of slip and falls.

Do firms opt into this NLJ350 list? I noticed some IP boutiques in the 100-150 range are not listed.

rad lulz wrote:

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm not. They're massive. It's a shitty mill though.

I'm not either in terms of volume. The NLJ 250 is just usually known for putting reputable firms on its list. I feel like there should be some sort of weeding-out mechanism on the questionnaire, such as "Does the firm advertise on television"?

duckmoney wrote:The NLJ 250 is just usually known for putting reputable firms on its list.

Bro it's just the size, being reputable has nothing to do with it.

duckmoney wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm not. They're massive. It's a shitty mill though.

I'm not either in terms of volume. The NLJ 250 is just usually known for putting reputable firms on its list. I feel like there should be some sort of weeding-out mechanism on the questionnaire, such as "Does the firm advertise on television"?

Is reputation part of it? I always assumed it was just the 250 biggest no matter what.

Desert Fox wrote:

duckmoney wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm not. They're massive. It's a shitty mill though.

I'm not either in terms of volume. The NLJ 250 is just usually known for putting reputable firms on its list. I feel like there should be some sort of weeding-out mechanism on the questionnaire, such as "Does the firm advertise on television"?

Is reputation part of it? I always assumed it was just the 250 biggest no matter what.

It's only size.

Desert Fox wrote:

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm baffled that more Shit Law firms merge into mega firms. Be the walmart of slip and falls.

The problem is that these plaintiff firms tend to develop dominant personalities as non-equity partners that realize they can earn more then the name equity partner will share with them and that other freeloaders in the firm are benefiting from their amazing skill. They leave to start their own firms where they can be the name partner keeping all the profits.

Look at a motley rice. They got up to 100+ lawyers back in the late 90s, then split in two over disputes. Today they have two equity partners, some number of non-equity members, and then some associates; total about 60. At some point, one of those non-equity partners is going to realize he is hot stuff, his name isn't getting added as a third name partner, that even if it was added, some of those 60 are free-riding on him, and that he can grab a couple of the best people to start his own firm. Since there are no relationships with clients to maintain because they are always suing new people based on named plaintiffs, there isn't the same incentives in the biglaw defense firms to cross-pollinate or maintain practice groups for client relationships. Big firms exist to service big clients over a long period of time. The same incentives aren't there for shit law. Jacoby & Meyers tried this in the 80s and failed miserably at being the Wal Mart of legal services.

LawIdiot86 wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

duckmoney wrote:I'm just baffled that Morgan and Morgan made the list.

http://www.forthepeople.com/

I'm baffled that more Shit Law firms merge into mega firms. Be the walmart of slip and falls.

The problem is that these plaintiff firms tend to develop dominant personalities as non-equity partners that realize they can earn more then the name equity partner will share with them and that other freeloaders in the firm are benefiting from their amazing skill. They leave to start their own firms where they can be the name partner keeping all the profits.

Look at a Motley Rice. They got up to 100+ lawyers back in the late 90s, then split in two over disputes. Today they have two equity partners, some number of non-equity members, and then some associates; total about 60. At some point, one of those non-equity partners is going to realize he is hot stuff, his name isn't getting added as a third name partner, that even if it was added, some of those 60 are free-riding on him, and that he can grab a couple of the best people to start his own firm. Since there are no relationships with clients to maintain because they are always suing new people based on named plaintiffs, there isn't the same incentives in the biglaw defense firms to cross-pollinate or maintain practice groups for client relationships. Big firms exist to service big clients over a long period of time. The same incentives aren't there for shit law. Jacoby & Meyers tried this in the 80s and failed miserably at being the Wal Mart of legal services.

Yea, that makes sense.

so 2,000 lawyers added, are these mostly lawyers in foreign expansion offices? Alternatively what OCI class would this gain reflect? Am I right in remembering that the NLJ "go-to" list from 2011 looked worse than the 2010 one? Someone help me? haha

FlanAl wrote:so 2,000 lawyers added, are these mostly lawyers in foreign expansion offices? Alternatively what OCI class would this gain reflect? Am I right in remembering that the NLJ "go-to" list from 2011 looked worse than the 2010 one? Someone help me? haha

~450 of that 2,000 comes from Squire Sanders buying Hammonds, a non-US European firm.