Link to list of confirmed raisers:

Hey, Texas SAs: Looks like we're getting Gibson'd

---

Well, except that Gibson finally decided to raise summer salaries.

I haven't heard anything from my firms about summer salaries being raised, nor have any of my friends, nor as far as I can tell, has anyone on this board or Greedy Texas. Maybe we'll have a nice surprise when we show up, but if any of the BigTex firms are going to raise for summers, why wouldn't they do like every other big firm in the country and let us know?

Sure, I know we're way overpaid for a six week recruiting event, but an extra couple thousand dollars--which my peers will be making at their firms that have raised--means a lot more to me at this point than it does to the firm. Don't get me wrong, I love the new starting salaries in Texas, but paying those to us would be a nice gesture of goodwill.

Yeah, I know that in the long run, the difference isn't a big deal. Still, it makes them look cheap, like it made Gibson look cheap for the past couple months.

Oh well. I made a stupid decision and now I'm bitter about it. I should have gone to Weil or Gibson.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5606765)

In retrospect, I wish I had split my summer between the lifestyle firm and Weil or Gibson or whoever. It would have been a more meaningful choice.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5608128)

Also I watched their recruting video:

http://www.theconglomerate.org/files/jgaustinspirit2.wmv

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5608222)

ahaha, yeah i've seen that video. i was at a wine and cheese party with a bunch different firms once and some kid asked the jenkens guy about it. the dude just turned red. apparently, he participated. but he said it was a joke or something and they have never used it as a recruiting video.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5608444)

"It's kinda sad when even Gibson isn't Gibsoning its summers anymore." Words to live by.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5611449)

I'm hoping Bracewell will raise, although I'm not holding my breath....but it would be better to be late than never...

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5611720)

I think seeing that AK raised would spur Vinson and BB to raise themselves, and who knows how many firms would follow them.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5611767)

I'm hoping the other BigTex firms come around, break the silence, and step up to the level of their market leading peers. We'll see though. Everyone knows SAs are overpaid (for the actual work done), but as the market rises, I'm sure the rest of the firms will feel obligated to match. Here's hoping.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5616380)

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1143631335866

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5616669)

Jones Day - $2812/wk

Weil - $2800/wk

Skadden - $2800/wk

Baker Botts - $2700/wk

Locke Liddell - $2700/wk

V&E - $2700/wk

Akin Gump - $2600/wk

Andrews Kurth - $2600/wk

Bracewell - $2600/wk

Gibson - $2600/wk

Haynes & Boone - $2600/wk

Howrey - $2600/wk

Hughes & Luce - $2600/wk

Sidley Austin - $2600/wk

Thompson & Knight - $2600/wk

V&E - $2600/wk

Right now, here are the firms that are listed as TBD on NALP:

Fulbright - TBD

Pillsbury Winthrop - TBD

If you hear anything else, post here and I'll edit.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5617981)

Come on, V&E -- set the standard again. Announce a summer raise and everyone will follow.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5636359)

Compared to the big three, some of these Texas firms that have raised are practically lifestyle firms. That sends a strong message to summers: you'll make more here and we'll work you less. Yeah, it's undoubtedly BS in the long run, but definitely a good selling point.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5642685)

On one level, I know it's stupid to worry about a small amount of money in the long run. But while I was comfortable choosing $2,100 a week over $2,400, $2,100 opposed to $2,800 is a bit different. I would have worked in another market for the summer, pocketed some extra cash, and reinterviewed in Texas as a 3L. Oh well.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5631673)

Actually I have no idea if there are any firms in SA paying $135,000 now, but still, you see my point.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5631890)

I'm curious because I am in your same position, having chosen Bracewell over other firms that have actually instituted the lockstep associate compensation (as opposed to the "up to" system used by Bracewell). Obviously, in hindsight, I wouldn't have chosen them. On Greedy it was just posted that some associates in years 4-7 are making LESS than 2nd years under the new compensation system.

Thus, do you think there is any possibility of any remaining 2L openings in the SA programs of BigTex firms (obviously, aside from the firms one has previously turned down)? I'm just curious because I am hearing that associates are leaving in droves from several firms that refuse to match market salaries--I can't imagine the atmosphere at said firms is exactly good these days. If a firm is willing to screw over even its more senior associates, thus causing massive attrition, such a firm doesn't seem like a good place to spend half a summer if one can get other options.

However, I guess the timing is simply too late for jumping ship, especially for the 1st half, yet I guess there is a possibility to make a switch for 2nd half.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5632526)

Bracewell is particularly disappointing. I interviewed there and actually really liked them. They sold the firm well and really made me think they were moving up. I turned them down for other reasons and am now quite certain I made the right decision.

I think it's pretty shameless for a firm to sell itself that way and then screw its associates and future associates as soon as things start getting competitive. There's no excuse for a seventh year to be making less than a second year at anything that thinks it's a "major" law firm.

Sorry I don't have any great advice for you. I hope you can find something else. Good luck to you, let me know how it turns out.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5632632)

Like you, a firm that sells itself as a "major" law firm, big corporate deals, etc. and then treats its employees in this manner certainly is shameless.

Of course, who knows--market pressures have their way own way of eventually affecting the bottom line--Bracewell and the other below-market Texas firms may eventually step up to the plate. Luckily, I am quite content with my other firm and, who knows, perhaps the experience at Bracewell will surprise me. We'll see.

Good luck to you as well. Hopefully we'll all get encouraging news over the coming weeks.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5632735)

That's all fine and good, but in the meantime this firm has shown its true colors. Do you really want to work at a firm that will lag behind the market as long as it can and create convoluted systems that force you to sniff around just to figure out what you'll be paid? I feel sorry for anyone working at Bracewell, even if the market does correct it at some point. The management has shown how much it values its employees.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5632985)

I'm sure people in New York will be making the same after city and state taxes plus bones, but of course, at least a quarter of that will be going toward a shitty apartment. Works for me.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5633221)

I've resolved that I'm going to bump this thread every day until every Texas firm raises. I guess managing partners don't generally read xoxo, but at least I'll feel like I'm doing something.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5638973)

April 25, 2006, 8:40 am

The Spotlight Slowly Swings to Vinson & Elkins

Posted by Ashby Jones

enron HOUSTON — Don’t fret, Enron gadflies: After the verdicts come down in the cases against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, there will still be a lot of drama left over to pay attention to. This fall, for example, famed plaintiffs’ lawyer Bill Lerach is slated to try his massive class-action suit against Vinson & Elkins, the Houston-based law firm that worked with Enron for years.

The Wall Street Journal’s Nathan Koppel has the story today. A lawyer from Lerach’s firm, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, has reportedly been in attendance each day at the Lay/Skilling trial. Lerach says that evidence in the criminal trial that shows that Vinson signed off on allegedly fraudulent transactions “will be useful in the civil suit.” Responds Vinson partner Harry Reasoner, “It has always been our position that we want the truth, in all its complexity, to come out. We remain confident that, when it does, we will have been shown to have fulfilled our professional obligations.”

Lerach’s suit alleges that Vinson defrauded Enron investors by structuring “phony” transactions used to inflate revenue and hide debt. Years ago, Vinson attempted to have the complaint against it dismissed, but Judge Melinda Harmon of the U.S. District Court in Houston ruled in 2002 that the plaintiffs had a plausible case against Vinson.

Koppel’s story points out that “the case isn’t a slam dunk.” A 1994 Supreme Court ruling made it difficult to win damages from lawyers in securities-fraud cases, saying plaintiffs couldn’t recover damages from professionals who merely “aid and abet” a fraud.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114592536742234763-search.html?

Energy Firm's Outside Counsel

Sits in the Cross Hairs of Lerach,

Securities Class-Action Kingpin

By NATHAN KOPPEL

April 25, 2006; Page C1

Former Enron Corp. executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are the ones being tried on criminal fraud charges in federal court in Houston, but the collapsed energy company's longtime outside legal counsel is also in the hot seat.

Defending their management of Enron in the years before it spiraled into bankruptcy proceedings, Messrs. Skilling and Lay both have pointed to advice they received from lawyers at Vinson & Elkins LLP, which worked for Enron for years. Their testimony plays into the hands of class-action lawyers suing the firm on behalf of shareholders whose stock in the company tanked in 2001.

That class-action lawsuit is set for trial in October in a different federal courtroom in Houston, before U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon. The suit alleges that the firm defrauded Enron investors by structuring "phony" transactions used to inflate revenue and hide debt. Vinson attempted to have the complaint against it dismissed. Though Judge Harmon has allowed another law firm sued in the case, Kirkland & Ellis, off the hook, she ruled in 2002 that the plaintiffs had a plausible case against Vinson.

"It has always been our position that we want the truth, in all its complexity, to come out," senior Vinson partner Harry Reasoner says in a written statement. "We remain confident that, when it does, we will have been shown to have fulfilled our professional obligations." Mr. Reasoner adds that his firm will file another motion to dismiss the complaint.

Securities class-action kingpin William Lerach, lead plaintiffs' counsel in the case, says evidence in the criminal trial that shows that Vinson signed off on allegedly fraudulent transactions "will be useful in the civil suit." He has had a lawyer from his firm attending every day of the trial. His firm is Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP.

With 725 lawyers, Houston-based Vinson is the country's 38th-biggest law firm and the second biggest in Texas, according to the National Law Journal's latest annual survey.

Though Enron had more than 200 in-house lawyers, according to Mr. Lay's testimony on his first day on the stand yesterday, the company farmed out its legal work to Vinson. Enron paid Vinson about $162 million in fees from 1997 to 2001, according to a report filed in Enron's bankruptcy case.

So far, the debacle hasn't done much to the firm's bottom line. Its income has grown slowly in recent years. The firm averaged $1 million per partner in profits in 2005, a Vinson spokesman says.

Its involvement in the scandal and -- and its potential liability in the class-action suit -- has left a pall hanging over the firm.

"The perception is that [the suit] could be a fatal blow," says William Fred Hagans, a Houston trial attorney who isn't involved in the case. Lawyers in the case say Vinson has at least $150 million in professional-liability insurance coverage. The firm declined to discuss its insurance.

"I would not want to be Vinson & Elkins, if Skilling and Lay are convicted," says Peter Henning, a securities-law professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

An acquittal, on the other hand, would help Vinson, because it would force the public to consider the defense's argument that Enron was a victim of a false alarm sounded by the media and short-sellers (who bet on stock prices falling) seeking to profit on a decline in its share price.

Testimony about Vinson at the trial mostly has been prompted by questions from defense lawyers, who are trying to persuade the jury that accountants and lawyers fully vetted Enron's operations.

Vinson in 2001 conducted an investigation for Enron of complaints raised by Sherron Watkins, a finance executive who fretted in a letter to Mr. Lay that the company might "implode in a wave of accounting scandals." Vinson partner Max Hendrick III testified that the probe was "professional" but limited in scope. The inquiry cleared Enron of wrongdoing. Asked if it was a "whitewash," Mr. Hendrick testified that it wasn't. Yesterday, Mr. Lay testified that Vinson conducted only a "preliminary review" of Ms. Watkins's complaints, the purpose of which was to decide if Enron needed to hire another law firm to further investigate.

Mr. Skilling pointed to the firm in defending what the company told investors about its financial health in regulatory filings. "I think all disclosure was reviewed by... Vinson & Elkins," he testified.

James Derrick, Enron's former general counsel, testified that Vinson partner Ronald Astin blessed disclosures about the so-called LJM partnerships, which prosecutors say were used to inflate earnings and hide losses. The law firm also worked on Enron's Raptor partnerships, which former Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan -- their chief architect -- testified were designed to keep debt off the books.

Mr. Lerach has secured more than $7 billion in civil settlements for Enron shareholders from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and other banks that advised Enron. Merrill Lynch & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and five other banks remain defendants in the class action, along with Vinson. All deny wrongdoing.

Law firms increasingly are targeted in securities suits, especially when the company in question is in bankruptcy proceedings and no longer has deep pockets. In 2004, New York-based Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP paid $19.5 million to settle claims that it failed to investigate fraud allegations at client Global Crossing Ltd. adequately. "This matter was settled in 2004 with an express denial of wrongdoing," says a Simpson spokesman. Class-action lawyers also are pursuing Chicago-based Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP for structuring transactions that allegedly led to the demise of client Refco Inc. "When all the evidence has been collected and reviewed, it will be clear that [the firm] acted properly," Mayer says in a prepared statement.

The case against Vinson is no slam dunk. A 1994 Supreme Court ruling made it difficult to win damages from lawyers in securities-fraud cases, saying plaintiffs couldn't recover damages from professionals who merely "aid and abet" a fraud. Pointing to that opinion, law firms in such cases usually assert that they are secondary players, far removed from any wrongdoing.

Judge Harmon rejected that argument in ruling against Vinson, concluding that, if the suit's allegations were true, Vinson could be shown to be a "primary violator" that "had to know of the alleged ongoing illicit and fraudulent conduct."

At trial, Mr. Lerach will have to show that Vinson lawyers knew they were involved in fraud or acted "with reckless disregard."

"Even if Skilling and Lay testify that Vinson & Elkins signed off on transactions, that doesn't mean the lawyers fully knew" they were fraudulent, says James Cox, a securities professor at Duke University School of Law in Durham, N.C. "The lawyers could have been merely negligent, which is not a basis for fault under securities law."

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5651700)

demand bitches

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5651655)

Still, I think (and strongly hope) at the end of the day, the big firms will raise, even if they could get away with not doing it.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5651947)

I'm thinking about posting the list of raisers at Greedy. I doubt it would have any effect, but maybe it would be useful for the powers that be to see a complete list of all the firms that have announced summer raises.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656034)

V&E, BB, who else?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656161)

seeing as how there seems to be a level of uncertainty, perhaps you should only post those which you're sure raised SA salaries.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656182)

I wonder why they would inform UH people only.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656203)

we'll just have to play the waiting game.

you?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656301)

Good luck to you, and congrats on your raise so far. I'm sure you earned every penny.

Edit: Of course, I say "take the lead on compensation" as though a dozen firms haven't already raised. By that I meant "take the lead to show the remaining firms, including two of particular interest to me, the error of their ways."

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656328)

good work. hopefully it influences the others somewhat.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5659671)

might as well start one up. the GA's did it for their salaries, why can't the SA's do the same?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5656151)

This sucks, I needed that extra money. Anyone else been SALARYPWNED this summer?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5687267)

I guess I'm going to continue this vigil, but with less than two weeks to go, I'm not going to hold out much hope. I mean, yeah, we'll be paid over $2000 a week to be wined and dined. So I'm not complaining. But it seems unfair when firms in most other major markets have raised summer salaries and in fact many firms in Texas have raised summer salaries. I guess I just got unlucky with the firms I picked this summer.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5700936)

Conclusion: I would still prefer an extra $600 a week.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5722388)

Obviously I won't do this since no one's going to take me back and it'll screw me over when I come back to Texas to back out now, but dammit, I'm gonna whine about it.

And of course, agreed on the goodie baskets.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5722790)

I'm starting to hear from both my firms about social events and other crap like that. Should I be planning to go to events for the firms during the time I'm not working for them? Both my firms look like their front-loading their summers, so I'll probably miss out on a lot of stuff on my second-half firm. That's not a big deal to me, but I guess I'll go to some stuff if it's important as far as offer-getting goes.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5734286)

Maybe it's a hold up in the recruiting office. My buddy's going to be in Houston; is that where you'll be?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5750648)

Is it confirmed that V&E has raised?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5751402)

Edit: Let me know when you've sent it.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5752971)

edit: ok, i will.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5753096)

thanks and i'll see you in a week or so.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5753150)

I think it's probably likely each recruiting office is sending out their own email, and some haven't done it yet, but I'll probably edit the list to put them down as unconfirmed.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5757350)

Who's left? Fulbright? Anyone heard anything from them?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=401930&forum_id=2#5766451)