Law Firm's Program Gives Thousands
Law firm Levenfeld Pearlstein, LLC
, has launched the Corporate Contributions Program, which, according to the firm, is a grant-making program that will help make an impact on the community. Specifically, the firm has collected more than $60,000 to disperse to the Erie Family Health Center and SGA Youth & Family Services. Both organizations are committed to serving low-income families and children. The grant given to Erie Family Health Center will aid the center with its mental health services by supporting an on-site clinical social worker, teacher and staff training, and parent outreach, while the grant given to SGA will help fund Operation BIG Hug, a program dedicated to discovering autism in children early on.Law Firms Dish Out the Dough
Salary increases for first-year associates have arrived, and Williams & Connolly has topped the charts with its latest first-year pay rate of $180,000. Other firms to raise the bar include McKee Nelson; Nixon Peabody; and Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, which raised its first-year pay to $160,000. Many Washington, DC, firms are matching the salaries of highly paid New York-based attorneys, as well, with some raising first-year pay from $130,000 to $145,000. However, there is one drawback to Williams & Connolly's latest increase: no end-of-year bonuses.
O'Melveny & Myers Segregates Its Lawyers
Law firm O'Melveny & Myers has segregated its lawyers. Why? To please Universal Music Group, an organization O'Melveny once defended against Napster. The law firm is now defending MySpace against UMG, so it must separate its lawyers involved in the UMG-Napster case from those involved in the MySpace-UMG case. Ultimately, UMG would like O'Melveny "disqualified" from the case; however, a recent decision by a federal judge in Los Angeles has allowed the law firm to continue, as long as previous UMG-defending lawyers are not working on the current case. The judge also decided that the law firm must pay attorney's fees "after calling elements of its conflict waiver 'unworthy of a distinguished law firm.'"
