SKADDEN’S SUMMER OF ’07
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom’s Los Angeles office will have its largest summer class ever this year � 42 summer associates, up 50 percent from last year.
Prior to that, the largest summer class in that office of the New York-based firm was 30 people.
One of the biggest ways to get people interested is creating a buzz on campus, said Jason Russell, the co-recruiting partner for the L.A. office. It’s great if summer associates go back to campus and spread the word. “We explicitly said, ‘If you had a good experience, tell your friends.’”
The recruiting team also made an effort to participate in more lectures and generally be more visible on campus.
“We had very aggressive follow-up and people accepted at a higher rate,” said Russell.
The L.A. office isn’t an anomaly � the 1,915-attorney firm had its biggest recruiting year overall for summer associates.
Skadden attorneys say they’re especially excited about the high numbers since summer associates often end up as first-years � and the competition for top talent is only getting tougher. Law firms are growing, but the pool of top candidates from top law schools is steady.
“The office is growing but not at the pace the client demands,” said Jeffrey Cohen, also a recruiting partner for the L.A. office. “Lateral hiring is big, but it’s more difficult and risky than hiring out of law school.”
� Kellie Schmitt
SENT TO TRAFFICKING SCHOOL
A San Francisco prosecutor’s expertise in pimping and pandering and sexual assault cases will go beyond U.S. borders this week.
Called upon by the U.S. State Department, 21-year veteran Assistant DA Marianne Barrett planned to leave Saturday to help conduct a weeklong series of human trafficking seminars in Croatia and Slovenia.
Barrett trains attorneys and judges on using the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed in 2005, which mirrors the federal trafficking law. And, although she has yet to prosecute a human trafficking case, she notes that � like the pimping and pandering cases she’s been prosecuting for the last seven years � human trafficking is a crime that exploits women.
There has been a big movement toward addressing human trafficking in recent years, spurred by U.S. attorneys nationwide urging local law enforcement to get involved, Barrett said. Local task forces, she added, have allowed more intelligence sharing and training.
“Human trafficking is on the rise in Eastern Europe,” Barrett said. “As they’re prosecuting, they asked for U.S. input on how to prosecute those cases.”
Croatia and Slovenia are located along the Balkan Route, which organized crime groups often use to smuggle illegal immigrants � mainly from Albania � into Western Europe, according to European news reports.
Barrett, along with a U.S. attorney, will be training prosecutors in several areas, including how to investigate a case, how to build a case and present it at trial, and how to suppress this type of crime.
Conducting training abroad is nothing new for San Francisco prosecutors. Linda Klee, the district attorney’s chief of administration, has been making regular trips to Russia since 2000 with an organization that trains government and community leaders, scholars, judges, law enforcement and others on hate crimes.
In Russia, where hate crimes have gone up since the mid-1990s, prosecutors can pursue hate crime enhancements. Klee plans to make another trip there in May.
� Millie Lapidario
