TOO MUCH INFORMATION? - Just days after news came to light about Hogan Lovells’ “2,400 hours memo,” the topic has become one of the most hotly debated in the industry. Last Monday, Law.com International reported that CEO Miguel Zaldivar had sent out a memo to all of the firm’s lawyers, giving guidance on what many of its partners and junior lawyers interpreted as an annual hours target (2,400 hours to be exact) required to make partner. So the firm pretty much laid out the path to promotion. Hooray for transparency! Well, not so fast… As Law.com International’s Hannah Walker and Law.com’s Dan Roe report, not everyone is convinced that throwing out a hard number the way Hogan did will be inspiring to aspiring partners, particularly diverse attorneys and young working parents. Some also said the memo ignores the reality of practicing as an associate, where part of hitting billable targets comes down to luck and timing. “No matter if you’re billing hours and doing good work,” what matters is simply whether you are “working in the right office for the right partner, in the right practice at the right time,” said U.S. legal recruiter Amber Handman of Seltzer Fontaine.
WHAT YOU SAID
“The fancy law school clinic persuading this Supreme Court to grant cert to decide a 3-8 circuit split is magnificent news for the fancy law school. Rather less magnificent for litigants in those 8 circuits.”
— Matthew Stiegler, until recently author of the CA3blog and now with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, weighing in on the ongoing debate over whether law school Supreme Court clinics should worry more about the consequences of their case selections in the highly competitive hunt for high court attention.
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