In a blog post, Amy Boardman Hunt of Muse Communications explains some of the main concepts of content marketing and how it can be a potent tool for solos and small law firms with limited marketing budgets.

“The essence of content marketing is that you’re promoting your subject matter expertise (whether it’s labor law, family law, or any other practice area) by providing consistent, relevant content of interest to your clients and prospective clients,” she explains.

For law firms, content marketing is primarily about two things:

• Building a reputation as a source of genuine value in your practice area; and
• Staying top-of-mind among your clients, prospective clients and referral sources.

Read the article.

Bloomberg Law reports that O’Melveny & Myers has won the “best law firm to work for” in Vault’s 2019 annual quality of life rankings.

Vault polled about 20,000 associates to rate peer firms and their own experiences, writes Bloomberg reporter Elizabeth Olson. They were asked about satisfaction and firm culture, as well as compensation, hours and informal training and mentoring.

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson held onto its No. 2 ranking in the poll.

Associates described O’Melveny as having a “laid back culture” and “super interesting work,” according to comments.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Bloomberg Law reports on a survey of mostly female lawyers that sexual harassment, including unwelcome texts, physical contact and bullying, exists at big and small law firms.

The Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts and the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership conducted the study.

“Nearly 38 percent of respondents said they’d been the recipient of an unwanted sexual email, text or instant message at work. Approximately 21 percent said they’d experienced or witnessed unwelcome physical contact at work,” reported Stephanie Russell-Kraft. “More than two-thirds of those who said they had experienced or witnessed unwelcome physical contact said they didn’t report it.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Above the Law has updated its extensive list of law firms that have matched Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy’s $190,000 salary scale for new associates, with almost four dozen large firms represented.

The most-recent additions to the list, added on Thursday, include Dechert, Orrick, Akin Gump and Sherman & Sterling, each with pay scales of $190,000 for first year associates and $340,000 for senior year associates.

Those four also offer $5,000 bonuses to first years, and $25,000 to their more-senior associates.

Read the Above the Law article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that a former partner in Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office alleged in a suit June 19 that she was kicked out of the firm after raising concerns about its treatment of female lawyers.

The former partner, Wendy Moore, alleged that the firm’s leaders retaliated against her after she voiced misgivings about the firm’s alleged sexist culture, lack of pay transparency, and marginalization of female attorneys, according to reporter Stephanie Russell-Kraft.

“The firm’s male leaders often make sexist comments and rate the attractiveness of female attorneys, paralegals, staff, and officers of the firm’s clients,” Moore’s complaint complaint says. “Business development events, too, often center on degrading stereotypes of femininity and cater to a preference for sports and alcohol.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Recent breaking news about the potential union of Dallas’ Winstead and Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders is another example of how the media can quickly become a factor in private law firm mergers, writes Bruce Vincent in a blog post for Muse Communications.

“While it remains to be seen whether the media interest will impact any eventual union between Winstead and Troutman, the way the news became public provides key insights for other law firms that may be considering a merger,” he writes.

Vincent outlines some of the most important steps to take in such a situation. He discusses informing important audiences, such as clients; handling media requests; and the right way to follow up.

Read the article.

Bloomberg Law reports that a ruling that an ex-King & Spalding associate can go to trial on a claim he was fired for raising ethics concerns highlights a critical question for law firms—how to respond to an internal ethics complaint without appearing to retaliate?

A New York federal court rejected King & Spalding’s argument that associate David Joffe clearly was terminated for bad performance and “administrative shortcomings,” and not in retaliation for reporting ethical concerns stemming from two partners’ representation of Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp., writes Mindy L. Rattan.

“While most associates are at-will employees, New York associates are protected from retaliation after the associate reports or threatens to report ethical concerns about others in the firm,” according to Rattan.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The race to top or match big law firms’ salaries for associates took on another twist as Cravath Swaine & Moore announced it will be giving senior associates a hike that brings their compensation to $340,000.

Bloomberg Law reports that figure will beat Milbank,Tweed, Hadley & McCloy’s pay for its top associates by $10,000.

Above the Law has a memo — provided by tipsters — that outlines Cravath’s compensation schedule for associate classes 2017 ($190,000) through 2010 ($340,000).

“Cravath might be late to the game, but now that it’s here, we can expect nearly every other major Biglaw firm to follow. (Sullivan & Cromwell) will be here soon. Skadden, Davis Polk, Debevoise, they’re all coming now. This is the new Biglaw associate salary,” writes Above the Law’s Elie Mystal.

Read Bloomberg Law’s article.

Read the Above the Law article.

Around half a dozen law firms have stepped up to say they will match the new $190,000 salary level for freshly minted lawyers set by Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy this week, reports Bloomberg Law, but others have been slower, or may not come forward at all, as firms try to navigate the shifting business conditions.

“Such large salary boosts can be costly, and it’s one that often is borne by the law firm. Corporations are reluctant to underwrite the six-figure salaries for lawyers straight out of law school,” explains reporter Elizabeth Olson.

She talked to James Jones, a senior fellow at Georgetown law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, who agreed that clients would not be happy. Firm billing rates for the largest 100 law firms rose last year, and an across-the-board raise could indicate another hike in billing, he noted.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that salaries of law firm associates got a healthy boost Monday when Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP announced that it will increase pay by $10,000 for lawyers in their first three years, and $15,000 after that.

That raise will bring starting salaries for associates to $190,000, up from the current $180,000, write Elizabeth Olson and Casey Sullivan.

Competition for legal talent has grown particularly fierce when it comes to the kind of complex, high-end transactions that Milbank specializes in, Scott A. Edelman, Milbank’s chair, told Bloomberg Law.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Above the Law reports that a judge has characterized a $60,000 fee request from Latham & Watkins to be “astonishing” and “aggressive beyond any convention.”

The firm, representing the defendant in two cases brought by a Harvard professor who sued an employee of his investment fund for allegedly recording conversations, won the case on the merits. So now Latham is attempting to recover legal fees, reports editor Kathryn Rubino.

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Mitchell H. Kaplan criticized Latham for charging such a high fee “to file a brief that a first-year law student could write.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Nearly $4 million in fees are at stake in a California Supreme Court fight between a big law firm and a big client over broad advance conflict waivers the firm used in its client engagement letters, according to Bloomberg Law.

Reporter Joyce Cutler explains that Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP was “disqualified from representing J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. in a $1 billion qui tam action because the firm concurrently represented one of the hundreds of defendants in an unrelated matter. The state appeals court held the advance conflict waiver J-M gave Sheppard Mullin didn’t absolve the firm of its duty to tell J-M about the specific conflict once it came to light.”

The question for this case of first impression is whether a law firm needs to tell a sophisticated client about a specific conflict when it arises, or whether the firm can instead rely a boilerplate advance conflict waiver in the client’s engagement agreement.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Pat Rafferty of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing offers some  tips to maximize your experience and develop business before, during and after a presentation at a conference or other event.

The article is divided into three sections, with the “Before” section discussing such topics as CLE approval, credibility and expertise, checking the guest list and getting the word out.

Other topics under the “During” and “After” headings include expanding your network, interactivity, making a lasting impression, using a personal touch, repurposing the content, and more.

Read the article.

The top three schools in the Law School Rankings compiled by Above the Law are different this year, with the University of Chicago Law School moving into the top slot.

Above the Law ranks schools on the basis of the latest ABA employment data concerning the class of 2017.

Executive Editor Elie Mystal mentions that the top three schools had upticks in their federal clerkship rates and speculates that the changes may be attributed to the current political picture:

“As Trump and McConnell take over the federal judiciary, it’s interesting to me that more people from Chicago and UVA and Duke are getting clerkships, while fewer people from Harvard and Yale are. It could be a one-year blip… it could be a 25-year blip if the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation continue to have their way.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Above the Law has some advice for anyone who is shocked by a billing rate of $700 an hour: Biglaw partners charge a lot for their services, so get over it.

Editor Kathryn Rubino covers the reaction to “the completely reasonable bill that Bracewell partner and former federal judge Barbara Jones has submitted for her work as the special master reviewing the materials seized in the raid of Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen’s office.”

An invoice from Jones revealed her $700 hourly rate for a total of $47,390 over a single week.

“Top rates for experienced partners approach the $2,000 mark — more than double Jones’s rate … ” Rubino writes.

Read the Above the Law article.

Law firms face some of the same challenges with their marketing that politicians deal with when trying to get elected, points out Amy Boardman Hunt in a blog post for Muse Communications.

She offers some points that law firms (and political candidates) should keep in mind when planning their marketing efforts.

The article discusses some of the finer points of such marketing qualities as consistency, clarity, brevity, novelty, authenticity, targeting, and keeping “one foot in front of the other.”

Read the article.

Sandra Goldstein, a former leader of Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s litigation department who is leaving the firm to join Kirkland & Ellis, will be well-compensated in her new role: $11 million a year for five years, plus a signing bonus, according to The New York Times.

“What has the legal profession’s upper ranks abuzz is that for decades partners almost never left Cravath voluntarily — not for other law firms, at least, let alone for a firm like Kirkland, which is in some ways Cravath’s polar opposite,” writes reporter James B. Stewart.

He adds that Kirkland has shaken up the profession and expanded its practice by poaching top partners from Cravath, Latham and Skadden Arps Meagher Slate & Flom.

Read the NY Times article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting on a a seminal study from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation found widespread mental health problems among attorneys.

The report says that approximately 40 percent of associates at large firms have unlimited vacation days, according to Matt Moody, a senior law editor at career research company Vault. “But taking vacations while billing enough hours, remaining available to clients, and meeting court deadlines can be tricky. The Vault survey found only 31 percent of associates used all their vacation days, Moody said.”

Reporter Gayle Cinquegrani writes that lawyer and licensed alcohol and drug counselor Patrick R. Krill and lead author of the Hazelden study, believes that skipping vacations can “be a set-up for anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and burnout.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

A North Carolina law firm shouldn’t be sanctioned for failing to take steps to preserve emails that are potentially relevant to a lawsuit brought by a former partner, a business court judge ruled, according to Bloomberg Law.

The court found that the law firm’s duty to preserve emails arose four weeks before it issued a litigation hold. But sanctions aren’t warranted because there are no facts to suggest any potentially relevant emails were lost, he said.

Reporter Michael Greene quotes the judge: “There must be a specific reason, beyond mere speculation that relevant information was lost as a result of a delayed litigation hold, to justify imposing sanctions.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Trial attorney Rogge Dunn has filed a lawsuit in Dallas County against FindLaw for alleged fraud and misrepresentation of services the company provided for the new Rogge Dunn Group, PC firm website.

According to Dunn, FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business, promised to create a website with content he would own, and conduct SEO services. Instead, he says the website FindLaw proposed contained only basic images and stock language that didn’t align with the business objectives of his law practice.

In a release from Dunn’s firm, he said discovered that FindLaw, and not the Rogge Dunn Group, is the owner of the content, “which forces the firm to start from square one should it decide to build a new website.” The release also said that, after entering into the contract, Dunn learned that if he failed to renew his FindLaw contract, the company would basically “flip a switch” and un-tag the attorney, eliminating any benefit for the 12 months of SEO.

Dunn says FindLaw rejected his attempts to find a solution.

“When you hire a big company, you expect them to live up to their representations and the work they promised,” said Dunn. “Instead, all I have encountered has been a series of misrepresentations compounded by bureaucratic and corporate indifference.”

In his lawsuit, Dunn said, after interviewing a number of website developers, he was prepared to hire an alternate company, but a FindLaw salesperson talked him out of the decision by falsely claiming the other company had a poor reputation.

The case is Rogge Dunn vs. FindLaw, West Publishing Corporation, a/b/a FindLaw, Super Lawyers, and LawInfo, and Kevin Donahue at al. in Dallas County Court.