Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Cindy Johnston is one of the most beloved employees in Locke Lord's Dallas office. She also helped shape former Houston Bar Association President Alistair Dawson's vision for Project TRAIN, a program that is being recognized this week at the State Bar Annual Meeting in Houston with a Star of Achievement Award.
The North Texas corporate legal industry has experienced monumental structural changes during the past year, but the business law community is suddenly facing the possibility of a major disruption that could change how business M&A law is practiced in Dallas for the next generation.
(June 19) – Houston-based corporate law firm Vinson & Elkins announced late Monday afternoon that it has raised the amount it is paying its first-year associates to $195,000. V&E, which is one of the largest and most profitable law firms in Texas, informed its associates it is matching the compensation increases that national law firms operating in Dallas and Houston implemented last week. Legal industry analysts predict that other Texas law firms, including Houston-based Baker Botts, are likely to do the same later this week. In a memo to its associates, which are younger lawyers yet to become partners, V&E Chairman Mark Kelly and Managing Partner Scott Wulfe said that the firm is increasing the base salary of its newbie lawyers from $180,000 to $190,000. In addition, the firm is providing first year associates $5,000 bonuses. The memo, obtained by The Texas Lawbook, shows that paychecks for associates in their eighth year – the year before the lawyers are up for partnership – will jump to $340,000. Those associates also will receive incentive bonuses starting at $25,000. The pressure on Texas law firms to boost compensation to younger lawyers intensified late last week when several national law firms with large presences in Dallas and Houston – Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, Simpson Thatcher, Winston & Strawn and Weil, Gotshal & Manges – announced that they were increasing the amount they paid associates. The Texas Lawbook has complete details.
A handful of Texas-based corporate law firms are expected to decide this week whether they will increase compensation for first-year associates to $195,000 a year. The pressure to boost pay to younger lawyers intensified late last week when two national law firms with large presences in Texas – Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin – announced raises. The Texas Lawbook has exclusive insider details.
Hundreds of young lawyers working at large corporate law firms in Texas are monitoring industry insider blogs and texting their friends at cross-town rivals in hopes of learning if their pay is about to go way up. They may be waiting a bit longer than they expected. The Texas Lawbook provides an analysis into whether Texas law firms will or will not follow Milbank Tweed's move to increase associate compensation.
Two large, corporate southern law firms – Dallas-based Winstead and Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders – are involved in merger discussions, The Texas Lawbook has learned.
Two of the Norton Rose partners joining, Jeff Layne and Ben Koplin, will launch Reed Smith’s Austin office, which is the firm’s second office in Texas and 28th worldwide.
The Dallas litigation firm of Lackey Hershman has agreed to combine with Stinson Leonard Street.
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