Half Kaye Scholer's 1st-Years Assigned To Pro Bono

By James Armstrong

Law360, New York (October 29, 2009) -- International law firm Kaye Scholer LLP is splitting its class of incoming first-year associates, assigning roughly of the class to work exclusively with the firm's public interest law group.

The first-year associates working on pro bono cases will receive full benefits and initially make $60,000 a year, a spokesman for Kaye Scholer confirmed.

New associates working for paying clients will make the firm's considerably higher normal starting salary for first-year associates.

While the pay cut will undoubtedly be a blow to some debt-loaded recent law school graduates, Kaye Scholer's move is not nearly as severe as the cost-saving methods of some other firms.

Wildman Harrold Allen & Dixon LLP, for instance recently flat-out rescinded offers to 10 of 14 new hires, and Dechert LLP, Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP and K&L Gates LLP have all announced layoffs this year.

Kaye Scholer said it wanted to invite its entire first-year class to start at the firm in January, but because of a decline in the demand for legal services, it did not have regular places for all of them.

Instead of sending half its incoming class to do public interest law elsewhere as some other firms have done, Kaye Scholer decided to have them work on the firm's own pro bono cases.

“It's incredibly difficult to get public interest work in this environment,” said Barry Wilner, managing partner for Kaye Scholer. “It's a good thing from the standpoint that the firm is providing excellent public interest training and mentoring.”

Kaye Scholer has a long-standing commitment to public interest law. In 1993, it became a charter member of the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge, which requires at least 3 percent of a firm's overall practice to consist of pro bono work.

The firm claims it meets or exceeds that amount each year. All Kaye Scholer lawyers are supposed to perform 50 or more hours of pro bono work per year.

Recent pro bono clients at the firm have included Holocaust survivors, sheet metal workers, death row inmates and the group LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which filed an amicus brief in the recent Supreme Court case of Horne v. Flores.

Kaye Scholer also recently hired Dan Grunfeld, a former president of the public interest law firm Public Counsel. Grunfeld will serve as co-chairman of Los Angeles office's litigation department at the firm.

Founded in 1917, Kaye Scholer has offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, and West Palm Beach, Fla., as well as in London, Shanghai and Frankfurt, Germany.

The firm represents public and private companies, government entities, financial institutions and other organizations around the world.

--Additional reporting by Nick Brown