O'Melveny's human resources

       One of O'Melveny's marketing efforts concerns their Director of Career Development, Jim Moore. They push articles about him and, in writing the May post, I saw O'Melveny list him as an advantage in recruiting materials. So I thought I'd write about an interaction I had with Jim.

       One day at lunch in the cafeteria, a bunch of partners suddenly sat down around me and the few other juniors as we were having lunch. I remember most of them; Rich Goetz, Carla Christofferson, and Seth Aronson were in the group. And Mr. Moore also joined. Eventually, Jim talked about a trip to Asia, and how he was focusing his career development efforts there. He described a lunch he had with someone, and an altercation with a waiter. The details aren't important. Any way, at that time I was trying to blend in and ingratiate myself to the people at O'Melveny. So I said something along the lines of how interesting it must be to travel all over the world as part of your job. 

       He agreed, and then said, "but I would never go to Iran," with a glare directed right at me. I'm Iranian by the way. Rich Goetz added that an O'Melveny partner was from Iran, and that he probably chanted, "death to America" in his youth. Carla agreed. My attempt at small talk had suddenly gotten very uncomfortable. But I couldn't leave, so I sat quietly until the lunch was over. (And, by the way, I have never spoken with the Iranian partner and don't know anything about him.)

       Now, O'Melveny doesn't have an office in Iran, and there's no reason why Jim would fly there. His reply was a non-sequitur. And of course, such comments weren't that unusual. A partner made an issue of my background during my first week at O'Melveny. A female associate chided him for it, and I later got along with him. These things happen and I don't mean to make too big a deal of it. But after this encounter, I generally avoided Jim.

        The reason I avoided Jim wasn't so much because of that lunch, but mainly because he didn't seem to be that great at his job. I say that because associates shared stories about the difficulties they had at O'Melveny, and none of them pointed to Jim as a helpful resource. Why would they? Jim had spent his career jumping from firm to firm in junior attorney positions, until finally landing this no-billable-hours job. He also had an edgy personality, as shown above, or in this article I just read about law firm career development personnel. While career development managers from other firms describe the services they offer and list stats on number of attorneys they placed -- Jim calls lawyers "paranoid" and claims he's "like [a] therap[ist]." 

       I could share so many other anecdotes about O'Melveny's human resources and administration folks. Indeed, this website exists solely because of them. You can read the first post to see how a foolish decision to contact them started an unforeseen chain of events that led to that post. Seven months later, someone sent me the sexual assault story to add. After a few years, I had added so many posts that I registered a new domain name around the unifying theme of ethics. But it all grew organically. Initially, I didn't know about the troubles others had with O'Melveny. 

 

       Even through my last difficult year, I always gave my best on projects and it shows in my final review. I would never think of hurting matters I was entrusted with; I don't need that on my conscience. But with the human resources folks, it almost seemed like they were trying to sabotage things, trying to make everyone's life more difficult than it needed to be. I wasn't the only one who thought this. Who knows, maybe Dilbert was right about Catbert, the "evil director of human resources." Any way, that's what I know about O'Melveny's Director of Career Development.

James Moore, Career Development, Salary, O'Melveny, omm, human resources, compensation, hiring, recruiting, Richard Goetz, George Demos

O'Melveny's Chair Brad Butwin lied about coronavirus pay cuts

       O'Melveny's Chair Brad Butwin gave an interview to the American Lawyer. In the interview, Mr. Butwin said that O'Melveny did not cut pay during the covid-19 crisis. This is big. Attorneys and clients are keeping track of firms that announced pay cuts, because it sends a signal, e.g., about how the firm treats employees, and the firm's financial condition. Mr. Butwin is providing them with useful information when he tells this reporter that O'Melveny did not change compensation. 

       Mr. Butwin went on to say that the partners "cherish" their employees and will do "all [they] can to protect them." This is amazing. Who wouldn't want to work for such a firm? Those other firms treat you like an employee, but O'Melveny's partners cherish you and will do anything for you.

       The problem is that just a few weeks prior, law students were in an uproar because O'Melveny did cut summer associate pay, in a private e-mail to them. Their pay was cut by about $10,000 over the summer. These pay cuts will boost the partners' income by an estimated 0.24% ($10,000 pay cut per summer associate multiplied by an estimated 80 summer associates, divided by 170 partners, divided by $2,000,000 profit per partner = 0.24%). 

       Remember, these are students. They need that money for living expenses, more than partners need an extra 0.24% of income. And the partners know they need the money. That's why O'Melveny offered the students a $10,000 loan to make up for the lost income.  

       So it turns out there's one thing O'Melveny's partners cherish more than their employees -- a 0.24% increase in income. If the partners can make an extra 0.24% by cutting employee wages, they'll do it. This is a small story, but I write about it because it's an amusing amalgam of the money-grubbing and disingenuousness you might expect from this organization.

Brad Butwin, O'Melveny, OMM, summer associate, recruiting, pay, compensation, annual bonus, winter bonus, Brandon Jacobsen

The Mansfield Rule and the lucrative world of law firm diversity marketing

       Back in 2017, O'Melveny ran a publicity campaign proclaiming their adherence to the Rooney Rule a.k.a. the Mansfield Rule. That rule requires "at least 30 percent of the candidates considered for various law firm positions, including ... lateral positions, [to be] women and attorneys of color." 

       Out of curiosity, I just skimmed O'Melveny's press releases, and clicked on every release announcing the hiring of a new partner. According to these press releases, the last nine partners O'Melveny hired, Mr. Adam Rogoff, Mr. Michael Hamilton (who was sued for discrimination at his prior firm), Mr. Tim Evans, Mr. Todd Boes, Mr. Christopher Owens, Mr. Terrence Dugan, Mr. Michael Dreeben, Mr. Jeffery Norton, and Mr. Jason Kaplan, are all white men. Not that there's anything wrong with hiring white males; I'm a white male. But I wonder if O'Melveny actually considered any women or minorities for these positions.

       Diversity Lab is the organization that created the Mansfield Rule, and "certified" O'Melveny's compliance. So I wrote them to see what goes into such certifications. 

       Unfortunately, I haven't heard back and, after looking into them, I don't expect to. I say that because I took a moment to search the IRS website for Diversity Lab's financials. All nonprofits who receive $50,000 in annual contributions must file Form 990, which is made available to the public. But I couldn't find Diversity Lab in any listing of nonprofits, even though they appear to function on more than $50,000 of revenue a year. They have a staff of thirteen people and one of their efforts seeks $5 million from law firms. That's because Diversity Lab appears to be a for-profit company, registered at its owner Ms. Caren Ulrich Stacy's $4 million home (to confirm this, search for "Diversity Lab" here, after selecting the "LLC" option.) 

       I wish I didn't have to say something so cynical, but I hope Diversity Lab isn't some cash cow that provides dubious diversity imprimaturs to law firms that contribute to Ms. Ulrich Stacy's pocketbook. There are other organizations that do that. For example: 

• LCLD, the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, validates firms if they pay $5,000 to $10,000 a year; 

• NAMWOLF, the National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms, validates firms if they pay $7,500 to $35,000 per year; and 

• MCCA, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, validates firms if they pay $1,500 to $150,000 a year (they have eight tiers of contributions, see pp. 1, 2, 3.) 

       But these organizations don't claim that firms complied with an objective metric like the Mansfield Rule. It's one thing to give firms a vague "you value diversity" gold star, but Diversity Lab is certifying compliance with a hard and meaningful rule. Imagine two consumer websites: One gives automakers a nebulous "quality" award, in exchange for money, and the other gives automakers a "99% defect free" award, in exchange for money, without actually checking defect rates. Both would be problematic, but the latter especially so. 

       And these other diversity organizations are actual nonprofits with publicly disclosed finances (and notice that their Presidents, Robert Grey, Joel Stern, and Jean Lee received salaries of about $400,000, $320,000  and $370,000 from organization funds respectively -- which makes you wonder how much Ms. Ulrich Stacy is paying herself, that she would rather have her organization pay taxes than become a nonprofit and disclose her compensation. Apparently there's a lot of money to be made by providing diversity marketing materials to law firms.) 

       I will update this post if Diversity Lab responds to my request for information.

Addendum

       There's apparently a fifth organization with the same business model as the four above, the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance run by Ms. Manar Morales. Their imprimatur will cost firms $5,000 to $10,000 per year. A sixth organization, Practice Pro, is run by Niki Khoshzamir. She doesn't disclose how much she charges for first-tier, second-tier or third-tier status on her "diversity partners" website. 

       There's also Ivy Planning Group, run by Mr. Gary A. Smith and Ms. Janet Crenshaw Smith, who recently sold a package to O'Melveny. The package includes a new diversity podcast that Mr. Smith will do for them. I don't know what they're charging, but their price list for other services is here. 

o'melveny, omm, discrimination, diversity, grift, Mary Ellen Connerty, JeeHo Lee, Catalina Vergara, o'melveny, omm, omelveny, Darin Snyder, Jared Bartie, Diversity Lab, MCCA, NAMWOLF, Jennifer Winslow, Lisa Kirby, Anand Sokhey, Kate Johnston Ryan, Lindsey Boyle, Amber Boydstun, Leila Hock, Ellen Ostrow, Toni Wells, Marc Farraye, Natalia Marulanda, Erin Hichman