As Orin noted a few days ago, I've become an Academic Affiliate of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. (My wife, babies, dogs, and I have been moving to Pacific Palisades this week, so I haven't had much of a chance until today to post about this myself.) I'm delighted to be working with the Mayer people, who are first-rate lawyers, and who have the largest appellate practice in the country. I'm particularly proud that Michael McConnell, one of my academic idols, used to be an academic affiliate at Mayer. Leading First Amendment scholar Martin Redish and tort law scholar John Goldberg are academic affiliates there, too.
I've been a legal academic for going on 12 years, and a law clerk for 2 years before that; but I have little actual lawyering experience, and I think being affiliated with Mayer is an excellent way of filling that gap. I'll only be working roughly 150 hours a year or so with Mayer, so I'll continue being a law professor first and foremost; my teaching load will remain the same as before, and I'll continue writing legal articles as before. In fact, I hope the experience will make me a better teacher and scholar, and give me lots of ideas for new scholarly work. (For those curious about how the University views consulting arrangements, I should mention that the UC rule seems to be that academics are expected to spend no more than 1 day in 7 on outside work; my 150-hour target is roughly half that maximum.)
I'll also continue blogging, talking to reporters, and writing the occasional op-ed, though I'll probably comment relatively little about cases that I'm involved in. (This has been my practice in the past as well; this is why, for instance, I've not commented much on the Lyle v. Warner Brothers "Friends" sexual harassment case.) I will naturally disclose my connection with any case that I do blog or comment about. If I'm right that this will be an important learning experience for me, then I suspect that it will improve my blogging as well, since it will give me a better perspective on how the legal rules actually play out on the ground.
(By the way, when I first read that you were proud to work with "JonAH Goldberg", I almost fell out of my chair. Good thing it was a John Goldberg instead.
Good luck.
If you're so inclined (and are permitted to divulge such matters), it would be very interesting to hear more details about this arrangement. E.g., will you share fees? Are you on the letterhead or website as an attorney? Will you be taking the CA bar (if you're not already admitted)? Will the firm's conflicts be imputed to you? (You know, the typical practitioner/geek questions.)
Seriously, though, does the affiliate thing work on a straight billables, or does Mayer Brown go "pay us X more and we'll get you some celebrity action on your brief"?
I doubt you can tell us anyway- billing arrangements are usually confidential.
Billable Hour Watch
Something like this?
Your attitude is refreshing, further evidence to me of a sound character. I wish you well.
Congratulations! My wife used to work as a law librarian at Mayer Brown back when their corporate offices were on LaSalle Street. An absolutely gorgeous library (it was in an enormous, multi-story penthouse) and good people too.
If possible, I would also recommend a few annual hours of sub-appellate work. Learn to feel your clients' pain and jump in the trenches with them to actually develop the trial court records you are accustomed to relying upon and routinely take as a given. I firmly believe that level of experience and perspective is sorely lacking in most law professors.
It's one thing to like guns, and another thing to hire yourself out to the highest bidder as an assassin. Would you do this, and if not, why not?
I appear to be the only commenter who sees a problem with this. (Yes, I know "that's the way our system works". It's a bad way, and just about every non-lawyer knows it. For those who will demand that I propose a better system:
Have you never really thought about this? There are many constraints currently imposed on lawyers. I think we should impose many more. It's easy to think of such a list ... if you are not a lawyer. For example: lawyers should only say things they believe to be true, and must not suppress any relevant evidence. These issues should be discussed, and instead lawyers congratulate each other.)
Let's say you're on quarter hour increments. You make a phone call and leave a message. Time: three minutes.
You bill them for .25 of an hour. However, you don't start re-billing for another .25 of an hour if you call them back later that day- they still get the other 12 minutes.
At the end of the day, all the bills for the day are closed, so those minutes don't carry over to future work done.
I've been in private practice for close to 10 years, doing a lot of commercial litigation. Not only have I never said anything to a court that I didn't believe to be true, but I've never said anything to a court that I wasn't almost 100% certain was true. I think most of my opponents have done the same. It's too risky to do otherwise, because (one of the beauties of our system) there's always someone on the other side who has every incentive to find out, and highlight for the court, any misrepresentations you may make.
Regarding suppression of relevant evidence: If what LTEC means by suppression is withholding non-privileged material that the other side has properly requested, then that is also already prohibited by the rules. If what LTEC means is voluntarily offering up everything that is relevant, then he/she's proposing a terrible rule. Just imagine the litigation explosion if every disgruntled employee, for example, could file some half-baked complaint about unlawful termination and the employer would then be automatically required to provide everything it has that's "relevant," for the employee to pore over in an effort to find something actionable.
It's MBRM now, and virtually every GC for whom I've worked demands bills tenth of an hour increments. I'd be shocked if MB escaped the trend. (I speak only regarding MB's US offices; my experiences with EU offices of other, non-MB, US firms suggests that quarter-hour increments are still the rule outside of the US.)
I've been in commercial litigation with a strong patent focus for more than seven years, and I fully agree with Guest2's comment regarding the need to be as truthful and accurate as possible with the Court. Anything else is not only immoral; it's plain ole stupid.
Professor Volokh, you're joining a fine firm. Although I don't know the current attorneys at MBRM's LA office, my experiences with MBRM's attorneys at other of its offices have been uniformly positive. Moreover, the new head of MBRM's LA office -- who's transferring in from a different office, and with whom I've worked a good deal -- is a first-rate attorney and a generally good guy. Enjoy the experience.
Pacific Palidades: Lived there 8 years or so, in alphabet streets. Then moved to Palos Verdes (Kosinski's stomping grounds, I hear). Concern with PacPal is not enough space for sports: parks are tiny. Baseball players wear helmets in outfield to avoid getting hit by balls from other fields. Finding full-sized fields for soccer was a chronic problem. Otherwise, a perfect area (and closer to UCLA than Palos Verdes).
I'm reminded that it's actually "more than six years." But it feels like more than seven, FWIW.