No bar exam needed to practice law in Oregon, Milbank raises salaries, Biden sets a record for federal judges, and law firm expands work for Musk's X?
Reuters Legal
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Starting May 2024, law graduates will be able to become licensed in Oregon without taking the bar exam.
The Oregon Supreme Court on Nov. 7 approved an alternative licensing program that bar exam reformers hope will spur further innovation in other states. The program, called the Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination , will be open to graduates of both in-state and out-of-state law schools — a departure from the two existing alternative licensing programs in the country.
After law school, candidates will spend 675 hours working under the supervision of an experienced attorney and create a portfolio of legal work that bar officials will grade as an alternative to the traditional bar exam.
Those seeking to become licensed in Oregon will still have the option to take the bar exam. The State Bar of California is considering a similar alternative attorney licensing pathway.
New York law firm Milbank has once again increased its attorney salaries, after it helped spark raises across the legal industry when it boosted its pay scale for associates last year.
First-year associates at Milbank will see their base pay jump from $215,000 to $225,000 under the firm's new seniority-based salary scale, according to a Tuesday internal memo viewed by Reuters. The scale for eighth-year associates will top out at $425,000.
The firm will also pay year-end bonuses to associates ranging from $15,000 pro-rated to $115,000 based on seniority, the memo said.
Milbank appears to be the first big U.S. law firm to announce a salary bump and publicly set year-end bonuses this year. Peer firms typically follow shortly after.
President Joe Biden secured his 150th federal judicial appointment after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm two new judges in California and Massachusetts, a tally that includes a record-breaking 100 women named to the bench.
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The Senate voted 51-46 to elevate U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenly Kato to a life-tenured district court judgeship in the Central District of California and 52-46 for Julia Kobick to join the federal bench in Massachusetts, where she worked under the state attorney general.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor:
Two-thirds of the judges we have confirmed are women, redressing an imbalance that existed for centuries.
The Senate has confirmed 98 judges who are people of color, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman justice, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
McDermott Will & Emery has expanded its legal work for billionaire Elon Musk after hiring litigator Jonathan Hawk from White & Case, who was representing Musk's social media platform X in more than a dozen lawsuits.
Los Angeles-based Hawk has not withdrawn from any of the cases since switching firms. On Nov. 6, he told a judge in at least one of the pending cases, a lawsuit against X by the real estate advisory services company Cresa Global, that he was taking over the work at his new firm.
The Cresa case is among other lawsuits filed this year by contractors and other vendors in state and federal court seeking hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars from X after Musk acquired the company. Hawk had appeared for X in nearly all of the cases, some of which have settled confidentially.
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Associate Attorney at McCarthy & Holthus, LLP - Banking and Finance Law
1 年California is considering this!!? After all I went through emotionally to pass the Calbar! ??