TAL Reporter Finds Yale Classmates Contest Clarence Thomas’ “15-cent Diploma” Claims
NEW YORK (June 2, 2008) – LAWFUEL – Law Newswire – The June issue of The American Lawyer reports that the Am Law Second Hundred, the nation’s 101 to 200th highest-grossing law firms, continued to grow significantly in revenues, profits and headcount, albeit at a significantly slower rate than their larger Am Law 100 peers. In addition, the magazine’s cover story profiles Covington partner and Barack Obama adviser Eric Holder, who could potentially be the nation’s next attorney general. And, while Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claimed in his recent autobiography that he couldn’t find a good law firm job after graduating from Yale Law School, The American Lawyer found that his black classmates didn’t have that problem. For these and other stories, visit www.americanlawyer.com.
“The average Second Hundred firm now has 289 lawyers, 92 equity partners, gross revenue of $170 million, revenue per lawyer of about $589,000, and profits per partner of $666,000,” said Aric Press, editor in chief. “That’s not shabby by any standards, but the truly remarkable news is that the combined gross revenues for all the Am Law 200 firms have increased by 161 percent over the past decade, to an astonishing $81.5 billion.”
In “Making History,” reporter Andrew Longstreth finds that Eric Holder has made a career out of breaking barriers. After more than two decades in public service jobs, including stints as deputy U.S. attorney general and U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Holder is now a sought-after private attorney with high-profile assignments from the National Football League, Merck and Chiquita last year alone. But it’s his position as co-chair of the Obama campaign that’s raising the question of whether he may become the first African American attorney general.
In “The 15-Cent Diploma,” reporter Tamara Loomis explores Thomas’ contention that affirmative action cheapened his Yale Law School degree, making it almost impossible for him to find a law firm job. She found that interviews with a dozen African American lawyers who attended Yale in the same years paint a strikingly different picture.
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