Litigation Support Staffing : The Cowen Group : Ediscovery Recruiters, Candidate Search, Practice Support, Position Placement

Good news…Despite the recent decline in the banking, brokerage, and financial community the legal staffing realm continues to grow! As a result, The Cowen Group is pleased to share with you our latest announcement:

THE COWEN GROUP LAUNCHES LEGAL TECHNOLOGY DIVISION  

Search firm expands beyond litigation support recruiting and staffing to fulfill increased demand for top talent in legal technology 

NEW YORK – September 17, 2008 – The Cowen Group (www.cowengroup.com), a New York-based recruiting and staffing firm specializing in litigation support and e-discovery, today announces the expansion of services to include placement of top talent in legal technology positions. The Cowen Group helps human resource departments with staffing needs for CIO, director of information technology, system engineers, software developers and analysts.

Despite a slowing economy, The Cowen Group Salary Survey shows the demand for legal technology, litigation support and e-discovery resources required to operate successful law firms and corporate legal IT departments continues to rise.

As law firms and corporate legal departments become more technically sophisticated, there is a growing need for technical experts that understand how to analyze, develop, deploy and administer new systems and protocols that not only fit the organization’s culture, but are compliant with regulatory agency requirements. Historical cases such as Morgan Stanley or Zubulake and federal regulation such as SOX and the newly amended FRCP have made every attorney take a second look at their in-house technology and protocol. History proves that not abiding by these rules and regulations sets an organization up for heavy sanctions or possibly an organization’s dreadful demise.

“In this global economy our clients require a strategic partner who can provide expertise in identifying and matching the best human resources with the best organization,” stated David Cowen, founder and president of The Cowen Group.  “We have created an extensive network of talented legal technology professionals and provide valuable market intelligence for many of our clients. We are now seizing upon our vision to remain as the leader in market insight and talent placement and look forward to helping our clients expand and grow every way possible.”

More information on The Cowen Group can be found at www.cowengroup.com. 

About The Cowen Group

The Cowen Group (www.cowengroup.com) was founded in 2004 and is a New York-based search firm specializing in the placement of experienced professionals in all areas of the legal technology industry, including e-discovery, litigation support, practice management, IT and computer forensics across the United States and Europe. 

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We are pleased to announce the publication of The Cowen Group 2008 Salary Survey and our partnership with Litigation Support Today Magazine:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE COWEN GROUP AND LITIGATION SUPPORT TODAY BRING IMPORTANT SALARY SURVEY INFORMATION TO THE LEGAL TECHNOLOGY MARKET

Industry-leading publication and placement firm bring much-anticipated and timely information to litigation support professionals

NEW YORK – August 6th, 2008 – The Cowen Group (www.cowengroup.com), a leading search firm specializing in the legal technology market, and Litigation Support Today, a magazine for the litigation support professional, today announces they will be working together to bring The Cowen Group Salary Survey to the legal community at large. 

The Cowen Group Salary Survey was developed by The Cowen Group by researching top law firms, corporations and vendors in the legal space for their annual survey. Until now, this coveted information has only been available to select professional clients and associates. Litigation Support Today will be publishing the results of the survey, by region, throughout the year, beginning with the East Coast which will appear in the August/September 2008 issue. A full report will be distributed at the beginning of 2009 that will contain all the salary data, comprehensive job descriptions and industry growth trends. 

“This definitive and impartial survey by The Cowen Group sets the benchmark for litigation support professionals seeking to grow in their careers,” stated Albert J. Buckwalter, editor-in-chief of Litigation Support Today. “We are pleased to be collaborating with The Cowen Group in bringing this highly useful survey information to our readers and the industry at large.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Litigation Support Today. They are a very well-respected media organization within the litigation support community and together we aim to extend our reach in getting the word out to key people in the industry at large,” stated David Cowen, founder and president of The Cowen Group. “The industry is changing rapidly and we hope this survey provides vital information to allow litigation support professionals to adequately plan and track their career growth and for managers to hire and retain the right people for their needs.”

More information on The Cowen Group Salary Survey can be found at www.cowengroup.com. 

About The Cowen Group

The Cowen Group (www.cowengroup.com) was founded in 2004 and is a New York-based search firm specializing in the placement of experienced professionals in all areas of the legal technology industry, including e-discovery, litigation support, practice management, and computer forensics across the United States and Europe. 

About Litigation Support Today

Litigation Support Today (www.litigationsupporttoday.com) is published by Conexion International Media, Inc. a division of Conexion International LTD, Inc.  (http://conexioninternationalltd.com) a private international consortium that specializes in the development of print and electronic media for niche markets in North America, South America and Asia-Pacific. Litigation Support Today is issued quarterly, with controlled circulation to qualified litigation & practice support directors, managers, specialists, analysts, courtroom technology specialists, legal assistants/paralegals heavily engaged in litigation support activities, and other legal support staff.

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Not a day goes by that I'm not asked by a mid-sized law firm or major corporation about salaries in the litigation support space. The questions go something like this: 

• How many hours per month should my litigation support team be billing? 
• How many hours per month are billable, in this position? 
• Should this position be 'exempt' or 'nonexempt' ? 
• If I have to bring in new talent at higher salaries, how can I retain my existing staff? 
• Has any firm broken the $300,000 salary ceiling? 
• Paralegal vs IT – what's your opinion?

My answer is always the same:

Take a look at the Cowen Job Bank. Real job offerings. Real salaries. Regionally reliable. Take a look at what companies are actually paying for directors, coordinators, managers, analysts and specialists. From Boston to New York and D. C., to Chicago, San Francisco and LA, the best way to see what people are paying is to take a look at the Cowen Job Bank. There's your Salary Survey.

A more formalized salary survey is nearly impossible to nail down, because salaries are increasing 10% - 20% every three months. And why is that? Because, for the moment, demand exceeds supply. But there is a solution. . . .

For more information on how to maintain your litigation support talent and optimize costs – both in-house and outsourced, email me, david@cowengroup.com. I'll be happy to send you our most recent white paper on the subject.

Meanwhile. . . Happy Hunting!

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First year salaries at top firms across the board are now up to $145,000, writes Anthony Lin, in an article posted at Law.com. Salaries spiked after last week's lead by Sullivan & Cromwell, and not just at New York firms, as expected. Manhattan firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and Cahill, Gordon & Reindel; were joined by the New York offices of Washington, D.C.'s Covington & Burling and Miami's Greenberg Traurig, suggesting that most non-New York firms will follow suit.

Consultants Towers Perrin, Mercer, et al, calculate 3% as the right amount for any salary increase pegged to inflation. But these salaries represent a whopping 10% jump. So what accounts for the disconnect between HR projections and the game on the ground? And why now?

Towers Perrin, Mercer, and their like, produce impressive surveys of salaries in static space. Space that does not move and change. But the world of litigation support and electronic data discovery is dynamic space, volatile and intensely demanding. Salaries move as fast as a New York minute. So the traditonal numbers make old news in the War for Talent.

The War for Talent is pushing up salaries and raising the stakes on proactive, real-world solutions. In this climate it's more important than ever for firms to be able to attract – and retain – the right people, right now.

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Sullivan & Cromwell Opens Bonus Season for Associates Range of $30,000 to $50,000 mirrors last year's compensation.

Though Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the nation's most profitable firm, stands apart with first-year bonuses usually starting at $50,000, other leading New York firms like Sullivan & Cromwell;

Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and a handful of others have generally sought parity in terms of associate pay, especially at the junior levels. The usually swift but occasionally sloppy market alignment results from such firms' fear of being disadvantaged in recruiting top graduates from leading law schools.

In the past, the competition included both base salary, which increased from $85,000 to $125,000 for first-years between 1997 and 2000, and bonuses, which also peaked in 2000 at $40,000 for first-years and $100,000 for senior associates.

Since then, however, New York firms, most of which still pay a first-year base of $125,000, have shown a marked preference for discretionary bonuses over salary increases. Though Skadden raised its first-year salaries to $140,000 in 2000, it has since paid a correspondingly lower bonus, so its overall associate compensation is in line with that of its New York rivals.

Likewise, the September announcement of first-year salary hikes to $135,000 by two Los Angeles litigation boutiques, Irell & Manella and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, has engendered no reaction among New York firms.

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