I thought the former associate offered a great analysis too. Maybe he hires loyal and hardworking tier 2 grads?

"since" / "sense" typo from an S&C attorney?!

Did you write this, Loyola 2L?

Strike that, there are no to/too/two or your/you're typos - the hallmark of any Loyola 2L.

Its so easy to mock, so hard t help.

It's hard for me to reconcile the two sides of Charney that are being presented. On one hand (as the New York article says) he is the ultimate S&C guy who longs to make partner. On the other hand, he closes himself off from everyone, working with only one partner and one senior - definitely NOT the way to get yourself on a partnership track.

If he really did work exclusively on the Ginsberg/Kotran cases and still thought he would make partner, it strikes me he had an inflated sense of his importance at the firm, as if his brilliance in his world was all that mattered. Doesn't sound like someone who was as big an S&C fan as he claims.

i like people who write onto law review as a 2L, then put onto their resume that they were on it as 1L's.

4:39 - Huh? How can anyone be on LR as a 1L?

you can get on after your 1L year or after your 2L year. a guy's resume says he got on after his 1L year, but he actually got on after his 2L year.

what does law review have to do with this?

SKADDEN SUCKS!!!

They do, you know!

poop

I tend to agree with NYCLaw. Reconciling is impossible.

charney sounds like a douchebag

I don't find it too hard to reconcile the two sides, actually. Aaron sounds to me as if he had an inflated ego, attached much importance to prestige and couldn't handle criticism. If Aaron has that personality type, it makes perfect sense to me that he would be a huge booster of S&C until such time as he felt he was no longer part of the club (whether justifiably or not), at which time he would do a complete 180. It also doesn't seem too off to me that he wouldn't have the best read on how to make partner, and wouldn't necessarily realize in a timely fashion that working exclusively with a few people wasn't the way to go. I suspect he was getting lots of positive feedback from those he was working with, which would feed his ego further. It might not jump out at him immediately that it wasn't the best approach, especially since the arrangement was apparently one that suited him. Once he got a hint that he wasn't doing as well as he thought, he would do his 180 and go on the aggressive in order to make the criticism not his fault.

I think the fact that he went to the administration to try to get a grade changed in law school is also consistent with this picture. It seems to me another example of his not taking criticism well and instead externalizing it as somebody else's problem. Not that anyone who has done so necessarily fits that description, but it does seem to me to fit in with his later behavior at S&C.

I must admit to being a bit befuddled. I have never before associated the phrase "unnatural relationship" with homosexuality. So, I wondered whether I was simply too out of touch or unhip. I googled the phrase. More than 10,000 hits. Many were abouts gays (though most of those were from some Christian-right source), most were not, including references to relations with food, among political regimes, unmarried couples or relatives, or between words. Words are fungible. "Reconciling is impossible." Get over yourself.

Lots of Biglaw associates aren't even interested in making partner and still pretend to play the game (i.e., "diversifying" by working for numerous people and not throwing a tantrum over partners' critical remarks -- constructive or not). I agree that AC must have had a very inflated sense of his importance at S&C if he thought that they wanted him to do anything other than shut up and get to work on whatever projects the firm had in mind for him to work on.

7:42 got it. Not hard to reconcile this Charney with the NYM Charney at all. The guy was a life-long overachiever (like all S&C lawyers) and he believed himself to be destined for firm greatness. His sense of self-worth was bolstered by the fact that as far as he knew, his work product was great (because he got great reviews from the one partner he worked for). He also probably thought that since he was liked in recruiting, he was this great firm citizen. So it had to be a real shock to him that the opinions of one partner and the recruiting staff do not make your career track. When he discovered that he had played his cards wrong by sheltering himself in order to reap the rewards that flow from that (one partner's everlasting gratitude), he apparently wigged out.

This is all very interesting since I thought the parties were not supposed to be talking to the press. Hmmm - I wonder if that *Insider* is putting the firm in contempt?

"I have never before associated the phrase 'unnatural relationship"'with homosexuality. So, I wondered whether I was simply too out of touch or unhip. I googled the phrase."

It's indisputable that "unnatural relationship" has connotations of unfavored sexual conduct, usually gay. It may have other usages that show up on google, but that's not really a good way to conduct linguistic research. It's probably being used ironically in the other contexts you found. It's really up to S&C to show that the phrase was used with something other than its usual meaning.

... to be more precise, at the motion to dismiss stage the inference has to be drawn in ABC's favor that "unnatural relationship" is a gay slur.

... to be even more precise - two purported homophobic comments does not make a hostile environment case.

Lat,
I'm the summer who posted previously. Is it any wonder he was laeft off the mentor list? The guy was a walking jerk to us summers. I personally had an experience with him at the monthly cocktail party on the 25th floor but talking about it will give my idendity away to some. Again, I'm not giving an opinion about the partners (I did hear about Korry over the summer, none of it good), but Aron was a jerk and a known one at that.

So- what's up next in the case? What is the docket saying?! All this speculation and the letter from someone who is not even supposed to be talking to the media is... well... kinda Zzzzzzzzz.

Wasn't the letter written by a former associate? Why would a former associate be prevented from talking to the media?

A former associate? Why would a former associate bother to write a letter. I suppose it was represented as coming from a former associate but it has to make one wonder.

A former associate who thinks S&C is getting an unfair rap may bother to write a letter. It could be frustrating to read about people believing everything ABC says is true when you personally know it to be false.

"... to be even more precise - two purported homophobic comments does not make a hostile environment case."

I'm not talking about the "case," I'm talking about the motion to dismiss.

Charney sounds like he has an "entitlement" complex and is highly neurotic.

Welcome to the real world Char

9:20,

Bingo.

There's no way people belive everything Charney says and likewise, people don't buy all the firm's PR (and that includes "former associates" writing letters).

Here's the thing though - how could the former associate "know everything ABC says is false" and be frustrated by it? How could he/she know who said what to the guy and what happened to his reviews and stuff. Maybe to that person the firm was a great place and all - but it still doesn't really go to the merits of ABC's case. It's just more of this good reputation, bad reputation stuff.

I thought the letter was pretty well written.

An interesting point for me was that from everything we've heard about Korry from *both* sides of the case - is that if she she wanted to call Char a homophobic slur - she would have come out and done so and not used subtle code words like "unnatural," that may or may not even be homophobic. As Lat said, Korry "doesn't seem like one to traffic in euphemism."

Korry (if indeed she said it) knew full well what she was saying. No euphemism intended, because it's not a subtle code word at all.

I'm happy about one thing. Ms Korry has been tiptoing around this place recently. Wow! How the mighty have fallen. Aron, we all hated you but I gotta hand you this. You have slain the wicked witch. Hooray! The wicked witch is dead (although I've got this sneaky suspicion that its only a temporary thing and than back to our personal hell).

1:46, your comment looks suspiciously like the typo-ridden posts by someone who also calls Charney "Aron" and claims to be a former S&C summer associate.

4:41,

You sound suspiciously like a Korry-apologist.

The only thing left for Lat and all of you to do is to write a collective letter of apology to Kraut and Korry condemning Charney's misconduct. They are such hard-working, pure-heart angels who were unjustly mistreated by a sexually confused, narcissistic, publicity-hungry, and hard-drive destroying Jew for no reason whatsoever.