Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring

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Euro Zone Orders Rise but Hiring Continues to Lag

LONDON — Strong orders for manufactured goods helped factory activity in the euro zone rise in August at the fastest pace in over two years, leading to backlogs of work for the first time since mid-2011, a survey showed on Monday.

But data on employment showed that companies remained reluctant to hire and eager to reduce costs, a sign of persistent nervousness about the recovery in the euro zone economy.

Markit Economics, a data and analysis firm that compiled the figures, said conditions had improved across all major economies in the 17-nation bloc except for France.

New orders came in at their quickest rate since May 2011, Markit said, suggesting the momentum will continue.

The firm’s Purchasing Managers’ Index of manufacturing companies jumped to 51.4 from 50.3 in July. A reading above 50 signifies expansion.

“Although gains are still only modest, companies reported the strongest improvement in business conditions for just over two years, with a pickup in new orders growth suggesting the upturn will be sustained into September,” said Chris Williamson, Markit’s chief economist.

The euro zone escaped from an 18-month recession last quarter with growth of 0.3 percent, supported by stronger than expected expansions in Germany and France, although a Reuters poll last month suggested growth would be weak for some time.

A subindex measuring output, which feeds into the wider composite index due on Wednesday and is seen as a good indicator of growth, rose to a 27-month high of 53.4 from July’s 52.3.

That growth in output is likely to continue next month as the new orders index jumped to 53.3 from 50.8 in July, its highest level since May 2011. For the first time in 27 months factories built up a backlog of work.

The Markit survey comes after data on Friday showed that optimism in the euro zone’s economy improved sharply in August, although unemployment remained stubbornly high in July, particularly in the bloc’s weaker member states.

The purchasing index released on Monday showed that manufacturers reduced head count for the 19th month in August and at a sharper rate than in July.

“The fact that companies remain reluctant to take on staff — due to the need to cut costs to boost competitiveness and offset rising oil prices suggests that there’s a long way to go before the recovery feeds through to a meaningful job market improvement,” Mr. Williamson said.

DealBook: JPMorgan Hiring Put China’s Elite on an Easy Track

DealBook: Hiring in China By JPMorgan Under Scrutiny

DealBook: Hiring of Fired Trader Offers a Glimpse Into SAC’s Practices

Manufacturing Gains Strength, But Hiring in Sector Stays Weak

A separate report on Monday showed that construction spending neared a four-year high in May, a sign that it has regained some strength after having collapsed in the 2007-2009 recession. Even with consumer and housing data pointing to a steadily improving recovery, pockets of concern remain, particularly jobs.

The Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity rose slightly more than expected in June, to 50.9 from 49, with a reading above 50 indicating expansion. The gauge for new orders rose to 51.9 from 48.8, while production jumped to 53.4 from 48.6, helping the overall index bounce back from a contraction in May — the first in six months.

“It’s nice to see manufacturing moving back into growth territory from contraction,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa.

But a measure of employment fell to 48.7, the lowest reading since September 2009. It was 50.1 in May. That could feed concern about the strength of the recovery, particularly since the Fed has said it could begin to wind down its stimulus this year.

“The employment issue is key,” Mr. Naroff said. “If those jobs are not there, you are not going to get consumer demand.”

A separate index from Markit, also showed modest growth in manufacturing, but recorded sharp slides in hiring and new orders from abroad.

“Firms are responding to the increasingly worrying order-book trend by pulling back on recruitment,” said Chris Williamson, Markit’s chief economist.

Construction spending neared a four-year high in May, though difficulties in the commercial real estate and factory sector subdued the pace of recovery.

Business Hiring Slipped to 7-Month Low in April

Businesses added 119,000 employees to payrolls last month, according to the ADP National Employment Report released on Wednesday, short of economists’ expectations for 150,000 jobs and the smallest gain since last September.

The slowdown in hiring was caused primarily by a combination of increased payroll taxes at the start of the year and the $85 billion in government spending cuts that took effect across the board in March, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which jointly developed the hiring report with ADP, a payroll processor.

“They are starting to bite and starting to weaken growth,” Mr. Zandi said. “It’s affecting all industries and almost all company sizes.”

The Federal Reserve also expressed its concern about economic growth on Wednesday and said it would continue to pursue its stimulus campaign, although it was ready to increase or decrease its efforts depending on the economy’s performance.

After accelerating in the first quarter, recent data suggested that overall economic growth cooled heading into the second quarter.

Two separate reports on manufacturing also showed employment slowed in April. Analysts said there was some risk that the federal April employment report on Friday could be disappointing.

Markit, a financial data firm, said its final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index slipped to 52.1 from 54.6 in March. It was the lowest reading since October.

That was echoed by a separate report from the Institute for Supply Management that showed the sector expanded only modestly, with its index coming in at 50.7, down from 51.3. Readings above 50 indicate expansion.

Regional reports also showed a slowdown in factory activity in April in some areas while some, including the Midwest, fell into contraction.

Another report showed construction spending fell 1.7 percent to an annual rate of $856.72 billion, the lowest since August, according to the Commerce Department. The drop could cause the first-quarter economic growth estimate to be trimmed from a first reading of 2.5 percent.

Economists expect Friday’s employment report from the Labor Department to show that overall nonfarm payrolls increased by 145,000, an improvement over the paltry 88,000 seen in March. Private payrolls are expected to have risen by 160,000.

You're the Boss Blog: Debating the Merits of Hiring Great Recession Graduates

Avoiding the pitfalls of fast growth.

Intrigued. Inspired. Insulted. I summoned all three feelings as I glanced through the responses to my last post, “Why I Like to Hire Great Recession Graduates.” In the post, I talked about how many recent graduates — tempered by the tough economy they have experienced — are making excellent employees in fast-growth companies where a hunger to work and a will to win override the need for entitlements, praise and corner offices. In fact, I suggested, these recent graduates have adjusted to the new reality much better than some of their parents.

While my opinion has not changed, I will say this – I could hear my associates cackling and laughing as some of the angry comments came my way. No doubt the commenters said some things that my associates have long thought and always wanted to say, so they did some good for all of us.

Now, before my detractors get too carried away in delight, I want to stress a couple of things. First, I am an entrepreneur who loves a fast-growth culture where no whining is allowed, period. And as you will see below, I will offer in response a solution that can perhaps get us all to a higher level of thinking, which is my goal as a blogger.

I also want to say that while I was not insulted by the zingers that questioned my intellect and even my humanity, I was insulted for a different reason. Many entrepreneurs called and sent e-mails to say that they would have liked to back me up in the comment section — but they feared that predatory lawyers might make life difficult for them in the future. Now, that is an insult – when the people who should be protecting our right to free speech are stifling it. But perhaps that is a post for another day.

As an entrepreneur educator, I was intrigued by the stark difference in the response that came my way on Twitter and in the blog’s comment section. I got my clock cleaned in the comment section, but on Twitter I discovered that the communication gap is even greater than I suggested in my post. While the response to my post, by my informal calculation, was 90 percent negative among Times commenters, it was 80 percent positive on Twitter. What does that tell us?

Millennials are using social media for news, so it is not just social and it is not just business, as I wrote. It is a way of life for recent graduates. I would say that this generational communication divide is the widest it has been since Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll replaced Lawrence Welk and the waltz. With the Great Recession graduates getting their news on Twitter and Facebook feeds, they are very close to putting down print newspapers and magazines for good. The “cool” factor is playing big here.

As I was going down my office elevator last week, a millennial told me, “I read your blog — you rock.” I must confess at the moment I was feeling some trepidation from all of the negative comments on the blog, so I tried to suggest that she express that positive reaction with a comment of her own. She gave me kind of an OMG frown and said, “I will retweet it.” Here is what I learned from that response: a retweet with a one-liner is the new letter to the editor. Just as rock went from Elvis Presley to Alice Cooper, we may be heading for the three-second commercial. I could beg the millennials to read The New York Times on Sunday and tell them how wonderful I think it is, but it would not do any good. The times, they are a-changing.

After my elevator conversation left me feeling more like Lawrence Welk than Elvis, I was soon inspired by Karthik Selvaraj, who lives in India and graduated from Carnegie Mellon last December. Mr. Selvaraj, who had come to my post through social media powerhouse LinkedIn, sent an e-mail to say that he wanted to bring this new breed of entrepreneurship to India. Yes, while I cringed when I read many of the comments, I smiled when I saw the Twitter cheers, and I was overjoyed to see that my intended message was received by many around the world.

My proposed solution is to ask all of us to be more entrepreneurial — at all levels of a company. Yes, I could have been more reverent about the job plight of many who have struggled the last few years, but I don’t see my job as being Mr. Rogers where I tell everyone in the neighborhood how wonderful they are. My goal is to provoke thought on how entrepreneurial companies can get to the next level.

Here is the deal: the old stuff doesn’t work any more. And that’s why I want to hire people who are trying and creating new things. But I want to stress again — I am not the Grinch looking to steal cheap labor. In today’s environment, everyone is measured on our added value to the enterprise. I think the Great Recession graduates will do better than their parents on every economic level over the next 10 years because they are willing to take more risks on the front end. And for that, for being more entrepreneurial, they will be — and should be — rewarded for taking that additional risk, with both raises and equity.

Again, I am talking here about fast-growth enterprises. I’m not talking about small businesses or corporate America. There is always a place for wisdom and knowledge. But there is also a place for fresh ideas — especially when you are trying to get to the next level. Can you imagine if there had been Twitter at Woodstock?

Cliff Oxford is the founder of the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs. You can follow him on Twitter.

Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

Gusher of Work Has West Texas Firms Hiring Laterals

James Leeton doesn't mince words when describing how crazy-busy West Texas lawyers are in the midst of the current oil and gas drilling boom.

"It's like out of the world. It's frantic," says Leeton, a shareholder in Bullock Scott in Midland, the West Texas city that's dealing with a shortage of housing, crowded schools and restaurants, and rush hour traffic due to the energy business madness.

Leeton isn't the only Midland lawyer gleefully talking about how busy firms are because of the boom in drilling in the Permian Basin in West Texas.

"We are very, very busy -- busier than I guess we have ever been," says Robert Bledsoe, a founding member in the 37-year-old Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson in Midland.

"If a lawyer lives in Midland and he's not busy, it's because he doesn't want to be," Bledsoe says.

The big boom in energy business is due to the relatively high price of oil, which improves the profitability of new-technology drilling methods such as fracking -- injecting fluid into cracks in a rock formation to allow more oil and gas to flow -- and horizontal drilling. The average price of a barrel of crude oil in 2002 was $29.12, compared to $94.87 in 2011.

Bledsoe says the current energy boom is nothing like booms of the past.

"We have wells being drilled in the city limits; we have wells being drilled all over the county, all over adjacent counties. The boom is because of new discoveries and new methods of producing what's being discovered. That's the basis of it," he says, adding that there's a lot more drilling success using the new technology.

"It's the busiest I've been since I've lived in Midland," says Robert Spears, a shareholder in Lynch Chappell & Alsup, who has done oil and gas work in Midland for the last 42 years. He says it's busier than the legendary boom that started in 1973 and ended around nine years later.

Economist Ray Perryman, president of The Perryman Group of Waco, Texas, says the price of oil is a major factor in the energy boom. He says the Permian Basin, located in West Texas, has a higher percentage of oil relative to natural gas, so the current high price of oil "works in favor of the region."

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Storm Slowed Hiring in November, but Services Sector Grew

The ADP National Employment Report, which is closely watched as it comes two days ahead of the government’s monthly national employment report, showed on Wednesday that the private sector added 118,000 jobs during the month, below expectations for a gain of 125,000.

The report largely reinforced economists’ forecast for a weak reading in the Labor Department’s payrolls report on Friday. Economists expect the economy added 93,000 jobs in November, down from 171,000 the month before, according to a Reuters survey.

“It’s close to what the market was expecting. If Friday’s employment report from the U.S. Labor Department comes in similar to this, that would be a good outcome,” said Terry Sheehan, an economic analyst at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates.

Wednesday’s data, which also included better-than-expected factory orders and productivity, presented a mixed picture of the American economy. That was partly a reflection of crosscurrents from the storm, as well as difficult budget negotiations in Washington aimed at averting the so-called fiscal cliff, a series of automatic government spending cuts and tax increases at the beginning of next year.

A report on the American services sector showed a similar slowing in hiring during the month. But forward-looking indicators pointed to faster growth as a rise in new orders and business activity helped offset a slowdown in employment and prices.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 54.7 last month from 54.2 the month before. The reading topped economists’ forecasts for growth to 53.5, according to a Reuters survey. In the report, 50 marks the divide between growth and contraction.

“The much larger service side of the U.S. economy remains relatively healthy,” said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at Worldwide Markets. “It has so far avoided the contraction in manufacturing, but worse is probably coming in the first quarter of next year as the economy continues to slow.”

Also on Wednesday, a report showed new orders received by factories unexpectedly rose 0.8 percent in October as demand for motor vehicles and a range of other goods offset a slump in defense and civilian aircraft orders. The Commerce Department also revised October’s figures upward on nonmilitary capital goods orders excluding aircraft in a hopeful sign that the slowdown in business investment in recent months might soon draw to a close.

Economists at Barclays said the strong reading, driven by orders and shipments of capital goods, equipment used to make other things, means the economy will grow faster than expected in the fourth quarter. They raised their gross domestic product growth outlook for the quarter to 2.2 percent from 2 percent.

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm productivity increased at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the third quarter, a faster clip than initially expected, as businesses held the line on hiring even as output surged, with unit labor costs falling at their fastest pace in almost a year.

With the effects of the storm out of the way in the months ahead, hiring is expected to return to its previous trend even if more slowly than most would like to see with the employment rate still hovering near 8 percent.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, who helps compile the ADP report, said underlying jobs growth was closer to 150,000 in November after discounting the impact of the storm as well as seasonal jobs brought forward at the start of the holiday season.

“Abstracting from the storm, the job market turned in a good performance during the month,” he said. “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.”

Summer Hiring Reflects Sluggish Demand at Most San Francisco Bay Area Firms

There seems to be no end to bad financial news for law firms: Demand is flat, revenue growth is expected to fall short of last year's small gains, billable hours and realization rates are down and costs are rising.

And judging from law firms' recruitment for their 2013 summer class, no one is expecting the landscape to change dramatically anytime soon. An informal survey of 11 Am Law 200 firms conducted by The Recorder found that the appetite for summer associates has shrunk by nearly 40 percent from 2007. For law students, the good news is that recruitment seems to have stabilized. The good news for firms is that with smaller class sizes, it's much easier than in the boom days to get the pick of the litter.

Most of the firms will welcome Bay Area summer classes next year of about the same size as in 2012.

But several firms did diverge from last year's precedent. An above-average acceptance rate yielded an abnormally large 2012 class of 43 summer associates in the region for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, law school recruiting manager Stacy Trzesniewski said. The firm's Bay Area class for the coming summer will be about half that size.

Jones Day, meanwhile, is doubling down. To power its plans for expansion in California, the firm hired 44 percent more summer associates than last year in the Bay Area, said Robert Mittelstaedt, partner in charge of the San Francisco office. As many of its competitors are retrenching, the firm sees a chance to claim a greater share of the talent pool, Mittelstaedt said.

"We think we will grow in the future as much as we have in the past, and we want to be ready for it," he said. "We have a hard time passing up good talent."

Yet even a firm set on growth like Jones Day is hiring far fewer summer associates than it did before the recession. And most firms have slashed their recruitment further. Among the 11 firms surveyed, summer hiring has fallen by 38 percent on average from 2007 to 2013, which is consistent with nationwide statistics.

And for some firms, the decline was even steeper. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman will have seven associates in its Bay Area offices in 2013, less than a third of the 25 it recruited for summer 2007. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe will have 17 summer associates in the region in 2013, a 59 percent decline from the 41 it brought on board for 2007.

Anemic recruiting was among the factors that led the National Association for Law Placement to deem 2011 the worst entry-level job market in more than 30 years. Although it is too soon to produce statistics for fall 2012, NALP executive director James Leipold said he expects the volume of hiring done by firms to be "flat to a slight uptick" compared to last year.

Powered by demand for legal services in Silicon Valley, the Bay Area appears to be marginally outperforming other markets, Leipold noted. Career development officials at UC-Hastings, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis and Santa Clara University said they saw a slight uptick in the number of employers who came to campus for formal recruitment.

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Corner Office | Maria K. Mitchell: Maria Mitchell of Amdec on Hiring With a Nurse’s Intuition

Q. Have you always been interested in leadership roles?

A. I think some of it is who I am. My mother told a story about me that’s sort of a predictor of how I would be very different from everybody else in my family. When I was in kindergarten, the bus stop was down the street past my house. So I asked the bus driver to stop at my house, because why should he go to the corner when my house was here? I talked them into changing the bus stop to my house because I thought it didn’t make sense. My mother said she just couldn’t believe that in kindergarten I was having this argument with the driver about where to go. So I think some of it is a little bit genetic.

I also discovered over the years that I’m good at taking complex problems and simplifying them and figuring out a path to a solution. I was always very goal-oriented. I would watch people in meetings sit and talk in a lot of disarray and never get anywhere, and I just found that I would naturally take charge and try to get to a place where there was a solution.

I also found I was pretty intolerant of people not quickly getting to where they needed to get to. I still don’t have a lot of tolerance for people not getting to the point, or not coming to a solution. I’m a doer.

Q. How has your leadership style evolved?

A. A colleague once told me that I was overprincipled. I remember saying to him: “That’s ridiculous. How can you be overprincipled?” I didn’t quite understand what that meant at first, but I think I was too black-and-white about people’s work ethic early on, without taking into consideration a lot of the gray. I now think it’s O.K. to manage within more of those gray areas. I’ve also learned to listen better to other people’s ideas and take them, not just listen to them. I’ve learned to be more flexible.

I also think you need to know who’s working for you and working with you. By virtue of being together all day, you learn about people’s lives. If there are things that need understanding, you make it clear that you do understand, and if there are things that people need, time or whatever, you give it to them. But clearly there are people who might take advantage of that and — this is another aspect of myself — I tell people when I hire them exactly who I am. I’m informal. I’m nice. Everything looks friendly, but don’t ever mistake that for not getting the job done.

Q. And you will say that?

A. I will say exactly that. I give people a lot of leeway, but once the line gets crossed, the line gets crossed, and if the line is getting crossed, then it’s a different story. I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule about it. When I see it I know it, and I haven’t had too many people take advantage of that.

Q. Other ways your leadership style has developed?

A. Early on, I did get feedback from people who worked for me that I didn’t delegate enough. I realized that I was striving for perfection, and that’s not fair to the people I worked with and it wasn’t fair to me or the organization because one person can’t do everything.

People need to take credit for things and own things, and it’s important to be proud of the people who work for you and hire good people. People often judge people by the people they have around them. If they have good, strong people around them, I think it says something about them, as opposed to just having a bunch of people around who do what you tell them to do.

I am delegating better with trust over time, especially as I see more work that I trust. I’ve realized I can’t do everything, and everything isn’t going to be the way I want it to be. It’s made my life easier to trust other people to do the right thing.

Q. What about hiring? How do you interview people?

A. When I see the person, I kind of figure out what I’m going to say. I’ll assess whether a person is comfortable or uncomfortable and then proceed in different ways. I often start just by asking, “Tell me about yourself.”

So I try to put the person at ease a bit before I launch in, and then focus on what they think they bring to the organization. If I feel like I’m getting pat answers or something that just doesn’t sound sincere, I try to shift gears to something different like: “What’s your favorite movie? What book are you reading? Why do you like it?” That will often make them feel more comfortable and you can go back to conversation about work.

Q. And what’s your favorite movie?

A. “Cabaret.”

Q. Why?

A. I love the dancing, I love the singing, and I love the acting. And it’s an incredibly important story, and they found a way to tell it and help people understand without hitting them over the head.

Q. When you’re interviewing candidates, what qualities are you looking for?

A. First and foremost: smart. Smart, smart, smart. I also want somebody who has a good personality and seems happy. I look for a good, strong work ethic and somebody who seems to really want the job, cares about our mission and cares about what we’re doing. I would say those are the main things.

Q. Your bio says you started out as a nurse. Do you find that experience comes into play when sizing up job candidates?

A. Yes, I do. I was also a nurse practitioner, and you’re taught that 90 percent of medical history is communication and body language. I was a very good diagnostician. I’m very intuitive. I can get a sense of somebody pretty quickly.

Q. Give me an example of how you do that.

A. You can see in somebody’s face if they’re nice, and if they have nice eyes. I think eyes tell you a lot about a person, and their kindness. And when they speak, do they speak with sincerity in their voice? That’s not about body language, but you can just tell when somebody’s sincere or not sincere.

Post-Recession Demand Drives Strong First-Year Hiring at IP Firm

With all indications pointing to a tepid-at-best job market for 2012 law graduates, Knobbe Martens Olsen & Bear is a hot spot.

The intellectual property law firm, based in Irvine, Calif., recently hired 30 entry-level associates from the class of 2012 -- an especially high number considering the midsize firm totals 265 attorneys.

Managing partner Steven Nataupsky attributed the number mainly to high demand from clients pursuing applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Most of the new hires will work on patent prosecution, as opposed to the firm's patent litigation side, he said.

"It's just a direct result of so many clients emerging from the dark days of the recession," Nataupsky said.

The new associates represent 11.3 percent of all of Knobbe's attorneys, based on the data it reported for the 2012 NLJ 250 survey. Last year, the firm hired about the same number -- 34 first-year associates, or 12.8 percent of its attorney totals. The NLJ 250 is The National Law Journal's annual ranking of the nation's largest law firms by headcount.

Knobbe's hiring percentages top some of the most prestigious law firms in the country. For example, first-year hires from the class of 2012 at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom totaled 106 associates, according to a firm spokeswoman -- about 6 percent of its overall attorney headcount. Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis hired 155 law graduates from the class of 2012, representing 10.7 percent of its total attorneys.

Another IP firm, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, also showed respectable first-year hiring. The Washington-based firm with 371 attorneys brought aboard 30 first-year associates, said managing partner Barbara McCurdy. That's 8 percent of its attorney total.

More than client demand is driving the associate numbers at Knobbe, where they have remained steady for the last three years. It's essentially a lockstep shop, paying attorneys based on years of experience -- a system that can scare off potential laterals, especially litigators, who are accustomed to merit pay.

To stay competitive by having enough lawyer talent, the firm's strategy is to grow organically rather than hire lateral partners, Nataupsky said.

"Our value system is different," he said.

Hot Practice Areas Predicted for Fourth-Quarter Hiring

Health care is the hot practice area for fourth-quarter hiring, according to a survey commissioned by Robert Half Legal, a legal staffing company. General business/commercial and bankruptcy/foreclosure practice areas come in second and third, respectively, regarding the most hiring in the final quarter of the year.

Of the lawyers interviewed for the survey, 32 percent say they plan to hire legal staff -- mostly lawyers -- during the last three months of 2012, according to the survey results, released Wednesday. That's down 1 percentage point from the results of the company's survey about hiring trends for the third quarter of 2012.

Of the surveyed lawyers, 75 percent are confident about their firm's or company's growth prospects in the fourth quarter, which is a 9 percent decline from the third quarter.

The staffing company used an independent research firm to conduct telephone interviews with 200 U.S. lawyers who have hiring authority; 100 lawyers at firms with 20 or more employees; and 100 corporate lawyers at companies with 1,000 or more employees.

This article first appeared on Texas Lawyer's Tex Parte blog.

Hot Practice Areas Predicted for Fourth-Quarter Hiring

Health care is the hot practice area for fourth-quarter hiring, according to a survey commissioned by Robert Half Legal, a legal staffing company. General business/commercial and bankruptcy/foreclosure practice areas come in second and third, respectively, regarding the most hiring in the final quarter of the year.

Of the lawyers interviewed for the survey, 32 percent say they plan to hire legal staff -- mostly lawyers -- during the last three months of 2012, according to the survey results, released Wednesday. That's down 1 percentage point from the results of the company's survey about hiring trends for the third quarter of 2012.

Of the surveyed lawyers, 75 percent are confident about their firm's or company's growth prospects in the fourth quarter, which is a 9 percent decline from the third quarter.

The staffing company used an independent research firm to conduct telephone interviews with 200 U.S. lawyers who have hiring authority; 100 lawyers at firms with 20 or more employees; and 100 corporate lawyers at companies with 1,000 or more employees.

This article first appeared on Texas Lawyer's Tex Parte blog.