Author: TSA Press

The coronavirus crisis has taken a calamitous toll on the legal profession as we know it, and over time, we’ve seen more and more firms take cost-cutting measures — ranging from salary reductions to furloughs to layoffs — in an effort to proactively manage their finances ahead of the difficult months to come. Sometimes, even Biglaw firms that are known for their kindness and generosity must tighten their belts in order to brace for the tough times that are ahread.

Sources tell us that Orrick, which is currently ranked No. 32 in the Am Law 100 and No. 34 in the Vault 100, has announced a handful of initiatives meant to save cash on hand now to spare jobs and benefits in the future, should it come to that. For the remainder of 2020, the firm will be reducing salaries for all employees on a graduated scale. We’ve been told that these are the specifics for lawyers:

• Career associates: 5 percent salary cut
• Associates: 10 percent salary cut
• Managing/senior associates and most of counsel: 15 percent salary cut
• Partners, of counsel, executive staff: “deeper” cuts

On the staff side of things, we’ve heard that more junior employees will see a salary cut of just 1 percent, while more senior staff members could see up to a 15 percent salary cut. Starting on May 1, some staff members at the firm whose roles depend on more in-office activity will be asked to work on reduced schedules. On top of that, the firm’s secretaries will be asked to work four-day schedules. In all, the annual salary reduction for these staff members will range from 7 percent to 17 percent.

We reached out to Orrick for confirmation of these measures and received this statement from Mitch Zuklie, Orrick’s chairman and chief executive officer:

We are navigating a hundred year event that is putting extraordinary stress on our clients, our communities, our people, and our profession. We have not yet felt the full impact of this crisis, nor do we know how soon the global economy will recover. So, it is prudent to take actions now designed to give our firm the flexibility to protect jobs and provide our people with health benefits for themselves and their families. Our program is structured to retain our extraordinary team so we can serve our clients and innovate — now and in the future. And, as a demonstration that we are in this together as one team, our most senior team members will make the greatest sacrifices. Of course, we sincerely hope that this global health crisis ends soon and the economy rebounds, and we will continue to monitor and adjust the program as necessary.

As we noted earlier, this firm is known for its kindness, so of course, they’re trying to match the bad with some good. Sources say that Orrick will be offering special “make whole” awards to top contributors, no matter their role, and that this money will be separate from the firm’s annual bonuses. To our knowledge, Orrick is the only firm that is doing something like this. In addition, Orrick, which has consistently been recognized as a family-friendly firm, is offering all lawyers and staff the ability to work a reduced full-time equivalent schedule if need be to tackle the responsibilities of work and family during the pandemic. Last, but certainly not least, anyone at the firm who earned an “Unplug on Us” $15,000 vacation bonus in 2019 will be able to defer their trips to 2021 due to the current unavailability of vacation and travel options.

As for Orrick’s summer associates, in an effort to limit travel during the coronavirus crisis, the entire program will be virtual and will be shortened to five weeks in time. In exchange, all 1L summer associates will receive offers to return to the firm next year, and all 2L summer associates will receive offers to return to the firm as associates after graduation. That’s certainly something worth celebrating. To ensure the dangers associated with COVID-19 have passed and to work around delayed bar exams, the firm will postpone the start of its 2020 associate class to January 2021.

We wish all those affected by the salary cuts at Orrick the best of luck as the firm attempts to weather the coronavirus storm.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

With the University of Chicago finally dropping its Quixotic commitment to maintaining the curve after it looked around and realized all the serious and responsible schools had moved to mandatory Pass/Fail, it looked as though the legal academy had finally achieved real consensus. Professors are achieving varying levels of success in dealing with this, students face timezone challenges, and everyone may also be dealing with friends or family suffering at this time. If students are absorbing enough knowledge to be passable, that’s good enough right now — we can put aside figuring out who deserves sartorial honorifics right now.

But Baylor seems determined to charge ahead to accomplish… what exactly? Employers aren’t worried about a semester without letter grades. Judges aren’t worried about a semester without letter grades. Peer institutions don’t seem worried about a semester without letter grades.

At least the Baylor Law students recognize this and put together a petition to the administration outlining the entirely reasonable approach that almost every other law school has adopted at this point.

Defiantly though, the Baylor administration is going to stick with being an outlier. In a blog post last week, Baylor Law’s dean, Leah Teague, displayed almost inhuman levels of disconnect with the reality of legal academia:

We’re now in our third week of online classes. Our faculty have been meeting (virtually, of course) every few days to make important decisions. We decided early on to stay with our grading system and to address accommodations on an individual basis. Because we are small – student population of 430 – we are better equipped to manage this decision. We spent the last three weeks determining what adjustments we can make to our policies and procedures to help our students. We quickly extended the exam period and doubled the normal number of reading days. Instead of our typically tight exam schedule, they now have a break every few days during the exam period providing more time to study in between exams.

The school added days between exams. This is a “we see that you’re homeless and starving, here’s a coupon for a free appetizer with purchase of 2 full-sized entrees” approach. Sure, it’s a nice accommodation — because who doesn’t like a Samosa now and then? (answer: Jonathan Turley) — but it’s not really addressing the problem, is it?

In the interest of fairness, there are a few additional adjustments the school’s touting:

1. assurance that no student will lose their scholarship on account of grades received in the current Spring quarter (but will receive the benefit of any improved gpa);
2. a modified policy regarding an election to withdraw from one or more Spring quarter courses;
3. a modified policy regarding re-taking a Spring quarter course; and
4. an explanation of the effect of an incomplete (an “I”) in a Spring quarter course.

Clearly the first one is welcome news. It’s also the absolute floor for a law school right now and we’re not going to get in the business of handing out cookies for doing the bare minimum. The rest are just invitations to screw up the rest of a student’s academic progress by putting off classes — a harm the school’s inflicting to accomplish, again, what? To know who got a B and who got a B+?

Is this really what Baylor thinks legal education is all about? Do they really think they’ll get some kind of leg up on the Texas grads by having an “A”? Because what’s going to happen is employers are still going to talk to everyone at Texas anyway. The only thing grades accomplish is ensuring that picky employers limit their interviews of Baylor students based on results that may or may not be representative. I’d offer Baylor congratulations on playing themselves, but I cannot imagine these admins have ever heard of DJ Khaled.

That blog is titled “Training Lawyers As Leaders” which seems the height of irony right about now since their definition of leadership seems to be “Stay The Course No Matter What Happens,” which could be the title of a MasterClass taught by the captain of the Titanic. It’s not actually leadership to refuse to seriously adapt to new realities and bucking the rest of the academy to “own the peers” doesn’t make a leader.

But this is the school that desperately tried to hold onto Ken Starr after the university already fired him over the whole “looking the other way over a massive sexual assault scandal” thing. Maybe adapting to reality just isn’t their strong suit.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

In an effort to mitigate the disastrous economic effect of the coronavirus pandemic, the CARES Act was passed. One of its major provisions for small businesses was the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a low-interest loan that could be converted into a grant. The problem? This program has both an application deadline (June 30, 2020) and limited funding ($349 billion). This has resulted in businesses rushing to banks like shoppers searching for toilet paper.

This is the basic idea of the PPP: the federal government’s Small Business Administration will provide a loan to eligible small businesses in the amount of two and a half months of the business’s average monthly payroll expenses up to $10 million. The loan can be forgiven if at least 75% of the proceeds are used for payroll costs while the remaining amount can be used to pay rent, utilities and interest on existing debt incurred before February 15, 2020.

There are some limitations. The business must have less than 500 employees and generally has not been involved in any criminal activity. Also, when calculating the loan disbursement amount, if an employee’s annual salary exceeds $100,000 per year, then only the first $100,000 will be added into the eligible loan amount. Finally, the forgiveness amount will be reduced if any employee is laid off.

Simple enough, but the program has created some confusion and has also run into logistical problems.

First is the issue of payments to independent contractors. Are these payments counted when determining the total payroll expenses? And are those payments using loan proceeds forgivable? Unfortunately, according to guidance from the SBA, the answer to both is no. The reason being that independent contractors can apply for the program themselves.

Second is whether self-employed business owner draws count toward determining the loan amount and whether those draws are forgivable if used with loan proceeds. It appears that way. The SBA guidance states that for sole proprietors, payroll costs include “the sum of payments of any compensation to or income of a sole proprietor or independent contractor that is a wage, commission, income, net earnings from self-employment or similar compensation that is not more than $100,000.” Also, the statute states that “individuals who operate under a sole proprietorship or as an independent contractor and eligible self-employed individuals shall be eligible to receive a covered loan.” And it appears that the PPP covers gig-economy workers which are basically independent contractors with no employees, or in other words, a “true solo.” So the language of the statute and the SBA guidance seems to indicate that owner draws are a covered, forgivable expense.

So if a PPP loan interests you, you should consider the following.

First, do you really need the loan? If you are not getting new business or additional work, what’s the point of paying additional employees that may end up doing nothing and potentially causing trouble? Some might find that they can receive more money through unemployment. Do you have a plan to pay back the loan in case you are required to pay the funds back?

Next, what paperwork do you need to submit? Lenders’ requirements will vary but most banks accepting applications have requested (or are likely to ask for) the following paperwork:

1. Bank statements from Jan 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. Notate which payments/withdrawals are for payroll.
2. Payroll summaries from your payroll provider.
3. Pay stubs and canceled checks for payroll payments.
4. IRS Form 941s for 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.
5. IRS Form 941 account transcripts. You should be able to obtain these online.
6. Profit and loss statement for the previous 12 months as of the date of the application.
7. 2019 IRS Form W-2s, W-3s, 1099s, and 1096s.
8. 2019 or 2018 federal income tax returns.

Since demand is high and funding is currently limited, have this paperwork ready as soon as possible.

Finally, which banks should you apply to? Unfortunately, a lot of banks are accepting and processing applications very slowly due to the volume of applications received. But banks seem to be unwilling to issue PPP loans due to potential liability, and low returns. Also, every major bank is only accepting applications from current clients first. I don’t blame them for doing this. After all, we all know that 99.99999999% of applicants want to take advantage of the loan forgiveness provisions. And banks normally do not want to deal with borrowers who have no intention to pay the loans back. They do not want to deal with the hassle or with angry customers when they learn that their $20,000 payment to their “consultant” mother does not qualify for loan forgiveness.

You might have better luck with a local bank. Some do not require an existing relationship although they may require you to set up an account with them. However, smaller banks may be similarly overburdened. Also, each bank may have its own requirements and will use different calculations to determine the loan amount. So if you can, you may want to apply to multiple banks and see which banks are easier to work with and give the most realistic calculations. You don’t necessarily want to go with the bank that gives you the highest loan amount if their loan calculations look suspect.

You can go to the SBA website to find a bank nearest you that is accepting PPP applications.

Finally, assuming you receive the PPP loans, how do you ensure that loan proceeds will be forgiven? The best way to do it is to make it easy for the auditors to make the determination. I suggest doing the following.

First, set up a separate bank account dedicated solely for the loan proceeds. Try to find an account that does not charge monthly service fees.

Second, be aware of the 75%/25% rule. 75% of the PPP loan proceeds must be used for payroll costs. And the remaining 25% must be used for eligible nonpayroll costs. This includes mortgage interest payments, rent, utility payments, and interest on debts incurred before February 15, 2020. To be safe, I recommend using at least 80% of the funds for payroll costs.

Third, keep good records. Keep all pay stubs. Document every withdrawal from the dedicated bank account. Keep a copy of your mortgage or lease agreement. Have a copy of all utility bills.

Considering the current ambiguity, don’t expect to get the full amount that you are asking. As stated above, banks will interpret the PPP guidelines differently. Some may be more conservative while others will not. These can result in a smaller loan amount than you expected.

Unfortunately, it looks like the mad rush for the PPP loans will continue for the near future. The good news is that funding is likely to be increased if the initial $349 billion allocation is in danger of being depleted quickly. While lawmakers ponder how much additional funding to give, they can also clear up some of the ambiguities and deficiencies of the PPP legislation. But since no decision has been made yet, getting answers is like asking the grocery store worker when the next shipment of disinfectant wipes is arriving.

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Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Up until now, the Biglaw COVID-19 austerity measures, specifically the layoffs, furloughs, and associate salary cuts, have stayed away from the very top of Biglaw. Before the economic upheaval of the coronavirus, the Am Law 50 was financially pulling away from the second 50, and the biggest in Biglaw have mostly been reassuring folks about their economic stability during these tough times. But now we’ve learned that even top firms are not immune to the COVID-19 the pay cuts.

Today, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (ranked 44 by Am Law) co-chairs Steve Baumer and Lisa Mayhew sent a firm-wide email letting everyone know that all employees making over $40,000 will be taking a 15 percent pay cut. Folks are also encouraged to volunteer for a sabbatical:

The actions we are taking are:
• A proposed 15% salary reduction for all our employees (lawyers and business services staff) across all our offices for a 13 week period starting in May. To protect those on lower incomes, the reduction will not apply to employees whose full-time salary is the equivalent of $40,000/£32,000 or below (and we will ensure that any reduction would not result in a full time salary going below this level).
• We understand that some colleagues will remain exceedingly busy in this period and, therefore, we intend to establish a bonus pool for the benefit of those whose performance during the year merits additional compensation.
• As an alternative to the salary reduction, you are invited to volunteer to:
– take a sabbatical of a minimum of six weeks and maximum of six months, during which time you would receive 30% of your normal
salary; or
– reduce your working hours to work on a part-time basis for a minimum
period of 6 months, working either 4, 3 or 2.5 days per week. Such reduced working hours would be matched with a corresponding reduction in pay.

Yes, this announcement comes after tipsters at the firm reported being assured by partners that the firm was poised to weather the coronavirus storm. You can read the firm’s full email on the next page.

Good luck to all those at BCLP, and hopefully these cuts means the firm can avoid layoffs or furloughs.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The Supreme Court already decided that COVID-19 was sufficiently dangerous that they need to cancel oral arguments, but not dangerous enough that Wisconsin voters can’t be forced to wait in long lines amid widespread poll closures. Just another day for the conservative majority of the Court doing what’s “necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

Putting Wisconsin aside, what is the plan for the remaining primary states and, if worse comes to worst, the general election?

Bloomberg has put together a short primer on the challenges and opportunities when it comes to voting featuring everyone’s favorite election law guru, Professor Rich Hasen.

“We’re a smart country.” That’s… not an encouraging backstop right now.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Thanks to the global health crisis that is the novel coronavirus, the traditional law school entrance exam, the LSAT is going home. That’s right, after previously announcing the cancellation of the April administration of the exam, the Law School Admission Council, the organization that administers the LSAT, has announced that there’ll be a May LSAT that law school hopefuls can take at home.

From their announcement:

In light of the COVID-19 public health emergency, we are introducing an online, remotely-proctored version of the LSAT — called the LSAT-Flex — in the second half of May for test takers who were registered for the April 2020 test. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 pandemic closely and will make other LSAT-Flex test dates available this spring and summer if the situation warrants. We plan to resume the in-person LSAT once conditions allow, in strict accordance with public health authorities and using all necessary health and safety measures. In the meantime, the remotely proctored LSAT-Flex will provide candidates with the opportunity to earn an LSAT score even if the COVID-19 crisis makes it impossible to deliver the test in-person.

This isn’t a tremendous surprise, after all the alternate law school admissions exam, the GRE, has already announced the home version of that test. This is just the LSAC getting with the program.

Jeff Thomas, executive director of admissions programs of Kaplan Test Prep, had this to say about the at-home test:

“Creating a version of the LSAT that aspiring lawyers can take from the safety of their own homes is a win for test takers, many of whom had their admissions timelines disrupted because of COVID-19-related test cancellations in April. This makes an uncertain and stressful situation a lot more manageable. Our advice to students is to take the LSAT-Flex if they qualify, especially if they are planning to apply for enrollment in the fall 2020 semester. It seems likely that some parts of the country will still be hard hit by COVID-19 this summer, making it unlikely that normal test administrations can take place for a few months. The good news is that the format of LSAT-Flex is the same as LSAC’s new digital practice tool, so this will not be in a format with which students are unfamiliar.”

Good luck to all those who, despite the current turmoil in the industry, still have their heart set on becoming a lawyer.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

As mentioned in previous articles, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has substantially impacted the legal profession. Economic issues have affected the need for legal services, which has forced law firms to reduce headcount, lower salaries, and take other efforts to weather the storm. However, based on my own experience, some practice areas seem to be expanding in the current environment, and other practice areas are struggling because of COVID-19.

Wills And Estates

It might sound macabre, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has compelled numerous people to consider wills and estate planning. Indeed, my firm does not focus on wills and related issues, and we usually only handle a few wills a month. However, we received five inquiries for wills over a 48-hour period recently, which is very unusual for our firm. Wills are the classic thing that people put off. No one wants to think about their own demise, and it requires some effort to get the witnesses together to execute a will. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of us to think deeply about end-of-life issues, and this is compelling people to seek wills and estate planning advice. Of course, it has been tricky to organize will executions due to social distancing guidelines, but many clients have been approaching lawyers about estate issues due to the present environment.

Litigation

As many people might surmise, litigation is one of the practice areas that has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The traditional wisdom is that litigation is somewhat recession-proof, since economic downturns usually spur the types of disputes that need to be litigated. However, many litigators have substantially less work now due to so many court closures, and numerous court conferences have either been adjourned or are being conducted through remote means. Furthermore, some states have even prohibited most nonessential filings. A few weeks ago, I needed to file some documents by a certain date, but was prevented from doing so because of filing restrictions. I was forced to just email the documents to counsel with the understanding that it would be filed when prohibitions were restricted, and everyone understood the situation. However, the lack of filing capacity has reduced litigation work on all but the most essential matters, and depending on their clients, many litigators are being hit hard because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transactional Work

A practice area that is expanding (at least in the short term) because of COVID-19 is transactional work. As mentioned in a prior article, many clients are seeking advice on canceling contracts for gatherings that were set to occur in the next several months. Some of these contracts include impossibility or force majeure clauses, and a variety of common law defenses can be used to cancel such agreements even if the explicit terms of a contract don’t relate to the ongoing pandemic. Nevertheless, there are issues about how much deposit money should be paid back that was advanced for these events and whether gatherings can be postponed rather than canceled. Furthermore, a number of tenants and landlords are negotiating agreements to defer or reduce rent for a time because of COVID-19, and this requires careful negotiation by an attorney.

Furthermore, some demand for legal work on completely new deals is occurring despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Some clients understand that they can get huge concessions and very favorable terms due to the crisis, and this is compelling some to pursue completely new deals. Of course, only a focused set of clients who have a strong economic base can pursue such a strategy, but discussing new deals may be desirable to many clients in this environment. Even though transactional work typically suffers during economic downturns because of the lack of business activity, it seems that at least temporarily, many clients have a substantial need for transactional legal work.

Personal Injury

Plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers have also been negatively impacted by COVID-19. Since many court conferences have been adjourned, and numerous lawsuits are essentially frozen in place, many personal injury cases will not be resolved anytime soon. In addition, many insurance companies have slowed settlement talks, and some may even be delaying payments of settlements that were previously negotiated. This is likely because many companies want to hold onto their money for as long as possible in the current environment. It is also difficult, if not impossible, to put new personal injury cases into suit in many states due to filing prohibitions and other limitations. Since it often takes years for a personal injury cases to settle, plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers may not only experience a shortfall in the near term due to COVID-19, but may also see income interruptions in the future as well.

Of course, a number of other practice areas are being impacted by COVID-19. For instance, I have heard that matrimonial lawyers are anticipating more business because of the stress involved in the current situation and because spouses are cooped up at home. In addition, the traditional countercyclical practice areas, including bankruptcy law, are expanding because of the current situation. If attorneys have a good sense of the expanding and contracting practice areas in the current environment, they can best weather the storm of COVID-19.

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Earlier this month, we reported that it was only a matter of time before more Biglaw partners would be forced to cut their draws and distributions to stave off the pain caused by the novel coronavirus. In fact, law firm management consultant Patrick McKenna said he’d be surprised if at least 80 percent of the top 200 firms in the country hadn’t made such a move by the middle of April, noting that “a typical reduction is in the range of 30 percent.” We’ve got to give him a lot of credit, because his prediction continues to ring true.

Today, we have news on a firm ranked just outside of the Am Law 100 that’s decided to make a move on partner compensation for the benefit of all its employees.

A confidential source tells us that Lowenstein Sandler is slashing its partner draws to so the firm can safely ride out the COVID-19 financial roller coaster that’s soon to come. Here are the details that we received:

At a video town hall meeting attended by over 500 employees last Friday, Lowenstein Sandler Chair Gary Wingens announced that the firm had a very strong March, yet had substantially reduced distributions to its equity partners in order to preserve liquidity for what it expected to be a bumpy second quarter. While he hoped to not have to make other cuts, Wingens made it clear that they were watching their metrics very carefully over the coming weeks.

When reached for comment by Above the Law, firm management confirmed Wingens’s comments, but did not specify the percentage cuts partners were taking. We hope this move is enough to guide the firm through what’s sure to be a rough time.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

If only there were a way to test new technology without torturing a bunch of people enduring the most stressful waiting period of their lives during a pandemic. Alas, Colorado couldn’t think of one and blasted a notification to February bar examinees informing them that they should check their results.

It all looked official to examinees, even though they had been told that results wouldn’t be out for 3 more weeks:

Then things go awry. One tipster explains what happened after seeing the pass notification:

Obviously, I am very excited and tell everyone I know, including the dean of my law school (who sends out a message to all of the 3L’s at the school). After a few hours and after signing up for the mandatory CLE for admissions, I get a message from a professor, who I had told, that the results may not be legit and to check their site, I see that they were Beta testing and that the results sent out are not accurate.

The most insane thing about this is that it doesn’t even make sense as a “Beta test.” If the purpose of the test is to make sure examinees (a) will receive the notification and (b) be able to securely access a message intended just for them, then rather than go to the trouble of prematurely announcing results and definitely rather than giving those examinees fake results, Colorado could have just sent some kind of notification that things are still on track and maybe a “please access your personal account to verify.”

I have attempted to contact the Office of Attorney Admissions several times with no response. I have several friends who have told all of their friends and family as well. It seems like a very awful thing to do considering we are locked down due to a pandemic.

Well, in fairness, it only seems like a very awful thing to do because it is a very awful thing to do. The only saving grace for Colorado right now is if the results they accidentally released turn out to be the real results instead of randomly generated dummy results. And if that’s the case, the full results should be released today, pre-existing timelines be damned.

And to think, all these students calling for diploma-privilege would miss out on formative experiences like this…

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

It would be unfair to say that Michael Burry, like some other people, is a contrarian by principle. His weirdness, such as it is, comes from the principle that he’d like to be right about things, as he was about the subprime mortgage bubble, and this can certainly come off as contrarianism, like, for instance, when he says the only thing worth investing in is water, or that index funds are the new CDOs. Or when he starts sounding like Stephen Moore vis-à-vis coronavirus.

“Universal stay-at-home is the most devastating economic force in modern history,” Burry wrote in an email to Bloomberg News. “And it is man-made. It very suddenly reverses the gains of underprivileged groups, kills and creates drug addicts, beats and terrorizes women and children in violent now-jobless households, and more. It bleeds deep anguish and suicide.”