Author: TSA Press

It was just one week ago that many a Biglaw firm seemed confident that their summer associate programs would go forward as originally planned, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Perhaps there would be fewer festive outings and extravagant meals due to social distancing guidance, but some truly believed that things would be “just fine.” Others were more realistic, embracing the possibility of remote work and even givng credence to delayed start dates. Now that firms have started announcing salary reductions, furloughs, and layoffs, the game has changed.

Which firms have decided to start their summer programs late — and pay their law student employees less?

First up is Cooley, which according to sources recently decided to cut its 10-week summer associate program back by four weeks. Law students will begin their work at the firm on June 15, and end their summers on July 24, as previously scheduled. We’re told that in addition to the firm’s deferred start date, law students’ paychecks will also come up a little short. Instead of receiving pay for the 10 weeks they were supposed to be working as detailed in their offer letters, Cooley summers will only receive pay for the length of their shortened programs.

Compare this to what’s going on at Sidley, where tipsters say summers will be starting their programs later than expected, on June 1, although the firm isn’t quite clear yet on how the program will operate (i.e., whether it will all remote or whether modifications will be made so in-person meetings can occur). Regardless of any possible abbreviated program length, we’ve heard that Sidley summers will be paid for the number of weeks indicated in their offer letters.

As more firms make strategic financial moves in the weeks to come, we suspect we’ll hear more about the fate of their summer associate programs. We sincerely hope that law students will receive the experiences — and pay — they were expecting to receive, but please bear in mind that the unexpected circumstances brought about the coronavirus outbreak could very well put an end to summer associate programs at some firms, so be thankful your job is still waiting for you.

Is your firm planning to hold its summer associate program as planned, despite coronavirus concerns? Please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “Coronavirus Summer Associate Program”) and let us know. Stay safe.

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.

In addition to the health challenges posed by COVID-19, Africa is already feeling the effect on its economies. With industries shutting down in Asia, America and Europe demand for raw materials and commodities is declining, but it is also hampering Africa’s access to industrial components and manufactured goods (including medical equipment).

Initial actions in Africa have focused on slowing viral contagion with measures, including the closing of borders. These actions come as the continent has been making bold moves to increase economic integration, with African Union officials recently swearing in the first-ever Secretary-General of the newly created Secretariat of the African Free Continental Free Trade Agreement. The coronavirus could represent a risk for the continental project but leaders could also turn it into an opportunity for stronger collaboration if certain policies are fast-tracked. Quick gains could be achieved by consolidating the regional integration initiatives they are already implementing.

The closing of borders, for instance, can send a very different signal depending on how governments do it. Where leaders of neighbouring nations close borders together, as those of Portugal and Spain have done, it is a symbol of partnership in the fight against a pandemic. Reducing flows of people while keeping borders open for goods signals continued faith in the importance of economic activities and trade in providing the goods people need to continue their daily lives. In Africa, such collaboration will be crucial, especially for the continent’s sixteen landlocked countries

The crisis may also provide African leaders with an opportunity to look at regional value chains differently. Reliable regional supply chains characterize North America, Asia and Europe. In Africa, however, integration in international markets mostly entails integration in global, not regional, value chains – with Africa providing the raw products for processing elsewhere around the world.

Opportunities for creating regional value chains exist, notably for making motor vehicles or in aerospace activities in Northern Africa. But designing regional strategies may mean agreeing on which component of the value chain is produced where, and can involve trade-offs that policymakers do not always find it easy to make.

But the exceptional nature of the pandemic could provide fertile ground for regional collaboration by policymakers in the fields of pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, diagnostic testing equipment or protective garments. Such decisions will have to be taken and implemented very rapidly.

African leaders can also act in unison in the fight against the economic consequences of the pandemic. Nobody knows how much the pandemic will affect global GDP, but any impact is sure to be significant. Estimated losses in GDP growth for the world as a whole – but also for Africa as a region – currently hover around between 1.5 and 2 percentage points. Those figures are most likely to be revised to include even greater losses.

The travel industry has been the first to be impacted. Airlines around the world are struggling, and tourism has been hit hard. The blow will not go unnoticed in African countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Kenya – where tourism represents around 14%, 11% and 10% of GDP respectively. For underperforming regional airlines, this could spell disaster.

Shutdowns in China and Europe, notably in the apparel, machinery and footwear subsectors, will significantly hit global supply chains – with consequences for Africa. Traditionally reliable sectors in Africa – like the cut flower industry – could also take a pummeling.

In countries that impose lockdowns, large parts of the services sectors are likely to suffer dire outcomes. The hospitality, sports and recreation sectors, and large parts of retailing, are among those most affected by partial or full lockdowns.

The drastic drop in oil prices – triggered by events independent of the coronavirus pandemic but now reinforced by the negative demand resulting from it – is set to compound these economic shocks. Oil exporters like Nigeria will see their revenues shrink.

Faced with this outlook, African policymakers may want to ask themselves how long businesses in their countries can survive in the absence of or with significantly reduced revenues and what the scale of job losses may be. For many micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), with fewer assets to ride out the storm, the survival rate may only be counted in weeks. That is why small businesses, more than larger businesses, will tend to go out of business or cripple their capacity to be competitive.

Yet, because MSMEs employ around 70% of the workforce in most countries, shedding workers will only aggravate the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic.

Knowing how small businesses act as a lynchpin connecting the pandemic to a broader economic recession, governments around the world have scrambled to reduce the operational stresses on them. They have introduced policies meant to help MSMEs cope with short-term financial risks and long-term business implications. This will, it is hoped, reduce layoffs, prevent bankruptcy, encourage investment and help economies get back on their feet as soon as possible. These measures include concessional financing; tax reductions and grants; employment incentives; technical assistance; and indirect measures.

Low-interest loans and other concessional financing, aimed at easing short-term liquidity issues, have been among the most popular policy measures announced to date. But the experience of the 1970s oil price shock shows that this can have a limited impact in the supply-shock, low-interest rate environments that exist today. Instead, the most effective way to prevent bankruptcies may be measures aimed at reducing costs for MSMEs – such as tax breaks. Investment in digital trade and investment facilitation must also continue – countries with such facilitating policies will be first off the mark in the post-crisis period.

All of these measures require funding. Countries with fiscal space will find it easier to introduce them than those without it. Unfortunately, global debt levels have continued to increase after the financial crisis over a decade ago. Though the bulk of global debt is held by the industrialized world, its increase has been more important in the developing world over the past decade. Concerted action among leaders may therefore be necessary in order for efforts to support small and medium sized businesses not to have negative repercussions on financial markets.

History shows us that cross-border collaborations often arise during or after significant crises. The First World War prompted the creation of the International Labour Office; the United Nations was formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. The construction of the European Union was also a reaction to that conflagration.

The African Union has already recognized that Africa will be stronger if countries are more integrated and unified with the birth of the African Continental Free Trade Area. A similarly strong commitment to joint action by leaders on the continent would undoubtedly benefit the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences for Africa.

These actions should include a recommitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, to multilateralism and a pledge to help those that will be most affected by the economic downturn: small businesses, women, young people and vulnerable communities. The International Trade Centre (ITC) with its mandate to build the competitiveness of small businesses in developing countries, emphasizing women-owned businesses and people at the base of the economic pyramid, stands ready to support these efforts.

Dorothy Tembo is the Acting Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization

This article originally appeared in Capital Ethiopia Newspaper.

Post published in: Featured

Since we’ve got deans running around claiming that “very few” schools are instituting mandatory Pass/Fail policies, we thought it was high time to put out the comprehensive list of the tips we’ve received so everyone can peruse the policies in place out there.

But then, it turns out we didn’t have to.

That’s because Reddit user “_Social_Distancing_” has done the work of a deity and already gathered all the grading policy changes into one omnibus Google spreadsheet. Check it out for all the data, but as a preview, here are the T14:

As of now, _Social_Distancing_ has data on 135 law schools, with either an “update pending” or “no report” on another 68 in the U.S. and Canada. If you have information on any of these remaining school, let S_D know.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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’s a crazy time in Biglaw. The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has led to the shutdown of many industries and the economy is reeling. Biglaw has been far from unscathed — there’ve been layoffs and furloughs. Other firms have opted for salary cuts (10 percent pay reductions, 25 percent pay cuts, and partners who’ve slowed or eliminated their payday) and benefits have taken a hit. Now another firm is making big moves for the “financial stability” of the firm.

Am Law 100 firm Baker Donelson is taking a number of steps to reduce the financial burden of COVID-19. Partner salaries have already been slashed. But that isn’t the end of the salary reductions. In the coming weeks, the entire firm will take a pay cut — that is, if they still have jobs. That’s right, the firm is also furloughing employees (exact numbers remain unclear). Though the firm would like to bring the newly unemployed folks back “once this crisis subsides,” there is not currently a defined timeline or date for that.

A Baker Donelson spokesperson provided the following statement:

In the wake of the unprecedented and far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Baker Donelson has unfortunately been faced with some very difficult decisions. We have undertaken a number of measures to ensure the financial stability of the Firm moving forward, which includes shareholder reduction in draws and salary that have already been implemented. This will be followed over the next few weeks by temporary salary reductions across the Firm and with a furloughing of some employees. We are focused on doing all we can for all of our employees, while also ensuring uninterrupted service to our clients and meeting our temporary operating needs throughout this global crisis and beyond. Our hope is that, once this crisis subsides, we will eventually be able to bring the furloughed team members back to Baker Donelson. Until then, we are providing them with support to help minimize the impact of what we know is an extremely trying situation, particularly in these highly uncertain times.

Good luck to all those bearing the brunt of the economic downturn.

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).

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).

* Harley-Davidson has a new top lawyer —- hopefully he gets a few Harleys thrown into his compensation package. [Bloomberg Law]

* Federal courts have begun to promote teleconferencing for certain criminal and civil matters due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. [Indiana Lawyer]

* The New York Attorney General is looking into privacy settings on the popular Zoom videoconferencing app that may make it vulnerable to hackers. [New York Times]

* Zoom is having a rough week, as the videoconferncing app is also being sued for allegedly sharing user data with Facebook. [CBS News]

* A federal appeals court has temporarily allowed Texas to prohibit nonessential abortions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. [Dallas Morning News]

* Upcoming oral arguments before the Supreme Court are in limbo because of concerns surrounding COVID-19. The justices should just conduct their business through videoconferencing apps like everyone else in the world at the moment. [CNN]

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.

Coronavirus is hitting the legal profession hard. Not just in terms of health, but monetarily as the uncertainty around the disease has grown, leaving economic upheaval in its wake.

Law students have been in a vulnerable position in all of this mess. That’s why AccessLex Institute, a nonprofit organization that helps wannabe lawyers on their path to career success, has created a $5 million fund to help out during the pandemic. AccessLex is making $25,000 available to law schools (all the nonprofit or state-affiliated ABA-approved schools, that is). The money will go to each schools’ student emergency fund for the law school to administer as per their standard criteria.

As AccessLex Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher P. Chapman said in a statement, it is “simply the right thing” to do:

“It is imperative that we act on our mission to positively impact the lives of law students in a tangible way when they need the support most. The establishment of the Emergency Relief Fund is simply the right thing for AccessLex to do during this unprecedented  time. It represents a targeted response in our effort to be there for those we serve everyday—the next generation of lawyers.”

Good for AccessLex, and hopefully the money will make these times a little less trying for law students.

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).

Some law schools are sticking with their original grading policies in the midst of this crisis, either by their own choice or because their Trumpian political overlords demand it. Other law schools have creative solutions like allowing students to beg for Pass/Fail after the fact, earning an accommodation if they give the school a compelling enough story about how COVID-19 impacted them. Why must everything be so difficult in an environment where students are trying to stay alive while their professors try and fail to unmute themselves on Zoom? Judges are already pointing out that no one is going to care what the Spring 2020 grades will be so just make this semester Pass/Fail and focus on just teaching the material rather than trying to properly parse every student by class rank.

So, to recap, there are schools that are still grading, schools that have gone Pass/Fail, and schools that give the student the ability to opt for Pass/Fail if they have a good story. Now comes Notre Dame offering its new twist — allowing students to opt Pass/Fail but only before exams while letting everyone else keep getting grades.

Wha?

The current grading system would remain in place, but students would have the option of making an all-or-nothing election to have the grades for ALL of their Law School courses converted to Pass/No Credit grades. Students would not have the option of making the election for some but not all of their Law School courses.

Requiring this to apply to all courses makes some sense. In theory, the reason for the accommodation is a breakdown in the learning environment occasioned by the disease, so it doesn’t make sense to allow “Pass/Fail shopping” among courses. Though in fairness, there are some champ professors out there doing much better with distance learning and, if we’re being honest, some courses that lend themselves better to a less interactive, monologue lecture format. So there probably are some classes that have had more of an impact on the students than others, but weeding through all that is overkill. A blanket policy makes more sense.

But then the school is requiring students to elect which option they want before taking the exams. This is an option in the ASU policy, but at least that policy doesn’t limit students to taking just that route and oh my God, we’re now talking about the ASU policy as a good thing?!?!

The problem with non-blanket Pass/Fail options is it signals to anyone looking at a transcript down the road that the student must have expected to (if the policy requires pre-exam election) or really did bomb (if the policy allows post-exam election) the semester. And “P” from a student of that school immediately becomes suspect instead of giving the future graduate the cover to say, “Who knows whether that was an A or a B that semester because the world was coming to an end — the school made that call for me — the point is I passed so check out my other grades.” This whole thing only really works if it’s a blanket policy.

A Notre Dame student wrote Dean Marcus Cole raising concerns about this policy and got this response:

If the only people that you were competing against for jobs were your classmates, then you would be absolutely right: mandatory Pass/Fail would help to “level the playing field.” Unfortunately, nothing I can do as your Dean, or as a member of your Faculty, can protect you from competition from students at other schools. Of the schools in the “Top 30,” only eight have gone to Pass/Fail (Stanford and Yale have always been Pass/Fail, so they are not making any bold announcements). Of those eight schools, four are making Pass/Fail optional, and the other four are making it mandatory. As of this writing, all eight are ranked higher than Notre Dame. The hard truth is that you are not only competing against other Notre Dame students; you are competing against students from 22 similarly situated schools, all of whom are NOT giving their students a choice of Pass/Fail. They are issuing grades.

So that’s not true at all. For example, of the T14 all but three have gone mandatory Pass/Fail, with Michigan and Georgetown going optional Pass/Fail  after receiving grades and only Chicago sitting out there looking the fool.

But this also misses the point. The dean says nothing “can protect you from competition from students at other schools” but the reality is a blanket policy does offer that protection. Only a blanket policy eliminates any stigma to choosing a Pass/Fail grade. As long as there is an option, every student with a “Pass” looks like they had something to hide.

And don’t lose sight of what we’re really talking about here: “Pass” grades. If students are failing it doesn’t matter if it’s an “F” or a “Fail.” Pass/Fail isn’t letting bad students walk, it’s about protecting otherwise passing students from the vagaries of a curve in a wildly unpredictable time.

Students are not happy — one of the nicer comments described the school as responding “callously, not seriously considering a wealth of student input, brazenly putting the school’s ranking prospects ahead of student interests” — and for good reason.

Dean Cole continues:

This all would not be an issue if ALL law schools went to January/February On-Campus Interviews. To date, only one school has formally announced that they will, namely, Columbia Law School. A January/February OCI schedule would allow for schools to adopt a mandatory, across the board Pass/Fail system, because it would afford firms the opportunity to see your Fall 2L grades. With any schools NOT agreeing to January/February OCI’s, firms would fill jobs with GRADED students in August, leaving the students at January/February schools with nothing left. It would be irresponsible of us to put you in that position of false hope.

First of all, this still labors under the misconception that the overwhelming majority of law schools are going mandatory Pass/Fail anyway and that OCI might well be moving to next winter no matter what because the firms themselves are not going to be ready to hire in August.

But it also continues to operate under this goofy conception that employers are going to uncritically hire a B student from one school as opposed to a Pass student from another. Yes, the straight A student is at an advantage over the straight Pass student. But the straight B student isn’t. And with a blanket policy, employers have to consider that every fully passing student might just be a straight A student and they’ll have to actually have an interview to figure out if the student is the right fit (or consider myriad other indicators like first semester grades or law review membership). The point is the only decision that throws students under the bus is the non-blanket route.

Thankfully, there’s still a whole month for the school to take a step back and fix this. Take the time to examine what other schools have actually done and, if OCI is the big concern, take the time to build a coalition with peer schools to push for a winter OCI. There are a lot of options available to the school right now… and very few of them could be any worse.

Earlier: Top Law School Sparks Controversy For Maintaining Grading Curve During COVID-19
When A Law School Says ‘Don’t Contact The Media,’ You Should ABSOLUTELY Contact The Media
Law School Offers Pass/Fail But Only If You Tell Them A Good Enough Story About How COVID Hurt You
Prominent Jurist Tells Law Schools And Gunners To Stop Freaking Out About Pass/Fail Options

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.

Columbia already saw the writing on the wall and moved its on-campus interview process to January 2021. No one knows for sure when this whole thing will be over, half of the transcripts students will have to show employers will be a bunch of “Pass” grades, and by the end of the summer, a lot of firms are just going to be taking stock of where their layoffs and furloughs have left them, so why persist in the delusion that firms will be hiring in August? And from what we’ve been hearing, other schools have also gone the Columbia route with at least Duke and Georgetown postponing early interview time as well.

Apparently, Harvard will become the first “HYS” school to put off early interviews. EIP, the Early Interview Program, will move to January 2021 according to a message sent to Above the Law:

Today, we write with an important update on EIP and the upcoming law firm recruiting season. After numerous discussions with students and employers, we have decided to move EIP Week to January 2021 and to suspend EIP Preview for this recruiting season. We will provide additional information about EIP in the coming weeks as we flesh out the details of our program.

While other schools moved first, Harvard’s decision likely opens the floodgates on recruiting changes. Biglaw firms aren’t going to fill their future classes without talking Harvard students, so there’s not going to be any appetite to gather everyone from Chicago in August only to tell them to expect a callback in February. By Friday, the rest of the T14 will almost certainly have pushed on-campus recruiting to match whatever Harvard’s doing.

I guess our on-campus interview shopping guide is going to have to be a lot more winter weather-centric…

Earlier: Elite Law School Postpones On-Campus Interviews Because Of Coronavirus

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.