Author: TSA Press

The landscape of Biglaw recruiting is rapidly changing amid COVID-19. As law schools struggle with teaching students amid a pandemic, “normal” expectations have been thrown out the window. One of the biggest questions for many law students is what will happen with summer associateships.

While Biglaw firms are still contemplating what to do with 2Ls who have accepted offers for this summer’s programs, 1Ls are also wondering what’s going on. Summer associate interviewing starts nearly a year before students are slated to start at the firms, with the pre-coronavirus trend being to push those dates earlier and earlier. But in an email to students, Columbia Law School announced they’re pushing back their on-campus recruitment program until January 2021.

Columbia has decided to make that move because the law school’s spring semester is being graded on a pass/fail basis. Without a change to their recruitment calendar, students would be interviewing based only one one semester’s worth of grades. In order to better serve students that may need more than a semester to acclimate to law school, the new recruitment schedule will allow Biglaw firms to make hiring decisions with knowledge of the students’ Fall 2020 grades.

And Skadden, at least, is likely on board. Gavin White, global hiring partner at that firm already noted the ways the move to a pass/fail system will likely impact the summer associate opportunities students will have:

“Unless we change the timetable for hiring, you are hiring off of one semester of grades,” he said. “That probably hurts the students who have a less-than-stellar first semester, but otherwise would have been able to show an improvement for the second semester. They are sort of being robbed of that opportunity. That’s something we look at at—particularly students who don’t come from a privileged background may have a slower start at law school, but they figure it out in the second semester.”

And White suggested the exact move that Columbia has made:

“If you only have one semester of grades, it’s hard to get a meaningful and realistic assessment of someone’s academic performance,” White said. “What I would really like to see is schools move on-campus interviews into January and February, where we would have 2L fall grades.”

And the email from Marta Ricardo, Columbia’s career services dean, also notes that the move was based on “feedback from many employers,” so hopefully the move will not negatively impact the employment opportunities for Columbia students. Now we just have to see if the move is matched by any other elite law schools.

Read the full email from Columbia on the next page.

---

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).

I have written before regarding the “peculiarities” of the focus of the pro-life movement. For example, insisting that the grossly failed policy of criminal prohibition is the only viable moral solution to abortion while at the same time rationing and restricting the best anti-abortion tool we have (birth control), strains credulity. Nevertheless, and for what it is worth, I personally do not blame most pro-life movement members for these peculiarities. In my personal experience, if you can get the facts in front of most pro-lifers (often no small feat), on things like the effectiveness of birth control versus prohibition in driving down abortion rates, they will generally support the most effective approach. The problem is the leaders of the “pro-life” movement consistently demonstrate they will not accept reason and the result is irreparable harm to the movement itself.

One of the most recognizable leaders of the “pro-life” movement in recent years has been David Green, CEO of the retail craft chain store Hobby Lobby. Green was thrust into the “pro-life” spotlight after he challenged, and eventually won against the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employers provide contraceptive care coverage. What is important to keep in mind, is that when the Hobby Lobby case was going before the Supreme Court, Green stated that it was his Christian beliefs that kept him from “pay[ing]” for certain forms of birth control — that medically operates no differently than other forms of birth control — and thus if he lost his case he would be facing fines that would logically force his business to shut down. In other words, Green argued during the Hobby Lobby case that his religious belief would not allow him to engage in an act that “might end a life” and thus if he had to provide contraception coverage to just one employee his business would face fines that would force closure.

In the “pro-life” world, it is obvious to see why Green became a lionized figure. I mean this guy stood up against the government based on a supposed deeply held religious abhorrence against doing anything that might end a life and won! During the past week, however, the shallowness and hypocrisy of Green’s beliefs was laid bare for all to see. As has been already pointed out by Elizabeth Dye here in the pages of Above the Law, Green has decided that in the face of our current pandemic, “all 900-plus Hobby Lobbys are staying open.” Now I ask you to think about this for one second, a man who said he would face financial ruin and likely foreclosure rather than provide one employee with certain forms of birth control (because it “might end a life”) is now refusing to close his stores when it certainly means that by remaining open, he is substantially adding to a public health risk that will end lives. Make no mistake, the public health crisis we are currently facing is not the flu, the risk to life is great. Prioritizing a stand against contraception coverage over a stand against a pandemic cannot be rationally attributable to a person who views all life as some sacred gift.

As we have already seen, however, instead of calling out this behavior for what it clearly is many of the most prominent “pro-life” voices have chosen instead to defend Green and deny he is putting his profits over a clear risk to life. By defending the indefensible, these “pro-life” leaders/voices are, in my opinion, the cause of the “pro-life” movements failure to gain a wider acceptance. Adding to the absurdity is these same “pro-life” voices will advocate that others take “a different” path while utterly refusing to take that same path of compromise themselves (acknowledging the obvious — that prohibition doesn’t work — would be a great start). Worse still, is that these leaders will praise states as “pro-life” strongholds based solely on their abortion stance while ignoring or refusing to mention grotesque examples of how these same states act as though life is anything but sacred. Or place a focus on issues like pornography, as a scourge deserving of constant attention while saying nothing about how the states they claim set such a fine moral example have literally institutionalized the rape and torture of women.

I guess the simple point to be made here is that if you want to be seen as pro-life you have to take pro-life stances consistently. David Green at Hobby Lobby has made clear the rotting hypocrisy, and counterintuitive thinking that plagues the “pro-life” movement’s leadership. Until and unless that hypocrisy and thinking is challenged by those inside the movement (I fully understand my limitations in this debate), “pro-lifers” can expect their movement to continue its contraction, rather than expansion. I remain on the side of life, I want to keep driving down abortion rates by giving human beings the tools to make their own procreation decisions. Will the “pro-life” movement acknowledge its faults and make room for me? If the actions of their leadership is any indicator the answer is a resounding no.

---

Tyler Broker’s work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Albany Law Review, and is forthcoming in the University of Memphis Law Review. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter to discuss his column.

Seyfarth Shaw wrote one of the worst motions of all time this month, explaining how women’s soccer players shouldn’t be paid men’s salaries because they get pregnant and stuff. It was a motion so bad it got the client fired, with U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro stepping down amid the uproar created by the filing. Given how this is playing out, it seems as though the women have got this covered, but a “private attorney general” is trying to elbow into the proceedings.

The gist of the motion is to get Donald Trump to focus on the national emergency Seyfarth Shaw has created with its brief:

This… isn’t a RICO thing, man.

The motion doesn’t make much sense seeing as it asks Trump to do something useful which is like asking Thailand to stop Alex Morgan. At least include a paragraph explaining how taking action makes money for his hotels or hurts Mitt Romney… something to get him interested.

But while it’s easy to pick at the flaws in the filing, at least the guy’s heart is in the right place. Not everyone understands the legal system, but everyone should all be capable of grasping that Seyfarth Shaw’s motion was a clumsy extension of an ongoing effort of “Intimidation [and] Hostility” toward the players. It’s just a gussied-up retread of all the sad misogyny the players hear every time they have to talk about pay. It’s nice to know people out there are hearing the players.

That said, pro se folks have enough troubles getting their own cases handled… maybe steer clear of intervening in someone else’s.

But hey, this private attorney general hasn’t tried to suspend habeas corpus yet so he’s got one up on the real attorney general.

Earlier: U.S. Soccer HAS To Pay Men More, Because Playing For A Crowd Of Hooligans Is A Big ‘Responsibility’
When You Write A Brief So Bad It Gets The Client Fired

---

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.

As I wrote in Part I of this series, the FDA firmly opines that the sale and marketing of most hemp-derived cannabidiol (hemp CBD) products is unlawful in the United States and has gone as far as describing CBD as a “potentially harmful substance.” Part II is dedicated to a brief examination of the state-by-state map of hemp CBD regulations across the country.

Even though hemp CBD is a no-no for the FDA, states have already adopted their own legal approaches to regulating hemp CBD products that are not necessarily consistent with the FDA’s current position and/or that altogether violate that position.

Some states, such as Colorado and Oregon, allow the manufacture and sale of all hemp CBD products, including foods, dietary supplements, smokable products, and cosmetics. Other states, like Idaho, Iowa, and Mississippi, strictly prohibit the production and/or sale of any such products unless hemp CBD is used for “medical treatment.”

A number of states, including California, Michigan, and Nevada, ban hemp CBD foods and dietary supplements but seem to take no issue, at least expressly, with the sale of other nonfood or nonbeverage products, such as hemp CBD cosmetics. And a handful of states, counting Kentucky and Texas, allow the sale and marketing of hemp CBD foods and dietary supplements but strictly prohibit the sale or restrict the processing and manufacturing of hemp CBD smokables within their borders.

To top it all off, some of the states that legalized the sale of hemp CBD products have their own set of regulations, including but not limited to registration and/or permitting, labeling, and testing requirements. In Louisiana, for example, hemp CBD cosmetics may only be sold by businesses that have established residence for two years prior to applying for and securing a CBD Dealer Permit from the Department of Revenue, Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.  In Oregon, any finished hemp CBD product must be free of certain pesticides and contain no more than 0.3 percent total THC before it can be sold to end-use consumers. And in Utah, hemp CBD products must meet very specific labeling and marketing requirements, including but not limited to, labels containing a scannable bar code, QR Code, or web address linked to a document containing information pertaining to the product name, batch identification number, and a downloadable link to a certificate of analysis for the batch identified.

This patchwork of state-by-state regulations forces manufacturers and distributors of hemp CBD products to follow a variety of hemp CBD regulations in each state where these products are sold and must limit sales to jurisdictions in which hemp CBD products are deemed lawful -– all in the face of the FDA’s current enforcement position.

This wide range of often conflicting state regulations, combined with the lack of any formal federal legal pathway for the sale and marketing of hemp CBD products, makes it nearly impossible for hemp CBD stakeholders to meet compliance standards. Yet, the industry is begging to be regulated by the Feds. So far, the FDA has received over 4,000 comments from shareholders on the safety, manufacturing, product quality, marketing, labeling, and sale of hemp CBD products. Clearly, a uniform federal regulatory framework would better ensure uniform compliance, help legitimize a stigmatized industry, protect and educate consumers, and ultimately, boost the US economy. Of course, the states will likely still be free to set their own hemp CBD regulations, but at least everyone would be then be on an even federally lawful playing field. So, here’s to hoping that the FDA starts to serve its role of “coxswain” to help the CBD industry follow its course and succeed.

---

Nathalie Bougenies practices in the Portland office of Harris Bricken and was named a “2019 Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine, an honor bestowed on only 2.5% of eligible Oregon attorneys. Nathalie’s practice focuses on the regulatory framework of hemp-derived CBD (“hemp CBD”) products. She is an authority on FDA enforcement, Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act and other laws and regulations surrounding hemp and hemp CBD products. She also advises domestic and international clients on the sale, distribution, marketing, labeling, importation and exportation of these products. Nathalie frequently speaks on these issues and has made national media appearances, including on NPR’s Marketplace. Nathalie is also a regular contributor to her firm’s Canna Law Blog.

Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, the legal profession as a whole is currently attempting to navigate uncharted waters.

To protect their employees from contracting the potentially fatal illness, law firms have closed their doors and urged their employees to do all of their work remotely. Law schools have canceled on-campus classes in favor of virtual learning, and some have even canceled their upcoming commencements in an effort to flatten the curve and stop the spread. Throw grade school and high school closures into the mix, and we now have all manner of legal professionals trying to get their own work done while teaching and parenting their children at the same time.

Did we mention the economic turmoil the coronsvirus has caused? The legal profession has already been through tough economic times, and while many made it out by the skin of their teeth, others did not. In a professional environment where mental health is finally having its moment, layoffs, furloughs, delayed start dates, and pulled offers are now worries once more.

We’re living in scary times. There’s a very real human toll here, and people are being stretched incredibly thin. Above the Law’s own founder, David Lat, has fallen ill with this virus and is currently on a ventilator. This has hit home for us, and we know it’s hit home for you too. We must find compassion and courage amid COVID-19.

As the most popular legal website in the country, we’d like to share this platform with members of the American legal community. We want to know how you’re coping with the coronavirus. Please reach out to us. Your stories need to be heard. You can email us, text us at (646) 820-8477, or tweet us @atlblog. We will share your stories anonymously. You may be able to help a law student or lawyer who needs to know that someone else is going through the same thing — and surviving.

Although we have to be apart to stop the coronavirus in its tracks, the only way we’re going to get through this is together.

---

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.

Trying to chart out the course of your life is particularly challenging during a pandemic. The lack of certainty about, well, pretty much everything is a real fly in the ointment for planners everywhere. That’s especially true if you’ve been working to attend law school in the near future.

The Law School Admission Council, the group that administers the LSAT, has already canceled the March administration of the traditional law school entrance exam, and whether the April test day follows suit is up in the air. What is the preparing law school hopeful to do?

Well, they may want to consider taking the GRE. An increasing number of law schools (currently over 30!) are willing to take the GRE in lieu of the LSAT in admissions decisions. And because of COVID-19, the GRE is being offered from the comfort — and more importantly, safety — of your own home. From ETS, the administrators of the GRE:

To meet the needs of students who are unable to take the GRE^® General Test at a test center due to public health concerns, ETS is temporarily offering a GRE General Test at home option in selected areas. The test is identical in content, format and on-screen experience to the GRE General Test taken at a test center. It is taken on your own computer at home and is monitored by a human proctor online through ProctorU^®.

For those law school hopefuls trying to weigh the value of taking the GRE, here are the 30+ schools that accept the GRE for admissions purposes:

And we are likely to only see the GRE trend continue. According to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep, a full 25 percent of law schools have plans to accept the GRE. Another Kaplan study determined 49 percent of students surveyed support the move to the GRE.

Even though more and more law schools are on board with the GRE, the  body responsible for law school accreditation, the American Bar Association, hasn’t officially weighed in on using anything other than the LSAT in admissions. ABA accreditation Standard 503 currently mandates that law schools require admissions testing and that the test used be “valid and reliable.” Whether the GRE meets that standard, the ABA hasn’t officially said. But now that so many law schools have moved on the GRE and are accepting students based on their score on that test, it might be impossible to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Now the pressure is really on the LSAC to see if they’re able to provide wannabe law students with a similar option.

---

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).

Much of what follows was drafted before I heard the soul-wrenching news of David Lat’s medical condition. David gave me this gig, was my first editor, and has long been a shining example of how entrepreneurial lawyers can contribute to society and our profession in manifold ways. My sincere hope is that he and all other victims of this virus be blessed with immediate and full recoveries.

To say these are strange times would be an understatement. My four children have been home for school for over a week, attending classes over Zoom. (My oldest son had his SAT canceled, and every indication is that his AP exams may also be canceled or delayed as well.) Their social interactions have been limited to talking to friends over FaceTime or while playing squads in FortNite. We have to remind everyone in the house to get outside for some fresh air. Life has shrunk to a radius of a few blocks, as I am sure it has for many of my fellow New Yorkers. Stores are rationing everything from toilet paper to chicken. The busy streets of Brooklyn look like they do when a blizzard is raging. Except there is no snow. Or wind. And the air was just starting to smell like spring.

We are lucky. We have a house, access to both private and public transportation if needed, and somewhere more spread out to run to if things get worse in the city. This is normally a slow time for my wife’s home-based business, selling educational toys, but she has seen increased demand from parents coping with schools closed and kids home all day. For now, she has the inventory to meet that demand. But with the tightening of the movement restrictions, there is no way for her to deliver her goods. So she arranges porch-pickups, like a reverse milkman. As for my law practice, I have long been comfortable getting work done from home, dating back to my days as a Biglaw associate when I would work on briefs at midnight or later, so that my time in the office would be less constrained. Our professional lives continue, even as things become more surreal with each passing day.

Since starting our firm in 2013, leading to even more control over my personal schedule, I have become even more practiced staying productive at home. Whether that means late-night phone calls with clients in Asia, or early morning consultations with investors looking for guidance on patent litigation situations, work gets done no matter where I am. But the amount and timing of when that work needs to get done remains somewhat outside my control, as I am sure it is for nearly all readers of this column.

In fact, because of the number of matters I have been handling involving Asian parties lately, the issues caused by the virus have been on my mind for months. In those cases where I am working with patent owners pursuing licensing discussions with Chinese companies, or even where US-based licensing targets are seeking indemnification from Chinese suppliers, communication and progress has been more difficult for a while. Likewise, litigating against Chinese-based companies has led to delays in active cases, including some that have required court intervention to address in terms of adjusting previously agreed to schedules. Now, of course, anything litigation-related seems to have been suspended in time, as court access becomes restricted nationwide and discovery becomes impossible to conduct.

Despite the court closures — and in the early days of this unprecedented societal disruption — some of the biggest news last week in the IP world centered on a new case filing, where an investor-backed litigation vehicle wielding former Theranos (of all things) patents had the misfortune of filing a new case against a company that had just announced that it was knee-deep in the critical work of deploying coronavirus tests. Condemnation was swift, including statements calling the filing “tone-deaf” and a prime example of why patent assertion should essentially be criminalized. Reports that the lawyers involved in filing the case had received death threats soon followed, along with a commitment from the plaintiff that it would grant a royalty-free license for anything related to coronavirus testing.

Originally, my thought was that this filing was a prime example of prestigious IP lawyers living in the Biglaw bubble failing to anticipate the public outcry that would ensue from such an ill-timed filing. But even though I can understand why something like that could happen — and think that someone on either the client or lawyer side should always be tasked with raising the question of whether a particular filing is advisable (e.g. the US Soccer debacle recently that led to female players covering their crest as they took the field for their country) from a PR perspective — it actually turns out that the plaintiff had no idea of the coronavirus tests when it filed its suit. Whether the truth will ultimately matter in the public narrative of this case is unclear. Even after that information came out, there were still calls for the plaintiff to drop the case, for one. While antipatent animus may inform the public outcry to a certain extent, it is also true that everyone has been very quick to take sides on this issue.

Ultimately, this situation confirms that tensions still run high in the patent debate — and that the current crisis could serve to inflame those tensions. There are those who think all patent assertions are trollish, just as there are defenders of what most of us would consider overly aggressive or even tone-deaf behavior by patent plaintiffs. Of course, these are minor concerns considering the public health crisis that has overwhelmed life around the world. There is much we don’t know — and the uncertainties pile up with each passing day. One thing that is for sure is that litigation activity is going to take a while to get back to normal, including for IP disputes. And who knows when normal life will return nationwide. For now we are all in bubbles. Yet we are also more dependent on each other than ever. Maybe the experience will make us a little more measured and less quick to pop someone else’s bubble.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

---

Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

In the dozen years since the global financial crisis broke out, many have wondered if the world’s central banks had stretched themselves too far, left themselves without the tools to deal with the next major crisis, had burned through all of their dry powder to stand naked and afraid before the coughs and gobs of the COVID-19 afflicted. Well, the Federal Reserve is doing quite literally all it can do: It will buy all of the government debt it can print, as many just-the-right-side-of-junk bonds as people will sell, it will inject whatever liquidity it can wherever and whenever it can. And here’s what all of the billions going on trillions buys:

Zimbabwe recorded its first official COVID-19 fatality when a young media personality Zororo Makamba, succumbed to the pandemic yesterday. In light of this heavy blow, Tutuma Zimbabwe is of the view that the Government of Zimbabwe must be more compelled now, than ever, to ensure that there are decentralized facilities accessible by citizens to deal with COVID-19.

We acknowledge the critical issues regarding protective clothing, raised by health service delivery workers and implore upon the Government of Zimbabwe to own up and take responsibility to ensure that the genuine demands are met and that no further lives are lost due to lack of ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES.
We further call on the President ED Mnangagwa to show leadership and consider the critical decision of locking down as the most effective way of handling challenges associatedwiththeCOVID-19 outbreak.

Continued allowance of public gatherings of no more than 50 people, the opening of informal markets and business as usual by non-essential sectors of the market is unacceptable. While acknowledging that Zimbabwe economy is largely informal, we note that our health facilities are ill-equipped and prepared to handle the inevitable consequence of continued business. The risk far outweighs the short-term benefits!

Tutumaimploresuponallstakeholders, that is, churches, media, businesses and civics to provide leadership and shutdown.

Citizens, stay at home! At this juncture, social distancing is love!

Post published in: Featured

There’s not much that needs to be said here that wasn’t laid out in the headline. Judge Steven Seeger hasn’t been on the federal bench for long, having only joined the Northern District of Illinois late last year, but he’s already drawn up his first iconic order rejecting a motion to reconsider the scheduling of a temporary restraining order hearing.

Over unicorns.

Maybe read the room before you file.

---

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.