— Doug Emhoff, partner at DLA Piper and husband to Senator Kamala Harris, showing Twitter love to his wife on her return to Senate duties following the end of her campaign to be president. Yesterday Harris attended a Judiciary Committee hearing to question the DOJ Inspector General while Emhoff spent most of the day tweeting (and retweeting) messages of support.
(Image via Getty)
You get a defamation suit! And you get a defamation suit! And YOU get a defamation suit! Everyone’s getting a defamation suit these days, thanks to conservative thought leader Rep. Devin Nunes, the influencer who started the trend when he sued a cow on Twitter for $250 million.
Now Fox News contributor Dan Bongino is joining the herd, hiring Nunes’ famous libelslander lawyer Steven Biss to make him whole after “a digital assassin owned and controlled by billionaire Clinton-devotees, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg” destroyed his reputation by implying that his departure from NRATV might have been less than entirely voluntary. Yeah, it’s that kind of a complaint.
“The National Rifle Association’s media arm has dropped pro-Trump firebrand Dan Bongino from its lineup of conservative commentators,” is how Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay worded his article last December. Markay never said that Bongino had been fired, but according to Biss’ Law of Defamatory Gist, the only thing that matters is that Twitter decided to believe he had been — a reasonable assumption since the NRA was bleeding cash at the time — and laugh heartily about it.
Inveterate Trump-hater, Rick Wilson of Florida, republished the Daily Beast Article to his 649,000 Twitter followers together with the words, “Womp womp.” [https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1072248324760195073]. Wilson imitated the noise made in old cartoons or on gameshows to indicate someone had done something embarrassingly dumb, or failed at something, or whatever they did backfired on them (first womp is a higher frequency sound than the second womp).
News you can use!
Bongino insists that he “simply decided not to renew his contract,” although he and the NRA refused multiple requests for comment before the story went to press, a fact Bongino confirmed with screenshots of his texts with Markay.
From this, Bongino adduces proof that Markay’s source must have told him that Bongino jumped and wasn’t pushed. Which may or may not be true, but Bongino hasn’t exactly bolstered his case for defamation of public figure by demonstrating that Markay made repeated attempts to get his side of the story.
Bongino is similarly blasé about venue, concluding without evidence that “Daily Beast’s defamation was purposefully directed at Plaintiff in Florida,” borne out of a “desire to hurt Plaintiff because of Plaintiff’s support for President Trump and because of Plaintiff’s conservative ideology.”
He claims defamation per se because saying that his contract was not renewed “impute[s] to Plaintiff an unfitness to perform the duties of an office or employment for profit, or the want of integrity in the discharge of the duties of such office or employment.” Bongino accuses the Daily Beast of violating Florida’s consumer protection laws by making false business claims, which is a … creative interpretation of the statute.
All of this is par for the course in a Steven Biss lawsuit. But how has this tough guy, who scorns liberals and their pathetic safe spaces, actually been injured?
As a direct result of Daily Beast’s defamation, Plaintiff suffered substantial presumed and actual damages and loss, including, but not limited to, pain and suffering, emotional distress and trauma, insult, anguish, stress and anxiety, public ridicule, humiliation, embarrassment, indignity, damage and injury to his personal and professional reputations, loss of business and income, attorney’s fees, costs, and other out-of-pocket expenses in the amount of $10,000,000.00 or such other amount as is determined by the Jury.
Bongino, who swears on his MAGA hat that he quit the NRA job, is suing the Daily Beast for making him sad and unemployable. His reputation is ruined! All he has to fall back on is his 1.3 million Twitter followers, 611,000 Facebook friends, daily podcast, compensated speaking gigs at Republican events, appearances in Trump campaign videos, and his regular gig as a Fox contributor.
Clearly poor Dan Bongino’s life will never be exactly the same as it was before people who already think he’s a raging loon spent a pleasant afternoon laughing at him on Twitter. Some scars only heal with the application of $15 million.
“The liberal activists inside of many media outlets have gotten away with character assassination for way too long,” Bongino quotes himself saying on his own website. “The Daily Beast tried to smear me, and I guess they thought I would just take it. They were wrong.”
Lotsa luck, Florida Man.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
Move along, sir.
Todd C. Bank is having a rough week and we’re not even to Friday yet. The Queens-based attorney found himself getting escorted out of the Second Circuit by security while a judge repeatedly told him to leave. Astoundingly, this isn’t even the only faceplant he’s had at a federal appellate court this week.
The oral argument in Doyle v. Palmer, a matter involving attorney Robert Doyle’s objection to having to submit a good character affidavit to be admitted to the Eastern District of New York, which despite being par for the course in this business, Doyle feels violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, as well as the First Amendment. That set up this exchange between Bank, Doyle’s attorney, and the Second Circuit panel. For some excerpts…
I am not defending Bank’s behavior here, and the whole case is kind of stupid, but he is right that the briefs addressed this question. The question is: “why would an attorney complain about having to produce a potentially negative character affidavit when the attorney gets full control over whether or not to hand in the affidavit?” And he provided an answer:
This argument ignores the delay, in being admitted to the bar, that an Applicant would endure if he were to seek one potential Sponsor after another until (if ever) he finds a Sponsor who approves of his moral character (that an Applicant of poor moral character may continue to seek a Sponsor until he finds one who likes him enough to be his Sponsor or is of equally poor character (likely the same person), and who will therefore likely see his fellow wretch, that is, the Applicant, as a morally upstanding person, reveals the farcical nature of the Affidavit Requirement).
Sure. But bad character folks should have to work harder and suffer more delays because of their issues and getting unreliable affidavits from sketchy people then becomes something the court can consider. It’s not a rubber stamp as much as it may feel like it for students strolling out of their T14 lectures.
Still, most folks would welcome an opportunity to talk more about their briefs rather than blast the judge. And while there are exceptions where judges are so unprofessionally megalomaniacal that they earn some snark, inviting an advocate to take a few minutes to explain the basic premise of the case isn’t one of those times.
After being scolded for unprofessional behavior, Bank tried to deliver a rebuttal and when he wouldn’t take the fact that he’d waived his rebuttal for an answer, security was told to escort him out.
One of the judges on the panel was Judge Robert D. Sack, who must have felt some sense of déjà vu since he found himself affirming a ruling about Bank’s professionalism eight years ago. Back then, Bank lodged a number of constitutional complaints over not being able to wear a baseball cap in court while arguing that it was unfair that court employees could wear yarmulkes but others couldn’t wear hats.
Earlier in the week, Bank saw another appeal tossed when the Federal Circuit decided that no, in fact, you can’t challenge someone’s intellectual property rights just because you don’t like them. Bank had challenged the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision that Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik in Wisconsin had a trade dress interest in the idea of keeping goats on a grass roof because, Bank felt, this was demeaning to the goats. The court felt that this didn’t give a Queens attorney any standing.
If we could offer any advice to Bank right now, it would be to maybe lay off the appellate cases for the rest of the week. Go visit a goat farm and just chill.
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.
The Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group released its latest report and once again informed us that revenue is up — but only because firms have jacked up their rates — demand is sluggish, and firms are taking longer and longer to collect on their bills largely because in-house counsel have made everything unduly difficult.
The biggest sticking point in the report is over just what the next year to 18 months will bring. Citi Private Bank takes the firm stance that there is no looming recession, but the people running the firms and spending every day with access to financial records of businesses across sectors are totally smelling that recession. A majority of “industry leaders” surveyed believe the bottom falls out next year and an even larger majority see trouble by 2021.
“Although 2020 is expected to be a positive year for the law firm industry, it is an opportunity for firms to ensure they are well-positioned should there be a downturn in the market,” said Gretta Rusanow, Head of Advisory Services for the Law Firm Group at Citi Private Bank. “Despite the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility, and a challenging talent market, we expect the most successful firms will continue to expand and innovate in 2020. For those firms, expansion will be closely aligned to the firm’s business strategy – more so than pursuing opportunistic growth.”
This view doesn’t necessarily clash with firm leadership’s sense of a recession. Law firms often experience recessions on a bit of a lag. It’s why law firms talk about the Great Recession as a 2009 phenomenon instead of something that burned everyone in 2008. There’s money to be made in law when the rest of the economy begins its skid. Indeed, right up until the point where firms can’t continue to boost revenue by raising rates, recessions aren’t bad at all for firms.
Rusanow’s advice for firms may not come out and say it, but she’s telling everyone to invest in countercyclical talent.
So if you’re in bankruptcy, this might be a good time to test the waters.
Earlier: In-House Counsel Make Increasingly Arcane Billing Demands And It’s Costing Firms Money
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.
(Image via Getty)
Who doesn’t love a good bonus announcement? It’s the perfect inspiration to keep associates happily billing with the promise of a big payday in the near future.
The good folks at Arnold & Porter understand that money can be a great motivator for associate productivity. That’s why in addition to the market bonuses, established by Milbank last month, the firm is offering extra money for their big billers. Associates will get 20 percent above the market rates if they’ve logged 2,400 hours, 2,200 of which is billable time, this year.
The firm’s bonus scale is as follows:
Class of 2019 – $15,000
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
You’ll notice the bonus grid at A&P drops off after 2015 while Biglaw bonus schedules tend to end with the classes of 2012 or 2011. According to the firm’s bonus announcement, senior associate bonuses will take into account market rates and well as productivity and other factors. Qualifying senior associates can expect to receive bonuses of up to $125,000.
Bonuses will be paid at the end of January. You can read the full memo on the next page.
Remember — we can’t do this without you, dear readers! We depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.
And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for all salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for your help!
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).
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government appeared hopeful that after 100 days, the doctors’ strike may finally be drawing to a close.
HARARE – Wednesday marked a hundred days since doctors in Zimbabwe went on strike.
The industrial action, which began on 3 September, affected most major hospitals.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government appeared hopeful that after 100 days, the doctors’ strike may finally be drawing to a close.
The Health Services Board said at least 80 doctors applied to return to work after an offer of financial support was made by the Higher Life Foundation, a charity run by billionaire Strive Masiyiwa. But, that figure was still only a fraction of the 1,600 doctors in government service.
Most of them had joined the strike.
The Hospital Doctors Association’s Masimba Ndoro told **Eyewitness News **the problems of low government wages, and lack of medicine and equipment in hospitals still hadn’t been addressed.
Post published in: Featured
“The move is part of strategic efforts to get the Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa and across the globe to come back home not only to celebrate 40 years of independence, but as an effort to create a dialogue between the diaspora and those back home,” ZimThrive said in a statement on Wednesday.
Co-founder Mike Tashaya hoped the event would help create a dialogue among Zimbabwean nationals on how to “be part of the change the country so desperately needs”.
“The idea is to come together and help market Zimbabwe as a fantastic tourist and investment destination, create a dialogue among its citizens and be part of the change the country so desperately needs,” Tashaya said.
This will be achieved through the hosting of various social and business events in the country, while also collaborating with a wide range of business, social and community organisations.
“It is also a chance for them to attend family-friendly music, sports, arts and cultural events.
“There is a significant population of Zimbabweans in the neighbouring country, making up South Africa’s largest group of foreign migrants. With an estimated population of between one and three million,” ZimThrive said.
Co-founders Mildred Mujanganja, who is based in the US, and Tashaya, who is based in the UK, established the platform to bring Zimbabweans who live in various countries around the world together, with the aim of reinforcing unity, building new and old friendships, and creating a stronger and self-sufficient nation.
“We are less than six months away and the team has been working closely with our partners and key stakeholders to populate an exciting and inclusive calendar of events that allows families and friends to come together and create long-lasting memories,” Mujanganja said.
This year saw a wave of xenophobic attacks in the country that affected migrants who left their homes across the continent in pursuit of a better life.
In September, Gauteng was the hardest hit, with sporadic violence occurring across all three of its big metros, News24 reported.
The protests saw various communities looting both foreign and South African-owned shops, calling for an end to drug syndicates.
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula previously revealed close to 700 people had been arrested on charges ranging from public violence, arson, malicious damage to property, theft and possession of stolen property, possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition, attempted murder and murder, business robbery, and ongoing contraventions of the Gathering Act.
Post published in: Featured
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Laura Shepard to our pages.
Last year, I ended a relationship. I did not get a divorce. But it felt like one. I left the law firm where I had worked for the past 12 years. The place I started, spent my entire legal career, and where I was taught my specialty. The place where I made friends and found a mentor. They became more than an employer — there was a time I considered them family. But like most families, there was an essence of dysfunction. I thought we were just quirky and that I held it together. I later learned this mentality is what kept me in an exhausting and emotionally draining environment for far too long. It is hard enough to recognize the symptoms of burnout but much more difficult to identify the cause and find the strength to overcome it. But I did find the courage to accomplish the proudest moment in my career: I left this job to start my own practice.
While my early years at the firm were enjoyable, I felt growing pains in my career at the same time we started growing our family. My first child was born after I had practiced for eight years, and I became pregnant with my second the following year. During this time, a new benefit program became available in my field that dramatically increased my work volume. I was facing so many challenges professionally and with my young children that it was nearly impossible to focus on what I wanted for myself or my career. I had two children under four years of age and a massive caseload. I needed more legal support, challenge, and personal growth in my job because I was losing any joy it once brought me. I felt stuck in this troubled relationship and demoralized by my superiors. Looking back, I believe there was an implicit bias that my changing work needs were solely because of my young children and not the job itself. Honestly, I blamed myself for the same reasons and thought that I could fix it if I worked harder and changed my attitude.
I eventually sought guidance from a career counselor who encouraged me to identify my values and follow them. The only positives I could identify from my current job were a steady paycheck, friendliness with coworkers, and the comfort of being in the same place and position I had been in for years. But I was miserable. Those are not benefits that sustain a career. I had too much stress with both my job and my family but only one of them I could change. My schedule juggling young children was temporary, but my children left no time to tend to my own needs, and the job was no longer fulfilling enough to warrant my energy when I had little to spare. I needed to make my own choices, control my schedule, and reach my potential. I needed to leave.
After I left, I befriended other attorneys in my field locally and through Facebook groups. I am amazed by the number of women lawyers who leave firms to start small or solo law practices on their own terms. In the past, I kept my head down and the work up. I never knew of any alternative. But women today are charting new paths supported by their colleagues who are more than willing to provide support, advice, and encouragement along the way. Together, we can knock down walls and build anew, not just break through glass ceilings. If I had these tribes earlier in my career, I could have spared myself much grief.
We can only control so much. I wish I had not pushed myself to the limit trying to make sure of my decision and trying to fix the unfixable. I wish I had not felt my attitude alone determined my satisfaction in the office instead of accepting that the job had outgrown me and that my needs had diverged from the owners. I wish I had realized earlier that it was okay — that becoming a mother made me want more purpose in my career than I once had. None of this was my fault, and it was time to choose a new path.
As women, we can possess a persistent self-doubt, a need to prove ourselves, endless questioning yet believing we can still do it all. But we need to empower ourselves, not cower. We need to accept that our loyalty, our compassion, our strive, our ability to see possibilities and make decisions, don’t just make us good employees. They make us great lawyers.
Earlier: Mothers At Law: Achieving Meaningful Success In The Legal Profession
Laura Shepard is the proud owner of Shepard Immigration Law just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana, where she provides personalized family and employment immigration legal services. She is the mother of two young children and is involved with MothersEsquire and AMIGA Lawyers. You can email her at LES_attorney@LSimmlaw.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Utah’s first cohort of licensed paralegal practitioners features just four members, but state officials expects the program for nonlawyers to grow significantly in the years to come. Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas said he anticipates there will be 20 LPPs in two years and 200 in a decade.
The initiative, designed to strengthen access to justice, permits licensees to complete limited legal tasks in three practice areas: family law, debt collection, and landlord/tenant.
Himonas said Utah hopes to generate more applicants for the program through increasing awareness of its existence and broadening the educational opportunities made available to secure the license.
Applicants without a J.D. must complete LPP-approved courses for ethics and for any practice area in which they want to be licensed. Utah Valley University is the only institution currently offering the courses, though Himonas said having the courses offered more broadly would help.
“I want the program to be as accessible as possible,” he said, noting he would particularly like to see those in rural communities be able to participate.
All applicants for licensure must pass the LPP Ethics Exam and an exam in the area in which they wish to practice.
Four additional applicants are expected to take their exams in March, so by next spring there could be double the number of LPPs, said former LPP administrator Carrie T. Boren of the Utah State Bar.
Boren said she is confident the LPPs will help address the gap in access to justice for the public. “We want them to have sound legal advice they can trust at a cost they can afford,” she said. “We are really proud of the [LPP] program, and I think it will do great things.”
The paralegal program is expected to be independently evaluated by two academics: Professor Anna E. Carpenter of University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law and Assistant Professor Alyx Mark of Wesleyan University.
Himonas said Utah is hopeful its work with the evaluators might shed light on other practice areas in which paralegals could be licensed, such as expungements. “We want to think about whether there are other potential good candidates,” he said.
Utah’s licensed paralegal practitioner program comes several years after Washington became the first state to permit limited license legal technicians, or LLLTs.
Meanwhile, Utah’s LPP program is just one component of the state’s multifaceted efforts to bolster access to justice. Earlier this year, the Utah Work Group on Regulatory Reform proposed a series of changes to the state’s regulation of the legal market, including a “regulatory sandbox” that would allow nontraditional legal entities to test out innovations without committing the unauthorized practice of law.
The Utah Supreme Court approved the recommendations and implementation work is under way. The planned action steps will be evaluated for their effectiveness.
“We are not interested in empty gestures,” Himonas said. “I want to know that these things are working.”
Lyle Moran is a freelance writer in San Diego who handles both journalism and content writing projects. He previously reported for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, Associated Press, and Lowell Sun. He can be reached at lmoransun@gmail.com and found on Twitter @lylemoran.
For the last five years, Brent Goettshe and four buddies had a pretty good thing going: They ran a bitcoin-mining shop, the unfortunately-named BitClub Network, sold shares of the proceeds to investors, raised almost three-quarters of a billion dollars and then made a bunch of shit up in order to keep it for themselves. This not-very-sophisticated sophisticated-looking scheme had its basis in something other than bitcoin mining, as Goettsche put it with admirable honesty.
Goettsche discussed with his conspirators that their target audience would be “dumb” investors, referred to them as “sheep,” and said he was “building this whole model on the backs of idiots.”
Hard to argue with, but unfortunately for Goettsche, ripping off the exceptionally credulous and stupid is still illegal.
The wire fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000. The conspiracy to sell unregistered securities charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Three Men Arrested in $722 Million Cryptocurrency Fraud Scheme [press release]