Author: TSA Press

From salary cuts to furloughs to layoffs, the coronavirus crisis has hit the legal profession particularly hard. Unfortunately, during these unprecedented times, there is far more to worry about than hitting your billable hours. The health and wellness of loved ones — especially aging adults — is now more important than ever considering the toll that COVID-19 has taken on our elder population. Keenly aware of the added stress that caring for someone in this age group can cause, one Biglaw firm has added a new benefit to its already extensive benefits package alleviate some of those worries.

McDermott Will & Emery has partnered with Homethrive to offer all of the law firm’s U.S. employees fully covered family caregiver services. This new benefit will be available immediately. This benefit is being offered as part of the firm’s commitment to the American Bar Association’s Well-Being Pledge, a program that was first rolled out in 2018 to help lawyers in need. Homethrive will provide care guides who can offer coaching and concierge services to assist with the care of aging loved ones who live at home with MWE law firm employees. From the firm’s press release:

“As part of our ABA pledge, we are committed to providing wellness programs with a focus on mental health awareness and support to our lawyers, professional and administrative staff alike, especially during these uncertain times. We are happy to partner with Homethrive as an additional resource to an already robust benefits package that aids caregivers and their families,” said Alyona S. Richey, McDermott’s Benefits Director.

“We are delighted to be partnering with McDermott Will & Emery to help ease the burden of family caregiving that might be affecting their employees,” says Dave Jacobs, Co-founder & Co-CEO at Homethrive. “McDermott Will & Emery recognizes that especially now during the pandemic is a great time to invest in a family caregiving benefit as their employees may be worried about aging loved ones more than ever. The isolation and loneliness experienced by older adults also has the potential to significantly affect their caregivers working at McDermott Will & Emery and we commend the Firm for providing additional support to their employees during these challenging times.”

Kudos to McDermott Will & Emery for offering this important new benefit to its employees. This will really be of assistance to employees who were struggling with the responsibilities of caring for an aging loved one on top of all of their work.

McDermott Will & Emery Partners With Homethrive to Offer Employees Family Elder Care Benefit [PRWeb]

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.

It was an experience, Gillian Power said, that taught her that one can simultaneously be at the most vulnerable point in one’s life and also the most empowered.

After struggling privately for decades with her assigned gender, Power, chief information officer at the law firm Lathrop GPM in Kansas City, finally came out to herself and her family as transgender, and then made the difficult decision to also come out to her colleagues. It took her nine months to compose the letter she planned to send them, and when she finally worked up the courage to take it to work, she stashed it in a desk drawer.

But eventually she did send it — first to her supervisor and then to firm leadership, all of whom pledged to support her however they could, and then to the rest of the firm’s employees, who within an hour flooded her inbox with more than 100 messages of support.

For Kim Barrett, legal professional and paralegal administrator at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles, her story of vulnerability and empowerment was much different. Born to a white mother and a black father, her Caucasian appearance caused many of her colleagues to conclude she was white. But when, in one of her early jobs as a paralegal in a corporate legal department, she brought her family to a company outing, the change among some coworkers was palpable.

It crystallized for her one day afterwards when she asked a lawyer if the company would be open on Martin Luther King Day. “I don’t know how you people celebrate,” he replied, “but the company is open.”

“It took everything I had not to lash out at him,” Barrett recalled. “But I needed the job.”

Barrett went on to chart a successful career, eventually earning a master’s degree in paralegal studies while working full time and raising a family. Having worked at multiple firms and corporations over the years since that incident, she never again experienced racism, at least not overtly.

But if she had the confidence she has now when that incident occurred so early in her career, she would have responded different and confronted the lawyer. And she hopes that others who witness such conduct would say something too.

Talking About Race And Gender

Power and Barrett shared their stories as speakers on a July 22 panel, “Talking Successfully About Race, Politics & Gender at Work,” presented by i.WILL — Inspiring Women Igniting Leadership and Learning — and its founder Andrea Markstrom, CIO at Taft in Minneapolis, and moderated by Anna McGrane, cofounder and COO of PacerPro.

The focus of the program was on exploring how to have meaningful conversations in the workplace about issues of diversity, race, gender, and inclusivity.

For Power, her experience of those issues comes not only as someone who grew up struggling with her assigned gender, but also as someone who grew up as a privileged white male in Apartheid-era South Africa.

So much of what she sees happening now in the United States around race mirrors the awakening that happened to many white people in South Africa when she was younger, where, she says, many white people had been completely shielded from the horrors of the Apartheid system.

That sense of while male privilege also accrued to her fear and confusion about her gender identity. “I was afforded many opportunities while presenting as a male person and realized how much privilege accrues to that.”

Power eventually moved to London, where in 2001 she obtained her first law firm job at Dentons providing technical support. In 2003, after meeting her eventual wife while on a business trip to the United States, she moved to this country and in 2008 joined Lathrop.

But even after coming out to her wife in 2013, she remained “petrified” of coming out to her coworkers. There was no precedent for her to follow, she said, as no one on the administrative side of a major law firm had openly transitioned before. And she was inhibited both by a sense of shame and by the fear of possibly losing her job and her professional relationships.

“Despite that, I was propelled forward,” she said. “The need to express who you are is one of the strongest forces within us — we can’t hold it back.”

When she did finally come out, the outpouring of support from her colleagues was overwhelming. And it provided lessons that informed not just her situation, but those of so many right now.

The conversations that we are now having in this country and globally are about vulnerability, Power said, about people saying, “I am suffering.” If we engage in those conversations with strength, with dignity, and with resoluteness, that is what produces change, “because it changes the heart of people.”

For leaders at law firms and other organizations, the lesson is to recognize that we have all these different viewpoints and to be able to find “the golden mean” or the path through these views.

“The role of leadership is to be able to do that — to have the centeredness and the awareness to hold and value all those perspectives,” Power said.

‘A Lot Of People Are Not OK’

Barrett is a former Marine who worked her way up through the ranks at Latham after earning an associate’s degree in paralegal studies in 1997 and landing a job there as a part-time night receptionist. From there, she moved into a secretarial role and then became an entry-level paralegal.

While raising two children and working full time, she earned a bachelor’s degree in justice studies and then a master’s degree in paralegal studies. In 2017, the firm promoted her into her current role, where she oversees everyone at the firm who falls under a broad umbrella of legal paraprofessionals.

As a woman of mixed race, she has always strived for diversity among her professional teams to include an array of different perspectives.

She is also aware that the events of the past few months, especially since the “infuriating and heartbreaking” murder of George Floyd, have brought to life for some what has been known for years to those in communities of color.

“Others who are not of color were able to go about in their own bubble because it didn’t affect them personally,” she said. “But now it does.”

She is also a mother who worries about her own two sons. “People of color have experienced unfair treatment by the criminal justice system since forever. This is not a new phenomenon.”

These events outside the workplace affect people in ways that they carry into the workplace, Barrett believes. “A lot of people are not OK mentally and emotionally because of things going on outside the office,” she said.

Her firm has responded by trying to give employees a safe space to share their stories and feelings, as well as to share if they have experienced racism of any kind at work. The firm scheduled an online open forum that so many people signed up for that a second one was required.

The firm has also created a Black Lives Matter group and has other programs to ensure that black culture is celebrated within the firm.

As for how to have conversations with employees around these issues, Barrett said, “You need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

She cited the book Crucial Conversations, which she said has been useful in teaching her critical skills. When emotions are high, it is hard to hear each other, she said, and this book gives guidance on how to talk to each other and to communicate with honesty.

No One Said This Would Be Easy

Near the end of the program, moderator McGrane asked Barrett about that incident early in her career when the lawyer revealed his blatant racism. Had there been another person the room, what would Barrett have wanted that person to do?

“Call it out,” Barrett replied. “We have to call them out. That can be uncomfortable and scary — and it needs to be done.”

As for Power, her experiences have shown her that “every human being inherently wants to express themselves in a dignified manner, to express who they are.” The role of managers and leaders, she believes, is to figure out how they can remove obstacles to that expression.

“That’s not easy in business,” Power said. “No one said this would be easy. But the investment results are so rich.”

Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

The Civil War Amendments stitched the country back together after the rift.  The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery; the Fourteenth guaranteed all citizens equal protection under the laws; the Fifteenth prohibited states from disenfranchising people on account of race.

I’m thinking about the Trump Amendments.

First, there’s the election, of course. On the one hand, Donald Trump may surprise us all for a second time. Trump may be reading the zeitgeist perfectly: Black Lives Matter may be a symbol of hate; the majority of Americans may support the display of the Confederate flag; the silent majority may crave a law and order candidate. If that’s true, then Trump will again surprise the pollsters in November, and we’ll see what the second term brings.

On the other hand, Trump may be wrong. He may be misreading the zeitgeist entirely, and America may have moved to the left in a way that Trump has not. If that’s true, then January will bring not only President Joe Biden, but also a continued Democratic majority in the House and a small Democratic majority in the Senate. What then?

Am I wrong to think that we may see the passage of the Trump Amendments, which will try to stitch the country together again after this time of divisiveness?

The 28th Amendment, the first of the Trump Amendments, will restrict the presidential powers of pardon and commutation. This amendment easily makes its way through Congress: The Democrats remain livid about the Roger Stone commutation; they vote for the amendment in a heartbeat. The Republicans don’t object, either: After all, there’s now a Democrat in office, so it doesn’t offend a sitting Republican president to restrict presidential powers. And the few Republicans who remain in Congress were both quietly offended by Trump’s use of the power of commutation and chastened by the voters.

The 29th Amendment causes the Equal Rights Amendment to be ratified.  There’s no reason to wait for litigation to settle that issue. Whatever Americans believed in 1972, when the Senate first approved the ERA, Americans today overwhelmingly support guaranteeing women equal rights.  Trump’s sexism energized suburban women; politicians would naturally seek to capitalize on the moment. (The effort to garner public support for this amendment might involve a public relations campaign: “Grab ‘em by the Amendment!”)

The 30th Amendment deals with LGBT rights. There’s now a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In Bostock, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act applies to the LGBT community. Maybe it’s time to declare that the gay community, like the female community, has equal rights. Or maybe progressives will cleverly merge the 29th and 30th Amendments, so that politicians will be able to deny gay rights only by simultaneously denying women’s rights. That would be a hard vote to cast, and stranger political tricks have been played.

I’m less certain about the 31st Amendment — the one that eliminates the Electoral College by providing for the direct election of the president. The Electoral College subverted the popular vote only three times before the year 2000, but it then awarded the presidency to the loser of the popular vote twice in 16 years. Democrats would naturally be ready to abolish the Electoral College; Democrats suffered at its hands in 2000 and 2016. Republicans, conversely, might oppose this amendment. Perhaps Congress will solve this riddle by eliminating the Electoral College only 50 years in the future, thus achieving the desired result while making it less certain what political party, in what form, will benefit from the change.

How about the 32nd Amendment, to fix the Merrick Garland issue? This amendment would provide that, if the president nominates someone to the Supreme Court, does not withdraw the nomination, and the Senate does not vote on the nomination, then the Supreme Court vacancy is filled within a set number of days.  (We’d have to think carefully about this amendment, because it could be used to subvert the public good. If, in the future, an evil president and evil majority leader wanted to put Attila the Hun on the Supreme Court, then the president could nominate Attila, the majority leader could avoid having a vote, and the Hun would be seated. That’s a real problem, unless you’re convinced that we never elect people who put their personal and political ambitions ahead of the public good.)

Trump has certainly divided America, but things were worse at Shiloh and Antietam and Gettysburg. If the Civil War Amendments could unify us in the 19th century, then the Trump Amendments could unify us in the 21st.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

* A couple is arguing in a new lawsuit that weddings and receptions should be exempted from COVID-19 closures on religious grounds. Wouldn’t be surprised if the bride or groom was a lawyer — that’s a creative argument. [NBC News]

* Surveillance footage appears to link the former lawyer accused of murdering the son of a federal judge to the slaying of a “men’s rights” activist in California. [Fox News]

* Check out this interesting piece by an attorney with autism reflecting on the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Jurist]

* Criminal courts in Pittsburgh are closed for in-person hearings until further notice after an attorney tested positive for COVID-19. [CBS News]

* The Washington Post has settled a defamation lawsuit filed by a Covington Catholic student over a viral video that was released last year. [New York Times]

* A Florida strip club is in hot water for denying two women entry because they were not with a man. We all saw RBG, this is a suspect (or should I say “quasi-suspect”?) practice. [Orlando Weekly]

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.

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

According to data collected by Law.com, for the most recent National Law Journal 500 ranking, which NLJ 500 firm employs the most attorneys in Los Angeles?

Hint: This firm has 311 lawyers in the city of angels.

See the answer on the next page.

Over the last few decades, companies like Securus have managed to obtain a cozy, government-supported monopoly over prison phone and teleconferencing services. Like any monopoly, this has pretty traditionally resulted in not only sky high rates — upwards of $14 per minute for phone calls — but comically poor service as well. Because these folks are in prison, and as we all know everybody in prison is always guilty, drumming up enough sympathy to convert into political momentum has long proven difficult, so regulatory fecklessness has proven easy to come by.

Recent efforts to do something about it were scuttled by FCC boss Ajit Pai, whose former clients included Securus. Pai not only routinely opposed efforts by ex-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to drive change in the prison telco sector, one of his very first acts as FCC boss was to pull the rugs out from underneath his own lawyers as they tried to support those reforms in court. The suddenly rudderless FCC ultimately and unsurprisingly lost due to a challenge by Global Tel*Link, which obviously wanted the status quo to remain intact. So now, while the FCC has the authority to cap interstate calling rates, the courts have declared it lacks the authority to regulate intrastate prison calling rates.

So it was odd to see Pai take to Twitter this week to first profess his breathless support for prison telco monopoly price gouging reform (clearly not true), and then state the fact his hands are tied in terms of actually doing something about it (something he’s largely responsible for):

Lawyers who actually followed this saga from gestation were…. not impressed:

Responding to complaints, Pai yesterday sent a letter to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), proclaiming that this is “unfortunately a problem the FCC is powerless to address,” and “calling for states to take action.” The same states he’s ironically been trying to argue lack the authority to protect consumers from telecom monopoly harm in other areas of telecom, like residential monopolies, net neutrality, and consumer privacy.

But however bad residential telecom is, prison telecom is worse. Securus and other such companies are part of a dangerously cozy and captive market, where prisons get paid upwards of $460 million annually in “concession fees” (read: kickbacks) to score exclusive, lucrative prison contracts. In this comically absurd environment, the service pricing and quality are just about what you’d expect. Government oversight of these businesses has been virtually non-existent, despite accusations that these companies have allowed some law enforcement to monitor what should be privileged attorney client communications and that they have been embroiled in location data scandals.

FCC Boss Ajit Pai Pretends To Care About A Prison Telco Monopoly Problem He Helped Protect

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:

Trumpian Loudmouths Apparently Losing Interest In Parler With No One To Play Victim To
CBP Has Access To Billions Of License Plate Images Collected By Private Companies
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Being a lawyer is an extremely stressful profession. I know this for a fact because I feel the stress quite often and my friends who are lawyers tell me the same thing. Studies have confirmed that lawyers are very stressed out and are thus prone to being dissatisfied with their jobs.

That is why it is so important to take time to yourself and to go on vacation. As the practice of law seems to permeate all hours of the day and all days of the week, there are certain steps you can take to make your time off more relaxing and worthwhile.

The best way to escape the stress of our profession during a vacation is to utilize a “buddy” system. This is what we do at my firm. When an attorney goes on vacation, they must have a buddy who will handle any pressing tasks that come up. Of course, this system has its positives and negatives. It allows the vacationing attorney to completely unwind, knowing that their colleague will take care of anything case-related that comes up. On the other hand, this system gives the covering attorney more work and may force the covering attorney to make decisions on a matter with which they are not familiar. As with most things, I believe that striking a balance is key. In the age of remote desktops and email on personal devices, most attorneys can handle minor things that come up in their matters. At the same time, a buddy is still necessary to carry out tasks that the vacationing attorney may not be able to manage while sitting on a beach.

Another way to get the most out of your vacation is to prepare for it by organizing your schedule as much as possible and as soon as possible. The more notice you can provide to your supervisor or to the Court, the more likely you will be able to enjoy your vacation and get the rest you need. Many lawyers are remiss in taking vacation. They want to show the partners or their supervisors that they are always available and are willing to work around-the-clock. But even if you are working at a high-stakes law firm or prosecuting a high-profile criminal case, you still deserve to take time off and enjoy your vacation. As such, plan your time off and speak up. Do not be afraid to use your vacation time and assert your right to get away!

There is some debate when it comes to covering for yourself when you take vacation. Most companies and firms require those who are taking time off to set up an away message on their email system. But some firms believe that this sends the wrong message to clients as the firm wants it to appear that they are always available to the client. I am torn when it comes to this topic. Without an away message, it is very difficult to disconnect. On the other hand, I understand the concern about always being available to the client or to others. Thus, you must evaluate your own situation and make the best call for you and your employer.

In the end, you have to make these decisions and take the right steps to get away while not jeopardizing your employment or client relationships. As always, balance is the key. In this day and age, you cannot expect to be completely disconnected (unless you go to the most remote locations). But you can still get away, relax, and recharge your batteries. We are members of a stressful profession, so use your vacation time and get away!

Peter S. Garnett is an attorney at Balestriere Fariello who represents clients in trials, arbitrations, and appeals. He focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation and contract disputes from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach Peter at peter.s.garnett@balestrierefariello.com.