Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!
According to Vault’s 2021 practice area ranking, which Biglaw firm is #1 in the white collar defense and internal investigations practice area?
Hint: This selective law firm only has one office, in Washington, D.C.
See the answer on the next page.
What makes for a good lawyer?
We’ve all spent years in law school and since pondering this simple question. Yet, there’s not one clear, widely agreed-upon answer.
There are a few accepted metrics. Billable hours, pedigree, and experience at big-name firms often come to mind. And for many attorney positions, technical skills are table stakes.
But as a hiring manager and former general counsel, I have interviewed, hired, and managed many professionals. And I can decisively confirm that technical skills, once established, are almost never a reason to make a final hiring decision. They’re not what makes a good lawyer good.
Instead, I — and I’ve found that many of my colleagues also — focus on a handful of “soft” skills, human qualities that don’t make an appearance on law school syllabi. After all, we aren’t lawyers in a vacuum, and no amount of technical skills can help an attorney who lacks these innate professional qualities.
The ones I often focus on are:
I crowdsourced this question in the hopes of getting more-complete answers and more-rounded perspectives. I found a range of perspectives, but all, more or less, focusing on soft skills rather than technical expertise in the law.
Many of the answers I received highlighted the importance of just having good interpersonal social skills:
Lenor Marquis Segal, senior counsel – global litigation, at Hitachi ABB Power Grids, said, “Customer service! Client focus! Listening ears! Intuition. Ability to see forest and trees simultaneously. Attention to detail. Big picture view. Work ethic. Professional ethics! Sense of humor. The human soul.” She explained, “Lawyers are very personal! Think about past relationships with counsel and decide what qualities you are looking for personally for a functional and successful engagement.”
Talar Herculian Coursey, general counsel at Vista Ford Lincoln, similarly noted: “When I was recruiting in private practice, I looked for someone with good eye contact, personable and humble.”
Devora L. Lindeman, partner at Greenwald Doherty LLP, explained, “Communication skills, do they really listen, do I think they will interact well with clients, can they think on their feet, did they prepare enough for the interview that they know something about me and our firm, are they passionate about employment law. To name a few.”
Likewise, Neil Greenbaum, partner at Greenbaum Law Firm, explained, “Competence (which, to me, doesn’t mean experience, but ability to learn) and somebody with whom I would like to work and could develop a rapport with. Pedigree is irrelevant.”
Others look for candidates who come informed, having done their homework as a job applicant:
Annie Little, attorney career coach at JD Nation, said, “Although I don’t hire lawyers, I do help them get hired. One pattern I’ve observed is that employers are looking for “informed enthusiasm.” In other words, they want to feel that the candidate understands the company’s business, culture, and overall industry — and that the candidate is excited about and demonstrated their ability to help the company succeed.”
Others sought more fundamental professional skills, like strengths in critical thinking and the ability to stay cool under pressure:
Critical thinking: David Fryman, principal attorney at Fryman PC, shared, “Critical thinking is crucial for me. I find a lawyer that can wrap their head around complicated legal issues will usually be a good fit for my team. Most other skills can be taught.” He explained, “I find out the kind of cases they worked on and get them to talk about them in detail. I also use writing samples because if you can’t write well, you can’t think well.”
Comfortable when things get messy: Andy Dale, general counsel, and head of strategic partnerships at Alyce said, “I like to look for: being comfortable when things get messy or unclear, and curiosity about work and life.” Likewise, Colin Levy, legal counsel at Lookout, “Communication skills, collaborative temperament, fluent in the language of business.”
Though the responses seem to vary at first glance, the truth is, they generally do cover soft skills, qualities that define us as humans before they define us as lawyers. Or, as Christon Halkiotis, criminal defense attorney, explained: “Common sense, ability to problem solve, and good instincts. “You can learn the rest.”
We too often think of being as a lawyer as being completely separate from being a human being — that you can be a good lawyer but a terrible person, or a terrible lawyer but a good person. Both of those are definitely true (and I’m sure we all know both types), the truth is the things that make good lawyers are not all that different from what makes us good people, or good employees in other professions.
Even if you don’t do your homework, being a good person will get you far — in life, and in law.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.
It’s hard to continue holding money back from people who were expecting it originally. Also, the environment for sought-after lawyers has never been more competitive than it is now. … It’s hard to hold on to your best people if you’re paying below market.
— Kent Zimmermann, a law firm management consultant at Zeughauser Group, commenting on the recent wave of law firms that have either rolled back their COVID-19 austerity measures or handed out bonuses to associates, mentioning that competition could play a role in why these things have occurred.
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.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Let’s play along here for a minute and pretend that everything we’re hearing from the New York Post and Rudy Giuliani about Vice President Biden and his son Hunter is 100 percent truthful and not an obvious Russian interference op embraced by a demented grifter and his craven enablers. Just for the sake of argument.
Hunter Biden, a California resident, hopped a plane back to Delaware so he could get drunk and drop off a waterlogged laptop at a repair shop in Wilmington. After which he promptly forgot all about the device, which happened to be full of incriminating emails and videos. Sure, Jan.
Noting that the laptop had a sticker on it from the Beau Biden Foundation, the store owner, who is legally blind, decided he’d better investigate the contents of the hard drive. At which point he discovered incriminating emails from a Ukrainian businessman at the infamous Burisma natural gas company thanking Hunter Biden for setting up a meeting with his father, and also, perhaps videos of Hunter Biden having sex and smoking crack. You bet!
So “in fear for his life” the store owner contacted Rudy Giuliani, the cyber guru who accidentally posted a video of himself cracking racist jokes last week, and Steve Bannon, who was recently indicted for defrauding a charity. Then Rudy and his illustrious compadre Robert Costello, last seen trying to undermine Michael Cohen’s cooperation agreement using Garth Brooks lyrics, “authenticated” the hard drive — although they won’t say how and they won’t allow anyone else to examine it.
“Bob checked everything out, made sure that the document was authentic. He then … authenticated the hard drive with a number of different tests he performed,” Giuliani told Fox’s Mark Levin. “And then he got a copy of it from the gentleman. And then he began cataloging it. And then he brought it to my attention.” Just embrace the crazy.
The FBI has had this computer since 2019, and no arrests have occurred — or even revelations of impropriety by either the Vice President or his son, which would surely have helped Donald Trump’s case during the impeachment hearing. But upon closer examination, it appears that there is child pornography on “Hunter Biden’s” hard drive, conveniently reinforcing the lunatic Q-anon theory that Democrats are a cabal of satanic pedophiles. (Incidentally, planting illicit images on its enemies computers is a common Russian FSB tactic.)
On Fox Business this morning, Senator Ron Johnson warned darkly that the FBI agent who signed the supposed subpoena works on child pornography cases (or he did back in 2012), so the obvious inference is that the FBI is hot on Hunter Biden’s trail for kiddie porn. Maria Bartiromo furrowed her brow in credulous concern. Let’s all be like Maria Bartiromo!
Then Giuliani’s buddy Chanel Rion of One America News Network assured us that something filthy is about to drop.
While Trump ally Wayne Allyn Root tweeted that “My sources- as high up as it gets- watched videos on Hunter’s laptops TODAY. Just told me point blank…no rumor…they saw Hunter raping & torturing little Chinese children.” And if you can’t trust a wingnut talkshow host, who can ya trust!
Meanwhile, Fox itself passed on this story (oh, hey, that’s Bartiromo’s shop!) because it didn’t meet the standards of the network that relentlessly flogged the Seth Rich conspiracy. And the author of the piece at the New York Post refused to put his byline on it because of glaring credibility problems.
But anyway, let’s just accept all of this as gospel truth for the moment.
We just have one question.
What the hell was Rudy Giuliani doing with child pornography? Mere possession of sexually exploitative images of children is a crime, and the law imposes an affirmative obligation on anyone who comes across child pornography, even accidentally, to alert law enforcement immediately. And yet the former mayor and federal prosecutor claims to have had a copy of Biden’s hard drive in his possession for weeks now, long enough to shop the story to Fox and the NY Post.
“I sleep with it at night,” he told The Daily Beast.
So when was he going to get rid of this contraband? For that matter, when were Steve Bannon and Robert Costello going to get around to fulfilling their legal obligation to report this crime? Is the blind computer repairman going to be charged with distribution of child pornography because he made multiple copies of “Hunter Biden’s” hard drive and passed them on to third parties?
Let’s take a wild shot in the dark that no one reported coming into possession of child pornography because it did not exist. There was no kiddie porn, and probably no laptop.
There’s just a steaming pile of bullshit, and no one should swallow any of it.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
The Above the Law archives are — unfortunately — filled with stories of law professors using the full n-word, both in classrooms and less formal settings. The reactions to being called out for their use of the racial slur have varied from refusing to apologize to flouting their academic freedom to use the offensive term to claiming reverse discrimination and at least one professor had a change of heart about the practice, but this is something else entirely.
For what is at least the first time in Above the Law’s coverage of law schools, a professor has voluntarily resigned after using the n-word in class. As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, an unnamed adjunct law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law used the n-word during a class on offensive language on Tuesday, October 13th. Then the next day the professor apologized and announced he was resigning from his position. Law school officials sent around an email detailing the situation:
“Early Tuesday morning, we learned that an adjunct professor at the law school used an offensive racial epithet (specifically, the “n word”) in the course of an academic class discussion on a particular case involving offensive language,” the email stated. “The instructor apologized and expressed his deep regret to the class, and informed the class at 1 p.m. today that he was resigning immediately from teaching at Pitt Law.
“We condemn the use of this word, and we believe that saying this word and words like it, even in an academic context, is deeply hurtful,” the noted added.
Above the Law is generally, firmly, in the camp of identifying which professors think it is acceptable to use the n-word in class, so that future students can insulate themselves from the practice. But it seems, in this case, the professor has decided the best course of action is removing himself from the classroom entirely.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
As we close out the year of the pandemic, Biglaw firms that instituted austerity measures thanks to the novel coronavirus and the economic uncertainties that came along with it are now walking them back in their entirety. Today, we have news on that front from Blank Rome.
Back in April, the firm — which found itself at No. 80 in the latest Am Law 100 rankings, posting $474,010,000 in gross revenue in 2019 — not only furloughed a small number of staff members, but it also moved forward with across-the-board pay cuts, slashing salaries up and down the ladder by 15 percent for everyone ranging from staff to partners. After about six months of going without their full salaries, we’ve now received word that the firm has rolled back its all of its cuts.
Employees at Blank Rome are now wondering if they’ll receive true-up payments that will make them whole. We’ve reached out to the firm for comment, and will provide an update here if and when we hear back.
If your firm or organization is slashing salaries or restoring previous cuts, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).
If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.
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.
Toobin in the days before Zoom. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
You know, 2020 has taken so much from us, that it’s nice to see the year give back now and then.
Jeffrey Toobin has long reigned as a preeminent legal analyst for major media because of his proficiency at taking confusing legal issues and explaining them to the public in a way that is simplistic and relatable because it’s also often totally superficial. He’s like one of those USA Today infographics for law — you know, where you can’t quite tell if you’re happy something’s explaining this in a way dumb people can understand or you’re sad that it’s trying to dumb this down so much.
Anyway, he apparently took a break from this work to flash his dick on a Zoom call.
The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin. Sources tell VICE it’s because he exposed himself during a Zoom call last week between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio.
Toobin said in a statement to Motherboard: “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers.”
“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video,” he added.
OK, we have questions.
So, um, he was taking the call without pants on? Because, look, taking a video call in boxers straight from waking up may not be totally professional but it’s not the worst thing in the world.
On the other hand, if Little Toobin escaped the corral it would merit embarrassment but not really an apology to your wife and family. Which makes you wonder if he was going full “Dicktaur” with a suit on top and nothing on the bottom. Which in turn makes you wonder… why? You’ve got to think that couldn’t be what’s going on and then you remember that this is the “Tiger Woods of Legal Journalism” we’re talking about and he’s no stranger to apologizing to his wife and family, having landed in a New York Times expose for his tangled affair with Casey Greenfield which involved a first-year associate single and pregnant with what people presume was Toobin’s baby. Some guys just can’t be contained.
We’ve had some nakedness on legal profession Zoom before, with a criminal hearing and a law school lecture but this is definitely the highest profile incident to date and unlikely to be topped — at least until the Supreme Court allows video.
Thank you, 2020. This year has been hard but at least you’ve not been a total dick.
New Yorker Suspends Jeffrey Toobin for Zoom Dick Incident [Vice]
Earlier: Is Jeffrey Toobin the Tiger Woods of Legal Journalism?
The New York Times Spills the Beans on the Casey Greenfield / Jeffrey Toobin Affair
Is This Attorney Naked During A Criminal Hearing?
Zoom Civil Procedure Conversation Interrupted By Naked Man
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.
Another day, another Biglaw firm’s associates are told to wait on COVID appreciation bonuses. Last month it seemed like all the elite in Biglaw would just have to spread their considerable wealth with associates in the fall, but now the tide has turned.
Let’s go through a little special fall bonus history, shall we? Cooley started the COVID appreciation bonus game, and it was exciting when Davis Polk came over the top of the Cooley scale. And firms quickly started piling on this new bonus scale. Weil did their own, seemingly unpopular, hours-based bonus, but, still, it was better than no bonuses at all.
But, sigh, Kirkland — the world’s richest law firm — begged off fall special bonuses, and seemed to be asking the market not to follow the trend. And Cravath seconded that. And that was… pretty much all she wrote. With the exception of Willkie Farr, the only bonus news Biglaw has had is a lot of nothing, as firms are just asking associates to wait for market bonuses.
So it really isn’t a surprise that Cahill announced on Friday that their associates will have to wait until the year-end bonuses to see any financial appreciation for their hard work during this difficult time. But the firm did note that, whenever 2020 bonuses happen, they’ll “reflect prevailing market bonus activity across the New York area (including covid related bonuses).” But what that means is up for debate. One tipster told Above the Law “Cahill is paying COVID bonuses!”
Others…. well they took a harsher view on the firm’s note:
The firm has repeatedly said this has been our best year ever throughout the year, so it’s kind of hard to understand why they are deciding to delay this, but not super surprising given how unbelievably cheap they are.
The least they could have done is respect us enough to give us an explicit answer as opposed to referring to “prevailing market bonus activity”. Nice seeing a “market leader” in compensation proudly announce they’re a second tier firm.
Hopefully when year-end bonuses roll around, Cahill associates will find the wait was worth it.
You can read the firm’s full announcement on the next page.
Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). 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.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
“The heresy of heresies was common sense.” — George Orwell, 1984
Just when you think you have seen everything, something else pops up that surprises you. Admit it — many of us have found ourselves in this place and being amused at the discovery. That said, rarely is this occurrence something so confounding, so jaw-droppingly unbelievable that it literally stops you in your tracks. I must admit, this happened to me this past week when I read that Yelp posted that it has rolled out a new feature that can only be described as wokeism gone wild — a consumer alert designed “to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially charged actions.” The alert? A new “Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert” (BARBA) to be placed on the Yelp page of the accused business. You read that correctly.
If you are thinking that this article is going to be political, relax in the knowledge that your worries are misplaced — I prefer to present my musings on law and technology so you can think about the issue presented and engage in (hopefully) legitimate discourse. For the record, I despise racism in all its forms — it is simply abhorrent to me. My focus in this article will be the problems and commensurate liability that Yelp has now willingly decided to foist upon itself by this ill-conceived policy, no matter how well-intentioned. I will leave the politics to the Beltway pundits.
Before I delve into the legal absurdity of this policy, let’s start with some additional context from Yelp on it. As Yelp states in its blog post about this new policy: “As the nation reckons with issues of systemic racism, we’ve seen in the last few months that there is a clear need to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially charged actions to help people make more informed spending decisions.” Under the guise of “ensur[ing] the trust and safety of [its] users” and “provid[ing] them with reliable content to inform their spending decisions, including decisions about whether they’ll be welcome and safe at a particular business,” Yelp has decided to take the step of flagging businesses with the scarlet letter of “racist.” Here is the crux of their new policy.
If someone associated with a business is accused of, or the target of, racist behavior, we will place a Public Attention Alert on the business page to warn consumers that the business may be receiving an influx of reviews as a result of increased attention. For businesses accused of overtly racist actions, where we can link to a news article, we will escalate our warning with the Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert. (emphasis added).
In sum, if someone merely accuses a business of racist behavior, the business gets a Public Attention Alert; if the accusation rises to the level of “overtly racist actions,” then they get the dreaded BARBA.
No matter how well-intentioned, Yelp’s execution leaves a lot to be desired. Here are three big reasons that Yelp may have taken on much more than social justice in its new policy:
1. Mere accusations are not enough. Perhaps there most chilling part of this policy is that accusations can trigger an initial alert, and accusation-plus-media article can trigger the BARBA. Anyone who follows the litigation involving Yelp reviews knows that businesses have sued reviewers for defamatory reviews (prompting the passage of the Consumer Review Fairness Act in 2016). Businesses taking exception to negative reviews is one thing, but being labeled as exhibiting “racist behavior” takes things to a whole new level. Without question, applying the BARBA to a business will impact the bottom line of that business, all premised upon an accusation ostensibly corroborated by “resounding evidence” supported by an article from a “credible media outlet.” What does all that mean? How is the evidence authenticated? What is a “credible media outlet? What qualifies as “”resounding evidence”? I find it hard to believe that Yelp did not consider these points extensively and the likelihood of litigation that will be brought against them for applying a BARBA to a business. And as you will see, Section 230 immunity may not be Yelp’s friend under such circumstances.
2. Reliance on Section 230 immunity is misplaced. As I have written numerous times before (and most recently here), Section 230 provides a broad immunity to online service providers from civil liability for damages arising out of defamatory, tortious, and even illegal content that its users post onto the platform (such as third-party comments posted in response to an article posted on a social media platform). It also protects such providers from civil liability for damages for the moderation or restriction of content posted on the platform. The problem here is that the provider is the one posting the content, making its own editorial decision based on the “evidence.” Although current Section 230 jurisprudence continues to reflect broad immunity for online service providers, the current political climate has brought this issue to the fore, and it is highly unlikely that actions taken by such platforms to moderate speech will remain untouched (let alone content in the nature of a BARBA). In fact, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recently announced that the FCC is asserting jurisdiction of the interpretation of Section 230 and will be promulgating rulemaking to address the scope of immunity conferred under the statute. I don’t know about you, but when the FCC chairman states that such providers “do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters,” I would not be changing policies that rely on current Section 230 protections.
3. Subjective moderation without objective guidance equals trouble. Odd as it may seem, Yelp may arguably be a victim of its own new policy. As reported in the Tampa Bay Times, searches for “dog meat” brought up Korean restaurants and “cat meat” brought up Chinese restaurants. “Credible media outlet”? Check. Ostensible evidence (let alone accusation) of racist conduct? Seems like it. Before you jump to the conclusion that Yelp was being overtly racist and should BARBA itself, it seems that these unfortunate search results stemmed from its own algorithm and how it “learns” from user-generated reviews. But that is the point — although Yelp is not relying on algorithms to make this determination but on content moderators to make these subjective determinations, they are doing so based upon fuzzy criteria and opaque guidance. Any way Yelp approaches this issue, it seems impossible to avoid the prospect that many of its business users will be deeply distrustful of this new policy without more guidance.
It does not take a stretch of the imagination to realize that this new policy will be quickly tested and will create some significant legal headaches for Yelp. Why are third-party Yelp reviews that may flag potential racism not enough? Yelp claims that “[m]aintaining the trust consumers have in Yelp is a top priority.” Unfortunately, this policy in its current form is rife with problems and can easily foster consumer distrust in the Yelp platform if not executed properly. Time will tell whether they succeed.
Tom Kulik is an Intellectual Property & Information Technology Partner at the Dallas-based law firm of Scheef & Stone, LLP. In private practice for over 20 years, Tom is a sought-after technology lawyer who uses his industry experience as a former computer systems engineer to creatively counsel and help his clients navigate the complexities of law and technology in their business. News outlets reach out to Tom for his insight, and he has been quoted by national media organizations. Get in touch with Tom on Twitter (@LegalIntangibls) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/technologylawyer), or contact him directly at tom.kulik@solidcounsel.com.