Author: TSA Press

The Milbank compensation scale isn’t just for Biglaw firms. Elite litigation boutiques are more than happy to show their associates the money. Now that we’re a full month into bonus season, we’ve already seen boutique firms that have either matched or exceeded the current market compensation dictated by Milbank and affirmed by Cravath.

Today, we’ve received word on yet another boutique firm that will be paying big-time bonuses to its associates. The firm in question is Greenberg Gross, which is doing a straight Milbank match. Bonuses at Greenberg Gross will be paid to associates on January 15, 2020. In case you’ve somehow managed to forget, this is what the 2019 bonus scale looks like:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012 and senior – $100,000

If you recall, back in 2017, Greenberg Gross was beating the market on bonuses. This time around, the firm is offering additional bonus cash to associates based on “extraordinary performance.” As noted in the bonus memo, congratulations to everyone at the firm for their “magnificent work and dedication.”

(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Greenberg Gross.)

Remember everyone, 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 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 all of your help!

---

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.

Honestly, I don’t even know what the hell that was.

The House Judiciary Committee is holding impeachment hearings today, arguably to consider whether to bring impeachment charges against President Donald Trump. Heading into today, I was led to believe that the point was to bring in witnesses, significantly House Intelligence Committee lawyer Daniel Goldman, to explain the 300-page “Schiff report” that details the impeachable offenses committed by Trump.

If there was a legal point behind today’s hearing, it was unclear and useless. If there was a political point for the hearings, the Republican minority quickly ruined it. Their entire game, led by Republican Doug Collins, has been to scream, obfuscate, and make the hearings seems disorderly with useless and disingenuous parliamentary procedures.

For the most part, the Republican “strategy” has worked. I mean, to the extent that knocking over other people’s Legos at playtime is a “strategy.” The Republicans are fighting a guerrilla war here — they don’t have to “win” any ground, they just have to harass and frustrate the opposition. Doug Collins, Louie Gohmert, Jim Sensenbrenner, and the objectively detestable Matt Gaetz: Their interruptions and protestations are just designed to cast aspersions on anybody or anything that is not Donald Trump.

In response, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler has, like, a gavel. He bangs it sometimes. He asks that Republicans stop their shenanigans, but doesn’t have a lot of power to make them stop. When Republicans like Devin Nunes tried to pull this crap on the House Intelligence Committee, Chairman Adam Schiff was ready with an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, able to recite them from memory, and able to calmly punt misbehaving Republicans into the Sun.

Nadler doesn’t have anywhere approaching Schiff’s command of the proceedings. Nadler knows the objections are baseless, but sometimes he lets them talk, sometimes not. Most often he starts to overtalk them, only to later decide or be told that he has to let them actually make their objections on the record, then proceed to a tabling vote, during which the Republicans always ask for the entire roll call.

Nadler also did a weird thing with House Judiciary counsel Barry Berke. Both Nadler and Collins had opening statements. Then both were allowed to to cede their first 30 minutes of “questioning” to counsel. The counsels’ statements were in lieu of statements from the committee chairs and ranking member. Normally, you’d see such statements made from the dais, but Nadler had Berke (and Republican Counsel Stephen Castor) speak from the witness table. This lead to some confusion — confusion that Republicans on the committee had no reason to be confused about in good faith, but viewers at home might have — about whether Berke and Castor were “witnesses” (they were not), or making opening statements for the committee (they were).

THEN, the committee called witnesses. It was decided that the witnesses for today’s (whatever the hell this was) hearing were to be the lawyers who prepared the House Intelligence reports. For Republicans, that was Steve Castor, so Castor just stayed right where he was when it was time for “witnesses.” But for Democrats, the House Intelligence lawyer was Dan Goldman. So Goldman replaced Berke at the witness table. BUT THEN, the Committee decided to let their opening questions be handled by counsel. Republicans chose George Mason Law graduate Ashley Hurt Callen for their time, but Democrats choose… Barry Berke. For questioning, Berke was back up on the dais.

Technically, Berke was performing the same role, speaking and questioning on behalf of Committee Chairman Nadler, both times, from both different positions. But the confusion allowed Republicans to pitch an actual fit throughout.

That’s the thing about fighting asymmetrical wars. Republicans have no arguments, but when you give them something to argue about, they’re going to throw up histrionics to the fullest extent. Schiff handled it with the calm and relative smoothness of a veteran parent who is used to baby Republicans spreading Gerber’s all over the dining room. Nadler handled it like a manager who is exasperated that kids started a food fight in his restaurant.

Whatever, none of it matters. Democrats are going to impeach. Republicans are going to cry foul on state-run propaganda TV. Nothing actually happened today. The toilet has already been flushed. Today was just another swirl around the bowl for American democracy.

---

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Three weeks ago, we invited readers to vote to select the 15 legal technology startups that will get to participate in the fourth-annual Startup Alley at the American Bar Association’s TECHSHOW conference, which is Feb. 26 to 29, 2020, in Chicago. Vote you did. Voting ended Friday night and we received a total of 38,715 votes.

We are now pleased to announce the winners. These 15 startups will be provided space at a steeply discounted cost to exhibit their product or service in the special Startup Alley located within TECHSHOW’s exhibit hall. In addition, each startup will face off in an opening night pitch competition judged by an audience of TECHSHOW attendees. The winner of the pitch competition wins a package of marketing and advertising prizes, including a free both at the 2021 TECHSHOW.

Here are the winners in order of their vote tallies. Descriptions were provided by each company. The full ballot with more details on each company is here.

1. Woodpecker. Woodpecker is an AI-enabled legal document automation platform that helps lawyers get back to doing what they love. Our platform enables firms to automatically turn frequently used legal documents into standardized “smart-templates,” all from the comfort of Microsoft Word with no implementation or training overhead.
2. FirmTRAK. FirmTRAK seamlessly integrates with your practice management system and other strategic vendors, automatically generating diagnostic and predictive KPI visualizations designed to accelerate performance, increase efficiencies and drive profits.
3. Proxy. NMBL Technologies was founded by a diverse group of Am Law 100 lawyers and technologists. We recently released our first product, Proxy. Proxy is a cloud-based legal workflow management tool that supports the more effective adoption of legal operations concepts. Proxy optimizes four key day-to-day legal functions: (1) organizing and managing legal tasks; (2) delegation and status tracking; (3) visual prioritization; and (4) effective reporting and search.
4. LawCo. LawCo was developed to efficiently and ethically solve the access to justice problem by creating a way to connect live leads to lawyers instantly. LawCo’s platform matches people in need of legal help with lawyers on-demand, in real-time, and at no connecting cost to the consumer. With no monthly commitment fee to the attorney and no lengthy sales pitch, we built LawCo for small firms and solo lawyers, seeking to cost-effectively and rapidly build their books of business.
5. Lawgood. Lawgood is a web app that makes it easy for lawyers to draft and review contracts by allowing them to adjust important clause language with the push of a button and tap into crowdsourced best practices and trends.
6. Josef. Josef is a legal automation platform that enables lawyers and legal teams to create and launch their own conversational bots. Lawyers have already built more than 5,000 automation tools on the platform to streamline processes, improve client experience and eliminate repetitive tasks. Bots built on Josef automate lawyer-client interactions, draft documents and provide legal guidance and advice.
7. DueCourse. DueCourse is a learning platform that empowers attorneys to take control of their career by helping them map and advance their professional development through personalized learning. We’re building an adaptive learning platform that designs personalized development paths, allows lawyers and professional development teams to track their progress, and pushes incremental, custom content that encourages consistent learning and professional growth.
8. Justice For Me. Justice for Me (JFM) exists to close the justice gap. JFM removes the financial obstacles that prevent clients and attorneys from connecting, by using technology and a network of lawyers and financial partners that work with clients who cannot afford traditional legal representation. We provide a line of credit that gives clients affordable monthly payments and we pay attorneys quickly and directly, simplifying billing and collections. We enable customers and attorneys to focus on outcomes.
9. SimplyConvert. SimplyConvert is the first automated intake legal case qualification platform powered by an “all-knowing” AI chatbot. Casey, our chatbot, is currently versed in the legal criteria of 50 practice areas/litigations and her knowledge has no limit. Casey is also backed by a robust CRM that automates the entire legal intake process from initial conversation to signed contract, resulting in increased efficiency and conversion rates on signed cases.
10. Discovery Genie. Discovery Genie solves the document production problem facing 750,000+ lawyers and paralegals litigating cases involving 35,000 pages or less: reviewing, producing, organizing and indexing emails, attachments and efiles. The Genie’s lawyer-designed system automates conversion to PDF, Bates numbering, privilege-log generation, and more, saving 75-90% of the time, cost and tedium of using Acrobat — but without the overkill costs and complexity of an e-discovery system. No IT department needed.
11. Intaker. Intaker uses artificial intelligence to capture and qualify prospective clients for consumer law firms on autopilot and 24/7; saving attorneys time, money and frustration.
12. Parley Pro. Parley Pro is the contract management platform that automates documents and workflows around them. It is the only solution that enables real-time, multi-party contract negotiation powered by our proprietary, modular product design and architecture. This approach provides unprecedented visibility into a contract at a clause level. In addition, Parley Pro maintains a detailed audit trail for all contract changes throughout negotiations and after, preserving the history of all negotiations.
13. ECFX. ECFX is a one-stop, enterprise-class solution for electronic court filing (ECF). ECF is a time-consuming and complex process that varies from court to court. ECFX solves this problem by providing a SaaS B2B platform that automates the processing of receipts of service and the filing of documents with the court with firmware administration and control. ECFX obtains huge efficiencies and cost savings for the firm, eliminates the risk of missed receipts, and reduces filing rejections.
14. Billseye. Say for instance you’re working out, running an errand, or picking up your daughter from daycare and you receive a call from an important client. Do you stop what you are doing to document the call? I bet you’re too busy to stop and you end up losing hours of billable time as a result. This dilemma can be solved with one touch. Download Billseye for automatic, real-time call tracking, documenting, and billing solutions that can integrate into your existing case management software.
15. Knovi. Knovi was created by attorneys for attorneys to ease their caseload and bring an influx of valuable leads. Using artificial intelligence, Knovi matches clients with the right legal representation. Knovi then streamlines client communications with messaging and video chat capabilities, all the way from inquiry to settlement. An intuitive, built-in CRM documents the case from start to finish, so attorneys can focus on what truly matters: their client’s case.

Note to winners: You will be receiving emails from us with more details and event logistics.

Congratulations to all!

---

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).

No one ever said suing a Biglaw firm was going to be pretty. That’s a lesson the six named plaintiffs taking on Jones Day found out pretty quickly. The latest development has the Biglaw firm seeking sanction against the plaintiffs and their lawyers.

For those who need the primer on the case, the purported class-action gender discrimination case alleges a “fraternity culture” at the firm and unequal pay behind the firm’s notorious “black box” compensation system. There are currently six named plaintiffs in the case (there had been seven, but one anonymous plaintiff dropped out rather than reveal her name). The plaintiffs are spread throughout the country — Nilab Rahyar Tolton, Andrea Mazingo, Meredith Williams, and Jaclyn Stahl worked in California offices of the firm, while Saira Draper was an associate in Atlanta, and Katrina Henderson was in the firm’s New York office — and a core allegation is that the same black box compensation systems kept their pay below that of men working at the firm.

But the firm takes issue with the way the plaintiffs have, thus far, attempted to show the unequal pay. In filings they’ve pointed to Jones Day’s statement about paying market salaries, which they define as being in line with the Cravath scale, and the theory is that female associates who make below that mark are being unfairly compensated, as discussed in the deposition of plaintiff Meredith Williams:

“So just sort of combining Jones Day’s representation that top performing candidates are making market, neither myself nor any of the women I know are making market, I have to assume that Jones Day’s representation was truthful and someone is making market, and I would understand that that would be the male associates,” Williams testified.

But, as reported by Law.com, Jones Days takes issue with this theory, calling it “deeply flawed logic” and “pure speculation,” and alleging plaintiffs are aware of facts that contradict that theory:

“Their principal theory of the case—that the proof of discrimination is the fact that plaintiffs did not earn “Cravath scale”—was sophistry on its own terms,” the Jones Day attorneys said. ”And, to make matters worse, plaintiffs knew facts that contradicted their theory and knew no facts that supported it.”

The firm also says the plaintiffs’ theory does not take into account productivity and performance reviews, and how plaintiffs’ performance, not their gender, allegedly impacted their compensation.

In their request for sanctions, Jones Day also takes aim at what they deem a lack of research about the claims and, allegedly, not speaking with similarly situated men at the firm:

“No policy could have precluded plaintiffs’ counsel from contacting the alleged comparators, for example, to determine whether there was a good-faith basis for claiming that they were paid more than plaintiffs for equal work,” the Jones Day attorneys said. “Instead, counsel ‘fire[d] shots into the proverbial dark,’ making a host of baseless allegations which plaintiffs then touted in the media in a (largely unsuccessful) effort to drum up new plaintiffs.”

And though the plaintiffs’ lawyers at Sanford Heisler Sharp have not yet released a formal statement on the motion, attached to the sanctions motion is correspondence that reveals the plaintiffs’ position on the matter. They point to the “wealth of circumstantial evidence” about life at the firm including “gendered comments, gendered criticism, discriminatory allocation of work, discriminatory performance evaluations, and, as a result, severely limited advancement opportunities for women.” They also say Jones Day’s lack of compensation data to back up their point is damning:

“You are in possession of all of the relevant evidence and have known of Plaintiffs’ allegations for more than a year. We expect that you have long since analyzed the firm’s pay data and evaluated the degree to which men and women are paid comparably. We are confident that if you had a basis to deny plaintiffs’ allegations of firmwide pay discrimination you would do so, and that if you had evidence to disprove those allegations, you would produce it.”

We’ll be waiting — with popcorn — for the next development in the highly contested litigation.

Earlier coverage: Jones Day Hit With Explosive Gender Discrimination Case
Jones Day Facing Second Class-Action Lawsuit Over ‘Fraternity Culture’ Of The Firm
Partner Whose Behavior Features Prominently In Jones Day Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Is Out At The Firm
Jones Day Wants Gender Discrimination Plaintiffs To Reveal Themselves To The Public
Plaintiffs Throw Shade At Jones Day In Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Jones Day Gets Yet Another Plaintiff
Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Jones Day Dropped — Well, One Of Them At Least
Jones Day Gender Discrimination Case Spreads To New York
Amended Gender Discrimination Case Brings The Real Scoop On Jones Day Compensation
Jones Day To Gender Discrimination Plaintiffs: You Don’t Deserve To Be Paid On The Cravath Scale
Plaintiff Backs Out Of Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Jones Day Rather Than Reveal Her Name
Plaintiffs In Jones Day Gender Discrimination Case Want It To Be A Class Action

---

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).

After a lifetime working his way up the rungs at HSBC, John Flint managed to muck things up so royally that he was escorted out after just 18 months in the top job. Still, five months later the stench in the boardroom is so great that a number of other longtime veterans infected by it now have to go, as well.

The British bank confirmed that Samir Assaf, its longtime global banking and markets chief executive, will leave his job in March and become chairman of corporate and institutional banking…. Other changes include the departure of a 14-year veteran, Marc Moses, who is leaving the bank’s board and his job as chief risk officer next month, to be replaced by Pam Kaur, head of wholesale market and credit risk. The bank said Chief Operating Office Andy Maguire will give up his role as of January, having helped HSBC find his replacement, former Hewlett Packard executive John Hinshaw.

There is overwhelming evidence that President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to use presidential power to pressure a foreign government to help him distort an American election, for his personal and political benefit, at the direct expense of national security interests as determined by Congress. His conduct is precisely the type of threat to our democracy that the founders feared when they included the remedy of impeachment in the Constitution.

We take no position on whether the President committed a crime. But conduct need not be criminal to be impeachable. The standard here is constitutional; it does not depend on what Congress has chosen to criminalize.

If the House of Representatives impeached the President for the conduct described here and the Senate voted to remove him, they would be acting well within their constitutional powers. Whether President Trump’s conduct is classified as bribery, as a high crime or misdemeanor, or as both, it is clearly impeachable under our Constitution.

— an excerpt from an open letter to Congress signed by hundreds of law professors from schools across the country, sponsored by the government watchdog Protect Democracy, which reaches the conclusion that there is “overwhelming evidence that President Trump betrayed his oath of office” and that his conduct was “clearly impeachable.”

At this time, 768 law professors from schools like Columbia; Yale; Stanford; Harvard; Duke; Emory; Georgetown; Berkeley; University of Florida; University of Pennsylvania; Albany; University of Texas; Rutgers; and the University of Georgia have signed the letter.

---

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.

Corporate law departments (CLDs) are taking a cue from their colleagues in other departments and have become more rigorous in their business processes to gain better control of their legal spend. This shift started with e-billing, which remains the most effective legal operations technology according to respondents to this year’s survey. However, CLDs are now seeking tools that supplement e-billing and help them meet their spend targets. For example, this survey shows that 20 percent of companies are already using artificial intelligence (AI) for their billing and spend management. Total Spend Management from Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions is an innovative approach that adds to the tools CLDs have for running efficiently. The following are a few areas where this kind of advanced technology can help improve legal spend management.

Invoice Intake

Many invoices, especially from smaller outside counsel firms, arrive as paper or non-LEDES-compliant electronic files, such as PDF or image files. These invoices can’t be adjusted or appealed with automated e-billing tools. In addition, the data in them can’t be analyzed or reported on. Manually keying this information into the e-billing platform is an option, but is inefficient and prone to human error. This is an area where AI technology can execute a time-intensive task, allowing staff members to stay focused on work that yields greater value. AI can automatically capture and convert non-LEDES invoices without manual data entry, saving hours.

Invoice Review

Traditionally, the painstaking job of reviewing law firm invoices has fallen to the in-house attorneys assigned to a matter or central invoice review teams. Due to limited time, competing priorities, and the drudgery of scrutinizing every line item, invoices often are not reviewed as carefully as they should be. This leads to spend leakage and low compliance with billing guidelines. AI technology can analyze huge numbers of invoices quickly and flag line items that need careful attention so that human reviewers can focus these, instead of wading through every line. Here, technology does the grunt work, and people are able to spend their time efficiently.

Outside Counsel Selection

It’s common for legal teams to make outside counsel selections based on who they traditionally use or personal relationships and good impressions. But this leaves CLDs open to selecting the wrong partner, instead of the one most likely to deliver the results they want. Predictive AI offers a more reliable alternative. An AI algorithm can analyze information from past cases and performance and make a recommendation as to which firm would likely be the best fit, with no need to make a guess or rely on a gut feeling.

Many CLDs have already begun to adopt portions of the Total Spend. Many CLDs have already started to adopt portions of the Total Spend Management Approach, identifying processes and technologies that can be improved upon to better control legal spend., identifying processes and technologies that can be improved upon to better control legal spend. The key to success is being aware of the technology that is available and prioritizing the opportunities for improvement.

While less catchy than “I’ve got a plan,” Elizabeth Warren’s campaign has put considerable effort into making transparency an additional pillar of her run. She’s put out a decade’s worth of tax returns and spends a good deal of time subtly and indirectly reminding folks that Joe Biden spent decades as the “Senior Senator from Visa” and Mayor Pete just refuses to talk about whole years of his life like he’s a Tom Hardy character returning to claim an inheritance. And mostly what Warren’s gotten for all her efforts is a bunch of undeserved flack.

The lesson is, to quote Homer Simpson, never try.

The latest public dragging she’s getting stems from her decision to release around 30 years of records relaying her legal work as a bankruptcy expert. Ironically, it’s a move she was prompted to take because of attacks from Buttigieg who started aggressively deflecting from his own opacity by calling out his rivals — a tactic that might be unsavory but empirically works on the mainstream media as evidenced by the mere existence of the current administration. So when Warren released her records, she got coverage like this from the Washington Post:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned nearly $2 million consulting for corporations and financial firms, records show

An alternative title not prepared to cater to the legally illiterate would be “Nationally Recognized Bankruptcy Specialist Earned Around $60K/Year As A Lawyer.” Social media is encouragingly pushing back at the mainstream narrative by pointing out that this story only seems to prove that Warren was underpaid for three decades of legal work proving that there are still a lot of people in the country who have a vague clue about the law. Unfortunately, the Twittersphere isn’t backed by a publishing empire.

Here we are yet again with the press trying to gin up outrage by trying to play up how much money attorneys make for their work. Yet this is a uniquely stupid episode in this ongoing trend because as journalistically irresponsible as it is to get breathless over a Biglaw partner billing a few hundred bucks an hour, it’s even dumber to try to tag someone as a hypocritical plutocrat for making $1.9 million over 30 years when there are partners making $1.9 million every six months that wouldn’t even get a society page blurb.

The most charitable reading of this coverage is that even if the amounts are disingenuously hyped, it’s significant that an attorney so fixated on standing up to corporate greed would take work from corporations:

For instance, the documents released Sunday show that Warren made about $80,000 from work she did for creditors in the energy company Enron’s bankruptcy and $20,000 as a consultant for Dow Chemical, a company that was trying to limit the liability it faced from silicone breast implants that were made by a connected firm.

Enron’s creditors may have been corporations themselves, but representing them is actually in line with Warren’s central thesis that unregulated corporate greed screws people over. The breast implant work dealt with Dow buying out another company and, almost assuredly, had to do with who was on the hook for damages, as opposed to whether or not someone was on the hook. That’s pretty standard legal work. We’ve addressed before the limits of blaming attorneys for their clients. There’s not really a contradiction between arguing for Bankruptcy Code reform and counseling folks on how the current Code works.

No, what this coverage is all about is a cheap bid to turn one candidate’s transparency against them by playing to prejudices about the value of lawyers through misleading headlines.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned nearly $2 million consulting for corporations and financial firms, records show [Washington Post]

---

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

It’s that time of year again where we look back, take stock of the year in law, count the bonuses rolling in and order another round. With that in mind, we’re throwing a holiday party here in New York, and you’re invited!

So, if you want to grab some drinks and food on ATL, RSVP here! This year we’ll have our party on December 10th at Houndstooth Pub on 8th Avenue at 37th Street.

Want to brag about your bonus? Share a war story? Take a break from studying for finals? Catch up with your favorite (it’s me, I know it is) ATL editor? All are welcome!

Here are the details:

When: Tuesday, December 10th
Where: 520 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10018
Time: 6pm – whenever we stop drinking

Remember to RSVP soon to guarantee your spot and we’ll see you in December.

---

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).

“Lawyers are risk-averse.” It’s a generality that I’ve heard repeated constantly throughout my career. But as the rare lawyer (yep, that’s me!) attracted to risk — an allegedly rare breed — I’m often puzzled. Law demands creative thinking and innovative solutions — how can you have either of these things without taking risks?

When I hear this generalization, I wonder: Am I not enough of a lawyer? Am I thrill-seeking techie who dresses up in lawyer’s clothing and pretends to be one every day? Or, is your generalization is just that: An inaccurate generalization? In the end, I always conclude the latter. After all, it’s usually easier to conclude that “it’s you, not me” in most situations.

Jokes aside, predicting a personality trait of a group member is a challenging and at best a crude undertaking. Even if your assessment of the group is correct on average, it may or may not be for any one member. And sometimes the standard deviation is so large and there are so many outliers that even talking about averages is meaningless.

Most importantly, just like any group of human beings, individual lawyers don’t fit neatly into a box. Within a group, there are scattered gems of varieties — different personalities, experiences, and talents. Why not enjoy the full spectrum of legal experiences? Why not enjoy the richness of each interaction and get to know each person for who they are, not for who they’re not or for who you expect them to be?

While “lawyers are risk-averse” is and has always been an easy cliché, my experiences in law have also included meeting very interesting people who happen to practice law. After all, as a tech lawyer, I know as well as anyone that the law is a dynamic, constantly evolving body of knowledge — there must be someone embracing change, newness, and risks behind it.

---

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. Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. Olga also co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated to preparing women in-house attorneys to become general counsels and legal leaders, and WISE to help female law firm partners become rainmakers. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can email Olga at olga@olgamack.com or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack.