Author: TSA Press

I think it’s inappropriate to be having ‘what if’ discussions about Justice Ginsburg’s health. But the fact that the left is talking so much about Justice Ginsburg demonstrates her importance to them as a symbol and the intensity of the kinds of campaigns they would wage over Supreme Court vacancies in the future.

— Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, commenting on the fact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health has been a constant topic of conversation among both Democrats and Republicans in the lead up to the upcoming presidential election. Leo has headed up numerous GOP Supreme Court selections, including that of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

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.

Every year, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) releases its handy and incredibly useful Technology Survey. This year, the full survey will be released in late October 2019, but if you’d like a sneak peak, the Executive Summary is currently available here.

This year’s Survey is based on the input of 537 firms and provides a wealth of interesting insight into the legal technology focus and spend of firms large and small. According to the Summary, 31 percent of responding firms were from firms with less than 50 attorneys, 37 percent were from firms with less than 150, 18 percent were from firms with less than 350, and 15 percent were from with more than 350.

At the very outset, it was clear that change was afoot. Jim McCue, the author of the Summary, commented on the notable trend of firms taking the long view and implementing change with a view toward the future: “(L)ooking forward, many firms are embracing technologies with less than immediate results and instead offer long term promise.”

In my experience, law firm leaders are often focused on short-term goals, whether financial, technology-related, or otherwise, so to learn that firms appear to be making technology decisions with the long game in mind is a promising development, to say the least.

One interesting, albeit not unexpected, finding was that mobile technologies have been most impactful for the firms surveyed. Specifically, the survey respondents were asked to share the single project completed in the past year that had the greatest impact, and the top result was “improving mobility and the security needs that come with mobility.”

Mobile technologies have been a driving force since the release of the iPhone in 2007, and have dramatically affected — and infiltrated — all aspects of our culture. Accordingly, it’s not surprising to learn that law firms have necessarily focused on adapting their technology infrastructure and procedures to incorporate the secure use of mobile tools by their employees.

Another notable trend is the increase in the use of cloud computing software by responding firms, with 72 percent of firms predicting that their use of cloud computing software would increase in the coming year. And, when respondents were asked to identify a technology that would “create significant change or be a major factor in the legal technology profession,” the top response was cloud computing, with 39 percent of respondents choosing it. As explained in the Survey, these findings comported with the four year trend of firms predicting an increase in the adoption of cloud-based tools.

Some of the top areas where firms reported that they were most likely to use cloud computing software were payroll, email (security, archiving, storage), document management systems (DMS),  and time and billing. 

Seventy percent of law firms reported that they had already migrated their payroll systems to the cloud, and 7 percent were planning to do so within the next year. Sixty-six percent already used email security cloud-based solutions and 10 percent planned to do so within a year.  Email archiving was already in the cloud for 46 percent of firms and 22 percent had plans to migrate it to the cloud within the year. Thirty-three percent already had email in the cloud and 39 percent expected to have it in the cloud over the next year. Twenty-five percent of firms reported that they’d moved their DMS to the cloud and 31% had plans to do so within a year. Finally, 14 percent of firms reported that their time and billing systems were cloud-based, and 17 percent planned to moved to a cloud solution by next year.

The Survey also addressed the cybersecurity measures taken by law firms. Specifically, survey respondents were asked the following question: “Besides encryption and traditional desktop security software, which of the following security measures does your firm use?”

The top responses included:

• Removing desktop administrative rights (77 percent)
• Adding multi-factor authentication to remote access/web services (77 percent)
• Phish testing of users (68 percent)
• Increase in intrusion prevention systems (63 percent)

And last, but not least, when respondents were asked to identify “the top three technology issues or annoyances within your firm,” change cropped up again, repeatedly.  In fact, it appeared in three of the top four responses. Thirty-seven percent cited “Change: users acceptance of change” as the top issue, followed by 28 percent citing “Change: keeping up with new versions of software,” and finally, Twenty-eight percent cited “Change: managing expectations (user and management).”

In other words, change is the name of the game when it comes to law firms and legal technology in 2019; it’s never easy, but it’s necessary. And, as the majority of respondents acknowledged, it’s all about the long game: embracing change leads to long term benefits — and what’s not to like about that?

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

There’s no denying that Kirkland & Ellis is one the nation’s greatest law firms. Not only does the firm offer a compelling combination of prestige and profitability, but now it’s shattering the market on partners.

Earlier this week, the firm announced its largest-ever partner class of 141, up from 2017’s class of 97 and 2018’s class of 122.

But how many of these new partners will enter the firm’s equity ranks? Last year, the firm had 430 equity partners and 566 nonequity partners. American Lawyer has some information on the firm’s tiered-partnership structure:

The firm is also known for an “up or out” approach to partnership, which means large-scale promotions to its partnership don’t translate into a top-heavy structure.

Back in 2012 The American Lawyer found that about 20% of Kirkland’s income partners became equity partners after they finished a roughly four-year eligibility requirement. A more recent look at promotions at Kirkland from 2013 to 2017 found that only about 43% of the attorneys promoted during that period were still at the firm by the end of it, although the percentages varied widely from class to class.

As far as diversity is concerned, Kirkland’s new partnership class (seen here), is looking mighty male and mighty white. Forty-six of the firm’s new partners are women, and minorities seem to be disturbingly underrepresented. You’d think that with a group this large, a little more attention would have been paid here.

It’s important for firms to know that these subjects don’t go unnoticed. Diversity and inclusion matter — to a firm’s current lawyers, to potential recruits, and perhaps most importantly, to clients.

Kirkland Announces New Partners [Kirkland & Ellis]
Kirkland Announces Partner Mega-Class With 141 Promotions [American Lawyer]

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.

Back in April, you joined us in Chicago for the inaugural Law Jobs for Humans event, the first-of-its-kind legal professional development conference aimed at helping those seeking a non-traditional career path in the legal field. The event was kind of a smash, if we do say so ourselves.

Given how much you loved it (and how much we loved it, to be honest), we’ve decided it’s time for round two. Announcing Law Jobs for Humans 2.0, our renewed and improved event coming at you on November 15th in New York City! Not only are we going to bringing together innovative employers, legal career mavericks, aspirational law students, and legal education boundary pushers, we’re giving you more of what you liked about engaging with them – more hearing directly from the innovators and more opportunities for alt-legal speed dating and accidental collisions (the kind you don’t need a lawyer for!) 

If you’re trying to find your way in the new legal professional landscape, if you want to be, or if your traditional law job isn’t quite where you want to be right now, this event is for you. Join us in New York City on November 15th and explore the new frontier of radical legal jobs – book your tickets before it’s too late!

The disgraced former co-chair of Willkie Farr, Gordon Caplan, has been sentenced to one month in jail. You likely recall the former big shot mergers & acquisitions partner got caught in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, eventually pleading guilty to paying $75,000 to “college coaches” turned government cooperating witnesses in a scheme to have a professional alter his daughter’s answers on the ACT in order to get her a higher score. Now U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has sentenced him to time behind bars — a far cry from the top of Biglaw.

Before Judge Talwani handed down the sentence, Caplan expressed remorse and said the real victims were those who played by the college admissions rules:

“I disregarded the values I’ve had throughout my life,” Caplan told U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani just before she sentenced him. He said “the real victims of this crime are the kids and parents who play by the rules in the college admissions process.”

Caplan had previously asked to be spared any time behind bars — or if he had to serve time, for it to be a limited sentence of 14 days, similar to the sentence of Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman — while the government had requested he spent eight months in jail. Caplan’s sentence is in the mid-low-end range of those who have already pleaded guilty in the college admissions scandal. On the low end is Huffman’s 14 days, and so far, the high end has been four-month sentences to Stephen Semprevivo and Devin Sloane.

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).

Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona is a human rebuttal to the concept of a meritocracy. He’s a rich pud who made his money selling ice cream — which doesn’t take a rocket scientist because it’s f**king ice cream and that’s basically like selling crack without having to invest in a security team. Warren Buffet runs an ice cream business as a lark with his pocket change, that’s how unchallenging it is to run an ice cream business. Then he parlayed his empire of adult-onset diabetes into a political career where he’s taken the bold stances on the issues that really matter to Arizona, like opposing the removal of Confederate monuments for the exact same reasons Arizona spent years fighting Martin Luther King Day. He’s a talentless hack who has clawed out a political existence at the waning end of Arizona’s racist zeitgeist.

So it’s unlikely that Judge Neil Wake, a George W. Bush appointee from the District of Arizona, feels much sting to learn that Governor Ducey doesn’t think highly of his jurisprudence. Ducey’s people have claimed the Republican jurist is a “biased, activist judge” because words have no meaning anymore. For his part, Ducey says, per Tucson.com:

“Judge (Neil) Wake puts on a robe in the morning and thinks he’s God,” Ducey said late Tuesday in the immediate wake of the decision saying the governor and state acted illegally in taking money from an education trust account without getting required congressional approval. “But he’s not.”

To recap, Ducey tried to gut state school spending in an effort to enrich his rich buddies and then found himself with a shortfall in education spending that he needed to bridge. Unable to raise taxes like any principled executive would, Ducey and his cronies got a ballot measure passed to invade the principal of the State Land Trust to cover the gap despite the fact that no one ever went to the federal government to secure congressional approval for this move rendering it all, you know, illegal. So much for textualism!

Ducey claims he got approval when he had the request dropped into a 2,400-page bill at the last minute in an effort to put a stop to the lawsuit. Judge Wake offered a lesson on the finer points of mootness but mostly used his opinion to shoot down Ducey’s ludicrous claim that if he managed to get a perfunctory approval once, then he won’t need to get one again when his piss-poor management of the school budget bites Arizona again.

For his part, Ducey’s going to appeal the ruling and who knows what happens with these screwy circuits these days. Still, one would think anyone with a copy of the relevant laws and passing grasp of the language would be able to affirm this quickly. On the other hand, we’ve been monitoring these new appointees across the country and we might be setting the bar too high here.

(Check out the whole ruling on the next page.)

Gov. Ducey calls federal judge ’embarrassment to the legal community’ [Tucson.com]
Judge rebukes Ducey as ‘defiant,’ says Prop 123 education funding is ‘illegal’ [AZ Mirror]

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.

For prospective law students, bar exam pass rates should be pretty close to the top of the list of things to research — right along with employment statistics and average graduate indebtedness — when deciding which law schools to apply to and which law school to eventually enroll at after being accepted. For the past few years, bar exam pass rates across the country have plummeted, but there’s hope on the horizon with the news that the average national score on the July 2019 administration of Multistate Bar Exam climbed to a 141.1, fresh off a 34-year low set in 2018. For what it’s worth, 74.82 percent of 2018 law school graduates who took the bar passed on their first try.

While we eagerly wait for the results of the July 2019 bar exam to be released and for the 2019 calendar year results to be compiled across all law schools, it’s worth taking a look at the law schools whose recent graduates did the best on the 2018 exam. After all, with the right bar prep company, you, too, could excel and count your name among the law school graduates who passed the test.

Which law schools are putting their graduates in the best position to pass the bar exam on the first try?

In partnership with Themis Bar Review, here are the Top 50 law schools by first-time bar pass rate for the 2018 calendar year:^[1]

[1] It should also be noted that Wisconsin had a 100 percent “pass rate” and Marquette had a 98.80 percent “pass rate” thanks to diploma privilege, a court rule that allows graduates of ABA-accredited law schools within the state to skip the bar exam entirely.

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.

As the practice of law continues to morph inexorably from a “profession” to an “industry,” lawyers must contend with seemingly ever-increasing client demands, fiercer competition, tighter margins, and a baffling onslaught of technological hype.

Fortunately, there’s a solution.

Innovative practices are looking beyond traditional law firm management methods and embracing the practices of the world’s most cutting-edge manufacturing companies: Lean methodologies and systems-thinking.

In this free webinar, on October 17 at 1 p.m. ET, you’ll learn what it means to be a Lean law firm and how to employ systems-thinking to see your firm from a new perspective.

Learn how to measure and improve your operations in order to maximize the value you’re supplying to your client. Gain practical tips you can employ immediately to improve your firm’s financial position.