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Attorney Suspended For ‘Bullying’ Judge
Why would a lawyer ever imagine it’d be okay to lie to and threaten a judge? This sounds like the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to act. And it looks like that was a lesson Georgia attorney James A. Dunlap had to learn the hard way.
Dunlap was temporarily admitted to practice in the state of Tennessee, but after his representation of a wannabe methadone clinic went off the rails, the Tennessee Supreme Court suspended him for one year. The court found that Dunlap had violated professional ethics rules against dishonesty and mandating candor to the court.
The disciplinary action stems from a company trying to open a methadone clinic in Tennessee. As part of that effort, in 2013, Dunlap filed an action with a state agency as well as cases in federal court for the clinic permits. Big Law Business has the details of just how Dunlap’s, erm, zealous advocacy for his client ran afoul of ethics rules:
After the state denied the certificate, Dunlap appealed and administrative judge Kim Summers stayed the hearing pending the outcome of the federal suits, the court said. But when Summers asked for updates on the federal cases, he stated there were no new developments when in fact one case had been dismissed and another had been stayed pending the administrative hearing.
When the state agency filed a motion to set that administrative hearing in 2014, Dunlap allegedly said to Summers there was no need for a hearing for the certificate and that he might have to ask the U.S. Justice Department to file an enforcement action against her, the court said. He also allegedly told her that if she held a hearing, she might be perceived as a “fixer” for the opposing parties and as “aiding and abetting” them.
The state professional responsibility review board did not take kindly to Dunlap’s actions, saying they amounted to “bullying and [were] prejudicial to the administration of justice.” They also found that Dunlap was “unapologetic and saw nothing improper in his conduct during the administrative appeal before Judge Summers.”
All of which is a long way of saying the Tennessee Supreme Court found a one-year suspension was warranted.
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).
3 Big Pitfalls To Avoid Regarding The California Consumer Privacy Act Compliance
(Image via Getty)
When it comes to the internet, the online collection, use, and disclosure of personal data has become the rule, rather than the exception. Personal data is being collected and used by online providers in a myriad of ways, and for companies in the United States, such practices have been subject to only limited disclosures of their data collection and usage practices. Times, however, are changing. In 2016, the European Union adopted the General Data Protection Regulation that fundamentally updated data privacy practices in the EU (as I have written about most recently here and here). The United States, unfortunately, has yet to enact such comprehensive legislation federally. The states, however, may be forcing change, and California is relating the change with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). CCPA compliance, however, is not without its pitfalls, and it’s easier to slip into these traps than you may think.
By now, most of you have heard about the CCPA. Enacted in California in 2018, the CCPA created a plethora of enumerated consumer rights regarding access to and control over California residents’ personal information as collected by businesses covered by the law. More specifically, the CCPA gives California residents the right to (i) know what personal information is being collected, used, shared, or sold about them, (ii) know whether and to whom their personal information is sold or otherwise disclosed, (iii) access and review their personal information, (iv) opt-out of the sale of their personal information, and (v) non-discrimination in the level of service and pricing despite exercising any of their privacy rights. Such responsibilities under the CCPA, however, only apply to those businesses that meet one or more of the following criteria: (a) gross annual revenues in excess of $25 million; (b) buy, receive, or sell the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices; and/or (c) derive 50 percent or more of annual revenues from selling consumers’ personal information.
The reach of the CCPA cannot be underestimated — businesses outside of California are not necessarily outside the scope of the CCPA. More specifically, to the extent a business collects the personal information of California residents and meets the any of the requirements set forth above requirements, it is likely subject to the CCPA requirements. Why? Because the focus of the statue is to protect the rights of California residents. Although a California statute, the extent of its reach becomes clear — for example, a business based in New Jersey that does business online with California residents and otherwise meets any of the business qualification elements set forth above will need to comply with the CCPA. Given the size of California’s economy (which has been ranked as fifth-largest in the world) and the extent of business contacts to that state, some could argue that the CCPA operates as a de facto federal law. Moreover, the CCPA also confers a private right of action to affected consumers against companies that violate the law, providing for statutory damages between $100 and $750 or more if such damage can be proven (all in addition to any declaratory or injunctive relief). In sum, the reach of the CCPA is extensive.
Given the scope and reach of the CCPA, it comes as no surprise that most companies in the United States that do business with California residents and meet any of the qualification criteria are scrambling to comply. Such compliance, however, is not an easy proposition — care must be taken to address the nature of disclosures as well as the architecture necessary to respond to requests from consumers to know, delete, and opt-out within specific timeframes. This has led to a ton of questions regarding the fit of existing practices as well as the changes otherwise necessary for a business to comply with the CCPA. Although there is precious little guidance given the statute only became effective on January 1, 2020, the potential pitfalls that need to be navigated for CCPA compliance are far easier to identify. Here are three of the biggest issues to traverse regarding CCPA compliance that will require your company (or client) to tread carefully:
Being GDPR Compliant Does NOT Mean Your Company Is CCPA Compliant. It may come as a surprise to some, but GDPR compliance does not guarantee CCPA compliance. In fact, your company (or client) may have additional obligations under the CCPA. For example, the CCPA definition for “personal information” is actually more expansive than the GDPR. This difference alone may impact the data mapping that was performed under GDPR compliance efforts and whether additional qualifying data under CCPA is properly inventoried so the appropriate disclosures can be given. GDPR compliance is definitely a good thing, but simply does not guarantee CCPA compliance.
Compliance Favors The Turtle, Not The Hare. Given the scope of the CCPA, it’s easy to get caught up with moving as quickly as possible toward compliance. Although it’s good to grab the CCPA bull by the horns, ensuring the proper steps are being taken to achieve compliance is extremely important. The CCPA cannot be enforced by the California Attorney General until July 1, 2020, so at least there is time to achieve compliance without the threat of an enforcement action in California. That said, the dragging of feet is not an option either — determine where your client (or company) currently stands with regard to the CCPA-defined “personal information” it collects, how such information is collected, stored, handled, and disclosed and whether current policies meet those requirements. Be methodical. Remember: Slow and steady wins the (compliance) race.
Right To Be Forgotten Does Not Mean Forget Your Policy. This point is worth stressing — too many companies fail to recognize that data privacy is an ongoing process. Once the policies implemented by your company (or client) have been updated to address CCPA requirements, those policies must not be set in stone. The CCPA may give the consumer the right to delete personal information held by businesses (or their service providers), but this “right to be forgotten” does not extend to the privacy policies of your company (or client). Revisit these policies on a regular basis to update them based upon guidance from enforcement actions, newly promulgated regulations or potential modifications to the statute.
Of course, the foregoing pitfalls aren’t the only ones, but are illustrative of the point that companies need to be methodically proactive in their CCPA compliance. The CCPA is forcing qualifying companies to take stock of consumer personal information in different ways than they may have previously done. Such companies need to address and update their personal information handling practices, but should do so carefully. There is a lot to consider regarding CCPA compliance, and any other approach may be a risky move. So take heed: it will be far easier (and less costly) to avoid these pitfalls than help your company (or client) to climb out of them.
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.
Someone Finally Finished Reading Panama Papers, Realizes He’s Guilty Of Tax Fraud
Law School Dean Tells The Truth About Law School Tuition
(Image via Getty)
I think that a law degree can be a terrific investment for those who just want to focus on their deep analytical skill development and critical thinking skills. But I don’t know that I would recommend a three-year law degree unless you think you want to be a lawyer. It’s a lot of time and money if you’re not looking to practice.
If a full three-year degree isn’t necessary for your professional goals and a one-year degree might meet them, that may make a lot of sense from a cost perspective — both the cost of the degree but also the opportunity cost of that extra time.
— Dean Jennifer Mnookin of UCLA Law School, getting realistic about the cost of a law degree amid the rise of technology, in an interview with CNBC Make It. Given technology’s disruption of the legal profession, with about 23 percent of work done by lawyers having been automated, prospective law students must reassess their goals.
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.
Bezos Wants To Depose Trump In Amazon Lawsuit Over Defense Contract
Jeff Bezos (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Donald Trump always gives the game away. From “Russia, if you’re listening” to “shithole countries” to “grab ’em by the p*ssy,” the president is committed to doing his law breaking out in the open. And so it was with his apparent efforts to deny a $10 billion defense contract to Amazon, the company owned by “Trump hater” Jeff Bezos.
Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, is a frequent Trump target because of the paper’s coverage of his administration and its Saudi allies.
In July, Trump telegraphed the punch, saying that he was going to “take a very strong look” based on “complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM” about the procurement process to award the JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) cloud computing contract. Trump’s deep understanding of military information systems was on display in an Oval Office presser with the Dutch prime minister when he explained, “We’re looking at it very seriously. It’s a very big contract, one of the biggest ever given having to do with the cloud and having to do with a lot of other things.”
How big is cloud? Soooo biiiiiiiig!
Amazon had long been presumed the front-runner, much to the chagrin of competing tech companies. But shortly after Trump’s comments, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper committed to a “review” of the contract.
Four months later, Microsoft was the surprise winner, and Amazon vowed to sue. And unlike Donald Trump, who is always threatening to “open up the libel laws” and sue, Bezos wasn’t bluffing.
As usual, Trump’s own statements are Exhibit A. Exhibit B is a book by former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s aide Guy Snodgrass which claims that Trump ordered Mattis to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on the JEDI contract all the way back in 2018. (That was around the time Trump ordered the U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the shipping rate across the board for Amazon.)
So now Mr. Bezos’s lawyers would like to sit down with Trump, Mattis, and Esper to figure out if the president and his defense secretaries interfered in the JEDI contract to use the apparatus of the federal government to harm the president’s perceived enemy, as he promised to do from way back when he was a candidate in 2016, yammering to crowds that, “I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought The Washington Post to have political influence … he owns Amazon … he wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it.”
Will Bill Barr permit Esper, much less Trump, to answer interrogatories about “what steps, if any, DoD took to ensure that the individuals involved in the JEDI source selection process were not influence by the public or private statements of President Trump, his advisors, White House officials and/or any individuals employed by or acting on behalf of President Trump, his advisors, White House officials regarding the Jedi contract and award, Mr. Bezos, Amazon, AWS, and/or the Washington Post?”
In a word — NO.
But if Donald Trump thought Jeff Bezos was just going to roll over and let the matter drop, he’s even crazier than his hacker buddy Mohammed bin Salman. This ain’t over.
Amazon seeks to depose Trump, Esper in JEDI bid protest [WaPo]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
Fear, Loathing, And iPad Raffles In Manhattan: Legalweek20
Every frosty early February, legal technology vendors, visionaries, and even villains have huddled in the bowels of the Midtown Hilton to show their wares and evangelize about the future of the legal profession. Hotel space in New York is relatively cheap during this window between New Year’s and anything approaching a pleasant climate — it’s a logical time to book up a giant hotel and schedule some meetings with high-profile clients.
As usual, Legalweek offered three days of non-stop information. Unlike the algorithms that vaguely drive every product on the floor, it was more than I could process in such a tight window. Thankfully the show provides easy enough access to whiskey to smooth the sharp edges of collecting all this data.
Over the past several years, the show’s exhibit hall has shrunk like the polar ice caps. The crowded burrows of ostentatious booths are both more sparse and subdued these days. Vendors still flock to Midtown in February, but within the Hilton and its neighboring hotels, many eschew the exhibit hall and set up in suites holding pre-arranged meetings even though the idea of disappearing into a nondescript suite in a strange hotel doesn’t feel like the best business strategy in the #MeToo era.
Consolidation is also certainly a factor — one of the biggest, showiest booths of a Legalweek a few years ago is completely gone, sucked up into another giant entity. For a show once jokingly called “eDiscovery Week,” that side of the tech aisle has shaken down to a few hearty competitors opening up space on the floor like when a massive tree falls in the forest. Will saplings grow to take its place before the neighboring venture-capital-funded trees crowd out the sunlight?
With the eDiscovery market in a maturing space, the transactional sector has jumped into the breach. It’s not like transactional side solutions haven’t been around for a while — Kira Systems was the very first tech vendor I met with as an Above the Law editor — but this year I kept finding myself talking about deals. SimplyAgree assumes clients who don’t want something to pretend to be all things to all people. Are you trying to close a deal? Then SimplyAgree provides a straightforward closing tool. BlackBoiler offers AI-assisted contract review that learns from past deals and company standards, but the focus in my conversation with them was on the ability to prove the value of the system to clients (or your partners) in real-time. Where eDiscovery analytics went a couple years back, transactional work is heading now. Evisort all offered different angles on making and managing deals. I watched Evisort’s system take a random contract — unstructured data — and yank the key terms out of it in seconds. Knowable is all about, well, knowing things. Specifically knowing if your contract has produced unclaimed proceeds by missing triggering events. Deal tech was all over the place.
Not that eDiscovery doesn’t still hold a commanding presence at the show. Like DISCO’s legendary entryway ads — this year they brought some fun “Singlets” — which suffer only from not being the funniest legal tech ad series ever. Casepoint continues to grow, armed with its SEC deal. CloudNine, Consilio, Relativity, even companies at other stages of the process like data-gathering firms X1 which rapidly grabs stuff from your company computers and Cellebrite, grabbing digital data and more importantly training custodians to authenticate the process in court.
Despite remaining an informative and entertaining show, the pall over the proceedings remains the decline in booths. For conference organizers, booking those pricey booths keeps the show going. There was no outward betrayal of concern, but one has to wonder if the conference has to make a radical change to keep its prime spot on the legal technology calendar.
Everyone is going to come to New York — but are they going to stop by the Hilton on the way?
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.
Florida Lawyer Proves He Is Just A Florida Man With A Fancy Degree
If you learned anything in professional responsibility class, it was to never, ever mix client funds with personal funds. It’s the most basic of ethical responsibilities for a lawyer. But just because it is fundamental, that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to follow these very basic rules.
Florida attorney Brett Hartley has been disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. The court found he had used his attorney trust account — which included client funds — for personal expenses. What really trips this story into Florida Man levels is that the money from the trust account was used to run a strip club, Flash Dancers, in Jacksonville.
According to reporting by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Hartley said he used the attorney trust account to run Flash Dancers because he couldn’t find a bank willing to open up an account for a strip club. Yes, that’s right, Hartley says that in Florida of all places, he was unable to find a bank willing to take a strip club’s money. And I suppose the bajillion other strip clubs in the state are rocking a piggy bank and a prayer for all their financial needs.
Hartley was suspended from the practice of law in 2018, during the investigation into his behavior. But according to the Florida Supreme Court, despite those serious consequences, Hartley still did not participate in the investigation which ultimately led to his disbarment.
The Supreme Court’s ruling to disbar Hartley came after he failed to provide documents and financial records to investigators from the Florida Bar and only sporadically participated in the inquiry, according to records.
The Florida Bar tried to accommodate Hartley during the investigation due to his “efforts at substance abuse rehabilitation” and because he lived out of the area in Colorado, documents state.
The Florida Supreme Court also found Hartley made false statements to a county judge regarding the payment of restitution to a client.
In addition to his disbarment, Hartley was ordered to pay $13,388 to the Florida Bar and make restitution to the Florida Bar Clients’ Security Fund.
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).
Got Law School Debt? Win This Contest To Pay It Off!
If you’re a young law school graduate, it’s highly likely that you’ve got a huge pile of debt to your name that will follow you for the next 10, 20, or 25 years, depending on your current repayment plan. What if there were a way to get rid of it — or at least a way to get rid of part of it? The America Bar Association wants to help you out with that.
The ABA’s Young Lawyers Division recently announced a Student Loan Relief Scholarship Contest in partnership with SoFi, a personal finance company. You just have to answer one question in 500 words or less by the end of the month, and you could win a grand prize loan payoff of up to $30,000. Of course, because this contest involves lawyers, there are other rules and regulations involved (an entrant must be 21 or older; a college graduate; a legal U.S. citizen or permanent resident, a current ABA member; and have student loan debt that is in repayment status). Here’s the question:
How would an ABA/SoFi Student Loan Relief Scholarship impact your world?
A panel of judges will review all entries submitted and select the finalists, who will then be asked to provide more information for additional judging by a panel of ABA members and staff. The grand prize winner will receive $30,000, the first runner-up will receive $15,000, and the second runner-up will receive $5,000 to pay off their student loan debt.[1] The application and official rules can be found here.
Sure, this money may represent only some of your outstanding interest, but be something is always better than nothing when it comes to paying off loans. Good luck!
[1] Winners are responsible for any and all taxes associated with their prizes.
ABA and SoFi offer student loan debt relief through new contest [ABA Journal]
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.
In-House Departments Lead Legal Innovation
These days, in-house departments are playing an increasingly critical role in legal innovation. Because they’re on the front lines of the business world, with the closest proximity to real pain points, many are increasingly open-minded in adopting new technologies to address old problems. I recently shared my observations with Legal 500. Here are the top three.
The Business Pressures For In-House Lawyers Are Real
Legal departments are increasingly asked to do more with less. In response, they have increasingly figured out the importance of using twenty-first-century tools to get results. So, it’s not surprising that the adoption of tools and innovation has been led predominantly by in-house lawyers. The pressures in-house are higher than anywhere else.
When we work with our in-house clients, they have often already adopted newer, more sophisticated tools to improve their ability to make smarter decisions and work better and more efficiently. They already know first-hand how technology improves their personal lives and the professional lives of their colleagues, and they are increasingly curious about how it could make their lives easier in the legal department. We also have a new generation of lawyers who cannot imagine practicing law without technology because they have grown up with technology everywhere, in all aspects of their lives. Combined with the pressures of businesses, these factors have lead to open-mindedness to new technology, even if accompanied by caution.
Exploring And Adopting New Tech Strategically Is A Must
A good place to start is with pain points. You need to identify where the vulnerabilities and weak spots are in your department or business. Then look for solutions or processes that have been developed or are being developed. You then need to become a beta tester. This means not only seeing a demo but actually trying it out. And don’t just try one thing, try at least a couple, because: (i) you will learn a lot about what is available in terms of solutions; and (ii) you will gain a different view of the problem you have.
By the time you’re done beta-testing and thinking about your challenges ahead, you will find a selection of possible solutions to address those challenges. That allows you to: (i) do what you’re trained to do and focus on solving complex problems; (ii) have an impact on your business and enjoy the future influence it brings in shaping opportunities down the road; and (iii) impact relationships not just within your organization, but in the market as a whole.
You then need to become a beta tester. This means not only seeing a demo but actually trying out the technology and sharing that solution outside your organization. Members of the legal community can learn from you and come to view you as a leader and an authority in the field.
Technology Will Transform The Legal Practice For The Better
Email changed communication and replaced writing letters. Did it reduce the volume of our communications? No, it has increased them because it has made communicating easier. Technology does not decrease the need for legal advice but opens up new possibilities and allows providing legal advice to be more efficient.
Yes, the fears around technology are understandable. By using bigger, better tools, there will be even more important, strategic decisions for us to make to further maximize our impact. Technology presents opportunities for us to have a greater impact and engage in more exciting work that we enjoy doing together.
Let technology be your friend. If you are thoughtful in how you make use of it, technology will transform your practice. But it is a process and one that requires constant testing, communication, and, yes, some risk-taking. Don’t let fear get in the way.
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.