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Marvel or DC? Marvel or DC? I … I don’t know!

“The things that make us different, those are our superpowers.”

— Lena Waithe

When it comes to superheroes, there’s one big question: are you Marvel or DC? Rarely will you find someone on the fence, and if they are there, they’re probably not in a very comfortable position (which isn’t surprising, since fences aren’t for sitting, and many of them are pointy). Since this question is really that important for a lot of people, I’m obligated to pose that self-same question to you:

Marvel or DC?

But, before you answer, let me give you some context that could help. You see, I don’t really mind if you prefer the dark spectra of justice that is Batman to the witty and arrogant Iron Man. Yes, despite the importance of the question, I don’t have a particular preference. I don’t even bother taking Superman into consideration. It’s not about these characters, or movies, or comics for me. When I think Marvel or DC, I think about them on a different level altogether, because I’m talking about your attitude toward yourself and the opinions of others.

I carry a level of self-assurance that could rival Iron Man’s if it were not so humble. As a matter of fact, I consider humility to be the greatest of all my amazingly wonderful and truly magnificent attributes. Anyway, my incredible modesty aside, the conflict between Marvel and DC is a conflict that rages deep within each person — whether you know it or not. Let me break down these personalities for you:

Marvel is, quite simply, the tendency to do whatever people marvel at. You see what other people do, discovering what has been proven to work. Then, you adopt the methods of those who have gone before, employing traditional techniques to attain the same old goals. Marvel is approved and approval-based — it does what has done the job before, and provides what people want now. Marvel people, however, lack the courage to stand for themselves.

DC is a little bit more complicated. In our case, it stands for Differentiation Constant. It is made up of a combination of the wholly original attributes within you. It is shaped by your personality and principles. It guides you through your life story, and it is expressed in your unique idiosyncrasies. Your quirky mannerisms aren’t something to be ashamed of, but rather, they are something to capitalize on! Even if you have the same job as someone else, you are not defined by your position.

Having multiples of the same thing does not confine us, as iterations are enacted with small changes for the purposes of improvement and innovation. If we copy other people, then all we will end up with is identical iterations and results. DC people recognize the disparities between themselves and others, exercising those differences to ensure that they stand out. In the name, Differentiation speaks of their determination to highlight their distinctiveness in word, action, and interaction, while Constant relates to their consistency to themselves.

When it comes to who you are and how you express that, there is no one answer, and you can never be wrong. Everyone is unique, and we need to act boldly on that, under the fundamentally paramount leadership of our IQ and our EQ. Only then will it shift from a unique property to a unique proposition — and a valuable one at that.

So, again, I ask you:

Marvel or DC?

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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.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that will determine the fate of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 bars states from enforcing voting laws that can be demonstrated, under a “totality of the circumstances” standard, to disproportionately impact citizens depending on their race. There are those, including myself, who expect the Roberts Court to either strike down Section 2 or strip it of all enforcement teeth so as to render it ineffectual. I am convinced Section 2 is already dead for a couple of reasons. First, the conservative majority Roberts Court has already made clear that it views the Voting Rights Act as outdated, and the court has only become more conservative since. Second, and perhaps more importantly, legal conservatives are extremely hostile to disparate-impact liability within race discrimination claims and Section 2 is structured entirely around a disparate impact standard regarding racial discrimination only.

Over the past 60-plus years of conservative majority control of the judiciary, time and time again a disparate-impact liability standard within race discrimination (equal protection) claims has been rejected. No matter how glaring the racial disparity is, or how serious the consequences of the disparity might be, conservative justices will steadfastly refuse to uphold a race discrimination claim based on proof of differential treatment alone. Take McCleskey v. Kemp for example. Here, a Black man on death row provided statistical proof — which the court accepted as fact — of extraordinary racial disparity in the application of the death penalty in his county. The disparate impact was so glaring that the court acknowledged that “[t]aken to its logical conclusion” the race discrimination claim “throws into serious question the principles that underlie our criminal justice system.” But guess what happened? None of the overwhelming evidence of differential treatment based on race mattered and the claim was tossed out of court.

The good news is the racial disparity has lessened since McCleskey. But as Radley Balko demonstrates with overwhelming evidence, it remains painfully and outrageously obvious that the criminal “justice” system is institutionally racist regardless of the intentions of the people who work within the system. A fact of American life which should surprise no one. Per Balko:

When you consider that much of the criminal justice system was built, honed and firmly established during the Jim Crow era — an era almost everyone, conservatives included, will concede rife with racism — this is pretty intuitive. The modern criminal justice system helped preserve racial order — it kept black people in their place. For much of the early 20th century, in some parts of the country, that was its primary function. That it might retain some of those proclivities today shouldn’t be all that surprising.

Suffice it to say, that with this legal history of disparate racial impact having no influence with conservatives and with this ultra-conservative Supreme Court, any racial claim built on evidence of differential treatment only has no real chance of succeeding. In fact, the last case I found where evidence of disparate impact alone was enough to sustain a racial discrimination claim, every conservative dissented with only Justice Kennedy joining the four liberals for a majority. The Court’s makeup is simply very different today.

What is extraordinary about the Court’s hard shift to the right, however, is the growing relevancy of disparate-impact analysis. Not within racial discrimination claims of course. But in First Amendment religious discrimination (free exercise) cases only, proof of differential treatment alone provides a sure guarantee of success with conservatives. In fact, all that is now needed to toss out a state’s occupancy limits on indoor church services during this deadly pandemic is proof that church services are being treated differently than dissimilar activities like commercial retail. Even in cases where indoor religious gatherings are being treated more favorably as compared to other similar situated services (like indoor movie theaters or sporting events), the religious discrimination claim prevailed based on nothing but a claim that churches were being treated differently than dissimilar activities.

As I have written about before, state epidemiologists have explained at length why church services present a similar risk to indoor movie theaters and sporting events and, along with these other similar activities, why indoor church services are being treated differently than dissimilar activities like commercial retail. But, again, none of the medical reasoning matters to this ultra-conservative Supreme Court. All that does matter is simple proof of disparate impact, no matter how medically justified the reason.

This is where you might be asking what, if anything, justifies putting such a tougher burden on proving race discrimination claims as opposed to religious claims? The only explanation that is certain is the law has nothing to do with it.

Nowhere in the text of the Constitution is there support for the premise that a 14th Amendment equal protection racial discrimination claim should require more preconditions and suffer under a tougher burden of proof than a First Amendment free exercise religious discrimination claim. All the Constitution’s text says is that government is prohibited from discriminating against citizens because of either or both reasons. If there was a Constitutional preference for a particular claim (FWIW, I don’t think there is) it could only be for race claims. As the former administration acknowledged recently at oral argument in a religious case “race is unique in this country’s constitutional history, and eradicating that type of racial discrimination (sic) presents a particularly unique and compelling interest.” To this day the worst war our country ever fought was over race discrimination, and as Balko demonstrates, it remains one of our biggest problems today.

It just so happens, however, that despite having no legal justification, conservative politics disfavors racial grievance but favors the premise that religion is under social attack. Once you think about it from a strictly political view, the Roberts Court applying wildly different standards for racial discrimination claims as opposed to religious claims makes complete sense. I just find it morally gross and a disgrace to our system of law that all it would take to ensure this Supreme Court would uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, is to insert the word “religion” into it.

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Tyler Broker’s work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Albany Law Review, and is forthcoming in the University of Memphis Law Review. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter to discuss his column.

As Yogi Berra once said:  “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Donald Trump’s future is particularly opaque to me.

Here’s the first version of the future that I can imagine:

All of the prosecutors investigating Trump decide that he didn’t do anything wrong, or they doubt they can convict him. The prosecutors don’t indict. Or, perhaps, a prosecutor (or maybe two) charges Trump, but it proves terribly difficult to pick a jury. A secret Trump supporter ends up on the jury, refuses to convict, and the jury hangs. Trump stays out of jail.

Trump’s financial problems are overblown. Sure, many of his outside advisors have quit on him, but there are always more advisors where they came from.  Sure, Trump owes, and has personally guaranteed, a couple hundred million in debt that comes due over the next few years. But Trump’s brought in hundreds of millions in political contributions recently, and he’s become a very famous person. Overseas banks are delighted to do business with him; many folks will still pay for the privilege of having the Trump name on their properties; Trump’s good at surviving financial peril. Trump stays rich.

Trump’s civil liabilities are overstated. Any civil case can be settled by paying money. Trump settles the pending defamation cases; and the case brought by his niece, Mary; and whatever cases arise out of the storming of the Capitol on January 6. It’s just money; a few tens of millions and Trump’s civil woes are behind him.

The Republican Party rallies behind its obvious leader. Trump successfully supports primary challenges to most of the members of Congress who supported impeachment.

Four years from now, it’s 2016 all over again.

But here’s the second version of the future that I can imagine. I think it’s slightly more likely to occur than the first, but I’m terribly uncertain:

Several of the prosecutors pursuing Trump choose to indict him. It’s relatively easy for prosecutors to pick juries in New York City, Atlanta, or Washington, D.C. Those are heavily Democratic cities; any “12 good men and true” (sorry for the sexism, but the quote’s from the 17th century) would be happy to convict on the appropriate evidence. The prosecutors conduct the trials of the century. We all enjoy the spectacle on television. Trump spends the rest of his life behind bars.

Trump’s financial problems are, of course, insurmountable. Trump’s largely in the entertainment and hospitality businesses; those businesses were crushed by the pandemic. All of his outside advisors quit on him. Massive debts are coming due. Nobody’s willing to gamble on the chance that Trump will survive by financing him. Trump stumbles into ruin.

Civil cases pose enormous risk to Trump. Trump has to testify under oath in multiple proceedings. He has to pay defense costs. Folks injured in the storming of the Capitol choose to name Trump personally in many lawsuits.  Plaintiffs, encouraged by counsel who want to make names for themselves, choose to roll the dice rather than settle. Trump is hit for massive verdicts.

Trump is bankrupt and imprisoned, and the Republican Party shuns its disgraced former leader.

Others try to replicate Trump’s style, but they’re all a mere shadow of the original. The Republican Party doesn’t go back to what it had been historically, but is driven by new policies meant to protect the working class more than the rich: high tariffs, low immigration, few foreign entanglements, and perhaps a more generous view toward universal health care or a higher minimum wage.

The party survives. Trump does not.

Frankly, I can imagine a future that looks like either of those visions. I can imagine other alternative futures, too. Only the coming of 2023 will defog my crystal ball.

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

Say what you will about Martin Shkreli and his increasingly apparent sociopathy, but you cannot deny the pharma bro’s work ethic. While a less driven and more self-aware felon might find himself plumbing the depths of despair and self-pity when forcibly relocated to a federal prison, at least for a little while, not so Shkreli, who wouldn’t allow bars or the rules behind them to hold him back from, say, running his companies and more than he did when he was a free man. He’s also kept busy filing and responding to lawsuits, solving the coronavirus, and, of course, starting and ending a romantic relationship.

COVID got you down? Not to worry, because rankings season continues, and yet another list is here to bring a little levity to lives of lawyers and law students.

From the Princeton Review law school rankings to the U.S. News law school rankings to the Above the Law law school rankings, there are many law school rankings to gaze upon (with some of them more reliable than others) — but have you seen a ranking of the best law schools in the world? Here’s your chance.

Before we get to the World Law School Rankings, let’s discuss the methodology used by the Quacquarelli Symonds team at Top Universities (you can explore more in-depth explanations here if you’re interested):

Each of the subject rankings is compiled using four sources. The first two of these are QS’s global surveys of academics and employers, which are used to assess institutions’ international reputation in each subject. The second two indicators assess research impact, based on research citations per paper and h-index in the relevant subject. These are sourced from Elsevier’s Scopus database, the world’s most comprehensive research citations database.

These four components are combined to produce the results for each of the subject rankings, with weightings adapted for each discipline.

We know you want to see if any American law schools cracked the list, so we won’t make you wait anymore. Here they are, the top 10 best law schools in the world:

1. Harvard University
2. University of Oxford
3. University of Cambridge
4. Yale University
5. Stanford University
6. London School of Economics and Political Science
7. Columbia University
8. New York University
9. UC Berkeley
10. National University of Singapore

USA! USA! USA! More than half of the world’s top 10 law schools are in America! Be sure to grab your ivy and roll around in it, because half of those American law schools are in the Ivy League. Congratulations go out to Harvard for once again coming out on top of both Yale and Stanford in this global law school ranking. Harvard is officially the most elite law school on the planet.

Farther down the list, but still within the top 25 law schools in the world, you’ll see Chicago (tied at #11) and Georgetown (#19). Going deeper, but still within the top 50 law schools in the world, you’ll find UCLA (#26), Michigan (#30), Penn (#31), Duke (#32), Cornell (#38), UVA (#46), and Northwestern (#49).

Also representing for America in the top 100 law schools in the world are GW at #75 and BU at #98. It’s great that so many U.S. law schools are ranked so highly on a global scale.

What do you think about these worldly law school rankings? Feel free to congratulate or condemn your alma mater — but be careful, the world is watching.

QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 – Law [Top Universities]

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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.

* All nine Supreme Court justices are now fully vaccinated. Hopefully they’ll continue phone oral arguments for awhile, they can be more entertaining… [CNN]

* President Biden has fired a Trump-appointed lawyer who refused to resign. [Hill]

* Dolce & Gabbana has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against two fashion bloggers. [New York Daily News]

* The Georgia District Attorney investigating Donald Trump has hired a lawyer with experience in racketeering cases. [CNN]

* President Biden’s pick to be Associate Attorney General would be the wealthiest member of the Biden administration. Bet she didn’t gain that wealth on a government salary… [Yahoo News]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Professor, I Have A Question: Andrew Cuomo’s top aides allegedly worked on his behalf to cover up nursing home deaths in order to bolster his book sales. Including an NYU Law ethics professor. That’s clinical work in action!

Gotta Pay The Bills: If you’re looking for Biglaw dollars to pay off your loans, these are the law schools you need to be getting your degree.

Maybe Not Every Claim Needs To Be Brought: Eric Swalwell filed a lawsuit against Trump and the rest of the Capitol riot pep club. It seems as though Bennie Thompson brought almost these exact same claims and Swalwell just wants to horn in on the spotlight. So… white liberal guy wants to take the attention away from a Black man who did the real work first? That sounds about right.

Filling Out Time Sheets Hasn’t Changed At All, Huh?: McGuireWoods got a no-bid government contract… so what did that look like? Reviewed social media posts, “news articles relating to Michael Pack” and an “[Office of Inspector General] audit on Hillary Clinton’s email breach.” So vague descriptions are still the norm I guess.

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

Of the 50 Biglaw firms included in Above the Law’s Law Firm Transparency Directory, powered by Leopard Solutions, which firm has the shortest average lawyer tenure?

Hint: Attorney spend an average of just five years at this Biglaw firm.

See the answer on the next page.

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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.

We’re not sure if you’ve heard, but times are tough here in the Big Apple. People and businesses, we’re told, are fleeing en masse for Florida or the suburbs. The offices that power the global engine of capitalism are, at best, still half-empty, and may well stay that way forever (unless you work for Facebook or Goldman Sachs, anyway). High-end homes are selling for a pittance; why, you can hardly get $50 million for the luxurious townhouses of notorious pedophiles anymore, while smaller empty shells in that other failing fulcrum of finance, London, are going for three times as much.