Category: News Feeds

You may have heard that Content is King.

In that case, the Reader is Emperor.

Your reader may be a prospective client, a lapsed client or a referral source.

Clients, past, present and future, plus referral sources, listen to the World’s Greatest Radio Station, WII-FM, and so do you and so does everyone you know.

In case you haven’t heard of it, WII-FM means “What’s In It For Me.”

You probably have defined your practice area by the services you offer: family law, real estate transaction, intellectual property and so on.

Sadly, that is not how clients and prospective clients see the world.

Instead, they think of their problem, how they can solve it within the (invisible to them) boundaries of the law and how to protect themselves going forward.

Accordingly, you must frame how you will bring your legal knowledge to bear and resolve an issue from the client’s perspective.

This first tip means you position your practice by defining the kinds of problems that you solve and for which types of clients. That way, potential clients with a specific need and certain characteristics will look for you, plus referral sources will keep you in mind.

For example, an attorney only handles personal injury cases for residents in nursing homes. People who were injured in a slip and fall on a public street after a heavy snowfall will not seek her counsel, unless it is to request a referral to someone who does handle litigation for that mishap.

Your goal in focusing on the client’s perspective is to screen some people in and most others out.

Now that you have defined your client’s issue, you must show that you are the best person to address their situation. In other words, the client is deciding whether to work with you or Pat Williams.

It’s not enough to say that you have had terrific success with this kind of case. You have to prove it.

Tips two and three are your resources: internal and external. You may describe representative cases in a generic way, following the PARI model.

• P is for Present situation or Problem
• A is the Action you took
• R is the Result, in the short term
• I is the Impact in the long term

Consider the example of a matrimonial attorney: The Problem was a wife suspected her husband had hidden assets and had understated the value of his business, which would affect the divorce settlement. The Action was the steps her attorney took to have the business appraised and uncover the location of these hidden assets. The Result was that more than $2 Million was found in obscure accounts in a business subsidiary. The long-term Impact was that the judge remained highly skeptical of the husband’s financial accounting and approved an unexpectedly higher settlement for the wife.

As for external resources, these are designed to show your mastery of the legal matter; they include:

• articles you published in general, business or industry publications
• news stories where you are quoted
• client testimonials about your work together
• podcasts and webinars where you discuss current issues

Finally, for the fourth tip, you must endeavor to continue the conversation. Anyone who visits your website or LinkedIn profile should not leave empty-handed.

Offer tips, best practices, three DO’s and three DON’Ts, a quiz or an e-book. All these are available as a download, which may or may not require an email address. Once they have it in hand, readers can even share it with a colleague, supervisor or family member.

In addition, display your current newsletter and make it easy to subscribe to it. In fact, all your newsletters should be posted on your website.

Use these same tips to introduce yourself to the industry, local business and legal reporters at the publications read by your clients and prospects. Journalists, too, are interested in the solutions an attorney provides to clients. When a new law or regulation looms on the horizon, reporters will seek a reliable and authoritative source who can comment on the business implications of this change. When you create a professional relationship, YOU will be the attorney the reporter calls.

When you focus on the problem of the potential client, offer examples of your success, provide proof that others recognize your knowledge and freely give a sample of your insight, you create the basis for a solid working relationship.

These four tips are the foundation for success in Marketing and Media Relations for solo attorneys.

Thanks to Amy Carron Day, Esq., for her thoughtful comments on this article.

Companies selling hemp-derived products, including cannabidiol-infused products, have been faced with significant marketing challenges. For the past 18 months, the industry has been hit with a wave of suspensions, deletions, and warnings for advertising hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products. Yet, depending on the platform, the reasons for such actions vary.

Facebook, for example, does not offer public terms and conditions or policies that expressly prohibit CBD advertisements on that platform. Instead, the company justifies its ban by stating on its website: “Ads must not promote the sale or use of illicit or recreational drugs, or other unsafe substances, products or supplements, as determined by Facebook’s in its sole discretion.” Interestingly, the list of problematic products and substances Facebook provides does not include CBD.

Other social media companies, such as Twitter, offer CBD-specific policies that are overly restrictive. In the U.S., Twitter permits “approved CBD topical advertisers” provided they meet the following requirements:

• Advertisers must be licensed by the appropriate authorities and pre-authorized by Twitter.
• Advertisers may only promote noningestible, legally derived CBD topical products.
• Advertisers may only target jurisdictions in which they are licensed to promote these products or services online.
• Advertisers may not target Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, or Virginia.
• Advertisers are responsible for complying with all laws and regulations.
• Advertisers may not target customers under the age of 21.

These are extremely restrictive and paternalistic regulations. Ironically, Twitter’s advertising policy places more constraints on CBD advertisers than many states do on CBD companies. These terms are so broad it is likely that most companies advertising CBD on Twitter are in clear violation of those requirements, and therefore, are at risk of seeing their accounts suspended or deleted.

This level of risk is hugely problematic, especially for small CBD companies. Any small business owner knows that getting social media followers takes time and money. With the risk of seeing an account shut down and losing all the good will associated with that account, social media advertising can be a serious gamble for CBD businesses. There is no clear right of appeal for these denials, and the idea of taking a social media giant to court (or forced arbitration) is just unfathomable for most CBD companies.

Regrettably, social media companies are not the only group creating marketing obstacles for the CBD industry. The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), a nonprofit that monitors SHAFT (Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco) content and reports violations to the FCC, recently added CBD to its list of illicit substances and prohibited content. CTIA deems that while a growing number of states have legalized medical or recreational cannabis, including CBD use, “Federal law still prohibits cannabis use”, and thus, companies “cannot send text messages with cannabis- or CBD-related content.” This means that carriers will suspect any short code that sends CBD-related content, despite the legal distinction between hemp-derived CBD, which is lawful, and marijuana-derived CBD, which remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.

Notwithstanding the fact that the FDA has publicly acknowledged that there may be a regulatory pathway to marketing certain products containing hemp-derived CBD, such as cosmetics, many social media companies and organizations like CTIA have apparently taken it upon themselves to step into the shoes of regulators and ban all hemp-derived CBD products. To add insult to injury, many social media companies have yet to publish formal guidance on this issue and are choosing to arbitrarily censor CBD.

These overly restrictive and widely disparate regulations against hemp-derived CBD products reflect the confusing legal landscape of these products. As I have previously explained, the lack of federal regulations, combined with the patchwork of state-by-state regulations, has created a great deal of confusion regarding the legality of these products — but also contributed to the misinformation surrounding the legal status of hemp-derived CBD, resulting in more confusion in the consumers’ minds.

In response to these discriminatory marketing policies targeting CBD, a coalition of hemp-derived CBD brands, including Prima, a leading B-Corp, have organized a “Stop Censoring CBD #freeCBD” initiative to help bring awareness to this pervasive issue. The coalition’s main objectives are to encourage lawmakers to pass the Hemp Access and Consumer Safety Act (S. 1698), which proposes to establish legal and regulatory pathways for the sale of hemp-derived products; and to pressure the FDA to recognize the legal distinction between hemp-derived and marijuana-derived CBD and to develop a regulatory framework for the manufacture, sale, and marketing of those products.

This initiative shows, once again, that the industry is determined to legitimize its lawful commercial activities by advocating for federal standards and regulations that will provide consumers access to safer CBD products. For now, one thing is clear, social media companies and nonprofits like CTIA should step out of the shoes of the government and let CBD companies advertise products that are lawful or ban content of their choosing but provide clear and legitimate guidelines for such policies that align with existing CBD regulations.

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Nathalie practices out of Harris Bricken’s Portland office and focuses on the regulatory framework of hemp-derived CBD (“hemp CBD”) products. She is an authority on FDA enforcement, Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act and other laws and regulations surrounding hemp and hemp CBD products. She also advises domestic and international clients on the sale, distribution, marketing, labeling, importation and exportation of these products. Nathalie frequently speaks on these issues and has made national media appearances, including on NPR’s Marketplace. For two consecutive years, Nathalie has been selected as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine, an honor bestowed on only 2.5% of eligible Oregon attorneys.  Nathalie is also a regular contributor to her firm’s Canna Law Blog.

While career navigation is not unique to being in-house specifically, it is definitely different from traditional Biglaw, where the career trajectory is historically linear and based on a loosely objective formula, usually a compilation of tenure, record of billable hours, and book of business or unique deep subject matter expertise. The career path of in-house counsel is not always as clear, and is less like a ladder and more like a jungle gym, where opportunities may be the next level of attorney but could also be in parts of the business — compliance, diversity and inclusion, procurement, risk management, or human resources. Because the career path is not as clear, it is especially important to be intentional because it is too easy to get sucked into putting out the daily fires and not realize that you’ve been stagnant and not where you want to be or thought you’d be.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but in my short time in-house, I have personally seen how lawyers, in loving the work they do and the company they work for, forget and neglect their career, especially if they work for a big, flat organization. It is so easy to metaphorically “clock in,” do your job and “clock out,” leaving professional development and networking (internal or external) on the bottom of the to-do list (because understandably, there are only so many hours in the day).

Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with being satisfied with what you are doing with no desire to move up in a company, as long as that is an intentional choice. I would certainly not begrudge someone’s contentment and paint it as a lack of ambition. But what you don’t want to happen is to simply put your head down and do excellent work and expect recognition in the form of elevation from that excellent work alone.

Especially when you consider the extraordinary talent at many high-performing companies, being great at what you do is not enough (because everyone is doing it). So if you do want to grow, you need to invest the time and energy into being more intentional and strategic about how you can stand out, beyond doing excellent work, and here are a couple of ideas on how to get started.

First, self-awareness (and if needed, self-discovery) is key. You need to know what unique strengths and talents you have that set you apart from others. There are a number of assessments out there (like Clifton’s StrengthsFinder 2.0) that may be helpful. I also recommend asking a few trusted colleagues (or former colleagues) of various levels (people you have managed, your peers, supervisors, and clients).

Likewise, you need to know what skills you need to work on and develop. And this may depend on the role or assignment you want to tackle next — meaning you take the time to compare the skills you have to the skills needed in the job that you want and address the gaps– whether through additional education or experience.

Second, intentionally take the time to build and grow your relationships — both internally and externally. It is important for people to know who you are and what your brand is. It’s equally important for you to know others in your company and what they do and what the possibilities are for you — and the easiest way to learn this type of info is to meet and talk to people. I personally find it easiest to network internally by volunteering or participating in various company functions — and following up with a few people that I encountered through those activities. And don’t forget the power of finding a few mentors, who have already successfully navigated their career — their insight is invaluable.

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Meyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is in-house at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring, championing belonging, and a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. At home, you can find her doing her best to be a “fun” mom to a toddler and preschooler and chasing her best self on her Peloton. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

The pandemic has been very bad for a lot of people in terms of both bodily and financial health. Yet, a good number of other folks, and not just the billionaires and multimillionaires, have been doing quite well (perhaps not incidentally) while a number of outlets for blowing cash on useless nonsense have been shuttered.

Fidelity Investments, the largest provider of 401(k) plans in the U.S., recently released a report about the status of Americans’ investments accounts. At least for those actually saving for retirement, the numbers could hardly be better.

Average retirement account balances reached new records in the second quarter of 2021. The average 401(k) balance increased 24 percent from a year ago to $129,300. IRA balances fared even better, reaching $134,900 on average.

The amount retirement savers were contributing increased at well: The average contribution rate of 401(k) savers swelled to 9.3 percent. In general, younger savers were even more on board with the trend, with 54 percent of Generation Z workers who have retirement accounts increasing their retirement contributions over the last year, along with 43 percent of millennials. Only 7 percent of workers decreased their savings rates over the past 12 months.

The U.S. has also been minting retirement account millionaires in the wake of the pandemic. There are now 412,000 American workers with at least $1 million in their retirement accounts, an increase of 84 percent from a year ago. While this only represents about 2 percent of 401(k) plan participants, it is a new record, and one out of every 50 retirement savers reaching millionaire status is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Unsurprisingly in a year when there have been repeated gangbusters stock market surges, 85 percent of the growth in account balances originated with stock market performance as opposed to individual savings behavior. Still, retirement plan participants get some credit beyond just riding market forces, with savings rates generally increasing across the board, and savings rates especially increasing amongst younger demographic groups.

Of course, no article about retirement accounts would be complete without at least noting that a lot of people don’t have them, or have them but aren’t robustly contributing to them. A quarter of American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. 

One of the keys to increasing retirement savings appears to be automatic enrollment. When workers have to opt out rather than opt in to an employer-sponsored retirement account, 87 percent of them stick with the plan. On the other hand, when an employer-sponsored retirement plan is made available to workers but they actually have to proactively sign themselves up, only 52 percent enroll, proving that it’s not just economic hardship but also at least occasionally good old-fashioned stupidity and laziness that keep a lot of people from providing for themselves in old age. A number of states are now experimenting with automatically enrolling workers in IRA savings programs.

I’ve advocated growing wealth through passively managed index fund investments for some time now, and that appears to have been a particularly good retirement savings strategy during the pandemic. However your funds are managed though, increasing contributions during your working life can only stand to benefit you in retirement. Whether from lack of financial temptation in a partially shuttered economy, big savings on gas and vehicle maintenance costs while working remotely, salary increases, or a heightened sense of personal responsibility, something is causing a good number of Americans to contribute more to their retirement nest eggs. That is undoubtably paying off already, as evidenced by the new record number of retirement account millionaires.

And if you’re one of those Americans with little to nothing saved for retirement, well, you’re probably not reading a financial article about record-high retirement savings numbers. The rest of you though, keep up the good work. Also maybe consider supporting automatic retirement account enrollment policies to help out the less retirement attuned: You’re going to want company in doing expensive old people stuff when you retire.

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Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

The good news is that despite all of that, the employment outcomes and salary findings for members of the Class of 2020 are remarkably strong, and although in many cases they fall short of the highwater marks notched by the Class of 2019, they showcase a resilient job market for new law school graduates.

To the extent that the employment profile is somewhat weaker than that of the previous class, it is not likely to mark the beginning of a downward trend in the numbers, but instead is likely to be a pandemic-related blip, with stronger numbers following for the Classes of 2021 and 2022 as the economy around us generally and the legal economy specifically have been booming as the pent-up demand from the pandemic-lockdown’s end has been unleashed.

Fueled by overall private practice growth, students from the Class of 2020 were able to secure jobs at a higher rate than many had predicted. That is good news for law schools, law school graduates, and the legal profession as a whole, and barring any unforeseen bumps in the road, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic for the employment outcomes for the Class of 2021.

— James G. Leipold, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement, commenting on the better-than-expected employment and salary outcomes for the law school Class of 2020, despite their classes, bar exams, and job interviews being pushed online due to the coronavirus crisis.

Overall, the employment rate for 2020 graduates fell to 88.4% (down by about two percentage points, from 90.3% for the Class of 2019), with the percentage of graduates with jobs requiring bar passage decreasing from from 76.2% in 2019 to 74.6% in 2020. About 57% of graduates took jobs in private practice, the highest this percentage has been since 2003. The national median salary for the Class of 2020 rose to an all-time high of $75,000 (up 3.4% compared to the Class of 2019), while the national median law firm salary rose to $130,000 (up 4% compared to the Class of 2019), finally matching the law firm starting salary measured for the Class of 2009, an all-time high.

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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.

Stars Interactive Holdings, formerly known as Amaya Group Holdings, along with Rational Entertainment Enterprises, has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a 4-3 decision from the Supreme Court of Kentucky. That decision, which the former online poker operator petitioners seek to strike, requires them to pay Kentucky over $1.3 billion, including interest, based on the value of every losing wager by Kentucky players from 2007 to 2011.

Per the petitioners, the case concerns the largest civil judgment in Kentucky history, which is based on the former online poker operator PokerStars collecting roughly $300 million from Kentucky users of the platform. After the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the trial court decision and dismissed the case, the Kentucky Supreme Court reinstated the judgment and it ballooned to $1.3 billion.

Kentucky initially sought the recovery of these losses under Kentucky’s Loss Recovery Act (KLRA), which allows individuals who lose money while gambling to recover that money from the winner. If the gambler does not sue, then the gambler empowers “any other person” to sue for treble the amount lost. Kentucky argued that it, as a state, could step in for the gamblers who failed to bring their cases.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court petition, the KLRA has not been applied in approximately 60 years, and its creation dates to when John Adams was president. Setting that aside, the petitioners argue that the “monstrous damages” established by the Kentucky Supreme Court “cry out” for the U.S. Supreme Court’s review. It needs to apply “constitutional breaks” to “damages that run wild,” the petition stated.

“The PokerStars platform accounted for only a tiny fraction of the gaming occurring in Kentucky, much of which takes place in the
State’s own lottery,” said the petitioners in their filing. “Yet the Kentucky Supreme Court blessed a damages award that exceeded the actual losses of Kentucky players by a factor of 34 and petitioners’ revenue by a factor of 50.”

The petitioners are arguing that their case is the poster child for a grossly excessive punishment that is prohibited by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment.

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Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

(This post has been updated with the latest numbers provided by ILTA.)

Much uncertainty surrounded attendance at this years ILTACON, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association, and the first hybrid version of the conference, as the rise in the Delta variant of COVID-19 cause some to reconsider in-person attendance.

Last week, two major vendors announced that they were withdrawing their staff from attending in person, while continuing to support and participate in the conference virtually. iManage was first to withdraw, followed by Litera.

And among others who made last-minute decisions not to attend, there was me.

Yesterday, after the keynote session that opened the conference, ILTA provided final numbers on attendance. They are:

• Total in-person: 831.
• Total digital: 1,306.
• Total combined (in-person and digital): 2,137.
• Keynote was attended by 500 virtually.

The on-site total is a bit lower than ILTA was predicting, but not by much, and still a respectable showing for the first major legal tech conference since the pandemic began.

The South Dakota justice system has responded to the solemn occasion of sentencing a government official who killed a guy while driving home from an alcohol-laden event with the legalese equivalent of “this is why pencils have erasers!”

Jason Ravnsborg, the attorney general of South Dakota, went to a fundraiser in the middle of the pandemic to auction off a Trump-emblazoned handgun, and on the drive home struck and killed a man. Ravnsborg told the authorities the next day that he thought he’d hit a deer. Authorities countered that the dead man’s glasses were inside Ravnsborg’s car, which is hard to do without seeing the person they’re attached to at some point.

Phone records suggest that Ravnsborg was reading “conservative websites” on his phone at the time of the accident. Ravnsborg took a no-contest plea in light of this behavior and was only fined $1,000.

Well, that’s not all I suppose:

The judge also ordered Ravnsborg to “do a significant public service event” each year over the next five years near the date of Boever’s death, but he put that on hold after Ravnsborg’s attorney objected that it was not allowed by statute.

So he was also ordered to “do the thing politicians naturally do in the course of their jobs” and even that got set aside. He also has to pay assorted court fees to the tune of $3,742.

Jail time wasn’t an option based on Ravnsborg pleading to these charges, but that doesn’t resolve the questions of “why these charges?” and “why allow him to plead here?” From start to finish, no level of the South Dakota justice system seemed to take this man’s death seriously. And that cowardice came to its logical conclusion today.

The victim’s family plans a wrongful death suit.

South Dakota AG gets fines, no jail time in pedestrian death [NBC News]

Earlier: State AG Who Killed A Pedestrian Suggests It Was Suicide As Opposed To His Scrolling The Internet While Driving
State Attorney General Told Officers He’d Hit A Deer… In Reality, A Man Is Now Dead
State AG Killed A Man And Told Cops He’d Hit A Deer, Will Only Face Misdemeanor Charges
Dead Man’s Glasses Found INSIDE South Dakota AG’s Car

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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.

Lawyers at the largest of law firms have been working from home for the better part of the past year-and-a-half due to the coronavirus crisis. Thanks to some quick thinking and an even quicker turnaround time on either providing or funding the tech needed for all personnel to work remotely, Biglaw firms are now looking at booming revenue and profit gains. But which firms did it best when it came to supplying attorneys with what was needed?

According to the American Lawyer’s 2021 Midlevel Associates Survey, third-years through fifth-years gave their firms an average score of 4.23 out of 5 for their ability to support remote work. In 2020, the average score was 3.85, so it looks like Biglaw has gotten the hang of the big tech needed to succeed during unprecedented times.

Firms have doled out laptops and cellphones and, in some cases, provided generous stipends for work-from-home setups.

“We were able to easily pivot to remote work due to increased firm emphasis on technology investment over the previous two years,” said one fifth-year associate in the Washington, D.C., office of an Am Law 200 firm.

Throughout the pandemic, Biglaw firms have made sure that attorneys and staff have had what was necessary to perform, from supplying full tech home kits to offering stipends ranging from $250 to thousands of dollars on top of that. Click here to see what just a few firms offered to improve the remote work experience.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 firms for tech during the pandemic:

1. O’Melveny & Myers
2. Ropes & Gray
3. McDermott Will & Emery
4. Baker & Hostetler
5. Gibson Dunn
6. Kirkland & Ellis
7. Morgan Lewis
8. Orrick
9. Shearman & Sterling
10. Latham & Watkins

Click here to see the full list. Congratulations to the firms that topped the ranking, and to all Biglaw personnel who have survived the work-from-home experience — with the necessary tech assistance from their firms, of course — for this long.

Associates Give Firms High Marks for Their Pandemic-Inspired Tech Transformation [American Lawyer]

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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.

Global firm looking for DCM mid level associate for Hong Kong office (3-5 PQE). Magic circle rate on offer. Solid counsel track, great work/life balance. Partner devoted to associate career development. DCM practice focused on investment-grade debt issuance.

Candidate needs to have 1) qualification from major legal system (US/AU/SG/HK) and 2) fluent English and Chinese language skills. Ideal candidate would have good academic credentials and some experience in leading DCM deals. Interested parties please contact: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.