Category: News Feeds

At noon yesterday, Joseph Biden became president of the United States. Exactly twenty-three minutes later, his personnel director sent an email to Peter Robb, the general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, instructing him to resign by 5 p.m. or be fired. Robb chose option two, and the president made good on his threat.

The story was first reported by Bloomberg Law.

Peter Robb, who was despised by labor unions, wielded enormous power at the NLRB. Acting as chief prosecutor, the Trump appointee chose which cases to bring before the Republican-dominated board, effectively setting labor precedent at will. In that capacity, he sought to weaken a case against McDonalds to the detriment of its franchise employees, attempted to gut the agency as part of a “reorganization” plan, and famously tried to ban the inflatable union mascot “Scabby the Rat” at protests, calling it “unlawfully coercive.”

As the Economic Policy Institute put it, Trump appointees on the NLRB board have “issued a series of significant decisions weakening worker protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA/Act). Further, the board has engaged in an unprecedented number of rulemakings aimed at overturning existing worker protections. Finally, the Trump NLRB general counsel (GC) has advanced policies that leave fewer workers protected by the NLRA and has advocated for changes in the law that roll back workers’ rights. The Trump board and GC have elevated corporate interests above those of working men and women and have routinely betrayed the statute they are responsible for administering and enforcing.”

Robb, who was appointed in 2017, had ten months left in his four-year term. And while the complaint in his refusal letter that early dismissal of the GC is “unprecedented since the nascence of the National Labor Relation Act (NLRA) and the NLRB” is incorrect — Harry Truman demanded the resignation of his NLRB GC in 1950 — Robb is right that it’s not normal. Trump himself, a prodigious buster of norms, kept on Robb’s predecessor Richard Griffin, an Obama appointee, until his term expired in November of 2017.

But, as labor lawyer Brandon Magner points out in his blog Labor Law Lite, the National Labor Relations Act specifies that NLRB board members can only be removed “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,” while simply empowering the president to appoint an employee to act as GC in case of vacancy in the position. So it’s entirely legal for Biden to fire Robb, just as it was legal for Trump to fire FBI Director James Comey. And Biden’s unlikely to go running to Lester Holt to say that he did it to kill a pending federal investigation. AHEM.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member of the Education and Labor Committee can huff all she likes about the Biden team “rewarding their friends in Big Labor on day one” and “urge President Biden to rescind this ill-advised and divisive action against a Senate-confirmed official,” but as a practical matter, the only issue is whether Biden wants to blow up this norm to get rid of a guy who’s actively working to undermine organized labor.

Which apparently he does. So, Robb is out unless he wants to spend his own time and money duking it out in court like Leandra English, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who sued to stop Trump from adding her job to Mick Mulvaney’s portfolio.

How’d that one work out? Oh, right.

Biden Fires NLRB General Counsel After He Refuses to Resign [Bloomberg Law]
The Robb Era: A Knockdown But Not A Knockout For The NLRB [Labor Law Lite]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Bloomberg Law is helping lawyers provide legal services to the poor by offering free access to its legal research service to legal services and pro bono attorneys.

Last week, Bloomberg Law said that it is providing free access to all grantees of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). LSC grantees provide civil legal assistance in every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia.

Today, Bloomberg Law and the pro bono technology company Paladin announced a partnership to provide 90 days’ complimentary access to its research platform to lawyers who take pro bono cases. This offer applies to any pro bono lawyer, not just Paladin users.

Paladin cofounder and chief operating officer Kristen Sonday told me that this partnership is a step towards Paladin’s quest to equip pro bono lawyers with a wider array of tools to more efficiently help their clients.

“Between COVID and racial justice-related events in particular, we’ve seen a big surge in pro bono work and are thrilled to be able to provide access to high quality resources,” Sonday said.

Bloomberg Law provides full coverage of federal and state legislation, regulations, and key agency guidance, including legal issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn.

It also includes resources such as Practical Guidance, trackers, and chart builders, including in practice areas related to pandemic-related legal needs, such as labor and employment, health care, tax, and bankruptcy.

Pro bono lawyers can sign up for the Bloomberg Law/Paladin offer here: https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/paladin-access/.  The LSC announcement does not say how to sign up, but I assume it is through the grantee organizations.

In the final days of the Trump Administration, two agencies clashed over how AI tools should be regulated in healthcare. The Food and Drug Administration had just mapped out a plan for how it would regulate changes to AI-based medical software in the future, when the Department of Health and Human Services proposed that the FDA should cease to review some software tools altogether.

The sudden about-face took many by surprise, and seemed to fly in the face of the plans the FDA had outlined just days before.

The list of proposed exemptions included some common uses for AI in healthcare, such as software used to flag lesions suspected for cancer, and radiological computer-assisted triage and notification software. It would also permanently exempt digital health tools used to treat psychiatric disorders, which the FDA had temporarily exempted in response to the pandemic.

To justify the change, HHS cited the cost of getting 510(k) clearance, in which companies must prove their device is “substantially equivalent” to one that has already been approved by the agency, as well as a lack of reported adverse events.

But it’s unclear if the Biden Administration – including new HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra — will actually implement the proposed changes.

FDA sets the tone for future regulation

For its part, the FDA had detailed a five-part action plan on how it would regulate machine learning tools in healthcare going forward. It sought to tackle the knotty issues of how to make algorithms more transparent, how to evaluate them for bias, and how the agency would handle changes to algorithms after they had been implemented.

Bakul Patel, director of the FDA’s new Digital Health Center of Excellence, touted the plan as a way to realize the potential of these technologies while ensuring they are safe and effective.

One lingering issue it didn’t address was whether or not certain algorithms fall under the FDA’s purview. This had been a gray area even prior to HHS’ proposal, and some clinical decision support tools have been exempted under the 21st Century Cures Act.

“For software in general, there isn’t one clear overarching guidance saying this is when software’s regulated and when software is not regulated,” Michele Buenafe, a partner with Morgan Lewis, said in a phone interview.

The specifics of how exactly the FDA would achieve some of these goals, such as evaluating AI tools for bias, were also vague. The agency said it had been working with the University of California San Francisco, Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University to develop methods to evaluate machine learning-based medical software.

“Because AI/ML systems are developed and trained using data from historical datasets, they are vulnerable to bias – and prone to mirroring biases present in the data,” the FDA’s action plan noted. “Health care delivery is known to vary by factors such as race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status; therefore, it is possible that biases present in our health care system may be inadvertently introduced into the algorithms.”

Jvion, which built a system to identify patients at risk of an adverse event, uses broad datasets to try to avoid these pitfalls, chief medical officer Dr. John Frownfelter said. It also considers social determinants; for example, an hour-long commute on public transportation could be a risk factor for whether someone gets sick from Covid-19.

“While the FDA Oversight action plan is well intended, it remains to be seen whether the design of the details of the plan strikes the right balance,” Frownfelter wrote in an email. “The Action Plan hopefully will enable rather than stifle the rapid learning that clinical AI has the potential to provide.”

How to regulate systems that ‘learn’

One of the most interesting aspects touched on by the FDA was how it plans to handle machine learning tools that “learn” as they’re exposed to more data. In practice, most algorithms used in healthcare don’t work this way — they’re “locked,” meaning they can’t adapt over time.

The FDA said it plans to issue a draft guidance this year for a framework developers can use to approve future changes they anticipate for an AI system. The FDA tested out this approach last year with Caption Health, a startup whose algorithm to help clinicians perform cardiac ultrasounds received a de-novo clearance in February. Ironically, it would be exempted from FDA clearance under HHS’ proposed guidance.

The AI tool that Caption built was designed to assist clinicians with getting cardiac ultrasound images, which can be very difficult to perform, requiring users to tilt and move transducers in a specific position to get the needed image. It provides real-time guidance to the user about how close they are to the optimal place.

“I really liked the concept in general of allowing companies to submit a scope of future changes that they anticipate making,” Sam Surette, Caption Health’s head of regulatory affairs and quality assurance, said in an interview. “They basically draw a boundary around where the algorithm is allowed to change and say that they’re comfortable with that and clear it as part of the device.”

Even with this clearance, Caption’s algorithm does not continuously “learn” onsite; each change is tested before it is rolled out to Caption’s users. While the idea of AI that updates continuously can be exciting, many healthcare companies haven’t yet found it would be beneficial enough to implement it, Surette said.

“We haven’t crossed that Rubicon in terms of adaptive AI but this lays the groundwork,” he added.

Aside from the FDA’s plans to build this framework, the rest of its plans were “amorphous,” Buenafe said.

“It’s unclear how it’s going to shake out, how it may impact developers of AI or machine learning technology, or patients who may be treated or diagnosed by this technology,” she said.

Photo credit: Pixtum, Getty Images

This picture forms the first half of an epic Biglaw “How it started” meme. Immediately before his inauguration, Donald Trump stacked up a pile of empty manila folders and made Morgan Lewis partner Sheri Dillon explain that Trump was placing all of his business in a trust. That the trust would be administered by his kids, thus defeating the purpose of a blind trust was an afterthought for Morgan Lewis, the firm that had advised on Trump’s taxes for years.

After the New York Times revealed a fortune built on shady exploitation of tax laws that forced Trump’s federal judge sister to resign before facing a damaging investigation, four years of Trump family holdings profiting off the government in ways that underscored the blind trust lie, and the New York AG’s office naming Dillon and Morgan Lewis as defendants in its Trump Organization probe, the firm seems to have decided that “Trump,” “taxes,” and “Morgan Lewis” are terms they don’t want to see in the same sentence. Even if some of the questionable moves predated the firm’s involvement.

And so we come to the “how it’s going” half of the meme:

A spokesperson for Morgan Lewis indicated Tuesday that it is working to wrap up its long-running tax work for the former president and his companies.

The American Lawyer suggests that Morgan Lewis hasn’t suffered the same blowback that Jones Day or Cleta Mitchell did because representing Trump’s business interests is a more palatable endeavor than trying to “overthrow democracy.” And not to diminish the extensive work Jones Day billed to its “voter suppression” matter number, Trump’s business and tax dealings shouldn’t get lost in a shuffle of empty folders. Taxpayer funds appear to have been redirected for his benefit, foreign entities pumped cash toward his interests in an effort to curry influence, and his charities increasingly appear to be empty shells. If none of this is illegal, it’s certainly not something a firm should want to get its name mixed up in.

And the “if” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

So Morgan Lewis will say good bye to the Trump’s after years of loyal service. They’ll still be in the headlines by dint of the existing probes, but they’ll begin the transition — now that Trump is out of office — to purging their firm reputation of its connection to the reality TV host.

But don’t cry because it’s over, smile that the firm banked massive revenue over the years.

Morgan Lewis Seeking to Cut Ties With Trump [American Lawyer]

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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.

Whew! The inauguration of our new president, and yes, I am saying “our” new president, happened without trauma or turmoil. We’ve had a lot of that recently, and whether your candidate won or lost the election, the sense of relief is probably palpable for most of us.

Remember a time when law practice was civil, both in practice and in courtesy? Can we, please, do that now? Be civil? Be courteous? Does it really take that much effort? Being a jerk is easy; being courteous and civil is sometimes hard, but it’s the right way to practice. I don’t think most lawyers would disagree. We have all been battered and bruised and now it’s time to work together to solve client problems. (Just a little mediator-speak here.)

One civility issue that arises often (and not necessarily from lawyers) is negative online reviews. What to do? How to respond? I have always thought that responding to negative online reviews becomes a pissing contest, the throwing of gas on an already-lit fire. Since so many people use online reviews to make choices, the issue is how to respond to them, if at all. Is it ethical to respond?

The ABA has issued an ethics opinion on that question. It says that the best practice is to stifle yourself and not respond at all, especially since you cannot defend yourself using any confidential information arising from the representation of any client. As Barbara Streisand found out years ago, it makes more sense to leave it alone than to further broadcast the issue.

I have a short memory for anything I read online unless I print it out or write it down or bookmark it. Do you know how many bookmarks I have that I have never looked at or even remembered that I bookmarked? A rhetorical question.

The fallback position, says the ABA, is to request a “takedown” from the website or search engine. Good luck with that. The last resort, the opinion says, is to respond online. The lawyer could invite the disgruntled commenter to talk privately about the issue (again, good luck with that, since many posters don’t use their true names) or state that the lawyer’s professional obligations preclude any online response. The latter may be “lawyering up,” but it’s what Model Rule 1.6(a) requires. Read Formal Opinion 406 here.

The past few years, there’s been a national conversation on aging and when it’s time for judges, as well as lawyers, to hang it up, to retire (I hate that word, my image is playing golf in a retirement community — I will now get emails from enraged duffers) or my preferred term, “redirect,” to do other things that will make use of the knowledge and skills gained in a lifetime of the law. The late Berkeley neurobiologist, Dr. Marian Diamond, used that term at an alumni event I attended, and I thought then (and now) it is more apt than current “retirement” usage. Diamond advocated “use it or lose it,” that the brain could continue to develop well into old age. It’s the concept of neuroplasticity (Google it).

Several years ago, the Ninth Circuit Wellness Committee helped to recruit three dozen judges, from magistrates to bankruptcy judges to circuit judges and several retirees, to participate in neuropsychological testing. Some were in their 50s, most in their late 60s, and the oldest was 87. The tests examined attention, memory, orientation, and other neuropsychological factors.

There’s no answer as to when a judge should retire. Where one judge might be in fine mental and physical fettle well into her 80s, another judge might show issues of cognitive decline in his 60s. Who gets to make that call? Blowback is inevitable, so is denial.

Is intemperate conduct on the bench a symptom of cognitive decline, or is it just that the judge is a nasty jurist, whose temperament is consistently unpleasant? How do you know what it might be? Lawyers talk, but are our opinions reliable?

The aging conversation is true for lawyers as well. Should there be a mandatory retirement age for lawyers? Should senior lawyers reduce their practices to make room for mentoring younger lawyers? What if a senior lawyer needs to continue to work for financial reasons? How do you justify cutting off an income stream at a certain age? Since more than one-half of this country’s lawyers are solos, how is cognitive decline to be determined?

The mental stimulation the law provides is a valid reason for continuing to have a life in the law. Interacting with people (we’ve found that Zoom is no replacement for in-person contact), analyzing fact patterns, and helping people are reasons to keep going, even if it’s not the same role. We need to use our vitality, our knowledge in various ways.

We can hopefully now concentrate on taming the virus, which, as I write this, has killed more than 400,000 of our fellow citizens. It’s as if the entire city of New Orleans, of Tulsa, of Tampa, of other cities across the country had been wiped out, obliterated not by a nuclear bomb but by a virus more deadly than thought possible, except for the scientists who forecast grim results from the beginning.

The virus is front and center on the new president’s agenda, as it should be. I heard that a former client of mine lost four family members in less than a week. Everyone, please mask up. It will not kill you to do so, but it may kill you if you don’t.

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Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

If a Biglaw firm cares about something then there’ll be a way to bill for it. The billable hour is more than just a way for a firm to collect money owed to them (though obvi, it’s that too) but it’s also a way to track what their employees are actually doing with their time. Billable hours — particularly at firms that have hours requirements for bonuses — assign a clear value to the time and effort that went into a particular task. Now a Biglaw firm is saying diversity is something worthwhile and will be counted in billable hours.

Hogan Lovells just announced approved Diversity & Inclusion activities — up to 50 hours — will be billable and count toward bonus thresholds. And they’ve got a pretty thorough list of what counts toward the credit:

The D&I activities eligible for billable credit:

1. Leading or organizing D&I events or diversity network initiatives.
2. Recruiting underrepresented professionals to the firm.
3. Mentoring or sponsoring underrepresented professionals.
4. Participating in allyship and action-oriented D&I programs that extend beyond education.
5. Preparing for and participating in client-related D&I activity.
6. Additional activities to be approved on a case-by-case basis.

HoLove’s Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Bendita Cynthia Malakia, explained the firm’s thinking on expanding what’s billable in this manner:

“The rationale behind establishing billable D&I credit is twofold: to ensure our underrepresented colleagues are credited for disproportionately undertaking diversity and inclusion activities, and to incentivize all our people to undertake activities that enhance diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the firm.”

And Susan Bright, Global Managing Partner for Diversity & Inclusion and Responsible Business, said:

“The introduction of D&I billable hour credit is part of our global strategy to create and maintain a diverse and inclusive working environment throughout our firm, and at the highest ranks. It also enables us to achieve our global minority and LGBT+ goals, and measure engagement at a substantive level. We recognize that diversity of all kinds creates better teams, and better serves our clients.”

The move to billable D&I hours is part of a larger diversity effort at the firm. They’ve previously announced concrete goals of 15 percent minority partners by 2025, 4 percent LGBT+ partners by 2025, and 30 percent women partners by 2022. Billable credit is a great way to make sure everyone at the firm is pulling toward these very important goals.

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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).

There are people in this world who complain about law school and while I hear their laments, I’ve never been able to empathize. It was basically college but with lucrative summer jobs to finance the constant partying — an opportunity to substitute Jack Daniel’s for Zachariah Harris. With everyone ploughing through the same curriculum, social gatherings carried an extra communal feel.

The substance abuse problems plaguing the legal industry have forced more institutions to question the reliance upon alcohol-fueled parties. Some Biglaw firms have banned drinking events and replaced them with horrifying body shaming because law firms can’t help but make things worse. But inevitably these pressures would come for the law schools. Just how far can this go?

Stacy Leeds, the former dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law pleads for a more nuanced approach and frankly everyone should follow her lead here.

We first saw this piece late on January 5, but didn’t get to write about it the next day because the Republican Party was too busy trying to assassinate Mike Pence that day. There’s always something.

In a piece entitled, “Can A Tribal Judge Say ‘I Like Beer’?” the former Cherokee Nation Supreme Court justice defends the value of inclusion and the need to avoid sweeping reforms that could fracture the sense of community that law school is supposed to foster. Just consider that not everyone wants to do shots for 4 hours straight and don’t let the fact that you might get in the way of chatting with your sober classmate:

I’ve hosted my share of cocktail receptions and fundraisers with a lot of booze and I have raised millions of dollars that way. And I’m trying to be a lot more more mindful of ensuring real alternatives in all settings. Just like I offer gluten free or vegan snacks so everyone has a meaningful food option AND feels welcome, the same goes for drinks. News flash: water cannot be the only option. Fun “mocktails” are a thoughtful touch and I regret that I didn’t see this earlier in life. I’ll never make that mistake again.

This is the cultural change that the industry needs. Instead of exclusively throwing knock down boozefests or mandatory yoga classes, just endeavor to make every gathering accessible to all. This isn’t a really radical idea — Brian Cuban has covered the need for law firms to carefully consider their non-alcoholic offerings before — but what is different now (even from that 2017 article) is the explosion of self-important mixologists willing to devote time and effort to crafting good drinks. The word “mocktail” didn’t even exist until the late 1970s and wasn’t a staple of social culture until the last handful of years. But it’s here now and can be leveraged to make that student lounge hang out more inclusive.

Given her background as a Cherokee jurist, it’s also a take that addresses the unique history of alcohol abuse among indigenous peoples.

In Indian country it’s hard to have a real conversation. We shy away from talking about it. I don’t want the first year Native law student who has a few beers to be shunned by our community and made to feel bad about themselves while their classmates in the student bar association have their weekly Thursday night binge. And I want kids who are acting foolish like I did, know that they have a really bright future ahead and need not be defined by their past poor judgments.

Moe the Bartender once told Springfield’s designated drivers on St. Patrick’s Day, “beat it — I got no room for cheapskates,” but people avoid alcohol for a whole range of reasons including family history. Don’t lock them out of the club for that.

TO BE CLEAR, I am not advocating for alcohol consumption at all. Let’s all commit to drinking less, never ever getting behind the wheel again and celebrating those that have given it up completely. I may join them someday. Or I may always enjoy a cold beer as a celebration after running a half marathon. Both approaches are ok.

I know most of you will never be 100% vegan or 100% gluten free. And most of you won’t be 100% sober either. But we can encourage each other to have a better attitude about all things healthy and unhealthy.

This may seem untimely right now as law students are taking classes over Zoom, but eventually everyone’s going to come back together. And when they do, folks can’t let alcohol become a social wedge.

Can A Tribal Judge Say “I Like Beer”? [Indigenous Well]

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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.

 Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Lindsey B.W. Savage to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Women lawyers are unique and diverse individuals; we do not have the same specific goals in our pursuit of personal and professional advancement and development. The past twelve months drove home, many times over, the crucial ways in which women bar groups can support and empower to improve the status of women in the profession. As a director and officer of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations (NCWBA), a national “bar association for women’s bar associations” that advocates for equality in the legal profession and in society by mobilizing and uniting women’s bar associations, I have seen firsthand these benefits in action.

Based on my anecdotal research (questioning women lawyers I know), it seems a familiar path into participation in women’s lawyer groups is: someone made me go! Similarly, as a military spouse, I have leaned heavily on various bar groups throughout my career when landing in a new legal market. Depending on the size of a community, the local (city/county) bar group and, often, the women’s bar group are a natural place to join to meet the locals and become integrated into the legal community. Participation in national bar associations further expands our network, especially as virtual event popularity has increased. MothersEsquire is one of my go-to virtual groups as a mother to three young kids and is an essential piece of the lawyer toolkit for moms. And although not exclusively a women’s bar group, the Military Spouse JD Network has been another crucial virtual community for me throughout my career. (They just “get it,” they are everywhere, and they know everything!) Through the NCWBA, I engage with dynamic women leaders from across the world. Personally, my involvement in women lawyer groups has opened up a robust network of women attorneys from which I draw inspiration, motivation, and support. I encourage you to increase your involvement in women bar groups!

When I speak of “women’s bar groups,” I’m not only referencing the formal, established bar associations, with dues and bylaws -– any group of women attorneys collaborating may provide essential support for women in the profession in various capacities. You may find great support in person and virtually from groups of women lawyers brought together with even more specific interests: spin bikes, motherhood, practice area, an interest in law firm management, social justice, hiking, and even a love of a certain grocery store or an interest in drinking tea, to name a few. Not every women’s lawyer group will be the perfect fit for you. It may take some time, trial and error, and luck to find “your” group, but your time will be well spent. Chances are, if you have an interest and you are a woman lawyer, there’s a women’s bar group for that (especially on social media)! The NCWBA’s Annual Women’s Bar Leadership Summit (August 2021) will explore the theme, “What is Your Why?” surrounding issues important to women in the legal profession. To find a group that is right for you — you might consider, What is your Why?

You might be a new mom searching for support from attorney moms who have been-there-done-that: navigating parental leave policies, finding or creating lactation rooms in courthouses, navigating child-care tips and tricks, finding a way to work a flexible schedule, weighing the risks and rewards of taking some extended time off — there’s a bar group for that.

You might just work so much that you never have time to socialize. You need some friends who get it. There’s a bar group for that.

You might be ready to refer out cases to trusted members of your profession, have more work than time and be ready to hire some associate attorneys, or co-counsel. There’s a bar group for that.

You might be on the path to partner at your firm; but you’re the first woman there; you are seeking mentorship from women partners elsewhere as you lay your path to success. There’s a bar group for that.

You might be in-house counsel or the only attorney at a start-up or a solo practitioner looking to scale your business and seeking colleagues to bounce ideas off and collaborate. There’s a bar group for that.

You might be searching for leadership training and opportunities. There are MANY bar groups for that. (Seriously, check the list at ncwba.org or e-mail me, I’ll find you somewhere to volunteer.)

You might be ready to retire, but not ready to abandon your legacy or leave your clients. You wonder what life without billable hours may have in store for you. There’s a bar group for that.

The past twelve months were rough. Personally, I got by with a lot of support from my friends, mostly virtually, and many of them attorney moms I only know through involvement in women’s bar groups. If you have not yet found “your people” in the legal profession, I urge you to do some exploring — it can be very low risk while so many events are being held virtually –- you can even keep your camera off. Or, if you prefer in-person events, find a few attorneys in your local community to have a socially distanced coffee or attend a meeting of an established bar group in your community. On social media, searching for groups of lawyers related to an interest you have may help you connect.  Once you have found your people, bring someone along the next time you attend an event — growing our networks helps everyone succeed!

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Lindsey B.W. Savage is an attorney at SRD Legal Group, a women-owned virtual law firm and is licensed to practice law in New York, California, and Washington state. She is a Director and Treasurer of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations and Co-Chair of the NCWBA’s Women’s Bar Leadership Summit Committee. She is a director of the Military Spouse Advocacy Network and past director and current member of the Military Spouse JD Network.  Ms. Savage enjoys life as a Navy spouse and mom to three young children, one rabbit, and a sweet rescue dog.