Category: News Feeds

The novel coronavirus continues its rapid spread across the country, with cases increasing exponentially by the day. It seems that each week, the U.S. sets a record COVID-19 death toll. Hospitals are edging ever closer to being overrun, with some already rationing care for the sick. To say that things do not look good would be an understatement.

Thankfully, two vaccines have been approved for emergency use by the FDA, and they’re being administered across the country in phases. Hopes are pinned on the vaccine’s potential to put an end to the pandemic. With the latest news that judges and lawyers will have priority for vaccination, it makes it seem even more likely that attorneys will soon be able to leave their virtual workspaces to return to their offices.

But just how quickly are law firms planning to step away from remote work and formally reopen their offices? Will you be expected to return to work?

We polled attorneys at nearly 150 Biglaw and boutique law firms from almost every state in America (with our largest respondent cohorts coming from New York and California), as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Canada to find out what lies ahead for the legal workforce thanks to the pandemic.

Has your firm set a date for the transition away from remote work and the reopening of its office(s)?

An overwhelming majority (83.84%) of respondents reported that their firms had not set a specific date for a transition away from remote work and the reopening of offices. Other firms, however, know generally when they plan to return to work.

When does your firm plan on reopening its office(s)?

The largest cohort of respondents (65.63%) reported that their firm plans to reopen its office(s) in Spring 2021.

What are going to be your firm’s in-office work expectations?

Over half of respondents (54.79%) reported that their firm’s in-office work expectations will include in-office presence at the discretion of the employee.

Have your offices been altered to allow for better social distancing?

Almost half of respondents (48.75%) reported their office has been altered to allow for better social distancing.

What sorts of alterations have been performed?

The largest cohort of respondents (35.25%) reported new signage has been added to their offices. Some of our “other” responses included these alterations: conference room closures; one-way hallways; no shared kitchen equipment; removal of food and beverages; PPE distribution; sanitizing stations; and closed bathroom stalls.

Which of the following best describes your opinion of your firm’s plan:

The largest cohort of respondents (66.94%) reported that they believe their firm’s plan has been just right. This was followed by 10.48% of respondents equally thinking firm plans were slightly rushed and very overcautious.

Are you ready to return to work? We certainly hope so, because it looks like that may be what Biglaw and boutique firms are expecting of their attorneys in just a few months. As with all things having to do with COVID-19, these plans are likely subject to change, but be sure to prepare yourselves for office life once again — just in case.

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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.

The U.S. Supreme Court has really heard quite enough about what is and is not insider trading, and it does not intend to hear anything more. That said, it doesn’t mind forcing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which has heard even more bickering over the matter than the high court and has shown itself to be somewhat confused on the matter, to listen to it some more.

Looking Better: Jobs in New York, Kansas City, and Singapore

Looking Better: Jobs in New York, Kansas City, and Singapore

Kinney Recruiting

Marine Corps General Smedley Butler testified before the House of Representatives that a gang of conspirators approached him about staging a fascist overthrow of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Which prominent Supreme Court litigator did Butler implicate in the plot?

Hint: The litigator’s name still graces his famed Biglaw firm.

See the answer on the next page.

When we last checked in with the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and its policy branch Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) they were busy back-pedaling.

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the Capitol, it was revealed that RLDF was a participating organization of the rally that preceded the violence and whipped up the crowd. But more than that, they paid for robocalls encouraging supporters to attend the rally. RAGA’s executive director Adam Piper made a statement trying to distance the organization from the insurrection and disavowing any responsibility for the violence.

But it looks like those chickens have come home to roost.

As reported by NBC News, Piper has resigned from the organization amid the controversy, saying leading the Republican attorneys general has been “the honor of a lifetime and honestly a dream.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is the head of RLDF (and also signed onto the failed lawsuit challenging the election results which encouraged the lie that Donald Trump was the winner of the 2020 election). His statement on Piper’s resignation lauds the “intentions” behind RAGA’s actions:

“Every decision Adam made on behalf of RLDF was with the best of intentions and with the organization’s best interests in mind,” Steve Marshall, the board chairman of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, said in a statement.

I guess it’s too much to ask that responsibility is catchy.

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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).

Things were never particularly promising for the legal challenge to Georgia’s election results. Congress overcame an armed insurrection to certify the election results but, still the Eleventh Circuit appeal marches forward.

Unfortunately for Sidney Powell, that case — one she once touted as part of the Kraken strategy — will have to continue (at least for the moment) without the embattled attorney. Powell filed an Appearance of Counsel form in the case, but as reported by Law & Crime, it was rejected. It seems she isn’t a member of that bar, and failed to submit a pro hac vice application:

“In order to participate in this appeal, you must complete and submit an application for admission to the bar or application to appear pro hac vice within 14 days from the date of this letter,” Clerk of the Court David J. Smith wrote in a letter to Powell. “If your application is not received within 21 days, any motions or other papers that have been conditionally filed in the appeal may be clerically stricken and treated as though they were never filed.”

This isn’t the first clerical snafu in this case. As Law & Crime points out, “the Georgia petition—filed in late November—came under intense scrutiny that quickly led to a cascade of Twitter-based mockery and scorn. Legal observers pointed out several clumsy formatting and typographical errors, including the fact that word ‘district’ was misspelled twice at the very top of the filing.”

Remember folks, it’s only one more week until Joe Biden’s inauguration.

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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).

“I acknowledge that I preside over a small part of the legal world in a small state,” wrote Judge Craig A. Karsnitz of the Superior Court of Delaware. “However, we take pride in our bar.”

In an opinion revoking the pro hac vice admission of defamation lawyer Lin Wood, Judge Karnitz described the attorney’s participation in litigation to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory as “a toxic stew of mendacity, prevarication, and surprising incompetence.”

It’s another achievement unlocked for the vaunted defamation lawyer who managed to get booted off Twitter and then censored by the avowedly anti-censorship platform Parler (RIP) for a “parley” calling for Vice President Pence to be executed for treason by firing squad.

In August, the court accepted Wood’s motion for PHV appearance on behalf of fellow vexatious litigant Carter Page in a defamation suit against the parent company of Yahoo! News. Since then, Wood’s behavior has become increasingly erratic. Recently he tweeted accusations involving child rape about Chief Justice Roberts, and, according to his former partners, suffers from delusions that he may be Jesus reincarnated.

“I might actually be Christ coming back for a second time in the form of an imperfect man, elevating Christ consciousness,” he speculated, according to a lawsuit filed by his former partners.

But Wood isn’t being tossed off the Page case because “I represent Moses. I represent Ananias the believer. I’m like the power of King David.” Or if he is, then those biblical figures really need to bone up on their civil procedure.

In fact, he’s being booted out of the Blue Hen coop because the lawyering in the so-called “Kraken” cases is scandalously shoddy. Citing the “error-ridden affidavit of an expert witness” in the Georgia suit, Judge Karsnitz notes that “An Attorney as experienced as Mr. Wood knows that expert affidavits must be reviewed in detail to ensure accuracy before filing. Failure to do so is either mendacious or incompetent.”

As for Wood’s defense that these were mere “proofreading errors,” the judge scoffed, “Failure to certify a complaint for injunction or even serve the Defendants are not ‘proofreading errors.’ The complaint would not survive a law school civil procedure class.”

“Prior to the pandemic, I watched daily counsel practice before me in a civil, ethical way to tirelessly advance the interests of their clients,” Judge Karsnitz concluded. “It would dishonor them were I to allow this pro hac vice order to stand.”

And in yet another bizarre news cycle for Wood, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the attorney fell out with his former client Steve Wynn, a casino magnate over another former client, Richard Jewell.

Jewell, who was falsely accused of being the Olympic Park Bomber in 1996, has been dead since 2007. Nevertheless, Wood, who credits Jewell with changing his life, is fixated on procuring a posthumous Medal of Freedom for Jewell from President Trump. Wood claims that this effort was torpedoed when Wynn described him as crazy in a conversation with the president, and is now threatening to sue for defamation.

But wait, there’s more!

Mr. Wood has accused his former client of disparaging him to Mr. Trump and spoiling the medal for Mr. Jewell. He said he has demanded millions of dollars from Mr. Wynn for reputational damage with the president and suggested that the secret settlements he negotiated for Mr. Wynn could become public knowledge if the parties can’t come to terms.

In an interview, Mr. Wood said he warned Mr. Wynn’s lawyers that the legal work he did for Mr. Wynn would be fair game in a defamation lawsuit.

“I would tell everything I could to defend myself,” Mr. Wood said about his message to Mr. Wynn, adding that it wouldn’t “be pretty.”

Threatening to reveal confidential client information in a defamation suit is … a move.

Are we 100 percent sure it’s not still 2020? Maybe we can get Judge Karsnitz to revoke Lin Wood’s admission to the news cycle in 2021. Quick, someone admitted in Delaware go draft a motion!

Steve Wynn and Lawyer Lin Wood, United Over Trump, Break Ties in Messy Spat [WSJ]

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

For new attorneys, it’s no secret that the first few weeks and months on the job can be overwhelming. You aren’t expected to be an expert in all areas of law, but you are expected to learn quickly, communicate effectively, and act ethically and professionally. Getting into the groove of law firm life can be particularly challenging when working remotely, as newbies miss out on opportunities to learn from senior colleagues in person.

All of this makes the Bridge-the-Gap (BTG) programs offered by Practising Law Institute (PLI) especially useful this year. These two live webcasts, focusing on ethics and skills for New York attorneys, cover topics relevant to all practice areas and settings, helping new practitioners recognize tricky ethical situations, sharpen their communications, practice negotiations, develop confidence in their pro bono toolkit, and more. Speakers include an array of established experts, including law firm partners and others from private practice, legal services organizations, in-house, executive consulting, and the bench.

Stephanie Figueroa, Program Attorney for the first half of the BTG series, Bridge-the-Gap I: Ethics and Skills for Newly Admitted New York Attorneys, uses the word “grounded” to describe PLI’s approach to developing these programs. “It comes from conscientiously and seriously thinking about newly admitted attorneys and the tasks and issues they face. What do I wish someone had taken the time to explain when I was in their shoes? What lessons did I learn the hard way that could have been avoided? We aim to make sure that the advice and guidance given is pertinent and truly useful to someone beginning their legal career.”

Communication skills can be the most challenging to bridge between the theory of law school and the practice of law. “Whether it’s learning how to negotiate with someone whose natural personality is unlike your own, or discussing difficult questions with your supervising attorney or case matter team, knowing the best way to communicate and how to handle delicate situations don’t necessarily get discussed in law school,” Figueroa notes. With an understanding that all professionals can use pointers and practice to communicate more effectively, the BTG programs emphasize “common real-world scenarios and tough situations all attorneys find themselves in at one point in time or another,” she says.

A related topic of great concern for new attorneys is how to ensure their social media presence is compatible with their ethical obligations. Jesse Sands, Program Attorney for the second half of the series, Bridge-the-Gap II: Ethics and Skills for Newly Admitted New York Attorneys, notes that “there is a natural tension between junior attorneys’ need to establish their professional brand and reputation and the sometimes-opaque ethical rules around client confidentiality, communications with represented parties, and avoiding inadvertently providing legal advice.” Promoting yourself – or even just having a normal online social life – while avoiding those ethical pitfalls “is not something that is usually covered in law school, but can be the easiest ethical trap for a new attorney to fall into,” Sands adds.

For its 2021 BTG programming, PLI also made sure to address issues of concern for new lawyers during the “new normal” of remote work. “In BTG I, we dedicate over two hours to the ethics segment, during which the panelists will discuss the nuances of being conscientious of where you are working remotely in terms of whether you are admitted to practice law,” Figueroa says, as well as a general discussion of how to be mindful of attorney-client privilege when working remotely.

Similarly, in BTG II “our pro bono skills session includes practical advice on tackling the unique challenges of remotely representing low-income clients,” Sands says, “and our interpersonal communications segment addresses the novel challenge of how to build productive relationships with supervising attorneys in a remote environment.”

All of this might seem like a lot to take in, but Figueroa offers some key words of wisdom: “First, even the simplest tasks can become complicated if they’re done carelessly. Always reach out to a senior attorney when you have a question or need help. Finally, always remember that you’re not alone in your situation – all lawyers were newly admitted at one point! – and there are answers available to you.”

As Donald Trump prepared to whip his militia of Proud Boys and Q Quacks into a violent and ultimately deadly frenzy, he was chilling out with his cronies in a tent listening to poor Laura Branigan who is unfortunately no longer around to issue a cease-and-desist letter for dragging her art into the administration’s bargain basement fascism pageant. And, because he’s a talentless disappointment thirsty for anyone to fill the daddy-sized hole in his heart, Don Jr. filmed the whole affair.

Thankfully he lets the camera linger on boring scenery without any commentary for minutes at a time. BECAUSE HE’S AN AUTEUR!

Now, right there before Junior praises Mark Meadows as a “fighter” — words that would take on a more ominous tinge about an hour later — that guy over his shoulder is good old Eric Herschmann, late of Kasowitz Benson and now a “senior advisor” to Donald Trump. There he is in grainy glory right there:

Continuing Kasowitz’s neck-deep involvement in the travails of this administration — a bond that started even before Trump’s election when Kasowitz was getting Ivanka and Junior out of criminal prosecutions — Herschmann parlayed his Kasowitz role into a full-time gig with the White House “with a hazy portfolio” as the New York Times puts it. And since the New York Law Journal already wrote that Kasowitz’s involvement was hurting the firm, maybe getting out wasn’t the worst move.

But, that hazy portfolio includes at the very least a prominent role in peddling the Hunter Biden nonsense:

The three [Herschmann, Stefan Passantino, and Arthur Schwartz] had pinned their hopes for re-electing the president on a fourth guest, a straight-shooting Wall Street Journal White House reporter named Michael Bender. They delivered the goods to him there: a cache of emails detailing Hunter Biden’s business activities, and, on speaker phone, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s named Tony Bobulinski. Mr. Bobulinski was willing to go on the record in The Journal with an explosive claim: that Joe Biden, the former vice president, had been aware of, and profited from, his son’s activities. The Trump team left believing that The Journal would blow the thing open and their excitement was conveyed to the president.

That bid… didn’t work. But it may not be the only disinformation campaign that Herschmann’s quarterbacking, with many tying his vague advisor role to overseeing and advising on the various post-election legal challenges that made up the ooey gooey filling of Trump’s insurrection HoHo. His cameo in this video of a rally to spread debunked myths about the election seems to underscore that involvement.

But despite the delusion these people instilled in the rioters, Donald Trump will no longer be president in a few days. And when he exits the White House, what’s going to become of enablers like Herschmann? Are they going to return to the welcoming embrace of major law firms? Are clients going to remember all this?

Probably not. If this country didn’t have the attention span of a goldfish, people like Herschmann wouldn’t be trying to turn dubious Hunter Biden emails into a scandal.

Trump Had One Last Story To Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It. [New York Times]
Former Trump impeachment lawyer heads to White House [Politico]

Earlier: Marc Kasowitz… Will You Accept This Rose?
Ivanka And Don Jr. Avoided Indictment The Old-Fashioned Way: By Being Rich
When People Start Writing About You Destroying Your Firm, Things Aren’t Going 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.

Last week, we reported that one of the participants in the storming of the Capitol building was Aaron Mostofsky, son of New York Supreme Court Judge Shlomo Mostofsky. Of course, the sleuthing required wasn’t too difficult — he did give an interview to the New York Post from the Capitol building where he identified himself as “Aaron from Brooklyn.” (And his pelt regalia gave him a distinctive look that made him an easy target for satire.)

This morning, Mostofsky was arrested. According to the indictment obtained by Law & Crime, the charges include unlawful entry and disorderly conduct, and felony theft of government property. In that infamous video, Mostofsky was seen carrying around a police riot shield and bulletproof vest which he claimed to have found.

There’s video of his arrest in the Midwood area of Brooklyn — he was reportedly found at his brother’s house — and it appears the FBI is confiscating parts of the ensemble Mostofsky wore during the insurrection.

Mostofsky is expected to appear in Brooklyn federal court later this afternoon.

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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).