Category: News Feeds

I’m in the dark as much as the next person. It’s devastating. It’s horrible. [John Liquori] was a good friend and an even better colleague… We all know the stressers we are under as attorneys. It’s important to communicate how we feel.

That’s the only one benefit that can come from this — that maybe people won’t be afraid to talk about how they feel.”

— Attorney David Kelly of Spellman, Kelly & Fanous who worked on cases against John Liquori for 20 years, tells Law.com his reaction to Liquori’s death. According to reports, Liquori murdered his wife, 55-year-old wife Cindy, on Christmas Day before killing himself. Solo practitioner Mary Bergamini said Liquori “was feeling concerned about some cases coming up in January,” and “seemed very anxious.”

Ed. note: This column originally appeared on December 21 on Original Jurisdiction, the new Substack publication from David Lat.

Congratulations to the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court, who could receive COVID-19 vaccinations as early as this week. And it makes sense that keeping the justices safe and healthy is a high priority. As we recently saw with the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the loss of a justice can be very disruptive for both the Court and the country. (Whether other federal judges also get priority for vaccination remains to be seen.)

After the justices get vaccinated, will some or all of them return to Court? Could we see the end of telephonic arguments and a return to in-person sessions? And will the justices’ clerks have the clerkship experience that many of them expected, getting to work in close physical proximity to their bosses on a regular basis? We shall see.

This brings us to today’s topic: the October Term 2020 class of Supreme Court law clerks. A big thanks to the Court’s Public Information Office for sharing with me the final, complete roster of OT 2020 clerks. I can now present to you an official list of hires, as confirmed by the Court itself.

And we now know the fate of Justice Ginsburg’s final set of clerks. As I previously reported, two are with Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the rest of OT 2020 (Jack Boeglin and Thad Eagles). But I can now also report that two are with Justice Stephen G. Breyer (David Louk and Brittany Jones Record), and one is with Justice Elena Kagan (Eliza Lehner). So this term, the liberal justices have a surplus of clerkly talent: Justice Breyer and Justice Sotomayor have a whopping six clerks each and Justice Kagan has five, while the conservative justices have the standard four clerks each.

Finally, having an official roster of OT 2020 law clerks means that I can analyze the demographics of the complete clerk class (superseding my earlier demographic analysis of the clerk class). So let’s jump right in.

1. Gender. The final clerk class has 42 clerks: four clerks to each of the nine active justices, plus Justice Ginsburg’s five displaced clerks, plus one clerk to retired Justice Kennedy (36 + 5 + 1 = 42). Of the 42 clerks, 24 are men and 18 are women, making for a class that’s 57 percent male and 43 percent female.

For comparison, here are the gender breakdowns for the past few classes of clerks:

OT 2019: 59 percent male, 41 percent female.

OT 2018: 51 percent female, 49 percent male (this is the first term in SCOTUS history where a majority of clerks have been women, as well as the term that Justice Brett Kavanaugh had an all-female clerk contingent, also a first at the Court).

OT 2017: 64 percent male, 36 percent female.

OT 2016: 58 percent male, 42 percent female.

So this term’s gender breakdown is roughly in line with the past few years — and it’s definitely more balanced than clerk classes from the more distant past. As noted by Tony Mauro, from 2005 to 2017, twice as many men as women were hired as SCOTUS clerks (i.e., roughly a 67 percent male, 33 percent female breakdown).

2. Feeder schools. Thanks to Justice Barrett, a Notre Dame Law graduate herself, the ranks of feeder schools are a bit more diverse. Before she hired her clerks, the 38 SCOTUS clerks for OT 2020 came from just seven schools, all of them among the top 14 aka “T14” schools. With the addition of her clerks — two U. Chicago grads, a Northwestern grad, and a GW Law grad — two more schools were added to the mix, including one not among the T14 (GW, currently #23). Here’s the full breakdown of the nine feeder schools this term:

• Yale (15)
• Harvard (7)
• Chicago (7)
• NYU (4)
• Stanford (3)
• UVA (2)
• Michigan (2)
• George Washington (1)
• Northwestern (1)

Yale and Harvard are the perennial top two schools for producing SCOTUS clerks. But as a result of Justice Barrett hiring no Harvard or Yale grads and two Chicago grads, Chicago pulls into a tie with Harvard for second place this Term. Congrats, Chicago!

3. Feeder judges. In my original demographic analysis, 39 lower-court judges sent clerks to One First Street, compared to 47 judges for OT 2019. With the addition of the Barrett clerks, the number goes to 40, with the addition of Judge Paul K. Kelly (10th Cir.).

There are a few other changes as well. Congratulations to Chief Judge William H. Pryor (11th Cir.) on becoming the #1 feeder judge, pulling ahead of Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan (D.C. Cir.) and Judge Robert Katzmann (2d Cir.). And three new judges get added to the list of lower-court judges with more than one clerk at the Court for OT 2020: then-Judge Barrett (from her time on the Seventh Circuit), then-Judge Kavanaugh (from his time on the D.C. Circuit), and Judge Richard J. Leon (D.D.C.).

Here’s the full list of lower-court feeder judges with more than one clerk at the Court for OT 2020, with the number of clerks noted parenthetically:

• W. Pryor (5)
• Katzmann (4)
• Srinivasan (4)
• Sutton (3)
• Wilkinson (3)
• Boasberg (D.D.C.) (3)
• Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) (3)
• Furman (S.D.N.Y.) (3)
• Barrett (2)
• Calabresi (2)
• E. Carnes (2)
• Garland (2)
• Kavanaugh (2)
• Katsas (2)
• Kethledge (2)
• Watford (2)
• Leon (D.D.C.) (2)
• Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) (2)

The complete list of October Term 2020 Supreme Court clerks, officially confirmed with the Court itself, appears below. I have also included the hiring information I currently have for future terms.

If you have any corrections to this information, or if you have any hiring news I have not yet reported, please reach out by email (davidlat@substack.com) or text (917-397-2751). Please include the words “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring” in your email or text message, perhaps as the subject line of your email or the first words of your text, because that’s how I locate these tips in my overwhelmed inbox. Thanks!

OCTOBER TERM 2020 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES
(as of December 21, 2020)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Leslie Arffa (Yale 2018/Livingston/Boasberg (D.D.C.))
2. Patrick Fuster (Chicago 2018/Watford/Chhabria (N.D. Cal.))
3. Benjamin Gifford (Harvard 2017/Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.)/Katzmann)
4. Stephen Hammer (Harvard 2018/Sutton/Katsas)

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Philip Cooper (Chicago 2017/W. Pryor/Stras)
2. Joshua Divine (Yale 2016/W. Pryor)
3. Jack Millman (NYU 2016/O’Scannlain/E. Carnes)
4. Amy Upshaw (Chicago 2016/Sykes)

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Emily Barnet (Yale 2015/Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.)/Katzmann)
2. Diana Li Kim (Yale 2017/Hall (D. Conn.)/Calabresi)
3. David Louk (Yale 2015/Boasberg (D.D.C.)/Katzmann)
4. Arjun Ramamurti (Yale 2018/Garland/Pillard)
5. Brittany Jones Record (Stanford 2016/Sutton/Millett)
6. Daniel Richardson (UVA 2018/Wilkinson/Bristow)

Justice Samuel Alito
1. Taylor Hoogendorn (Yale 2018/Wilkinson/Katsas)
2. Mary Miller (U. Michigan 2016/Owen/Leon (D.D.C.))
3. Maria Monaghan (UVA 2017/Thapar/E. Carnes)
4. David Phillips (Harvard 2018/Colloton/Silberman)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. Jack Boeglin (Yale 2016/Srinivasan/Calabresi)
2. Greg Cui (Yale 2017/Fletcher/Furman (S.D.N.Y.))
3. Thaddeus Eagles (NYU 2015/Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.)/Katzmann)
4. Kristen Loveland (NYU 2016/Furman (S.D.N.Y.)/Lohier)
5. Imelme Umana (Harvard 2018/Wilkins)
6. Sarah Weiner (Yale 2017/Tatel/Oetken (S.D.N.Y.))

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Peter Davis (Stanford 2017/Srinivasan/Boasberg (D.D.C.))
2. Madeleine Joseph (Harvard 2018/S. Lynch/Howell (D.D.C.))
3. Eliza Lehner (Yale 2017/Watford/Furman (S.D.N.Y.))
4. Isaac Park (Harvard 2018/Srinivasan/Oetken (S.D.N.Y.))
5. Joshua Revesz (Yale 2017/Garland)

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch
1. James Burnham (U. Chicago 2009/Kozinski)
2. Trevor Ezell (Stanford 2017/Sutton/Oldham)
3. Krista Perry (U. Chicago 2016/W. Pryor/Kennedy)
4. John Ramer (Michigan 2017/Kethledge/Bristow)

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh
1. Harry Graver (Harvard 2019/Wilkinson)
2. Tyler Infinger (NYU 2016/Rao)
3. Zoe Jacoby (Yale 2019/Barrett)
4. Megan McGlynn (Yale 2017/W. Pryor/Friedrich (D.D.C.))

Justice Amy Coney Barrett
1. Brendan Duffy (Northwestern 2017/P. Kelly/Barrett)
2. Nick Harper (Chicago 2015/Kavanaugh/A. Kennedy)
3. Whitney Hermandorfer (GW Law 2015/Kavanaugh/Leon (D.D.C.)/Alito)
4. Madeline Lansky (Chicago 2016/W. Pryor/Thomas)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (retired)
1. Ben Wallace (Yale 2016/Kethledge/Srinivasan)

OCTOBER TERM 2021 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES
(as of December 21, 2020)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Maxwell Gottschall (Harvard 2019/Srinivasan/Boasberg (D.D.C.))
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Christopher Goodnow (Harvard 2017/Sykes/Katsas)
2. Manuel Valle (U. Chicago 2017/E. Jones/Larsen)
3. ?
4. ?

Hired by Justice Thomas for OT 2022: Bijan Aboutarabi (U. Chicago 2018/W. Pryor/Thapar).

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Elizabeth Deutsch (Yale 2016/Pillard/Oetken (S.D.N.Y.))
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Samuel Alito
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Andra Lim (Stanford 2019/Friedland)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch
1. Stephanie Barclay (BYU 2011/N.R. Smith)
2. Louis Capozzi (Penn 2019/Scirica/Wilkinson)
3. Mark Storslee (Stanford 2015/O’Scannlain)
4. ?

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh
1. Alexa Baltes (Notre Dame 2017/Gruender/Barrett)
2. Athie Livas (Yale 2019/Thapar/Friedrich (D.D.C.))
3. Jenna Pavelec (Yale 2017/Thapar/Kethledge)
4. Sarah Welch (Chicago 2019/Sutton/W. Pryor)

Hired by Justice Kavanaugh for October Term 2022: Thomas Hopson (Yale 2020/Katsas/Friedrich (D.D.C.)), Cameron Pritchett (Harvard 2018/Edwards/Gallager (D. Md.)), and David Steinbach (Stanford 2019/Boasberg (D.D.C.)/Srinivasan).

Hired by Justice Kavanaugh for October Term 2023: Nicholaus Mills (Cornell 2019/Willett/Kovner (E.D.N.Y.)) and Avery Rasmussen (UVA 2021/Wilkinson/Friedrich (D.D.C.)).

Justice Amy Coney Barrett
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (retired)
1. ?

Once again, do you know about a hire not previously reported, or do you have an addition or correction to any of this info? Please share what you know by email (davidlat@substack.com) or text (917-397-2751). Please include the words “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring” in your email or text message, as the subject line of your email or the first words of your text, because that’s how I locate these tips in my inundated inbox. Thanks!

Ed. note: This column originally appeared on December 21 on Original Jurisdiction, the new Substack publication from David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction on its About page, and you can register to receive updates through this signup page.

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David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.

Despite all the upheaval in the legal industry (and the rest of the world) in 2020, there’s also been a fair amount of good news — mostly in the form of money. Elite Biglaw firms have largely decided to hand out special bonuses — in addition to the traditional year-end bonuses — in recognition of associates’ hard work during a particularly challenging time. Now Cozen O’Connor has decided to get in on the action.

According to leadership at the firm, Cozen O’Connor had a pretty good year. And they’re willing to share that good fortune with the rank and file of the firm, from an email sent by the leadership (available in full on the next page):

We could not be more proud of the fact that we did not need to take the austerity measures that many firms took in reducing compensation of its staff and lawyers.  It proves that our business model of retaining earnings to protect against unforeseen circumstances in the economy is the absolute right way to manage a law firm.  Of course nobody could have predicted that a pandemic would test the resilience of the legal industry, but whatever the event, our financial strength set us apart from our peers.

The bonus scale at Cozen is as follows:

As you can see first year associates make out slightly better under the Cozen scale (market rate is $7,500 for them). The class of 2018 is the same as market rate. But by the class of 2017, associates are missing out compared with the market numbers. And we’re not talking about chump change — the difference for mid-level to senior associates is $10,000 to $20,000 depending on class year.

But smaller special bonuses are better than no special bonuses, and WAY better than austerity measures.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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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).

* A new lawsuit alleges that New York City restaurants should be open for indoor dining because this “saves lives.” Since I can’t cook for my life, I might agree… [New York Post]

* A Connecticut lawyer allegedly shot his wife on Christmas Day and then killed himself in an apparent murder-suicide. [Connecticut Law Tribune]

* The New York Attorney General is warning of COVID-19 vaccine scams. [Rochester Democrat & Chronicle]

* California is now allowing lawsuits for emotional distress even when events are seen virtually. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* A new lawsuit alleges that the plot of Outer Banks on Netflix was stolen from a novel written by a North Carolina teacher. Maybe the writer of The Goonies also has a case… [News & Observer]

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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.

Just a few days left before 2020 is over and one hopes that 2021 will promise better days ahead! On the other hand, I just learned the phrase “super gonorrhea” so maybe not.

Normally at this time of year, we do a post reflecting on the top 10 most read Above the Law stories of the year. But since, “[INSERT FIRM HERE] COVID Layoffs” makes for a top 10 list as redundant as it is depressing, the editors decided to try something different this year. So each of us will throw together a list of our top stories of the year by whatever metric we choose.

For my list, I decided to just pick my personal favorite stories to write about, but after checking the traffic numbers on the year, it looks like my favorite stories were more or less your favorite stories too. So let’s count down the top 10 most read stories of the year from me.

10. Court Reform Is Now Inevitable: John Roberts Can Do This The Easy Way Or The Hard Way

This one may actually turn out to be “wrong,” depending on what happens in the Georgia runoffs, but it aimed to sort out just where things stand on the “court expansion” proposals that generated a lot of attention from liberal and conservative media. Indeed, the GOP inundated the airwaves in key Senate races with the idea that Democrats might “pack the Court” and it may well end up being what saves the Senate for the conservatives.

But the article discusses the role the Chief Justice could have played (and might still play) in charting the future of the Supreme Court. John Roberts could shut down the most aggressive court expansion proposals by throwing support behind the more reasonable staggered term limit proposal and place the Supreme Court on a path that preserves its overall structure while eliminating the fundamentally aristocratic and ultimately macabre life tenure system.

9. Neil Gorsuch Lays Landmines Throughout LGBTQ Discrimination Opinion

Supreme Court decisions are mostly predictable. Justice Alito getting deeply offended that anyone would suggest that Jim Crow laws were racist is a quintessentially “dog bites man” story. But Justice Neil “Not Merrick Garland” Gorsuch striking a blow for transgender rights in this summer’s Bostock opinion took a lot of folks by surprise.

But opinions are as important as the result, and where Justice Gorsuch extends basic civil rights with one hand, he reaches to hamstring the modern regulatory state with the other, casting transgender rights as a necessary detour toward gutting environmental laws and the like. The contrast between what a Justice Sotomayor-penned majority opinion would say and this one was stark. It also got me a shout out on the Majority Report so that was cool.

8. Federal Judges Releasing Music Video About COVID Is Officially The Last Thing You Expected From 2020

Just because 2020 was a nightmare, it didn’t mean there weren’t some bright spots. Like this Hamilton-inspired performance from Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Charles Eskridge of the Southern District of Texas. The pair addressed the court system’s experience dealing with COVID with wit and a terrific performance.

Now I’ve got that song stuck in my head again.

7. St. Louis Lawyers Wave AR-15 At Protesters Like Totally Normal, Totally Not Bonkers People

Mark and Patricia McCloskey found their 15 minutes of fame and it was wild. The pair busted out their weapons to wave at passing protestors and became a national sensation. They claimed the march up their street was threatening their home — despite the fact that none of their neighbors seemed to experience any issues — and turned what could have been an embarrassing meme-worthy evening into a grievance parade that culminated in a GOP convention speech.

This story was always going to make my list though because it gave rise to a torrent of adorable hate mail!

6. Donald Trump Didn’t Disband Pandemic Team, He Did Far Worse

When the COVID response careened out of control, liberals embraced the talking point that Donald Trump had disbanded the White House pandemic response team, rendering the ongoing calamity inevitable. Republicans replied that the team was never disbanded… look, it’s right here!

In an article that has very little to do with the legal industry and a lot more to do with basic critical reading skills, I dug into Tim Morrison’s Washington Post editorial defending the White House response, explaining why disbanding the team might have been better for the country than what they really did.

5. Attention Donald Trump: If You Put Amy Coney Barrett On The Supreme Court, Republicans Will Turn On You Fast

When Mitch McConnell admitted that Joe Biden won the election and Donald Trump lambasted him over Twitter, it confirmed pretty much everything I’d spelled out in this article. There are Trumpist true-believers still out there ready to pretend that Dominion voting machines run by a Zombie Hugo Chavez are behind everything, but by and large the Republican Party infrastructure is comfortable moving on having gotten everything they could have wanted out of the gold-plated dimwit they’d installed. After packing the judiciary with “Not-Qualified” judges  — a product of trashing Constitutional norms and keeping vacancies open long enough to create judicial emergencies in the Obama-era — fate gifted Mitch McConnell an opportunity to solidify a far-right Supreme Court and he promptly washed his hands of the president.

Trump’s only smart play was to announce his intention to nominate Amy Coney Barrett but make it entirely contingent on the GOP fighting for him. If they sucked it up and stuck with him, they’d get their real desire. If he failed, he could deny them out of spite.

The only thing I didn’t predict in this article is how much worse off the country would be right now if Trump was able to use the prospect of this Supreme Court nomination to get McConnell to go along with the various coup plots Newsmax and OAN entertain daily. Maybe it’s a good thing that while hundreds of thousands of you read this article, Donald Trump did not.

4. New York Times Spews A Lot Of Hot Garbage About Jeffrey Toobin

The New York Times ventured into the time-honored tradition of immediately trying to rehabilitate notable media figures for getting caught with their pants down. Or in this case, their dick out… during a work meeting. Their attempt to raise Jeffrey Toobin from Wankgate was so clumsily conceived that it deserves a journalism school case study.

To wit:

But masturbation at a remotely conducted work meeting was a new order of business.

As I respond, “To be clear, masturbating at a work meeting will always be a “new order of business” because most employers don’t provide the opportunity for a repeat performance.”

A thoroughly enjoyable piece to write and one that really resonated with readers. I think I received more complimentary emails from this article than any other all year.

3. WOW!!! Davis Polk Raises The Bar On Bonuses

This wasn’t a great year for the legal industry, but it wasn’t ultimately a bad one for some of the most elite firms out there. After Cooley opened the door to offering associates a little something extra for their hard work under unprecedented circumstances, Davis Polk went over the top and convinced a lot of the top firms to follow suit.

That said, we shouldn’t let the fact that many firms had a reasonably good year financially overshadow the fact that many others laid off associates and staff. It was a roller coaster of a year for the industry and those of us covering it all have celebrated both the highs and the lows.

2. Judge Gleeson Comes Right Out And Calls Bill Barr Corrupt

Representative line:

It’s hard to believe there was a time when Bill Barr was one of the staunchest of Donald Trump’s loyalists. It’s harder to believe that this time was as recent as a few weeks ago. But way back before the election, Barr was tossing the good name of the Department of Justice in the mud to help out Trump’s other cronies.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the effort to get Michael Flynn out of admitting — twice! — to committing federal crimes. Barr tried to get the case dropped even though it had already ended and was just awaiting sentencing. When former federal judge John Gleeson was brought in to independently assess whether or not Judge Sullivan should grant the unusual request, he compiled a report that pulled very few punches:

In other words, the rule empowers courts to protect the integrity of their own proceedings from prosecutors who undertake corrupt, politically motivated dismissals. That is what has happened here.

Yikes.

But after all that trouble and Neomi Rao writing one of the most comically ludicrous legal opinions in American history to bail Barr out, Michael Flynn has received a presidential pardon anyway. And all it took was his lawyer fanning Trump’s delusions about voter fraud.

Everything’s going great here!

1. Bill Barr Did WHAT? How Is This Not The Biggest Story In The Country Right Now?

But before Bill Barr was helping Donald Trump, he was helping his clients. And unfortunately, it appears that he might have been doing the latter even after he moved on to the former. Reuters initially reported that Barr’s client, facing a $2.3B tax inquiry” found their charges mysteriously dropped one week after Barr got nominated for the AG job.

What a coinkydink!

There was a lot to say about Bill Barr’s debasing of the Justice Department this year, but this one more or less slipped under the radar. I thought this deserved to be a bigger story than it was, and thanks to you all, I guess it did.

Thanks for spending your 2020 with us!

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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.

When we dropped off my younger child — Jeremy, you remember him — at college, I turned to my wife: “I remember that, before we had children, there were things that the two of us enjoyed doing together. But I can’t for the life of me remember what those things were. It’s time to do those things again.  What the heck were they?”

(I hear a chorus of you shouting, “sex.” That’s not funny.)

I feel the same way about President Donald Trump. We wake up every day to see what he’s done — to the liberals, to the country, to the world — and struggle to stay abreast of the breaking news. The outrages of a few weeks ago have vanished, obscured by the outrages of today. Trump was impeached barely a year ago. It seemed so momentous at the time; I hardly remember it today.

Attracting attention, of course, can be either good or bad. Neil Falconer, 35 years my senior and a mentor years ago, used to say, “Be careful about attracting attention. You can attract attention by running naked down Fifth Avenue at rush hour. Not all attention is a good thing.”

That’s certainly true for Trump. He attracted attention when he was doing good things. He attracted attention when he was doing crazy things. But above all, he simply attracted attention.

We now have three more weeks of excitement: Who else will Trump pardon?  Will he try a self-pardon? Will he announce that he’s running for the presidency in 2024? When will he make that announcement? Will we kill a few more terrorists in the next few weeks of January? Will we bomb Iran? (Those last two I sort of expected before the election. But there’s still time.)

Trump wants attention. For the next three weeks, it’s easy for him to attract it. He will.

It’s so exciting.

It’s so exhausting.

And I’m not sure it’s good for us as a country to give the world’s greatest stage to one of the world’s most accomplished people at drawing attention to himself.

In any event, what now?

With any luck at all, we won’t hear from President Joe Biden for weeks at a time. We can go back to worrying about paying the mortgage, raising the kids, writing the brief, bringing in clients, and all the other stuff that occupies a lawyer’s mind.

Meanwhile, Trump will do his best to attract our attention from the sidelines.  He’ll make announcements, criticize the administration, praise or torture other Republicans, and do everything he can to stay in the limelight.

And the lawsuits! The civil cases, for defamation, sexual assault, and whatever the New York attorney general has in mind. They’ll be the trials of the decade! And the criminal case. If the Manhattan district attorney goes after Trump for something criminal, we’ll wake up every morning wondering what happened in voir dire, what the evidence shows, and whether this is all yet another witch hunt. That’ll be the trial of the century!

But, sooner or later, this will fade.

Newspaper sales will decline; television ratings will plummet; social media will calm down a bit.

And we’ll all have to start thinking about what we did to entertain ourselves in the days before Trump.

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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.

A video game developer is being sued by a disgruntled investor after a publicly traded stock tied to the developer went from $31 on December 4 to $18.35 on December 24. The investor, who seeks to turn the case into a class action, claims that the stock was fraudulently inflated based on known false statements made in public documents, conference calls, and announcements.

The main defendant is CD Project S.A., which has a history of developing video games that include The Witcher series. Its most anticipated release to date was supposed to be an open-world, narrative-driven, role-playing game named Cyberpunk 2077, which was held back for many months in 2020. The intention was to release the game for play on consoles such as Sony’s Playstation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox X.

Originally, the game was set to be released on April 17, 2020. The plaintiff says that the false statements surrounding the delay began a few months prior to that, on January 16, when the developer stated that the game was complete and playable, but that more time to “finish playtesting, fixing and polishing” was needed. A new release date of September 7, 2020, was established by way of that communication.

The developer published a press release three days prior to the newly established release date. It stated, in part, that it was preparing for the final certification of Cyberpunk 2077; however, the release date was once again tabled, this time to November 19, 2020.

There was yet another delay, announced on October 28, 2020. The newest release date for Cyberpunk 2077 would be three weeks later because the developer said it needed to fix issues with the then current-generation console versions. A statement made by Michael Nowakowski, CD Project S.A. vice president of business development, who is also named as a defendant in the action, could prove important for the plaintiff. He stated,

I wouldn’t say there is a “problem” because there’s nothing wrong with
Xbox or PS4 versions –there is optimization to be handled, also because
of how we were approaching things from the get-go in terms of
development; so –there is no problem with Xbox or PlayStation 4, to
be honest.

On November 25, 2020, Adam Michal Kicinski, CD Project S.A.’s joint executive officer, who is a named defendant as well, said, “we believe that the game is performing great on every platform.. He mentioned that the team was aware of bugs in Cyperpunk 2077, “but we believe that the level will be as low as to let gamers not see them.”

Under a section of the complaint titled, “The Truth Emerges,” the plaintiff says that consumers soon discovered, after Cyberpunk 2077 was launched on December 10, 2020, that the current-generation console versions of the game were full of errors and made the game difficult to play. A writer at IGN wrote that the game:

[F]ails to hit even the lowest bar of technical quality one should expect even when playing on lower-end hardware. It performs so poorly that it makes combat, driving, and what is otherwise a master craft of storytelling legitimately difficult to look at. It is not an exaggeration to say that I’ve felt nauseated after playing because of the terrible frame rate. It really is that bad, and it’s very suspicious that CD Projekt Red refused to provide console review copies ahead of launch.”

Four days after the game’s launch, Kicinski admitted that the team underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues and ignored signals about the need for more time to refine the game. Four days after Kicinski’s admission, Sony told its customers that it would offer a full refund for all users who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 and would remove the game from the Playstation Store. Microsoft also announced that it would offer refunds for Xbox customers.

The two-count complaint for violation of Section 10(b) of The Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 on one hand and violation of Section 20(a) of The Exchange Act on the other, is premised on a finding that the defendants actually disseminated or approved false statements, which they knew to be misleading.

It could be a complicated case for the plaintiff in that the game developer acknowledged for quite some time that there were bugs that needed to be addressed and its acts of continuously delaying the release of Cyberpunk 2077, which it certainly would not have done if it was deemed to be unnecessary, truthfully advised prospective investors of the risks in investing. The public statements are telling on this point. Kicinski, on November 25, 2020, outright stated that the game had bugs, that the game cannot be bug-free, and that the team believes that the level would be low enough to let gamers not see them.

Obviously, Kicinski was wrong. The bugs were so large that it caused the console manufacturers to refund payments to individuals who purchased the game. However, the key question is whether Kicinski and his team were intentionally wrong. Did they know that the game was not ready to be launched and that the bugs were more severe than what was reported? That is where discovery will come into play if this case progresses.

The case is Trampe v. CD Project S.A., et al. pending in the Central District of California. Counsel for the plaintiff is Laurence M. Rosen, Esq. of The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.

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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.

The pandemic caused a lot of firms to make cuts this year and Holland & Knight was very much among them. But those austerity cuts have come to an end, with the firm announcing on a call right before the holiday that they would roll back the last of those cuts and give associates make-whole payments for 2020 compensation in January!

That’s exciting, but the firm sweetened the deal with the revelation that — in addition to annual bonuses — associates will receive special bonuses, though the amount of the special bonuses has not yet been disclosed.

The firm fiscal year begins in March so that’s when bonuses and salary increases for rising associates will go into effect (retroactive to January 1).

Associates seem happy with the news:

All in all, I don’t think many of us expected special bonuses and possibly even harbored doubts about potentially impacted year-end bonuses. I think most of us are thrilled that we’re being made whole for 2020, will receive a special bonus, and are on schedule to receive our usual annual raises and year-end bonuses.

Congrats.

Earlier: Biglaw Firm With Over A Billion In Revenue Cuts Associate Salaries (And More!)

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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.

Up until about a year ago, I enjoyed choosing what outfits I was going to wear to work, right down to making sure my clothes matched my jewelry and handbag. Sometimes, when I would get a new handbag, I’d build my whole outfit around the handbag.

All in all, this was an enjoyable pastime because I believe that if you dress well you will address things well, too. Plus, when you feel like you look good and professional, you feel more confident and better equipped to utilize all your faculties proficiently. This is the key to making faster decisions and improving workflow.

Maybe I’m just trying to justify the time I spend doing little things like that.

Nevertheless, COVID-19 threw a wrench into the gears, grinding my confident walk into work to a halt, replacing my eye-catching outfits with the comfort of sweatpants and baggy tees, a look we’re all guilty of having from time to time.

Despite that, I was determined not to be held back by something as small as a global pandemic. I’m the CEO of a legal tech startup; we never face setbacks, only setups.

Upon realizing that the lockdown was going to be a little longer than I initially expected, I decided to make some long-term investments … in real estate.

Yes, I now have an entire portfolio of places.

I’m only partly kidding because I did feel that way, but my focus was on finding the best, highest-quality pieces of “nonreal estate.” I’m not saying it’s “nonreal” because it is an infinitely big property, unfortunately.

It is not an actual property — it only has properties. I invested time and effort in finding the best home-space Zoom backgrounds I could. I have built up a collection of almost 30 different virtual backgrounds to complement my attire, which gives me a background for just about each day of the month.

Real estate makes up a pretty big part of people’s financial investment portfolios because, in the past, it has been a highly coveted market with good returns. For me, the nonreal estate is a part of my personal investment portfolio (not in terms of personal finance, but in terms of investing in my personal well-being). Its returns come in the forms of joy, and joy is a pretty lucrative market. People do all sorts of things in the pursuit of joy.

As Chuck Palahniuk said, “Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home … it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it.”

In 2020, I have acquired a different virtual room for every mood, outfit, and occasion — then tripled it, just to be safe. What started as a quirky idea became something in which I found both pride and joy. I ensured that having meetings online would never dull how much I stood out because I was matching my backgrounds with my wardrobe. My background does not define me, but it sure plays a part in making me stand out!

I wonder what will give you pride and joy in 2021?

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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.

* The Girl Scouts recently sued the Boy Scouts over recruitment tactics. Maybe the winning side will give their lawyers merit badges… [Guardian]

* The next Attorney General will be greeted with a large number of highly charged legal matters. [Wall Street Journal]

* A new lawsuit alleges that two women were unlawfully denied entry to a Florida strip club because they were not accompanied by a man. [Orlando Sentinel]

* Check out this article on why the booby traps in Home Alone are perfectly legal. [Movie Web]

* Cardi B has settled a lawsuit with her former manager. The ex-manager should know she’s making money moves… [TMZ]

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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.