Category: News Feeds

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

According to Yale Law librarian Fred Shapiro, who has been charged with compiling the top 10 best quotes of the year for The Associated Press since 2005, what’s the top quote of 2020?

Hint: Though a lawyer’s words don’t take the top spot, they do make up 5 of the 10 entries on the list. President-Elect Joe Biden gets 2 mentions, both from his time on the campaign trail. At number 4 “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,” and 9, “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
Number 6 was from the late, great Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” We all know how that turned out.
Unfortunately White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany (and Above the Law alum) clocked in at 5, “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that,” and 8 is from July on the subject of school reopenings, “The science should not stand in the way of this.”

See the answer on the next page.

When last we checked in with Dan Kamensky, he was begging his bank “not to put me in jail” on account of having allegedly bullied said bank into not bidding for a thing he wanted, which higher bid would have been very good for the Neiman Marcus creditors committee on which he served, closing down that hedge fund—Marble Ridge Capital—as a result, forcing that hedge fund into the awkward position of arguing that doing so didn’t actually hurt the bankrupt retailer, and oh yea getting arrested and sued by the SEC. So, uh, how much worse can things get for the disgraced hedge fund manager? Well, quite a bit worse, actually.

I have to admit that this year had me reading obituaries. I wondered about the people whose lives were cut short. I wondered what their lives had been like. I wondered about the family and friends and colleagues they left behind.

And I wondered about the legacies of all those lost lives. Not legacies in the financial sense, but the lives they touched, the ways they shaped their communities, and the impacts they had on the people around them.

“We’re here,” Steve Jobs reportedly said, “to put a dent in the universe.” We all make a dent, each in our own way. That is our legacy.

Companies, like people, leave legacies. This fact struck home this week as I pondered the death of ROSS Intelligence, the company that helped pioneer the use of artificial intelligence in legal research, whose decision to shut down I reported Friday.

The death felt premature, like so many of this year’s deaths. And its direct impact was not just on a corporate entity or a balance sheet, but on the very-human people who were part of the company and who helped it grow over the years.

Innovation ain’t easy. Taking on the status quo ain’t easy. Companies that attempt to shake things up risk failure. Many do, in fact, fail. Some fail, frankly, because of a bad idea. Others fail because of poor execution or management. And some fail simply because they are ahead of the curve, because the market isn’t ready for them.

I’ve seen many companies or products fail over the years. Last year, for example, brought the death of Tali, a product that allowed users to track their time through voice commands using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Just a year earlier, it had won a $100,000 innovation prize in Clio’s inaugural Launch//Code competition as the best new integration with the Clio practice management platform. The product truly was innovative. But it never found enough of a market to sustain itself.

Even products from established companies sometimes fail. We saw this in 2017, when LexisNexis shut down its Firm Manager practice management software after six years of development. it had been the company’s answer to platforms such as Clio, MyCase, Rocket Matter, and PracticePanther, but it never gained significant traction.

Sometimes the deaths of companies are barely noticed, except by those who were their employees and customers. But the death of ROSS seems to me more palpable. I think that is because its legacy extends across the legal industry and is, in a sense, even greater than its actual product.

In fact, for a time, its product had all the presence of a phantom. As I recounted in a lengthy post after visiting the company last year, ROSS for years maintained a shroud of secrecy around its product.

I’d pestered CEO Andrew Arruda for years to let me review it, without success. At a conference of law librarians in 2017, Arruda was called out during a panel for his company’s lack of transparency. I had trouble finding anyone who would say they had used the product.

But as I also recounted in that same post, the company last year did an about-face, shredding any last strands of that shroud and instead opening the product for free trials by anyone, and inviting me to Toronto for an unrestricted look behind the curtain.

The secrecy, Arruda told me then, had been to protect the company’s technology. As one of the earliest companies to focus on AI in legal research, they believed they were building something unique, and they feared that a competitor would steal it out from under them. So they kept the product close to the vest until they were confident it was ready.

While ROSS feared theft of its technology by a competitor, the ironic twist of fate is that a competitor now claims it was ROSS that was the thief, and it is the litigation engendered by that claim that has caused ROSS to wind down its operations.

Of course, it isn’t just any competitor making this claim — it is Thomson Reuters, owner of Westlaw, the 800-pound gorilla of the legal research world, a gorilla with all the bananas it needs to bankroll an extended court battle, if need be.

That left ROSS unable to raise new financing and an unattractive prospect for acquisition. As its operating capital dwindled, it had no choice but to shut down.

The litigation may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. ROSS had already been looking for new investors or an acquisition before the lawsuit came along. It had experimented with different sales models and targeted different legal audiences.

Even six years after its founding, ROSS was trying to introduce a novel product into a crowded field. The legal research market remains dominated by Westlaw and LexisNexis, but is also home to increasingly established midmarket companies such as Fastcase, which claims to now have 900,000 subscribers, and Casemaker, as well as other innovative startups, most notably in recent years Casetext.

But ROSS does leave a legacy that is greater than simply the product it developed and the talented people who helped develop it. In fact, it is a double legacy.

First, it opened our minds to the idea of artificial intelligence in legal research. In its early days, ROSS was both fueled and hampered by click-bait media reports that positioned it as a robot lawyer — or worse, as the robot that would replace lawyers.

But that media attention gave ROSS a podium from which to help drive the discussion about AI in law, and ultimately, thereby, to help temper fears and drive acceptance.

ROSS was not the first company to use AI in legal research technology. In fact, that honor probably goes to Thomson Reuters, the very company that is driving ROSS out of business. But ROSS — and, in particular, CEO Arruda — made it a ubiquitous topic for a time, at seemingly every legal conference and in every legal publication. Without ROSS, our acceptance of AI might not have been as quick.

Its second legacy is that it helped open the legal research market to innovation. For decades, the duopoly of Westlaw and LexisNexis dominated that market. Others, of course, had edged in, most notably Fastcase and Casemaker, thanks in part to their unique models of selling bar-affinity deals, and there have always been other startups in this space, some that survived, some that did not.

But ROSS came into the market in an almost ostentatious way that trumpeted, “We’re not afraid to take on the status quo.” Over six years, they proved that a feisty startup could truly make a dent in the market.

Here again, ROSS was not alone in this. Companies such as Casetext and Judicata (which Fastcase recently acquired) have similarly shown that smaller players can have big impacts. In fact, both Westlaw and LexisNexis have adapted ideas first put forth by these startups.

Still, the legacy of ROSS is, in part, that the door is now open wider for other feisty startups to come along and make their own dents in the legal research universe — or broader legal technology universe. If they do it using AI, which is likely the case, all the better.

So even as ROSS winds down, its impact on the legal technology market — its dent — will continue to be felt. In that sense, it lives on.

---

Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

(Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, mocking Donald Trump’s expected loss before the Supreme Court in the Texas v. Pennsylvania election challenge in which the president intervened.)

---

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.

There’ll be no jelly of the month club debacle at Mayer Brown this year! The Biglaw firm that took 17th place in the latest Am Law 100 rankings, with $1,484,000 in gross revenue is delighting its associates with full market rate special bonuses — with no hours requirement.

So-called COVID appreciation bonuses became all the rage among Biglaw firms starting in the fall, as a thank you for associates‘ hard work during the pandemic. The market special bonuses range from $7,500 to $40,000, depending on class year.

The special bonuses at Mayer Brown are in addition to their typical year-end bonuses. Those bonuses, which can differ based on the office, will remain at the same levels as last year. You can read the firm’s full announcement on the next page.

It’s been a bumpy year for Mayer Brown. Back in May, the firm announced a series of graduated salary cuts. Even though at the time it was anticipated the cuts would last through the end of the year, in September they changed course and restored salaries to their pre-pandemic levels.

And tipsters report that the firm made retroactive salary payments restoring the cut salaries:

The firm already paid make-whole payments for the cuts to all associates back in October. After originally indicating that such payments might be made only to “high performers,” the firm actually paid them to everyone. Thus, with the payment of normal annual bonuses and market-matching special bonuses (with no hours requirement), associates are now in a position where they are making just as much as the average person at any top firm.

All of which means there are some pretty happy associates at the firm. Here’s a sampling of the comments:

This is a big deal because it shows that the firm was honest and made good on its word. The pandemic pay cuts were truly a prophylactic measure driven by the firm’s trademark conservatism during an uncertain time. I was skeptical of that and was considering jumping ship if bonuses didn’t pan out. But when it became clear to firm leadership that things were ok, notwithstanding the pandemic, they ensured that we would be compensated commensurate with the market. This is and will remain a market-matching firm. Morale is high. The firm is in fact having a great year and was just treading lightly back in the spring.
Importantly, even during its time of prophylactic austerity, the firm also did not conduct any layoffs, including staff.

Firm saw Sidley got burned on the hours requirements for special bonuses and stepped up. Associates are happy. Insanely busy year. Many associates I know will be getting end of year bonuses well in excess of market. I don’t know anyone that won’t hit their hours for a full bonus or more.

Congrats to those at the firm!

As always, we depend on 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.

---

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).

It’s over.

On Friday, Chief Justice Roberts told Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to get off his lawn, and take his hoodlum AG friends with him. This morning Wisconsin’s Supreme Court booted Trump’s effort to toss out 250,000 votes in the state’s largest counties. And the electoral college has already commenced voting, likely mooting the president’s last, straggling federal appeals.

Everything else may be falling apart, but the judiciary held.

Or could it be … a case of bullying gone horribly wrong? Chief White House Xenophobe Stephen Miller made his argument to a skeptical crew at Fox and Friends this morning.

KILMEADE: Your legal team, in almost every state — 50 times — lost. Some with Trump judges. So, do you have the worst legal team, who just don’t seem to be present a good case? Or are you too late, and this case should have been brought before the election?

MILLER: We did bring these cases before the election. But what you have to appreciate and realize is that the pressure from the corrupt corporate media to make everybody cave and bend is overwhelming. It is overwhelming. And so, yes, judges are caving.

Yes, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett were all cruelly bullied into refusing that very excellent case brought four weeks after the election based on Texas’s right to challenge Pennsylvania’s voting laws. Only Justices Alito and Thomas were brave enough to peek their heads over the parapet and say that they would have granted the case, although they “would not have granted any other relief.”

Obviously the “corrupt corporate media” got to U.S. District “Trump Judge” Brett Ludwig, forcing him to cower in fear, scribbling, “A sitting president who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote based on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred. This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits. In his reply brief, plaintiff ‘asks that the Rule of Law be followed.’ It has been.”

When Third Circuit “Trump Judge” Stephanos Bibas wrote for a unanimous panel of Republican-appointed judges that “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” he was probably just worried that Marc Elias was going to sit on him and steal his lunch money.

As is his wont, Miller said a lot of cray sh*t this morning — we believe that is the technical term. He promised alternative slates of electors in swing states, claimed there was “more than enough time” to overturn the results of the electoral college vote, and blamed Democrats for unilaterally changing election laws in places like Georgia.

Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis was equally nutty, but more succinct.

What the Supreme Court needs is JESUS, just as the Founding Fathers intended.

Only thirty-eight days until we never have to listen to these ridiculous people ever again.

---

Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

One of the benefits of the lockstep nature of Biglaw bonuses (and compensation, generally for that matter), is that what associates are going to make is pretty clear. And if there are conditions (usually billable hours-based) it tends to be obvious and known well in advance. But that’s not always the case.

On Friday, Hogan Lovells announced year-end bonuses. The scale matches the market bonuses, subject to the firm’s usual 2,000-hour requirement, which can include up to 150 pro bono hours until associates meet a 1,850 billable-hour threshold, after which there’s no limit on pro bono hours.

The firm’s also giving out special bonuses (full email available on the next page):

We are also pleased to announce that this year we will pay a special bonus to associates in good standing.  The special bonus will be paid to all first and second year associates, and to those third year and more senior associates who have achieved at least 1,900 billable hours.  Amounts up to $40,000 will be awarded and will vary by class and level of achievement.  Our senior associates at the top of the scale have the potential to receive a total bonus amount of $160,000.

Hmmm, not the easy-to-digest chart most firms are going for, but perhaps associates at the firm will make out okay. And initial reactions from tipsters seemed to agree most associates would be fine:

This is exactly as expected…No confirmation on the exact year scales for the special bonuses, but given the range up to $40,000, everyone assumes it is the industry standard scale.

But today, there was a town hall with Americas Managing Partner Richard Lorenzo and a different methodology entirely was introduced. For associates 3rd-year and higher (there’s no minimum for 1st or 2nd years to get market special bonuses), the following formula will be used:

-1900-1999 hours = 5% of base;
-2000-2099 hours = 15% of base;
-2100-2199 hours = 25% of base;
-2200+ hours = 40% of base.

So, for third-year associates that hit the previously stated billable target of 2,000, they’ll get full year-end bonuses but only a $7,500 special bonus. They’d have to bill 2,200 hours to get a full market special bonus of $20,000. And it gets worse — fourth- through sixth-year associates who even bill over this new 2,200-hour target will see smaller bonuses than their peers at other firms. (For example, a class of 2014 associate at HoLove with 2,200+ hours will get a $36,000 bonus, compared with the market rate of $37,000.) Senior associates that bill their butts off will have an opportunity to make market special bonuses of $40,000.

Let’s check in with HoLove tipsters and see how they’re doing (spoiler alert, they’re not okay):

It feels like an “F You” to the associates who have had a dip in their billable hours through no fault of their own. Folks like me have been doing everything in our power to help the firm in other ways, including BD, and this is a real stupid way for the firm to show its thanks. The tying to billable hours plus the face that the firm is giving it to first and second years without regard to hours means that this is hitting their profits as little as possible. They pretend to match the market while effectively giving close to nothing to most of their associates.

[Supplemental] bonuses, however, are based on a completely different scale than normal bonuses. Accordingly, this will result in below market bonuses, even for super high billers.

The firm is modifying the hour goal posts post-hoc (the firm has constantly repeated that they “match the market” at 2000 hours), and people are, understandably, upset.

….

First and second years have no hour requirements, which creates a situation where a second year who billed 10 total hours will get a bigger bonus than a seventh year who billed 1999, raising questions of fairness…

Speaking of fair, the craziest line of the town hall was when someone asked how this was fair and Richard said, “fair can be defined in many different ways”.

When associates started asking the tough questions, management quickly ended the town hall even though many associates asked to keep the line open so they could hear Richard explain these bonuses and respond to questions… not very transparent.

Not sure if you have heard, but Hogan Lovells just put a 2200 hour requirement on supplemental bonuses (and they are using a convoluted percentage based calculation for the amounts). Basically they are being vague and paying below market bonuses. People are not happy and the presenters ended the call when people started asking tougher questions.

Oof, it stinks to have the rug pulled out from under you like that.

As always, we depend on you when it comes to bonus news. 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.

---

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).

Several years ago, we wrote about top IP litigator Matthew Powers and his move from Weil Gotshal in 2011 to start his own firm, Tensegrity Law Group. Every few years, we check back in with the leading litigators at his firm to ogle their insane bonuses.

Despite 2020 being a mess, it looks like associates at Tensegrity cleaned up with generous bonuses, as usual. Here’s the firm’s year-end bonus memo:

Before we get to the eye-popping numbers, a source from the firm took the time to explain what’s so great about Tensegrity:

Consistent with prior practice, this year the firm has paid above-market bonuses that go well beyond the already generous fall special bonus. The impressive year-end recognition sits atop our Cravath-scale base compensation and top-of-market benefits, which include a 3% fully vested contribution to our 401(k) accounts (which requires no contribution from us) and completely paid-for platinum plan health insurance for each of us and our dependents. This all at a firm that has eschewed the billable hour model—we do not track any hours, billable or not. I know that I appreciate the support from the firm during these unprecedented and challenging times.

That being said, we’ve heard that the bonus for the Class of 2015 is $132,500, while the bonus for the Class of 2012 is $165,000. That’s $20,000 to $25,000 more than what senior associates receiving bonuses on the Cravath scale will see in their accounts this year.

Congratulations to everyone at Tensegrity Law Group. Your firm may be smaller, but your compensation sure isn’t!

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries or restoring previous cuts, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

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

---

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.

It is undeniable that religious groups, even recently, have faced serious and vile prejudice from government-run organizations, particularly on college campuses. It is also important to note that our nation’s courts at the time rightfully stepped in to prohibit and correct this vile prejudice wherever claims were brought. Perhaps due to an overcorrection of the problem on college campuses, however, the religious liberty landscape has shifted considerably in the past five years. That this shift in religious liberty doctrine has incurred alongside the wildly successful conservative political effort to reshape the judicial branch is not a coincidence. Now, instead of defending religious groups from discrimination, our nation’s courts are openly declaring that conservative religious views enjoy a privileged position in the First Amendment above all other rights. Including, according to Amy Coney Barrett, being above political speech, once universally accepted as being at the core of the First Amendment’s guarantee.

Until the politically motivated conservative takeover of our courts, First Amendment religious liberty doctrine reflected a commitment toward ensuring religion had equal access to the public square and that government remained neutral. With conservatives dominating the judicial branch, however, any pretense of neutrality was quickly abandoned and religious dominance over nonreligious rights or views is now established legal doctrine. Things also look to be getting rapidly worse.

Nothing is certain of course, but at this point only a fool would think that this new superconservative majority Supreme Court is going to rule against the Catholic Church in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. As the national litigation director of the ACLU David Cole points out, however, in order to rule in favor of the church the superconservative majority will have to abandon three basic tenets that form the bedrock of conservative constitutional jurisprudence: 1) the Constitution’s limitation to negative rights; 2) the federal government and the states have authority to set the terms for their own business, and; 3) the notion that a law’s disparate impact is insufficient to violate the Constitution.

Anyone who has read my work here at Above the Law would see that I have repeatedly brought attention to Cole’s third point. Indeed, I submit the Supreme Court has already abandoned this basic conservative precept in order to favor religion above all other viewpoints. But like the organization FIRE, I agree that Cole has “authored what is likely to be one of the most insightful pieces ever to be written on the [Fulton] case, especially when it comes to First Amendment jurisprudence writ large.” So, let’s examine Cole’s other claims regarding potential conservative abandonment of precepts.

The first is the long-held conservative view that the Constitution is limited to negative rights. As Cole explains, “Justice William Rehnquist wrote in 1983, the Court has long rejected the notion that First Amendment rights are somehow not fully realized unless they are subsidized by the State” (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, conservatives have long rejected the argument that the Constitution established affirmative entitlements. Rather, conservatives have instead maintained that the Constitution confers what’s called a “negative right” that guarantees the individual to be free from state interference. Now let’s apply this traditional conservative precept of “negative rights” to the facts in Fulton.

In Fulton, Catholic Social Services (CSS), voluntarily entered into a contract with the City of Philadelphia to carry out a government program of certifying qualifying foster parents for the city’s wards under a specific set of criteria. For example, a city ordinance prevents any organization providing these services on the city’s behalf from discriminating on the basis of race, sex, or sexual orientation. CSS sued, arguing that its religious view of marriage as being exclusive opposite-sex relationships should take precedence over the rights of same-sex couples to be treated equally when participating in government programs.

A key distinction to make in Fulton, therefore, is that this is demonstrably not a “negative rights” claim where an organization or individual is asking for the right to be free from government interference. CSS is instead arguing it has the right to violate the terms of a government contract it voluntarily entered into. As Cole puts it, CSS is not arguing for “a right to be free of government regulation of its private conduct, but an affirmative entitlement to millions of dollars in government funds to perform a government program, while violating the terms of the government contract and discriminating against individuals seeking to participate in the program.” Nevertheless, despite the claim in Fulton representing everything conservatives have said the Constitution was not over the past 50 years, CSS is widely expected to prevail.

The second conservative precept Cole identifies at being play in Fulton for conservatives to abandon is the principle that “when the government is managing its own affairs, as opposed to exercising sovereign power to regulate private activity, it must have broad leeway to set the terms.” Cole points to a recent 2006 SCOTUS decision declaring that “[g]overnment employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions,” as “there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services” if governments could not exercise this authority. But that was before this new superconservative majority who seems hell bent on establishing religion as superior to all other rights, particularly the rights of LGBT citizens to be free from discrimination when participating in government programs.

I bring attention to Cole’s arguments and continue to harp on the Fulton case because the moment warrants such focus and criticism. In a time of deep divide when the head of conservative party in Texas is openly flouting secession. The last thing this country with a rapidly increasing nonbeliever population needs, is for the Supreme Court to keep defining religious citizens as being in a class above all others, empowered with the ability to stomp out dissent or competing nonreligious views, even within government programs.

---

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

When you take a flight on a commercial airplane, there’s one thing that most people get a little nervous about: turbulence. Especially bad turbulence. The kind where your stomach flips over itself a couple of times, once when it feels like the plane is dropping out of the sky, and again when the whole thing starts shaking like a toy plane in a washing machine.

You might assume the most important people in the plane at times like those would be the pilots, but you’d be wrong. The likelihood of the pilot losing control is small. The likelihood of the passengers losing control? Pretty big. Because of that, the most important people onboard are definitely the flight attendants.

Why?

If you’re a passenger and you’re feeling nervous, and you look over to see the flight attendants running around urgently, grabbing parachutes, you’re going to feel even more anxious. If they’re walking around, calmly handing out snacks, then you’ll feel way more at ease.

Such is the role of an in-house lawyer — especially the general counsel.

Change management is, put simply, oiling a transition process so that it runs smoothly. It sounds simple, but keep in mind that 30% of it focuses on the change, and the other 70% revolves around the people involved. In this article, we will deal specifically with technological changes.

In our analogy, the in-house lawyer needs to keep a level head, not making any rash decisions. They move between the different departments, informing them of any policy changes, as well as exploring tools to keep everything running optimally.

When it comes to deciding what tech to use, you need to ask yourself a few things first:

1. Is tech the best solution?
2. What exactly do you need?
3. Have you found a tool that suits your purposes, or are you shaping your purposes around a tool?

Still, that’s only 30% of the job. The hardest part is the people.

It’s natural for people to want to be seen, heard, and believed. So, then, it’s important to make sure your team has the opportunity to provide input. What is even more important is showing that you appreciate the input and that you’ll legitimately take it into consideration.

Furthermore, people support what they had a hand in creating. Make them stakeholders by showing them the why behind what you do. Ensure they are a part of the process. If they don’t contribute, they’ll rarely execute it.

At the end of the day, it boils down to two pivotal points: your process and your people. Your process needs to be data-driven and well-researched. We’re not just dealing with a new normal anymore. We’re dealing with a new next — a reconstruction. Drastic change does not make our world fall apart, though. It deconstructs it, giving us a chance to reconstruct a more beautiful, optimized iteration. An iteration built on ideas, actionable through innovation. A world of comfortable passengers relaxed on a turbulent plane.

Be a bridge-builder; unite your people with your process and its data-driven and people-purposed changes that move everyone forward at a sustainable pace for a successful touchdown.

I recently spoke more in-depth on this issue. Please check it out:

How do you manage change? What are your best tips?

---

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.