Category: News Feeds

“This is Olga. She’s the Paris Hilton of law.”

That was how I was once introduced to a female elected government official at a function. Maybe some people would consider that a compliment, but I sure wouldn’t. At the time I was general counsel of a pre-IPO, Series C start-up of around 500 people. My badge prominently displayed this, and I had a track record that backed it up. Paris Hilton was stereotyped as an exaggerated, larger-than-life celebrity who was “famous for being famous.” While there is obviously a lot more depth to Hilton — when people think of Paris Hilton, they think of her reality show, The Simple Life, and her “That’s hot” catchphrase.

There’s a bigger discussion to be had about how to deal with inappropriate behavior in the workplace. In my situation, I left a very long, awkward pause — giving the person time to think about what he just said. I then began a somewhat dramatic conversation about the weather, but not before slipping in a slight eye roll.

My immediate reaction was that his comment was inappropriate, but according to a colleague of his, he actually held me in high regard and meant it as a compliment. Which leaves us with two issues.

1. Making unprofessional comments in a professional environment, and
2. A poor understanding as to the nature and execution of compliments

The latter is more of a nonissue and is just a matter of knowledge, clarity, and practice. For example, if he had said that I was to the law profession what Paris Hilton was to the influencer industry, then it would have been more evident what he was trying to communicate.

But the lack of professionalism in ostensibly professional environments is shocking. Some studies have shown that more than 50% of women have experienced harassment in the workplace. This is not about the #MeToo movement. This is how anyone can and should respond to an inappropriate comment.

I posted my Paris Hilton story on my LinkedIn page and had some interesting suggestions as to how I should have responded. Someone even suggested that I should have responded with Hilton’s catchphrase: “That’s hot.” While it may have pointed out how childish he was being, I could have come across as childish as well. Added to that, “That’s hot” has flirty connotations, which was the last thing I wanted to communicate at the moment!

Heavy sarcasm could have avoided that, but that creates a bad first impression and to an extent minimizes the issue.

So, what would I propose as a solution in retrospect?

I think there are several good approaches to take. The most important thing, however, is that you make sure you call them out on it and make them think about what they said. Don’t let them derive any kind of pleasure or attention from it.

I took the silence route at that moment because it felt like the less awkward option — highlighting their mistake and forcing them to dwell on it would have felt uncomfortable for me. But I also could have asked what he meant. If people use an innuendo, then they are cornered into either looking like a fool or explaining what they were insinuating.

At the end of the day, the crux of the matter is that both they and others must be made aware of the unprofessional behavior, but you don’t have to stoop to their level.

How would you handle this comment? Please let me know. I would like to hear from you.

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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.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who’s already forced his busy little elves back to the pestilential toy factory, has a bit more holiday cheer to spread around 383 Madison Avenue: If you thought you could make up for your resumed commute by blowing off work this month, think again.

“It clearly won’t be a long Christmas break for M&A bankers,” [co-head of global mergers Dirk] Albersmeier said. “There are absolutely no signs of this pace slowing down….” Albersmeier said the proliferation of blank-check firms, or special purpose acquisition companies, has created a new and important group of buyers in the M&A market.

The New York Yankees and Major League Baseball are being sued for “bullying conduct” and failing to perform on alleged promises made.

On December 3, the club and league were sued by Nostalgic Partners LLC, which is the owner of a baseball team that, until recently, was a Minor League Baseball affiliate of the MLB organization. That team, the Staten Island Yankees, was left without affiliation, as part of MLB’s plan to contract its Minor League Baseball system and reduce the number of teams to 120 from 160.

Nostalgic Partners LLC claims that it acquired the Staten Island Yankees in 2011 after it was assured that the team would continue its affiliation with the MLB team and continue to participate in the New York-Penn League, which is part of the parent club Yankees’ farm system. It says that it relied on such promise, now to its detriment, and deserves to be compensated millions of dollars in damages.

“Defendants’ false promises and unlawful conduct have caused the SI Yankees significant harm, in that they have destroyed the SI Yankees’ business model and doomed the SI Yankees to oblivion,” the complaint states. The plaintiff is seeking no less than $20 million in relief from any of eight claimed counts in its complaint, which includes causes of action for breach of contract and promissory estoppel.

“Their suit against the Yankees is baseless in that they’re claiming they had assurances from the Yankees they would ‘always be a minor league partner,’ but that was under the old system in which clubs had PDCs (player development contracts) with the minor leagues,” said Bill Madden of the New York Daily News. “Those have been eliminated. The Staten Island owners also asserted that as recently as last March, Yankee officials were expressing contentment with Staten Island as their affiliate — but that was because the Yankees were one of the few major league teams opposing the contraction plan and hoped the short season rookie leagues would be maintained.”

Ultimately, the case could come down to what specific assurances were provided by the New York Yankees and/or MLB to Nostalgic Partners, LLC that allegedly induced the ownership group to purchase the Staten Island team. The burden of proof will be placed on the plaintiff and, if there is no written correspondence to rely upon in arguing its claims, it could be an uphill battle for the very displeased Nostalgic Partners, LLC.

“Defendants can gleefully play the bully, but established law makes them liable for this bullying conduct,” the complaint states.

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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.

(Kentucky Rep. Jason Nemes, commenting on the disaster that was the roll-out of results of the October 2020 bar exam in his state. Last week, the Kentucky Bar told all applicants that an “error accord [sic]”: out of those who took the test, 15 people were told that they’d passed, only to later be told they’d actually failed, while three people who were told they failed had actually passed.)

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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.

This weekend the New York Times reported that Attorney General Bill Barr is taking his ball and going home. Maybe!

Three sources told reporters that Barr “could announce his departure before the end of the year,” possibly because he “concluded that he had completed the work that he set out to accomplish at the Justice Department.”

Ah, yes. Mission accomplished, job well done, etc. It’s got nothing to do with Trump’s fury that his trusted henchman failed to find evidence of rampant voter fraud, on top of his unforgivable slowness in arresting all the liberals for the RUSSIA HOAX.

Trump’s people have planted a wave of stories suggesting that Trump is about to fire Barr, with the president himself responding “Ask me that in a number of weeks from now,” when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked if he had confidence in the AG.

And still Barr’s allies insist that their old buddy “had been weighing his departure since before last week and that Mr. Trump had not affected the attorney general’s thinking.”

CNN confirmed that Barr is eying the exits, but their source was more frank. Apparently, the AG is royally pissed that Trump and his esteemed campaign lawyers have been talking smack about Barr’s failure to understand their brilliant legal strategy.

Barr “is not someone who takes bullying and turns the other cheek!” CNN reports, although their source concedes that “He has not made a final decision.”

Astute observers will note that, regardless of his “final decision,” Barr, like Trump, will be out of a job anyway in 44 days. But now Fox is reporting that the AG will stay put “as long as the president needs him,” i.e. January 20 or until he gets fired by mean tweet, whichever comes first.

All of which makes Barr’s reported Hamlet-ing even more preposterous. To leave in three weeks or six, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous tweeting, or take arms against a sea of MAGA loons calling for my head, and by opposing end them.

Of course, it won’t end them. With the president openly accusing him of dereliction, Barr’s got a target on his back now with everyone who thinks that the Justice Department deliberately ignored evidence of a massive criminal conspiracy to steal the election.

“They should be looking at all of this fraud. This is not civil. He thought it was civil,” Trump told NBC. “This is not civil. This is criminal stuff. This is very bad, criminal stuff.” And where Trump’s verbal diarrhea goes, the wingnutosphere will follow.

“He is either a liar or a fool or both. He may be — perhaps compromised,” Fox’s Lou Dobbs said last week of the AG.

“Bill Barr’s job was to block for the Deep State, which is why the Durham ploy was quite clever,” rasped Roger Stone, who personally benefited from Barr’s direct interference in his case. “Mr. Durham has taken three years to produce nothing whatsoever when he has overwhelming evidence of both treason and crime.” Of course, Roger Stone also thinks that Kim Jong Un sent a boat full of fraudulent ballots to Maine via the famed Pyongyang-Bangor route. So, consider the source.

There’s also whatever this is.

Guess Bill Barr’s off Judge Jeanine’s Christmas card list. Sad!

Lie down with dogs …

Barr Is Said to Be Weighing Whether to Leave Before Trump’s Term Ends [NYT]

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

The Biglaw bonus season is revving into high gear as firms are setting out exactly how much they appreciate their associates. Of course, the market standard has pretty much been set — and it includes special bonuses that serve as an extra special tip of the hat for working during the wild ride that was 2020 — so it’s the small differences (like distribution dates and hours requirements) that make the most impact in categorizing a firm’s bonus structure.

On Friday, Kramer Levin announced year-end bonuses that match the prevailing market rate. The bonus scale is as follows (you can read the full memo on the next page):

Class of 2019: $15,000
Class of 2018: $25,000
Class of 2017: $50,000
Class of 2016: $65,000
Class of 2015: $80,000
Class of 2014: $90,000
Class of 2013+: $100,000

Plus the firm is finally on board with the special bonuses that became all the rage among Biglaw firms starting in the fall, in appreciation of associates‘ hard work during the pandemic. Those special bonuses range from $7,500 to $40,000, depending on class year, and are in addition to the year-end bonus numbers. But there’s a catch.

While year-end bonus eligibility will be given out according to the standard firm criteria, that isn’t the case with special bonuses. The firm says “the special bonus is a one-time award that is designed to reward associates who made the most significant contributions to our clients’ and the firm’s economic success in a challenging year.” As such:

Eligibility to receive a special bonus will be based on an associate reaching a threshold of 1,800 bonus-eligible hours, of which at least 1,600 hours must be time spent on billable matters and/or partner-directed business development (as defined in the Annual Bonus Policy).

It isn’t the most onerous hours requirement out there, but given the challenges of 2020, it’s still a significant chunk of hours to have to bill. And there’s no word on what happens if an associate just misses that threshold.

All bonuses at the firm will be paid on February 15, 2021.

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.

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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).

It’s recently come to my attention that our Thinking Like A Lawyer podcast has gotten bad reviews because we “talk too much about the bar exam.” Trust me, I’d love to talk about other subjects, but 2020 has brought non-stop bar exam disasters while simultaneously sparking the most wide-spread, serious conversation about licensure alternatives in my tenure as a legal journalist. (So, if you like us talking about the bar exam… consider hopping over and giving us some nice reviews!)

One of the most ambitious studies of licensure is the IAALS study, co-authored by Professor Deborah Merritt. We spoke recently with Aaron Taylor of AccessLex, who helped fund the report. It’s a massive undertaking and state legislatures, supreme courts, bar associations, or whatever agency oversees your state’s licensing process, should be giving it a detailed read immediately.

So what does the NCBE think of the report?

The phrase “does not appear to be based on data,” faces stiff competition for the title of “Dumbest Thing The NCBE Said In 2020” but it’s a strong contender. The IAALS study, as it turns out, relies on a lot of data including raw data gathered by… NCBE! On top of that, the IAALS report also ran 50 focus groups and transcribed over 75 hours of discussion and boasts over 500 footnote citations.

So, you know, “YEEHAW! Fake News!” Take that “critical reading skills!”

When the dust settles from the political hellscape America is living through, the degradation of argumentation skills will be recognized as one of the worst developments of these years. Blowing off 114 pages as if it’s not based on data?  There are a lot of dumb things that can be said over 114 pages, but you have to at least engage them on their merits rather than shrugging and pretending all those footnotes aren’t real.

It’s not so much that a supposedly professional organization thought to issue such a facially false claim, it’s that it believes, probably correctly, that doing so will actually work. There will be enough people in positions that matter that will never crack open this report and will swallow — and uncritically repeat — the claim that “oh, that report wasn’t based on real data.”

The irony is that the IAALS report isn’t simply pushing a diploma privilege model that would obviate the need for a centralized licensing exam clearinghouse. While there is obviously a diploma-centered suggestion (which is the right suggestion), the study also provides an option that maintains testing for subject-matter with reforms based around ascertaining research skills rather than rote memorization and an experience-based option that reduces but doesn’t eliminate testing. In either of these worlds, the NCBE could position itself as a partner to state licensing agencies. That its knee-jerk reaction to a thoughtful, data-driven study is to double-down on the failing model that they already employ is a testament to how the organization has ceased to take its mandate as a professional licensing body seriously and transitioned fully into a business selling testing materials.

But this is where we are: one side of this argument is devoting resources to undertaking a wide-ranging research operation and the other is making up stuff about the study. And, sadly, I can’t say for sure that the former is in a better position with most audiences.

Earlier: What Would Be Better Than The Bar Exam?
Because The Bar Exam Wasn’t Screwed Up Enough, State Tells Celebrating Applicants ‘Sorry, You Actually Failed’

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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.

How AI Is Reshaping Privilege Review

 

On-Demand Webinar:

The artificial intelligence software Text IQ recently helped Cravath Swaine & Moore secure one of the top industry awards for technological innovation. 

Now, you can hear directly from Cravath’s lead eDiscovery counsel about how AI is helping lawyers speed the privilege review process while enhancing — not sacrificing — the quality of this critical legal work. 

Scott Reents of Cravath is one of several industry leaders in Text IQ’s on-demand webinar, which also features Judge Andrew Peck, a longtime U.S. magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York and current senior counsel at DLA Piper; Laura Kibbe, assistant general counsel at IQVIA; and Bobby Malhotra, e-discovery counsel at Munger Tolles & Olson.

These panelists also explore how AI can help in-house teams transform litigation, cut costs, and add predictability to their budgets, among other benefits.

Additional topics covered:

• Privilege Review 101: Definitions and Nuances
• The evolving view of the courts
• Advances in technology
• What the future holds

Sign up today to ensure your legal team is operating at the cutting edge of this key practice area. 

By filling out the form you are opting in to receive communication

from Above the Law and its partners.

Trump has been an addiction of mine since becoming president. Never before have I been so entertained by politics. As one of my indigent clients put it when she voted for him four years ago, “He tells it like it is.”

There’s a certain gumption in that — a nice break from politics as usual where what most politicians say is vetted 10 different ways for how it’ll play before it gets said.

Trump never had that problem. He was always bigger than life, unafraid of whomever he alienated, and ready to exaggerate (and even lie) when it suited him.

How was it that normally rational people (my family included) fell so easily under his spell? People who wouldn’t buy a used car without checking the Blue Book price and at least two other dealers, were willing to accept Trump’s (mis)representations.

He cultivated a fan base so enamored of him because he wasn’t the bogeyman on the left that he walked on water. Even now, when he acts like a badly behaved eighth grader who challenges the teacher for giving him an “F,” his fan base lines up behind him shouting “four more years.” Worse, his venomous antigovernment talk (ironic, coming from the leader-in-chief himself) is casting doubt on bedrock democratic principles like the legitimacy of voting and the watch-dog role of the media.

If behavior like Trump’s came from any other elected official (challenging the very system he oversees), that person would be deemed unfit for office. What if a judge presiding over a trial decided that the system was rigged and the jury verdict was wrong? What if he persuaded the foreperson to say there was fraud in the jury room so he could overturn the verdict? That judge would be fired, right?

Somehow Trump escapes this commonsense analysis.

That’s why I think the issue of whether he’d be permitted to pardon himself, a subject that’s been bandied about lately as though it’s bound to happen, is not likely to arise.

While it’s common for presidents to dole out pardons for friends, relatives, and colleagues in the waning months of their administration, and while many think Trump is certainly not beyond being the first president with the audacity to seek a pardon for himself, first he has to believe he’ll be indicted for a crime, and next he has to accept some responsibility for whatever crime might be coming down the pike.

My sense is Trump is unlikely to be prosecuted. Although many in the country don’t like him and suspect he’s committed crimes including engaging in quid pro quos with foreign leaders to promote his own businesses, putting a name on such offenses will be tough. Violating the emoluments clause doesn’t bring criminal prosecution, only civil.  And, according to a paper from JustSecurity.org, there’s not much guidance on how such a suit would work.  Finding parties with standing (those directly harmed by any violation) would be the first hurdle.

Next, President-elect Joe Biden is against pursuing any prosecution. Such attempts would further divide the country between the Trump and non-Trump camps, disrupting unification — a major theme for Biden.

Finally, for Trump to pardon himself, he’d have to admit he did something wrong, something just not in his DNA. Trump, above all, is a creature of his own ego.

Any preemptive pardon he’d potentially give himself would only apply to federal prosecutions, still leaving him open to state criminal actions plus all future wrongdoings, both state and federal.

So, while it’s fun to muse about any president pardoning himself, unless Trump can couch it in terms of “I did nothing wrong, but they’re out to get me anyway,” it’s unlikely to happen.  Although, I must admit, I’d like to see him try.

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Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

Biglaw associates, were you hoping that another firm would swoop in and offer more year-end bonus money, forcing other firms that have already matched to up the ante? Keep hoping, because it looks like that extra money won’t be coming from Sullivan & Cromwell this year.

The top 20 Am Law firm already decided to match the Davis Polk special bonuses earlier this fall when other firms of its prestige were unwilling to do so, and now, the firm’s black bonus box has been smashed open, and it looks like the firm is offering associates a straight Baker McKenzie match.

The 2020 year-end bonus scale at SullCrom likely looks like this:

Class	Bonus
2019	$15,000
2018	$25,000
2017	$50,000
2016	$65,000
2015	$80,000
2014	$90,000
2013	$100,000
2012 and more senior	$100,000

Bonuses at the firm will be paid out on December 18, so associates will have some good cheer deposited into their bank accounts before the end of 2020.

(Flip to the next page to read the Sullivan & Cromwell bonus memo in full.)

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). 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 (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), 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. Thanks for all of your help!

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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.