Category: News Feeds

“You are THE WORST mother EVER!” my frustrated 10-year-old (turned COVID-19 officemate!) told me when I limited her screen time.

”I am not the worst parent ever, right? I only compete in categories that include women and men.” I replied.

All jokes aside, as with millions of other working parents around the world, I am challenged by this work-from-home-while-parenting situation during the school year and summer break. More is being asked of me than I ever thought would and certainly more than I would ever ask for.

It is tough! But my consolation is that I’m not alone. Somehow, millions of people around the world are pulling it off, for now, and figuring out their own ways to make it work.

So, I asked my network for advice.

(It turns out, crowdsourcing good ideas is how I cope with COVID-related stress and isolation.)

Valuable Family Time: Have A Plan And Discuss It With Your Kids

“Where do I start?! Hmmm. I have a special-needs kid. It hasn’t been easy to WFH and accommodate all his different needs solo without help from his nursery (which all got shutdown post-COVID). But the good part is that I was able to still spend quality time with him more than I used to and focusing on providing him better support. I am not stronger than anyone else, I just learned by practice to take one day at a time.” Yosr Hussein Hamza, director, legal and ombudsman affairs, Middle East at Gartner, explained.

Deb Feder, a business development coach and consultant said, “We actually just had this discussion with our kids. The surprising good things from COVID: 1. Family dinner (we used to have evening activities 5 days a week that had us all running) 2. Not having to go to the ‘obligatory meetings’ that were not important 3. Getting to learn how to be bored (and fix it without just zoning out to more shows) 4. Getting to have lunch with my kids.”

Focus On The Transferable Skills You Are Developing And Learning Opportunities For Yourself

Lisa Goldkuhl, a dedicated mother and in-house supervising attorney, said, “My kid has told me he hated me and I’ve told him that I hated him during the COVID shut-in. Daily lessons on patience and working with another person who has a different style and priorities. This is why involved parents can make such great bosses!”

She explained, “We’ve been through the wringer and get training every single day on how to be a better manager. I finally screamed at my kid 2 weeks into WFH – ‘Why do I care more about your schoolwork than you do? This is YOUR stuff. Not mine. If you don’t want to do it, then you can just repeat the 4th grade next year.’ And then I made him responsible for all his schooling stuff except printing up the materials. So, I learned a valuable tool about delegating! I’ve already told him next year he’d better figure out how to get all his stuff done by himself. Because mommy is OUT!”

Similarly, Annie Little, founder of JD Nation, pointed out, “My kids challenge me in ALL the ways, but lately I’ve been listening in on their creative play sessions where they role-play as the mom and dad. Oh my, their ability to recreate my words, phrases, mannerisms and tone? Very humbling!”

Forgiving Yourself and Structure and Reminders Go a Long Way

Monica (Hyson) Winghart, principal at Voltage Law Group, said, “We have 5 at home — ages 15-10. So, there is a lot of creative “mouth.” I tell mine that if they have the energy to argue, they have the energy to run laps, do pushups, additional chores…. And I gently remind them with my “office sign” that I am the supreme leader of the passwords for internet and all devices…. muahahahahahahaha!”

“My boys use more…colorful language to express their frustration with our authoritarian regime at home. Hang in there. We’re all doing what we can to keep it together through this craziness.” Akshay Verma, head of legal operations at Facebook, reminded me.

Curb Your Inner Control-Enthusiasm

Jamie Szal, Maine state and local tax attorney at Brann & Isaacson, said, “My challenge was to resist the urge to gatekeep or micromanage my husband’s parenting style the early weeks home. He is the stay-at-home dad in our relationship, and always has been.” She continued, “It took me several weeks to learn to stay out of it and not to interfere with their routine. I am blessed to have an office, with a door, and the ability to focus on work during the workday. It was a huge challenge to recognize the boundaries I needed to put on myself.”

Maybe We Should Collectively Forgive Ourselves For The Out-of-Control Screen Time

Shari E. Belitz, CEO at Shari Belitz Communications, observed, “It is a REALLY hard time. I thought home school presented challenges, but now there are other challenges with all of this unstructured time. I’m relying on screens too much.” She continued, “When I do have blocks of time, I try to make them count. I hate crafts, but I found myself tie-dying about 10 T-shirts this weekend! Purple hands look great for Zoom meetings. The lesson to me — stop talking with your hands so much.”

If You Don’t Have Kids … Pets And Other Adventures Await

Olivia Vizachero, the owner of the Less Stressed Lawyer, said, “I don’t have kiddos but I do have two cats. And they like to meow loudly and scratch at my office door when I am on Zoom calls. They also like to wake me up in the middle of the night and run around my room in hopes that I’ll get annoyed and feed them to get them to stop. It works about half the time. Bribery and rewarding bad behavior is parenting, right?”

A common thread among responses was patience and forgiveness — to yourself and your family. This is a trying time that none of us have been through before and none of us asked to go through. We are all figuring it out as we go, including our kids, who have had their childhoods temporarily upended. Now is not the time for achieving or helicopter parenting; it’s the time to keep your children fed, as happy as they’ll let themselves be, and perhaps gratitude for our health, safety, and time spent together.

What’s most important to remember is that all of this — working your day job while teaching and feeding your kids at the same time — is temporary. The pandemic will end, and, well, if it doesn’t, your children will go grow up into self-sufficient adults soon enough!

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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.

For three-and-a-half very long years, nothing about investor behavior has made very much sense to Seth Klarman. (Not that this has stopped the Baupost Group founder from raising additional money.) From the election of a certifiable lunatic as president sparking a massive years-long rally, to the popularity of negative-rate debt and continuing hold of efficient market theory, investors had already proven themselves plenty childish enough in the face of the objectively terrible. What these thumb-suckers definitely did not need is some more infantilizing to convince them that everything is going to be OK no matter how many people needlessly die or how long the economy is needlessly hamstrung because people refuse to do the absolute simplest and smallest thing to stop it. But that’s exactly what they’re getting from the Federal Reserve, much to Klarman’s exasperation.

* A lawyer who was featured in the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer has been unable to shake his conviction for violating a restraining order. Maybe he should have had “dreamy” Dean Strang defend him… [ABA Journal]

* A study has found that the number of lawyer jobs may have decreased by over 15% in the past six months. [Bloomberg Law]

* A group of voters have filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump Administration from excluding undocumented immigrants from the census. [Jurist]

* Michael Avenatti will receive a taxpayer-funded lawyer in one of his criminal cases after claiming he did not have the financial resources to pay his own counsel. [Fox News]

* The Supreme Court has denied the request of environmentalists to stop the Trump Administration from building a southern border wall. The justices didn’t rule if Mexico needs to pay for it… [ABC News]

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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.

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

Heavyhitter bankruptcy and restructuring firms like Kirkland & Ellis and Weil Gotshal charge big bucks per hour for their services. If these Biglaw firms raised their rates in 2020 just as much as in years prior, how much could they be charging per hour?

Hint: Per court records, Kirkland increases its rates twice a year, and Weil increases its rates once a year. Kirkland has already increased its rates once in 2020. Kirkland partner rates currently top out at $1,845 (a 2.7% increase) and its associate rates top out at $1,165 (a 3.6% increase). Weil partner rates currently top out at $1,695 (a 5.9% increase) and its associate rates top out at $1,050 (a 5.5% increase).

See the answer on the next page.

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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.

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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.

Protests related to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin have passed the two-month mark in Portland, Oregon. In response to unfettered liberalism, the Trump administration has sent in the troops. Officers from ICE, CBP, US Marshals Service, and other federal agencies flooded into Portland with the ostensible aim of protecting federal property, like the courthouse targeted by protesters.

Instead of a measured response to defuse tensions, federal officers engaged in Gestapo tactics. Unidentified officers in unmarked vehicles began removing protesters from the streets, hauling them away to unknown locations for questioning. Those released after being detained were given no paperwork commemorating their interaction with America’s secret police, nor were they told why they had been detained.

This wasn’t the only broadside against Constitutional rights. Federal officers also attacked journalists and legal observers. This didn’t just violate social contracts. It violated the First Amendment. Local journalists and observers sued. And they obtained a restraining order from a federal court blocking federal agents from attacking clearly identified journalists and observers. The court noted that local law enforcement — which had been hit with an earlier restraining order — was able to abide by the court-ordered rules of engagement. The court said the federal government offered no plausible argument why it would be impossible to abide by the same restrictions.

The [federal] police are rioting.

The plaintiffs are back in court asking for sanctions to be brought against the federal government for refusing to abide by the restraining order. (h/t Mike Scarcella)

The opening of the motion [PDF] contains some invective, but it appears to be justified.

On July 23, 2020, the Court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal agents from assaulting and dispersing journalists and legal observers. Within hours, federal agents began violating the Court’s TRO and have continued to do so every night since. These violations are not inadvertent. They are intentional acts by a lawless president, who has sent his paramilitary forces to shoot up the streets of Portland, choke downtown in a haze of toxic chemical fumes, and generate reelection soundbites—in blatant disdain of public safety, the rule of law, and the most fundamental principles of our Constitution.

The plaintiffs aren’t wrong. Trump has made it clear he’s only sending federal agents into “liberal” cities. This may score points with his voter base but it’s doing nothing for the rest of America, which has expressed its disdain for the tactics deployed in Portland.

These tactics are forbidden — not just by the Constitution, but by a court order directly addressing the targeting of journalists and protesters. And yet, the government persists.

On July 23, a federal agent shot reporter Jonathan Levinson while he was trying to take a photo. No protesters were near him. A federal agent also shot journalist Brian Conley, when he was trying to video an arrest. Later that night, federal agents tear-gassed Mr. Conley. The same night, federal agents shot reporter Rebecca Ellis and separately prevented her from documenting their dispersal of protesters.

On July 24, federal agents shot legal observer Haley Nicholson in her chest, just above her heart, from four feet away. Impact munitions should not be used at distances of less than 15 feet or above the waist.

On July 25, federal agents deliberately sprayed toxic chemicals into the faces of multiple legal observers, including Bruce Knivlia and Kat Mahoney, at point blank range. They were all clearly identified in blue ACLU vests and green NLG hats. They also shot photojournalist Kathryn Elsesser, who was also clearly marked with “PRESS” on her helmet.

On July 26, a federal agent temporarily left an advancing line of agents to kick a flaming tear-gas canister directly at a group of clearly marked journalists.

On July 27, Plaintiffs contacted government counsel to raise these blatant violations. (Declaration of Matthew Borden (“Borden Decl.”), Ex. 1.) Instead of investigating and providing information as promised, the federal defendants claimed that they were unaware of what agents and commanders were involved and offered nothing to extenuate their violations of the TRO. That night, the federal agents heaped on more acts of contempt.

Here are a couple of sworn declarations [PDF] by journalists and observers [PDF] who have been attacked by federal officers. More declarations can be found here.

If sworn declarations aren’t enough, there’s also video:

Those of us fortunate enough to proceed at full speed or close to it during the pandemic have relied enormously on Zoom (or other video platforms — and sometimes I wish we could agree on just one). For those of us who handle complex litigation, that has included taking and defending depositions remotely. This is something I had done only once before, years ago, in the basement of a strip mall off the New Jersey Turnpike, where the deponent was sitting in Palm Beach but appeared to us on an old CRT television the size of a refrigerator. It was not a lot of fun.

How is it going now with remote depositions? It’s going fine. Basically.

By fine I mean that as someone defending a deposition remotely, I had no serious concerns. However, in a recent case, my colleagues and I had a longstanding relationship with the client. We knew him and his company, and we had even done catch up and related calls by video since mid-March so it was not a big deal to continue the work remotely, including defending the client at a deposition. But I would not feel such comfort in all cases: if I did not know the client or witness as well, or if the client or witness was simply new to our relationship, I would want to try to defend the deposition in person. By that I mean it would be fine by me, even under those new-to-one-another circumstances, if the lawyer taking the deposition was not present, if at least I was present with the witness I was defending.

In many ways it’s the same, but less so, with taking depositions: I would prefer to be present, but it depends somewhat on how well I know the adversarial counsel or the adversary. Put simply, if it was the second time I was examining someone, I don’t think I’d mind all that much if we conducted the deposition over Zoom. And that’s because, hopefully, the first time I would have gotten a sense of what the witness was like, what her relationship was with her lawyer, and so forth. Those are key: it’s good to see all those little signals, the throw-away comments during breaks (that aren’t throw away, even if they are made only for the audience in the conference room), and so forth.

Thus, for us, while we are more open to remote proceedings in the future, and all of our thoughts on this will evolve as we keep plugging along during the pandemic, it comes down substantially to how much we know the players before the next Zoom proceeding: if we know the adversary or we know the witness, we’re more open to Zoom; if we don’t, we’re not.

However, as noted, we’re hardly done with “the new normal.” Five months ago, this thing wasn’t affecting our work, positively or negatively, at all. Now it is does every day. To win for our clients, we need to keep learning. But while we are, we need to know how to decide on when to push for in-person proceedings and when not to.

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John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

On Tuesday, July 21, the FDA released draft guidance for clinical research related to the development and manufacturing of cannabis-based drugs, which gained particular interest following the legalization of hemp in December 2018.

Although the guidance does not cover other FDA-regulated products, such as hemp-derived CBD (hemp CBD)-infused foods and dietary supplements, the last section of the document — Section III C — addresses delta-9 THC and dosage calculations that may be indicative of the manner in which the FDA may propose to regulate hemp-derived finished products.

The guidance provides that those using hemp raw material in their drug development activities should follow the U.S. Department of Agriculture interim rule, or any superseding rule, for sampling and testing methods in evaluating the level of delta-9 THC. Accordingly, the agency recommends that drug approval applicants submit information, such as a certificate of analysis, indicating the percent delta-9 THC by dry weight, along with detailed descriptions of testing methods used to evaluate the level of delta-9 THC to help ensure the THC concentration doesn’t exceed 0.3 percent.

While this recommendation isn’t earth-shattering, the FDA guidance goes on to address an unexpected and highly debated issue: the legality of intermediate, unfinished hemp-derived products — in this case, drug — whose THC levels may rise above the 0.3 percent limit.

Specifically, the agency warns of the eventuality that starting materials that meet the definition of hemp may be considered Schedule I controlled substances if their THC levels were to rise above 0.3. The FDA recommends that those who handle hemp material consult with the DEA regarding the control status of such products that are under development.

Some manufacturing processes may generate materials, such as intermediates or accumulated by-products, that exceed the 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight threshold even if the source material or finished product does not exceed the threshold. Sponsors, investigators, and applicants who anticipate generating such intermediates or by-products that may be shipped between manufacturing sites should contact the DEA for recommendations.

This suggests that the FDA may allow only hemp-derived intermediate or unfinished drug products that never exceed 0.3 percent THC on a dry weight basis to be studied and evaluated. The statement further implies that the FDA may adopt a similar position with other categories of hemp-derived products. Such an approach would be detrimental to both the hemp and hemp CBD industry given that the processing methods used to convert raw hemp into extracts and other finished products inevitably increase the THC concentration, even if fleetingly.

The FDA guidance also goes on to address methodologies that should be used to calculate delta-9 THC concentrations based on the form of the drug.

Although the composition of cannabis-derived drugs, which the FDA plans to treat as botanical raw material, will be calculated as the amount of the compound(s) naturally present on a dry weight basis prior to extraction or other manufacturing steps, this type of dry weight calculation has limited utility for intermediates such as solutions, extracts in solution (whether aqueous or nonaqueous), and for finished products.

Consequently, the FDA recommends to calculate the delta-9 THC concentration for intermediates or finished products that contain cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds based on the composition of the formulation with the amount of water removed, including any water that may be contained in excipients (inactive substances that serve as vehicles or mediums for drugs or other active substances).

The guidance sets forth specific calculation methodologies for a solution-based material, including intermediate, in-process material, or final drug product, and solid oral dosage form (e.g., tablet or capsule).

It remains to be seen whether these standards would prove burdensome for hemp drug developers, but these calculation methods are particularly interesting in that they are the first practical cannabis-related guidance published by the FDA. Though drugs are regulated differently from other categories of products that fall under the authority of the FDA, these methods of calculation provide hemp CBD stakeholders with a potential framework for calculating the delta-9 THC and CBD dosage of finished products.

Yet, all that said, this guidance is not binding; it is merely a reflection of the FDA’s current thinking on the manufacturing and testing of hemp-derived drugs. As such, it remains to be seen if the FDA’s current recommendations will become legal requirements following the 60-day public comment period.

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Nathalie practices out of Harris Bricken’s Portland office and focuses on the regulatory framework of hemp-derived CBD (“hemp CBD”) products. She is an authority on FDA enforcement, Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act and other laws and regulations surrounding hemp and hemp CBD products. She also advises domestic and international clients on the sale, distribution, marketing, labeling, importation and exportation of these products. Nathalie frequently speaks on these issues and has made national media appearances, including on NPR’s Marketplace. For two consecutive years, Nathalie has been selected as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine, an honor bestowed on only 2.5% of eligible Oregon attorneys.  Nathalie is also a regular contributor to her firm’s Canna Law Blog.

Yesterday, the DC Circuit agreed to rehear argument en banc in Michael Flynn’s case demanding that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan immediately dismiss all charges against him. This grant magically erases Judge Neomi Rao’s embarrassing mixtape of judicial activism and anti-textual hottakes that she hoped would win her a seat on the country’s highest court. Yeah, it’s a bummer.

On January 24, 2017, the former National Security Advisor pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI and also admitted that he’d failed to register as an agent of the Turkish government in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He reallocuted to the same illegal conduct under oath in open court. Twice.

Nonetheless, last summer Flynn hired a new lawyer, Sidney Powell, who engaged in a sustained campaign of Fox appearances arguing that her client was framed by a vicious FBI out to smear Donald Trump. How those wily lawmen managed to force Michael Flynn, who’d had a security clearance for decades, to lie about his secret promises to the Russian ambassador is not entirely clear. But the pressure campaign appears to have worked. Attorney General Barr embarked on a crusade to smear his own department, tasking the US Attorney for Missouri to hunt down any scrap of notes that might impugn the investigators — no one has ever called this stuff Brady materials, and anyway Flynn gave up his right to demand those in his plea agreement — and announcing that the government was dropping the case on June 24, just days before Flynn was due to be sentenced.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan refused to accord the government the presumption of regularity and accept its bland assurances that this was standard operating procedure, nothing to see here, Your Honor. Perhaps Barr’s public admission that he’d ratf*cked the Stone and Flynn cases was a clue! In any event, Judge Sullivan appointed retired judge and current Debevoise partner John Gleeson to make sure the government’s move to dismiss the case against Trump’s political ally was on the up and up.

Turns out, it wasn’t. Like, not at all. Or, as Judge Gleeson put it:

The reasons offered by the Government are so irregular, and so obviously pretextual, that they are deficient. Moreover, the facts surrounding the filing of the Government’s motion constitute clear evidence of gross prosecutorial abuse. They reveal an unconvincing effort to disguise as legitimate a decision to dismiss that is based solely on the fact that Flynn is a political ally of President Trump.

So Judge Sullivan ordered further briefing, and Sidney Powell sprang into action, filing a mandamus petition with the D.C. Circuit. Powell demanded that the appellate court order Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case right now, because even a briefing on the government’s petition constituted a grievous injury to truth, justice, and the American way. And then she got really lucky, drawing Judges Rao, Karen L. Henderson, and Robert Wilkins as her appellate panel.

Judge Rao cooked up an opinion saying that actually, where Rule 48 says cases can only be dismissed with “leave of court,” what that really means is that the decision is entirely within prosecutorial discretion and judges are merely a pro forma stamp of approval. And Judge Henderson did her a solid and signed on to it.

Naturally this decision to give Donald Trump exactly what he wants has nothing at all to do with public speculation that Trump wants to name Rao to replace Justice Ginsburg, whom Leonard Leo et al have been sizing up like a pack of vampires for years now.

But Judge Sullivan himself asked for rehearing by the entire D.C. Circuit — why not, everything else in this case is batsh*t, right? — and yesterday the panel agreed. In a brief order setting argument for August 11, the court directed the parties to “be prepared to address whether there are ‘no other adequate means to attain the relief’ desired.” In plain English, the court is wondering why exactly Michael Flynn will be irreparably harmed if the government is forced to explain its case, particularly since he has the remedy of appealing any final decision to the D.C. Circuit.

It’s a question we’ve all been wondering.

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