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If you’re like most attorneys, fulfilling your CLE requirements probably isn’t at the top of your list of favorite activities. Historically, CLE has been little more than a long series of talking-head videos and a button you have to click every 15 minutes. Thankfully, that’s no longer your only option.

The folks at Quimbee have taken the traditional CLE model and turned it on its head. You may already know and love Quimbee from using their course materials in your law school days, and if you do, you’ll be excited to know they’ve entered the CLE game. If you don’t know Quimbee yet, you’re in for a treat. Simply put, Quimbee makes learning fun.

Fun CLE? Yes, you read that right. You won’t find the standard talking head here. Quimbee uses their unique illustrations, backed by learning science, to create an enjoyable, easy CLE experience that’s unlike anything else on the market.

The Quimbee Experience

Quimbee has revolutionized the typical CLE experience in a number of ways. For starters, it’s visually appealing, with fun illustrations that keep you entertained while you learn and help immerse you in your topic (they currently offer CLE in approximately 20 legal practice areas, with more being added in 2021).

Quimbee’s illustrations aren’t just fun to look at, though. Quimbee has an entire team of instructional designers who work on ensuring that viewers retain the information they see and hear, so they’re actually able to learn a completely new area of law and use it in their practice. Accompanying the illustrations are engaging audio tracks that introduce the material with the help of things like puns and rhymes, and proceed through the material in a way that keeps you engaged – basically, it feels like anything but a droning lecture.

While Quimbee CLE may be new, the company has years of experience techmaking videos, backed by a team that’s well-versed in learning theory. Instructional designers build the foundation for Quimbee’s courses, giving learners an additional means of coding the information. The style mirrors that of Quimbee’s successful law school offerings – meaning that, if you loved Quimbee then, you can keep them in your life as you advance through your career.

Along with the illustrations, you get quick and easy access to the course materials and slide handouts.

This allows you to follow along with the presenter and take notes, as well as having direct links to supplement materials like relevant statutes and case law without having to do any extra digging, so you can use them in your practice or pass them along to your clients.

You can even save them directly to your computer for later reference.

The presenters are experts in their field, but you don’t have to take Quimbee’s word for it – the course material includes bios and even the ability to contact your presenter with any questions you might have.

Better yet, they’re adding more top-notch presenters all the time, building out a comprehensive CLE course catalog that’s focused on the practice areas in highest demand in each state.

Quimbee’s courses aren’t just entertaining, they’re also convenient in a way that most other CLE isn’t. When you’re doing a Quimbee course, you can pick when you want to watch it, pausing and restarting as many times as you need. That means there’s no more having to start over from the beginning if you get a phone call and fail to click that annoying “continue” button that usually pops up every 10 or 15 minutes. It’s also important to note that your access to purchased courses never expires, and if a course’s accreditation expires in your state, a new one is automatically added to your bundle. You get to fulfill your CLE requirements on your schedule, and you get your certificates immediately. They currently offer mobile access and will soon be adding access via their app. There’s even closed captioning available.

When it comes to CLE, Quimbee really has thought of everything. It’s hard to imagine CLE courses that are more accessible, not to mention being a refreshing breath of fresh air in a sea of boring lectures.

The Logistics

Quimbee allows attorneys the flexibility to choose a CLE plan that works for them. You can select from all-inclusive CLE bundles of courses, allowing you to knock out all of your state’s requirements in a single purchase. These give you all your required credits, including specialty credits like ethics and diversity, as well as fundamentals in a variety of practice areas and some of Quimbee’s most popular and interesting courses.

If you only need a few credits, you can opt to buy online CLE courses individually or in smaller groupings. A single course costs just $49, bundles of 12 credits or fewer cost $99, 12 to 23 bundled credits cost $149, and anything above that is only $199. These competitive prices make it easy to craft the CLE plan you need to meet your next reporting requirements.

Are you licensed in multiple jurisdictions and tired of having to keep all your CLE requirements straight? Quimbee’s got you covered there, too. They actively help attorneys licensed in multiple jurisdictions to complete all of their requirements without needing to purchase additional courses or bundles. This not only removes some of the burden of compliance, it saves you a lot of time and money, too.

Perhaps best of all, Quimbee lets you try it before you buy it. You can always preview any course before you purchase it, so you know you’re getting courses you want and are interested in.

It’s about time someone revolutionized the world of CLE. The company that has long supported law students through their grueling school days is now on hand to help attorneys through the entire lifecycle of their careers.

There’s no reason not to give Quimbee CLE a try. You just might never look at CLE the same way again.

Which Biglaw firm is the true gold standard of Biglaw compensation? That’s the kind of esoteric question we here at Above the Law spend entirely too much time contemplating. Cravath is sorta the default answer, even though they aren’t, strictly speaking, the top of the market. And that reputation took a further hit this year when Cooley started the COVID fall bonus trend followed by Davis Polk coming over the top of that scale, while Cravath opted to wait until the end of the year. Now year-end bonuses at Cravath have been announced, and while their associates will get full market scale, it’s clear they’re not about making any waves this year.

But there’s another firm that’s been making their pitch to be the compensation leader. Milbank’s the firm that brought about the $190K salary scale, and last year, they were the first to move on year-end bonuses. So they’ve definitely proven they have what it takes to set the standard in Biglaw compensation. Now they’ve released their year-end bonuses, and well, we shouldn’t get too excited:

Yup, these are the bonuses we expected, on the same scale as last year’s (and the year before’s too). But, considering the freaking pandemic — and those fun COVID appreciation bonuses folks at Milbank got back in the fall — we imagine associates are pretty happy. Year-end bonuses will be paid on or before December 31st, and you can read the full memo on the next page.

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).

This year will likely go down as one of the worst in recent memory. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage and has led to an unfathomably high level of loss and suffering. In addition, even though the economy has recovered from its low of several months ago, many people are still out of work and in trouble financially. Yet, numerous lawyers still have many reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving season.

Lawyers are extremely lucky that our industry has not been as affected by current conditions as much as other parts of the economy. Indeed, many law firms are able to continue operating, albeit with some challenges. This distinguishes us from retail, hospitality, and other industries that have been completely devastated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The fact that lawyers are able to more or less continue operating at a similar level as before the pandemic has softened the financial pain many lawyers have felt. Of course, many law firms instituted layoffs, furloughs, and salary cuts at the beginning of the pandemic. However, as this website has detailed at length in several prior articles, many firms have eliminated salary cuts, and some have even reimbursed lawyers for money they were not paid earlier in the year. Some firms have reversed course on furloughs as well. Of course, the legal industry, like many other sectors of the economy, has endured permanent job losses as a result of the pandemic, but the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has not hurt lawyers as much as it has individuals in other industries.

Many lawyers should also be thankful because we are capable of working remotely (for the most part). Many workers need to show up in person to complete their jobs. This not only includes healthcare workers, but also individuals who work in hospitality, real estate, and even some other office jobs. Being able to work remotely means that many lawyers are able to complete their jobs while minimizing their risk of being exposed to COVID-19. In addition, being able to work from home means that attorneys have an easier time juggling child care, healthcare needs, personal matters, and everything else all of us are contending with.

Of course, some attorneys and support professionals are being forced back to offices, which I predicted would happen toward the beginning of the pandemic. Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons to return to offices, but many times, managers are forcing workers back to offices to supposedly increase their productivity or since they can’t bear the thought of paying for an unused office (more on this in a future article). Nevertheless, the vast number of lawyers are able to work from home, which has made dealing with the ongoing pandemic far easier.

Numerous lawyers should also be thankful that we are doing better financially than individuals in many other industries. Of course, some practice areas have definitely slowed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, there are fewer real estate deals occurring in the present environment, litigation has slowed, and any cyclical practice areas are suffering as the economy has faced challenges in recent months. However, numerous practice areas have remained steady, and some practice areas have expanded because of the ongoing pandemic. Many firms have adapted to meet the current needs of their clients, and some firms may be able to expand their expertise in the future because of their experiences during the pandemic.

Lawyers should also be thankful because many law firms were able to take part in government assistance programs designed to help businesses impacted by COVID-19. For instance, many law firms were eligible to participate in the Payroll Protection Program, and judging from my LinkedIn feed, many law firms big and small of which I am familiar took part. In addition, numerous law firms also took advantage of programs sponsored by FEMA and the SBA in order to make it through the earlier parts of the pandemic. Many businesses were unable to participate in such programs, since restaurants, hotels, and other businesses were unable to keep the requisite number of people on the payroll to obtain the benefits of these initiatives. Of course, businesses of all types and sizes also took part in such programs, but lawyers should count themselves lucky that they had the support of these initiatives.

Naturally, the legal profession has suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just like any other industry. Some titans of our profession passed away due to the virus (and other valued lawyers were thankfully able to recover from COVID-19). In addition, lawyers, just like everyone else, have had to deal with the everyday suffering and inconvenience caused by the COVID-19. However, as we begin the Thanksgiving holiday, lawyers should recognize that we have many reasons to be thankful this season.

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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.

[He thinks they are] fools that are making him look bad.

— a source close to Donald Trump, who is familiar with his thinking on the status of his post-election litigation, commenting on the president’s concerns regarding his legal team’s public appearances and remarks. Trump was reportedly unimpressed with the substance that was leaking down Rudy Giuliani’s face during a recent press conference, and even less impressed with Sidney Powell’s latest conspiracy theory-laden accusations, which led to her being unceremoniously booted from the “elite strike force.” When asked why Trump hadn’t fired his remaining attorneys, the source said, “Who the f**k knows?”

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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.

Once Cravath decided to open up their pocketbooks with their 2020 bonus scale, we knew it was just a matter of time until the rest of Biglaw followed suit.

So count Skadden as an early adopter. It’s not surprising that the elite Biglaw has decided to come out with bonuses that largely match the prevailing market rate (the class of 2014 and more senior may receive an optional additionally $10,000 over the straight market rate) with year-end bonuses ranging from $15,000 to $110,000, depending on class year. But they also ponied up the extra cash to match the COVID appreciation bonuses that swept through Biglaw this fall, which is sure to make December 18th — the date Skadden will pay bonuses — extra special.

The bonus scale is as follows (you can read the full memo on the next page):

Back in October, Skadden was among the Biglaw firms to pump the breaks on the COVID appreciation bonuses. It’s nice to see the firm’s promise to make it up at year-end has been kept.

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).

When Baker McKenzie first announced bonuses nearly two weeks ago, it raised some brows, but was otherwise met with dead silence. The rest of Biglaw was patiently waiting for Cravath to give Baker’s bonus scale credence, and now that the perrenial compensation leader has done just that, the bonus floodgates have opened.

The latest firm to announce bonuses is Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Moments ago, the firm sent out a memo matching not just year-end bonuses, but special bonuses as well. If you recall, in mid-October, Cleary initially refused to match the generous Davis Polk special bonuses, which one associate referred to as a cringeworthy punch to the nether regions.

Here’s the bonus scale, in case you’ve forgotten what it looks like:

Bonuses at Cleary will be paid on December 22. Congrats to everyone at the firm!

(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Cleary Gottlieb.)

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.

Huzzah!

Thanksgiving is saved everyone. And you can go ahead and thank Representative Dan Crenshaw who scoured the Constitution and found a provision that makes it ILLEGAL for law enforcement to go after people’s Turkey & Superspreader Day! And it’s right there in the Fourth Amendment.

This is… not accurate. That said, let’s see if we can pinpoint where Dan jumps off the rails. Unsurprisingly, it seems to stem from the standard conservative fetishization of private property. As Chief Wiggum says:

Obviously, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit prosecutions just because an infraction happens inside a home. Crimes happen inside houses all the time, and if the Fourth Amendment extended that far, then people would all be legally growing marijuana in their homes — something Dan Crenshaw has affirmatively voted against.

The most charitable read of Crenshaw’s nonsense is that law enforcement should not be able to knock on your door and bust up your attempt to kill grandma with germs unless the cops have a warrant. That’s the “Schoolhouse Rock” version of the Fourth Amendment, anyway.

But that’s not how it works in reality. Warrantless searches are blessed all the time and while one can quibble that this happens too often — and the expansion of police power in this area is absolutely troubling — it’s bonkers to pretend the Fourth Amendment is an ironclad fence. Exceptions to the Fourth Amendment are fact-specific inquiries, but generally turn on the reasonableness of the search and the strength of the government interest. They often lean far too heavily on the latter, but it is what it is.

Considering the world today, there is ample support for the proposition that a pandemic specifically would authorize state actors to intervene and approach someone’s home to protect the public. For instance, the Third Circuit in U.S. v. Ward — a case Alito ruled on — determined that stopping the spread of a communicable disease justified a blood test that would have otherwise violated the Fourth Amendment. Once public health is established as a justified interest, busting up a party when there are five cars parked on the lawn presents a decent case for exigent circumstances justifying swift action before Aunt Karen absorbs a full viral load.

Given the risks of abuse in handing over blank checks to law enforcement, one would hope that prosecutors use their discretion and not charge people here. Having the cops treat it like a noise complaint and just sending everyone home should be more than sufficient. If some prosecutor did pursue actual charges, a family may have defenses of varying quality available ranging from religious freedom to a generalizable right to privacy to discrimination claims (since it’s unfortunately safe to worry that the impact of unfettered police power will fall upon minority communities).

But they aren’t going to have a Fourth Amendment claim.

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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.

The coronavirus pandemic has raised impactful questions regarding the performance of varied commercial contracts, as courts have begun to weigh the application of force majeure provisions and other related contractual defenses.

What lessons regarding commercial contracts can in-house counsel take from the developments of the past eight months? And what steps should GCs consider today?

Join us on December 18th at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT to explore how the coronavirus pandemic has affected commercial contracts, as well as what a second wave could mean.

You will learn:

• The key contract law issues that may arise amid a resurgence of the coronavirus.
• The top practice areas that could be affected by a resurgence.
• Steps to consider regarding your existing contracts.
  

Former general counsel of the now-defunct LeClairRyan firm is no longer a licensed attorney after allegations that he misappropriated $2.5 million in funds, according to an announcement from the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board.

Bruce Matson had previously served as trustee for the bankruptcy of LandAmerica Financial Group (LFG), and when the Chapter 11 closed in 2015, he was selected as the court-appointed trust fiduciary to oversee the wind-down. As part of those responsibilities, he was prohibited from making any distributions to himself until 2021, when wind-down would be complete. However, as reported by Law360, Matson has now admitted to transferring $1 million to himself, $1.5 million to attorney Robert Smith, and an additional $341,000 to an escrow account in his name. He described those million-dollar payments as “discretionary bonuses.”

Matson and Smith later told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin R. Huennekens that the trust had wound up with far more money than expected, a windfall Matson attributed to “cost savings and unexpected recoveries[.]”

Smith also said he was holding $1.5 million, separate from the funds held by Matson, “to decrease the concentration risk in any one person or bank.” At one point, Matson asked to donate the $2.8 million to charity, saying the money likely wouldn’t be needed by the LFG trust going forward.

At an Oct. 16, 2019, hearing, Matson admitted that all of the money had been deposited in personal accounts controlled by himself, Smith and their wives, according to a transcript obtained by local business journal Richmond BizSense.

When asked why he had pulled out the funds, Matson said he had a lot going on “personally and professionally” in late 2018 and wanted to “simplify the situation.”

The disbursements were discovered in 2019, when LFG’s financial adviser found the trust’s funds were gone. Matson has said the money he disbursed to himself and Smith has now been returned. The consent disbarment was signed on November 13th.

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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).

We’ve long taken the stance that, despite the technicality that a “J.D.” has the word “doctor” in it, lawyers who adopt the honorific are, well, jackasses.

And, yes, we understand that earning a J.D. technically requires more coursework than earning a Ph.D. But we don’t have to functionally write a book to earn our degrees. Even if you want to say a J.D. from Harvard is roughly equivalent as a marker of academic prowess as a Ph.D. from Bumblybuck State — and it might be! — don’t be a self-important jerk about it. You’ve got a profession, it’s an important one, everyone knows it’s an important one, have some dignity and just quietly go about being a lawyer.

If that’s not enough for you, go ahead and use “Esquire.” But even that is a little suspect.

At the end of the day, lawyers who insist on stealing academic valor and going by “Dr.” only succeed in proving that they’re so insecure — likely justifiably — about their own achievement that they need to bolster it with phony accolades.

So it will not surprise you at all to learn that “Elite Strike Team” member Jenna Ellis — who has spent the last week displaying the legal acumen of three cats wearing a trench coat and a wig — is the sort of person who uses “Doctor” in bios.

It’s possible that the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University is responsible for writing this, but Ellis certainly knows it exists and didn’t instantly shoot it down. She’s appeared in videos under the “Dr.” label since at least 2017.

Weirdly, this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen this kind of inflation in Christian academia. Years ago, there was a guy from a religious school who made everyone call him “Doctor” and had a bio up calling himself a “Doctor” and a record for a Ph.D. he’d earned, but when someone called the school to ask about his dissertation… it came out that there was no degree. At most institutions, that’s the sort of thing that would get someone fired. In this case, they just updated the bio to call him “Professor.” Because consequences really don’t exist in these circles.

At least Ellis really is a “Juris Doctor.” But it doesn’t make it any less stupid.

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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.