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Do you need a contractor to outsource blog writing services or a full-time employee assistant to take over the front office? Maybe both? When I decided to hire my first administrative assistant, I was terrified that I would not even have enough money to pay her the meager wages that I offered. Paying her $15 per hour for five hours a week (in Austin, Texas), I was afraid that I would have to let her go and start from scratch if I didn’t get another client. Thankfully, this never happened because hiring my first assistant allowed me to free up time from minor tasks to generate more revenue to improve my client experience, optimize my systems and processes, and grow my business revenue. I’ll never go back to doing everything by myself!

(For a refresher on how to delegate tasks, complete the task dump and sorting activity. No, seriously, I’ll wait.)

Now that you have an idea of how much time you are wasting by continuing to create Instagram posts and answering calls from tire-kicking prospects, you must delegate. Yes, that means hire! Hiring outside help can be overwhelming because it requires more of your time (initially) and will take an assessment of your firm’s needs. This investment is worth it.

A lawyer recently told me that she hired her diligent cousin, an organized, nitpicky planner, to help with never-ending administrative tasks. Spoiler alert: Cousin Mia was not a great fit. Another colleague hires virtual assistants from foreign countries because of the low cost. She keeps a revolving door of assistants because, in her experience, they are not reliable.

Hiring family and low-cost foreign (or domestic) workers may not be the best course of action (heck, even with high-cost workers, hiring can be a crapshoot). Due to the potential relationship damage and possibly exploitative labor practices, consider hiring with more structure. How? I’m so glad you asked. I’ll tell you how I hire (as a non-HR pro), but it may involve homework for you:

Get Crystal Clear On Your Firm Values

If you haven’t already defined your firm’s philosophy and values, start here. Hiring values-aligned employees provides clarity when presented with someone who has the required skill set but would be a terrible fit. One of my firm values is boldness, and we boldly (go figure) champion social justice initiatives. We also say bigots and racists can find the door; if a potential candidate reads this and recoils at our bold stance, we are not the firm for her.

Write a Creative Job Posting

Put on your creative writing hat. When is the last time you saw a law firm post a clever, entertaining, or dare I say, funny job posting? Never? Yeah, me too — until I wrote one. Your job should express your firm values and list the job qualifications, salary, and experience level. Still, nothing stops you from deviating from cookie-cutter job postings you find on the internet. I once had an employee tell me that my job posting was the first time she felt excited and compelled to apply for a legal position in over a year. That is substantial praise. (Email me if you want a copy of my magical post.)

Prepare For The Interview

Be intentional and ask questions during the interview that are relevant to the position. If you are hiring an associate attorney, ask questions about work style, communication, organization, conflict resolution, handling mistakes, etc. Suppose I don’t prepare a list of questions beforehand. In that case, I am liable to talk about my favorite documentaries on Netflix (“High on the Hog” is a revelation) and hire based on new friendships rather than the needs of the position and firm.

Make An Offer She (Hopefully) Can’t Refuse 

Yay, the fun part! You have finally selected your first choice, but you are not in the clear. Candidates can counteroffer out of your price range and decline. Feeling disappointed when you can’t hire your top employee is a normal part of the business. At the end of 2020, I wanted to hire a business manager, but I couldn’t match what another company offered her for salary. I sadly parted ways, but I know I will be able to hire her or someone of her caliber soon. Growth is part of this employer journey.

Onboard Your Shiny New Employee

Don’t stop when you hire the right person. The hardest part of hiring someone is the time investment for training her to understand your firm. I have a 30-60-90 day onboarding process where the new hire and I (or an appropriate staff member) meet weekly. We follow up on tasks and assignments; the new hire can ask questions and track progress. I schedule time on my calendar to make myself available. You can terminate the new employee during this probationary period if you realize that she is not a good fit — and you aren’t violating any laws! Hire slow, but fire fast.

If All Else Fails, Outsource!

Many attorneys resort to doing everything because they feel defeated about repeated failed hires. It may be the caliber of your employees, or maybe it’s you. Most lawyers aren’t HR professionals, which is why it benefits us to consider outsourcing hiring to a fractional HR/operations consultant. This is how I choose to hire.

I’d love to hear your constructive comments or questions at iffywrites@ibekwelaw.com. I am always looking for topic suggestions! Did I mention that I signed with a literary agent for my upcoming estate planning book? You can read all about it here.

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Iffy Ibekwe is the principal attorney and founder of Ibekwe Law, PLLC. She is an estate planning attorney evangelist for intergenerational wealth transfer with effective wills and trusts. Iffy is writing her first book on culturally competent estate planning, available in 2022 (prayers up!). She graduated from The University of Texas School of Law and has practiced law for over 14 years. Iffy can be reached by email at iffywrites@ibekwelaw.com, on her website, and on Instagram @thejustincaselawyer.

This isn’t of too much consequence or import to us if firms don’t attempt to pass the cost through to clients in the form of higher rates. But even if they say they don’t/won’t, clients may tend to wonder.

It seems a bit tone-deaf and unseemly in this market and coming off of the pandemic (with so much economic dislocation) for firms to be raising salaries to these levels and talking publicly about bonuses and how well partners are doing. Discretion would be the much better part of valor here.

— the general counsel of a financial services company, commenting anonymously on the recent wave of salary increases that are rocking the Biglaw market in the wake of associate bonus payouts that could reach as high as $164K, depending on class year.

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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.

Davis Polk just loves coming over the top of set compensation numbers, don’t they? So really we shouldn’t be surprised they decided to gum up the works earlier today and announced a new, more generous salary scale then the one announced only yesterday by Milbank.

With these new numbers out there, it sort of begged the question: which firms would match the DPW scale? Well folks, we’re starting to get our answer. This afternoon, Lowenstein Sandler announced they are raising associate compensation, and have hitched their star to the Davis Polk wagon, effective July 1st.

Technically the firm said the class of 2020 would be raised to $205,000, and other classes wold get a corresponding increase in base compensation. But regardless, associates have to be feeling pretty good about the firm right about now.

You can read the firm’s full announcement on the next page.

You may not always think of Lowenstein when it comes to early compensation leaders, but the firm *did* say they were serious about the lateral market. What better way to project that fact than making a quick statement on compensation? Strap in for a big-money summer in Biglaw.

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Raises”). 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’ll 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.

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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).

To think we spent a hot second wondering if the market would follow Milbank to $200K. As it turned out, the market was more than ready to jump up to $205K.

Dechert has now joined Davis Polk at the new scale in an email sent to associates this afternoon. The jump also kicks in on July 1.

The subject heading is “Associate Compensation and Extraordinary Bonus Announcement.” Tipsters report some bonuses for 2200+ hours and 2400+ hours, though we don’t have those laid out in the screenshot.

But they’re apparently extraordinary!

(EDIT: Scratch that, we have the complete memo now… though it’s a little harder to read)

Please help us help you when it comes to salary news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Salary”) 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 Salary & 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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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.

Yesterday’s hearing in the doomed effort to get the All Star Game moved back to Atlanta was truly spectacular — as one would expect when the issue is a preliminary injunction based on the theory that Major League Baseball is a government entity depriving small business owners of their constitutional right to sell beer to baseball fans the second weekend in July. No, seriously.

But watching Kraken lawyer Howard Kleinhendler get taken apart by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni surpassed all expectations. Ten out of ten, would visit again! It was like watching an orca devour a particularly obnoxious seal who keeps interrupting to shout out random snippets from the Law of the Sea. All that was missing was David Attenborough somberly intoning, “Sadly now there can be but one outcome.”

After Georgia passed its controversial “election security law,” MLB announced on April 2 that it was moving the game to Colorado. And a mere eight weeks later, Kleinhendler and his client, the Job Creators Network busted into federal court like the Kool-Aid Man demanding an emergency injunction to return the game be to Georgia. But the plaintiff’s tardiness in bringing the claim was the least of its problems yesterday, as Kleinhendler struggled to articulate how exactly his client was injured.

At first, the lawyer pointed to all the ads JCN “had” to take out protesting MLB’s decision. But, as Judge Caproni pointed out, taking out ads and erecting billboards is kind of JCN’s whole schtick. The best Kleinhendler could do was point to an affidavit from a JCN member who hosts a softball tournament every year, and timed it to coincide with the All Star Game this July. According to the affidavit, half the teams dropped out after MLB’s move. Unfortunately, the affidavit failed to explain whether the teams canceled their reservations in protest of Georgia’ election law or because they weren’t going to get to skip out of their own tournament and watch the All Star Game.

Kleinhendler’s effort to assert standing on behalf of “all citizens of Georgia” fared no better. And his contortions aimed at turning the MLB into a state actor because some of the member teams play in state-financed stadiums crashed and burned as well.

“That’s not what that case holds. That case is entirely distinguishable,” Judge Caproni said in exasperation after listening to Kleinhendler rattle off a handful of inapposite citations. Before cutting him off, saying “Assume that you’re going to lose that argument.”

And although the court never did get to hear his explanation of how the defendant was violating the Dormant Commerce Clause, it was treated to a brand new theory about MLB imposing an illegal pre-clearance requirement on Georgia’s voting laws. Sure, the game was moved after the law was enacted; Atlanta is still home of the Braves; lawmakers were clearly not intimidated, since the statute remains on the books; and MLB is still not a government entity. But still!

For their part, MLB and the Players Association saw no reason to interrupt their enemy in the process of stepping on all the rakes. MLB largely restricted itself to agreeing with the judge and pointing out that the complaint failed to state a claim for any of the various Georgia torts alleged. (Is third party promissory estoppel even a thing?) And MLBPA wondered why it was even in the room, since it has no power to move the game.

After a brief recess, Judge Caproni ruled from the bench. Surprising exactly no one, she refused to issue the requested injunction and set a merits hearing for the first week of July. The game is set for July 13, so … you do the math.

“I would be remiss if I did not point out several other issues with this case,” she warned. “To say that the legal underpinnings of this lawsuit are weak and muddled would be an understatement.”

But Kleinhendler and his client remain undaunted.

“The judge’s disappointing ruling is just one strike against us, and we are still up to bat, looking to appeal our case to the Second Circuit or directly to the Supreme Court,” JCN’s President Alfredo Ortiz promised. “To be clear, JCN lost on standing; MLB did not win on the merits. By demonstrating clear harm to our members and us as an organization, we believe that the judge erred in her decision, and we do have standing. Yet the muddled debate over standing shouldn’t obscure this case’s merits, which are in our favor.”

Game on, fellas. Swing for the fences!

Job Creators Network v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball (1:21-cv-04818) [Docket via Court Listener]

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

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the first high-roller firm woud emerge to match Davis Polk’s over-the-top new salary scale for associates, but we thought it would take days for this to happen, not mere hours.

Baker McKenzie wants to make it known that it’s a leader in compensation, and now it’s got the chance to do just that. After leading the pack on year-end bonuses in 2020, the firm is now the first to match the DPW $205,000 salary scale.

“Our associates make important contributions to our clients every day, and we believe it’s important to recognize those contributions, especially in light of the many challenges brought on by the pandemic, said Colin Murray, North America Chief Executive Officer. The salary increase for U.S. associates at the firm will take effect on July 1. Here’s what the salary scale looks like at Baker McKenzie:

Congratulations to everyone at the firm! Get ready, because this summer is going to be full of cold, hard cash for Biglaw associates.

We depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. 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’ll 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.

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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.

We recently set out to gauge how our readers feel about office reentry, specifically asking whether different levels of salary bump would be preferable to permanent work-from-home flexibility.

According to our survey, it would take a 30% increase to get over half of our readers to choose to forgo the ability to work remotely. 

A combined 357 of our 600-plus respondents said a 10%, 20%, or 30% salary increase would be their choice over permanent remote flexibility. (Not all respondents completed the full survey.) 

See the breakdown below. 

Which is more appealing to you?

Which is more appealing to you?

Asked only of those who reported they would prefer permanent work from home flexibility over a 10% pay raise.

Which is more appealing to you?

Asked only of those who reported they would prefer permanent work from home flexibility over a 20% pay raise.

Stay tuned for a full report on how our readers feel about returning to the office, including frequent reactions like “Noooooooooooooooooooooo” — along with a handful of positive ones as well. 

Earlier: How Much Do You Dread Returning to The Office?

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As with most crises, the COVID-19 pandemic attracted its share of unscrupulous opportunists. One company’s alleged attempt at price-gouging resulted in a novel application of trademark law. 

Add to this the passage of new trademark legislation, and it becomes clear the pandemic period has been an interesting one for intellectual property attorneys who specialize in this area.

N95 Masks, 3M, and Price Gouging

In April 2020, the 3M Company sued Performance Supply, LLC — a reseller of N95 masks — in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 3M was seeking relief for federal trademark infringement under Section 32 of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1114), plus a few state law claims. Other allegations under the Lanham Act included false association, false endorsement, federal trademark dilution and false advertising. 

But this case did not involve the sale of counterfeit masks stamped with the 3M mark, although there were plenty of those lawsuits during the pandemic. This case involved Performance Supply’s attempted sale of legitimate masks (the court calls them respirators) to a government entity at “exorbitant” prices, according to the court’s May 4, 2020, opinion granting a preliminary injunction.

Trademark infringement claims involving price gouging are not typical. 

“I’m not aware of any before the pandemic,” said Bruce Ewing, co-chair of Dorsey & Whitney LLP’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group and faculty chairperson for the Practising Law Institute’s Understanding the Intellectual Property License program.

This case represents a novel application of the Lanham Act by 3M. Among other things, the court found that the defendant acted in bad faith, which is not surprising considering the company was trying to capitalize on a deadly international emergency. Performance Supply’s bad faith was stark against the behavior of 3M, which ramped up production after the crisis as well as pledged it would not raise its prices at all, according to the opinion.

Central to the case is a quote the defendant sent to New York City’s procurement office offering to sell N95 masks — authentic ones — for five times the normal price. In this quote, “The Defendant reproduced 3M’s marks nine times and referenced 3M’s headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, seeking to imply a connection with 3M that does not exist,” the opinion said.

As it evaluated the offer, New York City described the defendant as a 3M vendor, even though it was no such thing, the opinion said. This specific type of confusion, among other things, led to the finding of trademark infringement even though the case was not the usual instance of one company using the registered trademark — or something resembling it — of another company on its own goods.

Although a wary procurement officer’s call to 3M prevented the city from purchasing the masks at the inflated price, the court saw fit to issue a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order. “Absent injunctive relief . . . there is nothing to prevent Defendant from making similar offers to other government or healthcare entities around the United States,” the opinion said.

A party must show irreparable harm to obtain an injunction. The court found 3M was likely to suffer such harm “in two respects, namely: (i) quality and (ii) reputation.”

Regarding quality, the court found that 3M could not monitor the state of goods sold outside its authorized sales channels, which the defendant most decidedly was not, despite its rampant use of the 3M trademark on its price quote.

As for reputation, the court said, “No amount of money could repair the damage to 3M’s brand and reputation if it is associated with the crime of price-gouging at the expense of healthcare workers and other first responders in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.”

The court noted that harm to the public may be taken into account when ordering a preliminary injunction. It also found that 3M satisfied the other two prongs of the test for determining whether an activity should be enjoined: 3M was likely to succeed on the merits, and the balance of hardships tipped in its favor.

The Trademark Modernization Act

Although the Trademark Modernization Act had nothing per se to do with the pandemic, it was passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 that included another $900 billion in Covid relief. The TMA, among other things, streamlines the process for canceling registered trademarks that are not being used for commercial purposes as required, according to the Federal Register.

Much of the new law is still being implemented. 

“The trademark office only recently promulgated rules about clearing out deadweight,” Ewing said, referring to the unused trademarks.

From Ewing’s perspective, the most significant portion of the TMA “is an addition to the Lanham Act of a rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm when seeking equitable relief on a trademark litigation claim.” 

The language of Section 6 of the TMA is clear. It directs the insertion of the following statement into Section 34(a) of the Lanham Act: “A plaintiff seeking any such injunction shall be entitled to a rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm upon a finding of a violation identified in this subsection in the case of a motion for a permanent injunction or upon a finding of likelihood of success on the merits for a violation identified in this subsection in the case of a motion for a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order.”

The violation to which the statement refers is trademark infringement.

This measure became necessary because of a Supreme Court decision, Ewing explained. 

“It used to be the law that if you established the element of likely confusion then irreparable harm was presumed,” he said. “Unfortunately, when the Supreme Court decided the eBay case . . . it rejected the presumption of irreparable harm.”

Ewing is referring to eBay Inc. et al. v. MercExchange L.L.C., a patent case decided in 2006 that involved a business method developed by MercExchange. The district court found that the patent was valid but declined to grant an injunction.

“In reversing, the Federal Circuit [Court of Appeals] applied its ‘general rule that courts will issue permanent injunctions against patent infringement absent exceptional circumstances,’” the case syllabus said.

On appeal to the Supreme Court, eBay and the other petitioners argued that the traditional four-factor test for whether to grant an injunction applies to disputes arising under the Patent Act, and that the Federal Circuit erred when it said courts will issue injunctions in all but exceptional circumstances.

“We agree and, accordingly, vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals,” the Supreme Court opinion said.

“Many courts held that the eBay case applies to cases of trademark infringement,” Ewing said. “It certainly caused difficulty. The TMA has rectified the situation.”

Many believe the eBay case was decided correctly, Ewing said, adding that its application by other courts to trademark cases wasn’t necessarily inappropriate because of similarities in the wording of the Patent Act and the Lanham Act. He thinks it’s proper to apply the two statutes the same way in limited respects, when their provisions are similar.

The rebuttable presumption of harm is a different matter. 

“I think there are reasonable arguments why you would not assume harm in a patent case or a copyright case, but trademark is different,” Ewing said. “Trademarks serve to protect the public. If you establish confusion, the harm should be considered irreparable. You can’t ‘unconfuse’ the public.”

For the latest on intellectual property, visit PLI’s Understanding the Intellectual Property License program. Click here for additional programs.

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Elizabeth M. Bennett was a business reporter who moved into legal journalism when she covered the Delaware courts, a beat that inspired her to go to law school. After a few years as a practicing attorney in the Philadelphia region, she decamped to the Pacific Northwest and returned to freelance reporting and editing.

Since we broke the news of the new $200K salary scale for associates at large law firms in the United States — a trend that was started by Milbank on Thursday, June 10, 2021, almost exactly three years after the firm started the last salary war in 2018 — several firms have fallen in line and matched the scale, but dozens more firms have remained completely silent. Maybe this Above the Law feature will encourage more firms to pay up. After all, the postpandemic lateral scene is white-hot right now, and increased salaries will only encourage talent to remain loyal to their firms.

Today, we unveil a table of all of the firms that have already matched the new salary scale, the date those matches were made, and whether special bonuses were offered earlier this spring (so you can see where firms truly stand) for your viewing pleasure. We will be updating this table on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times, as news on raises unfolds. If you see any information here that is incorrect or needs further clarification, let us know.

Remember, we are covering this trend extensively, so please drop us a line — text (646-820-8477) or email (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”) — when you know of another firm making a compensation move. 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. All sources are kept confidential.

Firm	Date Matched	Special Bonuses
Milbank 1st Year: $200K 8th Year: $355K	FIRST MOVER June 10, 2021	Yes 1st Year: $12K 8th Year: $64K
McDermott Will & Emery 1st Year: $200K 8th Year: $355K	June 10, 2021	Yes (hours-based) 1st Year: $12K 8th Year: $64K
Cadwalader 1st Year: $200K 8th Year: $355K	June 10, 2021	Yes (hours-based) 1st Year: $12K 8th Year: $64K
Mintz 1st Year: $200K 8th Year: $355K	June 10, 2021	No
Fenwick Tier 1/Level 1: $200K Tier 3: $355K	June 10, 2021	Yes (hours-based) Tier 1/Level 1: $12K Tier 3: $64K
Davis Polk 1st Year: $205K 8th Year: $365K	NEW MARKET LEADER June 11, 2021	Yes 1st Year: $12K 8th Year: $64K
Winston & Strawn 1st Year: $200K 8th Year: $355K	June 11, 2021	Yes (hours-based) 1st Year: $12K 8th Year: $64K

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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.

On the latest episode of The Jabot, MiAngel Cody and I chat about her passion for criminal defense work and the problems with the three strikes law. We talk about the role of social media and Kim Kardashian in justice work, about how the #90DaysOfFreedom Campaign got started, and why The Decarceration Collective so important. MiAngel has been labeled a “Legal Legend” a “changemaker” and a “powerhouse litigator” and it turns out she’s great at giving advice to lawyers who are getting started in their careers and want to work on reform issues. We chat about the successes she’s had in this work and also the setbacks. MiAngel also describes how she balances the work with her personal life and recharges so she’s able to take on the next fight.

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wore when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wore when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!

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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).