Category: News Feeds

* The owner of the famous bar Cheers is suing its insurance company over business interruption coverage. Guess the carrier doesn’t want to know their name… [Business Insurance]

* A Chicago lawyer is accused of assault and seeking sex from clients in exchange for legal work. [New York Post]

* A New York lawyer who misappropriated thousands of dollars and continued to practice law while under an interim suspension has been suspended from practice for four years. Seems like the penalty could have been even worse. [New York Law Journal]

* Check out this piece about whether employers are legally allowed to prohibit employees from wearing Black Lives Matter masks. [CNN]

* A lawyer for the Covington Catholic student who sued news agencies for defamation over a viral video released last year says that employees of CNN and The Washington Post have breached confidentiality agreements related to the litigation. [Yahoo News]

* A husband and wife are suing the District of Columbia over speed enforcement cameras. Please let this case go to the Supreme Court… [ABC News]

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!

According to data collected by Law.com for the 2020 Go-To Law School ranking, which law school saw the most alumni promoted to partner at the 100 largest firms last year?

Hint: This law school saw 65 graduates join the partnership ranks in 2019.

See the answer on the next page.

If you’re on the job market or have been recently, you might have received a pre-employment assessment test. One posting I found ask applicants to complete a two-parter, with both a “cognitive” and a “personality” element.

That feels strange to me, but perhaps that’s just because I’m not of the same generation as most job seekers these days. Pre-assessment tests like these are generally new, and something that job seekers in the past didn’t have to worry about.

Recently, a few people asked me what I think about them. And, well, I was puzzled!

Is this an “assessment” or a “test”? Could it be possible that you have been born with a wrong personality? Can a simple test produce answers that are even relevant to employment? Most importantly, does the prospective employer have a right to know what it is? Is the term “pre-employment” before even having a screening interview presumptuous? What message do these tests send about the companies that use them? Is it fair to ask job seekers to invest even more uncompensated time?

So, I crowdsourced the answer on LinkedIn: “What do you think about the pre-employment assessment tests?” Here is a result of my completely unscientific, unrepresentative sample:

Some Lawyers Are Open-Minded About The Pre-Employment Assessment Tests

“I don’t know but I voted great idea. First, I love new things. Second, I love personality tests. So, I’m in!” said Lisa Goldkuhl, a dedicated mother and in-house supervising attorney.

Besides being fun, these tests may be useful. “If the cognitive test identified the smartest or most intellectually flexible candidates without regard to how their name sounds or where they went to school that could be a positive. Even on personality, it can be useful if you invest time to find out what types succeed or failed your workplace and why,” said Stuart Altman, senior vice president and global chief compliance officer at Las Vegas Sands Corp.

He explained, “Maybe the environment requires risk-taking. Maybe you are hiring someone to be a strong number 2 and need to know if they can be an advisor and not a leader. We all assume we can hire people and know these answers but usually our decisions are highly biased based on what we think are the needs of the job.”

Are The Pre-Employment Assessment Tests Counterproductive?

Yet, Annie Little, founder of JD Nation, pointed out, “I majored in psychology and found personality psych to be more problematic than useful or predictive of someone’s performance. My thought is that employers are shooting themselves in the foot by repelling people who are turned off by tests/assessments and/or people who would be wonderful additions to their team despite what any assessment results indicate.”

Likewise, Christopher O’Connor, senior content strategist, said, “These personality assessments are inherently a no-win situation. I completed one last year as part of an interview process (I’ve joked with people that’s probably why I didn’t get the gig). It offered 50 or so Myers-Briggs-like questions about work attitudes and reactions and approaches to a certain situation and offered a Likert scale to supply answers.”

He continued, “But see, if someone answers all 5s, you know they’re full of it. If anyone mixes in a few too many 1s, maybe that’s an immediate flag on confidence/competence. But then if you dance with the 3s too much, then it gets subjective — some might see that as honesty and room for growth, while others see it as indecisiveness or red flags, that hey maybe this guy requires too much investment. I think these folks want 4s across the board, which while it isn’t as ridiculous as all 5s, is pretty unlikely. I don’t see how it’s really all that valuable to companies, ultimately.”

Lourdes M. Turrecha, the chief privacy tech evangelist of The Rise of Privacy Tech, and founder and CEO of PIC, said, “They’re very intrusive so I think they should be completely voluntary and not prevent an applicant from getting hired. If hiring decisions are made based on them, they should be transparent what factors are taken into account, and why.”

Is It Possible That Pre-Employment Assessment Tests Perpetuate Biases?

Shari E. Belitz, CEO at Shari Belitz Communications, observed, “From my psych experience I am familiar with various projective testing techniques. My concern is unless these tests are put through scrutiny, they may be riddled with bias.” She added, “Even if the tests themselves are not inherently biased, the scoring is. It is very subjective.”

Should We Be More Open To Diversity?

“I am definitely not a fan. I would be concerned that it would frustrate diversity and inclusion efforts and would result in the hiring of likeminded employees,” said Lisa Lang, general counsel at Kentucky State University, “I would also think you would want a variety of people with different personalities and skillsets to ensure room for innovation.”

Likewise, Ravi Rao, senior associate, solution delivery Fulcrum Global Technologies, said: “You have to accept that people will come to your org with differing sets of personality traits. And those traits are not consistent in personal vs. professional lives. If you want everyone in a role to be the same, then hire robots.”

The Relationship Between The Job Description And The Assessment Is Not Always Apparent

Jamie-Leigh Brandes, legal counsel at CMC Markets, said, “I once wrote a pre-employment assessment that completely threw me off. It was unrelated to the role and I didn’t do well in it. I started doubting my application and whether I wanted to work for the company.”

She continued, “It got me thinking, ‘Well if the test is this difficult, would I be able to do the work?’ The best thing to do, if you do insist on doing these assessments, is to make it relevant to the post. You’ll inspire the person taking the test to do their best at it, and it’ll be a true reflection of what you’re looking for in a candidate.”

Likewise, MacAllistre (Alli) Henry, corporate counsel at Contentful, explained, “I think they are a good idea if used sparingly and to truly test for skills necessary for the job.  They’re horrid if they are overly long or an exploitative way for a company to get free work/work product from a candidate.”

So, perhaps like any other element of the job application process, a pre-employment test is only effective, fair, and justified depending on how the employer uses it. It draws out sensitive information, but it’s up to the employer to determine how that information is used. After all, a cover letter and resume provide sensitive information, too, and we have to trust that the employer won’t make a decision based on our gender, last name, or age.

But, given especially the negative responses, the pre-employment assessment can also be a way for a potential employee to evaluate the employer. It’s a way for seekers to learn about the company they are interviewing for. And whether a company uses this type of screening — and what kind they choose to rely on — can reveal much about the company, their values, and their evaluative framework.

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.

As a criminal defense attorney, there’s nothing tougher than seeing a client sentenced to a hefty jail term.

Ten years, 15 years, 20-to-life, rolls off the judge’s tongue as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. But to the attorney, who’s spent months, even years, getting to know the defendant, speaking with his family and friends, learning his history, sitting next to him at a trial (one of the scariest things any human being can experience), it can be devastating.

Compartmentalization is key — keeping all the sorrow engrained in the work separate from your daily life. For me, it’s important to end the case (and your feelings about it) when the client walks into prison. Draw a line. Say goodbye.

However, after watching the fabulous documentary “The Work,” I realized that some of the toughest issues my client has to face are after the trial’s over.  Prison begins the rest of his life (or a good chunk of it) and it’s one inhospitable place — unnatural, isolating, threatening, dehumanizing, and just plain dull.

Letting down your guard, expressing your true feelings, coming to grips with the grief of being locked away from your family, or the guilt of having hurt another (whether it be the victim in the case or a newborn son you barely got to meet), are just some of the internal struggles prisoners face.

Talk about needing therapy. Prisoners are ripe for it, hungry for a safe way to express their inner emotions without looking weak.

“The Work” covered a four-day period in Folsom State Prison, California, a maximum-security facility where many inmates serve life sentences. Twice a year, counselors lead a four-day group-therapy session inviting in selected members of the public who want to share the experience.

The sessions were raw as each man, guests included, reached down deep to bring up feelings about themselves and their histories. Imagine being a bartender or a teacher’s assistant or a museum associate thinking that going to Folsom might be a cool way to spend a weekend, then being confronted with the inmates’ probing your background, your motivation, your problems.  Although the guests have traumas that seem lightweight compared to the inmates, commonalities appear — feelings of inferiority, growing up without dads, a disconnectedness from life.

The documentary focused on one group of men and the three guests who participated in the four-day workshop with them. Having been in therapy sessions before, the inmates knew more about “going into the well and bringing something up” than their better-heeled visitors. At first the guests hung back and observed, but before the fours days finished, each guest had a floodgate-moment, when he was willing to share his vulnerability with “some of the baddest guys out there,” as one inmate described the inmates.

As emotions rise to the surface, the men, under the experienced eye of a moderator, group around the person “reaching inside,” to create a kind of cocoon where he can express his emotions physically (like many inmates do), but without hurting anyone. Guttural, primordial wails welled up and punctuated the film not only from the men we were watching but from groups all around them.

Dark Cloud, a thick-bodied, tattooed Native American in prison for having thrust a “big blade” into a guy to “hack him in half,” told the group, “I just want to be vulnerable and not scared to be vulnerable, cause every time I’ve been vulnerable in the past, I’ve been hurt.”

Another inmate, a 50-something former gang member, jailed in his early 20s said, “I don’t want to feel like I can’t feel anymore.”

One of the visitors, Chris, a young, willowy, museum assistant, was shy to bring up the banality of his struggle with his dad, who told him to go back to the house when he couldn’t find the right tool to help him in the garage. It was minor compared to the history of abuse, drug addiction, and abandonment the inmates described, but the group treated his revelation with respect, formed a barrier of raised fists in front of him and urged him to force his way through, to take a stand, be a man.

The film showed there’s less that separates us from people in prison than we think. We all have the same needs, desires, and hope. We just had different upbringings and sets of choices. But ultimately, these are people in pain just like everyone else. Only their pain is worse, and they’ve got very few places to express it.

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

Chicago family law attorney David Pasulka has been suspended from serving as guardian ad litem and “any other Court Committee to which he has been appointed” in the domestic relations division in Cook County, Illinois, following “serious allegations” against him. A complaint filed by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), alleges Pasulka traded recommendations for custody, in his court-appointed role as guardian ad litem, for sex, as well as allegations of sexual assault.

As reported by CBS Local:

The complaint says Pasulka was explicit about the arrangement: sex in exchange for a favorable recommendation regarding the custody of her two children.

According to the complaint, “[Pasulka] stated to [the woman] that, in order to receive his support in recommending that she receive sole custody, she only had to ‘do a little extra something’ and that she was a ‘smart girl’ and that if she really wanted her children, he could ‘do that’ for her if she would have sex with him.”

The complaint also alleges that Pasulka used his position of authority to sexually harass three women employed at his firm, and sexually assaulted them by forcibly kissing and penetrating the women.

“As [the woman’s] employer, [Pasulka] maintained a position of power over her, in that she was financially dependent upon her job at the firm as her only source of income,” the complaint said of one of the women. “In addition, during the duration of her employment, [Pasulka] routinely told [the woman] about his connections in the family law field, including connections with judges, attorneys, and bar associations and implied his ability to affect her professional success.”

The complaint says Pasulka pressured the women, telling one “he was looking for a ‘team player’ and that she should be a ‘team player’ and that ‘you’re saying no when you should be saying yes,’” the complaint said, adding that Pasulka even told one woman “Your friend, [one of the women in the complaint], does not say no.”

The complaint further alleges “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentations related to manipulation of an alcohol testing device” in connection with a 2017 DUI arrest.

Pasulka has denied the allegations against him:

Pasulka told CBS 2’s Charlie De Mar he denies all the allegations against him. Pasulka said he is a leader in his field and has represented thousands of children, and feels he is being “dragged through the mud,” adding that “this is the worst thing that’s ever been laid on me.”

Pasulka has not been charged with any crime in connection with the complaint. A Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokesperson said, “[W]e have not been asked to review these matters by law enforcement who would conduct the initial investigation.”

Read the full complaint below.

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).

I pick up the phone, and I’m like, “Hello?” And I hear, “Hello. This is Tyler Perry.” And I’m like, “Nah man, you joking?” And literally, he says, “Hey, I want to help you cover your tuition.” My whole entire heart stopped. It was just the greatest moment of my life at that point.

— Rehan Staton, a former sanitation worker who will be attending Harvard Law School this fall, commenting on a conversation he had with actor, writer, producer, comedian, and director Tyler Perry. Staton has received many offers of assistance since his inspiring story first made national attention.

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.

Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler has taken a break from shouting about “trained Marxists” to shout about her Republican opponent Doug Collins helping defendants exercise their constitutional right to representation by counsel.

“Before he became a politician, Doug Collins was a criminal defense lawyer,” warns her latest campaign ad. “On his website, he advertised directly to sex offenders! Drug dealers! Even murderers!”

Very subtle. As is Loeffler’s accusation that Collins “teamed up with Stacey Abrams to reduce prison time for violent criminals.” She also touts her endorsement by 12 Georgia sheriffs — which is only 16 fewer than Collins got.

Before running for congress, Congressman Collins was a criminal lawyer in private practice at a firm which had — GASP! — a website. And unlike Senator Southern Strategy, his clients weren’t accused of insider trading. In fact, all four of the cases Loeffler mentions in her ad were indigent defendants assigned to Collins’s firm by the court.

Or, as Loeffler’s press secretary Caitlin O’Dea put it, “As a criminal defense attorney, Doug Collins was putting his paycheck above the safety of Georgia families.” Later she tweeted that, “Doug Collins would be better off running for Mayor of Portland or Chicago where his record of lawlessness would be applauded by the woke mob and liberal electorate.”

Loeffler’s posturing as the real “law and order candidate” seems to rest on an imperfect understanding of the Constitution. In her telling, lawyers who provide the “Assistance of Counsel” guaranteed to criminal defendants by the Sixth Amendment are “siding with criminals instead of holding them accountable.”

Which may not endear her to the fourteen percent of Georgians who live below the federal poverty line and are unlikely to be able to afford a white shoe law firm. Not to mention the twenty-two percent of her constituents who are African American and cannot have missed that Loeffler attempted to criticize Collins by linking him to the most famous Black politician in the state.

“Accusation equals conviction if your bank balance does not have enough zeros in it,” Collins’ spokesman Dan McLagan told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, alluding to Loeffler’s enormous personal wealth. As if anyone in Georgia could forget that Governor Kemp appointed to Loeffler to fill out retiring Senator Johnny Isakson’s term after she promised to spend $20 million of her own money on the campaign.

And despite throwing a mountain of cash at this race, Loeffler has consistently trailed Collins, a longtime Georgia politician who has deep roots in the state. Because some things can’t be bought for love or money.

But for only $10.99, Loeffler could buy a copy of U.S. Constitution for Dummies on Amazon. Which would be a lot cheaper, and save her a whole lot of embarrassment.

GEORGIA SHERIFFS DENOUNCE DOUG COLLINS’ CRIMINAL DEFENSE HISTORY [KellyForSenate.com]
Loeffler’s campaign ups attacks on Collins’ legal record despite criticism [AJC]

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

Welcome listeners to this COVID-19 Special Report podcast presented by our friends at Wolters Kluwer and hosted by Evolve the Law Contributing Editor, Ian Connett (@QuantumJurist).

This report features Dean Sonderegger and Martin O’Malley of Wolters Kluwer to break down the results of the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey: “Performance Drivers – to assess future-readiness and resilience in the legal sector.”

Join us as Dean, Martin, and Ian examine the results of the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer survey. The survey includes insights from 700 legal professionals across the U.S. and nine European countries, allowing us to examine ongoing trends in the legal sector and how well-prepared organizations are to drive higher performance. All of this and more on this week’s COVID-19 Special Coverage Podcast.