Category: News Feeds

This weekend, Americans will celebrate Independence Day, which  commemorates the day when the colonial Continental Congress declared independence from the British Empire almost 250 years ago. It is notable because it comes as another group of people recently tried to declare their independence from the American Empire.

In early June, a group of protestors in Seattle took over a six-block portion of the city and called it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). It was later renamed to the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP). This was inspired by the mass protests around the country triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers.

Rather than controlling the protestors, the city police and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan have for the most part left the area alone. This portion of the city basically became a limited law-enforcement area or a “sandbox” where the law does not apply. The protestors set up barricades surrounding the zone. They also took over the East Precinct, the only police station in the area, renaming it the Seattle People Department.

Why did the local government let this happen? Perhaps it was a way to contain the protestors and let them express themselves in a designated area. Otherwise, the protests and possible property destruction could have spread randomly throughout the city. Containment was also important in order to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

What was life like in the CHAZ/CHOP? It depends on who you ask. It was either a festival-like atmosphere or a “summer of love” as the mayor called it. Others have called it a zone of uncontrolled, lawless anarchy.

In the beginning, life in the autonomous zone seemed pretty good. There was free food from various cultural cuisines (and vegan), yoga classes, speeches on police brutality, and movie screenings. Volunteers were caring for the homeless. You saw people of all races walking around in the local park. At night, there were demonstrations. The zone even had some makeshift public services such as a medical center and a volunteer security force.

It seemed like the ideal society that functioned because everyone chipped in and everyone got along. There may have been some minor incidents and disturbances, but it was nothing the local leaders or the volunteer security force couldn’t handle. When everyone gets along, who needs the police? And local government for that matter?

But we soon learned why we cannot have nice things. It was only a matter of time before the criminals and trolls become aware of what they could get away with when Five-O is not around. Also, people are going to disagree, and some will turn to violence to get their way.

Since June 20, there were multiple shootings at the CHAZ. This resulted in two deaths, both of whom were African-Americans. There were anecdotal reports of people and businesses being victims of extortion as they were forced to pay for protection. There was a report of arson and a deaf woman being sexually assaulted.

And those are the crimes the police know about. Who knows about the crimes and acts of intimidation that went unreported. The victims could have been scared of retaliation. Or they think no one will believe them because witnesses don’t want to snitch. Or they weren’t confident that the security force didn’t have the power to protect them. Or their moral or political conviction was so strong that they were willing to sacrifice their dignity if reporting the crime would be used as justification for shutting down CHAZ, discrediting the Black Lives Matter movement, or worst of all, proving that President Donald Trump could have been right.

The criminal activity became so bad that the police chief and the mayor said that CHAZ will be dismantled. The barricades surrounding the protest zone will be removed. And the police are expected to return to the East Precinct in the near future. Even the so-called leaders acknowledged that the CHAZ movement has concluded.

CHAZ was an interesting observation, and the party was fun while it lasted. It was not meant to be a miniature attempt at secession. The protestors claimed they would disband if the government met their demands, which included defunding police, abolishing prisons, reparations for victims of police brutality, and retrials of people of color imprisoned for violent crimes, by a jury of their peers. Some of these demands would be difficult or near impossible to meet without causing greater chaos.

But as an alternative society, CHAZ really wasn’t sustainable. How long was the free food going to last? Eventually, it will stop unless someone is willing to pay for it. Will it get corporate sponsors, or will protestors somehow shame them into “donating”? Or will they charge an admission fee? Or will there be some sort of tax system?

The volunteer security force wouldn’t last long as well. Risking your life on a volunteer basis is not something most people will want to do on a long-term basis. Also, they might be outmatched and outgunned if organized gangs decide to seize control.

While CHAZ was unsuccessful in its declaration of independence, there will be future attempts to set up an autonomous zone or some other “regulatory sandbox” with one or more idealistic purposes. On a very simple level it might work. But we live in a complex society where idealism must be tempered with practicality. In the case of CHAZ, the free food will stop coming eventually. And some people will resort to violence and will only respect a greater power than themselves.

While CHAZ tried to show the possibility of a police-free society, it ironically showed why law enforcement is necessary as the number and severity of crimes began to increase. The city and the “leaders” of CHAZ wisely shut the project down before the violence got out of hand.

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Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

It’s time to open up the old Above the Law mailbag! While we get tons of useful tips from our readers, the last couple of days have seen the inbox overflowing with hate mail. Apparently there are people out there who really have issues with our coverage of the St. Louis AR-15 couple and they decided to tell us about it! Are these concerned citizens attorneys? Insightful? Literate? No on all counts!

These people were not just walking to the Governor’s house and walked by this house.

Indeed they were not! The 130-mile trek from St. Louis to Jefferson City would have certainly taken a toll on these marchers. They were, however, walking to the mayor’s house and the McCloskeys’ street offered a convenient path.

How in the hell can you possibly call the lawyers who are exercising their 2nd amendment right to protect their property crooks?!?!

Who called them crooks? While most of the Monday commentary on the couple mused that they could be guilty of assault, I explicitly threw water on that idea and noted that they stayed on their property.

Reading… it’s tough for people.

But just because someone has the right to do something doesn’t make it a good idea and definitely doesn’t make it something lawyers should be doing. The McCloskeys themselves say they don’t want to become “a rallying cry for people who oppose the Black Lives Matter message” and if that’s true, then it’s exactly why they shouldn’t have done any of this.

But then McCloskey got himself booked on Tucker Carlson so… I guess he’s going to lean into being a rallying cry for those people. So much for that plan!

They stopped being peaceful when the protesters trespassed by breaking in to the gated community where the lawyers lived.

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Let me hear the rational logic behind you trying to call them peaceful protesters whole also citing that they BROKE THROUGH A GATE AND TRESPASSED.

There were a lot of emails focusing on the broken gate. You know, I’m the one who mentioned the broken gate in the original piece. Honestly, just read the thing! That said, the rational logic of calling them “peaceful protesters” is that they were not committing any acts of violence. We have video… they just kind of marched and chanted. We don’t inflate the FBI stats by calling trespassing a violent crime.

Breaking down a gate is certainly an act of destruction but the majority of the protesters following the group wouldn’t have even known about that because to them it would have already been an open gate. There’s even reason to question if the protesters ever broke down the gate in the first place.

Tell me what you would do if an armed lynch mob kicked down your gate and threatened your home and family.

Great question! While we’re making up hypotheticals that didn’t happen, what would you do if an extra-terrestrial moved into your home but refused to pay his share of the cable bill? There is, to be clear, zero evidence that the protesters were armed. Nothing to suggest they had plans to lynch anyone. McCloskey says the marchers threatened him… while he was pointing his gun at them. There’s not much to suggest the protesters even cared about the house until the McCloskeys pulled guns on them.

Considering the “mostly peaceful protesters”, as they have been called, are commonly known to be infiltrated with rioters, arsonists and looters, one needs to be ready.

By “commonly known,” he means “according to OANN.” The NYPD attempted to prove that protesters were infiltrated by rioters and managed to take a picture of a bike tire flat kit.

This guy took it one further:

Given the status of BLM being in league with black bloq and both being terrorist organizations, and both groups recent violent activities they did the exact right thing. If they had come out unarmed the mob would take that as a sign of weakness and capitalize on that. Additionally the mob was armed as well.

Seriously, where are people getting this idea that the protesters were armed? You’d think one of these folks might actually use these hypothetical weapons sometime.

In his appearance on Tucker Carlson last night, McCloskey said of protesters 30 feet away from his house walking on a sidewalk on the other side of the wall, “I was literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall, come into the house, kill us, burn the house down.” SECONDS! That’s some grade A paranoia there and, unfortunately, the sort of nonsense that gets people off as a “reasonable fear” in stand your ground murders.

If those >animals were at your front door, you would think differently.

And that gets to the heart of the matter. Black people asking to not be murdered are “animals” to these vile people. Some of them won’t say it outright and concoct stories about the protesters being armed, tied into a global terror network, or otherwise dangerous. But it all comes back to a deeply seeded commitment to dehumanizing Black people. As it happens, I have had a Black Lives Matter march pass me. Guess what? They just marched on. Probably because I didn’t wave semi-automatic weapon at them to prove the exact thing they’re protesting.

This emailer concludes.

Your not very bright.

Checkmate, sir.

Earlier: St. Louis Lawyers Wave AR-15 At Protesters Like Totally Normal, Totally Not Bonkers People
St. Louis AR-15 Couple Hires Lawyer With Some Disturbing Marketing Material

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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 only reason that I made it to where I’m at is because people helped me out of the kindness of their heart.

— Rehan Staton, a former sanitation worker from Bowie, Maryland, commenting on how he was able to gain acceptance to Harvard Law School. Staton used to spend his mornings hauling trash before going to class at the University of Maryland. Sometimes, he didn’t have time to shower between work and class. “I would have to sit on the side of class and try not to bother anybody with my scent that day,” he said. Staton was also accepted to law school at Columbia, Penn, USC-Gould, and Pepperdine, while he was waitlisted at Georgetown, NYU, Berkeley, and UCLA. He hopes to specialize in sports law and become an agent someday.

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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.

Back in May, which objectively wasn’t that long ago but feels positively sepia-toned at this point, Florida not only had no plans to cancel the July administration of the bar exam, they were bragging about their plans for packing 2000+ people into the test without spreading the disease everywhere.

The Florida bravado was everywhere!

Since then, let’s see what happened according to the Worldometers daily new cases graph for Florida:

Oh.

Today, the bar examiners and the state supreme court have seen enough. They announced that the July bar exam is off and will be replaced by an August online exam.

Now if only the rest of the holdout states would get the memo.

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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 only thing that is constant is change.” – Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher

If one thing is for certain, it is that these past four months have brought about an extraordinary amount of change in a short time. Even if you are one of the few whose daily life is minimally impacted by the pandemic (i.e., you previously worked from home, relied heavily on video conferencing for communication, or ordered your groceries online), it is guaranteed that those around you have no such luck.  With courts closed and businesses shuttered nationwide, many lawyers find their practices heavily disrupted or halted entirely. In contrast, others in the profession are seeing a surge in their areas of expertise to meet the growing needs of our societal overhaul. If you find yourself in the former category, it’s time to come up with a plan to address it.

In my last article, I shared why having a strong digital presence is critical to law firms of all sizes, especially during COVID-19. While taking the time to boost your digital channels is incredibly valuable, it is equally important to identify the type of content and information that should be disseminated across those channels – whether you’re deeply entrenched in your practice area or looking to explore fresh territory. If you are thinking about transitioning to a new or related practice area to address your clients’ shifting needs, here are the initial steps to take:

Learn

This task may sound incredibly obvious, but it cannot be overstated. In order to best position yourself for a practice pivot, it’s important to take the temperature of what’s going on in the world – from what’s happening in your own backyard to changes happening on an international scale. For starters, determine the areas of the law that are top of mind right now. Some that immediately rise to the surface are civil rights, cybersecurity, employment, ethics, and insurance (but there are many others!). Take the time to read (from broader news and legal-specific sources), listen to others (peers, industry thought leaders, family members, CLE) and absorb their teachings.

Strategize

As you form a picture of today’s trends and hot legal topics, you can identify how your expertise ties in to any of these growing areas – if not directly, then tangentially. Ask yourself: What is an interesting part of the cultural conversation that I can address? If not personally, how can I team up with others who have this experience that I can add to? Now is the ultimate opportunity for collaboration – with those in your organization, peers outside of it and others beyond the legal field. Follow people in your orbit who have timely and interesting perspectives to share (this can be as simple as tracking relevant #hashtags on Linkedin or Twitter to find them).  Think about where you fit and the avenues in which you can expand your expertise (this could include anything from enrolling in CLEs related to up-and-coming topics, to cross-selling services with another firm practice group).

Contribute

Once you find the niche area you’d like to expand into, contribute like crazy! Join organizations related to that practice area, engage in Linkedin groups and online conversations around those topics, write blog posts and publish articles, participate in webinars and CLEs, and find pro bono work to take on to expand your network and build your skill set in this area. No one will know you are dabbling in this new arena unless they start to associate (i.e., see and hear) your name with content surrounding it.  The last transition to a new practice area will occur in your head. For example, saying to yourself, “I am now a privacy attorney” or “I focus my practice on ethical issues during COVID-19”. If you embody it, others will catch on.

We all know that change is hard, and this year may arguably be the most difficult time to embrace change during many of our lifetimes. However, attorneys are known for their critical thinking skills and are well up for the task at hand. According to Dr. Larry Richard, a psychologist and former lawyer who studies lawyer behavior, “abstract reasoning — analyzing, solving problems, and using their intellect — is a hallmark trait of lawyers.” Now, it’s time to live up to that reputation.

Related Content:

1. Pandemic Law Practice Management: How to Leverage Resilience in the Face of Uncertainty
2. How to Boost Your Online Attorney Marketing…Ethically
3. Avoiding Cyberspace Danger Zones: The Ethics of Attorney Advertising

Shortly after Elliott Management took a stake in Samsung and began agitating to blow it up like so many of its smartphones, the company’s heir went to jail for bribing South Korea’s president. But Korean prosecutors weren’t prepared to leave it at that. They wondered if they could put someone else in jail, namely Elliott Management, as a warning to those foreign activists who might want to come in and mess with any of the country’s other gigantic family-owned conglomerates with corporate governance issues, the chaebols, and maybe put their scions in jail.

Neomi Rao is really happy she wrote that garbled mess of a Michael Flynn opinion. The DC Circuit judge who threw any semblance of conservative jurisprudence to the wind to offer up the result that Donald Trump dearly wanted now has to consider herself in prime position for a crack at the United States Supreme Court.

Rumors are circulating around Washington that Trump — and more to the point Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo — may get the opportunity to install not one but two life-tenured justices on the Court while the economy burns and the plague spreads with abandon. It’s a real Hugo Black-John Harlan II double-whammy kind of thing.

The rumors that Clarence Thomas plans to retire come up every year and every year disintegrate like voting rights in the wind. In fact, we just heard from sources close to Thomas a few weeks ago that Thomas has no plan to retire. Back in 2016 there was scuttlebutt that Thomas wanted to retire after the election and there is the chance that he sees this as his last opportunity to secure the Supreme Court’s conservative majority before a Biden administration comes in.

But Thomas is very much an “I alone can fix it” kind of guy. His reasoning, if not his results, mark him as an outsider even among other conservative jurists. He doesn’t believe he can be replaced by some 40-something FedSoc gunner. At 72, he’s got a good shot to make it until after the 2024 election when America trades in its slow, plodding ascent out of the COVID recession hole by opting for a spin of the Trumpism wheel.

But the possibility of Alito retiring — supposedly the “stronger rumor” — is a different story.

Hugh Hewitt is famously and consistently wrong. His gossipy takes are routinely debunked and he just marches on without consequence awaiting the moment that the broken clock is right. But Alito is 70 and much more likely to see himself as a replacement value player. They print Alito clones by the hundreds at law schools around the country and he can easily hand over the keys.

This exchange between Elie and Mike Sacks sums it up:

But, unless something radical changes, let’s chalk this all up to conservative wishcasting. Just like Chuck Grassley constantly tweeting about judicial retirements, the White House labors under the delusion that clumsily leaking that they’re “preparing” for a Supreme Court retirement will cause one of the justices to say, “You know, I wasn’t even thinking about quitting the most important job I’ll ever have, but now you’ve got my attention!”

But for today, let Neomi have her moment looking into the mirror and saying those magical words every conservative longs to say, “Banning abortion is necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act.”

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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.

Reddit user feeling-likealoser asks the relationship subreddit how to deal with reactions when she tells them yes, she’s leaving her law firm job and no, she doesn’t have another job lined up.

The OP says they feel like a loser — hence the screen name — for taking some time off of the law firm rat race, but for my $.02, all I see is smart woman who knows what she needs even if it isn’t the same thing she’s worked the last 13 years for:

I (38F) resigned from being a partner at my law firm only to be unemployed and everyone around me questioning my decision.

I (38F) recently resigned from my position as a partner at a law firm that I have worked at for 13 years. I’ve been killing myself taking crazy assignments and working intense hours in order to further my career. I sacrificed so much for this company. Once I made it as partner, I realized that I was putting myself through a lot and the money just wasn’t worth it. While I made good money, I was not pulling in even 50% of the comp compared to my male partners that managed a book of business about 1/3 of my size. I’ve felt this way for a long long time but finally pulled the trigger after the partner in charge of my department didn’t make any of the changes I’d requested. I’m so burnt out I’m not looking for another position. I just want to be free of that toxic place and take the next 6 months or so to recover. Ever since I resigned, everyone in my life other than my husband has been questioning my decision even when I have clearly set boundaries. I have 3 more weeks with the firm and have agreed to transition the clients. Every client, coworker, family member, and friend has been in shock that I don’t have something lined up. They think it’s crazy to leave at the peak of my career in the middle of a pandemic. Honestly after all of this, I just need some time to myself. I’m completely drained. I don’t know how to best respond to this without ruining relationships or being way to personal with people that I don’t feel comfortable sharing my innermost thoughts. I feel like a complete loser that I don’t have something lined up but I really don’t have the energy anymore to put even a tiny bit of effort to find the next job.

What would you say to people when they ask why you are leaving and where you are going when 1) some are people you are not close with and 2) some are people you are very close with and care deeply about? Some coworkers I’ve known for a long time and I have really gone through the trenches. I don’t want to say anything that makes them feel bad about staying. I also feel like a complete failure when I say I’m taking time off. People are baffled and don’t understand why I wouldn’t work in my 30s.

TL;DR! I’m leaving my job of 13 years and don’t know how to respond to people that are baffled as to why I’m leaving at the height of my career to go nowhere.

For the record, in the comments the OP says she has no immediate financial concerns about her looming unemployment. So… yeah, she’s winning, because… Biglaw is fucking toxic. You can practically feel the misery seeping from her words, the brutal hours, the unfair origination credit, the sexism, and the desperation.

Maybe it’s just because as a recovering Biglaw attorney, I know a lot of former Biglaw people. And they are all happier now than they were in the midst of their Biglaw hell. I’d advise the OP that it doesn’t matter what other people think, and just tell them you’re doing what’s best for you right now. It’s both true and vague enough not to ruffle the feathers she’s concerned about.

And when the OP checks back in with folks after leaving her law firm far behind, they’ll be able to see the weight that’s been lifted off of her shoulders and how much happier she is, and they’ll understand why she had to leave.

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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).

Let’s face it: 2020’s been a little rough. But tough times, like necessity, can be the mother of invention, and law firms can rise from the ashes from the lessons of this difficult year.
In this webinar, we will understand the primary drivers of profitability and how to drive more revenue through automation.

Join Bob Ambrogi, founder of LawSites Blog, and Rocket Matter’s CEO Larry Port for a webinar on July 9th at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT who will dive into ways to streamline your business.

Key Objectives:

1. Explore techniques to predict and improve profitability for law firms.
2. See tech demonstrations that make routine tasks, including getting paid, automated.
3. See how hourly billing can move to alternative fee arrangements and drive more revenue with technology.

By filling out the form you’re you are opting in to receive communication from Above the Law and its Partners.

It’s been a very long time coming, but Philadelphia-based Pepper Hamilton and Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders have finally completed their merger to create Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, a 1,100-lawyer firm with combined legacy revenue of $900 million in 2019, making it one of the 50 highest-grossing firms in the country.

The merger was publicly announced in November 2019 and the firms were originally supposed to combine on April 1, 2020, but the pandemic put a damper on their plans. “While we are well-positioned to execute the combination on April 1, we believe the decision to postpone is in the best interest of our attorneys, staff, and clients,” the firms noted in a March announcement, postponing the merger to July 1 due to the “unprecedented” challenges associated with the coronavirus crisis. In the meantime, both firms enacted austerity measures like pay cuts to control costs while COVID-19 wreaked economic havoc across the country.

Now that Troutman Pepper is finally here, with 26 offices spread across the country, CEO and chair Stephen Lewis, who formerly served as Troutman’s managing partner, is ready to get this party started. From the American Lawyer:

“There is a lot of excitement across the combined firm about making this effective now,” Lewis said.

For now, the new firm’s lawyers and staff will celebrate via video at a firmwide event Wednesday afternoon. Troutman Pepper has scheduled its first partner meeting for July 16, also via video. Lewis said the firm hopes to host an in-person partner meeting in the new year, but “it depends on COVID-19 and when the world opens back up.”

And what about those pay cuts? Lewis seems optimistic everyone’s salaries will be restored sometime in the future. “I’d love to do it sooner rather than later,” he said.

Congratulations to everyone at Troutman Pepper on acheiving the seemingly impossible by completing a merger during a pandemic.

Troutman Pepper Merger Goes Live, Even as Pandemic Keeps New Colleagues Apart [American Lawyer]

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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.