Category: News Feeds

We’ve made it to the end of the political debate season and while no one actually wants to have to watch another one of these things, the alternative is the Giants and the Eagles, so what are you going to do? Besides, who is Trump not going to disavow this time? We’ve already had him stick up for white supremacists and QAnon… North Korea? Russia? New Coke?

Oh, who are we kidding, it’ll be Rudy.

As always, we’ve compiled a drinking game to make the evening’s festivities a little easier to take for the legal professionals out there. There shouldn’t be many opportunities to discuss courts tonight, but if past iterations of this game are any indication, don’t plan on going to work tomorrow.

Unless otherwise indicated, take a sip when these are mentioned:

“Supreme Court”: The topics, we’re told, will be: Fighting Covid-19, American Families, Race in America, Climate Change, National Security, and Leadership. Given that the Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to rewrite decades of precedent and the former Vice President pitched the ultimate bureaucratic court reform punt, it’s hard to believe the Court won’t make an appearance in some form. But not landing on the approved topic list suggests we might avoid a true overdose of mentions.

Any Supreme Court case: But… man… if families ends up talking about Obergefell and Roe, and climate change starts talking about EPA cases, and leadership veers into the ACA. Cancel your Saturday plans too.

Judicial Superlatives (see instructions): If a judge or the courts themselves, one sip for every letter in the attached superlative. Example: “Our great Supreme Court” is five sips. “The tremendous Amy Coney Barrett” a whopping 10 sips. “The antidisestablishmentarian 7th Circuit” gives you an option to quit the game for your own safety.

Chevron (ask a nearby expert how much they think you should drink): Neither of these guys is in the weeds enough to get into this during the climate talks, right?

“Court-Packing”: Much like “fake news,” this one started as a left-leaning rallying cry and has morphed into a Republican attack. Perhaps this comes in under “leadership”?

“Court Expansion” (don’t drink, just look at your beer and know that you really should be taking a sip): Can Joe Biden make fetch happen?

Voting Rights Act: This is one of the most important topics under the general heading of Race in America and something that makes the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation uniquely terrifying.

Bork (drink until you think it’s the 80s again): If both-sideism gets back to Biden opposing Bork, it’s a red letter day for legal nerds.

Hunter Biden: The exception to above is for every time Trump begs off of the actual topic to try and say something about Hunter Biden, child pornography, Burisma, or deals with Chinese businesses.

MUTE: Sip every time that mute button is invoked. This one could go either way. I could see it being a big deal, but I also could imagine this being a lot tamer based on the backlash over the last debate.

The Clintons: The Maxwell deposition mentions Bill Clinton. How often will that come up?

Specific Pharmaceutical Namechecked: He’s got to talk about COVID and he’s going to tout some treatment. Regeneron? Remdesivir? Hydroxychloroquine? Lysol? The Spice Melange?

Michael Flynn: No national security or leadership debate would be complete without pointing out that the administration’s first national security advisor has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

Fake Crimes: Whenever a candidate pledges to use the DOJ to “get to the bottom of” some possible crime, like Borat “criminally” deceiving Rudy or Benghazi.

John Durham (finish your drink): Russiagate’s Ultimate Nullifier has basically fizzled at this point but its eventual revelation has survived as an article of faith among the conspiracy theorists out there.

Jeffrey Toobin (hop on Zoom and finish your drink): Is there any reason to bring this up? No. Can I credibly imagine hearing Trump try to tie Biden to “liberals” like “Creepy Toobin“? Yes.

Amendments (see description): Shots corresponding with the number of the amendment when mentioned. In other words, one shot for the First Amendment, Two shots for the Second Amendment, etc. So far we’ve avoided the Twenty-Fifth… but Trump’s had COVID since then so who knows.

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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.

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

According to Vault’s 2021 practice area rankings, which Biglaw firm tops the appellate litigation list?

Hint: This firm has more than 1,355 attorneys in 10 countries.

See the answer on the next page.

What is your worst nightmare? Blowing a statute of limitations? Losing a huge case at trial and the verdict is upheld on appeal? What about being sued for malpractice for policy limits and beyond?

These are all possible horribles, but I think what’s worse is the cratering of your career based on your own stupid, thoughtless, and/or arrogant conduct. This applies to both lawyers and judges.

I do not understand (and probably never will) how a judge or a lawyer can wittingly or otherwise trash his career and reputation. After spending years in the trenches, getting appointed to the bench is a big deal and should be regarded as such, but what on earth possesses them to think they get a “good conduct” medal for conduct unbecoming? Similarly, passing the bar is not an easy task, neither is developing a practice or a reputation.

I am surprised that judges don’t learn not to diss the district attorney. Whatever disagreements there may be, judges need to understand that the D.A. has a job to do that is different from the court’s. (Why this wasn’t learned years ago is beyond me. Executive branch v. judicial branch. We could probably all use a civics refresher course these days.)

California’s Commission on Judicial Performance stipulated with Nevada County Superior Court Robert Tamietti that in exchange for a public admonishment for misconduct and discourteous comments made about the D.A., Tamietti agreed to retire from the bench and to never seek judicial office again. All that hard work down the tubes.

While scrolling through the list of judicial officers that have been disciplined by the commission over the years, I saw the name of a judge who had received several public admonishments before retirement. He was a nasty, belittling, sarcastic judge. No one wanted to appear in front of him. And if attorneys wanted to exercise a peremptory challenge against another judge, the fear was that the case would be reassigned to this judicial officer. (One peremptory and done.)

This judge did not hatch as a judge; he was a lawyer first, and the lack of understanding and empathy to practitioners was astonishing. I sat in his courtroom, shocked and appalled, while he trashed just about every lawyer appearing in front of him. Shame on all of us that it took so long for him for him to be publicly disciplined and then retire. The most egregious case of robe-itis I ever saw. Here’s the dilemma: do you complain about judicial misconduct and fear retaliation or do you (and your client) suffer in silence?

I digress. I think social media is dangerous for judges who are supposed to be neutral, at least that’s what we’re paying them for. A Tennessee judge has been reprimanded for “flirtatious and overtly sexual messages” sent on social media to a number of women. Some of the messages were accompanied by a photo of the judge in his judicial robe. Several recipients of the messages were female lawyers who had cases pending before this court. What was that judge thinking? The lessons learned? Don’t send such messages (a no-brainer) and don’t do anything that might compromise judicial neutrality (another no-brainer). Isn’t the essence of what judges are supposed to do, i.e., to be neutral?

Another Tennessee judge has been reprimanded for comments about masks. The judge used the term “grand wizard” when referring to the chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court who had imposed a mask mandate in court.

In addition to neutrality, the conduct of judges should be above reproach. Sometimes it isn’t. A long-serving judge on the Washington D.C. Superior Court retired three days after the Washington Post asked him about long-ago sexual assaults on a 16-year-old daughter of friends of his. Those assaults continued for some time.

Here’s a classic case of overbearing judicial conduct. A neighborhood squabble escalated with a bare-chested judge trying to push his weight around against the police who were called to the scene.

What do you think? Do you think judges are “entitled” to special treatment?  Robe-itis personified, and he wasn’t even wearing his robe.

Several recent lawyer escapades pose again the age-old question of “what were they thinking?” Women lawyers and judges do not seem to need to answer that question.

Name-calling reached new highs (or new lows) when the Ohio Supreme Court suspended a lawyer for what the court called “over the top” criticisms of opposing counsel and disparaging remarks about judicial decisions, including a custody order that the lawyer called the “most insane” order in all his years as an attorney.

The test, the court said, was not how the attorney viewed the rulings, but his conduct in hotly contested litigation and how he responded to adverse rulings. Before the attorney can be reinstated, the attorney must be evaluated by the Ohio Lawyers Legal Assistance Program. Good idea to have him evaluated before returning him to the general lawyer population.

We have heard about driving while drunk, but how about driving while naked? The bare truth? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) This attorney had a history of driving while nude. The Ohio Supreme Court imposed a two-year suspension, but stayed it, with terms and conditions imposed. The court found that no clients were injured by the attorney’s conduct. I wonder if he has ever zoomed while naked.

An Indiana attorney, with five drunk driving arrests, was suspended for 180 days. Five previous drunk driving arrests? Is this the first time the Indiana bar took notice? What took so long?

Word limitations preclude other examples. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t say two words: Jeffrey Toobin. What was he thinking? Moral of his story? Or should I say morals of his story?

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Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

If there’s something strange in your [Midtown/Greenwich/Mayfair] neighborhood, who you gonna call? Brian Moynihan!

BofA Securities leads the 2020 All-America Research Team: Hedge Fund Cut, II’s annual ranking of hedge funds’ favorite research providers.

If there’s something weird [a new and highly contagious virus killing hundreds of thousands of people around the world], who you gonna call? Bank of America!

As the coronavirus spread through the United States, shutting down businesses and upending earnings expectations, hedge fund clients inundated analysts at BofA Securities, according to the bank’s head of Americas equity research, Brett Hodess.

Derek Bluford, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2018 after his legal technology company shut down amid allegations of fraud, forgery and impersonating a lawyer, has resurfaced with a new self-published book in which he says he became an FBI informant assisting in a political corruption investigation into the former mayor of Sacramento, Calif., Kevin Johnson, who was also a former star with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

Between 2016 and 2018, I wrote a series of posts about Bluford, a one-time rising star on the legal tech start-up scene whose star fell after I reported in 2016 of his settlement of a lawsuit charging him with impersonating a lawyer, forging legal documents and fraudulently swindling two clients.

In fact, Bluford’s new book mentions that post, saying that he was about to sell his company to LegalZoom at a valuation of $10-15 million when the lawsuit and my report on it caused LegalZoom to back out of the deal. (LegalZoom had reached out to me in 2016 to deny that it was doing business with Bluford or had any partnership with him.)

When I first wrote about Bluford, he had been slated to be featured two weeks later at a Legaltech West Coast program on legal innovation. Just 28 years old at the time, he had achieved success and won accolades as an entrepreneur, first starting California Legal Pros, a company that marketed various legal services to both consumers and lawyers. then QuickLegal, a service that provided on-demand legal advice to consumers, and then QuickLegal Practice Management, a cloud practice management platform for lawyers.

Following my report, QuickLegal shut down, but then seemed to be reincarnated in another similar startup called LawTova. After I wrote about that company (here and here), it too shut down. I then wrote about yet another startup that had ties to Bluford and QuickLegal, which has also since shut down.

The 2018 indictment of Bluford was based on the same issues I’d written about, charging him with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly falsely claiming to be an attorney and defrauding a couple of over $500,000. That case remains open in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, where a status conference is scheduled to be held on Oct. 29.

Bluford’s Book

Yesterday on Amazon, Bluford published a book, The Mighty Have Fallen, in which he says that he was a “confidential human source” for the FBI who worked under the code name “The Lobbyist” on several political corruption cases.

The initial investigation in which he was involved, Bluford writes, revolved around Johnson, the former NBA star who became mayor of Sacramento and also president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but whose tenure was marred by allegations of sexual abuse.

Bluford says Johnson became an investor in one of his companies after meeting him by chance in 2014 during lunch at an upscale Sacramento restaurant. That company had a product designed to help local and state governments enforce parking and code violations. Bluford alleges that Johnson began calling other mayors and offering them money to push for contracts with the company, which Bluford says would have enriched Johnson as a shareholder.

(When the company in which Johnson invested, then called Text to Ticket, launched, Bluford’s involvement in it appeared to have been hidden. But, as I wrote at the time, the company had “an uncanny number of connections to QuickLegal and Bluford.” Subsequently, Bluford’s attorney took issue with my drawing connections between Text to Ticket and either Bluford or QuickLegal. But in the book, Bluford explicitly describes Text to Ticket as his idea and a company in which he was directly involved.)

Bluford says that shortly after he was indicted, the FBI offered him a deal to cooperate as a witness against Johnson. Initially, Bluford claims in the book, they wanted his help in their investigation into sex trafficking allegations in Johnson, but that the investigation later pivoted “to pursue him for political corruption crimes” which also involved other elected officials and candidates for office.

The book, of which I have read only the first couple chapters, is Bluford’s story of what he says was his role in those investigations.

“This is a tale of crooked multimillion-dollar contracts, envelopes stuffed with cash, members of staff who will stop at nothing to make sure they remain loyal to their candidate, and developers, companies, lobbyists, and politicians who brazenly enrich themselves and those around them at the public’s expense.”

Here is the whole set of my prior posts about Bluford:

See these posts for more information:

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Joseline Jean-Louis Hardrick back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Do you often feel guilty, drained, conflicted, or like, no matter what you do, it’s never enough? You aren’t alone. One poll on WorkingMother.com discovered that 57 percent of women feel guilty every day!

The pandemic has changed how we live and work. And now, more than ever, you may be getting worried and guilty about everything! This article provides one simple trick to release all that guilt and achieve peace, positivity, and assertiveness.

It’s time to change the narrative, from guilt to gratitude. This shift will ultimately make you more fulfilled in the roles you play in your life, not just motherhood! It’s possible to utilize all your guilt and feel good about yourself and your efforts through gratitude. You can learn to appreciate yourself and identify the positives amid the pressures of family and work while getting back on track when you fall short of your commitments.

Do these thought patterns sound familiar?

• I’m so tired; I can’t [cook, clean, do laundry] today; I’m a horrible wife!
• I am so sorry that I cannot go to all of my child’s events or sports activities.
• I feel guilty for taking time to [rest, sleep, get my hair/nails done] since I have so much to do.
• I can’t hire a [maid, nanny, cook]; I’m supposed to be all of those things to my family.
• My husband has to pitch in and help me, and he [struggles, does not do it right, or is complaining] to the point that I may as well do it myself.

Well, it is time to turn those thoughts on their head! Shift your focus from the guilt and what is missing to what is present and helpful. For example, here are some alternatives to the thoughts stated previously:

• I am grateful that my value as a wife is not tied to how I look or what I do; I bring value in so many ways to my family and love them.
•  I love that I have friends and family who can attend my child’s events and cheer them on.
• Taking time to rest is powerful and fuels me to help myself and others.
• I am grateful I earn an income and can afford to hire a [cook, maid, nanny] to assist me in all the things I do for my family.
• I am grateful that I have a supportive spouse who chips in and does not require perfection.

Here are some other ways to reframe negative experiences:

• “I’m sorry my kids are making noise in the background” becomes “Thank you for understanding that working from home can get a little noisy.”
• “I am sorry I am late; things are so hectic” becomes “I appreciate your patience as I prepare for our meeting; we all can use grace during this season.”
• “I wish I could make it, I have too much going on” becomes “I am so grateful to have so many opportunities to share time and space with colleagues and friends; I’ll make it to the next one.”

Further, any sentence that starts with “I am sorry” can be replaced with “Thank you for your patience and understanding.” Any thought that suggests you are failing at something shifts to “I am learning how to do things in a way that works for me and my needs.”

And for those going through e-learning, especially with a little one, there are moments when you feel like you are failing miserably. In those moments, tell yourself that “I am grateful to have an option to continue my child’s education, even during a crisis.”  And, here’s a good reminder: “all learning does not take place in a book or a classroom.” Everything we are going through now is temporary, and we can look back at this time with guilt or choose gratitude for surviving it and choosing to thrive through it.

Sounds too simple to be true? Try it out, and see for yourself.

Many of our stressors originate in the mind; it is not the events happening around us but our reactions to them that make us experience stress. By shifting your reaction from guilt to gratitude, you shift your energy from negative to positive. And there are many parallels between law practice and a gratitude practice — they both require repetition, trial and error, and the intention to get better at it as you continue. Further, several studies have found that gratitude creates positive outcomes, particularly for mothers of young children and those with special needs.

As you grow into the “new normal”  created by COVID-19,  remember to acknowledge those things that are going well and release the guilt that may rear its ugly head. Kiss guilt goodbye, and say hello to gratitude.

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Joseline Jean-Louis Hardrick, Esq. is a professor at Western Michigan University- Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Tampa Bay Campus, founder of Diversity Access Pipeline, Inc.’s Journey to Esquire® Programs,  a children’s book author, social entrepreneur, and a mommy lawyer. For more information, visit www.joselinehardrick.com. 

We hate him. We really, really hate him.

Reuters analyzed FEC disclosures to see whether lawyers were clicking “Donate” at ActBlue or WinRed. Unsurprisingly, the party that is currently burning down the Justice Department and smashing all political and professional norms is doing significantly worse with the counselor class.

Reuters reports that the Biden campaign raked in almost $29 million from lawyers from January 2019 through August of this year, compared to just $1.75 million for Trump. Those are just individual attorneys’ contributions to the campaigns directly, capped at $5,600 between the primary and general, and don’t include contributions to PACs or party committees.

Morgan & Morgan leads the pack with $369,127 for Biden during the period, followed by Covington & Burling at $240,564 and Sidley Austin at $230,686.

Attorneys at Fish & Richardson, Trump’s biggest supporters, could spare only $11,355 for the President, and they appear to have hedged their bets with equivalent donations to Biden as well. Even Attorney General Barr’s old partners at Kirkland & Ellis only kicked up $10,840 for his boss in the relevant period. Although, according to Open Secrets’ database, the running tally for all employees at the firm is currently at $364,283 for Biden, and $25,202 for Trump.

Worst of all, the lawyers who know Trump best — or at least the ones who take the most of his money — don’t like him either. During the 2020 campaign cycle, Jones Day was paid $11,806,685 by Republican candidates, committees, and PACs. The Trump campaign shelled out upwards of $4.5 million of that, with the RNC paying another $3.2 million. Nonetheless, lawyers at the firm sent only $50 dollars (no, we didn’t leave off a couple of zeroes) to the Trump campaign, and $90,000 to Biden.

Hey, isn’t that former White House Counsel Don McGahn’s firm with the 1,800:1 Biden-Trump donation ratio? Incidentally, none of that cash came from McGahn himself, whose only donations appear to be $2,800 to WinRed and $2,800 to Susan Collins. (His wife didn’t donate to the president either.)

Trump’s personal attorneys are only slightly less appalled at their most famous client — but only slightly. The ratio of donations from Kasowitz Benson Torres and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius is about 10:1 in favor of the former Vice President.

“It shouldn’t be news that rich, liberal lawyers in Biden’s pocket are desperately trying to make up for his lackluster candidacy or that every big law firm has lawyers on both sides of the political aisle,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager snarked to Reuters.

Which tells you exactly what she and her boss think of our community. And considering the publicly available information at the FEC, the feeling is apparently mutual.

Lawyers spurn Trump campaign in individual donations, including from Jones Day [Reuters]

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

(This is a public service announcement featuring some of America’s most well-known TV lawyers who hope to recruit actual lawyers to join We The Action’s Election 2020 Task Force, where they will play a critical role in ensuring that people are able to exercise their right to vote. We The Action is connecting those who join the Task Force with Democratic voting organizations to help staff remote voter hotlines, serve as poll workers and observers, and cure mail-in ballots. Click HERE to get involved today.)

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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.

The coronavirus crisis really threw the legal profession for a loop in 2020. Now that the new year is just around the corner, there finally seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the austerity measures that were instituted due COVID-19’s economic upheaval. Now, one of the wealthiest firms to cut salaries is doing a complete about face when it comes to compensation.

Since March, Reed Smith — which raked in $1,246,926,000 in 2019 gross revenue, making it 26th on the Am Law 100 ranking — has announced not one, not two, not three, but FOUR rounds of salary reductions for partners, associates, and staff. First, the firm announced that partner cash distributions would be slowed as a “precaution” to “brac[e] for the short-term and potential long-term economic impacts of COVID-19. A short time later, in mid April, the firm came for associate salaries, announcing 15 percent cuts that would last from May through the end of August. About two weeks later, the firm announced that partner bonuses were being deferred and split into separate payments (and the same would happen for staff discretionary bonuses). Then, on June 1, the firm announced that its salary cuts for associates would not only last through the end of the year, but they’d increase to 20 percent. On top of that, staff earning more than $100,000 would take a 10 percent salary hit while other professionals would see reduced workweeks, reduced salaries, and furloughs.

Back in August, Reed Smith walked back its salary cuts for some — but not all — those affected, as of September 1. On October 1, the firm further reduced those cuts for attorneys and eliminated them entirely for staff earning more than $100,000. Now, the firm has decided to do something that’s sure to make all of its associates, counsel, and partners as happy as can be.

Sandy Thomas, Reed Smith’s global managing partner, has just announced that all salaries at the firm will be fully restored as of November 1. Here’s a statement:

Throughout the pandemic, the firm has been dedicated to protecting the health and safety of our people and supporting our clients around the globe. Because of the incredibly hard work, shared sacrifice and commitment of our people, we are pleased to announce that we are fully restoring compensation to the 100% level for all of our lawyers and professional staff.

This is exciting news for everyone at the firm. “As we move into 2021, we will continue to be vigilant in protecting the health and safety of our people, conducting our business prudently and providing exemplary service to our clients,” Thomas said.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries or restoring previous cuts, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough 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.