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Anyone who owns a computer has probably heard the name McAfee. McAfee, Inc. is one of the major software companies providing antivirus protection programs. The company was founded by John McAfee although he has not been associated with the company bearing his name for many years.

After he left his company, he lived a lavish lifestyle, purchasing cars, artwork and real estate. At his peak, John McAfee was believed to have a net worth of over $100 million.

But over the years, he has been connected with disturbing events. In 2009, he moved to Belize where he set up a laboratory to make antibiotics from plants found in the Belize jungle. However, the local authorities raided the lab suspecting he was manufacturing methamphetamine. No illegal drugs were found but the lab was shut down. McAfee claimed that police raid was a sham because he wouldn’t accept their demands for bribes.

In 2012, McAfee was considered a person of interest by Belizean authorities for the murder of one of his neighbors. He went into hiding and fled to Guatemala but was not charged with the murder. He was later deported to Miami. After meeting his wife there, they eventually settled in Lexington, Tennessee.

No one really knows McAfee’s net worth today although most internet rumors speculate that he is worth about $4 million. The drop might have been due to the Great Recession of 2008. But some speculate that McAfee may have squandered or hidden his assets in order to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit in connection with his neighbor’s murder.

McAfee later got involved in the cryptocurrency scene. He reportedly charged $105,000 per tweet to promote a cryptocurrency, possibly relying on his tech expertise and past success to establish credibility among investors. Some people suspected that he was involved in pump and dump schemes where he would promote a cryptocurrency, entice unknowing investors to purchase them, and then cash out leaving the investors with a worthless digital coin.

Last Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged McAfee with promoting fraudulent initial coin offerings (ICO) to investors. McAfee allegedly promoted multiple ICOs on Twitter, pretending to be impartial and independent even though he was paid more than $23 million in digital assets for the promotions. When certain investors asked whether he was paid to promote the ICOs, McAfee allegedly denied receiving any compensation from the issuers.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Department of Justice Tax Division simultaneously announced that McAfee was indicted for criminal tax evasion and filing false tax returns. He was arrested in Spain and is awaiting extradition.

According to the indictment, McAfee earned millions of dollars between 2014 and 2018 from speaking engagements, consulting fees, selling the rights to his life story for a documentary, and from promoting cryptocurrencies. He also failed to file tax returns for those years and did not pay taxes.

He allegedly evaded taxes by depositing the money he earned into a third party’s bank account, and purchasing real estate and a car using a third party’s name.

McAfee knew this day was coming but decided to defy the tax man. In January 2019, McAfee made a video tweet stating that the IRS has convened a grand jury to decide whether he will be charged with tax crimes. He also openly states that he did not file income tax returns nor pay any income taxes.

Well, now we know why McAfee’s net worth is so low. He has little assets under his name.

So how did McAfee get the criminal investigation division of the IRS involved? Generally, they get involved when they suspect a taxpayer is engaging in fraud when preparing tax returns or avoiding payment. Hiding assets by putting them in another person’s name is a major red flag. So is providing false information to the IRS.

Also, tax crime indictments generally follow most white collar crime indictments such as securities fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement to name a few. This is usually because these investigations tend to take place at the same time. Income tax laws also apply to money earned from criminal activity. And it is believed that people who profit from crime are not going to report income or pay taxes on their illegally earned money.

The fact that the IRS has secured grand jury indictments means that they have investigated this matter for a substantial amount of time. A criminal investigation normally begins with the IRS’s criminal investigation division where special agents make a recommendation to the Department of Justice on whether to prosecute. The Department of Justice then makes its own decision. Generally, the Department of Justice prosecutes a small number of tax crime cases but the ones they pursue are very likely to result in sentencing. The 2019 IRS Annual Criminal Investigations Report stated that the agency conducted 1,500 tax crime investigations. Of those, 942 were prosecuted, and 848 resulted in sentencing.

McAfee has a lot to answer for in the next few months. Although I don’t think he will be tweeting about this anytime soon.

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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.

As we move closer and closer to the end of 2020, it seems that Biglaw firms are doing one or more of three things: 1) rolling back austerity measures instituted to survive the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic; 2) doling out COVID-19 appreciation bonuses (or refusing to do so); or 3) outsourcing or laying off their staffing roles to improve their operating efficiencies.

Today, we’ve received word that Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner has chosen the first option. After first assuring employees that the firm would be able to weather the storm without making associate or staff salary cuts, furloughs or layoffs, Bryan Cave proceeded to cut salaries for all employees making over $40,000 by 15 percent, conduct associate and staff layoffs, and even close an office. On the bright side, after laying out the bad news, BCLP decided to reduce its pay cuts to 7.5 percent, and now, the firm will be completely rolling back those compensation cuts. Here’s an excerpt from a memo that co-chairs Steve Baumer and Lisa Mayhew sent out yesterday:

Sources say that during the video conference, it was announced that they’d be “getting back a lot of the salary withheld” by the firm during the height of the pandemic. It’s also worth noting that Bryan Cave plans to fully fund its 2020 bonuses (and there’s of no mention of special fall bonuses, so we assume that’s completely off the table).

Congratulations to everyone at the firm. Let’s hope more firms are able to announce good news like this in the future.

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.

The first day of the online bar exam held simultaneously in 19 jurisdictions across the country was an avoidable disaster that highlighted the failures in planning and contempt for the applicants that should — but probably won’t — raise the hackles of state legislatures around the country. With the second day behind us, now we have an opportunity to focus even more on the human toll exacted upon those who did successfully log into the exam.

And in many ways these are the cruelest jabs, because the technical meltdowns were the product of a company trying to honestly perform a task that was beyond the capability of anyone to pull off without serious hitches. What happened after that was intentional.

That is not acceptable. We’d previewed this back in July, when we were calling out in-person exams for their complete disregard of women, and bar examiners huffed and puffed about how unfair we were for calling attention to the anti-woman crucible they’d constructed in convention halls across America. But it turns out you can take the bar exam out of the stadia of misogyny but you can’t take the misogyny out of the bar exam. The people who don’t think hygiene products should be permitted in-person don’t magically improve their worldview when they design online testing experiences. Cecelia took her story public, but statistically she wasn’t the only one impacted this week. Being a woman shouldn’t be an additional hurdle to receiving your license and yet here we are.

Another tipster detailed having to urinate in the middle of the exam with nowhere to go. Earlier this year, we brought you the story of a plucky UK examinee who stared down the proctor while peeing in a bottle. This tipster, contending with fickle facial recognition software rather than a human being, couldn’t afford the luxury of using a bottle. After 20 minutes uncomfortably trying to hold it back, they ultimately decided to give in and then sit in urine for the last 30 minutes of the session.

First of all, this is hardcore. Second of all, this is basically torture. We read about forcing inmates to do this at Abu Gharib with shock and horror, but when it happens to a recent law school graduate because bar examiners can’t envision a licensing process that doesn’t involve petty acts of bodily control, there are people who shrug it off. Remember, when there was credible risk that people could decrypt the exam, bar examiners cited the honor system as the deterrent. If it’s good enough to stop that, it’s probably good enough to protect the integrity of the exam from someone walking out of frame for two minutes in the middle of a session.

One might have thought that the racial discrimination visited upon applicants — with facial recognition software consistently refusing to verify people of color — had already done all of its damage on the first day, but you’d be wrong. While many applicants discriminated against by bar exams insisting on a proctoring system with well-known problems were already forced to withdraw, others pushed on hoping that their flagged exams will be counted by the backend audit:

Honestly, I supported the online bar exam as a concept. While diploma privilege for this class is the most prudent response, I saw the online exam as at least superior to trying to kill everyone with a superspreader event. But I also naively thought that bar examiners would pull the plug on the idea if they ran into insurmountable roadblocks. Instead, they just pushed on and seemingly patted themselves on the back that their actions only derailed the careers of some applicants.

Nowhere is this mindset more evident than in Florida where they have yet to take the exam, but watched as this week’s exam descended into horror for so many and responded:

Though the board is aware of reports on social media discussing technical issues with ExamSoft in the 20 jurisdictions that utilized Examplify software for testing yesterday, ExamSoft has shared that 98% of all applicants that had downloaded an exam file started their exams as planned. Each jurisdiction testing on October 5-6 will have to reconcile how many of that overall 2% were no-shows (applicants who did not log-in to take the exam on exam day) and how to address those remaining who experienced technical issues.

In other words:

Two percent is… hundreds of people. It also cherry-picks people who started the exam as opposed to those who encountered trouble later. As we explained yesterday, there are always problems with an endeavor the size of the bar exam, but this process ensured that anyone who encountered a problem suffered catastrophic consequences instead of mere inconvenience. But Florida’s feeling good, y’all!

Finally, we have the questions themselves. Normally we’re reticent to indulge complaints about bar exam questions. Of course they’re irrelevant to the practice of law and constructed to be unnecessarily confusing — that’s the whole point of a generalist exam designed to ensure a set failure rate. But the outpouring of complaints over the exam questions is too great to overlook. The questions on this test — cobbled together by the NCBE and graciously provided to state bars for the online exam even while the NCBE hoarded the “good” questions for jurisdictions that agree to pushing applicants into COVID hotboxes — left many with the impression that the NCBE went out of its way to punish jurisdictions that spurned its in-person exam demands.

Reddit is overflowing with complaints about the questions. And, yes, many focus on the unnecessary hair-splitting — that feeling that at least two of the options are entirely correct answers and boggling at what the distinction might be — but that’s always the case. But this time around, examinees didn’t even recognize subject matter they were studying in these questions.

That’s the thing, it’s not unusally. Yeah, the specific subjects vary but it’s reasonably predictable which is why the bar prep industry exists. Thinking back to my bar exam, I don’t recall feeling confused about a single question. There were definitely questions that seemed poorly written, and designed to produce misleading answers and I might have tripped up on some of those but they were a subset of the exam as a whole and I figured I’d go 50-50 on those and be fine. That doesn’t seem to be the case at all here.

Thankfully, we have a way of verifying that this test was demonstrably more difficult:

But what about the theory that the NCBE intentionally gave the online bar exam worse questions in order to bolster their interest in in-person exams?

It sounds mildly conspiratorial until you remember how ferociously they pushed back against online exams in the first place, going so far as to promise to put out a blog explaining why online exams can never work. Then they just happened to swoop in and offer questions with the understanding that these questions could not be granted the same respect as their UBE? While commissioning polls to lobby state governments to go back to in-person exams? You’re not exactly in QAnon territory to think the NCBE’s heart wasn’t in providing the best experience for examinees.

The only way this gets better though is to hang onto the anger you feel right now. Don’t walk away from this and say, “Well, I passed so I guess I can put that behind me.” Enter this profession prepared to keep advocating for an end to this lunacy. Become the bar association leaders who push back. Become the legislators and state judges who push back. There does need to be a bar to protect the public from unqualified lawyers but keep defiantly declaring that this exam, run by this monopolistic cabal, isn’t the way to do it. Tighten accreditation procedures for law schools, adopt practice area certifications, make demonstrating competence more than a one-time hurdle — there are so many better options out there.

But this thing is dumb and cruel.

Earlier: Like COVID-19, Online Bar Exam Is A Disaster And Was Entirely Preventable
If You’re Menstruating Or Lactating During The Bar Exam You’re Screwed
Law Students Forced To Urinate While Being Watched By Proctors During Remote Ethics Exam
NCBE Touts Poll, ‘See, People Who Don’t Know What A Bar Exam Is Think We Need Bar Exams!!!’

Much has been written about Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s recent Supreme Court nominee to fill the vacant seat left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s tragic passing. While the majority of the skepticism expressed by critics has been about Barrett’s views on abortion, a lesser known issue is that Barrett has been associated with groups who are critical of in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Most concerning to assisted reproductive technology attorneys like myself is the potential that a Justice Barrett, on the Supreme Court, might someday have occasion to rule that embryos are entitled to the same constitutional rights as people who have been, like, born.

In 2006, Barrett was one of the signatories of a newspaper ad, in the form of a letter authored by a conservative group, stating that they would “defend the right to life from fertilization.” The ad, by St. Joseph County Right to Life, a group located in South Bend, Indiana, is annually purchased by the group on the anniversary of the issuance of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade opinion.

Maybe They Weren’t Really Talking About IVF, Just Abortion?

In an interview a few years ago with the Executive Director of St. Joseph County Right to Life — Jackie Appleman — Applebaum clarified that even though the ad was published on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the group was *not* just opposed to abortion in the ad, and in fact that they did really mean that life begins at fertilization for all purposes. For Applebaum, there was no ambiguity about whether that included the forming of an embryo. Or that the embryos covered by the life-begins-at-fertilization position covered those embryos formed in a fertility clinic for the purposes of IVF. Applebaum explained that her group’s position included opposing the discarding of embryos, whether formed in utero or formed in a clinic, and that they were even in support of the criminalization of discarding embryos.

That’s pretty intense. For those who have struggled with infertility and had to turn to IVF, that would pretty much mean game over on the hopes of a genetically connected child. While it only takes one embryo to create a baby, in order to get to that point, numerous embryos are formed in order to find the ones with the best odds of conception. Without that “over production,” the already costly process of IVF would likely become astronomical. This is, of course, to say nothing of the fact that IVF has been a common fertility treatment for over 40 years now, and there are millions and millions of cryopreserved embryos out there currently.

What Would It Mean For A Supreme Court Justice To Believe That Life Begins At Fertilization?

When it comes to embryo legal issues and questions of constitutionality, I turned to one of the foremost experts on the topic, Tim Schlesinger. You may remember Schlesinger from earlier columns discussing the McQueen case in Missouri. There, a state law declared that life begins at conception, and that that specifically included zygotes, blastocysts, and embryos. A couple divorced after going through IVF together, and one spouse insisted on using the remaining embryos for conception, against her ex-husband’s wishes. Schlesinger successfully argued on behalf of the ex-husband that he had a constitutionally protected right under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to *not* reproduce.

So, here’s the big question: Is Schlesinger concerned about Barrett joining the Supreme Court? In short, not immediately, at least with regard to IVF. To be sure, Schlesinger was very concerned that even though Barrett only signed onto one ad published by a right-to-life group, she might share similar views with that organization more broadly. However, even if Barrett shared the group’s beliefs, and even if she were confronted with a case presenting the question of “when life begins,” Schlesinger thought it was highly unlikely that a position irreconcilable with legal IVF procedures could ever attract the votes of five justices. At least, not for now. Of course, if other justices with similar views are replaced in the next few years, that could change.

Taking a step back, Schlesinger noted that whether a Justice Barrett would ever be in a situation where her personal beliefs could come into play, without relevant precedent to consider, is unlikely. As Schlesinger argued in the McQueen case, there are long-standing precedents that the Constitution protects a right to privacy that includes the right to reproduce, as well as the right not to reproduce. Schlesinger would argue that it impermissibly burdens the right to reproduce if the government forces a person to try to use all cryopreserved embryos, regardless of circumstances. Of course, there are already some cases that cut against that proposition, such as when embryos were formed specifically to preserve a woman’s fertility prior to cancer treatment, and then the male contributor later objected to her use of the embryos. And there’s no guarantee that a Justice Barrett would adhere to precedents involving a right to reproductive autonomy under the Constitution.

But Schlesinger also pointed out that to date, there has never been a final judgment in an appellate court holding that embryos constitute persons under the U.S. Constitution. In fact, court rulings consistently find that embryos are either purely property, or a form of property with special characteristics. Just last year, when the Supreme Court was asked to hear the Rooks case out of Colorado — which specifically asked questions like whether embryos are people — the Court declined to hear the case.

So where does that leave us? Simply put, with concerns. But those concerns aren’t enough to go on to conclude that a Justice Barrett will mean the end of IVF. Not yet, at least.

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Ellen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

Another Biglaw firm finds itself out of the woods caused by the economic downturn brought on by COVID-19. After instituting austerity measures months ago, Sheppard Mullin — a firm that placed 54th on the latest Am Law 100 ranking — is rolling back those measures. But it’s not all good news.

In the spring, Sheppard Mullin went through two rounds of austerity measures, first furloughing staff and then cutting all of its employees’ salaries. Those cuts were initially 12 percent for associates, special counsel, and staff attorneys, while staff members making more than $90,000 had cuts of 10 percent and staff members making between $70,000 and $90,000 saw their salaries cut by 5 percent. The firm said the partner cuts would be at a “meaningfully greater percentage.” Then in August, it began the process of rolling back the austerity measures, and the amount of the salary cuts were reduced, but, at the time, the firm anticipated those reductions would last throughout 2020.

Yesterday, the firm held a town hall meeting and announced that those existing salary cuts would be rolled back. And, in their October 16th paychecks, employees would receive make-whole payments for their lost income:

That’s great news! But, as confirmed in a follow-up email from firm Chair, Guy Halgren (available in full on the next page), the firm will also be laying off some staff members:

Due to the pandemic and limited expected office usage for a continued period into the future, we have now determined we will not have jobs for 22 of the 44 furloughed people.  These positions will be eliminated as a reduction-in-force with a severance package and medical insurance paid through year-end.  The other 22 for whom we may have a job at an unknown point in the future will be offered the opportunity to opt into the same severance package on a voluntary basis. If they would rather stay on furlough we will continue to pay for their medical insurance at least through year-end.  The severance package is one week of salary per year of service, capped at 26 weeks and with a minimum of four weeks.  The Executive Committee’s decisions regarding our furloughed staff were difficult, but we have always strived to be transparent, and it is critical folks know where they stand.

As always, best of luck to those who find themselves out of work during this trying time.

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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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).

Bridgewater Associates prides itself on open, honest (and usually videotaped) discussion, in which those with a right to an opinion can freely express themselves to one another, and then endure savage criticism of what they’ve said. It doesn’t always live up to that high standard, but now, thanks to it—and also probably some combination of the strength of the firm’s case and its interest in avoiding further bad publicity and additional bad blood at one of its regulators—Ray Dalio & co. have one fewer gender-based pay-discrimination claim looming over them.

* The Supreme Court has decided not to hear a copyright infringement case involving Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Was really looking forward to a live performance at the Supreme Court… [Fox News]

* The St. Louis couple, who allegedly pointed guns at protesters earlier this year, has been indicted for multiple felonies. [New York Times]

* Two South Florida attorneys are alleged to have participated in a scheme to steal foreclosure sale proceeds. [NBC News]

* John McAfee, the software engineer and namesake of the antivirus products, has been arrested on tax evasion charges. [New York Times]

* E. Jean Carroll is seeking to prevent the Justice Department from becoming involved with her lawsuit which accuses President Trump of sexual assault. [CNN]

* A local Pennsylvania District Attorney is in hot water after empty beer cans were found in his office. Hopefully the Pennsylvania residents were drinking a few Yuenglings… [NBC News]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Obviously Trump’s biggest mistake with ACB involved causing a White House superspreader event, but we didn’t know that when we recorded this week’s show. So we spend some time talking about his other mistake — nominating ACB before the election and giving “never Trumpers” everything they want and leaving them with zero incentive to reelect him. We also discuss the wave of Fall bonuses among Biglaw firms and more importantly, the firms that aren’t joining the party and what it means for the legal landscape.

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

According to the Leopard Law Firm Index, presented by Leopard Solutions in partnership with Above the Law and Adam Smith, Esq., which Top 200 law firm promoted the largest percentage of partners?

Hint: The Boston-based firm was founded in 1899.

See the answer on the next page.