Category: News Feeds

We have some unfortunate news to report out of Boca Raton, Florida, where Judge Sandra Feuerstein of the Eastern District of New York, who was visiting the area, was killed after a woman who was driving erratically swerved her car onto the sidewalk, fatally striking the judge. A young boy was also injured.

Nastasia Snape, 23, has been charged with vehicular homicide and other felonies for the crash, and remains jailed on $60,000 bond. The Associated Press has additional details:

According to court records, witnesses told Boca Raton police the Snape was driving erratically, going around stopped traffic, on a busy road when she drove onto the sidewalk and struck Feuerstein. Snape then drove back onto the roadway, striking the boy in a crosswalk.

Police say Snape then fled into neighboring Delray Beach, where she crashed. A Delray police officer said Snape appeared to be having convulsions, but was able to get out of the car. She stared into space and would only say she was OK.

Police say that in the ambulance, Snape began screaming and fighting with medics while yelling she is Harry Potter. The medics drugged her. Police say they found in her purse the synthetic drug commonly known as “bath salts,” which can cause psychotic episodes.

Feuerstein, a 1979 graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2003. Her “eccentric style and warm personality lit up the courtroom,” said Eugene Corcoran, the Eastern District’s executive. “She will be missed by her colleagues and litigants alike.” Mark Lesko, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, tweeted, “As we mourn her tragic death, we also remember Judge Feuerstein’s unwavering commitment to justice and service to the people of our district and our nation.”

We here at Above the Law would like to extend our condolences to Judge Sandra Feuerstein’s family, friends, and colleagues during this extremely difficult time.

Hit-and-run crash in Florida kills New York federal judge [Associated Press]

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.

I often stick to my knitting: I write columns about things of interest to in-house lawyers or to lawyers generally.

But I’ve been writing this column for more than a decade now, heaven help me, and I occasionally branch out into other subjects.

I wrote one column a while back about whether my book, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, and law firms in general, were “woke.” (My thesis was that both my book, and large law firms, insist that one strive for excellence. If excellence cannot be defined, or is an improper goal, then neither my book nor the firms are woke.) I had my adult children, far more in tune with wokeness than I am, read the column before I published it. Their response was violent: “You can’t publish that, Dad! You’ll get fired!”

That’s cancel culture.

I ought to be able to speak publicly — in measured, inoffensive words — mildly provocative, and arguably true, things. If I could get fired for saying those things, then society has indeed popped a gasket.

(I distinguish “cancel culture” from “reaping one’s just rewards.” If  some jerk intentionally says or does things that ought to be punished, and the jerk is punished, that’s “apt retribution,” not “cancel culture.” If, for example, the allegations about either Matt Gaetz, on the right, or Andrew Cuomo, on the left, are proven, there may well be an appropriate punishment for that.  Although both politicians may scream that this is “cancel culture,” it’s no such thing. It’s appropriate punishment for misconduct.)

I also recently wrote a few columns that took more political stances. (Here’s one example.) I again had my trusted aides — my adult children — read the columns before I published them. My kids’ reaction was again violent: “You can’t publish that, Dad! You’ll get shot!”

I told my kids that any nutcase who would take up arms to kill me over a column at Above the Law would have assassinated a long line of people before the nutcase got to me. The nutcase would have to kill all of the Democrats in Congress, and many of the Republicans, and all of the on-air personalities at MSNBC and CNN, and a bunch of people writing for more visible outlets than this one, before finally deciding that I too had committed a capital offense. By then, I figured the nutcase would have run out of bullets.

Anyway, I told my kids that I loved them, and that it had been a good ride while it lasted, and I went ahead and published my little ditties.

On reflection, I must say: “Cancel culture” concerns me far less than “assassination culture.” The first stifles speech. If someone chooses to, or accidentally, speaks the forbidden idea, then cancel culture unfairly robs a person of a livelihood or a reputation.

Assassination culture also stifles speech. But, if someone chooses to, or accidentally, speaks the forbidden idea, then assassination culture “takes away everything [a man’s] got and everything he’s ever gonna have.”

If I have to choose between the two, I’ll take cancel culture every time.

(I was pleased recently to read about a new online tool called “Polis.”  This tool can be used to allow people to post 140-character statements online.  But the people who read the statements cannot insult or otherwise respond to the speaker.  The people who read the statement can only agree or disagree with it.  This can then be used to show which statements attract the largest consensus in the responding crowd.  This gives me hope:  In our deeply polarized society, a tool that rewards building consensus, rather than running to the extremes to attract more attention, may be just the sort of thing that we need.  Maybe creative thinkers can bring us back from the brink, after all.)

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

If you thought it was odd last month that Leon Black stepped down from Apollo Global Management four months earlier than planned, that there must have been something more than the mere revelation that he’d given more that twice as much money to a convicted sex criminal than initially reported behind it, that the bland platitudes about having been scrutinized for maintaining a long-term friendship and business relationship with a pedophile and sex trafficker having a deleterious effect on his health and that of his wife were a bit too pat, well, Leon Black assures you there most definitely wasn’t.

Kinney Recruiting is working with a longstanding client (an international powerhouse) to find real estate associates for their Chicago office.

The firm’s expertise in real estate extends from sophisticated transactions, to fund formation to leasing on behalf of well-known clients in the industry.

Of interest is the firm’s commitment to its associates. The firm is one of the industry leaders in the spring and fall bonus “wars”. One of the most attractive features of the opportunity is the ability to get in on the ground floor of the Chicago Office’s real estate group and have a realistic partnership opportunity. The firm is actively looking for an associate with 3+ years experience with lender real estate financing to join the group.

Apply here cindy@kinneyrecruiting.com.

* A lawsuit about the use of the “Corona” brand name with hard seltzers is heating up. It’s an interesting name to be associated with these days… [Yahoo News]

* Ramsey Clark, the former United States Attorney General and a civil rights lawyer, has passed away at 93. [New York Times]

* An Oklahoma City attorney, who allegedly fell in love with a client, has been charged in the triple murder of the client’s girlfriend and parents. [Oklahoman]

* Congressman Matt Gaetz has hired a lawyer who is also representing the Trump Organization in a criminal probe. [NBC News]

* President Biden has established a commission to consider reforms to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. [Politico]

* The State of Florida has filed a lawsuit aimed at reopening the cruise industry. This would make a great plot of a sequel for Speed 2: Cruise Control… [CBS 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 U.S. News & World Report 2022 law school rankings, which private law school offers students the most financial aid?

Hint: 67.8 percent of students at this New York law school receive grants.

See the answer on the next page.

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.

Law firm mergers set a record in 2019, before the pace fell dramatically as the pandemic took hold. Now, mergers are again poised to hit the triple digits, according to a new report.

As noted by Reuters, an Altman Weil survey tracked 26 mergers in the first quarter of this year — short of the pace of 2019, which saw 115, but up substantially from last year’s 65. These include Winston & Strawn’s acquisition of Scheper Kim & Harris and Crowell & Moring’s pick-up of Kibbe & Orbe.

As Altman Weil’s Thomas Clay told the publication, “We wouldn’t be surprised to see law firm merger and acquisition totals back over 100 by year-end.” 

Will law firm mergers break 100 this year? Q1 report says they’re on their way [Reuters] 

Jeremy Barker is the director of content marketing for Breaking Media. Feel free to email him with questions or comments and to connect on LinkedIn. 

Try to spend less time deciding what to do next.

According to studies — as there is indeed some form of academic literature on everything — the average person spends 18 minutes on Netflix before deciding what to watch. This is not the most efficient use of one’s entertainment time. Not only does it waste time, but it also wastes it in an unenjoyable way. Time spent scrolling through Netflix is time not watching Netflix, and the whole indecision and decision fatigue is just adding more unnecessary stress to the whole ordeal.

The solution, of course, is to have a method to decide more efficiently on what you want to watch. But that’s easier said than done, since if you choose a movie that you don’t enjoy, then you’re wasting even more time. What you need is some type of device to plan ahead what you want to watch. This is called a list.

Make A List And Check It Twice

The same problem comes up all the time in law. At any time, you have inevitably any number of things that you could be working on, and when things are laid out in front of you, it’s all pretty easy: you just go through things as they need to get done. You have momentum, get into a flow, and everything’s awesome. But usually, it’s not like that. Usually, you end up spinning wheels between tasks and losing your focus as you evaluate your different options. Or, even worse, you end up doing something that wasn’t the best use of your time.

The solution, as with Netflix, is making a good list. But that’s also easier said than done: You need to make a good list. What makes a good list? A good list is at least a few things:

First, it’s realistic. If you list 20 things to get done for a day when you only really have time for three, it’s not going to be much help. It’s certainly fine to have longer-term items on your list, but they should be planned out appropriately, either by day or simply priority.

Second, it’s prioritized. Maybe the most important benefit of a good list is that it helps you tackle the most important or most time-sensitive matters first. It forces you to address those things you need to address and lets you decide what can wait.

Third, it’s in a format you’ll actually use. Even the best list is useless if you won’t use it. This is obviously personal, and in truth, you won’t know what works for you unless you experiment. I regularly try out new methods to organize, and sometimes they just don’t work — you have an idea that seems great in theory, but it’s either too cumbersome for you to keep up with or too simple to keep up with you. That’s fine, and the best thing you can do is fail fast, admit what doesn’t work, and try something else.

All these things take time. It takes time to decide what can and needs to get done, organize it all out, and experiment with the system that works for you. But that time’s an investment to save you time and get more done later.

The Other Benefit Of Lists: Staying Focused

The other benefit to lists, maybe the most important, is that it keeps you focused. It’s very easy in law to get distracted by the dopamine rush of random fires that you need to put out. But this is almost never the most efficient way to go about things. Usually what happens is that whatever is the current squeaky wheel gets your attention, at the cost of whatever may be a higher priority.

Instead, in most situations, the most efficient way to proceed isn’t to hop between emergencies, but rather to keep to your list and run down it. Naturally, sometimes — maybe even often — emergencies will come up that need to be addressed first. But a good list forces you to make the affirmative decision. It forces you to look at your priority list, look at the emergency, and decide where the new thing goes. Maybe it does go straight to the top — or maybe it goes lower down. In any event, investing the time to decide will make you more efficient in whatever you decide to do.

Matthew W. Schmidt has represented and counseled clients at all stages of litigation and in numerous matters including insider trading, fiduciary duty, antitrust law, and civil RICO. He is a partner at the trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at matthew.w.schmidt@balestrierefariello.com.