Category: News Feeds

DraftKings’ stock (NASDAQ: DKNG) opened the day on September 14 trading at $41.97 and closed at $48.62, providing existing shareholders with a 17.27% gain for the single day. The stock price experienced such a significant move largely due to the company entering into an agreement with ESPN to become an exclusive provider of daily fantasy sports as well as a co-exclusive partner for gambling link-outs.

DraftKings is not the only sports betting-related stock to enjoy new heights in the market. Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN) opened at $65.54 on September 14 and closed at $65.54, for a 10.73% gain on the day. The stock was trading at only $4.50 on March 18. Penn has largely surged based on its partial purchase of Barstool Sports and, more recently, on the soft launch of a long-awaited Barstool Sportsbook today in Pennsylvania.

While share prices of DraftKings and Penn National Gaming are soaring, both companies are still not turning profits for their shareholders. Yet, new investors continue to pour their money into these companies and others connected to the sports betting space, with the hope that enhanced revenues combined with lower costs will eventually allow these corporate entities to show meaningful profits.

A big catalyst for potential future profit will be turning states that currently bar sports betting into open ecosystems that allow not only sports wagering at retail casinos, but also through mobile phones.

Twenty-three states have legalized sports betting within their borders, but states like California, Texas, and Florida have yet to make sports betting legal. The twenty-three states that have passed laws allowing for legalized sports wagering, including New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, make up roughly 41% of the adult U.S. population. Thus, there is a large market in the United States that the likes of DraftKings have not yet even had the capacity to capture.

Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a boutique research and consulting firm focused on sports betting sectors, projects that there will be approximately $19 billion in total annual sports betting revenue if all 50 states allowed for such wagering. Compare that to 2019, when the total U.S. sports betting revenue was $920 million. The company’s realistic projection for 2023, without all 50 states having legalized sports betting, is $5.8 billion, which would still be a strong multiple gain in only four years from 2019.

Another promising sign for the sports betting industry is that, even though many sporting events have been postponed or canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, total U.S. sports betting revenue has increased by 18% from 2019. New Jersey has been breaking records despite a decrease in events to bet on and recently posted a historical $668 million of sports wagers in August, which is a figure that accounts for over $100 million more than New Jersey’s previous best month.

Yet, the staying power of this surging sports betting stocks will likely be based on whether expectations for close to all 50 states allowing for sports wagering to take place within their borders are ultimately met, and how long it takes for massive states like Florida, Texas, and California to put passed legislation in front of their respective governors for execution. Therein lies at least some of the risk with putting money into these companies that are still anxious to start turning a profit.

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Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

The Biglaw good news keeps on coming. We are seeing more and more firms that slashed salaries in the early days of COVID-19 do an about face and restoring compensation levels to where they were before the pandemic. The latest firm to do that is Squire Patton Boggs.

Back in May, Squire Patton Boggs announced a 20 percent salary cut for all associates. Staff saw a range of cuts, between 10 and 20 percent, depending on salary. And partner distributions were adjusted to shoulder the largest financial burden.

Effective in October, the salary cuts for all associates will end and their compensation is going back to pre-pandemic levels. For support staff and other non-partners, if their salary was originally less than $75,000, then their compensation will be full restored; for others, their salary cut will be halved. The firm indicated the partnership will continue to shoulder the largest financial burden to meet any future issues, and distributions will be adjusted accordingly.

Squire Patton Boggs is also considering discretionary bonuses for extraordinary performance during COVID-19. But this will not impact the existing end-of-year bonus program.

Chairman/Global CEO of the firm Mark Ruehlmann had the following statement on the rollbacks:

“Thanks to the hard work and shared sacrifice of our attorneys and global staff, the impacts of the global pandemic on our business have been less severe than we reasonably anticipated. While demand for our services has remained strong, we recognize that a fair amount of uncertainty remains in the months ahead.  We will  monitor circumstances closely to continue to act in the best interests of our clients and the firm.”

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).

Love her or loathe her, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become an American icon. She’s so inspiring that people have created clothing lines, greeting cards, and action figures in her image. Others have invited the Supreme diva to their wedding, dressed their children up as RBG for Halloween, and gotten themselves inked and manicured in her honor. In fact, the octogenarian justice is so captivating that “RBG,” the documentary based on her life, and “On the Basis of Sex,” the must-see biopic about her humble beginnings and rise to success, both became lauded box office hits after they were released.

The legal community is so obsessed with Justice Ginsburg’s pop-culture essence that her likeness has been turned into a very marketable product — after all, that’s what we do with everything we love, so why should a women’s rights hero be any different?

As with all heroes, Justice Ginsburg’s trailblazing dedication to seeking out justice has been historic. Why not invest in a beautiful work of art that will remind you about all the ways that she’s changed the course of history?

House of Bust, a company whose mission is to “give life to individuals who changed the course of history,” launched a Kickstarter campaign today to create this incredible Ruth Bader Ginsburg bust, which will be included in its first line of heroes, including Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama. Click here to sign up for the Super Early Bird special on a signature bust for just $89 (a 40 percent discount from $149) for delivery in January 2021.

Thanks to House of Bust, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will finally be able to claim a spot in your home or your office where you can always remember her.

House of Bust – Modern Sculptures of Your Heroes [Kickstarter]

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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.

It’s become cliche to say that COVID-19 has radically altered the way that Biglaw does business. But, you know, COVID-19 has radically altered the way that Biglaw does business. One of the most obvious ways this is true has been the largely successful deployment of work from home policies.

There’s always been a value placed on face time in Biglaw firms. But the forced work from home set up spurred by the pandemic showed that, for law firms, everything pretty much works fine from home. As a result of this, Herbert Smith Freehills has announced a new policy allowing additional remote work.

As reported by Law.com, the international firm will allow all employees the option to work remotely up to 40 percent of the time. The firm said that policy “can be adjusted to suit each individual, team and situation” and will only apply when offices are reopened and “physical distancing rules have been greatly relaxed or removed.”

The firm says they’re trying to balance the benefits of flexibility that working from home provides with the connection of office life:

“Despite the pressure and worries of the pandemic, we know that many of our people have greatly valued the flexibility of how, where and when we work, gaining more time for their families, health and other commitments,” said CEO Justin D’Agostino in a statement.

“We also recognise that the office will remain an important place for connection, collaboration and learning, with clients and with each other,” he added.

Firms like HSF are realizing they can’t put the remote work genie back in the bottle, and hopefully programs like this will serve the needs of both the firm and the individuals that work there.

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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).

Last week, Vault released the 2021 edition of its closely watched law firm rankings, proving that money — in the form of Cravath’s perennially competitive pay scale — can buy prestige.

But can that money buy happiness?

In a companion ranking to the Vault 100, associates were asked to rank their own law firms based on categories most relevant to their overall quality of life, including satisfaction; firm culture; hours; compensation; quality of work; business outlook; career outlook; associate/partner relations; transparency; formal and informal training; pro bono; and overall diversity. Fifty firms were ranked for Vault’s 2021 Best Law Firms to Work For survey (up from 25 in its 2019 ranking). Once again, and this may be surprising for some, but almost none of the firms that made the Top 10 list for being the most prestigious made the Top 10 list for being the best firms to work for.

There was a huge amount of movement in the Top 10 this year. Which firms made the cut? Without any further ado, here are the Top 10 Best Law Firms to Work For based on Vault’s Annual Associate Survey for 2021:

1. O’Melveny & Myers (no change)
2. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (+2)
3. Ropes & Gray (+3)
4. Clifford Chance US (-1)
5. Eversheds Sutherland (+10)
6. Paul Hastings (+1)
7. Latham & Watkins (-5)
8. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (+16)
9. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler (not ranked; first time in Top 10)
10. Willkie Farr & Gallagher (+4)

Latham and Gibson Dunn are the only law firms that made it into the Top 10 on both of Vault’s rankings. Kudos on keeping your associates so happy.

It’s also worth noting that O’Melveny made history again, as the first firm to ever earn the No. 1 spot in the overall ranking for each major category (Overall Best Law Firm to Work For, Overall Diversity, and Overall Best Summer Associate Program) for two years in a row. That said, here are the No. 1 firms in each Quality of Life category:

Congratulations to each of the Biglaw firms that made the latest edition of the Vault Best Firms to Work For rankings, and a huge congratulations to O’Melveny for completely sweeping the rankings. How did your firm do? Email us, text us at (646) 820-8477, or tweet us @atlblog to let us know how you feel.

Best Law Firms to Work For (2021) [Vault]

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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.

Virginia held a one-day bar exam session on September 10 for people who were nervous about the July in-person exam. But replacing a dangerous in-person exam with another dangerous in-person exam isn’t really a solution as the bar examiners learned when they had to post on their website that they’ve learned from an applicant tweet that one test-taker who left the exam early complaining of illness later tested positive for COVID-19.

A Twitter account posted the report the evening after the one-day bar exam session at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. The tweet said the applicant began experiencing symptoms halfway through the exam and thereafter tested positive with a rapid antigen test. The tweet did not cite the source of the information or any information about the applicant.

The VBBE said it was working closely with the Richmond City Health Department to identify anyone who had close contact with the individual to determine if they might have been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.

This tracks the experience in Colorado, where an applicant who also began the test with no symptoms later tested positive. It’s a natural consequence of a virus with a substantial pre-symptomatic infectious period that in-person bar exams are combatting with largely useless temperature checks.

The VBBE is now “working closely with the Richmond City Health Department to identify anyone who had close contact with the individual” which seems like the sort of thing that would be assiduously tracked by anyone appreciating the gravity of inviting the sort of danger an in-person exam does at this juncture. Every time we have one of these exams people are exposed and then they end up exposing others.

Both the Colorado and Virginia experiences highlight that the only threat worse than the casual spread of the virus they’re encouraging is their own lack of preparation for this obvious consequence of continuing to insist on these in-person exams at this time. While bar examination apologists have spent weeks patting themselves on the back over Colorado being the only COVID case to spring from the exams, the reality is that it’s the only case we knew about because bar examiners across the country had no plan for ensuring after the fact that the virus didn’t hit their tests. Colorado only learned because the applicant volunteered the information. Virginia is only learning because the applicant posted on social media. For every case we’re learning about, there are others that applicants feel too embarrassed to publicly disclose or whose symptoms were too minor to be caught. And yet we don’t have good data on the impact of the virus on specific administrations because the bar examiners actively didn’t take the steps required if they wanted to be able to answer the question.

It’s the “if we have fewer tests, we’ll have fewer cases” mentality at work and it’s just as dangerous coming from bar examiners as it is from the Oval Office.

Potential bar exam virus exposure reported [Virginia Lawyers Weekly]

Earlier: Bar Examinees Learn Another Test-Taker Tests Positive For COVID
Law Grad Who Tested Positive For COVID-19 After Sitting For Bar Exam Speaks Out

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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.

Lawyers are a notoriously slow bunch to embrace change, especially when it comes to technology. But sometimes it just takes a disruptive event to finally nudge an industry into the future. Due to the pandemic, 2020 will forever be remembered as the year that the legal industry went virtual.

Attorneys have replaced in-person meetings with video conferencing platforms like Zoom (most have even figured out where the mute button is by now). Watercooler conversations have found a new home on messaging applications like Slack and Microsoft Teams. And prescient attorneys are leveraging platforms like XIRA to build future-proof virtual legal practices that also enable remote lawyering.

While the shift to virtual practice was accelerated by necessity, both clients and attorneys are starting to appreciate the benefits of delivering legal services remotely. After all, who wants to trek downtown for a 30-minute meeting when you can simply hop on a video conference with the push of a button? And why would a solo attorney have to shell out for expensive office space when they already have a perfectly good desk just steps from their bedroom? Or why should a single mother have to find and pay for childcare just to get legal advice?

For many clients and attorneys, virtual practice simply makes more sense than the classic model of in-person services.

The legal industry, among other professional verticals, is not going to snap back to the “old normal” after social distancing ends. The natural course of industries is to evolve, and disruptive events bring sudden impacts. Consider World War II, the event to which the pandemic is most often compared. The American economy did not return to its pre-war “normal” after the war ended in 1945 — instead, nearly every aspect of the economy was fundamentally changed, resulting in the fundamental expansion of almost all industries.

The legal industry is now at a similar inflection point.

The lawyers who succeed tomorrow will be those who recognize this reality today. They will be those lawyers who view disruptive change not as a challenge to be overcome, but as an opportunity to stake a claim to a bigger piece of turf in the new normal.

But how can small firms and solo attorneys, who lack access to the technological and marketing budgets of bigger shops, possibly hope to compete in this new world of virtual legal practice?

Well, thankfully, innovative cloud-based platforms like XIRA are stepping in to level the playing field.

XIRA has put together an amazing user-friendly platform that manages a legal practice with ease. Imagine if your Clio, Lawpay, Calendar, Dropbox, messaging, Zoom, and your assistant worked together seamlessly in an integrated package. That’s what XIRA has built. In addition, it markets you to potential clients and lets them book your available time. There is no need for you to buy any ads or run a marketing program because XIRA helps clients find you. Most interestingly, they don’t tie you into a contract or subscription. You pay nominal platform fees as you generate business. XIRA’s small fee structure is explained by their CEO, Reza Ghaffari “We are not interested in making a quick buck. We are in it for the long-haul to dramatically expand the industry and aim to have 500,000 attorneys on the platform by 2030.”

It works like this: XIRA’s marketing wizards attract high-quality clients to XIRA’s search page. Clients enter a few key details such as the practice area and location where they need help. XIRA then pulls up a list of profiles of matching lawyers.

The next part is where XIRA truly stands apart from other platforms.

When clicking on your profile, clients can see your calendar and instantly book a consultation for your available time slots. They receive an email confirmation of their booking, and your calendar is automatically updated to reflect the appointment. Just like that you have a meeting with a new client — and all you had to do to make it happen was set up a profile! It helps you reduce and eventually eliminate any staffing cost you may have for scheduling clients.  It also increases your client acquisition rate since 61% of clients contact only one attorney, and if they can schedule an appointment with that attorney, 85% of the time this results in an engagement.  If you don’t have this capability, you run the risk of responding slowly and diminishing your chances to turn the lead into a client.

When it comes time to meet your new client, the entire interaction can be managed through XIRA’s secure audio and video-conferencing technology.

Links to your meeting room are automatically generated and added to your calendar.

XIRA provides you with an integrated case management system as well as a secure document vault.  You and your client can start sharing files while the case management system connects all the various activities and documents, ensuring that all the information is at your fingertip.  No need to pay monthly fees for separate case management, communication tools, calendaring, billing, or storage software packages.

When it comes to real-time communications with your clients, XIRA provides a secure messaging system.  All of these exchanges are tracked and accessible via the XIRA case management tool.

The platform provides a fully integrated solution freeing you from paying monthly fees for separate packages and eliminates the burden of technology integration.  The process also removes all the administrative work from client acquisition, meaning your time is freed up to focus on what you do best: providing quality legal advice to your new client.

Oh, and you won’t have to worry about any headaches when it comes time to get paid either.

XIRA collects the client’s payment information during the signup process and provides you with intuitive tools to invoice your client for your time and other expenses.

The bottom line? XIRA isn’t just an innovative marketing platform — it’s also a turnkey cloud-based virtual legal office. You bring your law degree, your talent, and your experience. Let XIRA handle the rest.

Currently XIRA is available in California but has plans to roll out nationwide around the end of the year.

There is no cost to join XIRA, no subscription. It only takes 10 minutes to create your profile and establish your gig-practice – and they might just be the most significant 10 minutes of your entire legal career.

More and more Biglaw firms are finding their footing after the upheaval caused by COVID-19. And that means the salary cuts that swept the industry in the spring are being reversed this autumn.

In April, Duane Morris surprised associates with a round of COVID-19 austerity measures that included salary cuts (the firm’s previous rhetoric about solid financial performance led some to believe Duane Morris would survive the pandemic unscathed). The firm, which made $510,341,000 in gross revenue last year making it 74th on the Am Law 100 list, cut associate and special counsel salaries by 15 percent effective May 1, and expected the cuts to last until the end of the year. But the firm has surprised associates yet again, this time with some good news.

Effective September 1, the firm rolled back the salary cuts — a full four months earlier than originally anticipated. In the firm’s announcement, available in full on the next page, firm chair Matthew Taylor noted they were “grateful” for all the hard work employees were putting in that allowed the early rollbacks. Taylor also said the firm is hopeful for a “Phase 2” of rollbacks that would see attorneys receive make-whole payments.

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).

To dabble in the cryptocurrent is to explore a new and unfamiliar world, with strange rules, warring factions, matters mysterious and—frankly—ghoulish, bold predictions, incomprehensible jargon, even more unfathomable valuations and rampant fraud—with all of the potential for losing enormous amounts of actual money the combination of those imply. Facing such perplexity and peril, it is no surprise that the blockchain beginner might look to an expert or adept to guide her through the ever-shifting dunes and tides. A familiar face or trusted brand lending an imprimatur to this coin or that, and with it a sense of assurance that you will not be the latest mug taken in by the latest obvious bitcoin scam. You know, a Kodak, or a Jose Canseco, or a Steven Seagal, or maybe even a Stephen Moore. Or a well-known rapper and star of the not-at-all-ominously-named reality television shows “Road to Redemption” and “The Grand Hustle.”

* A Florida city has repealed an ordinance against saggy pants over claims that the law unfairly targeted people of color. [Fox News]

* An Iowa lawyer, who transferred a case to another lawyer without client consent, has been suspended from practice. [Bloomberg Law]

* The Mayor of Rochester, New York has fired the city’s police chief and suspended the Rochester City Attorney over the death of Daniel Prude. [Hill]

* The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that the Green Party will be off the presidential ballot in Wisconsin for the upcoming election. [CNN]

* Law school deans are asking for an open-book bar exam given the hardships that bar candidates presently face. [ABA Journal]

* A Nebraska lawyer has been sentenced to up to four years in prison for purportedly keeping thousands of dollars of settlement money meant for clients. [Lincoln Journal Star]

* Attorneys General of several states are calling on Netflix to remove the show Cuties due to alleged sexualization of children. [ABC 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.