Category: News Feeds

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

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

Key Objectives:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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.

This is a very different place than it was in the time of our founders. The first federal census, in 1790, showed an average household size of 5.79 persons, the highest ever recorded in America. But early Americans needed a lot of household members because many of them were going to die young: life expectancy for a white male was about 38 years. All other demographics likely enjoyed even lower average lifespans than that, although it’s impossible to know for sure because no one thought it was all that important to measure life expectancy for anyone else. The biggest city in the country, Philadelphia, had a population of about 50,000. Of the 700,000 or so black people in America at the time, around 90 percent were slaves.

The America of the late 1700s would have been unrecognizable to modern Americans. A lot of people died turning that tiny, rural backwater into the occasionally forward-thinking world power we know and love today.

Some of the people who died in the construction of this nation were those aforementioned slaves. Others were the native peoples of America, first ravaged by European diseases, then swept away by the sword. There were, of course, many who died over the centuries fighting off would-be invaders, Confederate traitors, and looming foreign threats.

The sacrifices of these countless individuals are meaningful. No one should discount them. But what sets America apart from other nations was never that its spirit of wartime conquest was somehow bigger or better than that of dozens of previous societies. There are plenty of countries throughout history that were more warlike than the United States ever was, and almost all displayed the easy, shallow patriotism of cheering on their own viciousness. From the ancient Spartans to the Mongol invasions all the way up to the sun never setting on the British Empire, warrior societies have repeatedly conquered other peoples, only to eventually crumble into the dustbin of history. Even in more modern wars, it’s hard to say that the United States made greater sacrifices than others when considering that we lost about 418,500 of our citizens beating back the Axis powers in World War II compared to the 24 million deaths suffered by our then-ally the Soviet Union.

What makes America unique is its ideals. The concept that a person like Andrew Carnegie — an immigrant, an economic refugee — can come here with nothing, and through hard work and keen shrewdness build an industrial empire that made him the richest man in the work at the time (and eventually the world’s greatest philanthropist): that is what sets America apart. Carnegie’s success would not have been possible anywhere else in the world. That spirit of allowing anyone, from anywhere, to thrive based on talent and drive rather than status or social class is what actually makes America great, then and now.

It says in the first sentence of the Constitution that what we’re trying to do here is “to form a more perfect union,” not that we’re already there. But despite all the setbacks and the obvious unfairness still imposed on vast segments of our population because of race, national origin, and other meaningless distinctions the bigoted draw between their fellow citizens, there’s still a reason why America is where SpaceX, Amazon, Apple, and a thousand other innovative companies of the 21st century have arisen. That reason is not that we’re the best at killing people. It’s because we’re the best at giving talented, ambitious people room to explore their ideas.

As we’re seeing old monuments topple while citizens reconsider our tastes in statuary, it’s important to recognize the racist past being depicted as the reason for this aesthetic reckoning. But if you’re among those upset as some of these statues fall, take a moment to consider whether many of them should ever have been erected in the first place. The United States has had many great military victories that allowed its core ideals to survive and flourish. But it was never the great killers of our history at the center of our uniqueness as a nation. What really makes us great has always been more Richard P. Feynman than Robert E. Lee.

---

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

Some states have finally figured out that an in-person bar exam — at least one that includes everyone hoping to get licensed — is a bad idea. Utah, Washington, and Oregon have jumped on the emergency diploma privilege train. Others have postponed exams, staggered attendance, or opted for online exams. All the while, the well-compensated folks at NCBE — who have diploma privilege licenses by the way — are expending all their resources trying to intimidate states out of doing anything but running a superspreader event and feeding their monopolistic coffers.

Minnesota law school grads petitioned the state supreme court to consider diploma privilege… and it agreed. Arizona is trying to do the same and looking for folks to submit impact statements. Missouri is too.

Mississippi started by asking applicants to waive their rights if they, you know, died taking the exam. While pointing and laughing was the appropriate response, most jurisdictions instead drew up waivers of their own. We’re getting reports that bar exams are summarily denying ADA requests using their own people to declare — over the opinions of experts — that folks are perfectly fine to take the exam.

Texas claims to be having a bar exam this month but rumors are swirling that NRG Stadium and the Palmer Events Center have already been canceled. In that case, an exam is functionally impossible. Texas hasn’t confirmed this yet, which we assume has NOTHING to do with the deadline for deposits not having passed.

Is there any plan for the California “Baby Bar”?

Let’s just call the bar exam what it is: a death drive. There’s scant evidence that the exam is necessary to protect the public and overwhelming evidence that it’s injurious to the profession and the public and yet we still have it because… TRADITION! And now the obsession with this professional hazing ritual is going to get people sick and possibly killed.

There are other ways to license attorneys, you just have to step outside your own experience and realize that just because you took a grueling exam to prove you really earned the degree you earned two months earlier doesn’t mean everyone has to. “Diploma privilege plus” works. States can create reciprocity without the NCBE’s say so. Public health is more important than your rite of passage.

---

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.

This website has already discussed how COVID-19 has had a lasting impact on how many attorneys and law firms do business. Indeed, attorneys have had to get used to working from home, remote conferences, and other methods of practicing law because of the pandemic. States have also had to change some of their legal practice requirements because of COVID-19. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic has demonstrated that the profession should not be tethered to traditional notions about practicing law. All told, based on the experience of contending with COVID-19, states should permanently change several legal practice requirements.

Live CLE Courses

Most attorneys need to take continuing legal education courses in order to maintain their law licenses. Although states have different rules about how lawyers can earn CLE credits, some states, such as New Jersey (where I practice), require that lawyers attend a certain number of CLE courses in person. It makes sense that states want lawyers to meet up with other attorneys in order to satisfy their CLE credits. Indeed, many lawyers take live CLE credits at conferences, events, and other in-person occasions that they may not otherwise attend if CLE credits were not offered. Further, attending CLE courses in person may ensure that lawyers pay more attention to the instructors and meet other members of the bar.

However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is preventing many attorneys from attending in-person events. As a result, many states have relaxed their in-person CLE requirements and are allowing lawyers to fulfill their CLE requirements virtually. Even after the pandemic subsides, states should consider permanently eliminating in-person CLE requirements. If attorneys wish to attend in-person events, they should be able to do so without the incentive of live CLE credits, and online CLE courses are often cheaper and easier to take. Although some industries rely on in-person CLE credits, states should permanently relax CLE requirements so that all credits can be earned through virtual means.

Bona Fide Office Requirements

Many states still have a requirement that attorneys maintain a physical office in the state in which they practice law. The theory behind this requirement is that counsel should have a place at which lawyers can be served with papers for cases with which they are involved. In addition, states may require attorneys to have an office so that there is a place where clients can meet their counsel, where files are maintained, and where phones are answered. Some states, such as New Jersey, have relaxed their bona fide office requirements in recent years, but other states, such as New York, still require that out-of-state lawyers maintain a bona fide office within the state.

However, having a physical office is so twentieth century! Many lawyers may wish to simply maintain a virtual office, where they can pick up mail and meet clients at a fraction of the cost of a traditional office. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all that a physical office is not needed to practice law. Indeed, many attorneys have not visited their offices in months, and many firms have been able to maintain operations remotely with very few interruptions. Now that nearly all lawyers are comfortable with remote conferencing apps, cloud-based firm management applications, and the experience of practicing law during the COVID-19 pandemic, states should seriously consider eliminating bona fide office requirements.

Electronic Filings And Registrations

As many attorneys know from firsthand experience, courts and state bar authorities have been somewhat slow to adopt online filing and registration systems. For instance, New York requires that lawyers file retainer and closing statements for certain types of contingency cases, and up until last month, attorneys needed to file such statements in person or through the mail. If attorneys filed the statements through the mail, they needed to include a self-addressed postcard so that it could be stamped and returned to the lawyer as proof that the statement had been filed. This was a very old-school way of doing business! In addition, some states still require that bar candidates complete bar applications and submit supporting materials through the mail.

Over the past several months, states have begun to adopt electronic filing and registration platforms even though these applications did not exist several months ago. For instance, lawyers in New York can now file retainer and closing statements electronically, which lets them save the hassle of providing a self-addressed and stamped envelope for proof of filing. In addition, many states have expanded online registration opportunities for bar candidates. Furthermore, states have launched e-filing systems for courts that required paper filings just several months ago. Hopefully, states will keep all of these electronic filing and registration systems after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, since these applications are often more efficient and cost-effective for attorneys and government authorities.

In the end, there are still some legal practice requirements that states have been slow to change and are unnecessary burdens for lawyers. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that some parts of the legal profession can change to promote efficiency and remote operations. Hopefully, the ongoing pandemic incentivizes the legal profession to permanently forgo traditional practices in favor of more efficient and cost-effective methods of practicing law.

---

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.

Yesterday we discussed the growing urgency, in light of current polling, among President Trump’s appointed regulators to make sure their successors can do as little regulating as possible. This is especially true of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that a president can fire the agency’s director whenever he wants.

“The agency may … continue to operate, but its Director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the President at will,” Roberts wrote in his majority decision, in which he was joined the court’s other four conservative justices…. “The CFPB’s single Director configuration is also incompatible with the structure of the Constitution, which — with the sole exception of the Presidency — scrupulously avoids concentrating power in the hands of any single individual.”

* Attorneys in DC can now accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. As detailed in yesterday’s morning docket, accepting cocaine as a form of payment is still off limits… [Bloomberg Law]

* Florida’s governor recently signed a new law requiring parental consent for abortions. [New York Daily News]

* OAN has lost a defamation lawsuit against Rachel Maddow, and now they may have to pay the legal fees for her high-priced Biglaw attorneys. [San Diego Times]

* A Baltimore family is suing a local restaurant for refusing service to them based on how they were dressed. [TMZ]

* A judge has dismissed a New York lawyer’s defamation lawsuit against someone who called him an “ambulance chaser” online. This attorney should brush up on his First Amendment law… [Westfair Communications]

---

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.

Flatten the Research Curve

Flatten the Research Curve

Wolters Kluwer

A new account compiles the acts of racism that compound at Harvard Law School, but they could emanate from almost any law school. We take a look at this account and the response of law schools around the country to recent events, including one law school that’s taking an aggressive anti-racism stance. Also, we discuss Neomi Rao’s Michael Flynn opinion which left a lot to be desired as a work of professional legal writing.

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

According to data collected by the 2020 NLJ 500 ranking, which top 500 law firm added the greatest number of attorneys from 2018 to 2019?

Hint: The firm got 291 new lawyers last year.

See the answer on the next page.