Black Women Do Not View Law School Race Relations Particularly Well

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

According to the study “Women of Color–A Study of Law School Experiences,” a joint research effort between the NALP Foundation and the University of Texas School of Law’s Center for Women in Law, what percentage of minority women law students surveyed gave race relations on campus a positive rating?

Hint: Compare with the 70 percent of white male students who positively view race relations on campus.

See the answer on the next page.

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Navigate the latest changes to federal and state laws, regulations, and executive orders; ranging from Banking & Finance to Tax, Securities, Labor & Employment / HR & Benefits, and more.

Navigate the latest changes to federal and state laws, regulations, and executive orders; ranging from Banking & Finance to Tax, Securities, Labor & Employment / HR & Benefits, and more.

The Law Schools Where The Most Graduates Got Federal Clerkships (2019)

Do you like prestige? Of course you do. Is there really a law student who doesn’t? That being said, if you’re like the majority of your colleagues and you’d like to embark upon one of the most prestigious career paths available to recent law school graduates, then you’ll probably want to compete for an elite federal clerkship.

Law.com produced several helpful charts based on law school employment data for the class of 2019. Today, we will take a look at one of the more interesting charts, the law schools that sent the highest percentage of their most recent graduating class into federal clerkships. On this list, you’ll find a dazzling array of law schools from the T14, but we’re not here to tell you what you already know — that graduates of top law schools get top clerkships. That being said, we’re going to dive a little deeper into the list (the Top 20) and highlight the schools you may not realize are some of the top clerkship contenders. Here they are for your viewing pleasure:

1. Stanford: 29.12 percent
2. Yale: 25.81 percent
3. U. Chicago: 23.76 percent
4. Harvard: 17.70 percent
5. UVA: 15.73 percent
6. Duke: 14.03 percent
7. Notre Dame: 11.92 percent
8. UT-Austin: 11.45 percent
9. Georgia: 11.05 percent
10. Washington U.: 10.64 percent
11. Berkeley: 10.37 percent
12. Michigan: 10.10 percent
13. Washington & Lee: 10.00 percent
14. Penn: 9.60 percent
15. Illinois: 9.02 percent
16. Montana: 8.45 percent
17. Alabama: 8.27 percent
18. Vanderbilt: 7.62 percent
19. Cornell: 7.22 percent
20. Baylor: 7.09 percent

Way to go, Stanford! The elite school managed to boot Yale out of the top spot for clerkships this year, which is a remarkable feat in and of itself.

An obvious point to make here is that these rankings don’t distinguish between prestige of clerkship. Were these feeder judges or non-feeder judges, circuit courts or district courts, Article III courts or non-Article III courts? In the land of law, these things are important. Considering how coveted federal clerkships are, we’d absolutely love to see this information. If you have it, please feel free to email us.

Click here to see the rest of the law schools with the highest percentage of graduates employed in federal clerkships, plus other informative charts detailing the law schools with the highest percentage of graduates working in Biglaw, state clerkships, government and public interest jobs, as well as the law schools with the most unemployed graduates and most underemployed graduates.

Are you a recent law school graduate who landed a federal clerkship? What did your law school do to help you? We’re interested in learning about your experiences — good or bad — and may anonymously feature some of your stories on Above the Law. You can email us, text us at (646) 820-8477, or tweet us @atlblog. Best of luck in your clerkship and enjoy your time with your judge!

Law Grads Hiring Report: Job Stats for the Class of 2019 [Law.com]


Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

Barr Threatens Suit To Stop Bolton’s Book Because The First Amendment Is, Like, More Of A Suggestion Really

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“Any conversation with me is classified,” President Trump insisted at a press conference yesterday. Because once we had a scholar of constitutional law as president, and now we have … the opposite of that.

The president’s voluminous knickers are in a twist this week over the upcoming release of Ambassador John Bolton’s book “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” which is scheduled to hit the shelves on June 23.

As a former federal employee, Bolton had to submit his manuscript to the National Security Council to ensure it contained no classified material. Since December 30, when he dropped the 592-page tell all about his time as Trump’s National Security Advisor on the NSC’s doorstep, Bolton undertook multiple rounds of revision in coordination with Ellen Knight, the agency’s senior director for prepublication review.

According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by his lawyer Chuck Cooper, Knight acknowledged that the book contained no classified material, telling Bolton on April 27, “that’s the last edit I really have to provide for you” and promising that the the final clearance letter would be ready in short order.

And then … nothing happened. At least not until June 7, when the Washington Post broke the news that Bolton’s book was going to print on June 23, come hell or high water. At which point White House lawyer John Eisenberg — who is, not for nothing, smack in the middle of the Ukraine saga detailed in the book — wrote a letter to Bolton insisting that manuscript was chock full of classified information and publication would pose a great threat to national security.

Cooper insists that his client has satisfied his legal obligations to the NSC, and any further interference by the White House is simply an attempt to censor information embarrassing to the president. Which is a bold strategy, Cotton!

While the wisdom of going to print without clearance is debatable, the legality is not. This has been settled law since 1971 when the Supreme Court refused to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. And President Twitterfingers may have forgotten that case, but Bill certainly remembers that prior restraint is really not a thing.

And yet, Donald Trump promises that the Justice Department will be filing suit imminently to enjoin publication of Bolton’s book.

“They’re in court or they’ll soon be in court,” he told reporters yesterday. If they’re “in court” to do LOCK HER UPS to John Bolton, news of it hasn’t broken yet.

And that’s criminal liability, by the way. you’re talking about.  You’re not talking about, like, he’s got to return three dollars that he made on a book.  That’s called criminal liability.  That’s a big thing.  You know, Hillary Clinton, she deleted 33,000 emails.  And if we ever found out what those emails say, she would’ve had a liability.  That’s what you have: You have liability.

So wise!

Barr himself was more circumspect, insisting that Bolton was flouting the legitimate classification review process, before going on to bizarrely insist that no one ever wrote a book about a sitting president, and discussions of current events are by their very nature classified.

And this is unprecedented, really, because — I don’t know if any book that’s been published so quickly while, you know, the office holders are still in — in government and it’s about very current events and current leaders and current discussions and current policy issues, which — many of which are inherently classified.

Which is entirely true, if you leave out Cliff Sims, who fought his own protracted battle for clearance to publish “Team of Vipers” in January of 2019, just seven months after leaving the White House. Also that part about inherent classification, which is completely made up.

But if the Justice Department wants to go running to the courts for a prior restraint on speech based on the newly minted doctrine of inherent classification, they can try. It’ll probably just help the Mustache Man sell more books but, hey, knock yourself out.

The White House vs. John Bolton [WSJ]
Trump Administration Expected to Sue to Block Bolton Book [Bloomberg]


Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Law School Professor Branded A ‘Karen’ After She Called The Cops Over Fireworks

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter protests that have spread across the country, many are people are deeply reconsidering the proper role of the police in society and how to make lasting reforms to the system. While others, well, they continue to use the cops are their personal enforcement mechanism for all manner of petty grievances. Irina Manta, a professor at Hofstra Law School and a FedSoc darling last seen trying to make the law hold people accountable for lying on Tinder, falls quite distinctly in the latter category.

Gothamist has an article detailing the turmoil in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, that fireworks are causing in the neighborhood. Though fireworks are illegal in the city, as anyone who has spent time in an outer borough knows, they are also a part of summertime life that frankly brings up a sense of nostalgia. But the NYPD has seen a sharp influx of firework complaints. And when a Ditmas Park Facebook group banned all firework talk, that’s when Manta sprang into action:

In response, another resident, Irina Manta, formed her own Facebook group, along with a petition calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials to “put a peaceful stop to the illegally launched fireworks that have been disrupting our sleep and lives for weeks.”

Hours later, police in riot gear showed up on the streets of Flatbush, apparently searching for those responsible for the fireworks. (A spokesperson for the NYPD did not respond to Gothamist’s inquiries about arrests or summonses).

And, particularly given the police violence that we’ve seen since the Black Lives Matter protests began, the social media posts documenting the fireworks raid — that police did while wearing full riot gear — have taken on a chilling quality.

Equality for Flatbush, a grassroots Black Lives Matter group based in Brooklyn, wasted no time giving Manta her own hashtag:

Irina Manta aka #DitmasParkKaren is a law professor at Hofstra University. Manta and her supporters began organizing for their campaign on the “Ditmas Park, Brooklyn” FB group page, a majority-white Facebook group where pro-gentrification and white supremacist sentiment is highly prevalent.

While the #DitmasParkKaren struggle was raging on social media, the same night at 11:30pm, several eye-witness videos and photos were posted on Twitter documenting van loads of NYPD officers in riot gear swarming a Flatbush neighborhood at Ocean and Church Avenues in response to a fireworks complaint. According to eyewitnesses, the NYPD entered buildings on Ocean Avenue and 1 person was arrested. For many long-time/lifelong residents of Flatbush, both the level of complaints about fireworks and last night’s response by police over a fireworks complaint is unprecedented.

The entire incident is yet another reminder that where some see nothing but black joy and exuberance, others see a nuisance or even a threat.


headshotKathryn 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).

New York City EMTs, Paramedics Say They Were Fired for Talking to Media About COVID-19 Dangers [Sponsored]

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The Role Of Marijuana Tax Revenue In Fighting Racial Injustices

Nationwide protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd have reignited a public debate over police brutality in this country. Alongside calls for police reform have emerged other demands, demands of defunding the police.

The call to defund the police is, of course, a financial issue, but it is also about building constructive police alternatives. It is a call to reinvest in communities and explore new and more equitable solutions.

This is precisely what the City Council of Portland, Oregon, tried to convey last Thursday, when it approved an amendment to a proposed budget that would divest approximately $27 million from marijuana tax revenue funds from the city’s police department to programs focusing on restorative justice initiatives.

Back in 2016, Portland passed Recreational Marijuana Sales Measure 26-180, a measure that allocated marijuana tax dollars to substance misuse treatment, public safety, and small business development, a 2019 report from the Portland City Auditor revealed that 46 percent of marijuana tax revenue has gone directly to the Portland Police Bureau.

This misallocation of marijuana tax revenue is paradoxical in that the money is funding the very institution that has disproportionately targeted communities of color — particularly black and brown men — in the enforcement of marijuana laws.

Since the 1970s, enforcement of marijuana possession laws has been carried out with staggering racial bias. According to a 2013 report published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nearly half of all drug arrests made in 2010 were for marijuana possession. Although marijuana use was roughly the same among blacks and whites, blacks were nearly four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

As Jason Ortiz, President of the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) and a police accountability activist, stated in a recent press release, “[t]his [misallocation of marijuana tax revenue] is not just an Oregon problem, this is a national disgrace.” Ortiz explained that the MCBA expects jurisdictions across the United States to follow Portland’s lead and encouraged all national cannabis justice advocates to investigate their municipal finances and local cannabis company investments to determine if and how marijuana tax revenues intended for community uplift are in fact allocated.

Indeed, the proper allocation of marijuana tax revenue is part of the national issue of cannabis reform. Throughout the United States, conversations have been taking place regarding the relationship between marijuana prohibition and racial injustice.

According to Marijuana Moment, Representatives Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., recently circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter that urged their fellow lawmakers to consider federal marijuana reform to further promote racial justice as they debate policing reform legislation.

Last month, the House of Representatives introduced a resolution condemning police brutality and racial profiling and calling for the adoption of “sound and unbiased law enforcement policies that would reduce disparate impact of police brutality and use of force on Black and Brown people and other historically marginalized communities” that stem, in part, from the War on Drugs.

States have also been vocal about the role of marijuana reform in fighting racial injustices.

During a recent press conference, California Governor Gavin Newsom highlighted California’s legalizing of recreational marijuana as a “civil rights” issue. This statement was echoed by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who stated that the enactment of cannabis decriminalization legislation in May was intended to reform criminal justice and address racial inequalities.

Other states, including New York, are pushing for the passage of criminal justice reform legislation, including the legalization of marijuana.

The calls for change coming from weeks of sustained anger and grief following George Floyd’s murder have sparked national conversations that must be honored. Recognizing the devastating damage caused by decades of cannabis prohibition along with the restorative potential of legalization, with strong attention paid to ensuring resources are reinvested in communities most harmed by prohibition, is a fundamental aspect of honoring these calls and to abolishing racial inequality in Portland, Oregon, and throughout the country.


Nathalie Bougenies practices in the Portland office of Harris Bricken and was named a “2019 Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine, an honor bestowed on only 2.5% of eligible Oregon attorneys. Nathalie’s practice focuses on the regulatory framework of hemp-derived CBD (“hemp CBD”) products. She is an authority on FDA enforcement, Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act and other laws and regulations surrounding hemp and hemp CBD products. She also advises domestic and international clients on the sale, distribution, marketing, labeling, importation and exportation of these products. Nathalie frequently speaks on these issues and has made national media appearances, including on NPR’s Marketplace. Nathalie is also a regular contributor to her firm’s Canna Law Blog.

The Unexpected Changes COVID-19 Will Bring To The Legal Profession

(Image via Getty)

The last few months brought major disruptions to the practice of law throughout the country. Locking attorneys out of their offices and shutting down major sectors of the economy ushered in both a technological leap forward for law firms trying to stay active remotely as well as layoffs and paycuts that could linger over the practice for years. But there are also changes happening in the profession that might not be readily apparent.

Did you know divorce attorneys are actually dropping the adversary role in order to forge creative solutions to the economic hit COVID leveled on marital assets? Or that juries are likely to take a distinctly pro-business turn for the next several months?

Talking about these unexpected changes to the legal landscape is what our special report podcast, the “ATL COVID Cast,” is all about. Each week, Kathryn Rubino and I chat with guests about their corner of the legal world and how the pandemic is changing it in unexpected ways.

So, subscribe and spread the word. We’ll be doing this for as long as this crisis continues.

TCW Sounds Like A Fun Place To Work

How To Go In-House, And How To Excel Once You’re There: An Interview With David Stiepleman

David Stiepleman (photo by C. Lifschultz, courtesy of Sixth Street Partners)

For many young (and not-so-young) lawyers, working as in-house counsel is a professional promised land. And even if this view might be somewhat idealized, one can understand the attractions of life as corporate counsel: no billable hours, the ability to focus on serving a single client, the opportunity to learn more about the business world, and (generally) more reasonable hours than Biglaw.

Because the demand for good in-house legal jobs among a certain sector of the legal profession exceeds the supply, these jobs can be very hard to get. I have previously offered my three tips for the in-house job search, but they’re just general pointers; there’s so much more to the process.

So how can you land a great in-house gig? And how can you do a great job once you’re there?

To get answers to those questions from an expert, I recently spoke by phone with David Stiepleman, a cofounding partner of Sixth Street Partners. After graduating from Columbia Law School and working at Cleary Gottlieb, David worked as an in-house lawyer at Goldman Sachs and Fortress Investment Group, en route to his current role as co-president and COO of a global investment business with approximately $34 billion in assets under management.

Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

DL: You’ve had an accomplished career, starting off in Biglaw and winding up as a business builder. Many lawyers would love a professional path like yours, including stints at a top law firm, top investment bank, and top fund manager, culminating in helping start a multibillion-dollar business as its COO. Can you begin by telling us a bit about your journey?

DS: When I started out as a summer associate at Cleary Gottlieb, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. In the summer of 1996, the firm sent me to Ireland for two weeks, where I tried to follow along watching a senior lawyer do a deal. It was a great experience — figuring out what the parties wanted, how to reconcile their divergent interests, and how to get a deal done. I saw that and thought: I can do this. And it was a relief, finding something that I really wanted to do.

DL: So you spent five years at Cleary as an M&A generalist, learning about different industries and working on different deals, and you were doing well. How -– and why -– did you make the jump in-house?

DS: I got the opportunity to spend time at Goldman Sachs through a secondment, and after a few months, the Goldman folks said to me, “Why don’t you stay?”

I had expected to return to Cleary, but at that point I had an “a-ha” moment. I thought to myself: this job is so much fun, I deal with 16 different topics in a day, there are so many smart people here, and it’s busy and crazy and intense. But at the end of the day, I can go home and have dinner with my family, while great outside lawyers do the work that I used to do. So I stayed.

I became the lead counsel of the Americas Special Situations Group, which is where I first worked with my partner Alan Waxman, who led the business and who would later get our core group back together at Sixth Street. This is when I really started getting into building a business, helping grow the Special Situations Group within Goldman.

DL: And then you continued to move toward the business side of things.

DS: Yes. In 2007 I went to Fortress, where among other things one of my mandates was going to Japan to help a new team build a real estate business. I had no prior experience working in Japan or building a real estate business, but we figured things out. And it was really fun.

Then in 2010, I got a call from Alan, who said he wanted to get the band back together to rebuild the Special Situations group as part of TPG. I said to him that I’m a New Yorker, I can’t move to California. But my wife said take the meeting.

I took the meeting, and then the job, and that was over 10 years ago. We founded Sixth Street, which fortunately thrived — and which now after our recent deal with TPG is a completely independent business.

DL: Over the course of your career, as both a lawyer and a business executive, you have hired many in-house lawyers. What do you look for when building a legal department?

DS: For in-house roles, you need nimble lawyers who can migrate from one field to the next and who are comfortable with change. As investors, if we find an opportunity, it will only last for a certain period of time –- so we need to be nimble to take advantage of it.

At Sixth Street, we have a predilection for M&A generalists. We find that they have the nimbleness and the skill set we need, which is all about managing risk. Over the years, we have brought in some very talented senior M&A associates from firms who have grown with Sixth Street. One lawyer who came out of a New York firm and has been with us for five-plus years became our general counsel earlier this year.

That’s our model: take people who are good lawyers with good skill sets, and get them to become cross-disciplinary and comfortable with things they may not have done before.

DL: When do you think you went from being a “lawyer” to being a “businessperson”?

DS: It was an evolution, not a specific moment in time. I realized that I was clinging to certain aspects of my identity –- for example, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a New Yorker” –- that I didn’t necessarily need to cling to.

By the time we were starting Sixth Street, not only was I fine with not being a lawyer, but having and using those business-building skills was an imperative. As a small team starting a new business, everyone had to go outside their comfort zone and be OK taking the lead on new things, and that’s something we’ve focused on keeping as we’ve grown.

DL: As a former in-house lawyer and a business executive who works with many in-house lawyers, what advice would you give to in-house lawyers? And what mistakes get made?

DS: First, work for a company and for people you can really get behind. Knowing that your internal clients care about the right things is crucial. Since we had all worked together before, I knew that our partner group would do our best not only to invest well but also explicitly to want to make the right decisions, the ethical decisions.

In investing, there are ways to make money that aren’t super-great. We don’t want to be in a situation where we are underwriting to some misunderstanding or some “gotcha” point hidden in a deal.

Second, get your reps. Know how to conduct yourself as a professional and as a lawyer. Don’t go in-house too early and think you can just wing it. Reach a point where you can be useful and commercial.

What’s valuable is someone who can perform pattern recognition. If you’ve only seen six deals, and they’ve all been bond offerings, that’s not a good fit, at least not for us. Try to get broad experience, so even if you come across a type of deal you’ve not done before, you can figure it out by comparing it to something you have done.

Third, learn how to manage your time. Law firms and law schools don’t teach this. There’s too much to do, and if you try to do everything, you’ll do none of it well. Figure out what’s important and what outside resources you need, and get them to do those things.

[For more advice from David Stiepleman to corporate counsel, see this excellent memo, Who the Best In-House Lawyers Are.]

DL: So that brings up the subject of outside counsel. What advice do you have for external counsel? And are there any “pet peeves” of yours when it comes to your outside law firms?

DS: First, if you’re representing us, we want you to care about this deal or project like it’s your own business. We want you, at least to some degree, driving yourself a little bit nuts thinking about the risks, looking around corners — not just pumping out documents, but thinking about substantive issues. We want to partner with law firms that are helping us manage risk.

Second, we want firms that understand the importance of teamwork. You’re colleagues; talk about and think through things together. Don’t just tell me to go talk to so-and-so at your firm. Talk to so-and-so yourself and work on our issues collaboratively.

A pet peeve of mine: law firm partners who always say, no matter what, “We definitely do that.” Really? Have you done it before? How many times have you done it before? With what results?

There’s nothing wrong with tackling a unique or novel legal problem, but you need to be honest about your expertise and whether you’re the right firm or lawyer for the job. We really appreciate hearing, “We aren’t the best at this, but we can introduce you to the experts.” That’s the spirit of partnership we value.

DL: Let’s turn to current events. Today’s environment, in which so many people are working remotely, presents challenges in terms of running a business. Can you talk about how you’re navigating this?

DS: Our priorities have been safety — of our own people, as well as the whole community — and making sure our business continues to run seamlessly.

With everyone scattered, our focus turned to doubling down on relentless, nonstop communication, as we tried to spot risks and opportunities across our business. We went from standing meetings to more frequent communication, in quicker bursts. We also have a proprietary platform for communicating that everyone feeds information into, which has been an advantage in this environment.

DL: Also regarding recent events, I saw the very thoughtful and heartfelt note you sent within Sixth Street in the wake of the horrific killing of George Floyd, which itself came after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. What was your thinking in making this communication and sharing it beyond Sixth Street?

DS: Because it was the right thing to do. As a group of partners, we have diverse views on many things, but there was no disagreement on this. We’ve been sickened by what we’ve been seeing, and we wanted to make sure our people knew that — not just our black professionals or professionals of color, but everyone who is a part of our diverse workforce of almost 300 professionals around the world.

We wanted to stand up and be counted and for our ecosystem — including our external lawyers and everyone else — to know about our culture, our values, and what we stand for.

We’ve been exploring ways to address the problem of underrepresentation in our industry for some time. Two years ago, a number of us across Sixth Street started working with Sean Mendy and his team at Concrete Rose, which is an early-stage investing business focused on underrepresented founders and talent. They’re building a great platform, and we’re confident you’ll be hearing a lot more about them over the next decade.

At Sixth Street, our culture is the most important thing to us. It’s the hardest thing to maintain, it’s what makes us a great place to work, and it also helps us hopefully invest and manage risk well. We are focused on maintaining an open, collaborative, respectful culture, where people think like owners and act with integrity. That’s what we are all about.

DL: Well stated. Congratulations on your success and the success of Sixth Street, David, and thank you for taking the time!

Earlier: 3 Tips For The In-House Job Search


DBL square headshotDavid Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.