Category: News Feeds

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

According to Vault’s 2021 practice area rankings, which Biglaw firm tops the tax list?

Hint: This firm was also the first ever to report a billion dollars in revenue.

See the answer on the next page.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. has been defamed! His former employers accused him of “lack of spiritual stewardship” which is surely defamatory per se, per quod, by gist, and in the eyes of God. It’s all part of a dastardly plot by The Lincoln Project to destroy President Trump!

“Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord. And also Jerry Falwell, Jr., who is suing Liberty University for defamation and breach of contract in the Circuit Court for the City of Lynchburg.

The trouble started back in 2012 when the Jerry and Becki Falwell were on vacation at a fancy resort in Florida. They befriended a handsome, 20-year-old pool attendant named Giancarlo Granda, and then Mrs. Falwell befriended him some more. Whether Mr. Falwell was in the room watching when his wife and Mr. Granda were getting friendly is a matter of dispute. But Mr. Granda has produced a 2018 recording of himself engaging in friendly banter with Mrs. Falwell over Facetime while Mr. Falwell looked on, in addition to multiple text messages.

The Falwells claim they were extorted by Mr. Granda and that they remained cordial with him after he and Mrs. Falwell stopped being quite so friendly because they feared that he would harm them by disseminating pictures of Mrs. Falwell being, umm, super friendly.

But then Mr. Granda fell into the nefarious clutches of The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump PAC of disaffected Republicans dedicated to defeating Donald Trump.

“On information and belief, [senior advisor, Kurt] Bardella and The Lincoln project have been advising Granda in an attempt to use his defamatory statements to harm President Trump’s chances at reelection,” intones the complaint.

And how do they know that publicizing Granda’s allegations is an attempt to affect the election? Well, “Granda has been observed paying for expenses with a credit card that was not his own. On information and belief, this card belongs to [Aaron] Resnick,” his attorney who introduced him to The Lincoln Project guys. (It’s an interesting position for people who themselves financially subsidized Mr. Granda for years in exchange for his friendly services.)

Plus the sub-heading on the Reuters article “The Falwell Affair” reads “[Granda] says he had sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University and a staunch supporter of President Trump, looked on.” From which, the complaint insists, we must infer deliberate intent to harm President Trump at the behest of The Lincoln Project.

But what does this have to do with the university’s board of trustees?

See, after the story broke, the board believed Mr. Granda’s “lies,” so they told Mr. Falwell to tender his resignation. And the next day, the David Nasser, Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development, addressed Mr. Falwell’s resignation in an address to the student body, in which he said:

[W]e open the semester with a series of revelations about Jerry Falwell that can only be described as shameful. That’s OK, by the way, to say it. It’s OK to call sin, sin. Paul says in Ephesians. [sic] Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather, expose them. It is shameful to even mention what a disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible.

Which is just the same as repeating Mr. Granda’s defamatory allegations, and also violates the non-disparagement clause of Mr. Falwell’s employment contract. An article published by the University accusing Mr. Falwell of a “lack of spiritual stewardship” and of having “broken trust for most in Liberty University, and [causing] some question Liberty’s commitment to its nearly 50-year mission of Training Champions for Christ” is similarly slanderous, according to this complaint.

And, oh, by the way, Mr. Falwell knows a thing or two about those hypocritical board members and the skeletons in their closets.

Upon information and belief, certain key individuals directly involved in the decisions and actions to force Mr. Falwell’s resignation and then defame him were fulfilling a long-held goal to end Mr. Falwell’s fruitful thirty-two-year relationship with the University. Reportedly acting in the University’s interest to dissociate the University from Mr. Falwell’s alleged indiscretions, these individuals had engaged, or were engaged, and various illegal, unlawful, and immoral or otherwise dubious acts in their stewardship of other institutions and otherwise which, if known to the public generally, would unquestionably tarnish the reputation of Liberty University by association. It is therefore hypocritical in the extreme for these key individuals to cast any action of Mr. Falwell as disqualifying Mr. Falwell from leading Liberty, as he has done successfully for many years.

UH HUH.

Well, good luck with that one!

Apropos of nothing, please enjoy this video which Mr. Falwell, about whom there has never been a whiff of scandal or impropriety, posted in August to his own social media account, before quickly deleting it.

And this photo of him drinking “black water” as befits the president of a university which has a strict prohibition on alcohol consumption.

Oh, you want a Soundcloud of him slurrily describing the event, too? Can do.

Discovery is gonna be LIT.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. v. Liberty University [via Courthouse News]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Priori Legal, a marketplace for in-house legal teams to find and hire outside counsel, is today announcing that it has raised $6.3 million in a Series A financing.

In an exclusive interview on my LawNext podcast, I am joined by the founders of Priori, Basha Rubin and Mirra Levitt, to discuss this news and what it means for the company and the legal market.

“We’re thrilled,” Rubin said in the episode. “We’ve been growing rapidly and that growth has only accelerated during the pandemic, when legal departments are increasingly tasked with accomplishing more with less. As a result, they’re turning to Priori to help them accomplish those goals.”

Participating in the financing were existing investors Hearst Corporation, which will now have a seat on the company’s board, Great Oaks Venture Capital, and Jambhala Investments.

Also participating were notable investors with backgrounds in the legal industry, including Tim Steinert, former general counsel of Alibaba Group; Mindset Ventures, whose partner Jules Miller was cofounder of Hire an Esquire and cofounder of Evolve Law; Bridge Investments, whose venture partner Mike Suchsland is the former President of Thomson Reuters Legal Business; and Orrick’s Legal Technology Fund.

Rubin, Priori’s CEO, and Levitt, its chief product officer, met as classmates at Yale Law School. They shared a vision for how a legal marketplace could disrupt the BigLaw model for Fortune 500 companies by using data and technology to unbundle legal services. Today, their clients include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading technology companies.

The company’s attorney network includes more than 1,500 lawyers from firms ranging in size from solos to Am Law 100. The network includes lawyers in all 50 states and 47 countries who cover over 700 practice proficiencies.

The company, which has seen its business grow significantly this year, said it will use the funds to scale its operations to meet increasing demand. It will also use the funds to further develop its product and its ability to leverage data to ensure that customers can hire the right lawyer at the right price.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Claire E. Parsons back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

I had to break the bad news to my kids this year: we aren’t going to do trick-or-treating. No, I am not a germophobe. I’m not opposed to candy; I’ve already resigned myself to the idea that I will be purchasing some. I’m not overly strict, and I don’t hate fun. Rather, I’m a lawyer-mom. It’s my job to assess risk and weigh consequences, and as a mom it’s my role to use everything at my disposal to make sure my kids are safe. I don’t think the benefits of trick-or-treating — this one particular activity this year — justify the risk in the midst of a global pandemic. If you disagree, I hope you and your family have all the fun in the world. My family and I are just going to have to find fun in a different way.

Maybe that’s the fitting way to end 2020. Some have called it a Dumpster fire. Some have wished for it just to end. Some have lamented all that kids (and adults) have lost. I don’t quarrel with any of this and won’t try to name a person (myself included) who hasn’t struggled in the past few months as we try to cope with this “new normal” none of us really likes.

But I will say that, as a lawyer-mom, finding joy in the midst of chaos, pervasive imperfection, and a staggering lack of control is kind of my jam. It is what I’ve been doing since my first daughter was born eight years ago. I’ve gotten used to making things work. I’m skilled at coming up with random solutions — like that one year I made a killer BB8 costume for my youngest with a white sleeper set and some duct tape. I learned early on that I was never going to be a perfect mom, so I decided to spend my energy on being a happy one who makes happy kids even though the world sometimes makes this hard.

I think I got this from my mom, who is also a lawyer. She ran her own firm and volunteered in the community. She was not someone who put pressure on herself to make every holiday magical. I don’t recall a single Halloween costume she made me herself. And, she usually delegated the role of making brownies for the PTA meetings to me (which was fine because I got to lick the bowl). Mom didn’t do it all herself and what she did often happened as we rushed around town in her minivan listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter sing about how sometimes in life you are a windshield and sometimes you are the bug.

It is these moments that I recall most clearly and which matter more to me than anything. My favorite Halloween recollection of mom was the time she raced my sister and me to a store to buy costumes in between piano lessons and soccer practice. She had purchased a flamingo beak for herself as a, frankly, uninspired costume to wear to a Halloween party with friends. Like a kid who just got new shoes, she insisted on trying it on once we got in the car. After pulling into traffic, she perched it on her head because (unsurprisingly) plastic flamingo beaks are not conducive to driving. And, for no apparent reason at all, she exclaimed “I’m a unicorn! I’m a unicorn!” At the sight of our accomplished mother announcing her newly found status as a mythical creature while wearing a plastic flamingo beak on her brow, my sister and I died laughing. We are still laughing today.

I don’t remember much else about Halloween that year, including trick-or-treating, though I am certain I did it. Activities done year after year tend to blend together in the mind even when you enjoy them. But I clearly remember my mom’s humor as she rushed us around, and I have certainly come to rely on it as I began rushing around as a lawyer-mom myself. I am not telling you anything about Halloween or the holidays this year will be easy. I’m not arguing that they will be just as good. But I am saying that COVID-19 has taken many things from us, but it has not taken your creativity, or humor, or heart, or silliness. So, even though we won’t be trick-or-treating, my kids already know that they can count on me for silliness and fun. Maybe I can’t be a Halloween unicorn this year and make this holiday spectacular, but I can be a fake flamingo unicorn and make it fun. And that is what I am going to do.

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Claire E. Parsons is a Member at Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing, PLLC in Covington, Kentucky where she focuses her practice in local government practice, school law, and civil litigation. She is the mother of two girls and the Content and Communications Chair for MothersEsquire. You can find more of her content or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Two weeks ago, Peloton, the popular in-home fitness company, announced the recall of defective pedals on approximately 27,000 of its exercise bikes. The company had received complaints from consumers about broken pedals and resulting leg injuries. A recall was the right thing to do. Companies should fix their products not just for future customers but for existing customers as well.

The obvious morality of recalls should guide federal and state lawmakers when they approve criminal sentencing reform. Unfortunately, it rarely does. Lawmakers frequently pass reforms that only apply prospectively, even though the impetus for change was learning about people who have been forced to serve extra years or even decades in a prison cell. Those whose suffering prompted legislators to act are left behind.

Erik Weyant is a perfect and infuriating example. In 2007, he received a mandatory 20-year prison sentence in Florida for firing a warning shot in what he claimed was self-defense. While the jury rejected his self-defense claim, Weyant’s judge recognized that the two-decade sentence required by the legislature didn’t fit the facts of Weyant’s case. No one had been hurt, Weyant had never been in trouble with the law, and his self-defense claim was not frivolous.

The judge said:

[U]nfortunately the legislature has mandated a particular sentence in this matter…the legislature has taken away any consideration by the Trial Court of the merits of a case…the history of a person…The only sentence I can impose in this matter is a 20-year prison sentence. It does not matter whether I agree with that…I don’t find that I have any room to deviate from what the legislature has said that the sentence has to be.

Weyant’s case was one of the examples advocates used to persuade the Florida legislature to fix the law in 2016. The legislature agreed to remove aggravated assault from the list of crimes that triggered severe mandatory prison terms. Weyant had already served nine years by then, and the reform should have set him free. But Florida’s legislature didn’t issue a recall – they only reformed the law for future defendants. Unless something changes, Weyant will serve another seven years in prison on a sentence that lawmakers repudiated, in part, because of how unjust his sentence was!

If a company like Peloton recognizes the need to address even minor harms caused by its product caused, why don’t our elected leaders see the immorality in forcing people to endure the misery of several years in a prison cell because of a broken sentencing law?

Lawmakers know how to make their reforms retroactive. In 2010, Congress approved the Fair Sentencing Act, a law that reduced the indefensible disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine-related crimes from 100:1 to 18:1. It took eight years, but Congress in 2018 finally made the crack sentencing reform retroactive as part of the First Step Act. This long overdue step helped nearly 3,500 people who were serving excessive prison terms they would not have received if they were sentenced today. In the same bill, however, Congress failed to apply three other important sentence reforms retroactively.

Why? Why do lawmakers routinely fail to make their reforms retroactive? There are two main reasons, neither of which is compelling.

The first is political. Lawmakers clearly worry that someone freed by the reforms that they voted for might re-offend and that the lawmakers will be blamed if that happens. Think Willie Horton. Yet this type of fearmongering occurs every time a reform is proposed, whether it is retroactive or not. Over the past decade, reforms approved at the federal and state level have helped to reduce the nation’s prison population to its lowest level in 25 years. At every step, Chicken Littles have predicted political doom and yet the thousands of elected officials who have voted for reform continue to get re-elected. Lawmakers should stop listening to the naysayers and do the right thing.

The second reason lawmakers have offered for not making reforms retroactive is that it is not fair. Sometimes, they say, prosecutors allow defendants to plead guilty to a lesser crime because that crime carries a certain punishment, and had the prosecutors known the punishment would later change, they wouldn’t have made the same deal. This concern is concern, but it can be easily addressed. When lawmakers pass retroactive reforms, they can simply require people to go back before a judge to determine whether they should benefit. Prosecutors can then raise any relevant objections, including arguments about how the plea agreement was reached.

Lawmakers deserve credit for passing sentencing reform, but it is immoral to make people suffer for additional years or even decades in prison because they made their mistakes before lawmakers corrected faulty laws. Sentencing reform should be like a recall, addressing past harms while avoiding future ones.

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Kevin Ring is a former Capitol Hill staffer, Biglaw partner, and federal lobbyist. He is currently the president of FAMM, a nonprofit, nonpartisan criminal justice reform advocacy group. Back when ATL still had comments, “FREE KEVIN RING” was briefly a meme. You can follow him on Twitter @KevinARing.

Is anyone else as ready as I am for this election to be over? It’s been quite a year, not over yet, and I, like just about everyone else, am pooped, exhausted, whatever adjective you choose to use. Despite our exhaustion — and if you are not exhausted, I have words for you that are not appropriate in a “family” website — please vote. Vote for whomever but please vote. Don’t forget the “down ballot” candidates who may well have more personal impact on our lives. Vote.

On another topic altogether, but yes, there is a vote involved, the California Supreme Court has voted, i.e., greenlighted (a Hollywood term) the provisional attorney licensing program. Perhaps it has decided that there may be other ways of deciding whether a 2020 law school graduate is ready for practice, at least in theory without the relic that is the current bar exam.

There’s a new California Rule of Court, Rule 9.49, effective in mid-November, which sets forth the dos and don’ts for the provisional licensing. The rule is only eight pages, and it’s good practice for potential provisional licensees to get used to reading rules of court. The rule sets forth, among other things, eligibility for the provisional license, responsibilities of a provisional lawyer (what he/she can/cannot do), and the duties and responsibility of a supervising lawyer. Here are the FAQs that accompany the new rule. It’s not diploma privilege, but it’s a start.

On a related matter, the State Supreme Court says the State Bar can begin recruitment for members of the Joint Supreme Court/State Bar Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the California Bar Exam. The Commission will develop recommendations “concerning whether and what changes to make to the California Bar Exam.” The Commission’s charter will also consider “whether to adopt alternative or additional testing tools to ensure minimum competence to practice law.” It will also look at “whether the exam (or any part of it) should be administered online and/or in person.” Results from the very first online exam in another state are not encouraging.

Perhaps the members of the California Commission, once selected, might want to review New York’s experience with review of its bar exam. It’s going to be critical that the California commissioners don’t have, to use a hackneyed expression, “a dog in the fight.” But looking at the list from which potential commissioners will be selected, it would appear that some of the future commissioners not only have a dog in the fight but may also fight to the death to defend their positions.

How many times have you heard or seen a person willing to sunset his/her own job? Not very many, I would imagine. How many would be willing to say that there is a better way to test lawyer competence for purposes of bar admission? What do you think? If Joe Patrice’s recent post is any example, it may look like the fox guarding the henhouse.

How many times do the status quo defenders get to preserve the status quo?

We all know that using social media can get folks in trouble. A committee of the California Supreme Court has reminded appellate justices that if a staff member posts something to social media that is inappropriate, the whistle must be blown and necessary steps taken to prevent it from happening again. If the comment has already been published, then steps should be taken to delete or remove that comment, repudiate, or correct that. (Repudiation may not be the best course of action, given the “Streisand effect” in which an attempt to suppress or censor content on a website backfires to the chagrin of the person trying to silence it.) The judicial canons include the requirement that the appellate justices exercise reasonable direction and control over their staffs who are under their aegis.

Here’s my segue on social media. After you’ve voted, whether in person or by mail, and you’re looking for something to stream, try The Social Dilemma on Netflix. As readers know, I am not a fan of social media, looking at it as this enormous time suck when we could be doing other things. I am on LinkedIn, isn’t everybody (?) but that’s it. Watch the movie and draw your own conclusions.

Every lawyer, every person should watch it (and that includes appellate justices). You may well come away with a different view of how social media controls our lives, how it is a force for good and yet also an existential threat. You may agree with the views expressed or not, but I think it’s an important film to watch and think about, regardless of your political philosophy, your views on climate change, whether you think the earth is flat, whether you think COVID-19 is a hoax. And yes, there are many people on social media who believe that the world is indeed flat and that the virus is a hoax. I’m just saying.

The film does have a particular point of view emphasized through extensive interviews with people who were “there at the creation” in Silicon Valley. Lots of mea culpas. Lots of rueful thoughts. Lots of people who “got religion” after spending time at Google, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. If you prefer to read, rather than watch election results or stream movies, then read Dave Eggers’ book The Circle. A similar tale about the influence of social media. I found it much more menacing.

Whether you consider it social media or unsocial media, please vote. There is no excuse not to. If any of us wants to change the world or even just our little piece of it, if we don’t vote, then we have no standing to complain.

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Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

There’s a new city in Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, and that means more drama, adventure and, of course, legal issues. The Bravo franchise documents the lives of wealthy women and their families in cities such as New York, Beverly Hills, and Atlanta. The shows  offer insight into the women’s lives, revealing the mundane and the extraordinary, providing classic television moments (including table flipping, prosthetic leg-throwing, and an endless spray of thrown drinks). In a few short weeks reality television (legal television?) fans will meet the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City when Lisa Barlow, Mary Cosby, Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose, and Jen Shah attack the screen.

The Real Housewives, however, has also shared the families’ more serious legal issues, such as New Jersey’ Teresa Giudice’s prison sentence for mortgage fraud, New York’s Bethany Frankel’s unending divorce and custody battle, and Dorit Kelmsley’s swimsuit-line litigation.

The new Salt Lake City franchise, however, may take the cake in terms of most interesting from a trusts and estates perspective. It has been revealed that Mary Cosby, one of the housewives, is married to Bishop Robert Cosby, Sr., who was also the second husband of Mary’s deceased grandmother, Dr. Rosemary Redmon. Grandma Rosemary was the founder of the Faith Temple Pentecostal Church in Salt Lake City, and she died in 1997 at the age of 65. She was 20 years her husband’s senior and left a sizable estate that holds several business interests, including churches, restaurants and a radio station. Mary has been married to her step-grandfather for 20 years, and they share a child together. It is reported that Mary has inherited some of the estate as a result of the marriage.

A year after Rosemary’s death, Bishop Cosby wedded Mary, who was 24 at the time. Mary is also a  Pentecostal First Lady. It has been reported that in order for her to inherit the family business she had to wed her step-grandfather. Rosemary’s estate has been the center of an ongoing family dispute since her passing decades ago. Rosemary’s daughter, Rosalind Cazares, also a pastor,  accused her stepfather (Mary’s husband/step-grandfather) of forging documents related to the Rosemary’s property. Lawsuits ensued against Robert, and one resulted in an award of $1.2 million in damages to Rosalind from her mother’s estate. The estate litigation divided the decedent’s church, with half of the congregation supporting Rosalind and the others supporting the widower. Additionally, Rosalind made a legal application for the exhumation of Rosemary’s body, because of allegations of foul play. The exhumation, which was granted, confirmed that the decedent died of natural causes.

Mary’s is just one of many estate matters that have arisen in the Bravo universe. Beverly Hill’s Taylor Armstrong feuded with her in-laws as to the final resting place of her deceased husband. Eventually his cremated remains were divided between Taylor and Russell’s mother, buried in California and Texas, respectively. New York’s Luann de Lesseps, also known to Bravo fans as the Countess, was at one point sued by her ex-husband and children for failing to establish a trust for the children’s benefit pursuant to a Stipulation of Settlement and related Judgment of Divorce. The lawsuit was eventually withdrawn. Miami’s Alexia Echevarria, fought with her stepchildren over her house, which they claimed as part of her deceased husband’s estate and she claimed as her own property pursuant to a prenuptial agreement.

Inheritances, estates, divorces, and death make for real-life drama. As such, these legal subjects are perfect material for producers seeking to document ongoing family conflict. While court television programs may provide forums to hear the technical aspect of certain controversies, in actuality it is the realty genre where one can see the far-reaching emotional and  financial effects of family litigation. Just ask any trusts and estates attorney.

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Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com.

Every now and then, a motion is filed that’s so beautifully written that we simply wouldn’t be able to do it justice by describing it in words. Instead, we’re just going to show it to you.

Prepare to feast your eyes upon a doozy of filing. This isn’t your ordinary pro se filing, mind you. This one was prepared by Zundria Crawford, a 2014 graduate of Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law. Crawford went on to fail the July 2015 Mississippi bar exam, an administration of the test where only 51 percent of candidates were able to pass. Instead of retaking the exam, Crawford filed suit against the Mississippi Board of Bar Admissions, and she’s been in court ever since, trying to turn her failing grade into a passing one. (Keep in mind that if you fail the bar exam three times in this state, you need to go back to law school.) From alleging that her exam was misgraded to alleging that she’d discovered the state bar was involved in a cheating scheme and colluding with the NCBE to fail unsuspecting law school graduates, Crawford may keep getting knocked down but her court filings have gotten more and more interesting (and eloquent) as the years have passed.

From the plaintiff referring to the justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court as “proven tyrants, hypocrites, criminals, and tortfeasors” to crazy asides like “(Crawford laughs and laughs and laughs since these ‘dumb bastards’ had the audacity TO CHEAT on Crawford’s July 2015 MS Bar Exam and question Crawford’s ‘qualifications’ to practice law. § 97-11-1: § 73-3-2(2)(b)),” to insisting that “you disgusting muthafuckas [the Supreme Court justices] are going to follow the got damn law in THIS CASE if you have never followed the law in yo GOT DAMN LIFE!!!!,” her latest motion is a must read. Plus, she even cites to Above the Law a few times.

This is just a sample of the incredible legal rhetoric you’ll find in this legal pleading:

You shove all of this aristocratic bullshit all up in everybody else’s face and you don’t even follow the law ya damn self! Crawford shall proceed to beat y’all’s asses unconscious, kick your asses in court, and then kick your asses again and shake your hands when she’s done. And when we get through, ain’t gonn’ be no hard feelings either. (Movie: Harlem Nights, 1989).

Behold, a legal masterpiece.

Bar Reject Threatens to Beat Justices “Unconscious” [Jackson Jambalaya]

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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.

What with the rollback of the majority of its coronavirus crisis austerity measures, Biglaw may have thought it was done with COVID-19, but COVID-19 is far from done with Biglaw. The pandemic continues to rage across the globe and things are only getting worse, with certain countries already reinstituting regional lockdowns. Take, for example, what’s currently going on in Ireland. The situation has gotten so bad, so quickly, that the country has moved into the highest level of its COVID-19 restrictions, imposing a six-week shutdown in an effort to flatten the curve as cases continue to rise. More than 100,000 jobs are expected to be lost in mere days.

Given recent events, Eversheds Sutherland — an international firm that comes in at No. 35 on the Global 200 rankings — isn’t sure that there will ever be a full return to employees working full time in its Irish offices in Belfast and Dublin. Law.com International has a statement from the firm:

An Eversheds spokesperson said the firm is “very well placed to once again acclimatise to remote working” following its long-term focus on technology, but does not “envisage there will ever be a full return to the office”.

The firm has “established ‘operational groups’, leveraging the expertise of our colleagues across the world, to plan for the future of our working environment”.

“We are confident that the measures we have put in place will equip our people to meet the demands of the new normal working environment”, the spokesperson added.

Biglaw firms will be doing even more remote working as we inch toward 2021. Let’s hope things improve when it comes to COVID containment in the months to come.

Eversheds May Never Return To Full Time Office Work in Ireland [Law.com International]

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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.