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Some elite Biglaw firms are known for offering market-beating bonuses for their high billers. Year after year, they prove that they’re willing to pay for the most committed legal talent by adding tens of thousands of dollars to their regular year-end bonus payouts.

One of those firms is Quinn Emanuel.

The litigation powerhouse — which came in 25th place in the most recent Am Law 100 rankings, with $1.25 billion in revenue in 2019 — just announced its 2020 year-end bonus matrix, and there are some hefty rewards in store for those who truly dedicated their lives to the firm.

Associates who billed between 2100 and 2399 hours will receive a bonus equal to the market rate introduced by Baker McKenzie and later adopted by Cravath. Big billers start raking in more cash at 2400 hours. Depending on class year, those who billed 2400 hours or more will receive up to $20,000 more than market, while those who billed 2700 hours or more will receive up to $35,000 more than market.

Check out the Quinn Emanuel matrix below:

This year, QE is offering partial bonuses to those who had hours between 2000-2099, and as usual, the firm is rounding associates up to market bonuses if they just missed the 2100 cutoff. As noted in the matrix, the firm is also offering associates the Davis Polk-inspired special bonuses that have become a 2020 market standard.

There’s just one catch, and it’s a matter of who will receive those special bonuses.

“This year many of you will also receive a special bonus,” the firm’s memo reads. (The memo is available on the next page.) Many? Why not all? And if that does mean all, why use such equivocal language that seems to add another layer of eligibility? A source from the firm has the same quibble about the firm’s phrasing:

They’ve really introduced an unnecessary ambiguity regarding the special bonuses–not befitting of a firm that makes this much money and depends so much on lateral recruits. “This year many of you will also receive an additional bonus”. That’s not a commitment of any sort.

Quinn Emanuel will be paying its bonuses sometime this week, so we suppose we’ll soon find out who exactly received special bonuses at the firm.

(Flip to the next page to see the full Quinn Emanuel bonus memo.)

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!

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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.

Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP partner Avi Israeli is known for his holiday party rap skills. He’s made his way into the Above the Law pages in the past for absolutely killing it with clever year-end performances.

But with a raging pandemic putting the kibosh on annual holiday parties, would Israeli get the opportunity to do it again?

Of course he would. Though if the lyrics are to be taken literally, he found himself a little time-crunched this year. Obviously it’s packed with the sort of firm in-jokes you’d expect from a holiday party, but it’s still entertaining as always from the outsider perspective.

If you’re not in a position to watch the performance, you can jump to the next page and just catch up on the lyrics.

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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.

Surprise billing, one of the most universally reviled aspects of the U.S. healthcare system, may finally soon be banned.

The $900 billion stimulus bill, which includes a wide array of measures like support for small businesses and rental assistance, also includes “bipartisan, bicameral legislation that will end surprise billing for emergency and scheduled care,” according to a joint statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Both chambers of Congress are expected to vote on the bill Monday before sending it to President Donald Trump, CNN reported.

Surprise billing, or balance billing, refers to out-of-network charges that patients must pay, often unexpectedly. Surprise billing can occur in many scenarios, including when a patient goes to an in-network hospital but is treated by an out-of-network provider, The New York Times reported.

In the past two years, one in five insured adults received an unexpected medical bill from an out-of-network provider, according to data published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Two-thirds of adults are worried about affording unexpected medical bills for themselves and their family, and 18% of emergency department visits result in at least one surprise bill.

If passed, the measure included in the stimulus bill would ban health plans, facilities and providers from charging patients for out-of-network costs. Patients would only be required to “pay the in-network cost-sharing amount for out-of-network emergency care, for certain ancillary services provided by out-of-network providers at in-network facilities, and for out-of-network care provided at in-network facilities without the patient’s informed consent.”

Providers and payers would have a 30-day open negotiation period to settle out-of-network claims. If they are unable to reach an agreement, they would enter into a binding arbitration process, where an independent arbiter would help make the final payment decision.

The surprise billing ban would also prevent patients from being responsible for out-of-network air ambulance bills.

One of the few truly bipartisan issues in healthcare, support for banning surprise bills is widespread. A majority of Democrats and Republicans support government action to protect patients against these surprise bills, the data published in JAMA shows.

Trump has also pushed for an end to the practice, calling on lawmakers to address the unpopular practice in 2019 and issuing an executive order in September that directed Congress to take up the issue before the end of 2020, CNN reported.

On Dec. 11, members from several Congressional committees jointly released a surprise medical billing agreement. That version of the agreement saw opposition from the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association, with the former stating that it had “significant concerns with several of the provisions that would attempt to implement unworkable billing processes and transparency provisions that are duplicative and costly without clear added benefit for patients.”

America’s Health Insurance Plans, a national association for payers, added in its statement “private equity firms will continue to find ways to exploit the arbitration process to price gouge patients and raise healthcare costs for everyone.”

The latest surprise billing agreement, which is included in the stimulus package, does not differ much from the previous version, with the exception of a few changes, according to Politico. One change is that arbiters would not be able to take Medicare and Medicaid rates into account — which are usually lower than private insurance rates — when making payment decisions.

Photo credit: cat-scape, Getty Images

This has been, it is safe to say, a difficult year. One filled with loss, loneliness, misery, want, heartbreak, ennui, bad decisions. A year in which misplaced trust in venal people making choices so obviously, blinding wrong at the moment of their making as to assure they’d lead to nothing but entirely preventable and avoidable hardship. A year of otherwise lucky, ostensibly intelligent people doing things they know deep down they shouldn’t but expecting their privilege to see them through to the other side, as so many times before, ensuring that the speeding, oncoming 18-wheeler whose headlights they see heading directly for them won’t hit them, that the inevitable tragedy dictated by those decisions to ignore every red flag and every pleading friend and everything going on around them, the outcome that everyone—even, somewhere deep inside the individual in question—knows is inescapable, will somehow swerve at the last instant, sparing them, but giving the rush that they thought they needed.

This is getting to be a habit — boutique law firm Selendy & Gay, has, once again, beaten the prevailing market rate for year-end bonuses doled out in Biglaw. We get so used to thinking of Biglaw as the pinnacle of the legal profession, that it’s a good reminder that elite boutiques routinely kill it — and are willing to share that largesse with associates.

Yesterday, Selendy & Gay announced their median bonuses for associates. And, yeah, the scale at the firm blows the door off of the admittedly generous Biglaw grid. Selendy’s scale is as follows:

These are the median bonus amounts for associates who have been with the firm for at least a full year:

Class of 2013:	$174,650
Class of 2014:	$151,130
Class of 2015:	$114,309
Class of 2016:	$108,225
Class of 2017:	$80,850
Class of 2018:	$38,325
Class of 2019:	$28,013

For comparison, a class of 2013 associate at market rate Biglaw firms will take home $140,000 — that’s $100,000 in year-end bonuses and $40,000 in special bonuses. Selendy & Gay is coming in at over $34,000 more than that. For a junior associate in the class of 2019, Selendy & Gay is giving out more than $5k on top of market bonuses ($15,000 year-end plus $7,500 special is the market rate). Sure, these numbers are the median, which of course means some folks making less than that, but, importantly, some folks are making more than that.

Managing Partner Jennifer Selendy had this to say about the firm’s decision to share the wealth with their associates:

“We have had phenomenal success representing plaintiffs and defendants in trailblazing commercial and public interest cases this year, while building an inclusive, values-driven team. Our associates are central to the firm’s achievements, and they deserve commensurate rewards for their extraordinary efforts.”

Congrats to those taking home these hefty paychecks.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus 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).

* Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, is arguing for early release from home confinement. To be completely fair, most of us are confined to our homes right now… [Hill]

* Google is facing two more antitrust lawsuits filed by four publishers. [Fox Business]

* The L.A. City Attorney is warning against driving under the influence this holiday season because hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients. [KTLA]

* Attorney General Barr has unveiled new charges over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. [USA Today]

* Netflix has settled a lawsuit with the Conan Doyle estate over the film Enola Holmes. Elementary! [Hollywood Reporter]

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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.

New Technology Without Adoption Is Worse Than Doing Nothing

New Technology Without Adoption Is Worse Than Doing Nothing

Rohit Parekh – Matter365

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

When Joe Biden takes the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2021, he will be one of how many presidents of the United States that were lawyers?

Hint: These lawyers have played a prominent role in the U.S.’s executive branch since the founding of the country.

See the answer on the next page.

President Trump had quite a weekend hunkered down at the White House with his most trusted advisers. On Friday night, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, and that weird Overstock dude Patrick Byrne all trooped into the Oval Office to help Trump plan his next next steps. Was the My Pillow guy at a Christmas party, or what?

Options discussed include declaring martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as Special Counsel to investigate her claims of rampant fraud. Or, as it’s known colloquially, a coup.

But coup-ing is hard. First you have all those annoying Deep State advisors telling you stuff like, “Sir, that’s totally against the law.” As the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushed back during the loud and contentious meeting.

Mr. Cipollone told Mr. Trump there was no constitutional authority for what was being discussed, one of the people briefed on the meeting said. Other advisers from the White House and the Trump campaign delivered the same message throughout the meeting, which stretched on for a long period of time.

Even Ken Cuccinelli, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, told Giuliani that DHS has no authority to march in and unilaterally seize voting machines for Powell’s discredited witnesses to take apart looking for evidence of hacking. Yes, the same Ken Cuccinelli who tried to ban oral and anal sex as Virginia’s Attorney General. So if that guy says the government doesn’t have the power to do something, you can bet it’s pretty far outside the Overton Window.

But aside from the blatant illegality of snatching up voting machines by fiat or perhaps via executive order, there’s the minor matter of how the president and his allies think this might work.

Do they plan to send in the army? Because Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville just put out a statement confirming that “there is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.”

Homeland Security probably has the manpower, but Cucinelli already said they were out.

So, exactly who is going to go into hundreds of counties in Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada — because you know they don’t care about the machines in Mississippi or Maryland — and snatch up the tabulation equipment?

And after the dragnet, where are they going to put thousands of units of bulky equipment to ensure a chain of custody?

But even assuming Trump manages to effectuate this complicated maneuver … then what? Who’s going to examine the machines, and when? And after they dust the machines for Hugo Chávez’s fingerprints, exactly what will they be looking for? How will the tabulating devices prove anything in the absence of the actual, paper ballots?

And, not for nothing, but the weekend between Christmas and New Years isn’t an ideal time to launch a major bureaucratic undertaking. But there’s probably a federal judge or two willing to interrupt her figgy pudding to sign off on an emergency injunction, and, what the hell, make it nationwide, right? Because it’s Christmas, and we’re all feeling generous.

Even Bill Barr.

Oh, there’s going to be a mean tweet in the AG’s stocking! In fact, the president’s elite constitutional lawyer already made a special delivery.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And thankfully, this dreadful year is almost over.

Trump Weighed Naming Election Conspiracy Theorist as Special Counsel [NYT]

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

One thing I know about 2020 is that you need some good humor to survive. And it looks like Dean Stephen Mazza at University of Kansas School of Law agrees with me.

He’s written a tongue-in-cheek article about a delicious holiday treat, Pecan Pie. He tackles the burning (pun intended) question of extra crispy crusts and filling ooze that plague bakers and pokes fun at legal academia. Seriously, if you’re a legal nerd with a sweet tooth, it’s a must read.

It’s been published in the “inaugural – and perhaps only – edition of the Kansas Journal of Confections & Winter Pastries.” Which, if it were real, I would absolutely subscribe to.

The article nails the baking issue — who hasn’t fought the precarious battle of getting the filling cooked all the way through and avoiding burnt crusts? And the article is filled with legal definitions and citations to get the Blue Booker in all of us psyched.

To get a sense of what we’re talking about, check out footnote 2:

No representation is made that the recipe described in this piece is superior to any other pecan pie recipe. The piece focuses instead on procedural issues surrounding the pie’s creation. Having said that, evidence exists supporting the conclusion that, at a minimum, the pie ranks very highly when compared with pecan pies advocated by others. A recent example is illustrative. The author prepared a pecan pie using the instructions provided in this Article and delivered it to Dr. Barbara A. Bichelmeyer, currently the Provost of the University of Kansas and formerly an employee at Tippin’s Pies. The Provost responded with a thank you card stating, “This is one of the best pies I’ve ever had.” Letter from Barbara Bichelmeyer to Stephen Mazza (Dec. 1, 2020) (on file with author). Shortly thereafter, the Provost’s colleague, Linda Luckey, sent the author an email stating, “[the Provost] said it was the best pie she ever ate – more than once so know she really, really liked it.” Email from Linda Luckey to Stephen Mazza(Nov. 19, 2020, 04:01 CST) (on file with author) (emphasis added).
The Provost qualifies as an expert witness as to pies. See FED. R. EVID. 702
(setting standard for expert testimony). Indeed, she readily passes muster under the familiar Daubert five-factor weighing test. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 592–94 (1993) (setting a 5-factor test for qualifying expert witnesses). The applicability of the individual factors listed depends on the nature of the issue, the witness’s particular expertise, and the subject of the proffered testimony. See Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 151 (1999). As the Daubert Court itself held, the ultimate reliability inquiry “is a flexible one.” Daubert, 509 U.S. at 594. As such, all five factors need not be present in every case in order to support admission of the witness as an expert.
See Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 151. Finally, as the Kumho Tire Court held, a trial court’s basic “gatekeeping responsibility” applies to the admissibility of expert testimony based on “technical” and “other specialized” knowledge—such as pie tastiness—not only scientific expertise. Id. at 147.
Here, the Provost’s expert report reveals her qualifications as a pie expert. See FED. R. CIV. P. 26(a)(2)(B)(iv) (an expert witness’s report must contain “the witness’s qualifications, including a list of all publications authored in the previous 10 years”). The Provost worked at Tippin’s Pies, a world leader in pies, for some time. See About Us, TIPPIN’S PIES, https://tippinspies.com/about-us (relating Tippin’s storied history as Kansas City’s leading pie company and noting
Tippin’s is “passionate about making world-class pies.”) (last visited Dec. 13, 2020). As the North Carolina Supreme Court held, “a witness with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry may be able to describe in detail how flour, eggs, and sugar react on a molecular level when heated to 350 degrees, but would likely be less qualified to testify about the proper way to bake a cake than a … baker with no formal education.” State v. McGrady, 787 S.E.2d 1, 13 (N.C. 2016) (applying North Carolina’s version of Rule 702). For these same reasons, the Provost’s practical experience qualifies her as an expert in pie. Linda Luckey’s statements bolsters this expert testimony. Ms. Luckey’s email, of course, is admissible under the double-hearsay rule. See FED. R. EVID. 805 (“Hearsay within hearsay is not excluded by the rule against hearsay if each part of the combined statements conforms with an exception to the rule.”). Under Federal Rule of Evidence 805, if both the Provost’s statement and Ms. Luckey’s email fall under an exception to the hearsay rule, then the email is admissible despite being an out-of-court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
Here, the Provost’s statement is obviously a “present sense impression,” which is an exception to the general rule barring hearsay. See FED. R. EVID. 803(1) (“A statement describing or explaining an event or condition, made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it.”). Ms. Luckey’s email similarly falls neatly under the recorded recollection exception to the prohibition upon hearsay. See FED. R. EVID. 803(5) (“A record that: (A) is on a matter the witness once knew about but now cannot recall well enough to testify fully and accurately; (B) was made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in the witness’s memory; and (C) accurately reflects the witness’s knowledge.”); see also EEOC v. Staffmark Inv. LLC, 67 F. Supp. 3d 885 (N.D. Ill. 2014) (admitting emails under Fed. R. Evid. 803(5)).
Attempts to establish definitive proof of the recipe’s dominance when
compared with other efforts in the field of pecan pies would likely require human subject matter testing. Such testing must comply with a host of regulatory requirements, including those established by the Public Health Service Act. Pub. L. No. 93-348, §§ 201–215, 88 Stat. 342 (1974); 45 C.F.R. §§ 46.101–.409 (2020). No attempt to obtain the necessary approvals has been taken.

If you got a kick out of that, you’ll enjoy the full article.

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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).