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Everyone has lots of reasons to not want to go to jail. Nowadays, everyone’s got an extra one: COVID-19, which seems to enjoy its time behind bars more than any of its roommates, and indeed more than just about anywhere that’s not filled with immunocompromised old people.

Norman Seabrook has his own reasons for not wanting to go to prison, specifically the fact that he’s going for accepting handsome bribes in handsome handbags in exchange for letting a hedge fund lose a substantial chunk of some prison guards’ pensions. But that doesn’t sound quite as sympathetic as potentially sending a 60-year-old man into a coronavirus-ridden petri dish, so let’s just go with that.

How confident is Rudy Giuliani that his legal shenanigans are about to overturn the results of the presidential election?

According to the New York Times, he’s currently lobbying Individual 1 to grant him a pre-emptive pardon — not exactly a sign of confidence that Bill Barr will be heading up the Justice Department come February.

Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt’s sources say that Giuliani has discussed a pardon with President Trump within the past week.

First his spokeswoman Christianné Allen insisted that “Mayor Giuliani cannot comment on any discussions that he has with his client.” Although it’s not entirely clear how Trump could be “his client” when Rudy is negotiating a pardon for himself.

Then Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello downplayed the discussions, saying  “He’s not concerned about this investigation, because he didn’t do anything wrong and that’s been our position from Day 1.” And if anyone knows from pardon talks, it’s Robert Costello, whom Michael Cohen has accused of dangling a pardon to keep him on-side after he flipped on Trump.

Then Rudy weighed in to deny the whole thing, because apparently he can talk about it.

Although, as Haberman points out on Twitter, Trump’s lawyer denied last week asking for a sky-high daily rate to do whatever it is he’s doing for the Trump campaign. “Giuliani also claimed his request for $20,000 a day from the campaign wasn’t true. It was in writing,” she wrote.

But what would Giuliani need a pardon for, anyway, particularly if he “didn’t do anything wrong?”

Well, how much time do you have?

There’s the investigation in the Southern District of New York into his relationship with his former associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who’ve been indicted for tax fraud and campaign finance violations.

SDNY has also issued subpoenas to former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s firm regarding work Giuliani did to lobby the Romanian government. Giuliani declined to say who the ultimate client was, but the Freeh Group says it was hired in 2016 to “conduct an independent review” of the fraud conviction of Romanian-American real estate magnate Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu.

There’s potential liability for failing to register as a lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, since Giuliani personally tried to get the Trump administration to deport cleric Fethullah Gülen at the behest of the Turkish government.

And speaking of FARA violations, there may be a whole mess of them in Ukraine. Giuliani, who routinely butt-dials reporters and had to get the Apple store to get him back into his own iPhone, described himself as a “security advisor” to the city of Kharkiv. His Ukrainian oligarch pal Pavel Fuchs described it differently, boasting that America’s Mayor “has a very positive attitude toward Ukraine, so he undertook to lobby for us.”

Similarly, it’s never been clear who bankrolled Giuliani’s work in Ukraine which led to Trump’s impeachment. In the spring of 2019, he was in negotiations with disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko to represent his interests at the Justice Department for $200,000-300,000. At the same time, Giuliani was working hand-in-glove with lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, who represented Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his effort to get out from under a fraud charge by the U.S. government.

So, yeah, he’s got some exposure.

Giuliani has always maintained that he represented his clients in a purely legal capacity, which would exempt him from FARA. Ask Paul Manafort (Georgetown Law ’74) how that one goes.

Countdown to an omnibus pardon in 3 … 2 …

Giuliani is said to have discussed a possible pardon with Trump. [NYT]
Inside Giuliani’s dual roles: Power-broker-for-hire and shadow foreign policy adviser [WaPo]

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

Two days following the publication of my last post, in which I discussed the potential implications of the European Commission’s (the Commission) preliminary decision to regulate cannabidiol (CBD) derived from hemp flower as a narcotic drug, Europe’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU), weighed in on the matter.

In a landmark interpretation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (the Single Convention), the court of five judges held that CBD derived from the entire hemp plant is not a narcotic.

In 2018, the CJEU was asked by the Court of Appeals of Aix-en-Provence to determine whether a prohibition on the marketing of CBD derived from the whole hemp plant was contrary to EU law. At issue in the case was the prosecution of a CBD company that marketed vaping products containing CBD oil extracted from the whole hemp plant, which French law prohibits (only hemp fiber and seeds may be put to commercial use). However, the CBD used in the marketed products was extracted from hemp lawfully cultivated and processed under Czech law.

Although the CJEU acknowledged that “a literal interpretation of the provisions of the Single Convention might lead to the conclusion that […] CBD […] extracted from a plant of the Cannabis genus […] constitutes a cannabis extract [….],” the court also pointed to the fact that:

[S]ince CBD does not contain a psychoactive ingredient in the current state of scientific knowledge …  it would be contrary to the purpose and general spirit of the Single Convention to include it under the definition of “drugs” within the meaning of that convention as a cannabis extract.

Through its ruling (called a “preliminary ruling” because the court was asked to interpret the law of an EU member state), the CJEU lifted the veil on the murky international legal status of lawfully produced CBD by declaring the famous cannabinoid is not a drug under the Single Convention, and thus, under EU law, which expressly refers to the Single Convention.

Consequently, EU member states are precluded from banning the marketing of lawful produced CBD products (i.e., legitimate goods) because these products fall squarely within the EU’s free movement of goods provisions, and as such, should be traded without restrictions between EU member states.

This CJEU landmark ruling is significant because it is binding on all EU member states, not just France. This means that EU governments that are cracking down on the sale and marketing of CBD products will have to amend their laws and regulations. Moreover, the ruling should help clarify and harmonize the fragmented CBD laws and regulation of EU member states. In fact, shortly after the release of the CJEU ruling, EU member states, including a group of German lawmakers, vocalized the need to promptly regulate the manufacture, sale, and marketing of CBD products in the EU.

This legal decision should also be binding on the Commission, which has yet to take a final stance on whether CBD derived from hemp flower should be treated as a narcotic in the context of novel food applications. You may recall from my last post that the Commission’s preliminary consideration for treating CBD as a narcotic drug was based on a literal reading of the Single Convention. Therefore, given the CJEU’s legal reasoning, it is hard to imagine the Commission would deviate from this rationale, though some commentators anticipate the Commission may drag its feet in recognizing the ruling for political reasons. Yet, the Commission’s decision set aside, there is no doubt that the CJEU ruling represents a huge step toward the creation of a more competitive European CBD market, one that may even facilitate the breaking of international trade barriers.

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Nathalie practices out of Harris Bricken’s Portland office and 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. For two consecutive years, Nathalie has been selected as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine, an honor bestowed on only 2.5% of eligible Oregon attorneys.  Nathalie is also a regular contributor to her firm’s Canna Law Blog.

Biglaw associates, how should you spend your bountiful bonuses? Perhaps you’re planning to buy a Peloton. Perhaps you’re planning to purchase your own Lawyerly Lair to someday be featured here on Above the Law. Or perhaps you’re planning to completely pay off your law school loans.

If you’re feeling more altruistic, how about making a charitable donation to support a good cause? Today is Giving Tuesday, and it’s a time to give back to your community, whether through donations of your time or your money. Don’t forget that your law firm may be willing to match any of your charitable contributions. Some ideas:

Regardless of whether you go with any of these charities, please consider using some of your newfound money to support a worthy cause. With partners sharing the wealth with associates, associates should share the wealth with those who are less fortunate or need legal assistance.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

It’s certainly more dangerous language, more dangerous behavior. And the way I look at it is that we are a nation of laws, and I plan to take advantage of those laws. I’ve got an exceptional team of lawyers that win in court, and I think they’re probably going to be busy.

— Christopher Krebs, who served as the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency before he was fired by President Donald Trump for telling the truth about the security of the 2020 election, after being asked during an interview if he’s concerned about his safety following rather inflammatory remarks made by Trump campaign lawyer Joe DiGenova, who called Krebs a “class A moron” who “should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”

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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.

Who could have predicted that a legal team assembled by a guy whose go-to defense is repeating “lots of people are saying” would traffic in hearsay?

Remember when the Trump campaign filed a Gordian knot of hearsay within hearsay that a Michigan judge had to untangle? It was the stuff bad law school issue spotters were made of, except it was happening for real and in a lawsuit purported to hold the fate of the presidential election in the balance.

Well, the Trump campaign takes issue with these judges questioning their grasp of hearsay and have asked higher courts to recognize that their affidavits are perfectly admissible and not hearsay at all.

Unless, of course, you define hearsay as “an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of whatever it asserts.” In which case, they’re totally hearsay.

For those who aren’t attorneys or anyone who jettisoned this subject the second they passed the bar and took up M&A so they never had to think about Evidence again, this brief is legal gobbledygook. If this person witnessed some wrongdoing, then so be it, but it’s not evidence to say that she heard someone else say that wrongdoing occurred. And it doesn’t help the matter to say, “But look, the unidentified third person wrote down that they heard about wrongdoing.”

Yes, there are instances where someone can testify to the specific things they heard or saw outside of court, but not when they’re doing so “for the truth of the matter.” For example, one could assert that, “I heard so and so say that Trump’s lawyers molest collies” for the purpose of a defamation claim, but one can’t submit that statement as proof that Trump’s lawyers, in fact, “molest collies.”

In any event, it’s pretty textbook that someone claiming that they heard poll workers say that other poll workers were saying that they were committing crimes is not the sort of thing that avoids hearsay.

But Trump’s team cites caselaw! That must be helpful for their cause right?

Or at least misguided about how to interpret this case.

Let’s credit Alyssa Leader for putting this succinctly:

Things seem to have gone awry over at Trump’s Elite Strike Force Team headquarters. If you’ve heard any rumors about it, feel free to slap them in an affidavit.

The brief is available on the next page. Shout out to the folks at Law & Crime who uploaded it.

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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.

It was only a few months ago that mega firm Dentons — we’re talking 10k attorneys worldwide — announced two of their UK offices (Watford and Aberdeen) would be shut down permanently. Employees were allowed to permanently work from home, with the option to travel to other offices (at least two hours away by train) if they choose.

Now, according to Legal Cheek, the firm is engaged in a “redundancy exercise” in the UK that could see up to 24 attorney jobs in London, Milton Keynes, and Glasgow lost. The firm noted that the cuts would be mitigated by the creation of “virtual roles,” that would be in its energy, transport and infrastructure, and non-contentious construction teams. Like the closure of the other UK offices, this move is part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in remote work as a result.

UKME CEO Jeremy Cohen commented: “Considering transformational shifts in the delivery of services sometimes means having to make proposals that, while focused on the need to build a sustainable long-term business, may regrettably impact the lives of some of our colleagues and cause uncertainty.”

He continued:

“The processes themselves are also never easy for our staff and we know that the consultation exercise in these practices will understandably cause a degree of uncertainty for some. We are very focused on supporting all potentially impacted colleagues throughout this process, and our priority now is to work towards providing them with clarity, and removing any uncertainty as soon as possible.”

Good luck to all those that now find their jobs in jeopardy during this difficult time.

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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).

      

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (all things considered). Thanks to a bonanza of bonus news, the holiday season is off to a great start. Cravath was very merry this year, stuffing associates’ stockings with good cheer and wads of cash. Thanks to the pandemic, law firm holiday parties will likely be pushed onto Zoom, but the virtual celebrations and hefty paychecks pale in comparison to what’s about to get underway: Above the Law’s twelfth annual holiday card contest. We’ve already received several emails asking about when this year’s contest would start. The answer: It starts today.

We are a legal website, so of course there are some rules to follow:

1. Because we are committed to the environment here at Breaking Media, we will consider ONLY E-CARDS. Please don’t send us paper holiday cards via snail mail this year — the Above the Law editorial team hasn’t been in our physical office since March 2020.

2. To submit an e-card, please email either a link to the card or the card itself (as an attachment) — but note that WE PREFER LINKS, if available — to tips@abovethelaw.com, subject line: “Holiday Card Contest.” The subject line is very important because it’s how we will comb through our inbox to collect the entries when picking finalists. If you don’t use the correct subject line, expect a lump of coal in your stocking.

3. Please limit submissions to holiday / Christmas cards that you view as WORTHY CONTENDERS. We’re looking for cards that are unusually clever, funny, or cool; we’re not interested in cards that are safe or boring (e.g., a beautiful winter landscape, a “Happy Holidays 2020,” and the law firm name). We’re seeking cards with some attitude, with that extra je ne sais quoi. If you send us a banal card, don’t be surprised if we make fun of it.

4. In your email, please include a BRIEF EXPLANATION of why this card is compelling — an explanation that we MIGHT QUOTE FROM if your nominee makes the finals (if you want to be anonymous, let us know). If you can’t offer an explanation, please rethink whether the card is a worthy contender (see rule #3, supra).

5. The deadline for submissions is about two weeks from today: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, at 11:59 p.m. (New York time). No exceptions. If you’re reading this post after the deadline, then you don’t read Above the Law frequently enough.

We look forward to your submissions. Thank you, and happy holidays!

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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.

Year-end bonuses shouldn’t be controversial. Indeed, at most firms, seeing as they merely duplicate the already set market rate, the feeling should be “as expected and happy about it.” But when there’s already discontent simmering at the firm, well, even more money isn’t always enough to smooth that over.

Today, Weil Gotshal announced year-end bonuses, in line with the prevailing market rate. The bonus scale is as follows (you can read the full memo on the next page) and, as is typical at the firm, came without an hours requirement:

Back in the fall, Weil was among the Biglaw firms to hand out COVID appreciation bonuses. But Weil had a unique spin on those bonuses — though they were, in theory, very large, they came with a steep billable requirement (compared with other firms that doled out the bonuses based on class year). So, even though those bonuses were in addition to the year-end bonus numbers, it caused quite a bit of consternation among associates. And now with the year-end bonuses simply a match of the prevailing market rate, well, it’s clear attorneys will have to bill a lot of hours to earn themselves full market compensation. As a tipster at the firm noted:

Disappointed in Weil.  They have always paid market bonuses without an hours requirement.  Even though they are having an exceptional year, they are paying below market bonuses for many attorneys.  For a senior associate to make a market bonus, they’d need to bill 2300+ hours.

That’s a lot of hours any year, but in 2020 it seems particularly onerous.

Of course, some folks with particularly high hours were (and remain) happy about using hours rather than seniority to hand out special bonuses. After all, younger associates had to bill far fewer hours to hit or exceed market compensation. But whatever associates thought about the special bonus system, the year-end bonuses hasn’t changed any of that.

The year-end bonuses will be paid on January 29th, 2021.

As always, we depend on 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).