Category: News Feeds

As part of its copyright reform, South Africa plans to bring in a fair use right. Despite the fact its proposal is closely modeled on fair use in American law, the copyright industry has persuaded the US government to threaten to kill an important free trade deal with South Africa if the latter dares to follow America’s example. If you thought only US copyright companies were capable of this stunningly selfish behavior, think again. It seems that the European copyright industry has been having words with the EU, which has now sent a politely threatening letter to the South African government about its copyright reform (pdf). After the usual fake compliments, it gets down to business in the following passage:

we once again regret the foreseen introduction in the South African copyright regime of provisions relating to fair use in combination with an extensive list of broadly defined and non-compensated exceptions. This is bound to result in a significant degree of legal uncertainty with negative effects on the South African creative community at large as well as on foreign investments, including the European ones.

Invoking “uncertainty” is a standard ploy, already used back in 2011 when the UK was considering bringing in fair use. It is manifestly ridiculous, since the US provides a shining example of how fair use does not engender any terrible uncertainty. America also offers a rich set of legal and commercial experiences others can draw on when they implement a fair use right. Here, “uncertainty” is just a coded way of threatening to withdraw investment in South Africa. It’s an empty threat, though, since US history shows that fair use encourages innovation, notably in the digital sector, for which investors have a huge appetite. The EU letter goes on to tip its hand about who is behind this whining:

The European right holders continue expressing their concerns to us in this regard as they have done during the consultation period. All creative sectors in the EU, film industry, music and publishing industry have pointed to the possibility of revisiting their investment plans in South Africa due to these concerns. Other sectors, such as those which are high- technology based, could also suffer as a result of legal uncertainty created by the new regime.

That last sentence is revealing. If the digital sector had actually expressed its fears about “uncertainty”, you can bet that the EU would have mentioned it as a serious issue. Since it is framed as “could also suffer as a result”, we know that this is just the EU’s hypothetical. It is an attempt to get around the awkward fact that high-tech companies love fair use in general, since it gives them far more scope to try out exciting new ideas. It’s sad to see the EU slavishly doing the bidding of copyright’s digital dinosaurs, and joining with the US in the unedifying spectacle of bullying a small nation trying to modernize its laws.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

EU Joins In The Bullying Of South Africa For Daring To Adopt US-Style Fair Use Principles

AT&T CEO Steps Down After Bungled, Megamerger-Fueled TV Failure
Hard Pass: Clearview Offers To Help Out With COVID-19 Contact Tracing
How Can Anyone Argue With A Straight Face That China’s Approach To Speech Online Is Better Than The US’s During A Pandemic

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Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.

As of this writing, Larry Klayman remains a member of the bar in good standing. And so he is free to file motions accusing U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of making “a politicized decision, little better than some other judges in this courthouse” and demanding that His Honor reverse himself for being a political hack.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off! (Spoiler alert ….)

Klayman’s outburst of derpitude came after Judge Lamberth dismissed the defamation suit filed by former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio against the New York Times for failure to demonstrate actual malice. Arpaio alleged that a 2018 Times editorial entitled “Well, at Least Sheriff Joe Isn’t Going to Congress” damaged his prospects in the 2020 Arizona Senate race to the tune of $147,500,000.  

To be clear, Arpaio had just lost the 2018 Republican senatorial primary to replace retiring Senator Jeff Flake. And during that cycle, he raised less than $3 million in total. But he had high hopes of taking John McCain’s seat in the 2020 special election, when the convicted-but-pardoned Arpaio will be a sprightly 88, during which period he intended to raise $147,500,000 from his many enthusiastic donors.

These false factual assertions are carefully and maliciously calculated to damage and injure Plaintiff Arpaio both in the law enforcement community – which is centered in this judicial district – as well as with Republican establishment and donors, which is also centered in this judicial district, in order to prevent him from successfully run for U.S. Senate in 2020 or another public office as a Republican.

Can you tell that Larry Klayman also drafted the original complaint, too?

Check out this gonzo footnote from yesterday’s Motion for Reconsideration:

Obviously, these leftist media Defendants, who covered Plaintiff Arpaio like a “wet blanket,” since he is a foil to try to harm President Trump and disparage his immigration policies, knew the score; namely that the sheriff is not a convicted felon. This simply is why actual malice was properly pled. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand this.

Actual malice is established because the media hates Donald Trump. Jeez, Judge, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist! And even though Sheriff Joe never asked for leave to amend, “if the Court was going to make such a drastic ruling as to dismiss Plaintiff Arpaio’s claims with prejudice (thereby allowing the statute of limitaions [sic] to run), then Plaintiff Apraio’s [sic, and OMG] counsel made it clear at oral argument that leave to amend clearly should have been granted.”

Yes, he did misspell his own client’s name. But the motion was five whole pages, and who’s got time to proofread that, right?

Go on, Larry, tell the judge what he can and can’t do.

This is very disappointing, especially since Plaintiff’s counsel has always commended this Court, publically [sic] and otherwise, as being one of the few politically uncompromised judges on the federal bench. But, what this Court did was not consistent with its past history and it was not up to the Court to arrogate upon itself a non-existent right to dismiss with prejudice.

In today’s least surprising news, Judge Lamberth dismissed this motion yesterday, the same day it was filed. Which just proves that this Reagan appointee is DEEP STATE.

Motion for Reconsideration [Arpaio v. Robillard, No. 1:19-cv-03366-RCL (D.D.C. April 30, 2020)]

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

I tossed my heavy backpack onto the couch, grabbed my headphones, and bolted to my backyard. Sunshine had finally arrived in upstate New York, and I was greeted by tall, vibrant shrubs, bushes, and greenery. I sighed and dragged my feet back inside.

Stupid flowers.

I was reminded that my favorite afterschool activity had abruptly ended a few days prior. For hours, while listening to music, I would swing, gently at first and then more aggressively, on my hammock. My head was getting closer and closer to the clouds.

Then, due to my frequent — and boundary-pushing — usage, down came the hammock, Sarah and all. In the legal case of hammock versus me, when the inanimate object lost, so did I. Thankfully, I barely had a bruise; it was more surprise, than harm. That was, until roots were planted in the soil. Then, my angsty teenage self was absolutely harmed.

My father, who had warned me to check the net’s structural integrity before using it as a makeshift circus prop, feared that repairing or replacing the hanging hangout would lead to an injury. After a visit to the garden store, foliage replaced the spot where my feet once kicked the earth.  It was now impossible to sway though the natural barrier.

And so, I slumped to the kitchen table, unzipped my backpack, and opened my notebook. Due to plants, high school homework time would come early for the foreseeable future.

On a recent trip to my parents’ house, my child and I pulled weeds from the flowerbed and collected blooms in a vase. We stood still as we tried to identify the creatures that snacked from the bird feeder hanging where the hammock once resided. The garden was flourishing, our hands were dirty, the house was filled with the scent of spring. I missed the hammock, but this was another form of lovely.

A couple of weeks ago, it felt like we all suddenly plunged to the ground. And now we sit inside reminiscing. Many of us were gliding through the air, oblivious that our support system was wearing thin. As we rebuild our foundation, we must carefully select what we grow and have patience as the seeds are sown. It is our duty to protect the future and ensure that our new normal, although different and imperfect, will be safe, sunny, and full of life.

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Sarah was the General Counsel / first Lawyer at Etsy and Vroom.  She’s a co-founder of The Fourth Floor, a creator and producer of Legal Madness, an NYU Law School Engelberg Center fellow, a board member, an investor, and a speaker. You can also find Sarah hammering silver, eating candy, and chasing her child. sarahfeingold.com.

I am often asked if I have “regrets” about my past and my behavior in active addiction. If I could turn back the clock, would I do things differently? If I look at my history in a vacuum, from a simple behavioral standpoint, the answer is yes. Of course, I have regrets.  Life, however, doesn’t occur in a vacuum and I don’t see the point in beating myself up daily, dwelling on the ugly and painful moments, not only for me but for people I hurt during that time.

I do however sometimes reflect on the fact that I did hurt them. I don’t bemoan the overall path that put me where I am at over 13 years in recovery, but it’s important for me to acknowledge the collateral damage along the way. I see this as a necessary process to both make living amends for my behavior and to continually build resilience for my future.

One of the issues I have struggled with in quarantine is the strong re-emergence of these feelings of regret for those “lost” years. The feelings that it was all wasted and pointless, rather than focusing on what I have control over which is how I deal with the present and beyond. I reached out to Cindy T. Graham Ph.D., a clinical psychologist for some tips on managing feelings of regret during quarantine. Here are her tips:

Regret can be a part of the recovery process. It tends to include a feeling of wasted time — weeks, months, or years — that was spent in active addition and missing out on events of one’s life. These feelings of regret at times signify unresolved feelings about the time one struggled with addiction. The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the emergence of similar feelings for some who experienced regret during their recovery period.

During this time of social distancing and sheltering-in-place there is a lot of focus on missed opportunities. Birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations have been canceled, postponed, or otherwise altered from the usual gathering of friends of loved ones. Even everyday moments of going to the gym, coffee shop, or playdates has been put on hold. This is understandably reminiscent of social occasions that were missed during active addition. Automatic negative thoughts return to the forefront and the feelings of regret come rushing back.

Tips For Managing Regret

1. Address the unresolved feelings of regret from past episodes of addiction. Spend time learning to truly forgive yourself for the time you spent battling addiction. It was a battle after all, so give yourself the space to process why you may still be upset with yourself for that lost time. Hindsight is 20/20 — trying to remember what you learned from overcoming addiction and use that to help you through this time.
2. Get to the root of the regret amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Is it possible that the feeling of being cheated out of time is partially rooted in the increased awareness of your own mortality that the coronavirus pandemic has triggered? Perhaps the regret is coming from a place of loneliness and loss of connection. It is important to get to the root cause of the feeling of regret and address it accordingly. Consulting a mental health professional can be particularly beneficial in identifying what the triggers are.
   

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   Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at brian@addictedlawyer.com.

3. Focus on the present. Try to keep perspective on the fact that you are in recovery. Automatic negative thoughts and feelings will happen so try to keep sight of the fact that while you may be feeling like you are losing out on precious time, there are many ways to stay connected and make the most of the time you are in. Live life during this pandemic in such a way that you will not feel regret when you later reflect back on this time. Said differently, would you rather one day look back at this and remember it for being a time you were stuck in regret or as a time that you allowed your prior experiences of regret and missed opportunity to propel you into living life to the fullest under the circumstances?

Early on in the pandemic, when stay-at-home orders multiplied, and courts closed to all but emergencies, a law professor in Tennessee was taking names.

Vanderbilt’s Caitlan “Cat” Moon made an appeal to those in a position to help, guide, and, importantly, keep law open. The #keeplawopen hashtag is in use, though it’s often second to Moon’s primary mission, #makelawbetter.

When Moon asked innovators to raise their hands on Twitter @inspiredcat, she got an almost-instant response, with more than 70 individuals in the legal tech arena volunteering to be advisors to anyone looking to implement change that would keep courts accessible during the crisis and create lasting change long after.

A month in, the list has nearly 250 people, from developers and technologists to legal operations experts and lawyers experienced with implementing technologies in ways that comply with lawyer regulations.

Names on the list come from just about every legal tech and legal innovation sector, including legal management consultant Bruce MacEwan of Adam Smith Esq.; James Peters, a vice president at Legal Zoom; and Jessica Bednarz, who heads the legal-incubator program at the Chicago Bar Foundation.

As much as I want to believe that the justice system will emerge from the pandemic with tools to increase access to justice, I’m thinking that any progress that increases access to justice will become a reality less out of willingness and more out of necessity.

Moon, however, is laser-focused on the possibility of lasting change.

“We can make ourselves the army of innovators known to all the leaders who really need our help right now,” she said this week over Zoom to a group of legal professionals. “In many ways, it’s a dare to ignore this wealth of energy, expertise and passion that we have.”

Moon had the idea to create this database of experts willing to advise as courts closed, and it was clear many didn’t have continuity plans that would allow them to operate.

Moon emphasized that it’s not just the courts that have failed to innovate and effectively respond to the pandemic. “I see people across the legal spectrum faced with many very hard decisions right now, for which they are largely unprepared,” she said in an early call for names. “I know there is a legal innovation community full of people with the experience, expertise, and energy to help.”

The database she is creating aims to connect the two, to get legal innovators out in the open where they can be found and learning from one another, rather than in project silos.

Close to home she is focused on prepping her students for an uncertain future and, at the same time, fast-tracking a new Institute for Practicing Legal Professionals.

But the names Moon began taking are also leading to working groups in pockets around the country and across borders.

“What I see is that some kind of deeper, broader problem-solving is going to survive this [pandemic],” said Moon, who is director of innovation design for the Program on Law and Innovation (PoLI) at Vanderbilt Law School.

We’re already seeing seeds of change in Alberta, where Doug Schweitzer, as minister of justice and solicitor general, has assembled think tanks, including the judiciary and the bar, to work on justice system improvements in the short-term, but with the expectation that these quick fixes will lead to permanent changes.

Like in the United States, in-person large docket calendars are on hold in the province. And Schweitzer is operating under an expectation that the COVID-19 disruption will continue for many more months. At the same time, there is a sudden willingness to accept and try alternatives.

“No one is holding us up to the standard of perfection,” Schweitzer said. That’s enabled an area that doesn’t even have e-filing capabilities to quickly spin up pilot projects that are running dockets through conference calls, hearings by video, and trials by video.

“All of those things are in the works,” Schweitzer said. “We want to be able to turn our courts back on in a really fast way.”

But while working on immediate needs, Schweitzer is at the same time looking to address deeper access to justice problems in Alberta. “This is really an opportunity for us to trailblaze, an opportunity for people in rural Alberta to access justice,” he said. This means leveling the playing field for lawyers and residents throughout Alberta, rather than requiring physical travel for all matters to Calgary or Edmonton.

Schweitzer said he has seen years worth of change in a matter of weeks. The change he’s seeing goes beyond the need for e-filing. He’s seeing solutions that will have lasting effects on affidavits, swearings-in, and in-person verifications, as well as for appearance requirements for routine matters.

Essentially the thinking is that if remote, secure, and trustworthy solutions for matters as critical as wills and estates exist during an emergency, why not all the time?

Schweitzer said he’s thinking that new protocols will be remote or paper communications with courts unless there are questions that the judge needs to resolve.

Moon is working with Schweitzer’s team to be sure the access continues, rather than shut down again once in-person options are safe. The biggest threat to lasting change is a quick return to prepandemic normalcy without a commitment to review pilots and quick fixes to decide what’s worth long-term development and investment.

“I do believe that it is likely that there will be a mindset shift,” Moon said. There’s no question that many naysayers were thrust into using technologies and patchwork solutions without everything falling apart. There will be lessons there and data to explore.

Brandon Greenblatt, CEO of New York-based Precision Reporters, is seeing a shift in thinking in real-time with depositions. Most lawyers would opt for in-person depositions whenever possible to best assess body language and micro-expressions that give lawyers a deeper understanding of a witness.

But do all depositions going forward need to be in-person, with litigation teams traveling to remote locations at enormous expense and commitment of time?

Greenblatt asserted that many depositions and witness interviews are just fine via video. There are techniques that allow closer, face-to-face-like viewing of witnesses as they speak. And as a bonus, there is the option for real-time transcription. The proof is in the pandemic, which has unintentionally created a proof of concept for remote depositions and more.

Greenblatt predicted that the days of strictly in-person depositions are over, especially where convenience and efficiency outweigh the expense and difficulty of holding in-person depositions.

Even when shelter-in-place orders relax and lift, attorneys are not going to travel for second-tier depositions in a case, he predicted.

“I’m not going to make the argument that remote depositions are 100 percent,” Greenblatt said. “But it’s obviously above the threshold of good enough. There’s no reason access to justice should be shut off because we’re within a few percentage points of perfect.”

And, he added, “If you can achieve 95% to 100% of the quality of an in-person deposition, at a fraction of the cost, attorneys are realizing that this is a great option to bring to their clients.”

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Molly McDonough is a longtime legal affairs writer and editor. Before launching McDonough Media, she was editor and publisher of the ABA’s flagship magazine, the ABA Journal. She writes about access to justice at A Just Society.

With 19,000 employees in 183 offices in 75 countries, most working remotely, I keep being asked when we are going back to the office. With offices in every pandemic hot spot in the world — from Wuhan to Milan — let alone places with reputations of managing the crisis, like Singapore or Seoul, we have learned that no matter what is allowed, people do not go quickly or easily back to the office. …

Lawyers, bankers, accountants, consultants, executives of all types, all are wondering when they and others like them might “go back to the office,” as if the answer will come by government edict and the only variable is timing. But, in reality, the answer is, it’s not going to happen — at least not as we once knew it — no matter what any government official says.

— Joe Andrew, global chairman of Dentons, writing in an opinion piece about what the concept of “going back to the office” means for professionals and the support staff who work with them, noting that the “literal distance between the haves and the have nots is likely going to grow even wider” if these workplaces open before a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available. Click here to read Andrew’s important essay, which deals with issues like financial instability and sexism that would be put on display if professionals push to return to the office too soon.

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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.

A few years ago, I was trying a private racketeering case to a federal jury (and I think that our firm still may be the only private law firm to obtain a plaintiff’s verdict on a RICO claim in decades). The trial went on for something like three weeks, and we had to present well over a thousand exhibits. Thankfully, one of our firm’s excellent analysts and I had a procedure where she would put up this or that exhibit fairly smoothly. I would be examining a witness when I’d say, “Can I ask Ms. X to put up Exhibit 23?” and she would immediately have it up for the judge, witness, and jury. We worked out the general flow and order before, and I would know when to pause so it went smoothly (the way juries expect after seeing so many movies about trials).

It didn’t go so smoothly for my adversary.

The several trial lawyers on the other side, one in particular, were good. But they were a bit old school. They used the overhead projector (Elmo) that most courts have, and it went fine enough (though there was some delay as papers fell or got out of order). However, at one point my adversary — a charming guy — was at the projector and had forgotten an exhibit he wanted to ask questions about. The exhibit was already in evidence. Realizing he didn’t have the document he said, with a smile, “You know, this is something I’ve been wanting to say for days. Can I ask Ms. X to put up Exhibit 23?” Before my colleague could even prepare the exhibit, the judge — who is out of central casting for what a judge should look and sound like — boomed, “No way. You have your own exhibits. Use them.” The charming adversary was soon joined by one of his colleagues, but between the two of them they couldn’t find the exhibit. And the judge continued to criticize them for wasting the jury’s time. It was not a good look, to put it mildly.

As noted, we won that RICO trial. Did we win because we were incredibly organized, and our adversaries weren’t? No and yes. I don’t think it was just our organization. But if we weren’t as organized, I frankly could not see how we would have won. We kept a dozen jurors sufficiently engaged for the better part of a month so that they could fairly render a verdict (they deliberated for a few days, poring over testimony and exhibits). As plaintiffs with the burden, and, as we know at our firm, in a terribly complex dispute like that one, where we have to present several years worth of evidence, and testimony from a gaggle of witnesses, you must be organized. Or you die.

But beyond adding this to the list of things that they don’t teach you in law school about how to be a litigator, the point is that this fairly boring, unglamorous organizational and administrative work is essential to being a successful trial lawyer and winning for your clients. It need not be as dramatic as this example. You need your admin ducks in a row as well with document and data management, with communication organization, sharing of information, recording hours, tracking expenses, ensuring you have the printer, e-discovery staff, or hotels when you have an evidentiary hearing — the list goes on. And none of it sounds all that lawyerly but handling it well is key to a lawyer’s success.

When you read To Kill a Mockingbird, you might have been inspired or enthralled. You likely didn’t think of how Atticus Finch organized the exhibits he would use for cross examination. But Finch did, and you need to pay attention to those kinds of administrative details if you want to win for clients.

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John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

Dickinson Wright, a firm that took the 128th spot on the 2019 Am Law 200, is yet another Biglaw firm that is planning for the financial fallout from COVID-19. Like so many other of its peers, the firm has decided to institute austerity measures to minimize the harm of decreased revenues.

So what is going on at the firm? Tipsters report staff layoffs. The firm has also pulled the plug on its summer associate program (though everyone who was scheduled to participate will receive an offer). And the new batch of associates scheduled to start in the fall? Postponed until January 2021.

According to reports, the firm has issued the following statement about its austerity measures:

“Our leadership has developed a tiered contingency plan for the potential of reduced revenues. This plan entails reducing discretionary spending, implementing an approximately 3% reduction in workforce, canceling our summer program yet providing everyone in that summer class an offer, and deferring our fall incoming class of associates to January.”

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

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

It was easy news to miss, since every recent headline containing the words “Am Law 100” seems to involve a story like Am Law 100 Firm Slashes Salaries or Am Law 100 Firm Furloughs Some, Slashes Salaries For All. So in case you did miss it: last week, the American Lawyer issued the latest Am Law 100 rankings.

The annual Am Law 100 rankings represent the nation’s 100 largest law firms, ranked by revenue. The new rankings, the 2020 Am Law 100, reflect the performance of Biglaw firms in 2019 — i.e., well before the coronavirus-driven economic downturn arrived.

Some might say: isn’t it a bit frivolous to focus on vanity metrics like profits per partner during such a time of crisis for Biglaw? But as Gina Passarella, editor-in-chief of the American Lawyer, noted on Twitter, firm finances are especially important at a time like this: they give us insight into which firms will pull through, and which ones … won’t.

So let’s dig right in. In terms of the big picture, 2019 was a very good year for the world of large law firms. Here are some metrics (noted by David Thomas in his insightful analysis of the rankings):

• Total revenue: $104 billion, up by 5 percent.
• Average revenue per lawyer: $1,001,289, up by 3 percent.
• Profits per equity partner: $1,967,895, up by 5 percent

These are impressive figures. As recently as 2014, boasting RPL of $1 million or more and PPP of $2 million or more put a firm in an elite club that Am Law dubbed the “Super Rich.” Now, those same figures make a firm … your average Am Law 100 firm.

“Everything we heard from clients at the beginning of 2020 was that 2019 was another good year, comparable to 2018,” Altman Weil consultant Eric Seeger told Am Law. “We had quite a few clients tell us that 2019 was a record financial year for them.”

But that was then, and this is now. Not surprisingly, the experts surveyed by Thomas and Am Law are not optimistic about 2020, expecting Biglaw to take a bath.

Of course, some firms will feel more pain than others:

Generally speaking, law firms that performed well in 2019 and have been performing well for the past couple of years are better positioned to weather the economic storm the COVID-19 pandemic is causing, [Wells Fargo’s Joe] Mendola says.

Zeughauser Group consultant Kent Zimmermann shares a similar sentiment. A law firm that is profitable has greater ”flexibility in how to manage through a crisis, particularly if there’s a significant drop in revenue,” he says.

With that background, let’s take a closer look at three key metrics — gross revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per partner — and the top 10 firms in each category.

Gross Revenue

In one sense, gross revenue is the critical metric, since the Am Law 100 consists of the 100 largest firms by revenue. A firm can have super-high profits per partner — but if its total revenue isn’t big enough, it won’t make the Am Law 100.

Here are the top 10 firms by gross revenue. You can access the full list here.

Once again, Kirkland & Ellis took the top spot, becoming the first firm to break the $4 billion mark after growing its revenue by an impressive 10.6 percent. The second-place finisher, Latham & Watkins, had even stronger growth — 11.3 percent — and racked up almost $3.8 billion in revenue.

As for the rest of the top 10 firms in the 2020 rankings, they were exactly the same as the top 10 firms in the 2019 rankings, with just some (small) changes in position. No firm moved up or down by more than a single spot.

As noted by ALM, some 41 law firms grossed more than $1 billion in 2019, up from 37 firms in 2018. Again, not long ago, breaking a billion was a major achievement for a Biglaw firm. Now, it makes a firm… slightly above average in the Am Law 100.

Revenue Per Lawyer

Many industry observers regard revenue per lawyer as the best indicator of a firm’s financial health. It can’t be manipulated as easily by gross revenue, which can be goosed by growing headcount (e.g., through a series of mergers), or profits per partner, which can be supercharged by shrinking the equity partnership (e.g., through de-equitization).

Here are the top 10 firms by revenue per lawyer. You can access the full list here.

Wachtell Lipton retained the top spot, with RPL of $3.3 million — some $1.5 million more than the second-place firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. Who says alternative fee arrangements can’t work? (In its flagship M&A practice, Wachtell Lipton generally bills based on the size and complexity of a transaction as opposed to by the hour.)

Most of the top firms by RPL remained the same. Congratulations to Gibson Dunn and Davis Polk on making the top ten this year, coming in at #9 and #10, respectively.

Profits Per Partner

And now, profits per partner or PPP, the ranking you’ve all been waiting for.

Here are the top 10 firms by profits per partner. You can access the full list here.

Once again, Wachtell Lipton leads the way, with a whopping $6.3 million in PPP for 2019. That represented a decrease of 3.1 percent from 2018, but it still left Wachtell more than $1 million ahead of its closest rival — Kirkland & Ellis, with $5.2 million in PPP (up by 3.1 percent from 2018).

Again, there wasn’t much movement in the top 10 firms. Skadden Arps returned to the top 10, in the #10 spot, but all of the other top 10 firms were in the top 10 last year. To make the top 10, a firm needed almost $4 million in revenue — an incredible sum.

The rest of the Am Law 100 also fared well in terms of partner profits. As noted by ALM, 24 firms had PPP of $3 million or more, up from 20 firms last year. For the Am Law 100 as a whole, average PPP increased by 5 percent in 2019.

Ah, 2019… it seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? Alas, 2020 is looking very, very different.

Here at Lateral Link, we believe that the current crisis presents opportunities, for both individual lawyers and for law firms. Although the associate lateral market has cooled (unless you’re in bankruptcy — in which case, please drop me a line), the lateral partner market remains active — just as it did during the last recession.

Why? For at least two reasons. First, when firms face a shrinking pie, the way to grow revenue is by grabbing a bigger slice of that smaller pie — and the way to do that is by bringing aboard partners with big books of business.

Second, as some law firms start to encounter financial trouble, the partners at these firms with strong, portable practices will start looking around. These partners will seek more stable platforms — and might even be able to “upgrade” their platforms, since the most prestigious and profitable firms will probably weather the storm better than many others.

But a firm doesn’t need to be super-prestigious or profitable in order to benefit from the current climate. If a firm is well (and conservatively) managed — with lots of liquidity, and a war chest sufficient to ride out the crisis and lure top talent — it will also be able to get in on the lateral partner action.

If you’re a partner contemplating a lateral move or a law firm interested in lateral hiring, please feel free to reach out to me or to any of my colleagues at Lateral Link. We are ready and eager to help you navigate this rapidly evolving environment — and to take advantage of the unique opportunities that it presents.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. David Lat is a managing director in the New York office, where he focuses on placing top associates, partners and partner groups into preeminent law firms around the country.

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Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.