Introduce Your Teenager To The Stand-Up Comedy Of Jim Jefferies In Waning Days Of Lockdown

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Here in America, the major coronavirus lockdowns have been in place for well over a month. If you want to keep yourself from going all Jack Nicholson in The Shining, there are only two ways to escape: mentally or physically.

Fortunately, I live in a state in which the middle of nowhere is only a short drive away and the governor has explicitly exempted hiking, hunting, and fishing from the list of prohibited activities. So, we packed a picnic lunch, loaded the teenager and the dog into the car, and squished through a delightfully filthy hike on a remote stretch of riverside mud. We hardly encountered another soul.

It’s the drive that’s always a bit of a challenge though. You walk a fine line with a teen in the car. If you do things exactly right, you can just barely manage to find the sweet spot between being trapped in a tiny glass box with a sullen nightmare and having to listen to the same five pop songs in a never-ending loop.

We were covered on the way there: there was some kind of Blackfeet Tribe cultural audiobook she had to listen to for school. When we reached the end of that on the way home though, after a few minutes of talking, we were veering dangerously close to a bunch of candy-coated pop beats invading my old-man ears.

But then, like an oasis shimmering on the horizon as you trudge through the desert, somehow Jim Jefferies’ gun control routine came up in our conversation. I glanced away from the road for an instant, just long enough to silently confirm with my girlfriend that we’d reached that special moment in a young woman’s life: when she is ready to be introduced to the comedy of Jim Jefferies.

Jim got through his gun control routine to wild laughter from all vehicle occupants. We watched his Freedumb special on Netflix when we got home. A few days later, I walked by the closed door of our teen’s room to hear the purr of Jim’s Australian accent emanating therefrom. She was watching Jim Jefferies on her own. I felt a swell of pride.

The girlfriend and I had been to a Jim Jefferies show about a year prior in which he berated an audience member near the front as a bad parent for bringing her teenager to his show, to the general amusement of all assembled. That could be us now!

Before the coronavirus pandemic ruined everything that brings us joy in life, I’d been planning to see Jim Jefferies perform on May 1 with my girlfriend (sans dependent) on the way to Chicago. That obviously isn’t happening anymore. But I kind of like how things came full circle for us with Jim during the coronavirus lockdown. Not only have we been watching Jim Jefferies as a family, we’ve gotten endless hours of additional entertainment and bonding time reminiscing about his routines and shouting portions of key jokes at one another (“Thanks, Jonathan!”). Now, when things reopen, we can all go see a Jim Jefferies show together.

So, if you’re looking for a way to connect with your teen during what are hopefully the final days of this lockdown, and if you’d like to escape into laughter from the shit that is the world right now, turn on some Jim Jefferies stand-up. Should you feel bad about enjoying Jim’s many vulgar rants, just paper over your shame with the veneer of respectability Jim’s achieved. Heck, his gun control routine has supposedly even been tapped as a teaching aid at some top-tier law schools.

Jim Jefferies has three specials available on Netflix at the moment (I’d start with Bare), or you can peruse several options available on Amazon for a few bucks each. You’re not going to get a better value for your lockdown entertainment dollar than that. And this is the one and only warning you’ll get from me about Jim Jefferies: if you’re offended by naughty language or just about anything else, don’t bother, you won’t like his material. Let’s just say that the next time our household teen does something foolish and gets in trouble, she’s got a get out of jail free card coming from me if her response is, “If you’re a dumb ****, and your wife or your husband is a dumb ****, guess what your f**king kids are.”

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

See You In September For The Bar Exam

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With the continuing cascade of bad news, for our profession and for everybody else in whatever profession or line of business, it’s hard to find anything positive right now. However, the ceaseless reports of Biglaw firms downsizing, rightsizing, furloughing, or just call it what it is, laying off, calls to mind, and not in a good way, what happened a decade or so ago. The Great Recession was in full flower and law school graduates took it in the shorts in ways big and small.

At least the 2010 graduates were able to take their bar exams on schedule, the concept of social distancing (and other COVID-19 terms) not even a gleam in anyone’s eyes a decade ago. Now, bar associations must figure out what to do about the July bar. Postpone it? Let the graduates have “diploma privilege” while apprenticing?

The Supreme Court of California has ordered that there will be no July 2020 bar exam. Instead, the July bar will be on September 9-10 and will take place online with remote and/or electronic proctoring. You can Google “online exam proctoring.” Lots of vendors provide it.

Before that exam, the First Year Law Students’ Examination, aka the “Baby Bar,” will be in June, also to take place online with remote and/or electronic proctoring. The court’s order says that the “State Bar shall use the experience in administering this exam to ensure a smooth online administration of the September 2020 California Bar Examination.” (My editorial comment: “Fingers crossed.”)

“Normally” (is that an oxymoron these days?) there is a second Baby Bar exam in October, but the court has ordered that postponed to November 2020 “… to maximize grading resources for the September 2020 California Bar Examination.”

The goal, said the court, is to have the State Bar “undertake every effort possible to speed the grading and final results of the exam” so that the bar takers will know whether they have passed or failed no later than December 31, 2020.

What about the Multistate? The court ordered the State Bar to work with the National Conference of Bar Examiners “to facilitate the online administration … or some variation thereof.”

A lot to digest, and none of it will make the 2020 graduates happy. The State Bar must submit a plan for how this is all going to work by May 11. If circumstances change, said the court, then these timetables for both exams might change.

The court made it clear that these adjustments to the bar exams “recognize and will advance the manifest public interest in maintaining access to justice through competent and qualified legal services.” I take that to mean no diploma privilege, no practicing law without that license.

What about the ongoing studies about the California bar examination and the cut score? The court said those studies continue.

One concern I have that I think is shared by anyone who has ever sat for a bar exam, regardless of jurisdiction. Snafus seem to be an inevitable part of bar exams; the snafus can be big, they can be small, but they happen.

A few years back, I wrote about snafus on my bar exam, which I took many years before many, if not all, of you saw the light of day. Readers piled on with their own miseries about their bar exams.

2020 graduates, you have my sympathies for your experiences yet to come. You don’t get to have a graduation, your finals will be online, and then the bar itself will be online. Celebrations, if any, will be muted and small. Hopefully, you’ll get your results by year end, assuming you’ve passed, then what kind of jobs will there be? (Calling “Debbie Downer.”)

Perhaps you could move to Utah, which is allowing law school graduates to skip the bar exam. Other states (New Jersey, Georgia, and Arizona) are extending supervised practice rules. Skip moving to California.No pass to practice here.

Does anyone other than dinosaurs or those who listen to oldies music remember this song that was extremely popular in 1966? While it’s about summer love and whether it lasts until fall, I can analogize to the postponement of the California Bar Exam until September. (Work with me here.)

Will your knowledge last until September? 2020 bar takers are going to need to retain all that information for a longer period to pass the bar. (I remember the relief that I felt when I did a brain dump after the bar exam ended the last week of July.) Now, graduates will have to continue to memorize, write practice essays, and practice MBE questions and the like while waiting longer to take the exam. Couple that with the anxiety level that is inherent in any bar exam situation. Add to that the waiting time for results. Add to that a very uncertain job market.

All of us who have shared bar exam horror stories over the years will be considered whiners and crybabies after this year. As I mentioned in a previous column, logistics are necessarily going to play a huge part in getting the court system back up and running. Logistics will also play a big role in getting the bar exam off the ground and administered successfully.

Through no fault of their own, 2020 law school graduates are going to be a test case for whether bar exams can be administered successfully online. There’s no way to sugarcoat what is to come. It’s a daunting prospect. Yes, it’s discouraging, but practicing law can be discouraging, so consider this a “practice exam.” Yeah, right.

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.

Milbank Associate Under Investigation For ‘Opportunistic’ COVID-19 Scheme

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There’s just something about a global pandemic that just inspires (some) folks to try and make an extra buck.

Ang Chong Yi is an associate in the Singapore office of Milbank. He is also one of the lawyers behind the, now defunct, website lawmentors.sg, and it’s this second thing that’s gotten him into some hot water.

Lawmentors was designed as a pay-to-play “mentor network” that claimed to have contacts at Biglaw firms in the United States and the U.K. and charged mentees between one-and-a-half to two months salary for the privilege of their expertise. The website promised “hands-on coaching and practice” to allow members to “outshine all fellow practice trainees and secure a training contract.”

All of which was supposed to help these wannabe lawyers deal with the economic upheaval surrounding COVID-19, which Lawmentors described as “a brutal fight for career survival.” The website went on say that, due to the novel coronavirus, legal “work has largely dried up.” They estimated 700 new graduates would be in competition for between 150 and 200 new jobs due to hiring freezes and other austerity measures, saying the pandemic will lead to a “shrinking legal market” and that two out of three law graduates will “never get the opportunity to practice as lawyers.”

But the Singapore Law Society is investigating the website and called its claims “speculative” and “unsubstantiated.” According to the Business Times, LawSoc president Gregory Vijayendran had this to say about Lawmentors:

We strongly caution parents and law graduates to be discerning about hungry wolves in sheep’s clothing who seek to prey financially on the vulnerability of law graduates. Such opportunistic operators and disservice providers will face the wrath of the Council of the Law Society and the Society’s right thinking members.

That’s… not mincing words. And National University of Singapore’s law dean Simon Chesterman said, “Fearmongering of this sort during a public health crisis is irresponsible and misleading.”

In response to the uproar over the website Ang said, “I meant it for interest gauging, but took it down after people said it was not right to take money from students who are just starting to look for jobs. No formal programme was started, no money was taken from them.”

Well, I guess there’s something to be said for the effectiveness of good, old-fashioned outrage.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Trump’s Meatpacking Executive Order: Where’s The Beef?

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“Mr. President, on the food supply chain is there anything your administration is doing or might be doing in the future to make sure that there is enough meat supplies?” asked a reporter yesterday at Trump’s mask-free, Oval Office grip-n-grin with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

With thousands of workers infected with coronavirus at meatpacking plants, twenty workers dead from the disease, and the Chairman of Tyson Foods blasting out a warning of impending meat shortages, Trump announced that he would be taking swift action to protect the country’s meat supply from those pesky workers who keep getting sick on the job. And from their lazy coworkers, who don’t want to show up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the processing line and risk infection themselves.

“We’re going to sign an executive order today, I believe, and that’ll solve any liability problems where they had certain liability problems, and we’ll be in very good shape.” Making clear that the issue isn’t sick workers, but sick workers who might sue their employers over unsafe working conditions.

“We’re working with Tyson, which is one of the big companies in that world.  And we always work with the farmers,” he continued. “There’s plenty of supply. There’s plenty of — as you know, there’s plenty of supply. It’s distribution, and we will probably have that today solved. It was a very unique circumstance because of liability.”

So, the problem isn’t supply, it’s liability. Or maybe it’s distribution. But it’s definitely not workers getting sick with COVID-19, okay?

The president’s impromptu arglebargling sparked panic that Trump would be forcing workers back into shuttered meatpacking plants with no ability to protect themselves from disease.

And that might still happen, but, as with most Trump pronouncements, the payoff is substantially less than promised.

The meat of the Executive Order (AHEM) designates the plants as critical defense infrastructure under the Defense Production Act. In theory, this allows Trump to unilaterally prioritize contracts, essentially forcing workers back onto the line. But, even as it grumbles incoherently in the direction of state governments, the Order is at pains to emphasize that plants should be opened in accordance with CDC and OSHA guidelines.

In addition, recent actions in some States have led to the complete closure of some large processing facilities.  Such actions may differ from or be inconsistent with interim guidance recently issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor entitled “Meat and Poultry Processing Workers and Employers” providing for the safe operation of such facilities.

Which of the 22 plants that already closed do to coronavirus outbreaks is the president referring to here? Is it the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota that became the locus of the largest coronavirus cluster in the country before it was finally shuttered? Or the one in Milan, Missouri where workers sued because the pork processing giant wouldn’t slow the line down for workers to wipe their noses after they sneezed?

Trump’s meatpacking Order makes no mention of liability. Instead it attempts to delegate Trump’s DPA powers to agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue, “to determine the proper nationwide priorities and allocation of all the materials, services, and facilities necessary to ensure the continued supply of meat and poultry, consistent with the guidance for the operations of meat and poultry processing facilities jointly issued by the CDC and OSHA.”

That guidance suggests plants to be reconfigured to allow for social distancing, with “physical barriers, such as strip curtains, plexiglass or similar materials, or other impermeable dividers or partitions, to separate meat and poultry processing workers from each other, if feasible.” It calls for dozens of modifications to regular factory operation, such as staggered shifts, sanitizing stations, and updating HR policies “so that employees are not penalized for taking sick leave if they have COVID-19.”

While no one would credit the Trump administration with excessive zeal for regulation, OSHA has already inspected several plants with COVID-19 outbreaks, and its guidelines, while not mandatory, suggest that meat and poultry production lines will have to be substantially reconfigured to meet safety standards.

So deputizing Secretary Perdue to use the DPA to enforce those guidelines probably amounts to a whole lot of nothing. Because if he actually tried use the DPA to force factories to adhere to CDC and OSHA standards in accordance with this Order, he’d wind up slowing production down even further.

Sound and fury, signifying NOTHING. As per usual.

Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with Governor DeSantis of Florida [White House Press Office]

Executive Order on Delegating Authority Under the DPA with Respect to Food Supply Chain Resources During the National Emergency Caused by the Outbreak of COVID-19 [White House Press Office]

Meat and Poultry Processing Workers and Employers Interim Guidance from CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) [CDC]

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

Could Mitch McConnell Help Speed Up The Return Of Live Sports?

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(Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

The State of Texas is planning to reopen businesses such as restaurants, theaters and malls as early as May 1. Restaurants in the State of Tennessee are already permitted to serve dine-in customers as of April 27. Meanwhile, many sports fans wait with anticipation for news surrounding when their favorite professional athletes will return to play.

Could a national effort to insulate employers from employee lawsuits related to contracting coronavirus speed up the return to play for many athletes?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell intends to bring the Senate back into session on May 4 and declared that a priority is to implement protections for employers who want to get back to work. McConnell’s plan is being referred to as a “liability shield” that not only protects employers against coronavirus-related lawsuits filed by employees, but also customers.

Sports leagues and teams will be following McConnell’s movement very closely.

“Before we start sending additional money down to states and localities, I want to make sure we protect the people we’ve already sent assistance to who are going to be set up for an avalanche of lawsuits if we don’t act,” said McConnell, who added that the country will be afraid to open up if employers are concerned that they will be sued.

Whether team and league executives will admit it or not, they are absolutely concerned about the potential of said avalanche of lawsuits. It is undoubtedly playing a large role with regard to plans to resume play of sporting events in the United States.

The National Hockey League and National Basketball Association regular seasons were being played when COVID-19 concerns spread across the United States, causing each league to indefinitely suspend their operations. Major League Baseball was about to host its annual Spring Training in Florida and Arizona followed by the start of its regular season. Spring Training was scrapped and the start of the season delayed, with no clear date as to when executives will feel comfortable allowing players onto the field and fans in the seats.

A clear concern for sports leagues and teams surrounds the legal exposure they will invite by rushing to allow fans into stadiums and arenas without a proven COVID-19 cure and prior to the release of a coronavirus vaccine. The leagues and teams need to first feel confidence in allowing their employee athletes onto the fields, courts and ice before even considering having fans in attendance.

On April 27, the NBA sent out a memorandum highlighting that teams may soon be able to conduct limited, individual workouts in cities that are not subject to government restrictions. It is targeting a date of no earlier than May 8 as the commencement date for such a change in rules, and it would come with many restrictions including that no more than four players are permitted at a facility at any one time and that group activities like practices and scrimmages remain prohibited.

While no professional sports team will benefit from federal assistance connected to the Payroll Protection Program (the Los Angeles Lakers was the only franchise to apply and receive benefits, which are being returned), McConnell’s comments could be an important consideration for those in control of sports in the United States. If his “liability shield” is established, then it could speed up the return of sports to the joy of many.

Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

More Good News From Biglaw Firms Not Cutting Back

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It’s been a few weeks since we did a roundup of firms that aren’t implementing austerity measures and with bad news dominating our coverage, we thought it was time to remind everyone out there that not every firm finds themselves struggling during the downturn. Frankly, we don’t get enough of these stories, so if your firm has issued a note of reassurance, let us know by email so we can acknowledge the firms that weren’t living on the knife’s edge of margins. We’ll be updating this piece as we see stuff.

Covington & Burling: The firm sent out a video explaining that there are no current plans to conduct either layoffs or compensation cuts to attorneys or staff and that the firm is well-positioned to weather an economic downturn. The message went further and reminded everyone that the firm didn’t need to perform any cutbacks during the last financial crisis, bolstering its credibility on this point.

Sidley: The firm was early on the work-from-home train and carried that over to resisting austerity measures. No layoffs or cuts on the horizon at this point. Additionally, the firm says it will pay summer associates for the number of weeks they agreed to work at Sidley and continue to offer a summer program even if it has to be online.

Are there other firms who have reassured attorneys that we haven’t heard about yet? Send them in! Let’s have some good news around here.

Earlier: The Biglaw Firms Rolling Out Good News, For Now

HeadshotJoe 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.

Stymied In Effort To Steer Small-Business Loans To Favored Clients (Or Anyone Else), Bankers Get Huffy

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Biglaw Firm Moves To Phase 2 Of COVID-19 Austerity Measures

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Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney has already made some COVID-19 inspired cost-cutting moves. Salaries at the firm have been cut, but that doesn’t seem to be the end of the austerity measures.

One tipster reported being given the pay cut as previously announced, then shortly after they were “terminated due to a workforce reduction.” Another said, “They are conducting layoffs, just not announcing them.”

When asked for comment, Joseph A. Dougherty, CEO and Managing Director of the firm, confirmed that some staff were furloughed and laid out their plan for summer associates and the new class of associates but made no mention of any other layoffs:

As you have previously reported, several weeks ago Buchanan temporarily adjusted compensation across all levels and furloughed a very limited number of administrative staff. We look forward to bringing these individuals back when the pandemic subsides. This week, we announced we are shortening our 2020 summer associate program to four weeks and will be offering each second year summer associate an offer for full time employment in 2021. While we expect to welcome our summer associates to our offices in July, we are fully prepared to provide an excellent experience remotely, if need be. In addition, we are deferring the start of our Fall first year associate class to January 2021. These prudent decisions reflect our commitment to our clients, our communities and our future talent.

Sounds like folks at the firm have a different perspective than management. So what’s really going on at the firm? Buchanan associates, feel free to sound off by email, by text message (646-820-8477), or by tweet (@ATLblog). A fun or insightful response — we’ll keep you anonymous — could find its way into an update to this story.

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.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Judge Rejects Uncontested Continuance Request From Attorney With COVID-19

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(Image via Getty)

Honestly, when America entered the lockdown era, I figured we’d eventually get a story about some hyper-aggressive jackhole attorney refusing to concede to a continuance just because the other side was struck down with COVID-19. It seemed inevitable since petty, overcompensating attorneys far outnumber even asymptomatic carriers in this country. What I never saw coming was a judge shooting down an uncontested request from someone laid up with COVID-19.

Judge Greg Guidry is one of those newcomers to the federal bench rammed through the Judiciary Committee on a party line vote and now sits in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Earlier this month, an attorney filed a motion that began:

For the week prior to March 27, 2020, counsel was experiencing fevers of between 102 degrees to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. On March 27, 2020, undersigned counsel for Fieldwood was hospitalized with the Covid-19 virus. On April 1, 2020, counsel was discharged from the hospital. Nevertheless, doctor’s orders were for counsel to self-quarantine through the end of April 2020.

Well… yeah. That seems pretty serious. As a backdrop, the governor of Louisiana issued a stay-at-home order through at least the end of April — and since the filing of this motion, that order has been extended to May 15 — further complicating discovery. Our stricken counsel moved, after securing the consent of all parties, to put off the trial scheduled for July to some mutually agreed better time.

This seems entirely reasonable. Therefore, Judge Guidry responds…

The Court is aware of health concerns relating to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and expects the parties to follow the guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health authorities. However, the Court notes this case has been pending since May 31, 2017 and finds a continuance in this case is not warranted at this time.

Someone really wants this case off their newly inherited calendar, don’t they? Putting aside the lunacy of telling a COVID patient to suck it up and keep taking depositions, the idea that a trial will really be happening in July is comically wishful. This isn’t a Judge Judy episode where trial prep can be slapped together over the weekend either… it’s been on the calendar since 2017 for a reason. Assuming nothing changes between now and trial, this is going to be a hefty ordeal.

It turns out that Judge Guidry’s defiance in the face of the virus only lasted six days. Chief Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown issued a general order instructing her judges to put off trials until at least August, prompting Judge Guidry to issue a curt update:

Considering the COVID-19 General Order 20-6: Amendment to General Order 20-2 to Extend Certain Deadlines, and COVID-19 General Order 20-2: March 16, 2020, Trials, In- Person Hearings & Conferences Cont. to May 1, 20202; IT IS ORDERED that the jury trial scheduled for July 13, 2020 is CONTINUED to commence the week beginning Monday, August 3, 2020 at 9:30 a.m.

At least the common sense result prevailed. Getting an extra couple of weeks may not sound like much, but enterprising counsel can accomplish a lot with an extra two weeks.

Still, no matter how irritating a case may be to preside over, you can’t punish them for getting sick.

HeadshotJoe 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.