Category: News Feeds

Don’t look now, but the Department of Homeland Security has apparently declared martial law in Portland, Oregon. For several days now, heavily armed federal troops without insignia or identification have been snatching American citizens off the streets and whisking them away in unmarked vans to prevent the dastardly crime of … graffiti. Literally.

For weeks, protesters demonstrating against police violence have scuffled with Oregon’s cops. They’ve also engaged in minor vandalism of federal property — mostly graffiti, a few smashed windows and damaged security cameras at the courthouse.

But with the president’s ratings in the tank and support for the Black Lives Matter movement rising, the Trump administration and Fox News have been blasting out dire warnings of dangerous cities where hapless Democratic mayors are held hostage by crowds of bloodthirsty anarchists.

“Far-left mayors are escalating the anti-cop crusade, and violent crime is spiraling in their cities. It’s all far-left cities where they have no understanding of what has to be done,” Trump said last week at a “Roundtable with Stakeholders Positively Impacted by Law Enforcement.”

Then he explicitly threatened to “take over” American cities using federal troops.

“Numbers are going to be coming down even if we have to go in and take over cities, because we can’t let that happen.”

And apparently he meant it, since Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf started gearing up to “take over” Portland shortly after. The pretext was “violent anarchists”, AKA racial justice protesters, with spray paint and laser pointers who “doxed” the heavily armed troops beating people exercising their First Amendment right to assemble.

“The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city,” Wolf said yesterday. “Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it.”

Not sure how graffitiing Terry Schrunk Plaza counts as violent anarchy. But this right here seems to fit the bill pretty clearly.

Last Saturday, DHS put a protestor holding a BLM sign in critical care after firing a “less lethal round” at his head. Then on Wednesday at around 2 a.m., Wolf’s shock troops descended on the streets near the federal courthouse and started grabbing up protesters, including Mark Pettibone, who was thrown into the back of a van and blindfolded after agents pulled his beanie down over his face.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports:

Blinded by his hat, in an unmarked minivan full of armed people dressed in camouflage and body armor who hadn’t identified themselves, Pettibone said he was driven around downtown before being unloaded inside a building. He wouldn’t learn until after his release that he had been inside the federal courthouse.

“It was basically a process of facing many walls and corners as they patted me down and took my picture and rummaged through my belongings,” Pettibone said. “One of them said, ‘This is a whole lot of nothing.’”

Pettibone said he was put into a cell. Soon after, two officers came in to read him his Miranda rights. They didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. He said they asked him if he wanted to waive his rights and answer some questions, but Pettibone declined and said he wanted a lawyer. The interview was terminated, and about 90 minutes later he was released. He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his arrest.

“I just happened to be wearing black on a sidewalk in downtown Portland at the time,” Pettibone said. “And that apparently is grounds for detaining me.”

And if you saw that scenario on your CrimLaw exam, you’d probably call it an arrest. Nonetheless the U.S. Marshalls Services insists that, “All United States Marshals Service arrestees have public records of arrest documenting their charges. Our agency did not arrest or detain Mark James Pettibone.”

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, some Gestapo shit. Or as Oregon Governor Kate Brown described it, “political theater from President Trump [that] has nothing to do with public safety.”

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was similarly alarmed.

Remember back in the first days of the Trump administration when Steve Bannon was homebrewing blatantly illegal executive orders in the back room and lawyers descended on American airports to fight the travel ban? Looks like it might be time for us all to bone up on the finer points of habeus petitions.

Counselors, start your engines.

Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets [OPB]

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

Joe chats with Aaron Pierce, GM of CounselLink about its latest Enterprise Legal
Management Trends Report compiling client data on outside vendor spend. The report covers the whole year, meaning the impact of COVID isn’t really reflected, but Joe and Aaron discuss what to expect from the pandemic’s impact on the client side.

Things are a mess for the law school class of 2020. Their last semester of law school was online, to call the bar exam situation a snafu is an understatement, and most have found their Biglaw start dates pushed back. So to find out there’s more delays, well, it isn’t surprising.

A few days ago, we started hearing rumors swirling about what was going on with incoming associates who planned on taking clerkships at Munger Tolles & Olson. Some claimed offers were rescinded, others that the dates were pushed back and the clerk-associates would be given pro bono jobs rather than start at the firm. So Above the Law reached out to the firm to find out exactly what is going on. A spokesperson for MTO said:

Like many firms, we’ve made the difficult decision to delay the start date for our incoming class of associates until January 2021 as a result of the pandemic. We are exploring the possibility of pro bono secondments for a small number of incoming associates (four total) who are only able to join the firm for a short period before leaving for clerkships beginning in 2021. This opportunity would allow these young attorneys to gain valuable experiences during this timeframe and to make an impact on their communities. These plans are still being developed and we will continue to keep our future colleagues apprised of updates.

So, the fate of the clerk-associates is up in the air as the firm “explor[es]” options. But at least, as of now, the clerk-associates aren’t left out in the cold.

As always, our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. If you have any additional information about new associate start dates, or how clerks are being dealt with at other firms please let us know. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

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).

Just when you thought that 2020 couldn’t get any worse, we have news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is battling cancer once again.

Ginsburg has been undergoing chemotherapy for cancerous lesions on her liver since May 19. A medical scan in February revealed the growths on her liver, and she has undergone treatment since then. “Immunotherapy first essayed proved unsuccessful,” she said in a statement. “The chemotherapy course, however, is yielding positive results. Satisfied that my treatment course is now clear, I am providing this information.”

A scan last week, on July 7, showed a significant reduction of the lesions and no new disease. “I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment,” she said. “I will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep my cancer at bay, and am able to maintain an active daily routine. Throughout, I have kept up with opinion writing and all other court work.”

That’s why we call her The Notorious RBG, folks. But what about her future on the Supreme Court? As usual, she has no plans to retire:

“I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam,” she said in a statement issued by the Supreme Court. “I remain fully able to do that.”

Ginsburg is the senior member of the high court’s four-member liberal wing. This is her fourth bout with cancer, and she’s been hospitalized twice (once in May and once earlier this week) since she was declared cancer free in January 2020.

Remember how President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, was denied a confirmation hearing in 2016 because it was an election year? That’s not going to happen this time around. Senator Mitch McConnell has said that if there were a vacancy on the Supreme Court, ‘Of course we’d fill it.”

Please pray and send healing thoughts to Justice Ginsburg for her health and well-being. We need her voice now more than ever on the Supreme Court.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Cancer Has Returned [New York Times]
Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Chemotherapy for Cancer Recurrence [National Law Journal]

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.

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.

After freezing up a bit in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the market for legal talent is starting to warm up. Here at Lateral Link, a national legal search firm, we’re seeing increased activity in multiple markets. My colleague Abby Gordon recently evaluated the state of the Boston market and my colleague Jesse Hyde did the same for the Chicago market, and both noted opportunities in select practice areas.

As a former Biglaw litigator in New York, I work with many litigation candidates, and I have a number of them interviewing with firms right now. I’ll talk about the types of associates who are getting traction with firms right now and the types of partners that firms are seeking.

On the associate side, Biglaw firms aren’t doing much hiring right now, but elite litigation boutiques are quite active. Litigation hasn’t slowed down as much as transactional practice during COVID-19, so many boutiques are busy — and looking to add to their ranks.

The tough part about the elite boutiques is that they’re more selective than many of their Biglaw counterparts. The candidates that I have in play with the boutiques have these credentials:

• Very good grades from a top 14 law school, or excellent grades from a non-T14 law school (e.g., Latin honors or Order of the Coif).
• One or more clerkships with federal district or circuit judges — the more prominent the court or the judge, the better (e.g., S.D.N.Y. or E.D.N.Y. for district judges, SCOTUS feeders for appellate judges).
• Between two and four years of experience at a top Biglaw firm — the more prestigious the firm, the better.

If you have all of these credentials and would be interested in exploring opportunities at boutiques — where you can get comparable or better compensation, greater and earlier responsibility, and better partnership prospects compared to Biglaw — please email me at dlat@laterallink.com.

On the partner side, it’s all about books of business these days. There’s no shortage of seasoned litigators with superb credentials and experience, so mere skills won’t pay the bills. In the coronavirus pandemic, firms are being fiscally conservative and conserving cash, so they aren’t in the mood to invest or take risks. Instead, they want partners who will be accretive, who will improve the firm’s bottom line, and who will take the firm’s average profits per partner up, not down.

If you have at least $3 million in portable business, I have two searches right now that could be of interest:

• An Am Law 100 firm with profits per partner well north of $3 million is looking to add an international arbitration partner or group of partners, in either New York or D.C.
• A superb litigation firm is looking to add partners in Westchester County. If you’re a Biglaw partner who lives in Westchester, works in Manhattan, and is tired of the commute, this could be very appealing.

If you’d like to learn more about either of these opportunities, please email me at dlat@laterallink.com.

Not surprisingly, given what’s going on in the world, the lateral market isn’t nearly as active as usual. But for the firms and the candidates who are willing to look, it’s a time of great opportunity.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. This post is by David Lat, 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..

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices worldwide, 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.

Computer hackers “almost certainly” part of Russian intelligence services have a new target: Covid-19 vaccine development efforts.

In a report Thursday, the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment said that the hacker group APT29, also known as “Cozy Bear” and “The Dukes,” had been targeting various organizations involved with Covid-19 vaccine development in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. throughout 2020, likely with the intent of stealing information and intellectual property. APT is a commonly used acronym for advanced persistent threat, a cybersecurity term for hacker groups that are usually sponsored by national governments.

The NCSC and CSE led the report, and they said the U.S. National Security Agency agreed with it, while another U.S. agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, endorsed the technical detail and mitigation advice.

The report does not mention any specific organizations that have been targeted. However, vaccine development efforts are underway in multiple countries and by multiple for-profit companies and research institutions. The World Health Organization currently lists 23 vaccines in clinical development and another 140 in preclinical evaluation. The list includes Russian organizations, such as the Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow and other academic institutions there and in St. Petersburg.

According to the report, Cozy Bear likely seeks to obtain authentication credentials using publicly available exploits. In targeting Covid-19 vaccine research and development, the report states that it did “basic vulnerability scanning” against external IP addresses owned by the organizations and then used public exploits when it found vulnerabilities. In certain cases, it also used custom malware programs known as WellMess and WellMail. WellMess was first reported in July 2018.

This isn’t the first time that government cybersecurity agencies have warned of the risks to organizations involved in the fight against Covid-19. In May, the NCSC, NSA and CISA issued a joint statement warning of so-called “password spraying” attacks – whereby hackers attempt to gain access to accounts with commonly used passwords – against medical research organizations and healthcare bodies, including biopharma companies. The agencies had said in April that attacks related to the coronavirus would likely become more frequent in the coming months. Citing unnamed American and British officials, Reuters had reported that Russian and Chinese hackers were suspected, though governments from both countries, as well as Iran, denied that was the case.

Photo: weerapatkiatdumrong, Getty Images

New York State currently mandates wearing a face covering when people are outside home and unable to maintain six feet of distance from others. Throughout New York, there are simple signs posted and dots on the ground.

Wear a face covering.

Seems clear enough.

Oh, but it’s not.

This weekend, when wondering around Downtown Brooklyn, I noticed various interpretations of New York State’s face covering mandate. I saw ’80s-style sweatbands, chin supports, and several folded mask bracelets.

I was curious as to who was technically complying with the letter of the law. And so, like a good lawyer, I dug into the mandate.

New York State’s mandate is more specific than the public posters. It contains two pages defining a “face covering,” detailing when and who needs to wear one, outlining what the covering may and may not be made of, explaining what needs to be covered (nose and mouth), and providing other best practices.

I wish I had been in the Zoom room when the mandate drafters (likely lawyers) predicted my Brooklyn stroll. During an edit, I envision a senior member of the mandate writing team saying something like, “If we just tell New Yorkers to wear a face covering, they may dangle a paper mask from their ear.”

The next time I’m asked why attorneys tend to be verbose when writing policies or contracts, I’ll talk about the Brooklyn fashion statements. Lawyers must contemplate the edge cases. We must remember those who focus on technicalities instead of using good faith to comply with the spirit of the language. In an ideal world, we could keep legal writing as simple as a sign on the street or a line on the pavement; but with simplicity comes vagueness and wiggle room. And that’s not always the best for a client (or for public health).

After all, Americans, New Yorkers, and Baby Unicorns, tend to push boundaries.

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.

Bar examiners striving against all data and common sense to keep their semi-annual raison d’être going like to fall back on how they are necessary to “protect the public.” And while the argument that bar exams protect the public is almost comically weak — so weak that a state supreme court couldn’t even be bothered to articulate even the thinnest defense of the test — the argument it is massively important to protecting the public that states cancel in-person bar exams in states with surging infections is incredibly strong.

In North Carolina, an applicant has retained a law firm who just sent a letter to Governor Roy Cooper imploring him to use his authority to put a stop to this madness.

There was a day when public health officials more or less agreed that in-person events weren’t necessarily dangerous if certain precautions were taken. That day passed several hundred thousand cases ago. At this point, after a breakdown in early testing and no serious contact tracing, bringing a large group of people together in an enclosed space for a prolonged period of time constitutes a superspreader event. Plain and simple.

But so far, the NC bar examiners have refused to heed these concerns. While touting minor safety precautions, the examiners were also quick to insist on liability protections, basically conceding that they are aware of the danger but they just can’t let go. This is the language of the NC Bar’s waiver:

By proceeding to take the examination, each applicant acknowledges and voluntarily assumes all risk of exposure to or infection with COVID-19 by attending the July 2020 North Carolina bar examination, and the possibility that such exposure or infection may result in personal injury, illness, permanent disability, and death.

That is macabre!

And when they’re challenged about any of this, they send their lawyer to scold people for daring to question the Great And Powerful Bar Examiners.

In yesterday’s letter, attorney Kieran Shanahan notes that the North Carolina Supreme Court has determined that it lacks the ability to halt the test and that the bar examiners have attested to coordinating their effort with the state Department of Health and Human Services. Except…

… we received records from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (“NCDHHS”) late yesterday indicating that — while NCBLE was in contact with your legal counsel, William McKinney — the NCBLE did not contact NCDHHS to start planning until June 30, 2020. Although NCBLE’s communications with NCDHHS were sparse, I am enclosing copies of the June 30, 2020 introductory emails that we received from NCDHHS with this letter. Preparing for the Bar Exam with only one month remaining may be typical for applicants, but it is wholly irresponsible for the public officials who decided to hold the exam in-person several months ago. While I understand that neither you nor anyone wants to take responsibility for the crisis that the NCBLE has created, as our courts have recently asked: “[w]ho watches the watchmen?”

Yes, these hyped safety precautions supposedly crafted in consultation with professionals from the state HHS were, per the documents, actually slapped together over the last couple of weeks. And, worse, the NCBLE drafted its waiver language before ever talking to the HHS! As the letter puts it, “This is even more egregious when you stop to consider the fact that NCBLE asked our applicants to assume all of the risks of exposure to COVID-19 before NCBLE spoke to NCDHHS to understand what those risks might be.”

Cooper, who was steadfast enough to kill the Republican National Convention in his state over health concerns has so far turned a blind eye to the prospective attorneys that the NCBLE plans to shove into the state fairgrounds in a few days. But, as Shanahan notes, the governor’s office has asserted its authority over the state executive branch to argue that bowling alleys presented “an immediate danger to public health” but hasn’t weighed in on bringing 750 graduates from across the state into an enclosed location for a couple of days. It’s a fitting contrast because, not to defend bowling alleys, but there are few social activities that involve less interaction with people you don’t know than bowling. If alleys ran with 50 percent capacity there’s almost no risk of bumping into anyone else.

And yet it’s the bowling alleys that have so far garnered official intervention while the bar examiners are left to their own devices.

It’s time to put a stop to this so that maybe, just this once, something to do with the bar exam can actually be about protecting the public.

Earlier: North Carolina Also Demands Waiver In Case It Kills Anyone With Bar Exam
Bar Exam Tells Woman To Stop Worrying About Petty Concerns Like ‘Health’ And Study More

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.