Introducing My New ‘Mini’ Legal Technology News Podcast | LawSites

On the off chance you do not already have enough podcasts to follow, I am launching another — but I promise we will keep each episode short.

Legaltech Week is a weekly round-up and review of news in legal technology and innovation. Episodes will be short — 15 minutes or less — and we are aiming to deliver them every Friday(ish).

The format will be simple:

  • I’ll start with a five-ish minute recap of the week’s legaltech headline stories.
  • I’ll then be joined by an expert from a revolving panel for brief commentary and perspective.

Above is the first episode, which was actually recorded last Friday. It is an even-more abbreviated version than what we plan for future episodes. It took several days to get approval to list it in Apple Podcasts, which is why it was delayed.

Of course we will still produce my longer-form podcast, LawNext, which features interviews with the innovators and entrepreneurs who are driving what’s next in law.

The show is being produced by Populus Radio, the podcast production company run by Ben Ambrogi.

Subscribe to future episodes of Legaltech Week:

You should also be able to find it on whatever podcast app you use.

Sponsorship Opportunity

We will be seeking a sponsor for this podcast. If you would like details, please feel free to reach out to me.

Masa Son Invites WeWork To Sue The Only Thing Keeping It Alive

COVID-19 Tech Stipends All The Rage In Biglaw

What’s your firm doing during the COVID-19 crisis?

We’ve reported (extensively) on all the bad ish that’s happening (all the layoffs, furloughs, and salary cuts we know about), but we are also trying to make time for some of the bright spots — like the assurances associates won’t be fired. And when we let you know litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan was handing out tech budgets to make sure this whole working from home thing went smoothly, Biglaw folks wanted to make sure we knew they weren’t the only ones.

Thus far tipsters from the following Biglaw firms have lets us know about the COVID-19 tech stipends:

Skadden:

In addition to not indicating any impending negative measures — at least not yet — they have initiated a firmwide technology reimbursement to set all attorneys up with tech for home offices.  The tech includes a new laptop, two monitors, wireless keyboard/mouse, and a printer (with toner and paper).  Pretty nice, especially considering the circumstances.

Fried Frank:

[T]he Firm will be providing a one-time stipend of $350 to be paid in paychecks dated April 15, 2020. The stipend is non-taxable and is to be used for technology expenses associated with enabling employees to work from home, including the costs for monitors, printers, scanners, shredders and related supplies purchased on or after March 13, 2020

Debevoise:

Debevoise also gave a $500 tech allowance to associates payable on the first April check.

Has your firm stepped up with extra money for technology or other benefits during this global pandemic? 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).


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).

More Biglaw Firms To Cut Partner Draws Before Resorting To Layoffs, Furloughs

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A typical reduction is in the range of 30 percent. I will be surprised if at least 80 percent of the top 200 firms in the U.S. have not made such a move by April 15th.

— Law firm management consultant Patrick McKenna, commenting on the likelihood that more Biglaw firms will cut partner draws and distributions, including draws for retired partners, thanks to the coronavirus crisis. McKenna says that quite a few firms have already reduced partner draws. Click here to see the ones we know about.


Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

Need A Data Privacy Lawyer? Why Interim Talent Is A Smart Solution

If you are a company that handles and/or collects your client’s personal data, you might be in trouble. Prior to May 25, 2018, the only real data privacy protections we saw were the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted in 2000 to protect children from online predators. Then, the European Union enforced the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) as the first big regulatory shift in Data Protection since 2000, which mandated inter alia, that business enact appropriate technical and organizational measures to implement data protection, information systems must be designed with data regulations in mind, privacy settings must be revised and can be revoked, and that a Data Protection Officer (DPO) must be assigned to be responsible for managing GDPR Compliance.  Essentially, GDPR gives EU citizens greater control over their personal data, privacy and consent. 

Then the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) took effect January 1, 2020, despite some major pushback from Silicon Valley. It armed all residents of California with a comprehensive new arsenal of privacy rights, including the right to request a disclosure of any personal data shared and the right to request the permanent deletion of that data. The CCPA applies to any business, including any for-profit entity that collects consumers’ personal data, which does business in California, and satisfies at least one of the following thresholds:

  • Has annual gross revenues in excess of $25 million;
  • Buys or sells the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers or households; or
  • Earns more than half of its annual revenue from selling consumers’ personal information

Although the statute was put into effect on January 1, 2020, the only enforcement of the statute as of that date relates to suits involving data security breaches. A company cannot be a defendant in a civil action for the privacy-oriented provisions of the CCPA until July 1, 2020 – when the Attorney General can bring enforcement actions founded on any provision of the CCPA (regardless of whether such a provision relates to privacy or security, or one of the Attorney General’s regulations).

Why Interim Talent Is the Best Way to Go

If you are an in-house attorney, these rules likely affect your company and while you still must perform your normal day-to-day responsibilities, you now have so much more on your plate to prevent lawsuits for non-compliance.

In the current climate, where we are all forced to work from home, it is nearly impossible to interview suitable candidates who can join your team full-time as Privacy Officers and help with the July 1, 2020, deadline. Instead, data privacy-related work is particularly well-suited to the interim talent model because experts can join your team immediately, without required full-time overhead and the option to convert to permanent later on still exists but is not required. Here are a few other reasons why interim legal talent is a smart move for your legal team:

  • Interim talent can assist with a variety of substantive work, from providing regulatory advice to preparing and updating IT security policies. Generally, contract attorneys are professionals who require little-to-no ramp up time because they have done this job elsewhere and are just looking for their next role. They usually bring in a wealth of knowledge with transferable skills that you may not have realize you needed.
  • Your legal department may not have the budget to bring on another full-time hire. Or, if you’re a startup still in the early stages of your growth, you may not want to set the expectation for long-term employment. Sometimes it is easier to show the CEO or CFO how a contract employee is a resource that could warrant conversion or added headcount, without just outright demanding more assistance. There is no commitment to bringing these people on as full-time. You can bring someone in for a few months, which can be a nice test-run to see if they would be a fit or are a necessary addition to the team. 
  • Interim legal counsel is more cost-effective than using an outside firm that charges much higher hourly rates. Interim lawyers work at your location and charge only for the hours worked, giving you more control over legal costs. Also, they can work part-time if that would make more sense for your budget or workload.
  • With help from an experienced legal recruiter with vast industry contacts, an interim attorney can often be brought on very quickly. This is perfect if you’re in a crunch related to CCPA implementation and need help with drafting and editing policies and other tasks. Time is always of the essence. The process moves quickly; rather than requesting an attorney and interviewing for months, an experienced legal recruiter will usually provide resumes within 2–5 days of beginning a search for any role. The qualified candidates are usually ready to start ASAP without the wait of a notice period.

Data privacy is a convoluted, ever-changing area of the law. Cybercrimes are at an all-time high, costing companies billions of dollars — and irreparable customer loyalty — each year. As regulators enforce data privacy requirements with more vigor than ever before, in-house legal teams will find themselves in need of an attorney who knows the ropes. 

If another permanent legal hire is not in the cards for your department, an interim lawyer can be the most economical, efficient way forward. An experienced legal recruiter can help you tap into the pool of high-tech interim legal talent and find a lawyer who can help you navigate — and stay one step ahead of — the evolving regulatory landscape.

How Family Can Propel You To The Elite Of The Legal Profession

Cassie Chambers grew up far away from elite institutions, in the Appalachia area of Eastern Kentucky. But in this episode of The Jabot, we discuss how the strong women in her family propelled her beyond the hollers and into the top of the legal profession. Rather than get sucked into the trap of Biglaw, Cassie used her education to help the region she loves.

And Cassie has a very prestigious résumé, having graduated from Yale College, the Yale School of Public Health, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School and being a Skadden Fellow. Not content to sit on those accomplishments, Cassie has added author to her résumé, writing the recently published Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains. Join us for a great conversation about the compelling memoir.

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wears when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!


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).

The COVID Crisis Law Firm Layoff Tracker: What’s Your Firm Doing To Survive?

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The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe has impacted virtually every facet of life. The times we live in are now uncertain, the economy is going downhill, and nothing is normal anymore. If you remember what happened back in 2009, when thousands of lawyers lost their jobs thanks to the recession, you may be starting to have some flashbacks.

Major law firms have been attempting to manage their expenses by using the cost-cutting measures of salary cuts and benefits reductions, and some have even gone so far as to conduct furloughs and layoffs.

Just as we’ve done in the past when it comes to raises and bonuses, we are compiling a table of all the firms that have announced salary cuts, furloughs, and layoffs in these strange times. Today, we unveil that table so you can see exactly how the legal profession is dealing with the coronavirus crisis. We will be updating this table on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times, as more news is announced. If you see any information here that is incorrect or needs clarification, let us know.

Help us help you. Let us know what your firm is doing to survive during this unprecedented moment in time. The following firms have told employees they won’t cut salaries/conduct furloughs or have offered bonuses and special at-home tech budgets: Hueston Hennigan; Cahill Gordon.

As a little reminder, we love covering law firm news, but we need your help. As soon as you find out about salary cuts, furloughs, or layoffs at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] COVID Layoffs”). We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file.

Firm Measures Taken Who Is Affected?
Robinson Brog Layoffs Staff (unclear how many employees impacted)
Goldberg Segalla Layoffs Staff (“large numbers” impacted)
Belkin Burden Goldman Layoffs
Salary Cuts
Staff (about 2/3 of staff members laid off)
Lawyers/Staff (salaries reportedly halved)
Womble Bond Dickinson Layoffs
Furloughs
Salary Cuts
Lawyers/Staff (10 percent pay reduction for anyone making over $100K; lower percentage reductions in the $50-100K range and sub-$50K range)
Reed Smith Salary Cuts Lawyers (partners slowing down cash distributions)
Marshall Dennehey Benefit Cuts Lawyers/Staff (suspending 4 percent employer 401(k) match until 2021)
Cadwalader Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (partners to forego distributions during “peak months”; 25 percent pay cuts for associates; 25 percent pay cuts for admin staff making more than $100K; 10 percent pay cuts for admin staff making less than $100K)
Rivkin Radler Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (partners did not receive compensation in March; 20 percent pay cuts for associates and staff)
Pryor Cashman Furloughs Lawyers (applies to “associates whose workflow has been interrupted by the COVID-19 crisis”)
Baker Donelson Furloughs
Salary Cuts
Lawyers/Staff (partner draws and salary reduced; pay cuts across entire firm; some employees to be furloughed)
Allen & Overy (UK offices) Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (partners holding capital call and reducing profit distributions; associates and staff salaries frozen)
Cullen & Dykman Furloughs
Layoffs
Salary Cuts
Lawyers/Staff (at least 30 people laid off or furloughed; up to 20 percent pay cut for lawyers and staff)
Fross Zelnick Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (partners taking reduced draws; 15 percent pay cuts for associates and staff)
Curtis Salary Cuts Lawyers (25 percent pay cuts for associates)
Arent Fox Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (equity partner distributions reduced by 60 percent in March; 30 percent pay cuts for nonequity partnersl 30 percent pay cuts for counsel; 25 percent pay cuts for associates; 25 percent pay cuts for staff)
Loeb & Loeb Salary Cuts Lawyers/Staff (monthly draws reduced by 20 percent for capital partners; 15 percent pay cuts for income partners, senior counsel, of counsel, associates, senior staff; 10 percent pay cuts for paralegals and all other staff)

Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

They Can’t Find Ventilators, But The White House Did Manage To Source Golf Carts For Trump’s Summer Tee Time

It’s an emergency! No, literally. The Washington Post reports that the Secret Service signed an “emergency order” on Monday to rent a fleet of golf carts from Capitol Golf Cars and Utility Vehicles, a West Virginia company.

For a mere $45,000, an unnamed “dignitary” will ride in style around Sterling, Virginia where Trump’s Potomac Falls club is located. His preferred courses in Florida and New Jersey are closed, but Governor Northam’s stay-at-home order allows golf courses to remain open in Virginia. We’re all supposed to wear masks to walk the dog, but golf is fine as long as players abide by social distancing, remaining six feet apart, and don’t share carts. Hence the need to reserve an entire fleet of vehicles for this “emergency” golf situation.

Is it any wonder that Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin has been fighting tooth and nail to bring the Secret Service back under the aegis of the Treasury and prevent all that embarrassing, mandatory disclosure to Congress of the agency’s spending?

This isn’t a coronavirus emergency, or at least, not exactly. It’s an emergency because the only Trump-branded course available for the president to play on while the rest of country is hunkered down trying to flatten the curve is thirty miles west in Virginia, and presumably the Secret Service needed to get those golf carts rented STAT before they were all gone.

“[T]he term was used to signal a need for expedited handling of the procurement due to deadlines within the agency’s business processes,” explained Secret Service spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan, who would neither confirm nor deny that the “dignitary” in question is the president. But Trump has been unable to golf at all since March 8, so cue those sirens!

The Post reports that the Secret Service has already paid upwards of $420,000 for golf cart rentals, some of it to the Trump Organization directly. That works out to a mere $1,687 for each of the 249 days Trump spent at his clubs since becoming president. What a deal!

Of course, that doesn’t take into account the estimated $132 million American taxpayers shelled out for trips to Trump’s courses since his inauguration, according to the Trump Golf Count website. But that was before the coronavirus pandemic. Before the ten million Americans filing for unemployment in the past two weeks. And the hundred million of us huddled in our houses, homeschooling our kids, worrying about our job prospects, wondering if it’s safe to go to the grocery store, and downloading patterns to sew our own face masks.

“Golf is an excellent avenue for exercise, camaraderie and provides a much-needed distraction,” the club’s manager Kevin Morris wrote Monday in an email obtained by the Post.

It’s a global pandemic and the Pentagon is trying to source 100,000 body bags. Time for some presidential distraction!

Add to list Secret Service signs contract this week to rent golf carts in town of Trump club [Washington Post]


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

UVA Grants Waiver, Allows National Guard Student To Continue Studies

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Yesterday, we learned that the University of Virginia School of Law informed a member of the class of 2022, Frannie Skardon, that the school felt she would have to withdraw and retake her classes in 2021 because she was called up as a member of the New York Army National Guard. The school gave her 24 hours to explain why she should be able to stay in school to the Academic Review Committee.

We’re happy to report that the Committee is welcoming Skardon back to class.

Skardon informed the public in a letter to the editor of Virginia Law Weekly:

I would like to thank every person who signed my petition, wrote a letter, or shared my story. I am very moved at the outpouring of support and cannot thank each one of you enough. In less than a day, I received over 140 emails and 5,700 signatures.

This is one of those stories — often rare in the legal world — where common sense prevailed. Skardon’s prior statement made clear that her unit had adjusted her work schedule to allow her to remain fully engaged in class, so there really was no reason to turn her away.

But there really was no reason to have put her through any of this in the first place. As we pointed out yesterday, Columbia faced the exact same issue and celebrated the student rather than create an arbitrary 24-hour review process. Tipsters from UVA Law told us overnight that the students and faculty were more or less in lockstep in supporting Skardon’s plight. This is just one of those unfortunate situations where somewhere along the chain, someone decided to let the text overwhelm common decency.

Thankfully, the school ultimately got it right.

Earlier: UVA Deciding Whether To Force Student To Withdraw From Law School Because Her National Guard Unit Was Called Up


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.