Category: News Feeds

• Ed. Note: As the decade comes to a close, Above the Law presents you a special Trivia Question of the Day series in remembrance of the Biglaw firms we lost in the 2010s.

What now defunct Biglaw firm was founded in 1933 in San Francisco?

Hint: The firm’s eventual dissolution was preceded by a rash of partner defections throughout 2017 (which Above the Law covered extensively, natch), before eventually calling it quits in early 2018.

See the answer on the next page.

Alec Baldwin received one of the nicest holiday gifts you can get if you are a public person: a Manhattan judge dismissed a slander claim against him. Happy Holidays, Best Jack Ryan.

Baldwin was sued for slander and assault & battery after a 2018 parking dispute. Baldwin claims Wojciech Cieszkowski… stole his parking spot. Cieszkowski claims that Baldwin shoved him and punched him.

Losing a parking spot is, like, a thing that happens to us “regular” people all the time in New York. Well, not to me. When I drive the family in for a day in the city, I use a parking garage. Because paying $55 to park for an afternoon is preferable to maybe parking where Alec Baldwin wants to.

Judge David Cohen ordered both Baldwin and Cieszkowski to appear for a preliminary hearing in February over the alleged assault & battery (Baldwin claims he merely shoved Cieszkowski, but didn’t punch him). But Judge Cohen tossed Cieszkowski’s defamation suit, which stems not directly from the parking incident, but from smack-talk Baldwin laid down on Ellen. Yes, the only thing that would make this story more “New York” would be if Chris Rock saw the whole thing go down on his way to a Mets game, but was distracted because Anthony Weiner sent him an unsolicited dick pick right as Baldwin started punching the guy.

From NBC News:

The slander claim centered on comments Baldwin made in February on Ellen DeGeneres’ show in which the actor said, “I thought he was going to run my wife over with his car when he was stealing my parking spot” and similar comments on Howard Stern’s show in March, according to the documents.

The judge wrote in his order that Baldwin’s comments that Cieszkowski allegedly drove fast and aggressively did not rise to the level of accusing Cieszkowski of a serious crime.

“They constitute every day words used to describe driving by the public,” Cohen wrote.

I accidentally cut somebody off when I was making a left early this year: the dude raced to catch me at the next stop light, got out of his car, pounded on my window (I rolled them up when I saw him coming), noticed my kid in the back seat, and screamed “You’re lucky you have your kid with you or I’d kick your fucking ass.” I thanked him for respecting my child and drove away. That man was not Alec Baldwin, but if it had been I wouldn’t have told you because who needs the aggravation.

Be safe out there.

Judge tosses slander part of suit against Alec Baldwin over parking-spot scuffle [NBC News]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

The 5th Circuit is a largely successful experiment for the jurisprudence of Trumpism. And in the hands of the nation’s most radically conservative judges, it has become the court where justice goes to die.

—Mark Joseph Stern, writing for Slate, explaining how the spate of Trump appointees to the Fifth Circuit has pushed the circuit’s jurisprudence to the extreme right in 2019. Stern notes the transformed court, “quickly got to work translating right-wing priorities into legal doctrine that will govern generations.”

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).

Technically, firms aren’t obligated to pay attorneys to purchase the tools of their trade. Law firms weren’t covering dry cleaning all those years when a suit was de rigueur. But keeping a clean suit isn’t the same as keeping plugged into the law firm matrix. Tech stipends guaranteed that associates would stay available around the clock and purchased top-of-the-line tools. It’s a relatively cheap perk that law firms can offer that has the added benefit of helping the firm. That’s why so many top firms do it.

But once a firm offers a stipend, it’s functionally increased the associate’s salary by taking a key expense off the lawyer’s plate. So when it tries to cheap out, it’s a real slap in the face. Days after learning that Womble was cheaping out on associates, Venable is following suit.

This is pure bullshit. “voice and data plans have become even more competitive”? Only in finding new fees to add. In 2010, Verizon’s unlimited data plan was $29.99/month. By 2018, Verizon’s unlimited data plan started at $75/month. Today the company boasts multiple “unlimited” plans banking on consumers too stupid to understand the definition of the word “unlimited.” The closest thing to an actual unlimited plan from Verizon right now is going for $70-$90/month. If anything, costs are going to keep going up as carriers package the same service under new brand names to justify charging more and more.

The loss of the stipend is bad, but the disingenuousness is so much worse. Trying to pawn this off by straight up lying about the price of data shows a profound disrespect for the firm’s workforce. The reality is, the firm is betting that associates will probably buy state of the art phones and the biggest data plans anyway. Smartphone culture is ubiquitous and the population of lawyers willing to buy a flip phone just to get out of responding to 2 a.m. emails is almost non-existent, making this an easy place to cut expenses. And they’re probably right about that.

But it’s still a pay cut and it’s still a raw deal for folks who’ve relied on that money for the last few years.

Earlier: Wither The Law Firm Technology Subsidy?
Biglaw Firm Blows Competition Out Of The Water With Tech Spending Stipend For Associates
Actually, THIS Tech Stipend Blows The Competition Out Of The Water

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.

Phase 3 is just two steps down from full-blown famine, the USAID-funded Fewsnet said in an emailed statement on Friday. The forecast for the region is for “below average rainfall,” it said.

Parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi will also be affected, it added.

It’s the second drought in as many years. “Many areas of the region are likely to face a second consecutive poor rainfall season and harvest,” the organisation warned.

That’s particularly bad for Zimbabwe where the “poor macro-economy is negatively affecting planting and germination rates,” it said. Millions of rural Zimbabweans are too poor to plant and farm corn, the country’s staple food. Zimbabwe faces an economic crisis where shortages of cash, fuel and electricity cripple people’s access to basic food.

“High staple prices in the region are contributing to below-average purchasing power for a significant number of poor households,” Fewsnet said, mainly because prices are trending 5% to 10% above the five-year average in South Africa, the region’s biggest producer and the source of much of the region’s milled corn.

Farmers in Zimbabwe traditionally plant corn in November when the rainy season begins. So far, they’ve received as little as 55% of normal rainfall, with the luckiest receiving 85%.

Post published in: Featured

For better or worse, Biglaw is more of a business than it ever has been. It’s no longer the case that you join a firm after law school, work hard and make partner, and remain at the firm until you retire or die. Instead, partners regularly part ways with their longtime firms, in search of better platforms — and bigger paychecks.

In this environment, it’s more important than ever for lawyers — and not just partners, but counsel and associates as well — to understand and excel at business development and marketing. If you want a long and successful career at a law firm, you need to be not just an excellent attorney but also a talented marketer.

How can you become a Biglaw business-development whiz? It’s not easy; many major rainmakers will tell you that it took them years to master the art. But you can definitely give yourself a head start through reading and research.

My recommendation: Start with Best Practices in Law Firm Business Development and Marketing by Deborah Farone, published earlier this year by the Practising Law Institute (PLI). Farone, the founder of the Farone Advisors consultancy and former chief marketing officer at two of the nation’s finest firms, Cravath and Debevoise, interviewed numerous Biglaw business generators, as well as other industry experts, to learn the secrets of their success.

I recently spoke with Deborah Farone about her book and about Biglaw business development more generally. Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

What inspired you to write the book?

I felt that there was a real need in the marketplace to study the best practices in business development. I knew there was keen interest in two related subjects: One was in learning what it was that certain law firms were doing to consistently drive profitability and foster a positive culture, and the other was the curiosity about the habits of great rainmakers.

Around this same time, as I was thinking about starting a consulting practice, I was approached by PLI to write a book on legal marketing. Although I knew a lot about the world of large law firms and their operations, I always wanted to learn about best practices and innovation in other sectors of the legal profession, including midsize firms and boutiques. Conducting the research with academics, technologists, and other thought leaders, and writing a book was an ideal opportunity to do this.

As I know from my own experience, writing a book is a challenging and demanding endeavor. What did you think of the process?

I gave myself a year to write it, and I finished within that year. I mapped out a series of deadlines and devoted every morning from 6 to 11 to work on the book, assuming I wasn’t traveling to a client’s office. I interviewed more than 60 people for the book, so it involved a lot of juggling of schedules. I had to attack it in a very organized and disciplined way to complete the project.

Your book isn’t just a primer on business development, it’s also a portrait of Biglaw over time. I love the opening, where you paint a vivid picture of what Debevoise was like back in 1989. What would you identify as the single biggest change in this world over the past three decades?

One big change that reverberates throughout many parts of the profession is that general counsel are in the driver’s seat more than ever before. Compared to their predecessors, today’s GCs are very sophisticated consumers of legal services, command larger departments, and have more tools at their disposal. In the past, if the GC had a new legal problem, they’d immediately look to their outside law firm. Today, they might turn to hiring additional lawyers in-house at a lower cost or using an alternative legal services provider. They’ve also acquired technology to address recurring issues and, as we’ve seen by the rise in influence of CLOC, brainy experts in legal operations are also there to help protect the company and manage legal costs.

What ramifications does this have for legal marketing?

When marketing their services, firms need to ask themselves: Are we doing something that adds value? Are we providing a service that a GC can’t simply do in-house? This thinking requires law firms to be more strategic in their offerings and in their branding. It is why many more firms are developing strategic plans for key practices or for entire firms. They are working to identify the areas where they can provide exceptional value and differentiate themselves from the firm down the street.

Have law firms risen to the challenge? Have they gotten better at business development and marketing?

Some have. In the book, I focus on innovative firms — firms like Orrick and Gunderson Dettmer, to name a few — and what they’re doing to succeed in business development. Marketing has to be involved, of course, but so does management. The focus needs to be all hands on deck, focusing on the client.

Based on your research, can you offer some advice on how Biglaw partners can work most effectively with their Chief Marketing Officers and marketing teams?

Marketing can’t be a back-office department that works somewhere in the Ozarks. Marketing folks need to be involved in the strategic direction of the firm. For example, when a firm hires a lateral partner, the marketing department should have a hand in everything from helping to think about how the lateral will fit into the business, what services they will bring to clients, and what the firm can do to ensure there is support for the lateral to succeed in their practice. The CMOs I’ve met are incredibly talented, but at times they’re underutilized by their firms when it comes to their strategic capability.

Firm leadership needs to be in regular communication with their marketing group to let them know not only the state of the firm and what is transpiring, but to communicate that their work is central to the operations of the firm. At Cravath, both Evan Chesler and Allen Parker met with my department regularly to let us know about new opportunities and their goals for the firm. This conveyed to the marketing department that they were an integral part of the firm and on the same team as the lawyers.

You mentioned integrating lateral partners, a subject of great interest to me these days. Have firms gotten better about this process?

Again, some have, and some haven’t. Today, many have a well-run integration program set up well before the partner even accepts the offer. They are thinking: Which clients will potentially use this partner? To which clients should the new partner be introduced, and by whom? Firms shouldn’t just count on lateral partners spinning gold from their own contacts when they arrive. If firms truly collaborate with new partners, the new partners are much more likely to stick. Close to 50 percent of lateral partners end up leaving the firm after five years. It’s expensive to bring on a lateral, so it behooves the firms to think seriously about how the partner will fit into the firm culture and business.

Speaking of law firm culture, how does it affect marketing and business development?

Firm leaders are so busy that they don’t always have time to stop and think about culture as a vital factor in the firm’s success, but if you think about it, culture is often the reason that firms maintain clients and talent, and grow revenue. If you have a culture where partners genuinely like each other, collaborate on bringing in new matters and serving their clients, you’ll have a much more robust business.

Dr. Heidi Gardner of Harvard has demonstrated this in her research. She found that if a client is served by more than one practice, there’s more of a chance of what she calls “stickiness,” and the firm is much more likely to retain the client. This requires a culture where partners like working with each other and have a compensation system that rewards this type of behavior. If you don’t pay attention to culture and just “let things happen,” you lose an opportunity to develop a stronger firm.

Turning to associates, I personally think it’s good for them to start thinking about and understanding, early in their careers, how the business of Biglaw works (and Above the Law aims to help on this front). Do you have any recommendations for associates on what they can do in terms of BD?

I agree. It’s never too early to start thinking about how you’re going to develop a practice, whether you’re planning to stay at your current firm or head someplace else. And that means building relationships. Associates need to work within the paradigm and rules of their own firms, but there are steps most can take.

Foremost, associates should develop relationships among themselves — their officemate might be a GC someday — and outside of the firm as well. This might involve using LinkedIn to stay in touch with business contacts, getting involved in leadership roles within bar associations, or serving on the board of a nonprofit in which you have an interest. I was on the board of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York for many years and, from that experience, I met a host of people in various areas of business and industries, including banking and pharmaceuticals, who I would not have necessarily met in my marketing role.

And what can firms do to encourage and support their associates in these efforts?

Many firms provide forums for their associates to get to know colleagues at their level at the client, whether through substantive legal work or social activities. Some give associates a budget to take the client to lunch or an event. This helps create a “zippering effect,” where the firm has contact with the client at all different levels, and it also allows the associate to develop their business development skill.

Firms often tell associates, “Your job is to learn to be a great lawyer.” I agree, but I don’t think this is mutually exclusive with teaching them client and business development skills. If you don’t give associates training and exposure in business development and client service, you end up with a class of partners that has never done it before. Then you are in a position of having to train folks to acquire new habits and break old ones. The new partners have also missed out on years of making valuable connections.

I have been to a number of firms to speak with partners and senior associates. They want to learn how to develop business, and they are interested in knowing how others in the profession do this. Lawyers tend to look for precedent, and I think by providing examples of behavior that has worked elsewhere, they are able to think about and incorporate what will work for them,

What about business development and diversity? How do these concerns relate to each other?

Of course, business development isn’t just an issue for diverse lawyers, it’s an issue for everyone. Firms should give everyone they tools they need for business development. We need to be sure that we are reaching everyone and spend extra time with those who need it most, regardless of their background.

Marketers can play a role in the conversation in terms of making sure firms recruit diverse candidates and retain and develop diverse lawyers. Firms are starting to track to see that diverse lawyers are being given the same assignments as everyone else. Firms need to ensure that diverse lawyers have the skills and exposure they need to develop their practices.

Looking to the future, how will technology and innovation affect marketing and business development?

Today’s legal technology is amazing, and there are wonderful tools that streamline processes that used to take lawyers a lot of time. Firms can provide equal if not better service in a more cost-effective way. Marketers can spend less time putting together reports and regression analyses and more time involved in strategic projects.

But the relationship aspect of doing business is still so vital. People want to work with people they like and trust. If the client doesn’t trust you, the innovative George Jetson environment you’ve created doesn’t matter. Skills, reputation, and relationships are really everything in business.

So very true. Congratulations again on the book, Deborah, and thanks for taking the time to share your insights and advice!

David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.

Sutter Health will pay $575 million to settle allegations that the Sacramento-based health system engaged in anticompetitive practices that led to higher costs for patients.

One of Northern California’s largest health systems, Sutter Health employs roughly 12,000 physicians, and has 24 hospitals and 36 surgery centers in its network.

Though the California Attorney General and Sutter Health previously announced the settlement in October, they did not disclose the terms until Dec. 20. If approved by the court, the sweeping terms of the settlement may set a tone for other large health systems across the state.

“This first-in-the-nation comprehensive settlement should send a clear message to the markets: if you’re looking to consolidate for any reason other than efficiency that delivers better quality for a lower price, think again,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a news release.

Per the terms, Sutter Health must pay $575 million to cover class action compensation and legal costs. The health system must also cease all-or-nothing contracting deals with payers, limit what it charges for out-of-network services, work with a court-approved compliance monitor for at least 10 years, and must allow insurers to provide plan members with information on pricing, quality and cost. The nonprofit must also meet clearly set definitions of clinical integration, meaning “…it must meet strict standards beyond regional similarities or the mere sharing of an electronic health record, and must be integrating care in a manner that takes into consideration the quality of care to the patient population,” according to the settlement.

Flo De Benedetto, Sutter Health’s general counsel, said in a statement that the organization was “committed to keeping our care connected so patients continue to receive affordable, high-quality, personalized and coordinated care. Despite the increasing cost of care and operating in high-wage markets, we remain focused on making healthcare more affordable for our patients.

“We were able to resolve this matter in a way that enables Sutter Health to maintain our integrated network and ability to provide patients with access to affordable, high-quality care. Together with the Attorney General, the parties selected an experienced monitor who will oversee the agreement, which specifies parameters for contracting between Sutter Health and insurance companies going forward,” Di Benedetto stated.

In the future, Sutter Health will have to evaluate future capital investments based on the impact of the settlement, she added. According to Sutter Health’s unaudited financial statements, the nonprofit finished the quarter ending Sept. 30 with an operating loss of $613 million, down from a net profit of $49 million during the third quarter last year.

The suit, originally brought against Sutter Health by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Employers Benefit Trust in 2014, alleged that Sutter Health used its market dominance to prevent insurers from carving out narrower networks that would exclude some of its facilities. The case was later consolidated with a separate lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in 2018.

According to the complaint, Sutter Health acquired significant market concentration after its acquisition of Summit Medical Center in 2000.  The California Attorney General’s complaint alleged that shortly after, Sutter Health began bundling together its providers, requiring payers to contract for them on a system-wide basis.

Sutter also allegedly used other measures to prevent the formation of narrow networks that might exclude some of its providers, including high out-of-network costs and provisions that restricted health plans from putting its providers in any tier other than the most favored benefit tier. The health system also used confidentiality provisions that restricted health plans’ ability to provide comparisons about price and quality to plan members, according to the complaint.

The settlement must be approved by the court before it goes into effect, with a hearing set for Feb. 25.

Photo credit:  zimmytws, Getty Images 

HARARE – Last week, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Zimbabwe completed its last cash distribution of 2019, which supported some 19,000 vulnerable residents in Harare’s suburban district of Epworth.

Those deemed most food insecure have been receiving monthly cash transfers from WFP since June, as part of an urban pilot project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and the EU’s branch of European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).
This year was the first time WFP provided assistance to an urban area in Zimbabwe.

Next year, WFP will expand its urban assistance programme across eight districts, nationwide. It will continue providing cash-based transfers on a monthly basis, to those who need it most.

s a result of this year’s severe drought, economic downturn and Cyclone Idai, around 8 million people were pushed into severe hunger. Of this total, 2.2 million people live in urban areas. WFP’s revised emergency response plan hopes to provide mobile cash transfers to 200,000 of them. Currently, funding for 100,000 has been secured. WFP is seeking funds to assist an additional 100,000 people.

Post published in: Featured