Mistakes

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You’ll make mistakes as a lawyer.  “We all make mistakes,” I hear.  Lawyers, judges, law professors, students, friends, and family all make mistakes.

This isn’t a post about the ABA Model rules and committing malpractice.  I’m sure there are lots of posts about avoiding getting sued, fired, or otherwise in trouble for making mistakes.  It’s enough to scare a new lawyer.  Sometimes the CLEs about this will scare you, too.  And I’m not just talking about the fees.

Imagine being perfect.  We actually know people who claim they are.  But they aren’t. Everyone makes mistakes.  Heck, this blog post may be one.  It’ll certainly have grammatical errors and typos.  It may not even be well thought out.

Making mistakes, however, has value.  They make you human.  They make you grow.  They make you learn.  And, they make you humble.

There will be people who will regale in your mistakes, or make sure to keep reminding you about them.  They will make you feel shame about your mistake.  Having your mistake repeatedly shoved in your face will prevent you from learning from it.  Defensiveness isn’t a good way to learn.

But there are paths out of mistake hell.  But those paths aren’t easy.  Most of the blog posts I’ve searched have these as common elements:

  1. Take responsibility for your mistake. It is impossible to learn from a mistake if you are seeking to avoid owning it, or blame others.  Taking ownership is the mature thing to do.  This will be difficult if your boss is abusive or just fires people for fun.  And, the size of the mistake matters.  But regardless, taking ownership is a necessary step.
  1. Correct the mistake, if possible. Some mistakes are correctible.  Some mistakes are not.  Some mistakes continue until behavior is changed.  And some are one-time things.  If the mistake is correctible, you should take steps to correct it.  It might be you do this even before you apologize.  But action demonstrates sincerity.
  1. Implement strategies to not repeat the mistake. If you repeat the same mistakes over and over, that means you have not learned the lessons you were supposed to learn from your mistake.  As an example, I recall as an intern having to do some document review.  I thought it was fun, actually.  However, I was missing the point of document review, and causing some headaches by flagging documents that weren’t important — sometimes, more than once.  I got called out on the mistake.  In response, I asked what I was doing wrong.  In short, I was asking to be taught.  And in doing so, I became a better doc reviewer.  This is what learning from your mistakes means, to teach yourself to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly.
  1. Forgive yourself for your mistake. If you keep beating yourself up for your mistake, you’ll make more mistakes, more often.  You will seep away your own confidence.  You will become your own worst enemy.  If it isn’t you, it might be someone else who tries to shake your by rubbing your face in your mistakes. That is the problem with bosses you scream at you when you make mistakes.  They are basically inducing more mistakes.

If you follow these steps, you’ll learn something about yourself.  Yes, something caused you to make the mistake on a cursory level, but in some instances it is something deep within yourself.  Assess each mistake as an opportunity to learn more about what makes you tick.  That is the path to confidence.

You’ll also learn to be compassionate towards others who make mistakes.  Or at least that is what I would hope would happen, if you’re human.  Often times, people who refuse to look inward do a great job of pointing out the mistakes of others.  We’ve all had that boss who was quick to judge you, but doubly quick to justify their own mistakes with excuses, right?  Don’t be that person.

Mistakes are a part of life.  The important thing is to learn from them, forgive yourself for them, and grow from them.  In short, be human.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

Why Zimbabwe’s consumers favour tough end-of-lay hens to tender broilers – The Zimbabwean

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“That gives us the edge over our competition,” says a member of staff at one Sis Bee’s Kitchen outlet. “Our society is getting more perceptive about their food and physical well-being. They like their traditional chicken. But because road-runners have not been commercialised that much yet, we are under-supplied – hence end-of-lay chickens, which are grown commercially, come in. It tastes just like the road-runner.”

Although the end-of-lay chickens are technically an exotic species, they resemble the road-runner in their hardiness – and the lean nature of their meat. Having rendered much value already in terms of the eggs they’ve laid, spent hens give the farmer more when they are bought by restaurants and individuals who crave their almost fat-free meat.

For instance, Mugove Nyoni, a Bulawayo fitness enthusiast says: “I grew up eating the road-runner. I like the toughness of its meat; you almost get no fat in it and it’s tasty like the off-layer.”

Off-layers cost about USD$7 per bird – $3 cheaper than a broiler. Therefore, aside from being attractive because of its perceived health benefits, off-layer meat is increasingly popular due to its lower price.

Rainbow, one of Bulawayo’s biggest hotels, serves traditional food every Wednesday and Friday. End-of-lay and indigenous chickens and sorghum and finger millet meal isitshwala are part of its menu.

“We serve them but the farmer or anyone selling them must represent a company that has a valid tax-clearance certificate,” says Samukele Nkhata, a buyer at the hotel.

While demand from hotels and restaurants is evenly spread across the year, the Christmas period presents opportunities for farmers to sell big volumes directly to consumers hosting weddings and parties.

Like most local farmers, Naomi Bhebhe, who farms in Nyamandlovu, 18 miles west of Bulawayo, does not operate as part of a company, and therefore does not have a tax-clearance certificate. As a result, she is unable to sell directly to Rainbow or Holiday Inn, another leading Bulawayo hotel.

“We have a batch of 9,000 hens that is at point-of-lay,” she says. “In terms of our production cycle, we are getting rid of the older hens to make way for the younger ones. We are fortunate that this Christmas period coincides with one batch being sold off and a newer one coming in. December, as you know, is Zimbabwe’s party month, so it should be easy for us to sell.”

A buyer at one of the city’s hotels says farmers such as Bhebhe, who lack tax certificates, could, in theory, sell to his hotel using other people’s documents. This smacks of criminality but is widely practised in Zimbabwe with little risk of prosecution.

The southern African country, which produces some 15 million dozens of table eggs yearly, is recovering from a bird flu outbreak that saw 180,000 breeding hens being culled last year, resulting in a shortage of day-old chicks. To help revive output, the government suspended duty on imported fertilised eggs in September 2017. The waiver expired in January this year, but will be renewed for a year from 1 January 2019.

According to agricultural economist and newspaper columnist Mhlupheki Dube, egg farmers are paid less for their hens than for broilers. This is somewhat advantageous as the lower price helps them to move big volumes faster when their birds age.

“The value of the layer is in the egg but that of a broiler is in the meat. Therefore, at the end-of-lay stage, the hen would have done its job and what the farmer gets is its residual value. For that reason $7 per bird is actually an attractive price because the hen has already given the farmer about 900 eggs over its production period of 30 months or so”

Some farmers feed their end-of-lay hens on broiler finisher to fatten them, but Bhebhe says doing so destroys the birds’ culinary appeal.

“The reason why customers buy our hens is their leanness. Now, if a farmer fattens the layer he or she is no different from a broiler farmer who strives to achieve weights as high as 2.8kg to 3kg of high-fat birds,” she said.

Reneth Mano, an agricultural economist at the Zimbabwe Poultry Association agrees with her. “A road-runner is popular because it eats the diet of a road-runner. It is raised under the conditions in which road-runners are raised, not those of a broiler,” he says. “So if you want to transform an end-of-lay hen into a broiler you are making a mistake. The market which seeks leaner meat will have no business with you just as they have no business with broiler meat.”

Overall, demand for chicken has grown so rapidly this year that producers are chasing demand, says Mano. Chicken consumption, he adds, has risen by 41 percent.

The reason why customers buy our hens is their leanness. Now, if a farmer fattens the layer he or she is no different from a broiler farmer who strives to achieve weights as high as 2.8kg to 3kg of high-fat birds.

MHLUPHEKI DUBE

“We are bullish about 2019,” he continues. “If we take care of our foreign-currency situation to import soya and vitamins, growth will continue. A drought has been forecast but we are entering it with surplus stocks of maize, a key ingredient in the manufacture of chickenfeed. The poultry industry needs 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes of maize yearly for chickenfeed. As we speak the Grain Marketing Board has more than that in stock. So, yes, we are facing a drought, but I don’t see it affecting the supply of chickenfeed next year.”

His optimism will depend on reliable foreign-currency availability, but the events of the past two months might dash his hopes and those of poultry farmers in general.

In early October the bond, a surrogate local currency, depreciated by more than 600 percent against the US dollar with which it officially trades at par. Although it had recovered to 300 percent by end of November, the margin has remained too wide. Stockfeed prices have shot up to $42 (bond) per 50kg bag from $28 in September. Vaccine prices have risen sharply too, and most suppliers are rejecting payment through the bond, preferring the US dollar or the South African rand, currencies which most farmers do not have access to. Inflation accelerated to 20.85 percent in October, the first time in nine years it has been in double-digit territory.

As Thomas Nherera, a former president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union, has said, “The tax incentive is useful but inflationary pressures should be contained for the industry to fully recover from bird flu and grow next year.”

The Future Ready Law Firm: A Guide To New Technologies

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Budget season is upon us — and for many law firms, it’s the time of year when any new tech solutions that are being considered for onboarding in the new year will get a thumbs up or thumbs down. As legal technology continues to impact how law firms do business, understanding what technologies are on the market — and what new solutions are on the horizon — has become increasingly vital for legal professionals.

Based on findings from the 2019 Future Ready Lawyer survey published earlier this year, organizations that are already investing in technology are significantly more likely to report higher firm profitability than those organizations that are not adopting technology as quickly. And as Technology Leading firms continue to double down on tech investment — as 65 percent of them indicated in the survey that they intend to do — those firms will become increasingly competitive, widening the gap even further between themselves and lagging organizations.

While these statistics can help to make a business case for legal tech investment, finding the right solution for an organization requires a different kind of conversation — one that is more specific to an organization’s needs. For law firms, there are a number of new types of technology solutions that we expect to see on the rise.

I recently sat down with Jean O’Grady, senior director of information, research & knowledge at DLA Piper US, LLP and author of the acclaimed legal tech website Dewey B. Strategic, to get her take on future technologies that we’re likely to see in the law firm space. Her take: look for increased technology adoption in a few new areas.

“The use of corporate review products like Luminance and Kira has certainly spread,” said Jean. “Analytics products are another area that we’ve seen emerge recently as well. Analytics solutions give lawyers the potential to get insights on trends which may be valuable for litigation strategy. This area has a lot of interest, but I think these solutions pose a challenge for lawyers to understand how to read and interpret the data. The technology is there, but it may be another five years before we have a generation of lawyers who were exposed to these types of solutions in law school and have a strong analytics background to interpret the data and leverage the technology fully.”

Jean also sees the potential for future uses of this technology that integrate different types of analytics to serve new purposes. “In the analytics space, I think there has been a lot of interest around how lawyers can get insights into commonly used clauses — but the next phase could be technology that integrates data around deals with litigation. For example, there could be solutions that examine what deal clauses tend to result in litigation, and those kinds of insights could be very useful to law firms. The next generation of solutions could go further than just identifying trends in data and move into examining long-term outcomes and consequences.”

“Along those lines, I think we’ll also begin to see more pressure in the market to transform analytics solutions into predictive solutions. Instead of just predicting that a judge will rule a certain way, a solution could go further to take various factors into account and say that there’s a 90 percent chance that this will result in a certain outcome. There’s a desire for technology that takes historic case law and regulatory rulings, analyzes it in the context of specific circumstances, and helps lawyers with scenario planning.”

While there is already an abundance of technology out in the market to address specific pain points that law firms experience, there are still clear gaps in how organizations using those solutions. “Billing and alternative fee arrangements still present a challenge to many law firms. Even though solutions for these issues already exist, solving those pain points can’t be done purely with technology — some of them have to do with behavior,” said Jean. “I believe there is still a huge challenge for law firms to find ways to make it easier for lawyers to easily code their time to get accurate entries into timekeeping systems. Data entry is one of the most boring tasks on earth, but having clean, accurate data sets can be highly valuable. Those insights are helpful not only in terms of communicating with a client, but also in terms of creating records for the firm itself to assess how much certain kinds of deals, litigations, or motions can cost.”

Even for law firms that are ahead of the curve when it comes to technology adoption, the challenge that every organization will have to contend with is how best to prepare for the future. “I think there are a lot of questions around what the law firm model will look like in 20 years,” Jean said. “Organizations will have to figure out what steps they will need to take to change and stay competitive as the market continues to evolve.”

As we’ve seen from the Future Ready Lawyer survey, organizations that are investing in technology today believe that they are well equipped to manage change. As trends continue to shift, it’s not easy to say what the law firm will look like even a few years from now — but it has become clear that the use of technologies to achieve better outcomes and offer higher value is not only increasing, but also delivering measurable impact and profitability for firms that know how to use them well.  Armed with this information, legal professionals will be better positioned to prepare for the future.

Dean E. Sonderegger is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., a leading provider of information, business intelligence, regulatory and legal workflow solutions. Dean has more than two decades of experience at the cutting edge of technology across industries. He can be reached at Dean.Sonderegger@wolterskluwer.com.

All The Changes To Expect For The MPRE

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Ah, professional responsibility. The extra exam that is part of becoming a licensed lawyer, but still, somehow, sits alone and separate from the rest of the bar exam. Well, consistent with the general trend in standardized testing, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) has made moves to modernize and generally make the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) more convenient.

All of the changes in the exam have been gathered by the good folks at JD Advising, and so let’s walk through what you can expect from the MPRE in 2020.

One of the biggest changes is now the test will be offered exclusively on computer (accommodations will be available for those who need them). The NCBE has been slowly rolling out the computer-based version of the exam, and in 2020 they’ll finally be ready to go all digital.

When the MPRE is offered is also getting a shake up. The exam was traditionally offered only on Saturdays, but now students will have options! Over the course of 2020, the test will be offered, in various cycles, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Plus, there are two dates available for the spring administration, two for summer, and two for fall. (Check out the dates and registration deadlines here.) Plus, the fall testing has moved from November to October.

And the cost of the test has gone up (an additional $10 over 2019). But with all the extra administrations of the MPRE, the entire experience will hopefully be a little easier for aspiring esquires!

Closing A Deal: A Lonely Time For The Solo Practitioner

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Being called a “closer” is a great compliment for any attorney. This is even more so for a solo practitioner. It implies that one can get the job done. A closer is the individual who finishes the deal. It can refer to anything from closing a residential sale to completing the purchase of a car or finalizing litigation with a monetary settlement. As a solo practitioner, we close, as we begin: Alone. And that is a big deal.

I often discuss the loneliness of a solo practitioner, whether it is the solitude of writing a brief by myself or arguing a motion alone. Who do I go to when I have an idea? Which colleague do I call when I want to check myself? Should I take this case? Anxiety is often difficult to resolve when you work on your own, although feelings of seclusion are present during good times as well.  A case closing is an especially isolating time for the solo practitioner.

In my practice, I work with individuals. I meet with families, often during trying times in their lives. Death, divorce, and illness are the impetus for my firm’s estate plans, lawsuits, and negotiations. In addition to the law, there exists a lot of emotion, a lot of anger, and a lot of tears. Different from some other fields of law, I get to know every one of my clients. I need to in order to aptly represent them.  I meet and speak with them. As time progresses, I sometimes attend their celebrations as do I their funerals.

As a solo practitioner, there are no other associates to send on my behalf or to stand in for me. As such, I get to know my clients very well, especially since the issues we discuss by nature of the practice are so serious. Therefore, when a matter ends, by a court or by settlement, it is a breakup of sorts. From a legal perspective, an attorney wants to finalize cases and close files. But what about the relationships? And how do you get to that closing place, alone?

Working with individuals on family and estate litigation is personal. A lot of time is spent focusing on what the client wants from the litigation and when and how it will be achieved. After years of litigation, a settlement resulting in a check or a business interest provides tangible closure for the client. Unfortunately, the emotional impact of the litigation, often against close family members, may not be healed. As counsel, I often feel the emotion, often having to guide clients from very trying situations, just by the nature of the estate or familial issue.

Getting a client to close is huge, no matter the size of the law firm. It is something to be happy about especially when the case has been active for a significant amount of time, like several years. For me, however, it is more than closing a deal. It affirms my ability to operate on my own. It confirms my legal capabilities. It adds to my confidence. It makes me proud. Beyond legal fees and praise, it lets me know that I am doing what I am meant to do, all by myself.

Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com. 

Contract Editing Gets A Major Makeover For Lawyers

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Lawyers live in constant fear of details.  Superior attention to detail makes lawyers money; a lack of attention to detail makes for malpractice.  But, as law practice becomes more and more complex — contracts amass, details proliferate — it becomes more and more difficult to spot those small mistakes that can come back to bite you.  Of course, smart lawyers understand that technology is the solution for information overload.  Once you’ve figured that out, it’s just a matter of picking the right technology.

If you’re sweating your contract drafting like you’re walking through a field of land mines, Donna offers peace of mind, and protection against those backbiting oversights that keep you up at night.

What Is It?

Donna is a contract editing software, whose purpose is to provide context and relevant information when you need it in order to spot those easy-to-overlook mistakes. Because, let’s face it, when you’re reading a 50-page contract, it’s not quite as enthralling as “Avengers: Endgame”; so, it’s understandable that your mind might drift, and that you’d overlook an inconsistency or misinterpretation that could that could come back and haunt you.  Donna is there to watch your back, to make sure you’re consistently addressing even the most minute variables.

Donna is a cloud-based product that comes as a convenient Microsoft Word plug-in, available for both premise-based (traditional) versions of Word (like Word 2016 and Word 2013), as well as Word Online. And, because Donna is a plug-in that doesn’t require special permissions, it’s super easy to install.  I mean, you could probably install it without even asking your IT person… But, you didn’t hear that from me, okay?  So, when you do tell your IT person (you will, won’t you), it’s still just a one-step download.

Once you download Donna for Word, that’s when the magic happens.

What Does it Do?

What magic, you ask?  Good question.  THIS kind of magic:

After you’ve downloaded Donna, you’ll find a new Donna button on the far right-hand side of the Microsoft Office ribbon; you toggle Donna off and on by clicking that button.  When Donna is turned on, opening any document will automatically set it to work.  Donna will bring up potential suggestions and other interesting details, by generating colored highlights in your document. Clicking these highlights opens up matching snippets in the Donna sidebar. For instance, suggestions are highlighted in yellow and clicking them, Donna explains the potential problem discovered.  Donna will even link other relevant snippets such as related issues or definitions. Every snippet has a “focus” button that allows you to jump to the exact spot in the document where the Donna highlight exists.  Using this information, you can decide to make a change based on Donna’s suggestion, or to skip the suggestion, and optionally any suggestions like it.  In this way, Donna becomes your second set of eyes for contract review — eyes that don’t glaze over thinking about the upcoming weekend’s plans — but, it’s ultimately your choice as the lawyer to make or reject changes related to Donna’s operations. Donna of course can’t write the agreement for you, AI lacks something people like to call “common sense”. But Donna isn’t your typical AI, its Assistive Intelligence, because it ultimately leaves the decision making in the capable hands of the lawyer.

Donna’s baseline is simplicity: it issue-spots, gives you relevant information, and otherwise doesn’t disturb you getting the job done.  You can easily parachute into and out of potential change options by navigating the snippet, focus, and skip options.

And although you’ll be drawn to Donna’s yellow suggestions there are lots of other things Donna can highlight. A favorite seems to be defined terms in light blue. Clicking on this highlight gives you a snippet of how the term was defined in the side-bar. Nod “yes” if you’ve ever frantically scrolled up and down in an agreement trying to find what a term means. Now nod “yes” if you’d be happy to never have to do that again.

By filtering on a single category within Donna, a user can complete their review via the sidebar, rather than struggling through the massive scrolling and scanning challenge presented by traditional document review.  In this way, Donna delivers to you only the information you need, when you need it. With Donna, you can get into and out of your contract documents quickly, with increased accuracy and decreased malpractice risk.

What’s Next?

Donna currently has clients in 50 countries, with additional language capabilities coming.  And, with a $2.5 million capital raise recently secured, Donna will be investing even more resources into designing intuitive workflows as well as adding some great new features. A couple of things on the roadmap are:

– Compatibility with Google Docs and Word for Mac.

– Ability to link related documents and external resources. Imagine clicking on a reference to a specific law and having the relevant text available right there.

– Knowledge sharing features — Donna could allow users within a firm to look for inspiration from other clauses that have been drafted by colleagues for a particular client.

Want to Find Out More?

Schedule a demo or just download Donna today: https://www.donna.legal/

Donna is only $15/user, with enterprise solutions available.

Support options include in-app chat.

. . .

Ritchie Valens really loved Donna, but you might love her even more.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Didn’t Always Earn High Grades At The Supreme Court

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Prof. Ruth Ginsburg. C-plus. Very precise. Female. Reads.

— an excerpt from a note written by the late Justice Harry Blackmun during then-professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s first argument before the Supreme Court in Frontiero v. Richardson, in January 1973. Blackmun took detailed notes about SCOTUS advocates, grading each of them from A through F (the scale used from 1970 to 1974), from to 1-100 (the scale used from 1975 to 1977), and from 0-8 (the scale used from 1978 to 1994). Over the course of her arguments before the high court, Ginsburg continued to improve, earning some Bs and B-s from the justice. Her final GPA was a 2.8. When recently informed of the grades she earned from Blackmun, Ginsburg had this to say: “Listen to the arguments and judge for yourself.”

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.

Law School Considers Closing Amid Concerns About Financial Viability

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While no decision has been officially made yet, University of La Verne College of Law is inching ever closer to shutting its doors for good. Last week, the University Provost, Jonathan Reed, announced the Board of Trustees’ decision to pass a resolution to consider closing the law school. The University has created an ad hoc committee of faculty to prepare a report of recommendations to the Board on the financial viability of the law school. The Board is scheduled to make its final determination on the future of the law school at their November 18th meeting.

As reported by La Verne Campus Times, at a student meeting, Reed stressed a final decision had not yet been made:

“As part of the Board of Trustees’ due diligence, they have triggered the process of making sure we are taking a look at the long term trajectory of the ABA-accredited College of Law program,” Reed said. “That creates a process where a committee is formed, and administration is tasked to come up with recommendations on what the program should look like moving forward.”

In the event the University does decide to close the law school, they are investigating “teach out” programs and other options to ensure those currently enrolled are able to graduate.

In addition to financial concerns about the law school, there is also concern about the recently amended American Bar Association Standard 316 at La Verne. The law school accreditation body decided in May of this year to require law schools to have 75 percent of their graduates pass the bar exam in two years; the previous standard had been in five years.

Reed assured the students that the board did not spontaneously come to a conclusion to look into the College of Law’s financial viability.

“This decision did not arise from a single event,” Reed said. “It has been the history of the College of Law in terms of finances continuing to be subsidized by the University, although it has gone down in recent years. The new ABA standard also creates problems for us.”

The results of the most recent California bar exam will be available on November 16th, and will reportedly factor into the law school’s future.

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).

Tis The Season: When To Ghost Your Business Partners

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Last Halloween, I blissfully passed out candy to half a dozen RBGs, bedecked in their black robes and signature collars, and I thought, finally, there’s an attorney costume I can get on board with. Unlike, say the half-assed attempts put forth by my law school brethren who showed up at Halloween parties with plastic white fangs and declared themselves blood-sucking lawyers.

Over the years, I thought I’d seen them all. The bespectacled Atticus Finches. The aggressively pink and perky Elle Woodses. The high-waisted jean and halter-topped Erin Brokoviches. Heck, I even once handed out Kit-Kats to a blue-haired Lionel Hutz.

But what was chuckle-snort worthy as a costume turned downright upsetting this year when someone crossed THAT line into a full-blown impersonation of an attorney. That was the moment my reptilian brain kicked into high gear and ran around flicking its lizard tongue and shouting “do not want” over and over again.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think if you’re going to put forth legal arguments and draw legal conclusions in a legal opinion, then perhaps it’s best you’ve suffered through the slings and arrows of law school, passed the bar exam, and obtained your license to practice (or you’ve otherwise satisfied your state’s requirements… looking at you, Washington State, you lovable weirdos). Then you can hold yourself out as an attorney and enjoy all the benefits and baggage that comes along with that title.

What you can’t do is draw up a legal opinion where you use language like “the company has legally concluded” and send it off to an outside party. I mean, you totally could if you’re an attorney. But if you’re a first-year tax manager straight out of school, you really shouldn’t do this. And when confronted, you definitely shouldn’t shrug your now-dated Bieber bangs and ask what the big deal is.

Because that is how you unleash this beast this Halloween season.

Without going into the gory details, I found out this week about this non-authorized sham of a legal opinion (dear business partners, we always find out) and spent a stupid amount of time walking back our “legal opinions” and doing general damage control. Then I confronted the tax dweeb. With all of the dignity I could muster — which was very little and mostly consisted of teeth grinding and constipated expressions — I ticked through the various reasons that legal opinions needed to be prepared by the legal department. I didn’t use sarcastic air quotes around the word “legal,” but it was a near thing. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a plea of ignorance or some hint of remorse, but the guy just looked at me and asked what my problem was. Oh, right. My problem. But don’t worry, he helpfully added he found the answer on the internet, alright?

Facepalm. The jerk actually admitted he found the answer on the internet.

So, we fired the guy just days before Halloween. Turned him out on the streets with the other tricksters. Nah, I’m just kidding. Of course, he wasn’t fired. Like you’ve no doubt seen a hundred times in your practice, business partners aren’t disciplined for their transgressions. Occasionally, they’re axed when they miss sales targets or use the company card for a four-figure personal boondoggle. But not for something as silly as the unauthorized practice of law. I mean, what’s a misdemeanor or in some cases, a felony between friends, right?

As someone who has buttressed her in-house career with a sense of humor and the ability to turn the other cheek, even I can admit there comes a time to cut basic, common-sense-lacking ass waffles out of your professional life. And in the face of an unrepentant creep essentially masquerading as an attorney and exposing the company to a world of risk? Time to ghost ‘em.

Kay Thrace (not her real name) is a harried in-house counsel at a well-known company that everyone loves to hate. When not scuffing dirt on the sacrosanct line between business and the law, Kay enjoys pub trivia domination and eradicating incorrect usage of the Oxford comma. You can contact her by email at KayThraceATL@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @KayThrace.

Andrew Yang Is Just Like Us, When It Comes To Biglaw

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(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The Washington Post did a big profile of Andrew Yang’s aborted Biglaw career and… well, it pretty much sounds like everybody’s aborted Biglaw career. Yes, he had all the credentials. Yes, he made a lot of money. But the feelings of pointlessness and soullessness took hold, and he eventually left Biglaw to find what he really wanted to do.

Yang went to Brown for college, Columbia for law school, and Davis Polk for money. Then, he got off that train. The only significant difference between his story and most is that Yang only lasted five months. Most last a bit longer.

The rest checks out. Here are some quotes from the Washington Post:

He frequently refers to his lawyer days as “the five worst months of my life.”

“Working at a law firm was like a pie-eating contest, and if you won, your prize was more pie,” Yang said in a recent interview on the Acela train from Washington to New York, between hurried bites of a turkey sandwich.

The law jokes play well, especially because seven of the 12 candidates in the last televised Democratic debate have law degrees.

Everybody makes that joke, WaPo.

“It felt very purposeless and empty,” Yang said. “I was looking out at New York and thinking, ‘Wow, is this why my parents came to this country?’ ”…

Yang said he did a “test” with himself to see whether he was in it just for the money.

“I went to Bloomingdale’s and bought my family cashmere scarves and some other nice gifts. Then I brought them to them that weekend, and they seemed to like them,” he said. “And I thought: Is this enough for me to do a job I don’t like? Definitely not.”

After a case unexpectedly settled in the middle of the week, I took the rest of the week off, bought a first-class ticket to Vegas, at the airport, and won about half of it back taking money off of people there for some sort of convention. It wasn’t enough.

Look, we’ve all been there, some people find a way to love what they do. Others find a way to love the money they make while doing it. And a lot of people eventually quit. The best thing about Yang’s story is that he went through the process so quickly. It took me two years to figure out how to get out. It takes others longer. Some people are a decade in before they finally break free.

Often, things work out. Maybe not as well as they’ve worked out for Yang, but in my travels I’ve found that the skills that made people successful Biglaw candidates can be redeployed to make them successful at other things. The training is never really lost, it just has to be re-formatted a bit. As Yang puts it:

He said he doesn’t regret studying law, which made him more “structured and detail oriented.” On the other hand, he said, the cautious analysis taught in law school can get in the way of an entrepreneur who needs to make decisions quickly, often based more on instinct than data. He said he had to “unlearn” some of what his law professors taught him.

Plunge on in, the water’s fine. You almost probably won’t totally drown in debt for the rest of your life.

Andrew Yang was groomed for a high-paying job at an elite law firm. He lasted five months. [Washington Post]

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.