Category: News Feeds

The annual ILTACON experience just doesn’t feel the same without a blowout party to close the first day. There’s just something missing about a tech show where we can’t casually tour the exhibit hall and check out the fun (and sometimes not so fun) legal tech costume party. In an homage to the conference experience that COVID has stolen from us this year, I showed up 20 minutes late for the opening keynote.

Not that it mattered! The upshot of an all online conference is that I was able to go back and catch up easily. Jia Jiang provided an insightful lecture called “The Power of Rejection.” Jiang explained how people can learn to be rejection-proof and the basic principles of turning a no into yes. Obviously this was eye-opening for me to learn that there are people out there who aren’t universally beloved and preternaturally persuasive and therefore face the sting of rejection. Truly tragic.

Getting back on track with news, this morning, Rocket Lawyer unveiled a new mobile video feature for capturing discriminatory experiences and sharing them directly with a lawyer. The new offering, RocketEvidence, provides more avenues to get legal help to people who could otherwise go without, allowing:

• Anyone to easily share video documentation of an incident with a Rocket Lawyer On Call® attorney, in confidence, and ask questions or engage the lawyer to represent them

• Landlords or personal property owners to ask a lawyer a question and attach visual evidence—for example, in the event of property damage or a fender bender

• Tenants or buyers to get a lawyer’s feedback on submitted documentation—for example, in the event of pre-existing property damage or negligence

• Motorists to capture video and/or photographic evidence of traffic stops, traffic tickets, and citations, for a confidential and privileged attorney consultation

Rocket Lawyer CEO Charley Moore, who recently opened up about being racially profiled late last year while driving in Vermont, credits his legal know-how and decision to film his encounter with changing the officer’s whole approach. Drawing upon that experience, Moore’s company now has a product that can give those without that training the same advantages. Moore explained:

In line with our mission of making the law affordable and simple for everyone, we are scaling our platform to meet the growing demand for digital tools of justice. From supporting businesses and families through the pandemic with the COVID-19 Legal Center to enabling remote agreements and digital signatures with RocketSign, we remain committed to expanding access to justice for all. That’s why we built RocketEvidence–to help more people capture, share, and remedy incidents of discrimination and other injustice with the help of privileged and confidential legal counsel.

Beyond product launches, we also learned yesterday about a major acquisition, with iManage acquiring Closing Folders, the legal transaction management software provider. It’s a tie-up that makes a lot of sense with the closing process an obvious candidate for the document management world — not that we should still be thinking of iManage in such narrow terms. With Closing Folders joining the iManage family, the company eyes significant advantages for clients:

• A single source of truth for transaction documents that limits risk and streamlines processes

• A single vendor solution that enhances security and governance, lowers cost of ownership, and delivers business agility

• iManage RAVN’s artificial intelligence capabilities to enable in-depth analysis of transaction data and trends that drive actionable insights and smarter decisions

• A global, integrated user engagement, training, and support network that extends expert resources across the full breadth of product offerings

• Global availability as a cloud-based solution

That seems like an obvious marriage — indeed, it’s been foreshadowed in these pages before. I wasn’t able to check out a demo, but I’d be interested to see the RAVN feature in action because I can imagine some cool stuff there.

Remember when I said I miss the exhibit hall costume party? Well, not half as much as I’m going to miss the annual iManage party that usually comes later in the show.

I also got an opportunity to chat with Eli Nussbaum of Keno Kozie about the IT design and support industry in the age of COVID. “We’ve always been providing remote support and assistance to users not in office but the Help Desk has really shifted — it’s evolved from helping people 9 to 5 to facing potential morning and afternoon surges.” And quite the surge, Nussbaum reported 300 percent more volume in March and April.

If the work from home model changed whole concept of the help desk, it revolutionized the tech training effort. “Everything has to be redesigned… Focusing on the technical side of the job, how do you learn when you can’t ask your neighbor? So tech training has had to shift.”

On that note, I also got a chance to catch up with Will Norton of SimplyAgree about the updates to their platform which will offer more flexibility while maintaining the philosophy of a straightforward, simple product designed to maximize adoption. When I talked to Norton about training, he explained that the necessity of adapting to COVID has changed the company’s worldview. “We’ve moved to one-on-one training since the pandemic. We used to do live, group trainings — that allowed us to read the audience and get some interaction, but one-on-one trainings with Zoom get the same effect and produce better adoption. We never would have put the time in otherwise but since we did, the value is worth it.”

There are going to be a lot of interesting lessons coming out of this period but the reconceptualization of training and adoption on the tech side is going to be one of the most interesting to see shake out.

Earlier: ILTACON Becomes ITLA>ON As Legal Technology Show Goes Remote

---

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.

Examinees across the pond give us a preview of the October exam process by urinating in bottles as proctors refuse to allow bathroom breaks. In case you were wondering if the bar exam fiasco could get any worse, there’s your answer. Meanwhile Kirkland & Ellis faces a new discrimination suit, and we chat about the Supreme Court and the election a little bit.

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

According to a new study by Michael Simkovic, law professor at University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and Frank McIntyre, a professor of finance and economics at Rutgers Business School, lawyers with which undergrad major have the highest expected earnings?

Hint: Folks with this major can expect to earn $105,000, and an earnings premium of $78,000.

See the answer on the next page.

No one I know who is working in the legal industry thinks that less e-discovery work is moving in-house. A recent report produced by Exterro and The Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) confirms quite the opposite.

Full disclosure, I’m the president of ACEDS, and we are committed to providing information to the legal community that is helpful. So, when Exterro approached ACEDS a few months back and asked us to help produce their State of E-Discovery report, we happily agreed and promised to share the results as well.

E-Discovery Work Continues To Move In-House

The report, which is derived from a variety of industry sources, tells the continuing story of e-discovery work moving in-house to corporate legal operations professionals. Fifty percent of legal departments now feature an on-site e-discovery team. Of those, 60% now have dedicated IT services, a five-times increase over the year prior.

Chief legal officers are using more technology than ever before to drive efficiency. Sixty-three percent of CLOs say business risks like privacy rank as their top priorities. Seventy percent of CLOs think that the use of AI-based tools is poised to accelerate. And did you know that 80% of companies are saying the GDPR compliance has been more difficult than anticipated. It’ll be interesting to see the response to what is likely a growing privacy movement in the United States.

Also interesting is that 95% of federal judges would like to see greater participation from in-house legal teams, particularly when it comes to e-discovery issues.

In the sanctions arena, intentional misconduct leading to the spoliation of ESI is the cause of sanctions in 90% of cases. The 2015 amendments to the FRCP have clearly changed the landscape there. You can download the full State of E-Discovery report here.

One interesting factoid that is not in the report: Our friends at eDiscovery Assistant are reporting that since in the first half of 2020 there have been nearly 450 reported court decisions dealing with e-discovery sanctions.

Employment Is The Big Unknown

Although employment numbers are not outlined in the report, as you can see from ATL’s Law Firm Layoff Tracker here, the coronavirus deeply impacted law firms, with salary cuts, furloughs, and layoffs. And this does not account for the dreaded stealth layoffs. Bloomberg Law reported last month that nearly half of Biglaw firms made financial cuts. It is not entirely clear that we’ve seen the full impact there yet as we move into the second half of the year. We are likely to see more cuts if the billable hours do not ratchet up soon.

In fairness, there are now scattered reports that some firms that made cuts are now rolling back and restoring salary reductions based on better than anticipated financial forecasts.

On the service provider side, there have clearly been cuts too. But the light may be a little brighter. I spoke with Lou Mancuso, global recruiting director for Consilio, who’s been in the space for 12 years, and he told me that “we’re definitely seeing candidates from other service providers, and Consilio has continued to hold steady with recruitment efforts.” He added that “recruitment is not at an all-time high, but we’ve continued to grow, and we’ve been fortunate to continue hiring when that isn’t the case across the industry.”

The impact of COVID-19 on the corporate side is less clear. Colin McCarthy, who runs Legal Operators, a community of legal operations professionals who network and attend legal operations events, told me that “Times are in flux right now. We are seeing extremely talented people across the legal landscape being let go,” he said. “But on the flip side of that coin, I am seeing a lot of movement in companies in Silicon Valley hiring for attorney roles and legal operations positions.”

McCarthy told me that he recently had a conversation with the head of a national legal talent network and placement company that has identified over 12,000 legal jobs across the United States. “All the news is not bleak, McCarthy said. “I am rooting for people to get back to work!”

The Volume Of Work Will Increase

As we slowly creep toward safer social interaction, it seems fair to say that there is a simmering cauldron of litigation out there. Think about workplace safety; return to schools and office space; commercial real estate and leasing; travel and hospitality — all of these and other areas seem ripe for disputes.

And don’t forget bankruptcy and restructuring. While we seen some transactions close during the first half of 2020, it’s not even a guess that many deals probably faltered. Those will likely (hopefully) come back in 2021.

The implication, then, is that while more work moves in-house, clearly the workload will ramp up in the coming months. This should improve employment opportunities.

---

Mike Quartararo is the President of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), a professional member association providing training and certification in e-discovery. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery and a consultant providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@aceds.org. Follow him on Twitter @mikequartararo.

When I saw that someone was brave enough to open an IP-focused law firm in New York City in the midst of our current COVID-19 craziness, I said to myself that I had to try to interview that person. And when I dug deeper, and saw the interesting story of the firm’s founder, my resolve grew only deeper. Thankfully, she agreed to my request for a written interview, which I am pleased to bring to this readership. So read on for an introduction to a tenacious, accomplished, and wise-beyond-her-years law firm founder.

Nikki Breeland is from Fontana, California, and grew up in the arts. She attended a magnet school for the performing arts, where she excelled in the theater, music, and dance programs. Nikki attended Mississippi University for Women, and obtained her B.A. in political science in 2013. She also attended Missouri University of Science & Technology where she obtained her B.A., summa cum laude, in history in 2015. Nikki received her J.D., magna cum laude, in 2018 from the University of Mississippi School of Law, with a concentration in entertainment and sports law, where she served as a member of the Mississippi Law Journal, Federal Courts Law Review, and Mississippi Sports Law Review. After graduating law school, Nikki served as a federal judicial law clerk for the Honorable Jimmy L. Croom at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Tennessee for the 2018-2019 term. Nikki obtained her LL.M. in intellectual property from Cardozo School of Law in 2020 while serving as a textbook editor for Barbara Kolsun and Douglas Hand’s The Business and Law of Fashion and Retail. Nikki has been published twice, with her article, “Bad Blood”: Reconciling the Recording Industry and Copyright Protections on the Internet, published in the 19th volume of the Florida Coastal Law Review in 2019. Her first article, “All the Truth I Could Tell”: A Discussion of Title VII’s Potential Impact on Systemic Entertainment Industry Victimization, was published in the 25th volume of the University of California Los Angeles Women’s Law Journal in 2018. Nikki is licensed to practice in New York State and focuses on entertainment and intellectual property law at her firm, Breeland Law, PLLC.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to Nikki’s answer below but have otherwise presented her answer to my first question as she provided it.

1) You have a great quote from Milton Berle prominently displayed on your website. How does that quote encapsulate your professional story so far?

NB: Ah, THE QUOTE. I have probably heard this quote a hundred times in my life, but it never really resonated with me until this year. I was on a mini beach weekend with my husband discussing what my plans were for my career, since I had been spending whole days applying for jobs and seemed to be getting nowhere, when we stopped off in a restaurant gift shop. My husband picked out an SPF shirt and a mug, and I was looking around at the trinkets when I saw it: a ring dish that said, “‘If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.’ — Milton Berle.” I stopped dead in my tracks and immediately bought it. That’s the moment I credit with giving me “the sign” we all desperately ask for and rarely ever get. I told my husband that night that I was going to take a more active role in my own career: I would start my own firm.

I will say, though, that the sentiment shows itself in my career path so far. I graduated from college when I was 21 years old, with a political science degree, and became a military housewife. There were not many opportunities in Waynesville, Missouri, for a recent graduate who would be moving in a few years, so I enrolled and got my second bachelor’s degree at a local university. Then, when my husband and I moved to our new duty station in Alabama, I realized that the opportunity for me to start a career was never going to present itself conveniently, so I applied to law schools within a 6-hour drive and started in 2016, living as a geographical bachelorette. In law school, my classmates got jobs working at huge litigation firms in large cities, but I knew I did not want that life. So, I worked smaller clerk jobs and went to school year-round, which helped me graduate a year early. I also used my law journal notes and a class paper to get published externally in my field. I was the first student to graduate from my law school with an entertainment and sports law concentration, after having to fight to receive it. After serving the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Jackson, Tennessee, where I was again a geographical bachelorette, I took the New York Bar Exam and passed. Finding that not many law firms or professional opportunities were terribly fired up about an applicant with a Tennessee address, I decided that what I needed was a connection to tether me to the city, to give me a network, and to cement my specialty, so I enrolled in an LL.M. program which gave me excellent opportunities, like working with the Harry Fox Agency, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Yet, even with a resume as full as mine, I could not predict a global pandemic, and when jobs did not come crawling to offer me an associateship, and with a little push from Mr. Berle, I made my own opportunity to live my dream: Breeland Law, PLLC.

I’m basically a carpenter at this point, show me where the nails and 2x4s are and I will get to work.

GK: It is hard to not be supremely impressed with Nikki’s tenacity, capacity for hard work, talent, and ambition, once you hear her story. Each of those characteristics will serve her in good stead in developing her firm’s business going forward. Moreover, her story stands as a lesson in perseverance and drive for her fellow recent graduates, as well as a shining example of the value of taking responsibility for one’s career progress. It is easy in our industry to focus on the gilded road seemingly placed before top graduates that smooths their way to prestigious clerkships or government work, or lands them as new hires at high-paying law firms. But that is the story for a small batch of law students each year. At the same time, the opportunity to carve out a successful career with a law degree is vast, even in the midst of the (creative?) destruction wrought by the current pandemic. Resilience, self-belief, and a willingness to learn from stories like Nikki’s are the building blocks for long-term success in what I have longed called our brutal (in the best sense of the word) yet noble profession.

Next week, we will conclude our interview with Nikki focusing on how she sees Breeland Law’s niche in the NYC IP marketplace, as well as her keen advice for today’s law students.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

---

Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

By taking this decision, Hanover is sending a horrible message that is being echoed by the Trump administration, that whistle-blowers are not legitimate and do not deserve protection. One must question why this decision occurred now, in the wake of my representing a whistle-blower whose allegations not only proved to be true, but led to the impeachment of the president of the United States.

— Mark S. Zaid, the lawyer for the government whistleblower whose concerns over President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine set impeachment proceedings into gear, in comments given after Zaid was dropped by his malpractice insurer, Hanover Insurance Group. Zaid said his underwriter told him that Hanover had no “appetite” for his “high-profile” work, while Hanover says Zaid’s whistleblower practice is “ineligible” for coverage. A spokesperson for Hanover said, “This decision did not relate in any way whatsoever to any particular client of Mr. Zaid or the role that any such client may have played in the president’s impeachment proceedings.”

---

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.

Yesterday a judge in Leon County, Florida enjoined an order that would force Florida’s schools to reopen for in-person instruction next week, handing Governor Ron DeSantis yet another humiliating defeat in his spectacularly bungled coronavirus response.

From disappearing  people off the official death tolls, to barring county health departments from releasing their own COVID mortality data, to firing data scientists, to claiming college football players were safer in the locker room than at home, DeSantis has vanquished all comers in the duel to see which governor can handle this crisis worst. This was no less true in the academic arena, where the governor insisted that schools reopen for full-time, in-person instruction — damn the coronas, full speed ahead!

On July 6, Richard Corcoran, Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education, issued an emergency order that all school districts “must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students, subject to advice and orders of the Florida Department of Health.” Luckily, DeSantis had already barred the Department of Health from issuing any advice on whether to open schools, restricting its employees to explaining how to open in the safest manner possible. Subtle!

As added incentive to get kids into the classroom, DeSantis threatened to withhold money from schools which didn’t reopen. Specifically, the July 6 order allowed a waiver of the rule which calculates school funding by the number of students physically present at school in October, but only for those districts whose reopening plans were approved by the state.

The teachers union and the NAACP sued, alleging that the order was arbitrary and capricious, trampled local authority under Florida law, and disregarded public safety. And yesterday, Judge Charles Dodson of the Leon County Civil Division agreed.

As Judge Dodson noted, on August 6, Hillsborough County’s school board voted to delay reopening for in-person education on the advice of doctors, despite the fact that the representative from the Health Department refused to weigh in. The next day, Commissioner Corcoran threatened to withhold the waiver if they didn’t reopen fully. Faced with the loss of millions of dollars in state funds, the district reversed its position and agreed to reopen fully, a course of action the state described as “voluntary.”

Judge Dodson took a different view, though, accusing the state of “ignor[ing] the requirement of school safety” and abridging local districts’ rights under the Florida constitution.

Because Defendants cannot constitutionally directly force schools statewide to reopen without regard to safety during a global pandemic, they cannot do it indirectly by threatening loss of funding through the Order.

Worse still, the Department of Education put forth no metric for assessing  reopening plans other than vaguely gesturing toward the very Health Department DeSantis had just muzzled. When forced by the court to explain why Hillsborough’s delayed opening plan was rejected while those of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties were approved, the state mumbled that those counties were in Phase 1 of reopening, a standard which is mentioned nowhere in the emergency order.

“Without prescribed standards for approval of plans,” Judge Dodson wrote, “the Commissioner has engaged in ad hoc and unconstitutional decision making without considering local safety and the medical opinions of experts, local or otherwise.” So the language in the order threatening to withhold waivers for the funding calculation from schools which don’t reopen immediately and without regard for student and staff safety was stricken.

Not really a great day for DeSantis (HLS 2005). But never fear, the intrepid bungler has vowed to appeal and cram those kids back into the classroom next week, COVID be damned.

Florida Education Association v. Ron DeSantis
School reopening lawsuit: Judge rules in favor of Florida teachers [Tampa Bay Times]

---

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

I’m not even a parent yet my social media timeline is clogged with working parents concerned with exactly what is happening for the 2020-21 academic year. COVID-19 is a real bitch, and school districts are struggling to balance the safety and educational goals of students, while frequently under economic threats from state governments that don’t want to admit the reality of a pandemic. It’s basically a mess, and parents are going to be pressed trying to juggle it all. And it’ll be even worse if the parents also have to balance a full-time job on top of it all.

At least one Biglaw firm sees the buzzsaw its employees with children are heading towards, and they want to do something about it. At Fenwick & West, they’re offering a series of new programs to support their employees as they try to tackle this impossible semester:

· Tutoring or Back-Up Care Stipend: Fenwick is providing up to $500 as a reimbursement stipend to Fenwick employees who are parents or legal guardians of children under the age of 18, to help defray some of the costs for tutoring or learning support or back-up childcare.

· Tutoring, Online Resources, Learning Pods: Partnering with Bright Horizons, parents who have enrolled will get a 20% discount on tutoring, schoolwork help and learning pods from the care provider’s partner vendors.

· Parent Support Workshops: They’re offering a Parent Support Workshop with a well-being coach and consultant to help parents create work-from-home health and well-being plans.

· Loaner laptops for students: While many school districts are providing students with technology tools for online learning, we can help bridge shortages for those families in financial need if our employees’ child’s district isn’t providing a needed technology resource.

· Parents Network: They’ve launched an internal Parents at Fenwick group, as an online forum for sharing resources and ideas and for connecting and providing peer support.

So, what are other Biglaw firms doing to support their working parents? We’d love to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

---

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).

Biglaw firms across the country have decided to partially or completely roll back their COVID-19 austerity measures, and this new trend has now been picked up across the pond.

Over in the United Kingdom, Kennedys — a UK top 50 firm that has one office in the U.S. and increased its gross revenue by 9 percent to reach a record £238 million ($312,313,358.00) in 2019 — deferred its performance-based salary increases and bonus payouts earlier this spring thanks to the coronavirus crisis. Staff members were supposed to have their salary reviews in May, while attorneys were supposed to have their salary reviews in September. Thankfully, the firm has decided to “press ahead and reward staff for their work.”

All employees at the firm, both lawyers and staff members, will have their salary reviews in November. Legal Week has additional details:

Nick Thomas, senior partner of Kennedys, said in a statement: “It gives me immense satisfaction and pride to lead a partnership which chooses to reward our staff during what is a challenging time for so many businesses. But the reality is that they’ve earned it and deserve it having demonstrated their ability to maintain productivity remotely, helped by our robust IT platforms.

“As a business we live and breathe by ‘doing the right thing’ for our people and our clients, and we will never lose sight of the fact that our success is down to our people.”

The firm continued in a statement that it would be honouring all staff bonus commitments this year, adding that they had not made any redundancies, pay cuts, or furloughing arrangements during the last few months.

Congratulations to everyone at the firm. Let’s hope more firms get on board with this salary restoration movement — and soon.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

Kennedys To Pay Out Salary Increases and Bonuses After COVID-19 Delay [Legal Week]

---

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.