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If you want a glimpse of what private law may look like in 2030, check out the work being done at Elevate. The alternative legal service provider (“ALSP”) has been on a tear of late, and it’s got a vision for the shape of the legal marketplace that merits attention. Luckily for me, members of Elevate’s senior leadership, including CEO Liam Brown and President John Croft were willing to sit down and discuss that vision with me recently.

The elevator pitch for Elevate is simple, according to Brown: “We’re Accenture for law.” Elevate operates as a consulting group working with both in-house legal departments and private law firms on long-term strategy issues, technology selection, workflow design, legal-spend planning, and most any other kind of problem a legal team might need to address. So far, so normal. Where Elevate gets interesting is in its basic conception of the legal marketplace, and its vision for how to break down that concept going forward.

The Three Camps

Elevate sees the legal market broken into three camps: law firms, law companies, and law departments. Law firms are self-explanatory; collections of licensed attorneys whose primary focus is providing clients legal advice. Law companies are what most would call ALSPs. Law companies focus on providing their clients with business solutions to problems that include a legal dimension. Law departments are the in-house interface point for law firms and law companies, and provide their parent company legal advice, strategy, and business solutions.

Elevate’s fundamental insight is that, although each of these three types of organizations is different, the people who make them up are fundamentally the same. Per Brown, “when you think about the sort of tribe of people, whether or not you work at a law company, a law department, or a law firm today, those people are just delivering differently for customers. We’re all kind of sort of part of this tribe of people that are really trying to make a dent in the universe.”

Given that the members of these organizations are generally like-minded, it makes little sense not to attempt to leverage that by working together. Elevate’s goal, then, is to fuzz the traditional hard lines between law companies like itself and the law firms and law departments it works with. “Instead of there being this bright line where law firms do all of these things and then law companies do all of those things and they never cross, law firms and law companies actually collaborate on one area.”

Getting The Team Together

Elevate’s effort to fuzz the lines between ALSP and law firms is in full swing. In the UK, where ownership of law firms isn’t limited to attorneys, Elevate purchased a midsize firm called Halebury outright. While the entities remain separate, their unified ownership means that Elevate can effectively cover the entire spectrum of legal services. There’s no reason Halebury attorneys wouldn’t want to freely collaborate with Elevate professional staff, because every dollar earned and good result achieved flows back to Elevate itself.

In the US and elsewhere, where law firm ownership remains restricted to licensed attorneys, Elevate has partnered closely with independent Biglaw firms. According to Elevate’s recent presentation at the legal-oriented SOLID West Conference, its team-up with international powerhouse Hogan Lovells is paying off in big ways.

For example, as you’re probably aware, the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) has long been the standard benchmark interest rate. It’s omnipresent in transactional contracts. LIBOR is being discontinued in 2021, and the administrative headache of managing the transition is staggering. Hogan Lovells set out to become a one-stop shop for clients dealing with that transition. Rather than build it from the ground up, Hogan Lovells brought in Elevate’s technical and consulting expertise to build its tool, which ended up making the program 50% more efficient than Hogan Lovell’s traditional law firm model would have been.

In a similar vein, Hogan Lovells turned to Elevate to help it build a flexible lawyer resourcing center. As John Croft put it, “if you look at the shape of any law firm, what are the chances that the client needs the exact mix of people the firm employs on any given day? The answer is 0%. If you wander around a law firm, either there are people sitting around doing nothing or there are people pulling all-nighters and working all weekend.”

Hogan Lovells could have built its own staffing program from the ground up. Instead, it collaborated with Elevate, which had already built its own flexible legal staffing center in Phoenix. Elevate used that expertise and infrastructure to help Hogan Lovells build its own captive law firm to provide low cost virtual services to its clients, which ended up reducing Hogan Lovell’s overhead on the project by 57%, cutting down the break-even point of the project dramatically.

To A Better, More Profitable Future

Under conventional thinking, what Elevate is doing is crazy. It’s helping one of its competitors provide better and broader customer service at lower prices. But by getting out of the competitive mindset, and by being willing to fuzz the lines and see each other as collaborators rather than enemies, Hogan Lovell and Elevate have to date brought in $40million in revenue they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get.

While breaking down the traditional lines between lawyers and other legal professionals may seem threatening to those of us with JDs, in Brown’s experience the collaborative approach has improved the lives of the lawyers working with Elevate. According to Brown, marrying ALSPs and law firms has meant unbundling Elevate’s lawyers from the lower-tier work, “the cluster of email in their inbox that would turn up on a Thursday evening when they were leaving to pick up their kids from football practice.” In Elevate’s vision, lawyers spend less time on busy work and more time where they’re most valuable, analyzing law and advising clients.

Elevate’s vision is a strong one. I’ve long said that law firms looking to remain competitive in the coming economy will need to find new ways to deliver value at reduced costs. Partnering with ALSPs, rather than competing with them, is a strong play in that direction. Both players bring different strengths to the table, and both stand to win by bringing onboard clients they couldn’t land separately.

Collaboration, instead of competition, can lift up everybody.

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James Goodnow is an attorney, commentator, and Above the Law columnist. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and is the managing partner of NLJ 250 firm Fennemore Craig. He is the co-author of Motivating Millennials, which hit number one on Amazon in the business management new release category. As a practitioner, he and his colleagues created a tech-based plaintiffs’ practice and business model. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.

After a New York lawyer tested positive for coronavirus, concerns over the illness caused one New York law school to close its doors and a law student at another New York law school to go into self-quarantine. Now, the mysterious virus is touching the legal community on the other side of the country in Seattle, Washington, an outbreak hotspot where there have been 70 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 10 deaths.

According to The Daily, a first-year student with a suspected coronavirus diagnosis at the University of Washington School of Law has been placed in self-quarantine by a doctor. Here are some additional details:

“The student’s healthcare team reports that according to CDC guidelines, the student currently does not warrant testing,” the email [from School of Law dean Mario Barnes] reads. “As a result, we do not know with certainty whether the student has coronavirus.”

To be tested, a patient’s physician or health care provider has to order it based on guidance from local and federal health officials, according to UW Medicine. People cannot refer themselves for testing. Keith Jerome, who leads the virology division of the UW School of Medicine department of laboratory medicine, noted that people with more mild symptoms should not get tested so as to not strain the limited resources locally.

The student is receiving care and will stay out of public for the next 14 days.

Dean Barnes told students that all public areas and restrooms at the law school are being disinfected and undergoing expanded cleanings, and the university has made a recommendation that if someone is feeling sick, they should stay home, and call their doctor before showing up unannounced.

“We will make every effort to accommodate students who choose to self-isolate,” Dean Barnes wrote in his email. “Students will be treated as if they are experiencing a health issue that keeps them from attending class; no doctor’s note is needed.”

We will be closely following these latest developments. What is your law school or law firm doing to protect students and employees from coronavirus? Please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “Coronavirus Response”). Stay safe, everyone.

Law student directed to self-isolate on novel coronavirus suspicions [The Daily]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

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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.

Law school is known as a place for those who have an aversion to numbers, but unbeknownst to these mathphobic young students, they may wind up having to analyze financial records in their future law practices. In fact, having even a basic understanding of accounting principles will allow lawyers to become more knowledgeable about the legal matters they’re working on.

But how can you measure your knowledge on these generally accepted rules and regulations?

Luckily for you, Above the Law has teamed up with PwC to create a quiz that will test you on the basics of this need-to-know part of legal practice.

Do you have what it takes?

America’s favorite Never-Trumper Republican, George Conway, has abruptly disappeared from the Wachtell Lipton website.

The husband of Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and current spokesperson-at-large Kellyanne Conway was last seen admonishing Chuck Schumer for attacking the Supreme Court — which was mildly inappropriate on the Senator’s part but hardly worth the consternation the scolds were giving it — and maxing out his contribution to the Biden campaign. The ubiquitous Tweeter even changed his banner to a Biden 2020 poster:

But checking in on Conway at the firm where he — until recently at least — served as Of Counsel brings up…

It’s like this American treasure of the Twittersphere just got Carmen Sandiegoed.

What’s going on? Does this portend a move to get more active in the upcoming campaign? Spending more time with his SuperPAC to convince Republicans to ditch Trump? Earlier this morning, he retweeted this message from the SuperPAC, The Lincoln Project, suggesting some Trump attack ads were in the offing:

Where have you gone, George? Wherever you are, keep Tweeting.

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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.

The fearless leader of my firm, Balestriere Fariello, is a self-described trial attorney. My first day on the job, he took me out for a coffee and told me about the work I would embark upon, and, more importantly, he told me that our team handles every case from the outset as though it will go to trial. To be fair, our firm litigates — to arbitration, mediation, trial, or appeal — the vast majority of its cases. As such, I suppose I must now self-describe as a trial lawyer, too. I am learning very quickly what that means.

As any litigator knows, preparing for trial, hypothetical or actual, comes with a plethora of challenges. One such challenge is that trial attorneys do not prepare for said trials in a vacuum or on their own — they prepare with a team. Even our leanest of trial teams consists of a lead attorney, an associate, and an analyst, or paralegal. The more people on a team, the more critical efficient workflow becomes, and this begins at the top. “The top of what?” you may wonder. That brings me to another challenge — there are two “tops.” Twin peaks, if you will.

The first peak is the top of the case itself — the theory of the case. The theory of the case is the driving force that informs every aspect of trial strategy, from client discussions to legal research to review, organization, and utilization of evidence. A wise professor in a white-collar investigation class once told me that the first thing to do in any investigation is to write down what you think happened — the theory of the case — and then get to work on figuring out the details. This pearl of wisdom applies to preparing for trial as well. A client walks in, tells their story, and, even before deciding to take the case, the listening lawyer starts to stitch together a theory of liability (or, if you’re defense-side, a theory of how to avoid it). If you cannot come up with a theory, the odds are there’s no case at all. And all work product in preparation for trial from that moment on is in service of fine-tuning and bolstering that theory — climbing to the peak, if you’ll continue the metaphor with me.

The second peak is the top of the team, the lead attorney. And that brings us back to nobody preparing for trial in a vacuum. The lead attorney at the top of the peak has command responsibility for ensuring the trial team reaches that other peak and proves the theory of the case. As such, communication is key, and efficient methods of communication are invaluable. Every firm has their own system in place for this, but I imagine every firm would agree — establishing a pattern for regular check-ins with the entire team working on any given trial cannot be underestimated. And this must be tailored to the communication style of the lead attorney, who must pull all the work product together come trial time to prove the theory of the case. My team, for example, without fail, has biweekly check-ins from the partner level down to the paralegals, Mondays and Fridays. As a case develops, and as trial looms near, we even reach daily evaluation of trial preparations — whether they be a regulated set of emails and replies or ticking boxes on a shared and synced to-do list. I’ve found workplaces to be most efficient when the top of the trial team peak chooses and enforces a communication style at the outset of a case, as the rest of the team looks up to the top of that peak for direction. As each team member is a different moving part, consistency in communication from the outset saves time down the line, and any new team member can pick up where any other leaves off.

Other metaphors work here, too. Trickle-down trial prep, top-down trial strategy, but I’m partial to a good media reference, and I’ll leave you with one more. At the base of both each of the twin peaks is, of course, a damn fine cup of coffee.

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Megan E. McKenzie, a recent graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, works at Balestriere Fariello while her admission to the bar is pending. She works with her colleagues on all aspects of domestic and international complex litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach her by email at megan.e.mckenzie@balestrierefariello.com

Has there ever been an Attorney General who so thoroughly trashed his own reputation for truthfulness and candor that a federal judge deemed the Justice Department’s representations to the court presumptively unreliable? Has a member of the federal bench ever held that “true to the oath that the undersigned took upon becoming a federal judge, and the need for the American public to have faith in the judicial process” he simply cannot take the DOJ’s word for it? And will Bill Barr feel even the mildest pang of concern that the has brought the Department to this sorry state?

Haha, that last one was a joke. Bill Barr isn’t the least bit concerned about breaking the DOJ as long as he keeps getting those judges confirmed. Haven’t you heard, everyone dies? But if you were looking for a sign that the frog is well and truly boiled, well, this is it.

BuzzFeed’s FOIA warrior Jason Leopold sued the Justice Department for access to an unredacted copy of the Mueller Report, which the DOJ insists must remain black-Barred … errr, black-barred, to protect legitimate government interest.

But yesterday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, said that Leopold had met the standard for judicial review of the redactions by proving “tangible evidence of bad faith,” and ordered the Department to hand over an unredacted copy for in camera review by March 30. The opinion was BRUTAL.

Noting that Barr’s pre-publication statements about the report seemed deliberately crafted to give the public a false impression, Judge Walton expressed “grave concerns about the objectivity of the process” of redacting Mueller’s findings.

The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report—a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report.

Because of “Attorney General Barr’s lack of candor,” the court cannot simply accept that the Department’s redactions are made in good faith.

These circumstances generally, and Attorney General Barr’s lack of candor specifically, call into question Attorney General Barr’s credibility and in turn, the Department’s representation that “all of the information redacted from the version of the [Mueller] Report released by [ ] Attorney General [Barr]” is protected from disclosure by its claimed FOIA exemptions. In the Court’s view, Attorney General Barr’s representation that the Mueller Report would be “subject only to those redactions required by law or by compelling law enforcement, national security, or personal privacy interests” cannot be credited without the Court’s independent verification in light of Attorney General Barr’s conduct and misleading public statements about the findings in the Mueller Report, id., Ex. 7 (April 18, 2019 Letter) at 3, and it would be disingenuous for the Court to conclude that the redactions of the Mueller Report pursuant to the FOIA are not tainted by Attorney General Barr’s actions and representations. [Citations omitted.]

Judge Walton, a George W. Bush appointee (not that it should matter), just called the Attorney General a liar. And, not for nothing, but the Department just spent the last two years trying, without success, to LOCK HER UP former FBI Director Andy McCabe for “lack of candor.” So there’s that.

In summing up his decision, Judge Walton concluded that the American public would never be able to trust a decision which rested on the mere word of the executive branch. Public trust, therefore, demands judicial review of the evidence.

Here, although it is with great consternation, true to the oath that the undersigned took upon becoming a federal judge, and the need for the American public to have faith in the judicial process, considering the record in this case, the Court must conclude that the actions of Attorney General Barr and his representations about the Mueller Report preclude the Court’s acceptance of the validity of the Department’s redactions without its independent verification. Adherence to the FOIA’s objective of keeping the American public informed of what its government is up to demands nothing less.

That’s a stinging indictment of the top law enforcement officer in the country.

EPIC and Jason Leopold v. DOJ [(March 5, 2020, D.D.C.) Case 1:19-cv-00810-RBW]

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

“Zimbabwe experienced political violence for many years,” a WDP Zimbabwe member writes. “And the traumas and tensions are still alive in the communities. In the process of bringing reconciliation, it is said that we must forgive, but just saying it does not make it happen. We need to be able to accept that we have been hurt, and go through the process of healing. Others need to acknowledge that they have hurt, and show they are sorry. We need to listen to each other. Peace begins with me and with you. The ingredient of peace is love, and where there is reconciliation, peace comes.”

WDP has a motto of “informed prayer and prayerful action” which means its prayer events also support practical projects.

“Her mother cried, telling us of their lives and what it is like for her to be the mother of a child with a disability in Zimbabwe.” – Belinda Faulks

While the world’s eye is on their country, Bible Society Zimbabwe and WDP  Zimbabwe have joined together to launch a new project on the World Day of Prayer called “Empowering mothers of differently able children”. Their aim is to help 10,000 people “live a full and flourishing life”.

While Zimbabwe is a country with massive economic and social needs overall, with over 70 percent of the population living in poverty, the most vulnerable are women and the 900,000 Zimbabweans living with a disability, who are often stigmatised and shunned in their communities.

Ninety per cent of Zimbabwean fathers who have disabled children leave their family (according to WDP statistics). This means mothers are left to raise children on their own.. These women are also socially isolated and many are no longer able to attend church due to the stigma around disability.

“With WDP we want to see how we can empower these mothers and lift them spiritually so that they will be able to interact with others and go to church,” explains Chipo Maringe, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Zimbabwe.

This involves setting up mothers’ support groups and Bible studies, educating local churches in how to support these families, and providing Bibles, children’s Bibles and Proclaimers – solar-powered audio units to listen to the Bible.

In addition to spiritual support, the project also provides practical help for these families by providing medicines and equipment like wheelchairs and hearing aids; respite care to enable mothers to work and attend church; literacy support for children with dyslexia; and workshops on income generation, run in collaboration with the disability support organisation Jairos Jiri Association.

“We realised that, as much as we want to bring them the Word of God, we also need to empower them somehow, so that they have food, they have whatever they need … So that when we share the Word of God, we are on the same level. We are also preparing some income-generating workshops so that the mothers won’t be so dependent on the communities and relatives who aren’t so forthcoming anyway,” says Maringe.

As WDP and Bible Society Zimbabwe call on people to support the project financially, as well as through prayer, Maringe adds: “We want to thank all our friends, the donors, the funders … Thank you so much for what you are doing for us in Zimbabwe. Thank you so much for partnering with us.”

Bible Society Australia’s Project and Relationship Manager, Belinda Faulks, has seen first-hand the difference that the project can make in the lives of mothers of children living with a disability. She tells the story of meeting one of these families on a recent trip to Zimbabwe:

“Charmaine is an 18-year-old girl who is the size of a toddler. She has cerebral palsy and cannot talk, move or swallow. As is common in Zimbabwe, her father left the family shortly after her birth as he couldn’t accept his child had a disability. Children with special needs are often shunned and viewed as evil, even within the Christian community, and life is desperately hard for the mothers who are left to raise them alone. Charmaine’s mother Juliet, who is blind, now also raises four young grandchildren, as well as caring for her elderly mother and, of course, Charmaine.

“They have absolutely nothing and live in extreme poverty. When I was there, flies were hovering around Charmaine because she salivates constantly. Her nine-year-old nephew, Patrick, was by her side wiping her face and fanning her to chase the flies away. She was wrapped in a t-shirt that was being used as a nappy, and sitting in a broken-down wheelchair. Her mother cried, telling us of their lives and what it is like for her to be the mother of a child with a disability in Zimbabwe. All of us visiting wept that day. It honestly was devastating, and a day I will remember forever.”

Through the “Empowering mothers” project, Juliet was provided with a blender to properly process Charmaine’s food and deliver much-needed nutrients to her. Bible Society Zimbabwe has begun providing groceries to the family each month and is teaching Juliet income generation skills. She was also provided with a Proclaimer to listen to the Bible with Charmaine and others in their neighbourhood.

“I am comforted by the Proclaimer which was given to me,” Juliet told Bible Society Zimbabwe. “I listen to it and it consoles me in my hours of need. And God gave me people who console me. My burdens now seem lighter.”

Each year’s prayer events are coordinated by World Day of Prayer International, an ecumenical movement of  Christian women. It began in 1927  when a group of North American women joined together to form a “worldwide sisterhood of prayer, sharing our sorrows and joys”. The name was changed to World Day of Prayer in 1986 to make it more inclusive. Today, a WDP International committee (based in Canada) still directs the event, with committees in 160 different countries (and five regional Australian committees).

Each year a different country and theme is selected as a focus for global prayer. The 2020 WDP theme for Zimbabwe, “Rise! Take Your Mat and Walk,” is based on Jesus’ encounter with a lame man in John 5:2-9

Rankings season is upon us, and many publications are rolling out their best offerings for readers’ perusal in advance of the release of the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings and the latest edition of the Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings.

For more than a decade, Law.com has published a list of the best law schools to go to if you want to work in Biglaw after graduation. Law.com refers to these institutions of higher education as the “go-to law schools,” and this year, they’re ranked by the percentage of 2019 graduates who took associate positions at the 100 largest law firms based on attorney headcount.

Before we get to the list of the go-to law schools, it’s worthwhile to speak about the landscape for entry-level employment in the legal profession. While Biglaw firms recently pulled back on the sizes of their summer classes (perhaps in preparation for the next recession), recent law school graduates were hired in the heyday of Biglaw hiring. Law.com has more info:

2019 was a good year to graduate from a top school if you aspired to work in Big Law. The number of 2019 juris doctors hired as new associates by the largest 100 firms ticked up slightly in 2019 to 4,423, and more than 30% of graduates from the 50 schools on our list landed those jobs.

In fact, several career services deans said the class of 2019 likely represents a high mark in large firm hiring. Those new associates went through the summer associate recruiting process in 2017, when firm recruiting was fairly robust.

That said, things are looking swell for the Go-To Law Schools. Here are the Top 10:

1. Columbia Law: 69.68 percent
2. Penn Law: 58.40 percent
3. NYU Law: 55.51 percent
4. Northwestern Law: 55.00 percent
5. UVA Law: 52.61 percent
6. U. Chicago Law: 50.50 percent
7. Duke Law: 49.55 percent
8. Berkeley Law: 49.39 percent
9. Cornell Law: 48.72 percent
10. Harvard Law: 47.75 percent

You can access the full list of the Top 50 Go-To Law Schools by clicking here.

With almost 70 percent of its graduates heading to Biglaw firms after graduation, Columbia has ruled this ranking for the past seven years. The top five schools remain unchanged from last year’s ranking, but there was some movement in the bottom five schools. Chicago and Berkeley both moved up (three spots and two spots, respectively), while Cornell and Harvard both sank (three spots and two spots, respectively). It’s worth mentioning the fact that clerkship placements aren’t considered in this ranking, which is likely the reason why Yale barely made it into the Top 20 on this list, and why Stanford doesn’t make a Top 10 appearance.

Law.com also has a list of “Firm Favorites,” noting the law schools that specific firms recruited most heavily from. Here are some highlights from that list:

Skadden: Columbia (23)
Kirkland & Ellis: Northwestern (22)
Ropes & Gray: Boston U. (18)
Cleary Gottlieb: Harvard (17)
Latham: Georgetown (13)

Perhaps even more notable than these numbers are the tuition figures appended to this year’s rankings. While the total costs aren’t wildly different, the employment percentages are. Why pay ~$59,000 to go to a school that sends 37 percent of its graduates to Biglaw when you can spend ~$20,000 less to go to a school that sends about the same percentage of its graduates to Biglaw?

Either way you slice it, this list is incredibly useful. It’s a great way for law students, both current and prospective, to gauge their employment prospects. Use these rankings wisely — or ignore them, at your peril.

The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools (2020) [Law.com]
Want to Work in Big Law? These Schools Are Good Bets [Law.com]
Go-To Law Schools: Firm Favorites [Law.com]
Go-To Law Schools: Tuition [Law.com]

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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.

The Biden bounce lasted for about as long as the former vice president can manage a string of coherent, grammatical sentences. Coronavirus cases worldwide have topped 100,000—although Rick Santelli wishes it were more like 330 million.

Maybe we’d be just better off if we gave it to everybody, and then in a month it would be over because the mortality rate of this probably isn’t going to be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture, but the difference is we’re wreaking havoc on global and domestic economies.

I’ve been procrastinating writing this story for several days. It’s just that every time I read the details of the case I became enraged. Not the productive kind of anger, but the kind that has me slamming my laptop closed and just walking away. But it’s Friday and the time has come to tell how the Tenth Circuit really screwed the pooch in the sexual harassment scandal of former District of Kansas judge Carlos Murguia.

You may remember Murguia from coverage here at Above the Law. In September of last year, the judge was formally reprimanded by the Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, chaired by Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich, for “inappropriate behavior.”

The council found Murguia sexually harassed court employees, specifically finding he “gave preferential treatment and unwanted attention” to female employees, and engaged in “sexually suggestive comments, inappropriate text messages, and excessive non-work-related contacts, much of which occurred after work hours and often late at night.” They also found Murguia had a years-long extramarital relationship with a felon on probation (who is now back in prison), and was “habitually” late for court.

Murguia admitted to the misconduct and apologized for his behavior. But was soon back on the bench. That sparked some outcry, but a judiciary spokesperson promised the reprimand “is not the final step in the process.” But any further disciplinary action was halted when Murguia resigned his position, effective April 1.

The Tenth Circuit has released more details about how the allegations against Murguia were handled. Way back in April of 2016 then-Chief Judge for the District of Kansas J. Thomas Marten was informed of allegations that Murguia sexually harassed a former employee. Judge Tymkovich was informed, and rather than initiate a formal inquiry into this serious allegation, the Tenth Circuit chief went with an informal approach. In addition to an “informal investigation” (which seems like an oxymoron, but whatevs), the Tenth Circuit also sent Murguia for medical treatment. I guess because they think “sexual harassment” can be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?

“The Circuit Chief Judge promptly conducted an informal investigation in accordance with JC&D Rule 53 that included reviewing documentary evidence and confronting Judge Murguia,” the order reads, citing a conduct committee rule. “Judge Murguia expressed remorse for his conduct toward the judicial employee who had alleged sexual harassment and agreed to participate in assessment and treatment by a medical professional, at the recommendation of the Tenth Circuit’s Certified Medical Professional.”

After Murguia had “successfully completed treatment” (I’d love to see what the American Medical Association recommends as the appropriate treatment for sexually harassing employees, because the Tenth Circuit’s statement contains no details on what that entails), the entire matter had been swept under the rug:

“The Circuit Chief Judge sent Judge Murguia a letter in February 2017 saying that there was credible evidence that he had engaged in misconduct, but that he would not initiate a formal misconduct complaint because of Judge Murguia’s apparent honesty in admitting his improper behavior, willingness to correct his behavior, cooperation with the Tenth Circuit’s Certified Medical Professional, and successful evaluation and treatment,” the order reads.

Just a few months later, in November 2017, additional allegations against Murguia came to light (including the particularly salacious detail that he began an extramarital affair with a felon who was on probation). And that, at least, gave the Tenth Circuit pause, “These allegations called into question Judge Murguia’s candor and truthfulness during the Circuit Chief Judge’s previous informal investigation.” Yeah, no kidding.

It was at that point that a retired FBI investigator was hired to actually investigate Murguia. And whaddya know? They found even more allegations! Because of course they did, this is what happens when you do a real investigation:

“Additional information regarding possible judicial misconduct by Judge Murguia, including his sexual harassment of two additional judicial employees, came to light during this investigation and showed Judge Murguia’s lack of candor and truthfulness during the informal investigation, including his lack of candor and truthfulness during his evaluation and treatment following the initial allegations,” the order reads.

According to the court’s statement, Murguia’s “underlying misconduct, as found by the Tenth Circuit Judicial Council, was serious enough to warrant this committee’s review to determine whether it should recommend a referral to Congress for its consideration of impeachment.” Of course, any further action against Murguia was short-circuited when he resigned.

But what, exactly, should the casual court observer make of the distinct lack of urgency when the Tenth Circuit was confronted with evidence of sexual harassment of a fellow judge? Charles Geyh, an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor who specializes in judicial ethics, told Law.com that he did not think  “the federal judiciary regarded sexual harassment of staff as different in kind from other forms of misconduct, which chief judges generally felt could and should best be managed informally first, with the threat of formal discipline held in reserve as a kind of shotgun behind the door if informal efforts failed.” And that before the allegations against former Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski came to light no difference was seen between sexual harassment and other forms misconduct. Geyh goes on to note, that this case illustrates how harmful that approach can be for sexual harassment allegations:

“The early stages illustrate the traditional approach of seeking informal resolution first, followed by escalating sanctions culminating in an impeachment referral. That is a fine approach as a general matter, but when it comes to sexual harassment, this episode reveals a need for near-zero tolerance, to better protect the victims of harassment,” Geyh said. “That this judge was allowed to flout the process for four years is unacceptable.”

Of course that’s true. There’s so much hand-wringing about why victims of sexual harassment by federal judges are hesitant to come forward, well folks, we have (at least part of) the answer. Even when someone does come forward with credible accusations of sexual harassment it can take 3+ years for anything to be done. All the while the judge is still sitting on the bench. The process clearly needs to change.

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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).