Category: News Feeds

Elite boutique Hueston Hennigan has also entered the COVID bonus fray. The firm, which traditionally blows the Biglaw market year-end bonuses out of the water, has announced a second round of bonuses at the firm.

Back in April, the firm bucked the austerity trend that was making its way through Biglaw. Then they offered staff a special $1,000 bonus to assist them or their families with any unexpected expenses during the pandemic. All lawyers got an additional $500 at-home technology budget (which supplements their existing technology) to make the transition to remote working just a little bit easier.

Now that COVID bonuses are all the rage, they’re matching the market rate on that too. All attorneys will receive a special appreciation bonus ranging between $7,500 and $40,000 depending on year. And staff will also get their second set of COVID bonuses.

The firm also clarified that these bonuses are in addition to their usual year-end bonuses. Can’t wait to see the eye-popping numbers that the firm gives out this year.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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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).

A lot of the time, I use this column to highlight immigration news that is flying under the radar. I’m pleased (sort of) to say that this time around, I’m highlighting something that a lot of people outside of the world of immigration law have heard of: allegations that an ICE detention center in Georgia is removing detainees’ uteruses at abnormally high rates.

As the BBC reported Tuesday, this is one of multiple allegations in a complaint that immigrant and prisoner advocates filed with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Civil Rights on Monday. The complaint pertains to the Irwin County Detention Center, an ICE contract facility that is actually run by private prison company LaSalle Corrections. The complaint details what it calls “jarring medical neglect” of detainees, including shredding requests for medical care, fabricating medical records to make it look as if they saw people that they refused to see, and refusing to treat people who were bedridden with suspected COVID-19.

But the centerpiece is evidence of unnecessary hysterectomies. (Hysterectomy is removal of the uterus, and renders the patient unable to have children.) A nurse named Dawn Wooten, who left her job at the facility in July, says in the complaint that “just about everybody” seen by a gynecologist the facility uses gets a hysterectomy, even though “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

Indeed, there is evidence that these surgeries are being performed on the thinnest of excuses, and without the legally required informed consent. One detainee says in the complaint that she asked three different people why she was having the surgery, and got different answers from each. Julie Schweitert Collazo of Immigrant Families Together said on Twitter Tuesday that, according to an inmate at Irwin, every woman that inmate knows at Irwin has been diagnosed with ovarian cysts. (She also says the jailers at Irwin took away inmates’ ability to make video calls on the same day the complaint was filed. Hmmm.)

As it happens, ovarian cysts can affect your fertility, but not because the normal treatment is hysterectomy. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says surgery to remove the cyst itself, or at most an ovary, is recommended for a cyst that’s very large or causing symptoms, or if they suspect cancer. A friend of mine who’s struggled with ovarian cysts says treatment for young women considers the risks of the treatment to future fertility. But as she observes, it’s a lot easier to take someone’s fertility away if you think they’re subhuman to begin with.

By now, it should be crystal clear that the Trump administration indeed does not believe that Latino people are human beings. It’s the only way someone could conceive of and implement family separation as a way to deter requests for asylum (which are both legal and protected by an international treaty). It’s the only way you can send people to their likely deaths in San Salvador, or in coronavirus-filled ICE jails.

But it’s also eugenics, and I suspect that’s why this is resonating beyond the outrage-fatigued world of immigration law. There is a long, ugly history of unnecessary sterilizations in this country, targeting Black women and other women of color, and some of them were more recent than we’d prefer to think. The Nazis did that stuff too — one of the women in the whistleblower complaint said the hysterectomies are “like an experimental concentration camp” — but it’s worth noting that they were inspired by American eugenicists.

There are only two things I’ve ever known to change Trump administration immigration policy: lawsuits and sustained, family-separation-level outrage. Get to work.

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Lorelei Laird is a freelance writer specializing in the law, and the only person you know who still has an “I Believe Anita Hill” bumper sticker. Find her at wordofthelaird.com.

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners told Brian Heckmann that he had a clean, qualifying record in 2018. In the intervening months, Heckmann has joined thousands of other law grads around the country in criticizing his local bar examiners for fumbling with his future: attempting to hold in-person exams… then canceling in-person exams; setting up online exams, failing to have tests of the exam platform… and then canceling online exams; and now trying to have the bar exam again with a different provider. But Heckmann had gone further than many and become a visible critic — appearing on local TV and publishing op-eds.

Now — TOTALLY COINCIDENTALLY — the Florida Board of Bar Examiners have a lot of issues with Heckmann’s application, asking for a bunch of additional material about his prior work. HMMMMMMM!

From the Daily Business Review:

“The reason why people are speaking out anonymously is because of a general perception—which I think is valid—that the Board of Bar Examiners is just vindictive,” Heckmann said.  “We’re making them look bad, and they know they can’t publicly get back against us but they’re still trying to extract a pound of flesh [through the character and review process.]”

Karen Sloan managed to get a comment from the Florida Board of Bar Examiners:

Michele Givagni, the executive director of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, said Tuesday that court rules prohibit her from commenting on any character and fitness reviews except with the applicant.

That’s not quite how confidentiality works in this setting. See, the proper response would be that she cannot comment on any C&F review except with the applicant… “BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU UNIVERSALLY THAT WE DO NOT ENGAGE IN RETALIATORY CHARACTER & FITNESS REVIEWS AND NO ONE IS RECEIVING ADDITIONAL VETTING BASED ON THEIR CRITICISM OF THE PROCESS.” That statement doesn’t violate any court rules and would be remarkably easy to add.

But it’s probably not something she could add because it’s probably not true. Putting aside the specifics of the Heckmann case, we already know that the “mood” of bar examiners around the country was to try and use the character and fitness process to get back at applicants whose complaints made the examiners look bad. NCBE President Judith Gunderson told an audience in August that applicants petitioning for diploma privilege should keep their mouths shut lest they get dinged on character and fitness. Technically she said that it wasn’t her, but rather some unnamed collection of bar examiners she’d spoken with (“a lot of people are saying,” as the President of the United States might put it) and not that all critics would be targeted but the ones with a “lack of civility,” a notoriously eye-of-the-beholder standard designed to chill speech by making every critic feel potentially ensnared in someone else’s subjective sense of decorum.

Maybe Heckmann’s case isn’t related but if there’s one rule that the American public needs to embrace it’s that when people tell you who they are, believe them. And bar examiners pretty clearly told us through Gunderson’s statement that they view the character and fitness process as fair game to get back at anyone pointing out that the emperor wears shockingly little clothing.

Law Grad Says He’s Being Retaliated Against For Bar Exam Criticism [Daily Business Review]

Earlier: NCBE Prez Issues Threat To Tie Up Licenses Of Bar Exam Critics
NCBE President Gives Trainwreck Of An Interview

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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.

We regret to inform you that Kodak shares are again on the move, and in an upward direction, and that, as with all such movement over the last two months, and most especially the past six weeks, it has nothing whatever to do with the anything like the company’s fundamentals.

Shares of Eastman Kodak Co. were up about 60% shortly after the start of trading in New York, following a legal review of how it award stock option grants to its chief executive officer before announcing a federal loan. The review determined the company had mishandled the process, but also that stock transactions by its chief executive officer and a board member didn’t constitute insider trading.

* Kayne West said he was going to tweet his recording contracts since he apparently needs “every lawyer in the world to look at these.” Can all of us lawyers send him a bill if we review the agreements? [Hollywood Reporter]

* Joe Biden is purportedly assembling an army of lawyers for a possible post-election legal fight. [Guardian]

* A new lawsuit has been filed against Kushner Companies, the outfit owned by Jared Kushner’s family, over allegedly dangerous living conditions at apartment buildings owned by the company. [Hill]

* An OBGYN is being accused of fertility fraud after it was allegedly revealed that the doctor’s sperm, and not that of an anonymous donor, was used to create an embryo. [Fox News]

* William H. Gates, Sr., a name partner of K and L Gates, has passed away. He is also the father of billionaire Bill Gates, what a legacy! [American Lawyer]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

We called it yesterday, the COVID-19 bonus wars are upon us. Cooley’s announcement got the ball rolling — and sent a signal to elite Biglaw firms that they’re going to have to pony up additional bonus money, on top of year-end bonuses — as a special thank you for all the hard work associates have been putting in during this difficult time. Then Davis Polk came over the top, offering associates a lot more money than Cooley did. Now we have our first match.

Milbank announced special bonuses today in the range of $7,500 to $40,000, depending on class year, matching the DPW scale. If an associate is below 80 percent utilization (inclusive of pro bono and work on behalf of the firm), they won’t be left out in the cold entirely, they’ll get 50 percent of the bonus for their class year. And for those extraordinarily busy (over 110 percent utilization), they’ll be rewarded with an extra 50 percent of their class rate.

And, as has become typical with the COVID bonus announcements, Milbank noted that their 2020 year-end bonuses will at least be as large as their 2019 bonuses.

These special bonuses will be paid on or before October 30th.

You can read the firm’s full announcement on the next page.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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

According to a retrospective survey of partner compensation data compiled by Major, Lindsey & Africa, from 2000 to 2018, by what percentage did compensation go up for male partners?

Hint: For women, compensation only went up 22 percent over that same time period.

See the answer on the next page.

It’s one of the first things a person new to Bridgewater Associates learns, assuming they read the manual. Its right up near the top: Initiates are instructed to “recognize that effective, innovative thinkers are going to make mistakes” (Principle no. 9). They are not, however, to feel bad about those mistakes. They are to love them (no. 10) and reflect upon the pain they cause. (no. 17), because it is unacceptable not to learn from them (no. 8). Well, there sure is a hell of a lot to love, reflect upon and learn from right now.

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) law has generated, on one hand, the most heartwarming practice area, helping bring adorable and loved babies into the world. On the other hand, this area has it all: mixed-up embryos, deceitful donors, doctors using their own sperm with unknowing patients, fights over use of reproductive material, parental rights confusion, denial of citizenship, and gentlemen who substantially encumber their income with child support obligations after giving away sperm at Target. Yes, ART law has become one of the most bizarre and mind-blowing areas of law, where the legal questions are fascinating, and the human toll profound. Check out these latest podcasts that take a deep dive into the issues of ART.

Donor 9623
Just released on Audible (free trials!), this bingeable series is getting rave reviews. A feature on the eight-part series has been The Atlantic’s most popular article for days — not pandemics or wildfires, but this story about scores of parents with kids from the same man, who was sold for a decade and a half as the “perfect donor.” Except it was all a lie.

It’s a case I’ve written about a couple times. The facts are shocking, the legal twists even more so. Professor Dov Fox, author of Birth Rights and Wrongs, hosts, illuminating the thorny stakes: from the pull of genetic ties and the uncertainty of living with medical risk, to what’s reasonable to expect when trying to have a child.

The Georgia Supreme Court is expected to weigh in soon on this controversial area of law. A dozen claims have already been settled or dismissed under doctrines like “wrongful birth.” But this time might be different — at least based on the grilling the justices gave the sperm bank’s attorney over the (virtual) oral arguments in May. Fox delves into all this in the podcast.

The series moves briskly through key players and original evidence to unravel this surreal story. All the episodes are great, but the last one is extraordinary. Fox sits down with the donor himself, the man at the center of it all, and gets answers to the questions we have all been dying to ask.

Sick

Thanks to direct-to-consumer DNA kits, the number of people finding out that their mother’s fertility doctor is also (surprise!) their biological father has been beyond shocking. Depressingly, it’s become almost expected at this point when I get an email that begins “So I received a 23andMe kit as a gift …” Of these doctor-donor cases, that of Dr. Donald Cline of Indiana, has been one of the most prominent. Cline has fathered at least 60 children with his patients, after promising only the use of “anonymous donor” sperm. Sick is described as “an investigative podcast about what goes wrong in the places meant to keep us healthy.” Award-winning journalists Jake Harper and Lauren Bavis explore the personal stories of those affected, and the injustices in our medical system. And it’s on NPR. Which means it’s produced by podcast pros and it’s free!

I Want To Put A Baby In You

Full disclosure. This is the podcast that I co-host. But if you are interested in assisted reproductive technology legal issues, this is definitely the podcast for you. Unlike Donor 9623 and Sick, it is not formatted as a series. Instead, each episode is a standalone interview. It’s hard to choose a few favorites of the almost 100 episodes, but for my attorney colleagues that especially enjoy the intricate legal issues, here are a few not to miss.

Attorney Eric Wrubel — Embryo Mix-Up Shocker. Wrubel is a New York matrimonial attorney who got the call from distraught California parents when they suddenly found out their embryo had been accidentally transferred to another woman who subsequently gave birth to their son, thousands of miles away.

Attorney Kim Surratt — The FBI and Baby-Selling Ring. What happens when an experienced surrogacy attorney sees some major red flags and gets the FBI involved? She helps take down a terrifying baby-selling ring. This is a case of truth being stranger than fiction, and how attorneys can, in fact, make the world a better place.

Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg — Our Daughter is American, Too. A recent favorite, learn more about the intricacies of the U.S. immigration code than you ever cared to know, and how it can be, and was, used to deny citizenship to the children of same-sex couples. This former practicing attorney and his husband fought back, with the help of Biglaw firm Morgan Lewis and others, and won.

Oh you wanted one more?

Danielle Teuscher and Jill Teitel — Beware of the Home DNA Kit. It’s rare to be able to snag an interview with the plaintiff and plaintiff’s attorney during active litigation, but we did it. And this case is fascinating. Find out what happens with a sperm donor recipient who discovers the donor’s mother through a home DNA test, only to be hit with a cease and desist letter from the sperm bank purportedly imposing a $20,000 fine, and taking away the plaintiff’s property — the sperm vials plaintiff purchased and stored with the bank.

Now we all have something to do while we wait for the next season of Cobra Kai. You’re welcome.

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Ellen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.