Category: News Feeds

The international law firm of Ince & Co. has parted ways with a parter after he found himself in legal hot water following a drunken night out with clients. Devandran Karunakaran, 40, was managing partner in the Singapore office of the firm with a practice in maritime law when he was charged with molesting three women at a bar.

According to reports, in May of last year after drinks with clients, Karunakaran went to a bar to continue drinking. There he groped three women, including the bar’s marketing director and DJ. When the manager of the bar asked him to leave, Karunakaran reportedly became irate and hurled profanities and shouted that he was a lawyer and could get the manager fired. Police were called and Karunakaran was arrested.

Last week, Karunakaran pleaded guilty to three charges of molestation. He was charged under the Protection from Harassment Act and was fined a total of S$15,000. For each of the molestation charges, he faced up to two years’ jail time, fines, caning, or any combination of the three.

As reported by Law.com, following the verdict, the firm fired Karunakaran:

A spokesperson for Ince said in a statement: “Following the Singapore Court’s decision, Devandran Karunakaran’s position at Ince has been terminated with immediate effect and he no longer works at the firm.

“We take the behavior and ethical conduct of all of the Group’s Partners and staff extremely seriously.”

It sure seems like you wouldn’t want anyone who uses this kind of poor judgment as a representative of the firm.

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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).

I truly think once I got robbed, it took something out of me in the best way. All the things that really mattered to me then deeply — how many bags I had, what car I drove … I still like all that stuff, but it doesn’t matter. It could go away. For so long, people have tried to partner me with things. But this was the first thing where I thought, You know what? I want to go to law school. I want to help people. Let me work for the next ten years and build up my brands, and then one day, in ten years, just give up being Kim K. and become a lawyer. And now I’ve come to a realization about what I care about. No publicist would have ever told me to get into prison reform.

— Kim Kardashian West, in an interview with The Cut, explaining what really motivated her to want to follow in her father’s footsteps and study law. The reality TV star is currently planning to become a lawyer without going to law school and is completing the first year of a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco, California.

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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.

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With UPenn shooting itself in the genitals with an ill-advised effort to rename itself “Carey Law School” — not to be confused with the University of Maryland’s Carey Law School — law school observers may have missed the burgeoning controversy in Canada over a donor bringing a lawsuit against his namesake school for his name not appearing in enough places.

The Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia finds itself embroiled in a lawsuit brought by Peter A. Allard after the attorney turned philanthropist learned that his name doesn’t appear on the diplomas of higher level law school graduates (e.g., the LL.M.s). Allard’s $30 million donation to the school — the largest of many donations he’s made to the school — included a provision that all degrees granted by the Faculty of Law include a “reasonable reference” to Allard.

The wrinkle is that the Faculty of Law doesn’t give out those degrees. While they issue JDs — which do include Allard’s name — higher level degrees are granted by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and therefore the school doesn’t believe the agreement with Allard covers those diplomas.

This seems like a good practical lesson in the importance of reading the fine print. Allard, however, did not see it that way and took the school to arbitration. The arbitrator ruled that the school wasn’t acting in bad faith and trying to hide the ball when it came to the departmental divide. Allard is now asking the courts to allow him to appeal the arbitrator’s decision.

The school seems to be technically correct here but can’t we all be adults here and just say, “Oh, right, you probably reasonably assumed our LAW DEGREES included all our law degrees — sorry about that, we’ll slap your name on there going forward.” For its part, the school tried to downplay the importance of the oversight by noting that “around 200 students are expected to graduate with JDs next year, with 60 to 65 students earning master’s degrees and another six completing PhDs.” But this actually proves too much — this is exactly why this isn’t a particularly big ask and they could easily just let it go, especially if the school’s hoping to maintain a relationship with the donor.

Still, suing the school is equally ridiculous. They may be unnecessarily obstinate here, but does the justice system really need to get dragged into what names end up on 60-70 diplomas?

Sometimes being right doesn’t require being vindicated.

But it goes to show you that when a bunch of lawyers get involved, even Canadians can stop being polite.

One of UBC’s biggest donors goes to court in effort to ensure his name appears on all law-school degrees

Massachusetts District Court Judge Shelley Joseph didn’t join the bench in July 2017 thinking she’d become a symbol of civil disobedience.

But whether she knew it or not, that changed in April 2018 when she decided not to let an ICE agent arrest a defendant on an immigration warrant who stood before her facing low-level drug charges.

Jose Medina-Perez had already been deported twice and had allegedly illegally reentered the country when he was picked up for drug possession and ordered to appear in the district courthouse in the tony Boston suburb of Newton.  When he came to court, he and his lawyer learned that an ICE agent was there to arrest him.  The judge ordered that the ICE agent wait outside while Medina-Perez’s case was heard.

Following a bench conference among the defense attorney, prosecutor, and judge (part of which was recorded and part of which was not), Medina-Perez was permitted to leave through a backdoor, downstairs exit instead of the front door.  (The prosecutor seemed to be in agreement with this arrangement as there was an issue whether Medina-Perez was the correct person being sought.) The backdoor exit was opened by a court officer from Judge Joseph’s courtroom.

Medina-Perez subsequently jumped a fence and for a short time avoided apprehension. The ICE agent, after having waited outside for several hours, went home empty-handed and angry.

Since ICE has ratcheted up its enforcement efforts under the Trump administration, there have been stand-offs in state courts around the country between local and federal authorities regarding what role, if any, the state should have in facilitating ICE arrests.  Many cities in so-called sanctuary locations (like Newton) do not permit ICE agents to arrest immigrants inside the courthouse because they feel it discourages non-U.S. citizens from showing up in court for their cases.   They also believe such enforcement disturbs the normal functioning of the court.  Absent a valid judge-ordered arrest warrant (as opposed to one merely order by ICE), officials in those court houses will not help ICE.

Judge Joseph’s apparent assistance in the escape of Perez-Medina so enraged the ICE agent that it was reported to higher-ups and maybe even POTUS himself.  In a largely unprecedented move by federal authorities, a decision was made to indict Judge Joseph and the court officer who let Perez-Media out the back.  Both now stand charged with federal counts of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. The last time a sitting judge in Massachusetts was indicted by federal prosecutors while on the bench was in 1787 when a judge defended a farmer’s rebellion against state tax laws.

Joseph was put on administrative leave and lost her $184,000 yearly salary.  So much for the presumption of innocence.

Every attorney feels both personal and professional humiliation when caught up in a controversy that brings national media attention.  It’s embarrassing to be reprimanded in court by a judge, but imagine a judge being reprimanded and then formally charged by federal prosecutors in a story that garners national media attention.

For Joseph, this is nothing short of catastrophic.  In news articles she appears drawn and teary-eyed.

State authorities like Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey defended Joseph and the need for state courts to remain autonomous and free from federal interference. Retired Massachusetts Judge Carol Ball called the indictment politically motivated.

However, conservative opponents like right-wing radio host Howie Carr called Joseph “a lawless, privileged moonbat judge” who is “hoping for an O.J. Simpson-like jury nullification from 12 Democrats afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

He’s speaking of a future trial and as of now it appears that’s what Joseph is interested in doing.  According to reports, she recently turned down a plea offer that would not involve jail time.

While DOJ officials insist the case has nothing to do with politics and all to do with a judge’s obligations to carry out the law, it’s inevitable the trial will be political, with pro-immigrant rights activists lining up on one side and pro-Trump supporters on the other.

For my part, I’m rooting for the judge. Having been on the bench less than one year, she may not have realized the quagmire she was stepping into when she permitted Medina-Perez to exit out the back.  My guess is she truly believed what she did was right and fair — a consideration for all judges. I don’t think it was ever her intention to thwart federal legal process, but in her quest to do the “right thing,” she may have inadvertently done that.

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Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

Fidelity Investments’ evolution from mutual fund giant donating money to white nationalists to cryptocurrency player with correspondingly less money to donate to white nationalists took another step forward last week. The New York State Department of Financial Services, presumably in between howls of laughter, awarded Fido a crypto license. Obviously, fake money immediately took another nosedive, with bitcoin falling to its lowest level in six months as the Chinese once again took a large needle to the bubble and others recognized the Fidelity news as the contraindicator it is, once again putting John McAfee’s penis in mortal danger.

Despite encroachment from the GRE, the LSAT is still the first step for most people on their journey to becoming a lawyer. The November administration of the LSAT, which is today, is the largest of the year with over 26,000 people taking the test. But unfortunately for some of them, it isn’t quite that simple.

There are some issues with the latest administration of the LSAT. Though the exam recently moved over to an all-digital version of the test, it isn’t tech issues causing the snafu. Nope, it’s some good, old-fashioned people power slowing things down.

In a letter from Kellye Testy, president and CEO of the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the folks who administer the LSAT revealed that there were insufficiently qualified proctors at 30 testing locations (out of over 500). As a result, there’s a massive disruption for those who signed up to take the test in one of those centers.

LSAC is offering those impacted to take a make-up exam, on paper, on December 8th. And those who opt-in for that special administration will have their scores released on the same date as the November administration. If that doesn’t work, they can sign up for a regularly scheduled future administration of the test at no cost or get a refund if they decide to back out of the LSAT entirely. To apologize for the inconvenience, LSAC is also offering affected students four free score reports to the law schools of their choice.

Read Testy’s full letter, as tweeted by PowerScore CEO Dave Killoran, below:

As Testy’s letter concludes, they can and must do better. At least this level of transparency is a step in that direction.

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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).

We’ve been talking about innovation in law for a long time. And even though we agree that we have a long way to go, still not much actually gets done.

Has innovation in law become like intimacy in high school? Everyone talks about it, but very few, if any, do it.

For all the focus on people, process, and technology in the collective discourse, let’s discuss what innovation in law is not.

One, social media activities. Posting about opportunities to improve, funny technology moments, and complaining that nothing has changed in law since the dark ages is fun. It may even engage your followers and lead to some productive discussions on- and off-line. But at some point, you to have a specific discovery, plan, and execution that applies to your people, process, and technology. Things have to change. Social media is not a meaningful substitute for the time, commitment, and investment of resources that it takes to modernize your legal department or legal practice.

Two, volume discounts. So, you’ve made a couple of changes. Maybe even now your vendors and law firms give you some volume discounts. You report to your CEO that you were able to save around 10 percent. That’s great! Really, it is — we all start somewhere, and cutting costs around the edges is a great starting point. But make no mistake, it is just that — a place to start! Even with all those new savings, you still have a long way to go. The people, process, and technology await! And if you are serious about saving money, I am certain that you can save even more, much more, if you innovate.

Three, awards. I get it, I love shiny reminders of achievement, too! And, it’s fun to celebrate an occasion with well-dressed friends and colleagues, especially around a good meal and good wine. And yes, the pictures look fantastic on LinkedIn. But again, let’s be clear: Awards and award ceremonies, even those that recognize innovation, are not themselves innovation. After you receive an award, you return to the same office where archaic processes have reigned supreme. And whether you prominently display the shiny plaque in your office or reception area, the cold reality is that to modernize your legal department or legal practice you will need to focus on (yep, you guessed it!) people, process, and technology. Things will need to change.

Change is hard. On the one hand, everyone wants a change. On the other hand, everyone is afraid of it. But true innovation cannot happen without meaningful change. That’s the point, after all — to end up with a product, process, or system that’s fundamentally different from what you started with. Innovation has to go beyond appearances, to the building blocks of any successful enterprise and department. And the building blocks of any successful enterprise? People, process, technology.

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Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. Olga also co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated to preparing women in-house attorneys to become general counsels and legal leaders, and WISE to help female law firm partners become rainmakers. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can email Olga at olga@olgamack.com or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack. 

There are a lot of reasons why law students petition to keep a professor from teaching at the school and almost all of them are bad news. Title IX issues, racially antagonistic language, being Amy Wax — all valid reasons to want a teacher out of a law school, but also all signs of something having already gone wrong at the school.

NYU Law students and graduates are petitioning one former professor not to return to the school for a much different reason. SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson Jr. saw his appointed term expire in June, but can remain on the Commission through 2020 or until a successor is confirmed. With Democrats in the Senate dragging their heels on nominations and no guarantees that Trump would perform his duty and actually appoint the Senate Democratic nominee, liberals and progressives alike want the independent Jackson to remain on the Commission as long as possible to avoid a vacancy that could become open season on Wall Street rules.

As Bloomberg reports, the NYU Law community flocked to a petition to urge the school to allow Jackson to remain at his post and, indirectly, to urge Jackson to stay there.

“It’s extremely important that he stays to protect the people’s interest because the Republicans are protecting corporate interests,” said Leo Gertner, director of field services at the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 and a 2016 NYU Law graduate. “His teaching duties can wait.”

For the school’s part, Dean Trevor Morrison has told petitioners that the school is not putting any pressure on Jackson to get back to teaching:

“I can confirm that, although the NYU community is certainly excited for Commissioner Jackson to return to campus, we have placed no restrictions on his public service leave and continue to support the decisions he makes about his work in Washington,” Morrison wrote.

Whether or not Jackson agrees is still up in the air.

NYU Students Beg Teacher to Stay at SEC as Wall Street Adversary [Bloomberg]

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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.