Category: News Feeds

Steven Fabrizio is out as the General Counsel of the Motion Picture Association of America. The move comes after he was arrested on charges of second degree sexual abuse and blackmail in Washington D.C.

As reported by Variety, Fabrizio is accused of blackmailing a woman he met on a website for sugar daddies. After they’d consensually had sex once, Fabrizio allegedly coerced the victim into other sexual encounters, threatening to expose her sexual proclivities to her job, landlord and family:

According to a police affidavit, Fabrizio is accused of threatening a woman he met on a “sugar daddy” dating site. The police allege that Fabrizio and the woman had consensual sex once on Aug. 19, after which he paid her $400. After that, she did not want to see him again. According to the affidavit, Fabrizio sent numerous texts insisting on a second meeting, and threatening to expose her if she did not comply.
“I know where you live,” he allegedly wrote. “I know where you work. Don’t think — Hospital would be happy to know that it’s young nurses are having sexual for money / Same for your landlord.”

In a statement an MPAA spokesperson expressed the proper amount of outrage over the arrest, “These charges, if true, are both shocking and intolerable to the association. We had no prior knowledge of this behavior before these charges were publicly filed.”

Prior to this dip into infamy, Fabrizio had quite the prominent legal career. Before working for the MPAA, he worked at the Recording Industry Association of America and took the lead in-house counsel role in the A&M Records v. Napster case, which ended the original Napster’s bid to disrupt the music industry. He also reportedly spent a decade at Jenner & Block as a partner and founder of the content, media and entertainment practice. His other Biglaw experience includes stints at both Cravath and Proskauer Rose as an associate. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1988.

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).

The French government, led by President Emmanuel Macron, recently proposed a new law that would permit single women and women in same-sex relationships to access assisted reproductive technology procedures, including in vitro fertilization (IVF). Shocking, right? I mean, shocking that is not currently permitted. In fact, not only is it not presently a service accessible for single women and same sex couples through the state-run health care system, but it is in fact prohibited to offer any such care through any means. In other words, you can’t even go to a non-state supported medical provider for help without breaking the law.

I spoke with Paris-based French attorney Fabien Guillaume Joly about the current situation, and his hopes for the proposed law. Joly explained that currently, mademoiselles and same-sex couples are forced to travel abroad — generally to Spain, Denmark, or Belgium — to fulfill their hopes of having a family. And even then, for married same-sex female couples, the non-biologically related parent does not have any parental rights to the child without first going through an adoption process.

Two Major Shifts

Joly explained the two significant shifts for assisted reproduction in France. First, it would lift the ban prohibiting single women and same-sex couples from using assisted reproductive technologies in France, and would specifically permit them to access free services through the state health system. That would mean up to four reproductive treatments (such as IVF). That’s a huge swing to go from prohibition to covered services! Second, Joly explained that the other major change proposed by the draft law is that children of single women and same-sex female couples, conceived from donor gametes, would have the legal right upon turning 18 years old to learn the identity of their donors.

Liberté, fraternité … and now égalité

Joly, in addition to being a lawyer who specializes in assisted reproductive technology, is also the spokesperson for an LGBTQ organization in France. He explained that his organization feels that the proposed law, while good, nevertheless has some significant flaws that they hope to correct before it becomes law. Specifically, as drafted, the law would create two different systems for those who undergo conception with the help of donor gametes.

As it reads now, the proposed law would require the non-biological parent of a same-sex female couple to sign certain legal declarations of parenthood before conception, and the birth certificate of the child would reflect the declarations and that the child was conceived from donor sperm. By contrast, the non-biological parent in heterosexual couples who use donor eggs or sperm to conceive are not required to sign such a declaration, and their children’s birth certificates make no such indication of the use of a donor. Joly believes the system should be the same for all parents by donor gametes, and the birth certificates equal in treatment.

Further, Joly notes that because the proposed law only applies to single women and same-sex female couples, the proposed clause to eliminate lifelong anonymity for donors anomalously applies only to the children of single women and same-sex couples. So, if you were conceived from donor sperm, you would have a right to know the identity of your donor if you happen to be the child of a single mother or same-sex female couple. But if you were born to a heterosexual couple, you would have no right to know the identity of your donor-parent.

To be sure, there are certainly differing stances on balancing the anonymity of donors with the rights of a child to know his or her biological history. But, regardless of your position, we can likely agree that it doesn’t make sense to apply the rule based on the irrelevant factor of the sexual orientation or relationship status of the parents.

I asked Joly about the availability of sperm and egg donors in France. He noted that there are some, but it is strictly illegal in France for sperm and egg donors to be compensated for their donations. That, paired with the elimination of anonymity (which arguably is already a relic of the past thanks to home DNA kits) may make donated eggs and sperm hard to come by.

Same sex marriage in France has only been legal since 2013. But given how quickly things have moved to accept same-sex relationships in France, Joly feels certain that the law will pass. His best estimate is likely in the first quarter of 2020. The only question is, will the form of law evolve to embrace equality more fully, or instead create two tiers of parents and children born by assisted reproductive technology?

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.

The trial of Greg Craig, former White House Counsel in the Obama administration and former Skadden attorney, is a bit pointless, because all of the important matters have been decided. It doesn’t seem pointless because there’s a lot of shadiness and Eastern European names and secret Harvard Club meetings floating around. But the thing Craig is actually being charged with is easily the most boring facet of the entire fact pattern. So… for those who haven’t been following along, let’s talk about that fact pattern first:

In 2012, Paul Manafort, then working on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych commissioned then-Skadden attorney Greg Craig to write a report. Yanukovych had launched a corruption trial against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was a political rival. Tymoshenko was convicted and imprisoned. Yanukovych wanted to burnish his image in the west, so they wanted to show that the trial against Tymoshenko was something legitimate and not, you know, the other thing. Craig and Skadden accepted. Craig wrote a memo to file calling the evidence against Tymoshenko “virtually non-existent.” But when the report came out, Skadden more or less backed Yanukovych’s version of events. Craig engaged in public relations campaign to support the report, including delivering a copy of it to the home of a New York Times reporter before the report was released publicly. Manafort was thrilled, sending an email to Craig “You are ‘THE MAN.’” A contract with the Ukrainian government initially indicated that Skadden was to be paid $12,000 for its work (which, LOL, a Skadden partner wouldn’t spend six minutes punching you in the face for $12,000), but in fact Skadden was paid roughly $4.6 million for the report, largely funneled through Ukrainian oligarchs. Craig did not register as a foreign agent for his production of the report or the media work he did on Yanukovych’s behalf.

See? Isn’t that a GREAT fact pattern? You’ve got corruption, political prisoners, Manafort’s stupid emails, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and a memo-to-file somebody actually read!

Unfortunately, none of that is really at issue in this case. After these dealings were exposed through the Robert Mueller investigation, the Justice Department went after Skadden. Skadden settled for the purely coincidental amount of… $4.6 million. Then Justice turned its eyes towards Craig. But Craid wasn’t even charged with failure to register, because (pro-tip, Congress) FARA is a distressingly vague and poorly written statute. Judge Amy Berman Jackson already dismissed one charge about false statements. Manafort is in jail. Yanukovych is in exile. Tymoshenko is out of jail and hopefully living her best life. Nearly everything here has been solved.

The only lingering issue is whether Craig lied to or materially mislead the Justice Department when they were investigating whether he should have registered as a foreign agent. That’s the charge. That’s what Craig is on trial for. Did Craig get too cute with a Justice Department functionary?

Which, I’m sorry, but I hit the snooze button on that. The man is out here getting Skadden to whitewash the imprisonment of political enemies, getting Skadden paid by Russian oligarchs, and having bro-emails with someone we now know to be one of the shadiest men on the planet, and I’m supposed to get up because he maybe wasn’t fully forthcoming to a rando Justice Department official?

Whatever. The prosecution rested its case yesterday, after calling 15 witnesses, many of them Skadden or former-Sakdden attorneys, as well as Rick Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man. The prosecution closed with Heather Hunt, who was Justice’s investigator in the Craig matter. She testified that she was not made aware of the public relations strategy between Craig and Manafort. She said that had she been aware: “It would have been very relevant to my inquiry.” Whoever is writing this dialog needs to be fired before they start working on the movie.

Craig took the stand today in his own defense. Usually, that’s a terrible strategy. But Craig is an accomplished trial lawyer and, more importantly, who the f**k cares? From Politico:

Within minutes of being sworn in Wednesday, Craig denied the core allegation in the case: that he lied to and misled the head of Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration Act unit, Heather Hunt.

“I did not lie to Ms. Hunt or the FARA unit,” Craig said, under questioning from defense attorney William Taylor. “I did not lie or conceal from the FARA unit.”

Craig contends he told Hunt what was relevant, didn’t tell her things that weren’t relevant, and conducted the public relations roll out to make sure that Skadden looked good, not Yanukovych.

I mean, I don’t believe that for a second but… it’s an argument. I’ve never known Skadden to be that desperate to get positive coverage in the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal, maybe. But not the NYT.

If convicted, the charge carries a five-year maximum, but Craig won’t get that. He’d get the lightest sentence or maybe just probation, since he’d be a first time offender. And, of course, Craig could easily be acquitted because his defense only sounds stupid if you are looking at the bigger fact pattern, and that might be hard for some jurors to follow.

Jury deliberations are expected to start after Labor Day. Skadden is so much more boring than Jones Day.

Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig takes the stand in his criminal trial [Politico]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

On Friday, the world learned the liberal lion of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had undergone treatment for pancreatic cancer. Though there was reportedly no evidence of cancer anywhere else in the body, and her doctors indicated no further treatment was necessary, there was a lot of understandable panic from those that feared RBG may not live to see the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.

It may have only been a few days since we learned of this latest bout of cancer, but Justice Ginsburg’s latest appearance is here to reassure us. As the Dude might note, nothing is f*cked here.

On Monday, she received an honorary degree from the University at Buffalo, and as it’s been reported, she wasn’t going to get a little cancer get in the way of her active schedule:

“In July 2018 [the late Wayne Wisbaum] wrote to me that his health disabled him from [making] the arrangements for my visit here, but he still hoped to attend all the events,” she said. “He asked me to confirm that I would come to Buffalo in August 2019 in any event. I did so immediately, and I did not withdraw when my own health problems presented challenges.”

Justice Ginsburg also noted in her remarks that it was “beyond [her] wildest imagination” that she’s known as Notorious RBG, saying, “I am now 86 years old, yet people of all ages want to take their picture with me. Amazing.”

After her prepared remarks Ginsburg also did a Q&A with Buffalo Law dean Aviva Abramovsky.

See, everything is going to be just fine. (Knock on wood.)

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).

The family that owns Purdue Pharma would give up control of the opioid maker under a settlement it has proposed to resolve thousands of lawsuits at the federal and state level, according to published reports.

Citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, several outlets reported Tuesday that the Sackler family would give up control of the Stamford, Connecticut-based company and pay $3 billion of its own money toward a settlement worth $10-12 billion. The New York Times reported that rather than being a simple payout, most of the money would come from a restructuring resulting from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The Wall Street Journal reported that the discussions – to resolve more than 2,000 lawsuits – have been ongoing for more than a year and remain in flux. Lawyers for the company and the plaintiffs have until Friday to give an update to Judge Dan Polster of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, in Cleveland.

In March, Reuters reported that Purdue was exploring a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing so that it could negotiate claims with plaintiffs in the suits. It was reported at the time that the bankruptcy filing would stop the lawsuits and allow the company to negotiate with the plaintiffs, under the supervision of a bankruptcy judge.

Purdue is the maker of OxyContin, a long-acting form of the opioid painkiller oxycodone and a central culprit in the nationwide opioid crisis. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, overdose deaths in the U.S. related to prescription opioids rose from 3,442 in 1999 – four years after the Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin – to 17,029 in 2017.

On Monday, a judge in Oklahoma ruled that Johnson & Johnson would have to pay $572 million in a case against the company for its role in the opioid epidemic. However, an investment bank analyst wrote in a report that the case has little direct read-through to a larger multi-district litigation case in October.

Photo: VladimirSorokin, Getty Images

This column is about the intersection of finance and the law, and I hope you’ll all indulge me in stretching that premise a bit this week. I want to talk about the value a particular teacher, who we recently lost to a violent crime, added to my life, and many others.

Barry Bennett played 11 seasons in the NFL. From 1978 to 1988, he spent time on the line for the New Orleans Saints, the New York Jets, and the Minnesota Vikings.

But I didn’t know any of that when I first walked into his physical education class at Long Prairie-Grey Eagle High School as a bespectacled, tiny, awkward teenager. He was just Mr. Bennett to me. He had a booming voice and he’d cruise around on his bicycle shouting encouragement and clocking us in at the end as we circled the high school running the mile. He’d jump into our games of bombardment (the Minnesota name for a close cousin of dodgeball) if we begged hard enough. He respected the students. He made us laugh — one time a friend of mine, Jerrod, who also met a brave but tragic end, bet me $20 I couldn’t wax my legs (which sprout hair roughly the consistency of a bear pelt) without making a peep. Another classmate brought in the waxing paraphernalia, and Mr. Bennett refereed the whole silly affair, cracking his own brand of tasteful jokes along with the rest of us. He made a class that could have been a chore a pleasure.

I graduated as my high school valedictorian, and my nearly perfect transcript was marred by only a single A-. It was from that first P.E. class I took with Mr. Bennett. “Wolfman,” he said, “You try harder than anyone else in this class, and I can’t tell you how important I think that is. But if I gave you an ‘A’ instead of an ‘A-,’ what am I supposed to tell the kids who don’t have to try as hard as you do but are still getting a six-minute mile instead of the eight-minute mile you’re at?”

I tried even harder, and I took more classes with Barry Bennett. By the next year, I was getting an A on my own merits. By my senior year, I was taking elective Phys. Ed. Mr. Bennett taught me how to lift weights, and lift them right. We lifted three days a week, and the rest of the days learned the nuances of everything from broomball (hockey but with no skates and a ball instead of a puck, and, you know, brooms) to bowling. He was radiant in the elective class. “Beloved” is not an overstatement. When graduation season came, he carried around a stack of cards, because he was invited to so many graduation parties, and he made the time to stop by and visit and have a little food at every single one of them. He was one of only two teachers I invited to my own graduation party. Years later, he would still stop my buddy Ingman and me for a chat when he saw us riding our bikes around town. He said he thought it was great to see his former students out getting exercise as adults even when it was no longer a class requirement.

I didn’t become an athlete. I’m not an NFL player. But I’ve completed four marathons at this point. I still lift weights. If not for the influence Barry Bennett had on my life, I might have been dead one night three years ago when a couple street thugs jumped me. As it turned out, I had the physique to fight them off, they went to jail, and I spent the night a little bloodied but safe in my own bed. Mr. Bennett didn’t create my stubbornness or drive or whatever you want to call it, but he sure helped it grow and mature. I don’t know if I would have come out of a lot of the experiences I’ve had in as good of shape as I did if Barry Bennett hadn’t been in my life.

Barry Bennett, and his wife, Carol, were murdered last week in my hometown. You can read about the details of that horrible crime in some other news source. But I want to tell you that teachers, good teachers, add real value to people’s lives. There are a lot of studies about it, and replacing a teacher in the bottom five percent for quality with even an average teacher can increase the present value of students’ lifetime incomes by as much as $250,000 per classroom. Barry Bennett was more than an average teacher, he was an outstanding teacher, and I have no trouble believing that he helped contribute to the lifetime earnings of myself and the rest of his students. But he offered so much more that you can’t put a number on. He improved hundreds of lives, including my own. That is what I am going to remember of him. That, and his big, toothy smile.

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

They are attacking two highly accomplished lawyers; it’s hard to believe that they aren’t excellent lawyers. It takes courage to bring this kind of lawsuit… To me, it’s clear that Jones Day has an illegal policy, and it’s a straightforward legal question….

I was surprised that they would be that aggressive. I sue a lot of companies and most are sensitive to optics….

This is on the higher scale of personal attacks, and it’s pretty rare. Most firms don’t do this kind of vitriolic attack on their former all-stars. Most would handle it discreetly because it can hurt recruiting.

I’d think twice about joining this kind of law firm.

— Peter Romer-Friedman, counsel at Outten & Golden, speaking to Vivia Chen of the Careerist about Jones Day’s PR tactics following the latest associate lawsuit against the firm. In the lawsuit former associates Julia Sheketoff and Mark Savignac allege the firm’s non-gender neutral parental leave policy is discriminatory, the firm’s black box compensation system results in unequal pay, and the firm has a practice of altering firm photos to make their women attorneys more “attractive,” which manifests itself in making them look more white. The firm’s response to the suit has been a full out attack of Sheketoff and Savignac, who were highly sought after Supreme Court clerks when they joined the firm. No word — yet — on how/if this strategy will impact the firm’s ability to lure more prestigious SCOTUS clerks to their ranks.

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).

In a few days, my alma mater Whittier Law School will shut its doors for good. Every student has been accounted for. The faculty and staff have either retired or hopefully gotten jobs elsewhere. All of the school’s records will be sent to Whittier College in case alumni need transcripts. The last few days will be spent packing and cleaning.

Whittier Law School (previously known as Beverly Law School) catered to people who were choosing law as a second career or wanted to work in public service. But the school also took in traditional law students with almost all of them intending to transfer to another law school after their first year. But only a few in the top of the class succeeded. The low bar passage rate and the school’s 4th tier status on the US News rankings did not make graduates attractive to traditional firms.

In recent years, the law school was suffering a crisis. Government and public service work became even more difficult to obtain. This was mostly due to the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program which forgives federal student loans tax free after working for the government or a 501(c)(3) organization for 10 years. With students from most law schools leaving with $250,000 or more in federal student loan debt, being debt free after 10 years while working in a more job-secure and relaxed work environment is becoming a very powerful incentive.

Also, it became common knowledge that most graduates of schools like Whittier would have difficulty finding jobs which led some potential students to reconsider their decision to attend.

The leaders of Whittier College considered many options but none of them appeared to be feasible. The school was projected to have financial deficits in future years due to increasing costs and falling enrollment. So in April 2017, the decision was made to stop accepting students and eventually close the law school.

I recently visited the school possibly for the last time. I made an appointment to meet with the last dean of the school Rudy Hasl.

As I approached the campus, to my surprise, the parking lot was packed with cars. But there was not going to be a surprise revival or a mystery white knight buyer. Nor was there a final alumni celebratory event going on. Instead, a local auto dealer rented the campus parking lot to store their excess inventory.

When I went to the administration building where the dean’s office was, it was empty and locked. I next tried the faculty building where the professors’ offices were. That building was also permanently empty.

That left only one building. The building where we went to class, watched the Lakers or Angels games in the lounge, or just hung out in one of the rooms dedicated to student organizations.

As I walked to the classroom building, I passed by the large grass yard. I recall the occasional parties we had there. The yard was immaculate. The grass was lush green and recently mowed. This made me believe that someone was going to continue using the real estate after the closure.

Walking inside the halls of the classroom building, I saw a photo of the old campus. It was first located in a suburb of Los Angeles where I lived many years ago. My sister went to the elementary school next door while I went to the junior high school a few blocks away. Back then, I thought the building had a mystical look and might have been occupied by a cult that trained wizards and witches.

The dean was waiting for me in one of the rooms which used to be the headquarters for the Whittier Journal of Child And Family Advocacy. Since the journal has been disbanded, the space is now being used as the administrative office.

Dean Hasl and I talked about many things at length. Since he is retiring after the closure, I figured that he would not mince words. We talked about the reasons why law schools are expensive, the obsession with prestige in the profession, the quality and necessity of legal scholarship, and how future lawyers should be trained to meet the needs of the underserved. We agreed on some things, disagreed with others.

As I was driving away from the campus, I noticed a Hooters a block away. How convenient that it opened only a few months after I graduated. A few blocks further was an In-N-Out burger joint. For those not living in the West Coast, it is famous for its Double-Double burgers and stays open late. It would have been great comfort food during the late night study sessions.

Since graduating over 10 years ago, I have visited most of the law schools in Southern California and a few in other parts of the country. Visiting them made me appreciate Whittier Law School in ways I didn’t notice in the past. Whittier Law School was a relatively large, quiet, modern looking campus. The buildings had only one floor which means not having to wait for an elevator or walking up several flights of stairs to get to class or to a professor’s office. Some of the other law schools I visited were located in filthy, sketchy and crowded parts of the city. I had difficulty finding parking in others. And visiting a few felt like stepping into a time capsule from the middle of the twentieth century.

I have heard many lawyers say that some law schools should be shut down. But I’m sure they don’t want their alma mater to be on the list. And of course, I didn’t want my law school to close either. On the other hand, things could have ended a lot worse. Some law schools were forcibly shut down in the middle of the semester leaving their students with few options. Some were under investigation by the state’s Attorney General for predatory practices.

Was it possible for Whittier Law School to avoid closure? Perhaps, but it would’ve required all stakeholders to make significant concessions. Tuition and enrollment size would have to decrease. Faculty might have to accept salary freezes, salary cuts or even buyouts, some of whom already have. Students who are not likely to pass the bar exam or obtain jobs should be removed as soon as possible before they accrue more debt. Whittier College could have invested more money to modernize the campus. But I think deep down everyone knew the truth: All of this was not likely to change anything given the industry’s obsession with rankings and the difficulty of meaningfully improving the rank.

Goodbye Whittier Law School. As for myself, I was a member of Moot Court, the Trial Advocacy Team and was the Student Body Treasurer. I met some of my best friends there. And now as a director of the Whittier Law Alumni Association, I will try to stay in touch with remaining alums. The law school has not produced many Biglaw partners or federal appellate judges. But the attorney helping immigrants in Orange County is probably a Whittier grad. The attorney charging a reasonable rate to the middle class is also likely to be a Whittier grad. The judge presiding over cases in a rural county is probably a Whittier grad. While I am sad to see the school close, I am glad that it is closing honorably rather than continuing in the expensive and abusive educational arms race or trying to rebrand itself.

Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

* What associates love, hate, and fear. [American Lawyer]

* Deutsche Bank admits the obvious — it’s got Trump’s documents. [Law360]

* A quick rundown of all the threats to U.S. elections. [National Law Journal]

* Referrals aren’t enough to make a law firm. [Yahoo]

* Missouri abortion ban blocked because precedents still matter… for now. [NPR]

* Sacklers talking opioid settlement because they aren’t stupid. [Huffington Post]

* MPAA general counsel arrested on sex abuse charges. [Corporate Counsel]