Category: News Feeds

Every year, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) releases its handy and incredibly useful Technology Survey. This year, the full survey will be released in late October 2019, but if you’d like a sneak peak, the Executive Summary is currently available here.

This year’s Survey is based on the input of 537 firms and provides a wealth of interesting insight into the legal technology focus and spend of firms large and small. According to the Summary, 31 percent of responding firms were from firms with less than 50 attorneys, 37 percent were from firms with less than 150, 18 percent were from firms with less than 350, and 15 percent were from with more than 350.

At the very outset, it was clear that change was afoot. Jim McCue, the author of the Summary, commented on the notable trend of firms taking the long view and implementing change with a view toward the future: “(L)ooking forward, many firms are embracing technologies with less than immediate results and instead offer long term promise.”

In my experience, law firm leaders are often focused on short-term goals, whether financial, technology-related, or otherwise, so to learn that firms appear to be making technology decisions with the long game in mind is a promising development, to say the least.

One interesting, albeit not unexpected, finding was that mobile technologies have been most impactful for the firms surveyed. Specifically, the survey respondents were asked to share the single project completed in the past year that had the greatest impact, and the top result was “improving mobility and the security needs that come with mobility.”

Mobile technologies have been a driving force since the release of the iPhone in 2007, and have dramatically affected — and infiltrated — all aspects of our culture. Accordingly, it’s not surprising to learn that law firms have necessarily focused on adapting their technology infrastructure and procedures to incorporate the secure use of mobile tools by their employees.

Another notable trend is the increase in the use of cloud computing software by responding firms, with 72 percent of firms predicting that their use of cloud computing software would increase in the coming year. And, when respondents were asked to identify a technology that would “create significant change or be a major factor in the legal technology profession,” the top response was cloud computing, with 39 percent of respondents choosing it. As explained in the Survey, these findings comported with the four year trend of firms predicting an increase in the adoption of cloud-based tools.

Some of the top areas where firms reported that they were most likely to use cloud computing software were payroll, email (security, archiving, storage), document management systems (DMS),  and time and billing. 

Seventy percent of law firms reported that they had already migrated their payroll systems to the cloud, and 7 percent were planning to do so within the next year. Sixty-six percent already used email security cloud-based solutions and 10 percent planned to do so within a year.  Email archiving was already in the cloud for 46 percent of firms and 22 percent had plans to migrate it to the cloud within the year. Thirty-three percent already had email in the cloud and 39 percent expected to have it in the cloud over the next year. Twenty-five percent of firms reported that they’d moved their DMS to the cloud and 31% had plans to do so within a year. Finally, 14 percent of firms reported that their time and billing systems were cloud-based, and 17 percent planned to moved to a cloud solution by next year.

The Survey also addressed the cybersecurity measures taken by law firms. Specifically, survey respondents were asked the following question: “Besides encryption and traditional desktop security software, which of the following security measures does your firm use?”

The top responses included:

• Removing desktop administrative rights (77 percent)
• Adding multi-factor authentication to remote access/web services (77 percent)
• Phish testing of users (68 percent)
• Increase in intrusion prevention systems (63 percent)

And last, but not least, when respondents were asked to identify “the top three technology issues or annoyances within your firm,” change cropped up again, repeatedly.  In fact, it appeared in three of the top four responses. Thirty-seven percent cited “Change: users acceptance of change” as the top issue, followed by 28 percent citing “Change: keeping up with new versions of software,” and finally, Twenty-eight percent cited “Change: managing expectations (user and management).”

In other words, change is the name of the game when it comes to law firms and legal technology in 2019; it’s never easy, but it’s necessary. And, as the majority of respondents acknowledged, it’s all about the long game: embracing change leads to long term benefits — and what’s not to like about that?

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

There’s no denying that Kirkland & Ellis is one the nation’s greatest law firms. Not only does the firm offer a compelling combination of prestige and profitability, but now it’s shattering the market on partners.

Earlier this week, the firm announced its largest-ever partner class of 141, up from 2017’s class of 97 and 2018’s class of 122.

But how many of these new partners will enter the firm’s equity ranks? Last year, the firm had 430 equity partners and 566 nonequity partners. American Lawyer has some information on the firm’s tiered-partnership structure:

The firm is also known for an “up or out” approach to partnership, which means large-scale promotions to its partnership don’t translate into a top-heavy structure.

Back in 2012 The American Lawyer found that about 20% of Kirkland’s income partners became equity partners after they finished a roughly four-year eligibility requirement. A more recent look at promotions at Kirkland from 2013 to 2017 found that only about 43% of the attorneys promoted during that period were still at the firm by the end of it, although the percentages varied widely from class to class.

As far as diversity is concerned, Kirkland’s new partnership class (seen here), is looking mighty male and mighty white. Forty-six of the firm’s new partners are women, and minorities seem to be disturbingly underrepresented. You’d think that with a group this large, a little more attention would have been paid here.

It’s important for firms to know that these subjects don’t go unnoticed. Diversity and inclusion matter — to a firm’s current lawyers, to potential recruits, and perhaps most importantly, to clients.

Kirkland Announces New Partners [Kirkland & Ellis]
Kirkland Announces Partner Mega-Class With 141 Promotions [American Lawyer]

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.

Back in April, you joined us in Chicago for the inaugural Law Jobs for Humans event, the first-of-its-kind legal professional development conference aimed at helping those seeking a non-traditional career path in the legal field. The event was kind of a smash, if we do say so ourselves.

Given how much you loved it (and how much we loved it, to be honest), we’ve decided it’s time for round two. Announcing Law Jobs for Humans 2.0, our renewed and improved event coming at you on November 15th in New York City! Not only are we going to bringing together innovative employers, legal career mavericks, aspirational law students, and legal education boundary pushers, we’re giving you more of what you liked about engaging with them – more hearing directly from the innovators and more opportunities for alt-legal speed dating and accidental collisions (the kind you don’t need a lawyer for!) 

If you’re trying to find your way in the new legal professional landscape, if you want to be, or if your traditional law job isn’t quite where you want to be right now, this event is for you. Join us in New York City on November 15th and explore the new frontier of radical legal jobs – book your tickets before it’s too late!

The disgraced former co-chair of Willkie Farr, Gordon Caplan, has been sentenced to one month in jail. You likely recall the former big shot mergers & acquisitions partner got caught in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, eventually pleading guilty to paying $75,000 to “college coaches” turned government cooperating witnesses in a scheme to have a professional alter his daughter’s answers on the ACT in order to get her a higher score. Now U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has sentenced him to time behind bars — a far cry from the top of Biglaw.

Before Judge Talwani handed down the sentence, Caplan expressed remorse and said the real victims were those who played by the college admissions rules:

“I disregarded the values I’ve had throughout my life,” Caplan told U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani just before she sentenced him. He said “the real victims of this crime are the kids and parents who play by the rules in the college admissions process.”

Caplan had previously asked to be spared any time behind bars — or if he had to serve time, for it to be a limited sentence of 14 days, similar to the sentence of Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman — while the government had requested he spent eight months in jail. Caplan’s sentence is in the mid-low-end range of those who have already pleaded guilty in the college admissions scandal. On the low end is Huffman’s 14 days, and so far, the high end has been four-month sentences to Stephen Semprevivo and Devin Sloane.

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).

Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona is a human rebuttal to the concept of a meritocracy. He’s a rich pud who made his money selling ice cream — which doesn’t take a rocket scientist because it’s f**king ice cream and that’s basically like selling crack without having to invest in a security team. Warren Buffet runs an ice cream business as a lark with his pocket change, that’s how unchallenging it is to run an ice cream business. Then he parlayed his empire of adult-onset diabetes into a political career where he’s taken the bold stances on the issues that really matter to Arizona, like opposing the removal of Confederate monuments for the exact same reasons Arizona spent years fighting Martin Luther King Day. He’s a talentless hack who has clawed out a political existence at the waning end of Arizona’s racist zeitgeist.

So it’s unlikely that Judge Neil Wake, a George W. Bush appointee from the District of Arizona, feels much sting to learn that Governor Ducey doesn’t think highly of his jurisprudence. Ducey’s people have claimed the Republican jurist is a “biased, activist judge” because words have no meaning anymore. For his part, Ducey says, per Tucson.com:

“Judge (Neil) Wake puts on a robe in the morning and thinks he’s God,” Ducey said late Tuesday in the immediate wake of the decision saying the governor and state acted illegally in taking money from an education trust account without getting required congressional approval. “But he’s not.”

To recap, Ducey tried to gut state school spending in an effort to enrich his rich buddies and then found himself with a shortfall in education spending that he needed to bridge. Unable to raise taxes like any principled executive would, Ducey and his cronies got a ballot measure passed to invade the principal of the State Land Trust to cover the gap despite the fact that no one ever went to the federal government to secure congressional approval for this move rendering it all, you know, illegal. So much for textualism!

Ducey claims he got approval when he had the request dropped into a 2,400-page bill at the last minute in an effort to put a stop to the lawsuit. Judge Wake offered a lesson on the finer points of mootness but mostly used his opinion to shoot down Ducey’s ludicrous claim that if he managed to get a perfunctory approval once, then he won’t need to get one again when his piss-poor management of the school budget bites Arizona again.

For his part, Ducey’s going to appeal the ruling and who knows what happens with these screwy circuits these days. Still, one would think anyone with a copy of the relevant laws and passing grasp of the language would be able to affirm this quickly. On the other hand, we’ve been monitoring these new appointees across the country and we might be setting the bar too high here.

(Check out the whole ruling on the next page.)

Gov. Ducey calls federal judge ’embarrassment to the legal community’ [Tucson.com]
Judge rebukes Ducey as ‘defiant,’ says Prop 123 education funding is ‘illegal’ [AZ Mirror]

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.

For prospective law students, bar exam pass rates should be pretty close to the top of the list of things to research — right along with employment statistics and average graduate indebtedness — when deciding which law schools to apply to and which law school to eventually enroll at after being accepted. For the past few years, bar exam pass rates across the country have plummeted, but there’s hope on the horizon with the news that the average national score on the July 2019 administration of Multistate Bar Exam climbed to a 141.1, fresh off a 34-year low set in 2018. For what it’s worth, 74.82 percent of 2018 law school graduates who took the bar passed on their first try.

While we eagerly wait for the results of the July 2019 bar exam to be released and for the 2019 calendar year results to be compiled across all law schools, it’s worth taking a look at the law schools whose recent graduates did the best on the 2018 exam. After all, with the right bar prep company, you, too, could excel and count your name among the law school graduates who passed the test.

Which law schools are putting their graduates in the best position to pass the bar exam on the first try?

In partnership with Themis Bar Review, here are the Top 50 law schools by first-time bar pass rate for the 2018 calendar year:^[1]

[1] It should also be noted that Wisconsin had a 100 percent “pass rate” and Marquette had a 98.80 percent “pass rate” thanks to diploma privilege, a court rule that allows graduates of ABA-accredited law schools within the state to skip the bar exam entirely.

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.

As the practice of law continues to morph inexorably from a “profession” to an “industry,” lawyers must contend with seemingly ever-increasing client demands, fiercer competition, tighter margins, and a baffling onslaught of technological hype.

Fortunately, there’s a solution.

Innovative practices are looking beyond traditional law firm management methods and embracing the practices of the world’s most cutting-edge manufacturing companies: Lean methodologies and systems-thinking.

In this free webinar, on October 17 at 1 p.m. ET, you’ll learn what it means to be a Lean law firm and how to employ systems-thinking to see your firm from a new perspective.

Learn how to measure and improve your operations in order to maximize the value you’re supplying to your client. Gain practical tips you can employ immediately to improve your firm’s financial position.

Ed. note: Disinformation attacks and influence campaigns have gone mainstream. Once a conduit for influencing political opinions, this new threat model now poses immeasurable risk to the private sector. This two-part series will discuss the growing trend of disinformation campaigns disrupting the commercial sector, and the accompanying need for lawyers to lean into cyber to provide effective counsel when analyzing risk or addressing the fallout. Part one of this article discussed this new wave of cyber-attacks against companies. Here in part two, we will delve into what lawyers can do to help companies mitigate disinformation attacks when they occur.

The number of countries in the cross-hairs of political disinformation campaigns more than doubled to 70 in the last two years, according to a recent report from researchers at Oxford University.  Given the efficacy of such attacks, it’s not surprising that disinformation campaigns are also becoming a business problem.  Companies as varied as Olive Garden, Koch’s Turkeys, and Columbine Chemicals have been recent victims of massive social media hoaxes spreading false information connected to their product or brand.

Beyond maintaining tight controls over online accounts and training staff in basic cybersecurity practices, such as strong password management, there isn’t much that companies can do to prevent disinformation attacks which can ramp up quickly and threaten corporate value. Criminal groups are even beginning to offer disinformation campaign services to help bad actors get started, according to ZDNet.

Free open source tools like Social Bearing and Hoaxy, along with sophisticated brand-monitoring tools like Sysomos, can monitor social media accounts to provide advance warning of disinformation attacks in process.  Yet mainstream social media isn’t where attack coordination and planning take place, according to Cindy Otis, author of True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Identifying and Fighting Fake News and Director of Analysis at Nisos (full disclosure: we are colleagues).  It pays to have cybersecurity experts ready to discover disinformation campaigns before they show up on mainstream media and determine the extent and source of these campaigns when they appear, says Otis.

Part of disarming the enemy means first understanding who they are.  Attributing the attacks is a rigorous process which can involve sifting through tens of thousands of tweets and messaging to understand the identities and motivations of the players.   But attribution, when done properly, can pay generous dividends.  Often, the ability to directly attribute disinformation activities to a threat actor are enough to quell public chatter, but attribution is often beyond the scope for internal IT/security teams.  A company called New Knowledge purports to identify and mitigate disinformation campaigns for companies.  And while these services can get expensive, the spend may still be worthwhile given the reputational or actual damages they can prevent or at least limit.

In certain cases, when bringing on outside cyber experts to investigate these incidents, companies are best off directly engaging with outside counsel.  This type of approach is effective in preserving legal privileges and can yield precious evidence when criminal justice or regulatory measures are implicated, that can be provided directly to law enforcement.  Before deciding whether to pursue an investigation, the risks of any negative information about the targeted company that may come out of it, such as gaps in compliance and security, should be carefully considered along with the drain on resources, likelihood of success, and the relevance of potential findings to possible outcomes, including legal implications.

It’s important to note that governments across the world are beginning to creating programs and laws designed to prevent and thwart misinformation campaigns.  In January 2019, CNN reported that a company that profited millions of dollars by selling fake social media posts and comments settled a case with the New York state attorney.  The settlement was based on the finding that selling fake social media activity was deemed illegal, as matter of first impression.

Deepfakes are harder to detect. Software developers and companies like Facebook are experimenting with applying AI to speed up and improve detection..  Other technologies that could disrupt deepfakes include the use of watermarks or tracking technology to monitor original content for alteration.  The Pentagon’s research arm, DARPA, is also spearheading industry efforts to better understand disinformation attacks and discover solutions for combating them. However, for now, Otis says, “The reality is that human solutions and human eyes on target are still the best solution even though it’s incredibly difficult to correct false information once it is out there, or at least to get the truth in front of the same people who bought into the false information.”

Nailing the Response

While solutions are slim for preventing disinformation attacks, a rapid, effective response plan is critical to minimize the fallout.

1. The issue of whether to respond is as critical as the question of how to respond

The first thing any company should assess is whether the level and potential overall impact of disinformation in the public domain merits a response or whether a response might in fact further inflame the issue.  There’s a marked difference between a person or a handful of people spreading false information with limited reach and a more sophisticated and calculated attack, Otis says.  In the former scenario, it’s important to keep in mind that legally, anyone can render an unfavorable opinion about a company, invoking their right to free speech.  In the latter scenario, a far more insidious situation, a network of individuals or bots using automated fake accounts can quickly spread fabricated or misleading content.  Fake websites are programmed to propagate the same nefarious messaging while coming off as credible and neutral.

2. Crisis communications are central to a strong defense

Company executives should develop a crisis communications plan as a playbook for lodging a rapid response to the public and the media.  Plans should incorporate a clear assessment about the origins and breadth of the attack before the company issues any public statements.  A proper assessment includes understanding the methodology behind the attack, the perpetrators themselves (subject to the variable degree to which the actors can be positively attributed) and their intentions. “In short, companies need solid attribution,” Otis says. Otherwise, sharing information about a disinformation attack against your company may appear as unfairly targeting critics or even worse, competitors.   Finally, a comprehensive crisis communications plan should encompass a logistical plan of attack including dissemination channels — whether social media platforms, press releases, or interviews with news outlets.  A PR firm or a company’s internal PR/marketing team, in conjunction with legal, can ensure that the message to the public is on track to dispel the disinformation and set the record straight.

In this era of fake news, disinformation and influence campaigns, things are not what they seem and public mistrust of companies, institutions, and leaders has never been higher.   But disinformation paralysis and unbridled skepticism can only exacerbate the problem.   With the right preparation, a healthy dose of vigilance, and a strong team of stakeholders, we can hold precious ground.

Jennifer DeTrani is General Counsel and EVP of Nisos, a technology-enabled cybersecurity firm.  She co-founded a secure messaging platform, Wickr, where she served as General Counsel for five years.  You can connect with Jennifer on Wickr (dtrain), LinkedIn or by email at dtrain@nisos.com.

Embattled Thomas Jefferson School of Law is working to assure its current students that they will still be able to take the bar exam outside of California even if the school loses its ABA accreditation due to its financial and academic issues.

This message was most recently conveyed in an email to students from the San Diego school’s dean, Linda Keller. She wrote that what prompted her message was incorrect information about Thomas Jefferson in a different news outlet.

“If a school loses accreditation, the next step is typically what’s called a teach-out,” Keller wrote in the Sept. 26 email. “This is a way for a school to ensure that its current students can finish their education and graduate. The ABA’s recently approved teach-out arrangements for other schools have provided that the law school keeps its ABA accreditation while it teaches out its current students. As a result, those teach-out students graduate with a degree from an ABA-approved law school and may sit for the bar exam in other jurisdictions.”

The ABA, which does not make public teach-out plans it approves, declined to comment on the scenario described by Keller.

Whether Thomas Jefferson would actually need a teach-out period if it lost ABA accreditation presents an interesting question.

In most other states, ABA accreditation is the only type available to a law school, so it makes sense when schools in those locations are given the opportunity for a teach-out.

But California permits schools to receive accreditation from the State Bar, and the state also permits unaccredited schools to register with the bar.

Thomas Jefferson has already secured approval from the State Bar to be a California-accredited school if the ABA rejects the school’s pending appeal to remain accredited. The state accreditation would allow the law school’s graduates to take California’s difficult bar exam.

The ABA declined to comment on whether Thomas Jefferson be given a teach-out period if it loses its ABA accreditation.

Keller wrote in an email to Above the Law that the law school continues to pursue its ABA appeal, and she said a small number of Thomas Jefferson students take the bar exam in other states.

In 2018, 31 Thomas Jefferson graduates took the bar exam for the first time in 18 jurisdictions outside of California, according to a report the school filed with the ABA. Just 11 of those graduates passed, a 35.5 percent success rate, though that was better than the 23.9 percent who passed the California test in 2018.

In the two prior years, roughly half of the 47 Thomas Jefferson students who took the bar exam in another state passed on their first attempt.

Meanwhile, two other ABA-accredited schools in California are already in the midst of teach-out processes, though neither is pursuing that route because they lost accreditation.

Western State College of Law in Irvine is teaching out current students while it awaits word of whether its different regulators, including the ABA, will sign off on a purchase by for-profit Westcliff University.

Westcliff, also based in Irvine, said the application for ABA approval of the ownership change is on the agenda for the November meeting of the ABA’s legal education council.

The WASC Senior College and University Commission has given interim approval of the transaction and full commission approval will be decided by the end of October, according to Westcliff.

There are 232 students currently at Western State, which became embattled because the parent company of Argosy University faced financial issues that left it in federal receivership.

Western State is not enrolling new students while it tries to finalize its sale to Westcliff, and the school has not sought State Bar of California accreditation.

Whittier Law School in Orange County is also undertaking a teach-out. The Costa Mesa-based school announced in spring 2017 it would be shutting down amid declining enrollment and poor bar exam results.

Interim Dean Rudy Hasl previously said he expected the teach-out and closure process would be complete by spring 2020.

Whittier graduates have been able to keep taking bar exams outside of California amid the teach-out, with nine students doing so in 2018. Just three of those first-time takers passed, though that success rate was far better than the 20.5 percent of first-time takers who passed California’s bar exam in 2018.

Lyle Moran is a freelance writer in San Diego who handles both journalism and content writing projects. He previously reported for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, Associated Press, and Lowell Sun. He can be reached at lmoransun@gmail.com and found on Twitter @lylemoran.