Category: News Feeds

The fight over how to classify workers in the “gig-economy” is a live one in California. I hate even using the term “gig-economy,” because it feels like it was invented by tech-bros to justify not paying people. People have jobs. Whether you get assigned your daily tasks from a “manager” or an “app” somehow turns your job into a “gig,” and if it’s a gig then your employer doesn’t have to pay you a state-mandated minimum wage? Man, f**k that.

California is at the forefront of redefining “independent contractors” as “employees” so that giant companies can’t take advantage of them. Last year, a major case came down from the California Supreme Court: Dynamex v. Superior Court. The key to the Dynamex decision is that it changed the presumption: now, California presumptively views employees as, well, “employees,” and places the burden on employers to show that their people are “contractors” and not employees.

There’s nothing the gig employers can do about that. But now there’s a bill floating around the California legislature that seeks to further define “employee” in a way to include gig employees, and thus bring them under the protection of California’s labor laws. The gig employers have vowed to fight that legislation with a ballot referendum. From Courthouse News:

Gig economy giants on Thursday threatened to pour $90 million into a ballot measure to defeat a piece of California legislation that would classify their workers as employees entitled to minimum wage and overtime, rather than as independent contractors.

Uber, Lyft and Doordash pledged $30 million each to support a 2020 ballot measure that would overturn the proposed law. The companies say their business models rely on gig workers to provide rides, food deliveries and other app-based services to consumers.

Spending $90 million to fight labor protections laws instead of spending that money paying your workers is sooooo late stage capitalism.

However, as former British Prime Minister David Cameron learned, putting forth a cynical ballot measure can backfire:

A spokesman for the California Labor Federation, which supports [legislation], called the proposed ballot measure “a cynical approach” that he believes will backfire on the gig-economy giants.

“They’re failing to comply with the law currently by denying basic protection to their workers,” California Labor Federation spokesman Steve Smith said by phone. “They’re trying to get out of these obligations by spending massive gobs of money on a ballot measure. We don’t’ think that’s going to fly in California.”

I know how capitalism works. They’ll just pass the costs onto me. And I’m fine with that. I’m black and I enjoy being able to pay for my ride as opposed to being passed in the street like my money isn’t good enough so the cabbie can pick up some white person downstream of me. But those drivers should be paid and receive benefits as employees.

Gig-Economy Giants Will Back $90M Ballot Measure to Stop California Labor Bill [Courthouse News Service]

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.

The 2017 military coup resulted in militarization of key state institutions and this further worsened the constitutional crisis in the country.

The situation was worsened by the fact that the ruling party shot for power after ordinary Zimbabweans took to the streets to protest against electoral theft on August 1, 2018. About 6 civilians were shot by the military

The sham 2018 polls resulted in a serious legitimacy crisis that came with adverse effects on economic revival and re-engagement with the international community.

In January 2018, suffering Zimbabweans took to the streets to protest against the continued economic meltdown and again, the army resorted to brutality and this resulted in the death of about 12 civilians while others were raped and tortured.

As discontent continues to grow among suffering Zimbabweans, the military government is getting more and more brutal.

The government has proven beyond reasonable doubt that they stand ready to kill/ shoot for power as evidenced by the army shootings and wave of abductions and arbitrary arrests.

Since the so called new dispensation came into power, a total of 22 political and civic society activists have been charged for treason though the charges are quite baseless and expose the capture of the judiciary.

The government has also intensified surveillance on civic society organizations following baseless and unsubstantiated claims that the organizations are working to effect regime change.

On Thursday, August 29, 2018 a suspicious drone was at the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition offices early in the morning.

In light of the threats from the government, we reiterate that it is a constitutional and fundamental right to protest peacefully. We also would like to remind the government that the major driver of the protests is its failure to revive the economy and improve people’s livelihoods.

We further implore the government to respect the right to protest peacefully as enshrined under Section 59 of the country’s constitution.

More importantly, we reiterate our call for an all stakeholders dialogue as a way of unlocking the multi faceted crisis in Zimbabwe.

We envisage a national dialogue that is in the form of a reform process that seeks to safeguard citizens’ interests through restoration of the social contract between citizens and the government.

This national dialogue process must not be restricted to political parties but should rather bring on board a cross section of stakeholders including civic society, labour, religious groups, business among other critical stakeholders.

Post published in: Featured

According to the Best Choice Schools list of the 50 Most Impressive Law School Buildings In the World, which U.S. law school building is ranked the highest at the #3 spot? (#1 and #2 are U.K. law schools — Durham Law School and Northumbria University Law School, respectively.)

Hint: The #3 spot is more accurately referred to as a former law school building, since the law school was forced to close the campus in 2018 amid financial — and accreditation — woes.

See the answer on the next page.

If you have had a toddler in your house sometime over the past few years, you likely already know all about the “Baby Shark” song. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are among the luckiest people on the planet. Except now I’m going to embed the video below to ensure you are aware of it.

I’ll give you a moment to shake off whatever ill feelings you have for me.

Now, the origins of the song are something of a minor mystery. We’ll get more into that in a second. For now, you can note that Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark” video was published on YouTube in 2016 and has millions of views. It was only this summer, however, that a musician named Johnny Only sued Pinkfong in South Korea for copyright infringement, claiming that the latter’s music was a ripoff of his own “Baby Shark” song that he published on YouTube in 2011.

I already know what you’re thinking: “But, Tim, those songs do sound very, very similar.” And when I tell you that Only is claiming in his lawsuit that the songs are specifically similar in length, tempo, rhythm, and style, your first thought is probably to agree with Only entirely. But maybe your second thought would be, “Wait, why are those the only similarities he’s claiming? Why not the lyrics, which are largely the same? Or the music entirely? Why is he so specific?”

The answer has to do with the mysterious origin of “Baby Shark.”

Even Only admits that “Baby Shark” predates him, however. Although no one is quite certain of the song’s origin, it’s believed to have been a campfire chant developed at U.S. summer camps for kids sometime last century. The song may have emerged in conjunction with the success of the “Jaws” franchise — though that’s just another theory.

In other words, this is a song without a known author — which effectively make the original version a public domain work.

Yup, this is a song that is generally considered to be in the public domain. At the very least it’s an “orphan work,” in that there’s no clear evidence of who the copyright holder is, and no one has stepped up to claim it in the past few years that’s it’s even charted. That means that, for Only’s suit to be successful, he’s going to have to demonstrate that the elements for which he’s claiming similarity were not part of the original song, were created entirely by him, and that they are protectable given that most people consider the rest of the work to be in the public domain. That’s not an impossible task, but it’s a fairly high bar to clear.

SmartStudy, the company behind the Pinkfong brand, is already pointing to the public domain song as its inspiration.

While Only insists that he should receive credit for what has become a worldwide phenomenon, SmartStudy strongly disagrees. They insist that their version of “Baby Shark” was based not on Only’s, but on the public domain version that Only based his work upon.

Given that this is all happening in South Korea, it’s difficult to predict exactly how the courts will decide on this. That said, this sure feels like two versions of a public domain work where the real reason for the lawsuit is that only one of them became massively popular.

‘Baby Shark’, Derived From A Public Domain Folk Song, Now The Subject Of A Copyright Dispute

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:

Judge Wants To Know Who’s Behind Devin Nunes’ Cow’s And Mom’s Twitter Account
EFF Sues CBP, ICE Over Refusal To Hand Over Its GPS Tracking Device Policies
The Conflict Between Social Media Transparency And Bad Privacy Laws Is Going To Get Worse

A legal career is a marathon, not a sprint — and whether you’re a law student, associate, or partner, you always need to be thinking about the next turn in the road. You might have achieved a major career goal — getting into a top law school, landing a job as a Biglaw associate, making partner — but you can’t rest on your laurels (unless, well, you’re ready to retire). There’s always a new achievement to be unlocked.

In my new career as a legal recruiter, I have broadened and deepened my knowledge of the legal industry and job market. Based on my experience as a recruiter so far, as well as my 20 years as a practicing lawyer and then a legal journalist, here are five pieces of career advice. They’re most germane to Biglaw associates, but some of them apply to law students, partners, and even non-lawyers. I hope you find them helpful.

1. Be open to opportunity.

The job I held from 2006 to 2019, as founder and managing editor of Above the Law — “legal blogger,” “online journalist,” “digital journalist,” or whatever you might want to call it — didn’t exist when I was in law school. And when I was in law school, I certainly had no idea that I would wind up in it.

Careers take unexpected and surprising turns, often driven by luck. And you can “make your own luck” by keeping abreast of industry news (by reading ATL and other Biglaw-focused publications), networking (in person and online), and being receptive to possible opportunities (even if an opening might not initially seem like your dream job).

When in doubt, hear the pitch or take the meeting. It’s not like Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds; going to an interview doesn’t obligate you to take the job. But going to an interview, even for a job you ultimately decline or don’t get, could help you learn about a job that you do accept, make a valuable new professional contact, or land a client.

Going to a callback never killed anyone. You might get stuck in an elevator for a few hours, but that’s very, very rare.

2. Always be learning.

To paraphrase the old motivational phrase “always be closing” (made famous by Alec Baldwin’s star turn in Glengarry Glen Ross), you should always be learning, especially in a knowledge-driven field like the law. Laws change, industries change, and the only way to remain relevant is to stay on top of the changes.

If you no longer feel challenged or stimulated in your current job, or if you find yourself working on the same types of matters or performing the same types of tasks over and over again, then it might be time to start exploring. If you’re no longer learning from your job, then you’re just collecting a paycheck — and while collecting a paycheck is nice, you can do that while improving your knowledge and skills at the same time. (I can relate; a desire to take on new challenges and develop new skills drove my own recent career switch.)

3. It’s no longer all about the benjamins (or prestige).

When picking where to start their careers, many law students go for the firm offering the biggest paycheck and greatest prestige (which often just boils down to prestige, since most of the top firms pay on the same market/Cravath scale). This is an admittedly crude way to pick a firm, but it’s the approach of many students, including myself back in the day, and it has a certain logic: if you don’t know what type of law you want to practice, you might as well “start at the top” and keep as many doors open as possible.

But a few years into your career, armed with a better sense of what you actually want to do, it might be time to move to a platform that makes more sense for your specific interests. The uber-prestigious firm you picked for starting your career might not be the best place for you to build a practice based on the particular type of work you’ve selected as your specialty or the particular industry you’ve decided to focus on — perhaps with an eye to moving in-house in a few years.

4. Don’t go in-house too early.

Speaking of moving in-house, it’s the promised land for many Biglaw associates (and even some partners), and many can’t wait to make the jump. But don’t make the jump too early.

As Dan Cooperman, former general counsel of Apple, said on the Legal Speak podcast(around the 5:30 mark), the best time to go in-house is after four or five years at a firm. That’s the amount of time you typically need to become fully confident in at least one area of the law, which will serve you well as corporate counsel and help you get the best work.

(Speaking of the Legal Speak podcast, I recently appeared on it, speaking with host Leigh Jones about how Biglaw has changed over the past 13 years, the role Above the Law played in covering (and promoting) that change, and my new work as a legal recruiter. Check out the episode here.)

5. Don’t leave Biglaw too late.

The conventional wisdom is true: there’s a sweet spot for leaving Biglaw, falling somewhere between your third and sixth years. If you know that you don’t want to stick around to make a run at partnership, either because you don’t want or don’t think you’ll make partner, then figure out a good time to leave.

If everything is going reasonably well, it can be tempting to just stick around your current firm and collect a nice paycheck. And as long as you’re making money for them, your firm will be more than happy to keep you.

But beyond a certain point, your marketability will drop. If you search for jobs based on the desired year of law school graduation — one of countless searches I have been able to run with the resources I have at my disposal working at Lateral Link — you’ll find a bell-curve distribution: not many jobs for lawyers with under two years of experience, lots of jobs for lawyers with two to six years of experience, and then fewer jobs for lawyers with six or more years of experience (although this will vary based on a number of factors, including your credentials and practice area).

(Beyond a certain point of seniority, you ideally want to be a partner with a big book of business. Partner hiring doesn’t rely as much on public job postings; instead, recruiters play a major role.)

**********

These tips are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg; the best career advice is individualized. If you’re an associate or partner at an Am Law 100 firm or elite boutique interested in reviewing your options, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, where I often post advice and opportunities, or to drop me a line by email. It’s always a pleasure to hear from ATL readers — no matter where they are in the great career marathon.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. David Lat is a managing director in the New York office, where he focuses on placing top associates, partners and partner groups into preeminent law firms around the country.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.

On the latest episode of The Jabot podcast I talk with Andie Kramer and Al Harris, about their new book, It’s Not You, It’s The Workplace, Women’s Conflict At Work At The Bias That Built It. We discuss the stereotypes that exist about women in the workplace and how they work to hurt women and their careers.

And, of course since Andie and Al have a ton of experience in the legal profession (he ran his own firm for years and she’s a partner at McDermott Will & Emery), we dish on Biglaw. The unique challenges for women in Biglaw, and importantly, what firms can do to improve the situation all get aired out.

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wears when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!

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 weight of the world sits on you, so the people in the firm — attorneys and staff alike — depend on you to thrive. That was really weighty.

— Richard Scheff, currently a partner at Armstrong Teasdale, explains to Law.com on why he left Montgomery McCracken, his firm of 28 years. At the time of his departure from Montgomery McCracken he was both the firm’s executive chairman and the firm’s largest revenue generator.

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).

Somehow, it’s 2019 and many are still talking about using cloud computing software as if it is some untested or radical approach to running a law practice.  It’s not! By now, clearly, the benefits of cloud-based software far outweigh any perceived risks. So if you haven’t already consciously leveraged cloud computing tools–although you almost certainly already have! –this report from our friends at Clio, How Cloud Computing is Making Law Firms More Efficient and Profitable, is a must-read.

Among other topics, this report explores:

• What cloud computing is. 
• How cloud-based legal software helps law firms save money, enhance productivity, and increase security
• Why cybersecurity is of the utmost importance for modern law firms—and how compliance is cost savings.
•  How cloud computing enables law firms to “productize” their services, 
• How to evaluate which cloud software is the right fit for your firm.

Download your free copy of the report here.

Perhaps the most bizarre of all the “Varsity Blues” stories is the tale of college consultant Rick Singer’s efforts to enmesh himself in the Buckley School. Singer, the alleged mastermind behind the college admissions scandals that have provided so much glee to those of us watching rich people plead guilty to trying to rig the system to help out their fail kids, locked in on the prestigious school’s board members and took the questionable tactics we’ve read about in other indictments to a whole new level.

Adam Bass, the CEO of the Buchalter firm and a Buckley board member approached the school’s headmaster to push his daughter’s C+ to a B-. That’s mildly sketchy but the difference between the two is often negligible so that’s not so bad. But that’s when Bass says he gave Singer his daughter’s applications password and things took a curious turn. According to a detailed Vanity Fair report:

In December 2017, [Guidance Counselor Julie] Taylor-Vaz found herself in a different curious conversation, this time with Tulane. A Tulane admissions officer said the college would be delighted to offer a spot to one of Buckley’s students, Eliza Bass—an African American tennis whiz, ranked in the Top 10 in California, whose parents had never attended college. But Taylor-Vaz knew this wasn’t true. Eliza was white. She didn’t play tennis competitively. And her father was Adam Bass, a wealthy board member, with a B.A. and law degree from USD. Taylor-Vaz shared the information with her superiors. Puzzled, Buckley made calls to Georgetown and Loyola Marymount. They too wanted to accept Eliza, the African American tennis wonder. Buckley set the colleges straight and promptly got to work trying to determine what on earth was going on.

When pressed, Bass informed the school that he’d handed over his daughter’s applications to Singer but had no idea she had become an unwitting Rachel Dolezal. Now aware of the issue, his daughter contacted all the schools and set the record straight, pleading for an opportunity to submit her real bio for consideration.

It turned out she got into Berkeley on her own merits, so the story ends well for her.

Meanwhile, her dad isn’t facing any penalties for his work with Singer. In some ways, since the scam apparently set up for his daughter was so off-the-wall — one that didn’t involve parents and students colluding with shady proctors to fake test scores like many of the Varsity Blues stories — authorities seem to believe that he was fully out of the loop on all this.

So the lesson, for anyone out there still considering an admissions consultant, is to remember that no matter how much you’re paying them, it’s still your child’s application and under no circumstances should you cede control of the application to anyone else. You wouldn’t let an associate file something with your signature without passing your eyes over it — your kid deserves the same courtesy.

To Cheat and Lie in L.A.: How the College-Admissions Scandal Ensnared the Richest Families in Southern California [Vanity Fair]

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.