Category: News Feeds

According to data collected by ALM, what law school had the most alumni promoted to partner at Am Law 100 firms in 2018?

Hint: 66 alums from this law school were promoted to partner at Biglaw firms in 2018.

See the answer on the next page.

The legal academy is on a precipice.  As people seek to figure out exactly the mystery of what academics do, they want to come up with more metrics to determine which academics are good, and which academics are not.  It’s like if Santa Claus were a management consultant with a basic understanding of stats.

To some degree, academia has endured measurement in terms of student evaluations.  The good professors are the ones with good evaluations, and the bad ones are the ones who lack them.  It’s only recently that people have discovered that which many have known for decades: Student evaluations are rigged, and you can pretty much guess the direction of the biases.  Despite that, we still use them, apparently because measuring something poorly is way better than not measuring it at all.

Now, professors and university administrators are becoming more focused on measuring the impact of scholars.  The term “scholarly impact” describes the complicated system of measuring whose work makes a difference, at least according to whatever metrics are used.  In the old days, it was SSRN.  Now, with U.S. News teaming with Heinonline, a new king of the metric is in town.  And you’d be kidding yourself if you think it won’t be used to target some untenured professors and chide some tenured professors who think scholarly impact might be measured in a more meaningful way (or not at all).  My coauthor and I have said our peace about these measures of “quality” here.

But universities are starting to measure faculty productivity.  The alleged goal is quality, but I’m thinking the real goal is to produce “more stuff.”

The notion that we ought to measure output isn’t at all new.  A common theme in the labor history of America is that firms attempt to increase worker productivity to make more profits, all the while competition assures that wages remain stagnant.  The notion that we ought to maximize our scholarly impact isn’t new either.  Economists might term that efficiency (or engineers might call it a constrained optimization problem).

The notion of efficiency, however, has always been skewed.  In manufacturing, management would attempt to control production using technology.  As one article describes, “In the hands of Taylorist managers and designed to be of use to them, new technology often became the prime means of controlling production After determining the one best way to do a job, managers searched for even greater production efficiencies in the form of new technology, which was developed and sold to their respective firms by others.”  The article describes the process of using MOOCs (massive open online clusterf*cks) as Taylorism, but I think that the quest to assure there is some uniform metric of scholarly output serves the same purposes.

Universities seem keen to measure the worth of faculty endeavors using quantity as the goal.  Some of these may not even be related to the metrics used by the university to determine tenure.  So, faculty members must a) please their administrators by meeting those output metrics, b) please their school and perhaps their own egos by playing the scholarly impact “quality” metrics game, and c) also play a legitimate role in making the world a better place if they so choose.  I’m not saying that these are all mutually exclusive, but the purposes of pushing out more stuff and getting a good impact score are not necessarily the same as making the world a better place, which was the ultimate goal of university education.

In many of the university metrics I’ve encountered across the lands, the university goals are about attempting to increase “stuff” and collect a not insubstantial amount of data about the rate of change in the promulgation of that stuff.   The quest to increase production is a story often heard in industrialization, and it usually leads to automation, deskilling, and sometimes the eventual ruin of the industry.  But hey, maybe this time it will be different?  Usually the goals are described in terms of pursuing excellence or some other qualitative goal, as measured solely through the quantity of stuff.  In short, we can be assured of our quality because we produce a lot of stuff.

But the quantity of “stuff” university administrators seem to want doesn’t necessarily mesh with their other desires.  Please be on this committee.  Please join us for this fundraising event.  Please engage in a lot of service. We know how this game plays out, because we know who does the disproportionate share of the service.  We know who gets sought after for that service.  And thus we know who will be playing the “measuring stuff” game with their legs tied down with service weights.

And the other cost to this “measuring stuff” is academic freedom.  For example, suppose my research is legal archaeology.  That takes time and effort, perhaps to a greater degree than other methods.  Thus, I might publish less.  The university metrics suggests I’m less productive than my colleagues.  Cool cool.  (Note: Before I get emails, I don’t actually work in the legal archaeology realm.)

Making the world a better place might mean spending more time working with students, or writing something not counted in the “stuff” measure that targets the general population.  In short, I fear that instead of focusing on making the world a better place, measuring “stuff” will lead to a more conformist academy (if that’s possible) and one whose direction has been handed over to university administrators and external data miners.

In other words, the notion that the same systems that were deployed to assure that I can buy a cheap TV that breaks more frequently too will somehow lead to improved quality in higher education is a pipe dream.  And I, for one, won’t be playing this rigged game.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

Government lawyers are generally assumed to be several generations behind the curve when it comes to technology. The federal court system is even out here claiming they have to keep PACER in the dark ages despite that claim being routinely debunked, docketing is a jurisdiction by jurisdiction mess, and somehow WordPerfect is still in business. But the SEC is stepping up its tech game with a new eDiscovery system.

In a press release issued this morning, Casepoint announced that the SEC has selected a specially designed version of the product called Casepoint Government for its eDiscovery needs.

“We are honored that the SEC has selected Casepoint Government as its technology of choice for this important program to bring its eDiscovery process to the cloud,” said Amy Hilbert, VP of Public Sector at Casepoint. “We understand the magnitude of the demands on the SEC. Our technology has been carefully built over many years to meet or exceed the agency’s needs through our scalable platform, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics.”

Getting a large-scale eDiscovery system was imperative for the SEC who receives approximately 3,500 new productions, totaling nearly 10 terabytes after processing, each month. Casepoint’s system won out over multiple competitors in a multi-stage selection process based on its “software features and functionality, cybersecurity, management and key personnel, past performance, and a competitive proof of concept process.” With Casepoint on board, the SEC will have a powerful tool to sift through the mounds of data it’s receiving.

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.

When John Dowd represented Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation and loudly discussed the case in restaurants in front of journalists, folks were all too willing to write it off as an uncharacteristic flub from an otherwise competent attorney. When Dowd tried to explain that presidents can’t obstruct justice, people wrote it off as a zealous advocate saying whatever he needed to to help his client — except, of course, his counterpart on Trump’s defense team who thought it was nuts. But now we can finally, finally go ahead and admit that John Dowd may just be a clown.

Dowd, who now represents some of Rudy Giuliani’s toadies in the Ukraine story, informed the House Intelligence Committee that his clients would not be showing up to testify. It’s a pretty standard move for an attorney representing people this deeply embroiled in what could well turn out to be criminal activity. Indeed, it’s generally a bad idea to talk to Congress if you have any concerns that you might end up dealing with prosecutors. But how Dowd chose to communicate with the House was… curious. Observe!

Yes, that’s Comic Sans. And you never want to use Comic Sans. Seriously, no matter what.

Yet this isn’t even Dowd’s first brush with Comic Sans. During the Mueller investigation, Dowd sent a letter with a Comic Sans letterhead begging to spare Trump the obstruction charge that Mueller would eventually admit he’d have leveled had he been allowed to. Mueller got another message in Comic Sans from Ty Cobb, probably the result of the high-stakes restaurant strategy session the two had.

Is this intentional? Is Dowd trying to troll the entities investigating his clients by intentionally writing them in joke lettering? It’s an interesting conspiracy theory, but one that seems to give Dowd far more credit than he’s built up over the course of these investigations. Occam’s razor suggests he’s just embracing his inner child. It may not be the most professional — or even a marginally professional — look, but if it sparks joy for him, so be it.

After all, Jay Sekulow’s legal reasoning may as well be written in Wingdings, so let’s cut Dowd some slack.

Trump’s old lawyers really, really love Comic Sans [Fast Company]

Earlier: What Font Should You Use For Your Résumé? Apparently This Matters To People.
Comic Sans: The Perfect Font For A Subpoena… If You’re As Dumb As This Clerk

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

We talk a lot about how “weak” the Congressional subpoena power is, but we have to remember why the power is so weak. The abuse of executive power required to make a Congressional subpoena “weak” is so massive, and we’ve gotten so used to President Donald Trump’s abuse of his office, that we really need to take a step back to see how violative Trump is behaving towards American norms and practices. Today’s non-testimony of Gordon Sondland is as good a case study as any.

Gordon Sondland was asked, not subpoenaed, to appear before Congress as part of its ongoing investigation into Trump’s apparent and admitted to extortion of the Ukraine in exchange for help with the 2020 election. Sondland, as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, reports to the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who reports to the President of the United States, Donald Trump. But Sondland, Pompeo, and Trump all work for the people of the United States (technically) of which the House of Representatives are their most direct representatives.

Put another way, the people asked one of their employees to appear before their representatives to answer for how the people’s business is being conducted abroad, and that employee told the people to go f**k themselves. More than that, he claims that he was ordered to tell the people to go f**k themselves by the President of the United States.

That’s simply insane. You shouldn’t need a subpoena to compel an employee to explain themselves. That we even get into the realm of subpoenas represents a direct obstruction of a Congressional inquiry by the president. In a normally functioning democracy, that would be a fireable offense on the part of the president.

The House responded by issuing a subpoena for Sondland’s testimony. Most likely, Trump will order Sondland to ignore the subpoena as well.

Which brings another actor into our game: Attorney General William Barr. Barr, again, reports to President Trump, but is technically employed by the American people. His job, as the chief law enforcement officer in the country, is supposed to be to enforce the laws of the United States government. A Congressional subpoena is one such law, and the attorney general is supposed to take all steps to ensure compliance, including jailing people who refuse to testify under a duly executed subpoena, if need be.

Does anyone think Barr will do that? Of course not. Because Barr has shown himself to be a craven accessory to President Trump’s apparent crimes, not an independent actor with his own responsibility to the Constitution. It is likely that Barr will aide Sondland’s attempts to avoid congressional testimony, all at the behest of Donald Trump.

Barr, of course, should not even be in a position where he is making any decisions regarding any enforcement of this investigation, because he himself is implicated as one of the major accomplices or witnesses to Trump’s abuse of power. Asking him to help force Sondland to testify might be like asking a drug kingpin to force his connect to testify against him.

Again, in a normally functioning democracy, this would be unacceptable. Barr would be forced to recuse, a deputy would urge Sondland to comply, over the will of the president if necessary, and men would be dangling handcuffs in front of Sondland while he made his decision. The fact that none of that is going to happen should enrage people, regardless of party. But there is no more “regardless of party” in this country. Republican party apparatchiks have successfully convinced Republican voters that there is no more important identity than being white and Republican. Nothing can be allowed to threaten that, not even crimes committed by the president in plain sight.

It is in this context: where the employee of the American people fails to voluntarily comply with the law, where the secretary of state and the attorney general fail to uphold the Constitution, all in service of a criminal president who is supported by the spineless prevarications of his wholly owned political party, is where the Congressional subpoena power appears “weak.” If you put it on a solid booster rocket, the Space Shuttle can aid humanity’s exploration and understanding of the cosmos. On its own, it’s just a shell of fragile plastic. It can’t even fly.

Every president and executive branch officer going forward now gets to know that Congress can simply be ignored if the people they represent are too docile and distracted to take action. This will not end well for the American system of government.

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.

How much better would your score on the LSAT have been if the logic games section (aka the analytical reasoning section) in its current format wasn’t on the exam? In just four years, prospective law students around the country will find out.

This dramatic step forward for the LSAT — which just took an equally dramatic step forward by going completely digital — is all thanks to Angelo Binno, a legally blind apspiring law student whose visual impairment prevented him from completing the drawing and diagramming that’s often necessary to complete that segment of the exam.

After eight years of litigation against the American Bar Association and the Law School Adminission Council, the parties have finally settled. While LSAC approved several accommodations for Binno, his request to have the logic games section of the LSAT waived was denied. “They handed me a pencil and paper and I said it’s useless to me because I can’t see to draw,” Binno said in an interview with ClickOn Detroit.

Binno and his co-plaintiff, Shelesha Taylor, who is also legally blind, will now work alongside LSAC with the assistance of the Wayne State University Law School’s Disability Law Clinic to make the LSAT experience fairer for all test-takers.

Here’s an excerpt from a press release announcing the settlement (emphasis added):

LSAC has begun research and development into alternative ways to assess analytical reasoning skills, as part of a broader review of all question types to determine how the fundamental skills for success in law school can be reliably assessed in ways that offer improved accessibility for all test takers. Consistent with the parties’ agreement, LSAC will complete this work within the next four years, which will enable all prospective law school students to take an exam administered by LSAC that does not have the current AR section but continues to assess analytical reasoning abilities.

What will the new analytical reasoning section look like? LSAC has 48 months to hash that out. Hopefully it doesn’t look anything like its current format, according to Binno’s lawyer, Jason Turkish, who also has a severe sight impairment:

A, B, C, D, and E go into a bar and E is next to A and A is next to B and C must be two spaces over from E. Where is D? I’ve never had to answer a question like that in any state or federal court, but that’s how we’re deciding who’s going to go to law school.

When asked if he would be taking the LSAT again, Binno said, “Yes. And I will pass.” Congratulations to Angelo Binno on this hard-fought victory, which will not only benefit him, but all future law students. Well done!

Statement on the amicable resolution of Binno v. LSAC lawsuit [PR Newswire]
LSAT to drastically change after LSAC settles lawsuit with blind Metro Detroit man [ClickOn Detroit]

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 2016, I wrote about rediscovering one of my favorite voices, ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser, and how his move from radio to podcasting offered lessons for lawyers hoping to strike out on their own. In particular, I focused on what prospective Biglaw refugees could learn from the 71-year-old Kornheiser’s focus on delivering a quality product to his listeners via a new medium.

Years later, I am still listening to the podcast, enjoying the rotating cast of characters discussing sports, culture, and the news of the day. All delivered alongside Tony’s detailed descriptions of his various physical ailments, as well as his general frustration navigating 2019 as a technophobic, cash-paying, intolerant of stupidity, one-percenter who is not afraid to mix it up with a home-invading flying squirrel or aggressive deer when the hour calls. Throw in humorous critiques of the ad copy submitted by the advertisers who keep the lights on and some user-submitted original music and jingles — it all adds up to an hour well-spent each day. (Even if my high schoolers protested vociferously when the podcast’s name was reflected on our car’s radio display screen while driving carpool at 7 a.m. This was a major embarrassment, even though I was listening to the show on my earphones. Which in and of themselves are embarrassing, since they are not Airpods. Can’t win.)

Carpool faux pas aside, one of the recurring surprise guests on Tony’s podcast is his friend and legal luminary, Bill Isaacson, who is only one of the leading antitrust lawyers in the entire country, as well as the Vice Chair of Boies Schiller, where he was one of the original lawyers to join the then-startup firm, leaving a Biglaw partnership to do so. As I have had a long-held interest in the intersection of IP and antitrust, fueled recently by a spate of interesting cases raising antitrust issues in the context of standard-essential patents, I reached out to Bill in the hopes that he would agree to a written interview for this audience. As gracious as he is celebrated, he agreed, and I am pleased to share Bill’s insights on a range of topics, including preparing for a career as a trial lawyer and the value of taking ownership over your legal career.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to the answers below and in next week’s second installment, but have otherwise presented Bill’s answers as he provided them.

1) You went to college on a debate scholarship and are now a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Looking back, do you think you were destined for trial work or was it your experiences in law school and beyond that led to a career in the courtroom?

I spent my high school years (at Marquette High School in Milwaukee) focused on debate, which did end up paying my way through college (at the University of Redlands in California).  Many debaters I knew then marched into law school. Law firms are riddled with ex-debaters, and I do not know many debaters that became doctors. I believe the reason for that is not so much the oral advocacy we learned, it is more the time we spent on research and structuring of complicated materials into arguments and presentations.  Because of debate, for example, I was researching in the law library in high school. Debate taught me more about how to prepare for trial than it did about how to communicate at trial. I eventually decided that “arguing” like in a debate was not always the best method of communication in court, and that my goal in court should be to have a (persuasive) conversation with a judge or jury. 

GK: Bill makes a strong argument for exposing more students, particularly at a younger age to debate. As someone who teaches a high-school elective class on IP, I understand the importance of working with students on their writing skills. At the same time, giving them a taste of “getting on their feet” — while also developing their research skills so they are prepared to speak coherently and persuasively — is an important ingredient. And Bill’s points on the importance of developing research skills and learning to speak to your audience should resonate with any IP lawyer who gets (or hopes) to speak in a courtroom.

2) What is the biggest lesson you learned from taking the leap as a newly minted Biglaw partner to join Boies Schiller as one of the founding lawyers and how would you turn that experience into advice for other lawyers contemplating a similar move?

We just passed 22 years since the founding of the firm.  One part of the experience of practicing law in a law firm is that you are part of business.  It is a unique opportunity to help build a business with your colleagues (whether it is a new firm, a department, a practice area, etc.) in the environment and with the clients that you want. I recommend grabbing that opportunity if you get it.  Joining this firm at the beginning was the best professional decision I ever made. And I would have no regrets if it had turned out less successfully than it did.

GK: Speaking from personal experience, all I can say is that I agree with Bill wholeheartedly on the immense personal satisfaction that comes with helping to build a business. Especially with people you want to build it with, doing the work that you want to do, for the clients you want to work on behalf of. As weighty as the challenges are, the rewards are just so much sweeter for them.

3) For the past few years, you have often been mentioned as a spectator, and sometimes speaker, on Tony Kornheiser’s popular podcast. How important is it for lawyers to maintain friendships with people outside of the profession, whether or not they are famous?

We all need friends in our lives who make us laugh.  Although Tony’s television show PTI is more famous, I met Tony through his radio show.  I ended up through my brother (who is a Broadway producer) arranging good seats for Tony at Broadway plays and going to the theatre with him and the podcast regulars. The tickets for Tony became a running joke on his show and we became friends.  Tony’s audience often arranges for him all sorts of benefits (and well as sending him junk) and he provides laughter to his listeners in his podcast (“La Cheeserie!” to any other of the podcast listeners.). All in all, it is a healthy relationship. 

GK: For my thoughts on Tony, go back and re-read the intro paragraphs to this column. La Cheeserie to all. 

Next week, we will conclude our interview with Bill, focusing on some of his famous successes in the IP and antitrust arenas.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

As a trusts and estates practitioner, I advise all individuals who have reached the age of majority to execute a last will and testament. No matter the size of one’s wealth or the nature of one’s family composition, a last will and testament is needed to keep affairs in order in the event of death. Not surprisingly, individuals are often compelled to write last wills when they have experienced something significant in their lives. The birth of children, the death of a relative, a divorce, or personal illness are all common impetuses for executing a last will and testament.

I am always pleased when an individual engages my services to write a last will and testament without any inciting reason, in other words, they do it because it is the responsible thing for an adult to do. I admire this kind of diligence and sense of responsibility as if the testatrix understands that even the smallest bank account requires some direction in its post-mortem disbursement and estates of all sizes require instructions.

As such, I have been fascinated by recent news reports from the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. For more than three months, citizens of Hong Kong have demonstrated against the government as they argue for the preservation of individual rights and freedoms. The protests have often resulted in violence. The risk of injury and death are palpable.

News reports reveal that some protesters have executed last wills and testaments as they expect to die as a result of the protests. Many of the protesters are students, in their twenties. The majority of the protestors represent the youth of Hong Kong. They do not have enough money to live in the expensive city, and while educated, they fear for their future. The protests are demonstrations in support of their future and their freedom. Despite their lack of wealth, many have chosen to write last wills and testaments as their final revelations, directing the administration of their estates and leaving messages for their families.

A driving issue among the protesters is the high cost of living in Hong Kong and the decrease in available jobs and wages, despite higher education. Property prices are also surging, making the purchase of a residence unattainable for many. Additionally, Hong Kong was established as a city for businesses. As such, its legislative council which determines how public money is used is dominated by business groups. Businesses, and not individuals, often get the advantages.

The plight of the Hong Kong citizens is an impetus for the contemplation of one’s own mortality. News outlets have reported that as a result of the protests, violence, and bleak opportunities, many are accepting of the fact that they may die. This realization, coupled with the education and preparedness of the protesters, is the basis for the preparation of their last wills and testaments. It is also demonstrative of the fact that one does not need to be wealthy, or even monetarily comfortable, to write a last will.

The protesters in Hong Kong demonstrate that when in the path of death, one needs to plan. Regardless of whether one has children, a spouse, an education, or money, upon death, there will always be an affair to reconcile. These actions also serve as a reminder that the last wills are often used as a final note to family and friends, revealing not only one’s wishes for the distribution of assets and property, but recognition of family and friends. Herein lies the immense power of a last will and testament, that is to implore upon one’s survivors the testator’s final thoughts and convictions. Certainly in the case of the Hong Kong protestors, much like wartime soldiers and terminal illness patients, the formality and structure of a last will and testament allow for their memory and direction to be forever preserved.

Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com.