Author: TSA Press

You might think that the hordes of Redditors and Robinhoods would be done with Gabe Plotkin. They had cost him hundreds of millions of dollars and his investors billions of dollars. They forced him into a humiliating retreat on his GameStop short. They left him no recourse but to go cap-in-hand to Ken Griffin and his old boss—who he’d also lost a pretty penny—to keep his Melvin Capital Management afloat.

Some savvy political operative in the 1800s first rebranded the practice of funding government programs whose costs are spread widely to taxpayers, but whose service or economic benefits are concentrated in a particular geographic area, as “pork” (or occasionally, less-appealingly, as “pork-barrel spending”), and the term’s been with us ever since. Oh sure, its popularity ebbs and flows over time. I vaguely remember hearing jowled, red-faced men in ill-fitting suits screaming about pork on the 19” tube television set (with built-in VCR) that I had in my college dorm room. We haven’t heard much about congressional pork in quite some time though.

It looks like that’s about to change. In the early 2000s, congressional Republicans were livid about pork, leading to a complete ban on earmarks in 2011, with the Tea Party rising as a new force in American politics. An “earmark” is a legislative provision that spells out certain congressional spending priorities, spending priorities which will apply to very limited numbers of people, and while “earmark” is not technically the exact same thing as “pork,” the terms are more or less synonymous for our purposes (and we all have to recognize that “pork” is simply a more pleasing word than is “earmark”). The Tea Party had a few fair points, often embodied in the eventually abandoned “bridge to nowhere,” a $400 million pork project meant to connect an 8,000-person town in southwestern Alaska, one that was already served by a reasonably good ferry system, to the 50-person island that housed the nearest airport (this project was slipped into the federal transportation budget by the top House Republican on the Transportation Committee and the top Senate Republican on the Appropriations Committee, so one could argue that the posterchild for pork spending was more of an internal problem within the Republican Party than anything else).

At any rate, congressional pork (in the form of earmarks) has been gone since 2011, but now it might be making a comeback. A majority of House Republicans voted last week to revive earmarks, as long as certain new oversight requirements were met, including drafting a written justification for any particular project, verifying that the lawmaker proposing a project has nothing to gain financially from it, and appointing a federal watchdog to audit a portion of earmarks periodically. Democrats have also previously announced similar earmark reforms as part of their plan to bring back the practice.

Some Republicans remain highly skeptical, reverting to their role as pretend deficit hawks and forgetting that their beloved President Trump presided over the third-biggest increase in the size of the annual federal deficit relative to the size of the economy in all of American history (rounding out the top three deficit-spending presidents are George W. Bush, another modern Republican, and Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, had a Civil War to win). Yet, other Republicans are far more practical. And why not?

As the party out of majority power, Republicans aren’t going to be getting any of their major legislative priorities through. So, what they have to run on right now is playacting at hating Democrats the most of all, and stupid cultural issues like Mr. Potato Head and the fake cancelation of Dr. Seuss. I don’t think anyone thinks that is healthy for our democratic republic, or, if they are really honest about it, even for the Republican Party.

But what if we went back to the days when a Republican lawmaker could go home and say, “Look, I just couldn’t get there with banning abortion and mandating guns at church, but I did get this new bridge for our district that we really needed and couldn’t afford on our own”? That used to sort of work! And, “bridge to nowhere” notwithstanding, smaller communities often do legitimately need outside federal spending to fund local work on highspeed internet, airports, major highways, and other critical infrastructure (which is definitely some light socialism, but I won’t tell them if you won’t).

Bringing back congressional pork is not going to solve all of our political problems. But it might at least get the conversation started again. Right now, Republican lawmakers have no incentive to talk to Democrats, and Democrats have no reason to listen — neither stands to gain anything. Republicans are not going to sign onto a watered-down piece of progressive legislation, because “I made this bill that you hate something you might hate just slightly less,” is a very hard argument to make to voters. “I signed onto this bill because it was going to pass anyway and in doing so I got this large, local, tangible benefit that really helped you voters standing before me,” on the other hand? Now that’s something we can talk about.

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Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made 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.

After Willkie Farr announced another round of seasonal bonuses, Davis Polk went over the top and announced another two rounds of bonuses. The good times keep rolling in Biglaw. Joe and Kathryn also discuss the impending release of the US News and World Report Law School rankings — could there be a big change this year? And a disturbing study from a few years ago started making the rounds showing the gross sentencing disparity caused by unexpected college football losses.

Of all the famous or disastrous surrogacy cases I’ve written about over the last half-decade, literally none of them have been from South Dakota. That hasn’t stopped the state legislature, however, from being worried about surrogacy issues. South Dakota’s legislature has seen more than its fair share of anti-surrogacy bills over the past few years. While the rest of the country was going the other direction — including New York, which recently passed a new surrogacy-supportive law — last year, South Dakota’s legislature nearly criminalized the family-building option when it considered House Bill 1096, completely banning commercial surrogacy in the Mount Rushmore state. Thankfully, after passing the House General Assembly, that bill died in the State Senate.

Using The “A” Word. (Abortion.)

This year, anti-surrogacy advocates tried a different approach. On March 10, 2021, South Dakota’s legislature passed Senate Bill 183, called “An Act to declare certain contract provisions regarding abortion as unenforceable and to provide a penalty therefor.” The bill, which is currently on Gov. Kristi Noem’s desk, is expected to be signed into law imminently.

The bill invalidates any contract provision if it “in any way: ‘(1) Coerces, compels, or attempts to compel a pregnant woman to undergo an abortion; (2) Results in a breach of any term of the contract if a pregnant woman refuses to undergo an abortion; or (3) Results in the pregnant woman assuming any cost, obligation, or responsibility for refusing to undergo an abortion.’” Further, the bill deems it a crime for any person to “require” such a provision in a contract.

Is That A Bad Thing?

Of course, no one wants anyone coerced into having an abortion! I think we can all agree on that. But that’s not really the issue. I spoke with South Dakota assisted reproductive technology attorney Emilee Gehling about the likely new law-to-be. Gehling explained that the new law misunderstands the risks posed by surrogacy relationships and is likely to have negative consequences for South Dakota families.

Under current law in South Dakota, and in most states, intended parents and surrogates have in-depth conversations as to how everyone would want to handle the situation if the worst were to happen. For example, if the surrogate’s life were at stake as a result of a complication in the pregnancy, and there had to be a choice between the surrogate and the fetus, the parties would likely agree that the surrogate should save her own life. However, under the new law, a provision that contemplates the surrogate terminating her pregnancy might be ambiguous enough to trigger the reach of the statute. That’s problematic, and will chill legal conduct that could be thought to potentially lead to the criminal prosecution of the parties. Gehling is concerned that the bill creates fear and uncertainty for hopeful parents-to-be who have already been through so much, while the bill is unlikely to do anything to reduce abortion or abortion-coercion (if any) in the state.

Does It Change Anything?

Aside from complicating whether parties can freely memorialize their agreements, does the law change anything? Not really. As is, without any specific anti-abortion coercion law, surrogacy attorneys across the country advise their clients that there can be no specific performance of any surrogacy agreement clause relating to termination of a pregnancy. As Constitutional jurisprudence stands, a pregnant woman has the right to decide to continue a pregnancy or not to continue a pregnancy. This right is, of course, subject to limitations and regulations, as may vary by state, but none of those regulations relates to whether the pregnancy is a surrogacy pregnancy or not. Regardless of whatever a contract might say, it’s likely that any court deciding the issue would hold that a right to abortion remains the right of the pregnant person.

Of course, the law does preclude a potential breach of contract claim if a surrogate acted in a way other than agreed upon in the contract (including in relation to an abortion). So that’s something new. But to date, I have never actually seen a case, in South Dakota or elsewhere, of a surrogate being sued for breaching a surrogacy contract as it related to the termination or continuation of a surrogacy pregnancy.

Hope For The Future

While Gehling believes Senate Bill 183 misses the mark, she believes healthy surrogacy arrangements may still continue in the state. She is a member of a nonprofit organization called Families from South Dakota Surrogacy, Inc. which hopes to work with legislators next session to introduce a new bill to the state supportive of surrogacy arrangements and protecting all parties to the arrangement, including the child.

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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.

A gentleman made eye contact with me, pointed his body at me and sprayed me with Lysol. He never said anything. I just walked away and tried to get into my car as soon as possible.

— Emily Covey, a third-year student at the University of Connecticut School of Law, describing one of the more antagonistic incidents she’s been subjected to as an Asian American since the start of the pandemic. In another incident, Covey says a woman tried to prevent her from entering a building by yelling, “Go away. You are making us sick.”

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. At least that’s what Rebekah Mercer hoped, according to a defamation lawsuit filed Monday in Nevada by her former business partner John Matze, who alleges that the billionaire Republican activist attempted to conceal her role in their new radical free speech startup fearing that it “would serve as a distraction and would be potentially toxic to Parler’s business objectives.”

So Mercer got her lawyers at Greenberg Traurig to spiffy up an Operating Agreement where 60 percent of Parler LLC would be owned by a mysterious Delaware company called NDMascendant, LLC, with Matze owning the other 40 percent. NDM, AKA Mercer, appointed two “managers,” one of whom was JD Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy Ohio senate candidate.

Then things got messy. And not just because the site was a nexus for planning the Capitol Riot, since users knew they were unlikely to get kicked off for posting about their plans to “Shoot the police that protect these shitbag senators right in the head then make the senator grovel a bit before capping they ass.”

Parler experienced rapid growth in 2020 as mainstream platforms began to aggressively (at least relatively speaking) censor misinformation about coronavirus and the election. Parler’s management knew they’d have to scale up the operation and bring in new investors if they wanted to present a real alternative to Twitter.

Vance appears to have departed the scene relatively quickly, but self-described anarcho-capitalist angel investor Jeffrey Wernick and conservative media star Dan Bongino were active in steering the company, going so far as to fly to Mar-a-Lago to negotiate with the sitting president to give him an ownership stake in exchange for making the site his digital home.

(Remember Trump screaming about Barack Obama’s deal with Netflix?)

But Matze says that Mercer refused to do anything to dilute her own shares or surrender ultimate control of a platform she intended to turn into the “tip of the conservative spear” to advance her personal ideology. For instance, Dan Bongino claims that he took a massive hit when Amazon knocked Parler offline for violating its terms of service. But according to Matze, Bongino never had a financial stake in the company at all because “Mercer avoided executing any of the ownership documents to allow her to later dispute that Bongino has any such interest.”

He further accuses Mercer of playing fast and loose with the company’s valuation.

Mercer proposed allowing a friend to invest in Parler at a $200 million valuation, a level that she conceded was heavily discounted as an accommodation to her friend and to better protect her interest from future dilution. But, outside of this self-interested suggestion, Mercer stated that she was not interested in any transaction with a valuation of less than $500 million. She and Matze continually discussed that the enterprise should have a valuation of at least one billion dollars. In fact, Parler recently reiterated the one-billion-dollar valuation in ongoing litigation.

Matze also alleges that Mercer double-counted her share in the company, claiming her initial investment was a personal loan that must be repaid: “In short, the very same dollars that were the supposed 60% equity stake were also being claimed as debt.”

Things came to a head after Parler was deplatformed in January. In Matze’s telling, he proposed a moderation scheme that would kick Qanon cultists and Neo-Nazis off the site, after which he was fired and his ownership stake was “stolen” by Mercer and her allies.

Now, having fabricated false claims of “misconduct,” the conspirators then claimed that the Parler Operating Agreement allowed the forced sale and purchase of Matze’s 40% ownership stake. Demonstrating the depravity of their arrogance and tactics, Mercer, through Meckler and Richardson, claimed that they had determined that the “fair market value” of Matze’s 40% interest to be a mere $3.00. Thus, Defendants took Matze’s property and smeared his name and asserted that his sole entitlement is to $3.00. That is the true nature of these Defendants.

Yes, the allegations of “depravity” and “arrogance” are a little overheated. And no corporate documents, including that Operating Agreement, were attached to the 19-page complaint — at least not the versions the Las Vegas Sun and NPR were able to dig up. But this isn’t a garbage fire like Bongino’s defamation suit against The Daily Beast either. And Matze didn’t hire a guy who flies around the country filing pro hac vice motions to get his ass kicked in a fun, new venue, either. With prominent Nevada lawyers James Pisanelli and Todd Bice representing him, Matze’s team is playing on their own home court.

This one is going to be wild.

Matze v. Parler, LLC [Complaint via NPR]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Welcome to the bonus party, Skadden!

After Willkie Farr started the bonus war by handing out special spring bonuses to have associates share in the firm’s largesse, Davis Polk went over the top with even bigger bonuses. Now Skadden has announced their own spring bonus plans.

They’re matching the Davis Polk scale, according to the following chart:

Full announcement available on the next page.

They went with  June/December disbursements, rather than the earlier April/September some firms are rolling with, but, most importantly, the amount of money remains the same. The firm also clarified, like their peers, this will be in addition to the regular year-end bonuses, which they anticipate will be at least as big as last year’s bonus pool.

Additionally, the firm noted that if an associate does not meet the hours requirement for the June bonus payment (though that threshold is not disclosed in the email, it’s expected it’ll be in line with the firm’s usual hours requirements), they’ll have an opportunity to garner a make-up payment along with the December bonus.

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

In December, the committee formed to investigate the possibility of renaming UIC-John Marshall Law School voted 6-1 to go forward with the name change to drop references to the slaveholding former Supreme Court justice from the school’s name. Meanwhile, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University announced the formation of a similar committee but at this point continues to march forward hoping no one will notice that nothing’s being done.

Rename John Marshall, a group of lawyers in Cleveland and Chicago who seek to remove “Marshall” from school names, called upon new Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge,^[1] an alum of Cleveland State’s law school, to use her national prominence to urge the school to get moving on the issue.

John Marshall, the chief justice who laid the groundwork for the functioning of the federal judiciary and, indeed, the federal government writ large over the course of his tenure enjoys legendary status among legal nerds. He’s the top overall seed in SCOTUSBlog’s highly questionable “best Supreme Court justice” bracket. But scholarship suggests that the native Virginian was also one of the biggest slaveholders in America, something that his statements labeling slavery “evil” can’t overcome.^[2]

Some, like South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman, decry efforts to remove Marshall’s name as “cancel culture” because that’s the sort of right-wing clickbait that readers eat up over at the Volokh Conspiracy, a blog hosted by a white professor with a penchant for complaining that people don’t think he should use the n-word so much. We don’t put much stock in these “all slaveholders matter” arguments, though Blackman does make the good point that, as public schools, state lawmakers are bound to get involved. And in a place like increasingly retrograde Ohio, that’s likely to turn the battle over Cleveland State’s moniker into a circus sideshow.

A more nuanced approach than bleating about “cancel culture” might be to factor in why a specific figure is being honored. Progress being linear, most historical figures are going to have been terrible people for one reason or another, but why we choose to honor them might be relevant. There’s a law school out there named after Robert E. Lee simply because the school decided to give a slaveholding traitor a nice retirement plan.^[3] Fighting to maintain slavery is Lee’s primary accomplishment. John Marshall, like a lot of early American government figures, engaged in the mass enslavement of human beings, but is primarily known for work independent of that aspect of his life.

However, this is a problematic argument generally and it’s especially problematic when talking about a judge whose jurisprudence helped maintain the system. Just because Marbury v. Madison is more famous doesn’t mean Marshall’s actual job didn’t involve him providing legal cover for slavery for decades.

So let’s just not have schools named after Marshall. Why does this guy need a school named after him? We can and will still read his opinions and discuss his impact on American law. Whether or not his name is emblazoned on the diploma doesn’t change whether or not he’s studied for the contributions he made.

And, no offense to these schools, but do we really need to honor slaveholders just to indulge third-tier law schools seeking to bolster credibility? That sounds harsh, and these schools produce many great lawyers — including the aforementioned cabinet secretary! — but note that the University of Chicago isn’t naming itself the Roger Taney School of Law or anything.^[4] These schools only appended “John Marshall” to their names to bolster their images by hijacking the reputation of a long-dead jurist. That they did a better job of it than accidentally naming themselves ASSLaw doesn’t change that it’s all just a marketing ploy.

If the hill you want to die on is forcing Cleveland State to continue branding itself after a guy who had literally nothing to do with that school that wasn’t founded until he’d been dead over 80 years, then you really need to reassess your priorities. Because at that point you’re not fighting to defend John Marshall’s place in history, you’re fighting to defend a century-old advertising play just because you don’t like Black people objecting to slavery.

And that’s, you know, kinda racist.

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[1] Who should be Secretary of Agriculture, but I digress.

[2] One thing that confuses me is the call for “the School to not use the merger with the University of Akron School of Law as a way to avoid the issue of the School being named after a slave master.” I understand feeling like that’s a cop out from the school, but this is one of those instances where the ends justify the means. The goal is to stop honoring Marshall for years to come and if that happens through a public repudiation or through just becoming “Akron Law at Cleveland” the name is gone.

[3] If you’re thinking, “I’d heard Robert E. Lee opposed slavery and only joined the Confederacy over states’ rights” then you were duped by a pernicious myth cooked up by “Lost Cause” revisionists that infected American schools for decades.

[4] Berkeley is the rare top-flight school that had a problematic name and they ditched it already. In a shock to nobody at all, it had no impact on the quality of the school. This isn’t to say that there aren’t other issues baked into top law schools. Leland Stanford built the university and was a virulent racist. NYU’s public interest scholarship bears the name of an alum and presidential candidate who ran on ending Reconstruction. Without endorsing those names, we should at least be able to agree that dropping someone with zero connection to the school presents far fewer obstacles.

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.

In the new digital economy, it often seems like every day brings another tale of some horrific data breach. 

Additionally, revelations like the ones involving Cambridge Analytica, the British company that mined the Facebook data of tens of millions of people in an attempt to affect elections worldwide, have left people more mindful of data privacy.

Governments have responded. Data privacy laws abound and more are in process. In such a fluid legal environment, how can a business keep up? 

“Legal departments face increasingly complex tasks in staying compliant while minimizing regulatory risk related to data privacy in virtually all areas of their work,” says Trista Engel, Paragon Legal’s Chief Executive Officer. “We ensure our privacy lawyers are well-versed in understanding and mitigating the risks in this critical and ever-evolving field.” 

Representatives from Paragon Legal recently attended a virtual event titled “Data Privacy in an Era of Global Change,” hosted by the National Cyber Security Alliance. 

The event featured experts from the World Bank, Airbnb, and Visa, among others, who discussed the latest issues companies are facing involving data privacy — as well as how certain best practices can also advance a company’s broader business goals.  

Here, we present some actionable takeaways for in-house counsel along with a summary of the current regulatory landscape. 

Making Privacy a Core Value

Rita Heimes, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), recommends that companies build a culture of privacy beyond the risk management technique of compliance with a given law.

Speaking at the event, Heimes said such a culture goes far beyond the avoidance of litigation. People would rather work for “an organization that is thoughtful and careful and has a good soul,” she said.

“Those people are loyal to you and they stick with you for longer because they enjoy where they work,” Heimes continued. “Privacy is one of many components, along with diversity and inclusion. Your employees will notice that you take these things seriously and they’ll respect you for it. They’ll be proud of where they work.”

So, how does a company build a culture of privacy? 

First, create a detailed policy, thought-out, tested, and devised by professionals. Heimes recommends that part of this policy be periodic data housecleaning. 

“If you don’t have people’s personal data, then it can’t be misused,” she said. “A culture of privacy reduces risks all over.”

Second, dedicate personnel to implement the policy. While a chief privacy officer with a team is ideal, experts recognize this may be beyond the reach of some businesses. 

One option companies have is to partner with an alternative legal service provider like Paragon, which maintains teams of privacy-focused professionals to support companies that lack these types of expertise in-house. 

Third, thoroughly follow up — particularly with all types of vendors and business partners — to make sure the policy is working as intended. Third-party data protection presents numerous challenges, and companies must remain vigilant to ensure their security needs are being met. 

Complying With the GDPR

This attentiveness is important because of ever-shifting regulations. In 2018, the European Union kicked privacy law to a new level when it implemented the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR). 

The law fosters transparency regarding data collection, mandates that sites cannot collect data unless a user affirmatively opts in to the process, and governs protocols in case of a data breach.

Many companies, no matter where they’re domiciled given our global economy, saw this robust law and thought it best to comply. 

They said to themselves: “Europe has come up with a comprehensive consumer privacy law that sets a very high bar. If we build our systems to meet that, we’ll probably comply everywhere, right?” Heimes said. “Because it’s the strictest law, that’s the reactive and appropriate first step.” 

She noted, however, that this strategy can be “pretty tough on your data team and you may not need to go that far.”

Post-GDPR, companies have been “fine-tuning their processes, seeking the best procedures for themselves, their vendors and their clients,” Heimes said. And of course, the GDPR is no longer the only robust privacy law.

Eyeing the US Landscape

As it often does, California led the way in the United States with its 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

While it shares goals with the GDPR, there are a few differences. The CCPA added data about devices and households to the definition of personal information. The right to opt out is narrower than the GDPR’s because it covers only the sale of personal information, but it included broader consumer rights regarding access to data.

However, because data privacy laws never stand still for long, in late 2020, the Sunshine State passed the California Privacy Right Acts (CPRA) to build on the earlier law. 

CPRA advocates felt the CCPA was too weak — too susceptible to legal machinations — and set out to fix it. Significantly, they passed the new law through a ballot referendum, demonstrating that the general public is aware of the problem and wants strong laws.

The CPRA establishes an agency, to be called the California Privacy Protection Agency, charged with enforcing the act and promoting awareness of privacy risks, according to materials posted by the NCSA. The agency will get up and running this year, although other provisions of the law don’t take effect until 2023.

The new law also created a category called “sensitive personal information” and includes specific compliance requirements for this category. It expands the opt-in requirement to include the sale and sharing of a user’s personal data, which brings it in line with the GDPR.

On March 2, Virginia became the second state to pass a robust data privacy law. 

The Consumer Data Protection Act, which becomes effective in 2023, is similar to the CCPA in that it gives consumers more control over their personal data.

As noted in Corporate Counsel, the Virginia law also contains minor differences that will increase compliance burdens for companies.  

Perhaps more important than state-level activity, federal lawmakers have been working to pass legislation as well.

The latest iteration in federal law is the Setting an American Framework to Ensure Data Access, Transparency, and Accountability Act (SAFE DATA Act), a conglomeration of three previous bills, according to a September 2020 article from the IAPP. 

If the bill were to become law, it would require companies to obtain affirmative express consent before gathering individuals’ sensitive data and would require privacy policies to be published and transparent. 

The bill calls for robust data security practices, and would prohibit the denial of goods or services to individuals who exercise their privacy rights. Users would be guaranteed access to their data and companies would have to designate data security officers and conduct annual assessments, among other things.

The SAFE DATA Act would also require users to be notified if an “opaque algorithm,” uses their personal data to select the content they see, and would require an “input-transparent algorithm” to be on offer.

The U.S. Congress is still at odds over some aspects of the bill. According to the IAPP article, “the two key dividing lines are whether federal privacy legislation will include a private right of action and [whether it will] preempt state laws that offer a higher standard of privacy protections,” such as the CPRA.

“California was a big wake-up call that U.S. states are one by one going to begin adopting standards,” Heimes said. “Now that we have party alignment, more or less, across both houses and in the White House, the chances are better than they’ve ever been that there will be federal privacy legislation.”

Paragon Legal is a premier legal services firm providing interim in-house counsel to leading corporate legal departments. Visit them here for more … 

Woohoo! The Biglaw spring bonus wars are heating up!

Fresh off of news that Willkie Farr was handing out special spring bonuses in appreciation of associates’ hard work during a particularly trying period, and Davis Polk’s decision to outdo that generosity, Milbank has decided to throw their hat into the ring.

Today, the firm announced their own spring bonuses and matched the scale set by Davis Polk. The bonus distributions will be as follows:

	April	September	Total
Class of 2020	$4,500	$7,500	$12,000
Class of 2019	$6,000	$10,000	$16,000
Class of 2018	$12,000	$20,000	$32,000
Class of 2017	$16,500	$27,500	$44,000
Class of 2016	$19,500	$32,500	$52,000
Class of 2015	$22,200	$37,000	$59,200
Class of 2014	$24,000	$40,000	$64,000
Class of 2013	$24,000	$40,000	$64,000

Bonuses will be paid by April 30 / September 30, 2021. And yes, there will still be regular, end-of-the-year bonuses at Milbank: “These special bonuses will not impact any discretionary bonus paid in respect of 2021.” The firm announcement went on to note, associates can continue to expect big bucks come year-end bonus time too, saying, “We expect our year-end bonus will be no less than the 2020 year-end bonus levels for eligible associates.”

The full memo is available on the next page.

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).