Neovest… replicated a database containing customer authentication information, including user names and passwords, to one of its most active customers and failed to exercise any supervision over the customer’s use of the database.
I mean, that definitely seems like something that a registered broker-dealer oughtn’t do. Wait, what’s that you say?
The order finds that although Neovest withdrew its broker-dealer registration after it was acquired, it continued to operate the OEMS as an unregistered broker-dealer by, among other things, participating in the order-taking and order-routing process and soliciting customers and destination brokers through the firm’s website and direct outreach at industry conferences and trade shows.
And if you think that the first thing wouldn’t have happened were it not for the second thing, well, the SEC sort of thinks so, too.
Neovest’s failure to register as a broker-dealer deprived its customers of protections associated with registration, including inspections and examinations by the SEC and the requirement to establish policies and procedures to safeguard customer information.
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* A family is suing an auction house for purportedly losing a rare photograph of Babe Ruth. Could be the plot of a sequel to Sandlot… [Democrat & Chronicle]
* The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexual misconduct. [Business Insider]
* An Ohio lawyer has been suspended from practice after his paralegal embezzled $200,000 under the lawyer’s watch. [Enquirer]
* A Texas lawyer, who allegedly bribed a judge, has resigned from practice. [Texas Lawyer]
* James Franco is paying $2.2 million to settle a sexual misconduct lawsuit. [Fox News]
* Gavin Newsom is filing a lawsuit to be designated as a Democrat in an upcoming recall election after his team inadvertently left his party preference blank on election paperwork. Oops… [CNN]
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.
According a study by AccessLex Institute and Gallup, Law School in a Pandemic: Student Perspectives on Distance Learning and Lessons for the Future, what percentage of non-1L students rated the quality of their pandemic learning experience as excellent or good?
Hint: Asked to rate their pre-COVID law school education, 88 percent of respondents gave it a good or better rating, but the number tanked when asked about pandemic learning.
There is an old expression among lawyers that goes something like “he who represents himself has a fool for a client.” The gist of the axiom is that individuals may not have the expertise or perspective necessary to adequately represent themselves, so it is prudent to seek independent counsel to handle a matter. Despite the common understanding that interests are better served by independent counsel, some lawyers decide to represent themselves in legal matters, even in situations with which a lawyer may not have much experience. For a variety of reasons, lawyers should usually still hire other lawyers to handle their legal work in a number of situations.
Perhaps most importantly, lawyers should hire other lawyers if this will save time for the lawyer that can be devoted to other purposes. Sometimes, lawyers may not wish to bother themselves with a given legal issue since the amount of time it would take to learn the fundamentals of the matter involved with the legal issue does not justify taking the case pro se.
For instance, several years ago, I got a traffic ticket in upstate New York a few hours from where I lived. After getting the ticket, I knew that I never wanted to travel to that part of the state again for the purpose of fighting a ticket. While I was upstate, I looked on my phone for respectable lawyers, and I literally walked in off the street into a lawyers’ office. I paid the lawyer’s fee to handle the ticket for me while I was there, and the lawyer did amazing work for me. It was definitely worth the money to never have to travel to that place again, and the lawyer also knew all of the people and procedures involved in the traffic court in which my ticket was processed, which might have helped with the disposition of the matter.
Lawyers should also hire other lawyers to do their legal work if they do not have sufficient experience with the matter to be handled. For instance, several years ago, I bought a condo, and an attorney is usually involved in reviewing the contract of sale and other paperwork involving the purchase. My realtor suggested that I conduct the contract review myself and save money on a lawyer.
However, I ended up spending the money to pay a lawyer to handle the contract review and closing. I did not know anything at the time about residential home purchases, and this attorney and his staff provided good counsel. Moreover, the experience of seeing this lawyer in action gave me the confidence to handle residential home purchases and sales later in my career when I decided to open up my own firm, and I might not have had the expertise to handle such matters if I did not hire that lawyer back then and had the benefit of his counsel throughout the home-buying process.
Lawyers should also hire other lawyers to handle their legal matters so that a neutral perspective can be heard on a matter. When lawyers handle a matter for themselves, their work may be biased by their own emotions and feelings surrounding a case. For instance, the lawyer may not be able to see insufficiencies in their arguments and might not be able to approach an issue from an outsider’s point of view. This can have a negative impact on the matter, since good legal arguments need to take into consideration all of the information, perspectives, and issues surrounding a matter. Neutral counsel is the best way to have an unbiased advocate ensuring that emotions and biases do not get in the way of legal work, and lawyers should hire counsel even if they could handle a mater themselves.
Moreover, hiring a lawyer might have other, more subtle, advantages to a representation. For instance, counsel are far more likely to be open to a lawyer representing a client than a self-represented lawyer. Attorneys are usually more guarded and cannot be as casual in conversations with principals to a case, and this can impact settlement negotiations and other parts of a matter. In addition, courts are far more likely to award attorneys’ fees to a party that is represented by counsel than a lawyer who represents herself if a statute or contractual provision authorizes an award for attorneys’ fees in a given matter. The availability of attorneys’ fees can be an important motivator in settlement negotiations, and hiring a lawyer may put leverage on the other party. Also, lawyers who represent themselves may not be taken as seriously by adversaries than lawyers who hire counsel to represent their interests. Hiring an attorney shows that a party is serious and has taken the appropriate steps to safeguard his or her interests in a case.
In the end, lawyers know full well how attorneys’ fees can be expensive, and lawyers may be tempted to represent themselves if they face legal issues. However, lawyers are usually better off if they retain counsel to perform legal work on their behalf.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.
This case was shocking when it hit the news earlier this year. A Chinese megacelebrity actress, Shuang Zheng, was called out on social media by her ex, Heng Zhang (whom I’ll call, as the court did, “Father”) that she had abandoned their two surrogacy-born children in the United States. In China, the scandal was not that Zheng had abandoned her babies, but that she had used a surrogate to have a child — or, in this case, two surrogates to have two children. After the news broke, Zheng’s career plummeted, she lost roles and lucrative sponsorships, including one with Prada.
Almost a year after the babies’ births, Zheng brought a case in Denver County Court, arguing for her parental rights to the children. And, in February 2021, more than a year after their births, Zheng traveled to Denver, where the children reside with Father. After two well-attended (over 300-plus onlookers) public hearings over Zoom focused on parenting time and decision-making, the Denver court issued an order for allocated parental rights in the case.
A Romance Gone Very Wrong
The 30-page court opinion tells a heartbreaking story. Back when Zheng and Father were in a romantic relationship, they decided to have children together. Owing to a heart condition related to dieting for her work, as explained by Zheng to the court, the couple turned to surrogacy to have children. And since surrogacy is not permitted in China, they made arrangements in the United States.
The couple chose to work with two different surrogacy agencies, matching them with two different surrogates (one in Nevada, and one in Colorado). The couple had plans to have a girl and a boy, born close together, and in the Year of the Pig. Interestingly, that was apparently a common request from hopeful Chinese intended parents as the Year of the Pig approached. Apparently that year — approximately February 2019 to January 2020 under the Chinese zodiac calendar — was especially auspicious. I looked it up on Google like any good attorney, and found that children born in the Year of the Pig are said to be extremely pleasant, and do what their parents tell them.
Narrator: not every child born in the Year of the Pig was extremely pleasant and obedient.
The couples’ plan was right on track until the couple split — and not amicably — in September 2019. What followed was, at least for my fellow surrogacy professionals, the stuff of nightmares. Zheng testified that after the breakup, she panicked. Zheng contacted the surrogacy agencies and asked them if the pregnancies could be terminated. Even if that had been an option earlier on (which at least one agency pointed out, by contract, was not), at this point, mere months from each child’s due date, it was not possible. Zheng then inquired as to the process to place the children up for adoption, intentionally excluding Father from the communications. The agency — good for them! — wrote to both parties to be clear that if the children were going to be placed for adoption, both parents must be involved. At that point, Father started communicating with the agencies, letting them know he would be there to take care of the children and was not giving up his parental rights.
Prebirth Parentage Determination Drama
Of course, in the meantime, another legal process was on the horizon. During a surrogacy, it is customary that attorneys for the parties file a petition for a prebirth parentage determination in order to have intended parents recognized as the surrogate-born child’s parents from birth. Zheng told her Nevada attorney to stop working on the case, forcing the attorney to withdraw from representation. Only after at least one of the agencies explained the serious consequences — including the possibility of the children being considered abandoned and the parties being at risk for criminal charges — did Zheng cooperate in signing the prebirth parentage petition documents.
When The Babies Were Born, Dad Was There
Traveling to the United States in time for the births, Father was there. First, he was present for his son’s birth in Colorado in December 2019 and then, briefly leaving his baby son in his mother’s and a nanny’s care, he traveled to Nevada to be there for his daughter’s birth. He then brought his daughter back to his home in Colorado.
Zheng on the other hand, the court explained, “decided not to travel to the United States for the birth because she felt she could not be seen with Father at this time and did not trust him, and had accepted work and intended to proceed with it, claiming that if she did not do so many people would have lost their jobs.” When Dad attempted to notify Zheng by social media that the babies were born, she blocked him on WeChat.
After facing public outrage when the story broke in January 2021, Zheng finally arrived in Denver in February 2021 and contacted Father through her counsel to make arrangements to see the children. At the time of the hearings in April and May, Zheng had only experienced two short, supervised visits with the young children.
In the trial for parental allocation and decision-making, Father sought sole custody of and decision-making for the children but did not oppose Zheng having limited supervised visitation with the children. Zheng’s attorney presented an elaborate six-phase parenting plan quickly stepping up visitation and care every few weeks. The court, however, found that Zheng’s proposal lacked “in therapeutic support or evidence that it is in the children’s best interest,” not considering basic scheduling needs of the young children, such as naptime.
Immigration Complication
The immigration status of both parties added a complicating factor. While both children are natural U.S. citizens by birth on U.S. soil under the 14th Amendment, Zheng and Father are Chinese citizens, legally in the U.S., but only temporarily, on short-term visas. At the time of the hearing, Father had received an extension to his original visa and had a pending application for another extension. Zheng was in the United States on a six-month visa, with a possibility of an extension.
The Decision
So what did the court decide? Despite all the extra international attention and intrigue, the court ultimately treated the case like any other messy divorce and parenting situation, working to find a solution most in line with the best interests of the children. The court determined that:
Father is designated primary residential parent. If Father leaves the United States, the children will go with him. Presumably Zheng would then also return to China and reside near enough to Father to continue her parenting time with the children.
Both parties are to complete a parenting class within 60 days of the order. (Seems paternalistic but probably fair under these circumstances!)
Phased parenting time for Zheng. Three days a week supervised parenting time, increasing in visitation length after a proven record.
Next up, the Denver court is set to dive into the issue of child support. While the probability is that that phase will be just as acrimonious, we can hope (like we hope for all parents in a messy divorce case) that Zheng and Father are able to put their history and differences aside to focus on the best for their children.
You can think of your firm’s legal billing system in terms of thisclassic commercial: Two broke shoppers are forced to choose between buying a six pack and restocking their toilet paper supply. (Guess which one they opt for?)
That’s because if your firm is those shoppers, your legal billing software is their beer.
While it’s not something they taught in law school, your billing system is the core element of your firm’s business operations.
But with so many technical advancements, it can be overwhelming to consider making a change or selecting a new, more profitable system.
If you found yourself walking through Times Square this morning, you were treated to an unusual display as the walls of NASDAQ’s 4 Times Square headquarters lit up with a presentation for a (not quite) law firm.
LegalZoom, the company that’s decidedly not a law firm, yet still the go-to legal services resource for many Americans — in particular small businesses — took over the space this morning as it debuts on NASDAQ as “LZ.”
As we pointed out recently, 10 percent of all new LLCs and 5 percent of all new incorporations in the United States last year used LegalZoom along the way, which is an amazing stat.
CEO Dan Wernikoff rang the bell to kick off the day after delivering remarks praising the “Zoomers” that helped get the company to this landmark accomplishment over the last two decades.
Check out the bell-ringing ceremony here. Which is actually a button-pushing ceremony. So maybe we’ll call it appropriately a (Not Quite) Bell-Ringing.
[We will] require that all employees, other than those who cannot be vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons, be fully vaccinated before Sept. 13. …
Having all of our employees vaccinated not only helps protect the health and safety of the Mintz community, this requirement also safeguards the health of our clients and others who visit our offices. We will expect clients, vendors and others who enter our offices to provide proof of vaccination (and we will provide for protocols for visitors who cannot provide such proof).
— an excerpt from a memo written by Bob Bodian, managing partner of Mintz, detailing what the firm’s return to the office will look like. Employees may return voluntarily starting on July 6, and at that time, those who are vaccinated will no longer need to wear masks or socially distance from colleagues. Those who are unvaccinated will not be allowed in the building and will continue to work remotely until September, because “some employees … have compromised immune systems, and we have an obligation to do our best to protect them, and everyone else, particularly when protection is readily available.”
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.
It’s put up or shut up time for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.
As the Wall Street Journal was first to report, the first indictments are dropping tomorrow against the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg. Cue the howls from Rudy Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani! — about destroying the reputations of good men via perp walk.
There are two versions of this story: one from Trump’s lawyer Ronald Fischetti, who says this is Vance putting all his cards on the table; and one where Vance is tightening the screws on Weisselberg and other executives in an attempt to make them flip on the boss.
“It’s crazy that that’s all they had,” Fischetti told Politico earlier this week, adding later, “This is so small that I can’t believe I’m going to have to try a case like this.”
And indeed the indictments are reported to involve undeclared perks doled out to executives in lieu of salary, including company cars, tuition, and rent-free apartments in Trump properties — not exactly the crime of the century. But if prosecutors are looking to up the ante on Weisselberg and his family, this just might do the trick. Particularly since Weisselberg’s son Barry, who ran the Wolman Ice Rink in Central Park for the Trump Organization until New York City terminated the contract in January, is in the frame, too.
For running the all-cash operation, Barry Weisselberg was paid $200,000 in salary, plus approximately $40,000 in bonuses. He also lived rent-free for several years in Central Park South, a benefit worth upwards of $100,000 annually. And not for nothing, but this Barry fellow isn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch.
“I’m not an accountant. I know what I make. I’m not too sure of certain things,” he said in a deposition taken during his 2018 divorce from Jennifer Weisselberg, whom the Washington Post reports is working with Vance.
If the gambit works and Vance is able to leverage Weisselberg to finally flip on Trump, it will look like sound legal strategy. If it doesn’t, Vance could wind up looking worse than he did when a court dismissed the charges against Paul Manafort that were supposed to ensure that he didn’t get off scot free on the basis of Trump’s pardon.
Radical Left New York City and State Prosecutors, who have let murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and all other forms of crime skyrocket to record levels, and who have just announced that they will be releasing hundreds of people involved in violent crime back onto the streets without retribution of any kind, are rude, nasty, and totally biased in the way they are treating lawyers, representatives, and some of the wonderful long-term employees and people within the Trump Organization. After hundreds of subpoenas, over 3 million pages of documents, 4 years of searching, dozens and dozens of interviews, and millions of dollars of taxpayer funds wasted, they continue to be “in search of a crime” and will do anything to frighten people into making up the stories or lies that they want, but have been totally unable to get.
[…]
Now they just leaked that we were given one day, today, to make our case about things that are standard practice throughout the U.S. business community, and in no way a crime.
Guess who!
Just your former president, copping to tax fraud and calling it “standard practice.” It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, for a guy whose defense appears to be a claim that he didn’t have personal knowledge of the perks doled out to his own employees.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of 
