Category: News Feeds

On June 9, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hosted a three-hour hearing that was supposed to focus on college athlete name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights but discussed everything from NCAA concussion protocols (or the lack thereof) to the NCAA’s position on transgender participation in college sports. While there were moments that provided hope for Congress acting soon on providing college athletes across the country with important NIL rights, the hearing was underwhelming and makes it seem as though there will not be federal action before a number of states enact their respective NIL laws on or around July 1.

Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and New Mexico have signed NIL laws that will be effective on July 1, with the expectation that Illinois and Texas will soon have their bills signed by their respective governors, adding those states to the pack. Additionally, Louisiana’s governor is expected to sign NIL legislation that should cause the state to join the others near July 1. Furthermore, Nebraska and Oklahoma have each approved laws that allow colleges within their states to offer NIL rights to their athletes as soon as today, but no later than July 1, 2023. It is possible that schools in those states feel compelled to join others that must offer such NIL rights to college athletes in less than a month.

With that in mind, Sen. Maria Cantwell decided to convene the July 9 hearing that was supposed to address federal NIL legislative proposals and review recent changes in state laws around NIL. However, Cantwell’s own comments during the hearing demonstrate the clear divide between Congress and the states. States that have thus far passed NIL legislation have been able to stay focused on the NIL issues and receive bipartisan support, whereas Congress cannot seem to avoid getting in its own way, going well beyond NIL in its discussions and thus delaying what should be a somewhat simple process to enact a federal law on the subject.

Cantwell commented that covering healthcare costs for college athletes is an important goal to achieve and that it should be easy for Congress to say, “yes, we can get this done.” Yet, as others noted, covering healthcare costs is not so simple, since it will be left to individual institutions to pay these expenses and, unless there is some sort of pooling system that is created, it will put smaller schools with lesser budgets at an extreme disadvantage, potentially resulting in the reduction of sports offered at their institutions.

As Sportico legal expert Michael McCann astutely stated, Congress should keep the focus on NIL. He qualified that comment by acknowledging that other topics such as college athlete healthcare are not things that should be ignored and, in fact, they should be addressed soon, but they are getting in the way of what there is consensus on — that college athletes must be afforded NIL rights across the country. McCann noted that state laws have been remarkably bipartisan. However, what is absolutely a bipartisan issue has become difficult to reach a debate on the floor of the Senate because of ancillary issues that have been attached by Democrat and Republican senators alike.

Sen. Roger Wicker, early in the hearing, agreed that there is consensus that Congress should pass a law that guarantees athletes the right to enter into NIL deals and mentioned that 18 states had NIL laws. Sen. Richard Blumenthal later indicated that his state, Connecticut, actually became the 19th to pass a NIL bill earlier that day. Thus, as Congress continues to sit on its hands, states are staying aggressive and passing their own pieces of legislation within their borders, understanding the value of setting aside differences on other aspects of athletes’ rights and remaining focused on something everyone can seemingly agree upon (even the NCAA), which is that college athletes are due proper rights to take advantage of their NIL and earn money through deals brokered with third parties unrelated to their universities and athletic programs, as well as have the capacity to create their own businesses.

Sen. Cory Booker apologized to the committee and said he was deeply sorry that little has changed on the national level despite numerous hearings on NIL rights. Yet, he then proceeded to talk about how important it is to pass his proposed legislation that provides athletes with a more comprehensive “Bill of Rights” covering athlete injuries, a concussion policy, etc. Meanwhile, Wicker indicated that he had an interest in reducing some liability for the NCAA by way of a national measure, which seems quite convenient for the NCAA and has undoubtedly caused consternation among some in Washington D.C. The problem with this approach is that it will only cause Congress to continue to stall any action on a federal NIL law. The clock is ticking, with only 21 days until July 1. It is very unlikely that Congress will get its act together by then to put aside its differences, become hyperfocused on a NIL law, and deal with other college athlete-related issues at another time.

Booker was not alone in expressing embarrassment that nothing has been done on the national level despite clear warning signs for roughly two years. Gonzaga men’s basketball coach Mark Few said that NIL rights should have been handled a long time ago and was troubled that he will be disadvantaged if his state, Washington, does not have an NIL law while others are using it to their recruiting advantage. Who is to blame? The states that have done nothing deserve some blame. Congress deserves some blame. The NCAA deserves the most blame. It has had proposed NIL legislation for many months and has done absolutely nothing with it.

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Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

One of the starkest differences between working at a firm and going in-house is the sheer increase of volume in meetings.

When I was at a firm, intraoffice meetings were rare.

As a practical matter, clients didn’t like to pay for intraoffice meetings, so as you could guess, what isn’t billable naturally falls down on the priority list.

As an associate, my days were better spent researching and writing (essentially, billing). As an introvert, I fondly remember full days of hardly talking to anyone at work, lost in investigation, strategy, or persuasion.

Which is why the number of meetings in-house can be very overwhelming at first.

Here’s a reason why it’s different in-house.

The number one way an in-house lawyer is of value to the company is to be available to clients when they have questions and need advice so that they can move their projects forward. If you have a “legal-friendly” culture, this naturally results in in-house lawyers being invited to lots of meetings and conference calls. Even the way we are invited is different.

When I was at a firm, we would exchange a couple of emails and decide on a time before calendaring. In-house, everyone at the company has visibility to my availability on my Outlook Calendar and can send an invitation to a call or meeting — and if I have not blocked it, it is fair game. Instead of back-and-forth emails regarding availability, clients simply look on your calendar and book a free spot. What this means is that when I look on my calendar today, I may think that I have a free hour to work tomorrow, but tomorrow, when I look on my calendar, it is taken up by a client need. Certainly, I have the ability to decline the meeting or call if needed, but it goes back to my purpose: I am here for clients, and if they need advice to move forward with their projects and work, then they are the priority. Recently, we have moved to Microsoft Teams, which allows people to include you in impromptu meetings, which is fair game if you are not blocked.

Because of the meeting-heavy culture of corporate America, it can easily wreak havoc on your effectiveness as a lawyer.

Here are three tips to be more successful in spite of all the meetings as an in-house lawyer.

Block Off Your Availability To Work

This may seem counterintuitive because it limits your immediate availability to clients, but I have found that if I don’t intentionally block off focus time to actually do the substantive work, I will find myself in back-to-back meetings all day and having to substantively work at night after the kids are asleep.  Examples of what I mean by substantive work: reviewing pleadings from outside counsel, researching client questions, and preparing training or reviewing and responding to client requests.

Candidly, this doesn’t mean that client “fires” won’t pop up, and you won’t have to move your focus time, but being intentional on the front end is more likely to lead you to success.

A pro-tip — if you can block time before and after every meeting you have to do prework and postwork, it may limit the amount of late-night work you have to do. I don’t always get to do this because it takes a lot of intention and organization, but when I do it, it often results in a less stressful, productive week that doesn’t bleed into home life.

Ask For Prework, If Any

This may seem inefficient. If a client could just send an email, why would they schedule a meeting? But for me, to be a thorough lawyer, I need time to ask questions (as clients only share what they may think is relevant) and I find that having an idea of what the ask is or what the project is about — so that I can do any necessary prework — makes me more effective and helpful during the actual meeting and may lessen the need for follow up meetings or calls.

Another aspect of this is to provide prework to clients, if needed.  Even better, if you can provide a template.  For example, you may be requested to advise on whether an employee should be terminated. To provide that advice, you probably have a standard set of info you want to know. Having a standard email template in your Outlook with those initial questions will help you efficiently provide advice during your call, and also allow you to spend your call on nuances.

Clarify The Ask And Nail Down A Reasonable Deadline

During the meeting, make sure you give time for the client to tell you the background (anew) and provide you all the information they want to share before you start asking questions and advising. I use this time to take notes.  This is so important because I have seen how some lawyers just want to jump into questions and how that can damage the relationship with clients and also chill the information flow. Before the meeting ends, I always like to review with the client what the ask is, what they need from me, and what their deadline is. For the deadline: don’t be afraid to push back if it’s not an emergency. The adage of underpromise and overdeliver still rings true.

While these tips are not a panacea for the sheer volume of meetings we get invited to — hopefully, they will help you be an effective business partner in spite of all the demands on your time.

Happy meetings!

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Meyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is in-house at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring, championing belonging, and a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. At home, you can find her doing her best to be a “fun” mom to a toddler and preschooler and chasing her best self on her Peloton. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

The Biglaw market seems to be moving pretty quickly in response to Milbank’s move to $200,000 in first-year associate compensation.

Just a few short hours after the associate salary raises were announced, we have another firm stepping up to the plate and matching the new market standard. Today Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft announced they’d be bumping up associate salaries between $10,000 – $15,000, depending on class year.

The new salary scale is as follows, effective July 1:

Class              Salary
2020/21         $200,000

2019                $210,000

2018                $230,000

2017                $270,000

2016                $295,000

2015                $320,000

2014                $340,000

2013                $355,000

You can read the firm’s full announcement on the next page.

CWT isn’t a firm known for sticking its neck out, compensation-wise. As a tipster noted:

Looks like all signs are pointing towards a big money summer in Biglaw this year.

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Milbank”). 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’ll 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.

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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).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is increasing the payment provided for administering Covid-19 vaccinations to Medicare beneficiaries at home.

The agency will now pay an additional $35 per dose for Covid-19 vaccine administration in a Medicare beneficiary’s home, increasing the total payment amount from approximately $40 to around $75 per dose. For a two-dose vaccine administered at home, this results in a total payment of about $150, up $70 from the current rate. The payment rates will be geographically adjusted based on where the service is provided.

The additional reimbursement accounts for the clinical time needed to monitor a beneficiary after the vaccine is administered, as well as the upfront costs associated with administering it at home.

Through this payment increase, the agency aims to encourage at-home immunizations for those who may have difficulty accessing a vaccine site and thereby boost vaccination rates.

“CMS is committed to meeting the unique needs of Medicare consumers and their communities — particularly those who are homebound or who have trouble getting to a vaccination site,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-Lasure in a news release. “That’s why we’re acting today to expand the availability of the Covid-19 vaccine to people with Medicare at home.”

There are approximately 1.6 million adults, 65 years and older, who may have trouble accessing Covid-19 vaccinations because they have difficulty leaving home, CMS estimates.

Further, CMS released guidance for vaccine administrators, which provides recommendations on safely storing, handling and administering doses to homebound individuals, especially those living in hard-to-reach areas.

The hike in payment for vaccine administration at home comes amid the Biden administration’s push to increase vaccination rates nationwide. The administration recently dubbed June as the National Month of Action with the aim of getting at least one shot in the arms of 70% of U.S. adults by July 4th.

Overall, vaccination rates among adults aged 65 and older are high, with 71.9% having been fully vaccinated as of May 12, according to a data brief by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But rates vary widely across states — from 57.6% in Utah to 87% in Vermont — and across counties. Counties in the south and those with a higher share of seniors living in poverty had lower immunization rates than the average county Covid-19 vaccination rate of 68.9% among seniors.

Photo: PixelsEffect, Getty Images

Well, well, well. That didn’t take too long at all.

Earlier today Milbank reasserted their dominance over the Biglaw compensation market by giving all associates a raise and pushing first year compensation to $200,000 — a threshold long hoped for in the industry. As exciting as that initial announcement was, the real question was how quickly the rest of the market would match (or, if we dared to hope, would come over the top of the standard set by Milbank).

Now we have our answer.

McDermott confirmed they’d be matching the Milbank scale. That means associate salaries at the firm will soon be as follows:

Class              Salary
2020               $200,000

2019                $210,000

2018                $230,000

2017                $270,000

2016                $295,000

2015                $320,000

2014                $340,000

2013                $355,000

Remember, this is in addition to special bonuses which the firm matched, as well as year end bonuses. That’s a pretty nifty payday, pandemic or not.

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Milbank”). 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’ll 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.

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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).

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Charise Naifeh to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Ever since becoming a mom, Beth had cobbled together a series of part-time legal jobs. Her latest gig had been cut for a lack of funding and she was struggling to find another part-time job.

She received some amazing full-time job offers. But she turned them down because she was already struggling with another full-time job: parenting two young children and doing 90% of the housework.

In the course of two years, she had gone from an ambitious, razor-sharp
attorney at the top of her game to a doubt-ridden person struggling with
increasing fears and insecurities about her career. She felt utterly trapped.

Motherhood Inequality

We’ve all heard of gender inequality, but motherhood inequality isn’t as commonly discussed. What is it? It’s the inequality that occurs only to mothers, not to all women. Contrary to what one might think, a legal career provides no exemptions to motherhood inequality. In fact, it can even exacerbate the issue.

Before children, Beth and her husband had been equals in their marriage. Both were lawyers who worked full-time and together contributed to the family’s economy and household chores. They both felt free to make their own career decisions. Gender inequality was not present for Beth pre-kids.

When Beth became a mother, a dramatic shift occurred — not just with the presence of a newborn — but in the minds of both her and her husband. Her new role included a list of obligations of encyclopedic proportions. That list is what I call the motherhood manual, and it’s one of the main causes of motherhood inequality.

Motherhood inequality can be present regardless of whether Mom’s legal career is on the sidelines or center stage. It surfaces with Moms who are not working at all as well as those who are clocking 80 hours a week as the family breadwinner. The common denominator is that Mom is last in line.

Motherhood inequality wreaks havoc on women’s careers for this simple reason: It’s impossible to drive a car from the back seat. It keeps many women from advancing their careers once they become mothers. It’s also a leading cause of burnout among lawyer moms. The good news is that the problem of motherhood inequality is solvable with three key steps.

1. Rewrite Your Motherhood Manual
One of the first things that needs to change is the motherhood manual — that unspoken collection of rules and standards that is passed down to every new mother. In traditional cultures, the manuals were clear and concise. In today’s world, they have become increasingly fragmented, complex, and difficult to follow.

For Amelia, giving birth to two children in two years provided a stark Before and After reality. Before, Amelia had tended to her career. Now, with a suddenly activated motherhood manual inherited from her hard-working immigrant parents, Amelia followed it to the letter: She was in charge of the physical and emotional well-being of everyone in her household. This was something she was unable to turn off, even when her very capable au pair was in charge of the children.

When we started working together, one of the first things we did was tease her manual into the future. She realized that staying on her current path would lead to results that she didn’t want 15 years from now. She would have an abandoned career and the loss of her prime earning years. She’d also have two teenagers who believed that Mom is there to serve everyone else and ignore her own needs.

To avoid that, we dismantled her motherhood manual and rewrote it. When we shined a light on the requirements that she had felt obligated to meet, she realized that she didn’t even agree with most of them. Example: Self-care is selfish. The vast majority of these “rules” had been passed down from her family. When she realized that they made no sense in her current life, she felt free to let them go. She wrote a new motherhood manual premised on her core values, including equality. Once she did this, her career took off. And her family doesn’t love her any less. In fact, having a (mostly) well-rested, balanced, and calm mother has improved everyone’s level of happiness at home.

2. Shift From Zero-Sum Game To Win-Win
One of the reasons so many women get stuck in motherhood inequality is that they’ve convinced themselves it’s them or me. This puts them in a dilemma where they believe that what they want is directly at odds with what everyone else wants. Given that choice, women almost universally default to taking care of everyone else first. In this scenario, there’s no way to win. After a long week at the firm, Amanda was not enjoying her weekends. Her kids would watch cartoons while her husband enjoyed coffee and the paper. But she couldn’t relax in a messy house.

Her desire for a tidy home seemed directly opposed to her family’s desire to spend the weekends relaxing. To avoid creating conflict, she did all the housework herself. This meant resting and recharging were off the table, and it was beginning to show. She felt stuck and resentful. She didn’t want to go to battle in her own home, but she didn’t want to be the family doormat either.

Together we identified a third option: she could have a tidy home and spend the weekends relaxing. At bottom, everyone in her family actually wanted those two things. Once she realized that this wasn’t a zero-sum game, she began to look for and find creative solutions. She held a series of family meetings to figure out how to create the dual outcome of a tidy house and relaxing weekends.

That required some strategic adjustments to their daily routine as well as a commitment to consistent communication. Now her 5- and 7-year-old children put away their own laundry, her husband is in charge of the dishes, and time is reserved each evening for keeping clutter in check. While the house may not always be 100% perfect, Amanda is more relaxed at home knowing that keeping the house in order doesn’t rest entirely on her shoulders. She recharges during her weekends and meets her workweek with renewed energy.

3. Empower Yourself
After 15 years working as an attorney, Ruth had hit her career stride. She had a busy but manageable law practice at a firm, and she was earning a good salary. Her job also allowed her to enjoy weekends and evenings with her husband and three children. Then, the pandemic hit. Within a few months, she found herself agreeing to quit her job and prioritize her husband’s career.
This triggered intense fears, insecurities, and feelings of powerlessness. Her new role, as she saw it, was to provide everything to everyone else in her home. She didn’t even feel like she could spend time trying to figure out her next career move. This was not a role that she enjoyed or wanted. But it didn’t seem like she had a choice because, after all, she was the mom. She was stuck in a rut and didn’t know what to do next.

Ruth attended one of my online trainings and realized that, far from being powerless, she was in a position of incredible power: To finally build her own practice that would enable her to control her own schedule. This was something she had long wanted, but she had been waiting for someone else to give her permission to pursue it. When she realized that she was never going to get permission from anyone else, she decided to give herself permission to establish a practice of her own.

Now, she’s now building that new practice with a new intention: To create a career that will serve her. Because she chose to empower herself, even in a larger circumstance that she didn’t control, she was able to move past motherhood inequality and create what she wanted.

Action Is Required

With the world reopening, many moms assume their load will lighten. But if motherhood inequality persists, lawyer moms as well as women in other
professions will simply continue to bear the lion’s share of work, with burnout an ever-growing danger.

Not surprisingly, motherhood inequality often prevents moms from taking the very actions needed to eradicate it. For example, Beth decided to put her career goals on hold until it was more convenient for her family. She did so in the belief that pursuing what she wanted would hurt her family. But research shows the opposite is true. As Carl Jung famously said, “the greatest burden a child can bear is the unlived life of a parent.” Learning to honor what you want is the greatest gift you can give your children because it models for them how to do the same in their own lives.

Women like Amelia, Amanda, and Ruth go from feeling stuck to empowered in a short amount of time when they see that doing so is actually good for their families. Happy, strong moms create happy, strong families. Women can begin to see immediate results if they address this problem in their own lives and families. This shift begins within each individual woman and ripples within the family system. When we do this, we help ourselves and our families, while also impacting future generations of families. It’s something worth doing, and it’s worth doing now.

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Charise Naifeh is an attorney, a mother of two, a Professional Certified Coach, and the founder of Happy Law Mom, a community of lawyer moms committed to creating authentic happiness in their work, motherhood, and personal lives. After the birth of her second child,
Charise knew she needed a new approach to blend lawyering and motherhood. Through much trial and error, she discovered the key skills that took her from struggling to happy. In 2018, Charise began teaching these skills to other lawyer moms and went on to create the Happy Law Mom Coaching Program. She is also the creator of a forthcoming podcast, How To Be A Happy Lawyer Mom. Connect with Charise on Instagram @happylawmom, LinkedIn @charisenaifeh, Facebook
@HappyLawMom, or at charise@happylawmom.com.

It’s no secret that, for personal injury firms, the pandemic has brought about a drop in new cases.

Amid this environment, however, some are taking steps to bolster their current operations and position themselves to emerge stronger than ever.

Hosted by legal tech journalist Bob Ambrogi, this webinar will focus on Paul Hernandez, Partner with Kalfus & Nachman and a well-known personal injury lawyer in Virginia, who will discuss how his firm has thrived in the past year and how it’s cultivating continued success in a new normal.

David Wagner, COO of Assembly Legal, will join the panel to discuss the role of case management and offer other insights on how technology can help firms tightly manage profits at all times.

Join us June 29th at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT for a lively discussion on:

• How firms can apply a metric-driven approach to managing costs and profitability
• The increased importance of frequent communication with clients and colleagues
• Managing firmwide productivity in light of the changing role of physical office space
• Increasing business development activity to secure a post-pandemic pipeline of cases
• How the right case management software can play a role in all of these areas

Fill out the form to register for the event. 

By filling out the form you are opting in to receive communication from Above the Law and its Partners.

Plenty of law professors may be revered as knights in shining armor for gallantly saving students’ grades, but there’s only one who’s an actual knight.

Earlier this week, Professor Philip Bobbitt was awarded an honorary knighthood in recognition of his “services to UK/US relations and public life.” He’ll now be known as an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Because this knighthood is honorary, he won’t be able to refer to himself as Sir, but he can use the KBE title after his name.

Bobbitt is the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence at Columbia University, where he serves as director of the school’s Center on National Security. (Above the Law readers may remember that “the James Bond of Columbia Law School” married Maya Ondalikoglu, a third-year law student from the school, in 2011. The pair are still happily married and have four children.) He’s also a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at The University of Texas in Austin. This is an incredibly rare honor — the last known time an American law professor received an honorary knighthood was in 1948.

Bobbitt is most widely known in the United Kingdom for his work on international security and constitutional law. He’s the author of 10 books, including The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History and Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 20th Century. Several of Bobbitt’s high-profile friends weighed in on the honor the Queen bestowed upon him:

“I am delighted that Philip has been recognised in this way. He has been a staunch, steadfast, and often passionate advocate for the USA/UK relationship, someone who combines the highest standards of intellectual thought and scholarship with a strong set of values and principles. He has been always a great friend to our nation and thoroughly deserves this recognition.”
–Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Philip Bobbitt warrants the uncommon granting of a UK knighthood for his important writings in law, philosophy and national security, his highly regarded teaching, his service in government, and his tireless commitment to preserving and enhancing the relationship between the US and UK. This is a well-deserved and timely honor.“
–Hillary Rodham Clinton, 67th United States Secretary of State

“Philip Bobbitt is one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. I have benefited enormously from his wisdom and so have the readers of his extraordinary work. I’m happy that he has received this important recognition.”
–Henry Kissinger, 56th United States Secretary of State

“I’m greatly moved by this honour which I take as a recognition and reaffirmation of certain bonds that link the United States and the United Kingdom—commitment to the rule of law, collective security, and the preservation of the values of liberal democracy—to which my work has been devoted,” Bobbitt said, when he accepted the title. “Our many friends in America and Britain I imagine will be deeply pleased. They all know, however, that I am only a placeholder for the countless persons who have long nurtured a tradition of mutual affection, esteem, and reliance between our two countries.”

Congratulations to Professor Philip Bobbitt on this extraordinary honor!

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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.

Nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and jackholes swooping in at the last minute to blow up class action settlements.

Class actions aren’t the perfect solution to all the world’s problems, but they are a lot closer to offering efficient public interest solutions than cherry-picking detractors would lead you to believe. There are trolls who spend their whole careers trying to undermine public confidence in class actions and from time to time they get help from judges trying to get their names in the papers, but Judge Posner put it best when he quipped, “The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.”

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute — the very definition of the “usual suspects” in the effort to strip the downtrodden from the remotest sniff of justice — has found its way to the Flint Water Crisis cases. It’s actually a weird strategic move for the group, given that so much of the anti-class action public relations battle involves challenging superficially unsympathetic claims, allowing them to say “oh, we don’t hate all class actions just these bad ones” while pushing legal standards designed to unwind the whole project. Justice for people drinking poisoned water for years is one where you’d think the group would steer clear.

And maybe that’s what they were thinking too as this case has labored through the system for half a decade. But they’ve changed their mind at this late date, and Corey Stern of Levy Konigsberg is not going to let Hamilton Lincoln’s Frank Bednarz dance around this reality, roasting the anti-class action activist in a matter-of-fact response:

Mr. Bednarz first appeared in this case on or about March 22, 2021, roughly sixty-seven (67) days ago. (ECF Nos. 1481 & 1482). The first pleading filed on this docket occurred on February 8, 2016. (ECF No. 1). During the one-thousand nine- hundred and thirty-eight (1,938) days between the first filing and Mr. Bednarz’s appearance, on a macro-level some notable events occurred:
(1)  Donald Trump was elected President;
(2)  Hurricane Harvey caused $125,000,000 in damage to the Gulf Coast;
(3)  The entire Brexit saga happened, beginning with a shocking vote, continuing through years of wrangling and negotiations under multiple Prime Ministers, and concluding at the end of 2020 when the transition period following the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union ended;
(4) Donald Trump was impeached (twice);
(5) Three major hurricanes (Harvey, Irma and Maria) struck Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, over five devastating weeks;
(6) Hurricane Michael became the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the United States since 1992;
(7) The Chicago Cubs won its first World Series in 108 years;
(8) Three Supreme Court Justices were nominated and confirmed;
(9) There was a Global Pandemic;
(10) The nation elected Joe Biden; and
(11) There was an insurrection in Washington D.C. and an attack on the Capitol.

Maybe they just hadn’t heard about the water thing in all this time? As the brief points out, it’s been a busy five years!

But seriously, the intervention is exactly as cynical as it appears:

Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Mr. Bednarz is attempting to derail the very settlement he claims should better benefit his clients. There were other options available—Mr. Bednarz could surely have submitted an amicus brief while the motion for preliminary approval of the settlement was pending—but he didn’t elect to offer a helping hand to the Court. Instead, as he (and his ultra-conservative organization, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute) has done time after time, Mr. Bednarz masquerades as a “consumer protection” advocate, when the real mission is to deprive most injured people of a day in court altogether. Make no mistake, he is playing what he sees as a game of tort-reform wherever he can across the United States, irrespective of the real human beings (including his clients) left in his ideological wake.

The crux of the attempted intervention is the claim that settlement conferences between the plaintiffs and defendants amounted to ex parte communications because… something something. Supposedly the claim that the captioned plaintiffs weren’t present despite counsel representing their interests as class members and the fact that they’d never even attempted to participate? It’s the sort of argument you’d expect from someone who’d never heard of a class action before as opposed to someone who does that work every day.

Or every other 1,939th day.

Finally, as has consistently been the case throughout the litigation, the Hall Objectors (like the many other objectors who may have different priorities from Mr. Bednarz and the Hall Objectors) have a remedy available to them. They, of course, do not need to have bone scans taken to participate in the settlement, and they do not have to participate in the settlement at all if they so choose. Like any member of a putative and as-yet uncertified class, they retain the freedom to opt out of the class altogether and prove up their claims on their own terms. In doing so, they can attempt to negotiate settlements as they see fit with the various defendants. Consequently, the public interest that Mr. Bednarz imagines throughout his brief simply rings hollow.

Almost as if it’s not really about the remedy as much as it’s about launching constant broadsides against litigation in the public interest in an effort to get in front of sympathetic if-not-ABA-qualified circuit judges installed in the last administration.

Hmmmmmm.

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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.

Biglaw compensation is through the roof right now. The bulk of elite Biglaw firms have already announced special bonuses, generally in two payments throughout the spring and fall, but turns out, that was only the tip of the compensation iceberg.

This morning, Milbank announced salary increases for all associates, ranging from a $10,000 to $15,000 raise, depending on class year. And, compared with special bonuses (which Milbank already matched, natch) salary bumps are way better since they’ll definitely be there next year.

So, let’s get down to the dollars and cents. Here’s what the new Milbank salary scale looks like now:

You can read the full announcement on the next page.

Remember, Milbank also was the first firm to raise salaries back in 2018. I guess they really like leading the compensation wars.

Firm Chair Scott Edelman said of the raises:

“Our associates have been working harder than ever, and it has been three years since we increased salaries. We thought it made sense to recognize their efforts with a salary increase.”

Congrats, Milbank associates! Now let’s see which firms match!

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Milbank”). 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’ll 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.

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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).