Category: News Feeds

* The MLB is playing “hard ball” over a lawsuit concerning the location of the League’s All-Star Game. [Hill]

* The Ohio Attorney General has filed a lawsuit seeking to declare Google a public utility. [CBS News]

* Systems at the New York City Law Department are still down days after it was targeted by a cyberattack. It was hard enough to schedule depositions with them already… [New York Times]

* A woman who was impaled by a beach umbrella has filed a negligence lawsuit. [Scranton Times Tribune]

* A new lawsuit alleges a company falsely claimed air purifiers protected against COVID-19. If true, that stinks… [NBC News]

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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.

Amy Chua’s Lack Of Self Awareness: Is staggering.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say: Don’t tweet it.

Reese Witherspoon Is Here For Her Law School Fans: She’s right, it’s not hard.

Stroock Is Standing Up For Staff: Because they’re people too.

Arent Fox Announces: Reopening plans.

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

According to a survey conducted by the Law School Admissions Council, what percentage of the 141 responding ABA law schools indicated they had exceeded or would exceed their deposit targets?

Hint: We told you the law school admissions game was wild this cycle.

See the answer on the next page.

It’s probably not a surprise that a lawyer accomplished enough to be a rightful Supreme Court justice and actual Attorney General would be an annoying gunner, but Merrick Garland decided to remove all doubt yesterday when his Department of Justice decided to piggyback on the previous administration’s position that when presidents defame sexual assault victims it’s entirely within the scope of employment.

Right there in the Article II: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and to say his alleged rape victims are ‘not my type.’” OK, so maybe the Constitution doesn’t really say that, but it’s in the “Original Public Meaning” of the language.

One might have thought the change in administrations would lead to a change in positions, especially since the DOJ raised the claim in transparent bad faith in the first place. But Garland’s here like everyone’s least favorite law student to offer “more of a comment than a question” to the Second Circuit.

Then-President Trump’s response to Ms. Carroll’s serious allegations of sexual assault included statements that questioned her credibility in terms that were crude and disrespectful. But this case does not concern whether Mr. Trump’s response was appropriate. Nor does it turn on the truthfulness of Ms. Carroll’s allegations. The case instead addresses whether the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and the Westfall Act apply to the President and the scope of their application—questions that implicate the institutional interests of the federal government. The district court’s resolution of those issues was erroneous, and the government respectfully urges the Court to reverse the decision of the district court.

Except that’s the answer to a question that no one genuinely asked. No one with a lick of legal acumen thought defaming citizens implicated the FTCA in the first place, let alone whether or not it fell within one of its exceptions. The whole thing was cooked up by a boiler room of former FedSoc bros in an RFK Building conference room high on Chick-fil-A. But soldier forward with this argument the DOJ will!

You could argue that Garland’s just trying to protect the institutional credibility of the DOJ by refusing to turn it into a political pinball that careens from one position to the next with every election. An admirable goal for questioning the interpretation of maritime cargo regulations but complete lunacy when it comes to imagined legal trickeration to pawn a president’s straightforward tort liability off on the taxpayers. If that’s Garland’s take then he’s incentivizing every DOJ to push the envelope on bonkers legal theories in an effort to handcuff future administrations.

And that may be what’s driving Garland, but I can’t get over the possibility that he’s just unable to get out of his own head. He’s exactly the guy who responds to the hypo pontificating for five minutes about the Rawlsian veil of ignorance and the dangers of a slippery slope. “Well, if we let presidents face civil claims for slandering assault victims, where does it stop?”

There. It stops right there.

Maybe he’s crazy like a fox and knows the Second Circuit will laugh off this claim the same way Judge Kaplan did and then he can quietly decline to file cert and let it go away. The odds are certainly in his favor if this is the plan, though it’s a little too clever by half when “just dropping the appeal in the first place” has a 100 percent chance of success and not a single non-cynical person would question the decision.

We’ll see if this is the strategy, but until then we’re left with the United States of America taking the official position that its chief executive is allowed to commit torts with near impunity while in office, arguably to “protect” the institution of the Department of Justice.

“We can only defend the institution by refusing to acknowledge that the institution had disgraced itself” is a hell of a take.

Biden DOJ Shielding Trump From Rape-Defamation Suit, So That’s A F*cking Bummer! [Wonkette]

Earlier: Justice Department Swoops In To Save Trump From Submitting DNA In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Suit

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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.

Ed. note: This is the third installment of The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary, part of our Non-Event for Tech-Perplexed Lawyers. Jared Correia is the host of the Non-Eventcast. 

There’s a term for when attorneys use Latin and other arcane languages to describe legal processes to consumers: “legalese.”

But there’s no similar term for when vendors use technical and other arcane languages to describe their legal software operations to lawyers.

True, this dynamic may seem unfair. But now we have The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary to help us cope.

Read on for the third installment, where we translate legal document management software-related topics to plain English.

And for more commentary on legal tech, check out the Non-Eventcast in the Law Practice Management Software and Legal Operations Contract Lifecycle Management rooms at the Above the Law Non-Event.

Document Management Software

1. A system that stores and organizes electronic documents allowing (potentially multiple) users to edit, save, search and share those documents.
2. A stack of redwelds.

Lawyer 1: Hey, I can’t open that document you just emailed me.

Lawyer 2: Seriously? It’s a WordPerfect file.

Lawyer 1: Uh huh.

Lawyer 2: This is just embarrassing. I mean, I can bring the floppy disc over. But, I’m charging you for that shit.

Cf. Avoid storing anything of value at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Version History

1. A software feature that captures different stages of document generation, including saved and active iterations, so that users can access a chronological record of document updates.
2. The record of changes and edits to a specific document, automatically saved via software.

Lawyer 1: FOR THE LOVE OF . . . I JUST LOST 7 HOURS OF WORK!!!

Lawyer 2: Just hit CTRL+Z for “undo.” And, if that doesn’t work, access the version history.

Lawyer 1: Wait, what?

Cf. In “Star Wars,” Darth Vader probably felt like he was the good guy.

PDF

1. A specific document format that looks the same on any device or program where it’s accessed. A scanned PDF is an image file unless OCR (optical character recognition) is applied to render/recognize the document text.
2. A document with an unmatched potential to cause frustration when attempting to edit or otherwise manipulate text in any way. 

Lawyer 1: Did you open the PDF I sent you?

Lawyer 2: No, Jim!  I’m not going to open palladium fluoride in a space this small, with limited ventilation!  What kind of a fool do you take me for?!

Lawyer 1: So … no?

Cf. The history of movable type. 

Naming Conventions

1. A classification system for naming items.
2. In document management, an agreed upon scheme for denominating files in a software system.

Lawyer 1: Hey, I think we need to go over the established law firm naming conventions again, Andy.

Lawyer 2: What do you mean?

Lawyer 1: This is a motion to dismiss, right?

Lawyer 2: Yes, and I always name those “fart noise” + a sequential number. Is there a problem here?

Lawyer 1: Get out. Now.

Cf.  Utilizing dates for folders and files will ensure that all folders and files will cascade in chronological order, e.g. — “2021 06 22 Motion to Dismiss”

Paperless Office

1. A file management system that does not depend on paper documents.
2. A law firm that has adopted a paperless management system for documents and files. Paper documents that do exist are scanned and saved at an online document repository, before the paper is confidentially destroyed.
3. Definitely NOT a stack of redwelds.

Lawyer 1: I really think we need to adopt a paperless office model.

Lawyer 2: (clutching a physical file) But, I love paper so much. I just know I will miss its musk.

Lawyer 1: I’ll give you some time alone. (shuts door)

Lawyer 2: (behind the closed door) And, when this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together!

Cf. The development of a paperless office workflow, which is essential to converting to a paperless office. The workflow is relatively simple: create or scan, save. Rinse and repeat. But, for most traditional lawyers, the mindset change required is immensely difficult.

This is the third installment of The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary, part of our Non-Event for Tech-Perplexed Lawyers. 

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Jared Correia, a consultant and legal technology expert, is the host of the Non-Eventcast, the featured podcast of the Above the Law Non-Event for Tech-Perplexed Lawyers. 

The students of whom I have been the proudest are those who have had the courage to take risks and try something that is truly consequential. The reason is simple—what you do matters…I urge you to consider a life that is open to public service, open to taking on the troubles that are bearing down on us, open to tackling the crises that are still in the making and we don’t even see yet. It takes courage—real courage—to step off the path that you have laid out for yourself. There are so many paths out of law school that are steady, dependable, and not scary. Law firms will pave the road from here to a fancy office in a fancy building in a fancy city. Businesses will line up for your talents. Judges will offer clerkships that will let you delay real life for another year or two. But think about doing something scary. Think about striking off on your own. Think about not following the expected path. Think about government service or non-profits or NGOS. Think about taking a chance. Trying something different. Trying something big. Have courage. Take a risk because our nation and our world needs you.

— Senator Elizabeth Warren, in her address given as the 2021 Class Day speaker at Harvard Law School, where she used to teach. Warren, a former Democratic presidential candidate, emphasized that a degree from Harvard Law can be “a powerful tool.” She went on to note that one the 2021 graduates used their degrees would be up to them, but urged them to do something out of the ordinary. “You may choose to use it quite profitably helping clients who are already rich and powerful get richer and more powerful,” she said. “But my own advice is to respectfully ask you to consider other paths where the need is great.”

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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.

Ed Meese is back? Really? What kind of demonic invocations have the Stanford FedSoc kids been getting up to?

But here he is, Reagan’s Attorney General, in the flesh, arguing in an amicus brief filed on behalf of the American Constitutional Rights Union that Major League Baseball should just shut up and play its All Star Game in Atlanta.

After an exegesis on the beauty of Georgia’s new vote suppression law, Meese tut-tuts that MLB is “wading into this political and legal controversy — and taking the incorrect side of the legal dispute” and “potentially violat[ing] their legal obligations to their stakeholders by dividing the business’s customer base” when it should be paying attention to “the financial success of their business.

“For all these reasons,” he concludes, “the court should order Defendants to reverse their business decision, and move the All-Star Game back to Atlanta, Georgia.”

It’s a feat of trolling, if not of legal reasoning, which is par for the course in this case filed by Kraken lawyer Howard Kleinhendler to force MLB to reverse its decision to move the All Star Game to Colorado in protest of Georgia’s recently passed election law. On behalf of his client, the nominally non-partisan Job Creators Network (JCN), Kleinhendler argues that public financing of stadiums renders MLB a state actor, and that the decision to move the game violates the Equal Protection Clause, the Privileges and Immunities Clause and the Dormant Commerce Clause.

In “Your Honor, WTF?!?” motions filed yesterday, MLB and the Players Association (MLBPA) argue that JCN lacks standing to assert the (non-existent) legal right of its members to sell beer to baseball fans the second weekend in July, and even if it does have standing, there’s no need for an injunction because JCN “cannot meet its burden of demonstrating a ‘clear’ or ‘substantial’ likelihood of success on the merits, because all of its claims are legally defective.”

Moreover as MLB points out, “despite its claims of exigency, JCN spent the last two months putting up billboards in Times Square and running inflammatory advertisements in The New York Times.” Which hardly bolsters the case for immediate injunctive relief to prevent imminent harm to the plaintiff. And JCN CEO Alfredo Ortiz’s suggestion that MLB establish a “relief fund” to compensate Georgia businesses harmed by the decision to move the game doesn’t help either.

“The Court can take Mr. Ortiz at his word that no injunctive relief is necessary,” the defendant writes, “but there are several legal grounds to reach the same conclusion.”

For its part, MLBPA notes that it has zero control over where the All Star Game is played, and thus cannot be ordered to return it to its original location.

Neither the Major League Baseball Players Association (“MLBPA”) nor its Executive Director decides where to play the All-Star Game. They did not decide to locate the 2021 All-Star Game in Atlanta, they did not decide whether or where to relocate the game, and they have no ability to return it to Atlanta. The Job Creators Network (“JCN” or “Plaintiff”) knows this. It filed thislawsuit for political theater and then doubled down on abuse of the judicial process by dragging the MLBPA and its Executive Director, Tony Clark, into a frivolous lawsuit.

MLBPA is also deeply offended by “Plaintiff’s unfounded, reckless, and offensive suggestion that the MLBPA and its Black Executive Director supported a decision to harm minorities,” calling the allegation “specious and sanctionable.”

All of which sounds pretty bad, but perhaps we should withhold judgment until we find out what Alberto Gonzalez and John Ashcroft have to say on the matter.

Or perhaps not.

Job Creators Network v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball (1:21-cv-04818) [Docket via Court Listener]

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

(Reese Witherspoon, the actor who played Elle Woods in Legally Blonde — the film that launched a generation of legal careers — congratulating Alexis Wright, a recent UNT Dallas College of Law graduate, who staged a Legally Blonde-themed photoshoot in her school’s moot courtroom days before graduation. Wright’s tweet has been liked almost 400,000 times. This is quite possibly the best law school graduation present, ever.)

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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.

A few days ago, Business Insider put out an article explaining how the situation facing Yale Law School’s Amy Chua is “complicated.”

Which it’s not really, but whatever.

New York magazine followed up with another Chua deep dive — which is fantastic because it provides significant space to exploring the Rubenfeld allegations getting glossed over by a lot of the Chua talk — followed closely by the New York Times profile. A busy week!

But the best thing about reading the results of three different interviews — all admittedly a product of a conscious strategy to speak out in her own defense — is reverse engineering the professor’s strategy through the similarities with each article. Though you don’t even have to dig far into each to find the roadmap to folly she’s decided upon. Just look at the beginnings of each of these stories.

Amanda FitzSimons began the article with this image:

Amy Chua answered the door of her New Haven home wearing yoga pants and a Myrtle Beach T-shirt that had a curlicue bachelorette-party font now considered cheugy.

Irin Carmon’s piece for New York began:

“It’s supposedly haunted,” Amy Chua says brightly as she ushers me into the cavernous antechamber of the New Haven home she shares with fellow Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld.

The New York Times article never says anything about heading up to Chua’s New Haven home, but the picture featured in the middle of the article is captioned, “Prof. Amy Chua at her home in New Haven, Conn. Credit…Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times” so a trip was definitely made.

Business Insider, New York, and the Times all in a row? It’s like she’s running Disgraced OCI up there. Are they all on 15 minute windows too?

But it’s such a display of her lack of self-awareness.

Professor Chua, beleaguered by accusations that she uses invitations to her home as a means to build loyalty among a clutch of Yale Law students tries to take control of the narrative about her by… inviting journalists to her home. It’s presented as a small bit of color in these stories, but it’s so important as one reads all three together — when she’s told by her daughter that she needs to publicly defend herself, her approach is “bring people to the house.” Yeah, that is an interesting choice when you’re trying to convince the school that you don’t compulsively hold court in your house!

It doesn’t end with the house call approach. Every author takes slightly different angles, but, again, it’s the similarities in all the stories that stand out because it’s the similarities that come directly from Chua. She’s the common denominator and her consistent spiel is what gets reflected in all three.

• She never hosted “parties,” she just had a few people over for “counseling”: While the contemporaneous texts cast considerable suspicion on this, it’s also completely beside the point. The crux of this controversy is not that the scale of her parties, but that she apparently agreed not to keep using her house as a social hub and then… went ahead using her house as a social hub. The school doesn’t care about parties or meetings, they care that there’s allegedly a breach of an agreement that could’ve been completely avoided by saying, “Yeah, let’s go get coffee and sit down in the park.”

• She’s a sympathetic underdog: There’s a lot of background about how Rubenfeld was the scholarly star and Chua the plucky underdog who became famous in his shadow. Oh, so much talk about Rubenfeld’s stellar credentials! Almost as if Chua was trying to piggyback the Rubenfeld redemption tour off this incident. But it also underscores how little she understands why Yale had a problem with the idea of hosting students at her house.

• She’s done everything in the service of helping people… that the school wouldn’t: It’s probably not accidental that portraying herself as the underdog works as a thematic bridge to another pillar of her defense: her work is focused on helping underprivileged students. As I’ve said before, no one’s suggesting that this wasn’t good work or even important work in pushing back against institutional elitism. But good intentions aren’t really the point here — she’s trying to sell “her good, Yale bad” for obvious reasons.

• There’s no due process here: She was “blindsided” and treated “lie a criminal,” the stories recount. Though to take the criminal analogy to its logical conclusion, this is much more like being treated as a parolee. When her husband was suspended for two years for sexual harassment, there was a full-scale, independent investigation. We’re now getting indication that this inquiry was the source of Chua getting grounded as a social host as well. The due process happened, this is where folks already crosswise with the law get held to heightened standards.

• This is is all retribution for sticking up for Brett Kavanaugh!: All three pieces allude to the idea that Chua is being “canceled” for her support of Brett Kavanaugh. There are quotes from Chua in the pieces suggesting that outrage at her stems from the public defense of Justice McKeggerton. Celebrating succor from Megyn Kelly flirts with embracing “national cancel culture martyrdom” — to quote the New York story — but let’s not sign Chua up for Substack just yet. She seems to want the benefit of blaming her woes on everyone but her without the ignominy of having to rely on Naomi Wolf as her only follower. On the other hand, Rubenfeld is using his down time to push anti-vaxxer causes so maybe the couple is aiming for that demographic.

Taken together with her insistence on bringing everyone to Castle Grayskull to bask in her power, Chua’s painting a pretty clear picture about how she got here. She can’t quit the idea that influencing people is all about holding court, she doesn’t grasp either the issue the school has with her socializing nor the gravity of the fallout from Rubenfeld’s situation, and it’s all everyone else’s fault because she’s taken an “edgy” position.

Controversy can sometimes strike people randomly. And sometimes controversy strikes people who just can’t help themselves.

How ‘Tiger Mom’ Amy Chua became the pariah of Yale Law. A complicated story of booze, misbehaving men, and the Supreme Court. [Business Insider]
The Tiger Mom and the Hornet’s Nest [New York]
Amy Chua Controversy Exposes Divisions At Yale Law [New York Times]

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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.

Change is scary in any facet of your life. If you’re embarking on a job search, it can feel daunting, stressful, and downright overwhelming. But, before you start firing off your resume, it’s important to stay organized, track your progress, and focus on creating a positive mindset. Below are simple things you can do to set proper parameters that will keep your equilibrium for an upcoming job search.

Research Firms And Companies Before Applying

Before you start firing off your resume, analyze the job posting, and see what’s required from the candidate. Cross-reference the job posting and make sure that your resume aligns with the responsibilities and qualifications needed. Don’t forget to prioritize bullet points. Each bullet point should have a strategy behind it with enough context that allows you to open the conversation and build upon it in an interview. Don’t overlook the importance of optimizing your LinkedIn profile to prime it for the job search. Ensure that your resume and LinkedIn profile align with job titles, companies, and dates of employment.

Next, head over to the company or firm’s website and their LinkedIn page. Learn their mission, values, and corporate culture. Focus on digging into things that interest you about the position and the company. Make sure to connect those dots in your cover letter. Research who at the company is most active on LinkedIn and observe what they are writing about. Determine if that person will be a good point of contact for you when making outreach.

Prepare Your Email Accordingly

Be sure to have an email address that’s separate for your job search. This will prevent you from having a cluttered inbox and possibly overlook (and miss) important job-related email communications. Additionally, create master templates for your cover letter, follow-up, and thank you notes. This will speed up the process when you do apply, so you’re just simply adding to templates and customizing them, instead of reinventing the wheel. Don’t overlook turning on job alerts from sites like LinkedIn, goinhouse.com, and your state bar association.

Create A Job Search Spreadsheet

A job can be posted on a search board today and gone tomorrow. A job search spreadsheet is a simple tool that will keep you organized, structured, and allow you to track your progress. It’s important to have diligent notes that document when you sent out your resume, who you reached out to at the firm/company to establish a connection with, and the date(s) you followed-up with that person, as well as outcomes.

Open Excel, and make columns for each of the following:

• Position title
• Company name
• Job description (highlight important keywords in yellow)
• One to four key persons of interest at the company that you will make outreach to
• Progress notes

Keeping the job description in the spreadsheet will enable you to have the information to review if you get called for an interview and the position is subsequently removed from the website. Print out information about the company and keep it in a folder. This way, if you do get called for an interview, it’s easily accessible for preparation.

Stay Busy And Create A Schedule

If you’re job searching, it’s important to stick to a structured schedule and routine. This means setting aside time for researching roles, applying to roles, and following-up with companies and firms. You will also want to ensure you are keeping your body healthy and your mind focused. Job searching (whether you’re gainfully employed or between roles) can take a toll on you mentally and physically. That means taking breaks for meals and exercise to keep your energy levels and stamina elevated.

Utilizing these tips can help take your job search to the next level and make it work to your advantage. Have additional questions about your job search? Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

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Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at wendi@writingguru.net, connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.