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“After 36 years, I’m fleeing what was the U.S. Department of Justice — where I proudly served 19 different attorneys general and six different presidents,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern wrote yesterday in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In a searing editorial, Halpern says he can no longer work in a DOJ helmed by Attorney General Bill Barr. After decades as a prosecutor in the Southern District of California, he’s heading for the exit. Loudly!

Halpern calls out Barr for his blatantly partisan intervention to help Donald Trump’s friends and punish his enemies, beginning with the deliberate mischaracterization of the Mueller report, and rising to a feverish crescendo of impropriety in 2020.

Unfortunately, over the last year, Barr’s resentment toward rule-of-law prosecutors became increasingly difficult to ignore, as did his slavish obedience to Donald Trump’s will in his selective meddling with the criminal justice system in the Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases. In each of these cases, Barr overruled career prosecutors in order to assist the president’s associates and/or friends, who potentially harbor incriminating information. This career bureaucrat seems determined to turn our democracy into an autocracy.

There is no other honest explanation for Barr’s parroting of the president’s wild and unsupported conspiracy theories regarding mail-in ballots (which have been contradicted by the president’s handpicked FBI director) and his support for the president’s sacking of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office used the thinnest of veils to postpone charging the president in a criminal investigation along with Michael Cohen (who pled guilty and directly implicated the president).

Halpern says he would have left long ago, if not for fear that in his absence Barr would move to derail the prosecution of former Congressman Duncan Hunter, who pled guilty to campaign finance violations, but spent a year screaming bloody murder that he was being persecuted for supporting Donald Trump. (Because he and his wife accidentally used the campaign credit card to pay for tuition, vacations, dental work, and trips to Burger King.)

Confirming his scorn for honest apolitical prosecutors, Barr refers to some as “headhunters” who pursue “ill-conceived charges against prominent political figures.” It does not appear to be a coincidence that all of these prominent political figures happen to be friends of the president. However, if I’m a headhunter because I charged and convicted disgraced local House members Duncan D. Hunter and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, so be it. It’s a badge that I will wear with honor.

I remained in government service this past year at least partly because I was concerned that the department would interfere with the Hunter prosecution in my absence.

For those who don’t remember Congressman Cunningham, he pled guilty in 2005 to accepting $2.4 million worth of bribes, including living rent-free on a defense contractor’s yacht named “The Duke-Stir.” And although Cunninham was a Republican, President George W. Bush never publicly upbraided the Justice Department for bringing charges against members of his own party.

Halpern isn’t above a little snark, poking fun at Barr for supervising thousands of prosecutors when he’s “never actually investigated, charged or tried a case,” pointing out that gassing peaceful protestors could never be defended before an actual jury.

More recently, Barr directed federal officers to use tear gas in Lafayette Park to quell what were, at that time, peaceful protesters. Barr’s assertion the square was not cleared due to the president’s desire for a Bible-carrying photo op is laughable. It is certainly a case that Barr would lose before a jury (again, though, this may not be clear to him due to his unfamiliarity with jury trials).

While Halpern commends his colleagues for their commitment to nonpartisanship and impartial justice, he bemoans the fact that many of his experienced colleagues have left, and recruitment of quality replacements has been difficult as the Department’s reputation has become further damaged.

The piece is a scathing indictment, and the country is much the worse without Halpern and the dedicated prosecutors pushed out by Barr’s incompetent mismanagement of the Justice Department.

Commentary: I won’t work in Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department any longer [San Diego Union Tribune]

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

According to a report by Christine Simmons at Law.com, the Biglaw firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed has been on a “downward trajectory” over the last five years or so, and the numbers back that up. Over that time period, gross revenue is down 27 percent (from $394 million in 2014 to $288.1 million in 2019), attorney head count is also down by more than 80 lawyers, profits per equity partner is down to $1.41 million 2019 (from a high water mark of $2.145 million in 2014), and the firm’s profit margin is now ~18 percent, falling from a high of 42 percent. And as a result, its Am Law 200 ranking plummeted from 72 to 116.

And all that was before COVID-19 hit.

With the additional hardships caused by the pandemic, the firm dealt with more bad news. Hughes Hubbard took a multimillion-dollar Paycheck Protection Program loan, and then laid off more than 30 people in July (insiders say they were “blindsided” by the cuts). Later that month, 11 international trade lawyers left the firm, taking with them a reported book of business of more than $12 million.

Law firm management consultant Kent Zimmermann told Law.com:

“But if a firm’s head count and revenue and profitability are dropping precipitously, particularly if that was all happening in a good economy,” Zimmermann said, “it could cause people to wonder what would happen in an uncertain economy.”

That was about the industry generally, not the specifics of what’s going on at Hughes Hubbard, but the concern remains.

So what is going on? Simmons reports that Hughes Hubbard has long survived on big, like really big, cases:

More than a decade ago, Hughes Hubbard was engaged in multifaceted products liability litigation defending the drug giant Merck over its controversial painkiller, Vioxx, before Merck in 2007 agreed to pay $4.85 billion in a settlement.

Hughes Hubbard also watched its tobacco-related products liability work decline after former client Lorillard was acquired in 2014 by Reynolds American. Reynolds moved much of the Lorillard litigation work to Reynolds’ regular tobacco counsel at Jones Day, The American Lawyer reported in 2015, and Hughes Hubbard cut some of its Kansas City staff as a result.

In the last few years, senior counsel James Giddens’ work as trustee overseeing the liquidation of Lehman Brothers Holdings’ broker-dealer unit has wound down, marking an end to a decade-long odyssey that has generated more than $400 million for the firm. During the case’s heyday, some partners were making several million dollars a year, sources said. Giddens was also trustee in the liquidation of securities broker-dealer MF Global.

More recently, Hughes Hubbard’s work for Airbus has significantly slowed down, sources said.

And as an insider says, “The issue happens when you don’t get another large case. There’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

The firm’s chair is aware of the recent ending of these big matters, but is still optimistic about the firm’s bottom line:

Acknowledging some major matters have ended, chairman Ted Mayer said in an interview the firm “went through a rebuilding” where partners began boosting up their own practices. Now the firm is seeing success, he said, as the number of partners with at least $3 million in business is the highest the firm has had.

Firm leaders also say Hughes Hubbard is seeing an uptick in international legal business, and they hint at expansion to come outside the firm’s usual boundaries.

“We feel very good about meeting our budget and ending the year strong,” Mayer said.

Mayer said he expects revenue to be flat in 2020, but that the firm continues to work on “major new litigation.” He said the process of rebuilding “takes time, and we’re seeing tremendous success.”

And the firm’s culture, along with its commitment to pro bono matters and diversity, continue to make it a robust firm:

“While some of the published metrics don’t appear as robust or positive as people would like,” said New York recruiter Alisa Levin, “the firm still has a strong culture, and many respected practices.” Not everybody has to make $5 million a year, she added.

Hopefully the turnaround Mayer envisions means attorney layoffs will be a thing of the past.

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).

Amy Coney Barrett thrilled the dumber segments of the population when she revealed that she didn’t bring any notes into her Supreme Court nomination hearing. Senator John Cornyn gushed, “that’s impressive,” becoming the first of a flurry of conservative observers to fawn over the idea that the nominee could rattle off canned, evasive answers about basic law without referring to a notebook. It was, to be clear, not even the remotest bit impressive. What it was was openly contemptuous of the hearing process — a performative acknowledgement that she didn’t care enough about the hearings to even bother to come prepared. No nominee was going to leaf through a notebook, but it would convey basic respect to at least bring it with you.

Karma, as it happens, has a way of striking back at this sort of hubris. And strike back it did when the walking COVID superspreader was asked about the First Amendment and couldn’t remember what it says.

In the immortal words of Rick Perry… “oops.”

But justified comeuppance aside, what this exchange really proved was how ridiculously stupid the bar exam is as an exercise and how thoroughly it’s poisoned the whole legal process.

Republican Senators, especially John Kennedy of Louisiana, have been asking these dumb remedial law questions of nominees for a while now, as if the hangup with someone appointed to the federal bench is going to be defining the Rule Against Perpetuities from memory and not, you know, “do you believe segregation is illegal?”

It’s the same unfortunate energy motivating the death drive for bar examinations across the country. There’s very little about being a lawyer or a judge that requires knowing random law facts from memory. We don’t practice in a law-themed Jeopardy tournament. The only scenario in the profession that really requires snap knowledge that the attorney hasn’t meticulously prepared beforehand is on-the-spot objections and learning how those work isn’t particularly hard or especially relevant for an M&A attorney or a Supreme Court justice.

This is a research profession. It’s the approach a practitioner takes to researching and preparing for the issue at hand that demonstrates minimum competency, not a memory test. The idea that being “good” at law is memorizing random legal nuggets is what births the inane belief that being a federal judge means having EVEN MOAR facts about abstention doctrine to spout off the top of your head. It is the logical conclusion of the broken approach to gatekeeping in this profession at all levels.

Which brings us back to her notes.

Because the test of a good lawyer isn’t the answers they have memorized or the ability to successfully bullshit their way through a two-minute answer, but their preparation. What did they consider worth brushing up on? How did they consider framing complicated issues? What sources did they consult to support their conclusions? Failing to list the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment looks awkward but from a professional standpoint mostly irrelevant. Some clerk was going to let her in on the First Amendment secret before she walked into oral argument. The public is never really at risk that she’s going to just blank on a whole section of the law because she forgot.

No, the truly embarrassing answer came earlier in the testimony. When she held up that empty notepad.

Earlier: Senator Embarrassing Judicial Nominees With Remedial Law School Questions

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 Jamie Szal back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Seven minutes into Episode 6 of Mrs. America (riveting show — go watch it!), feminist activist and head of the White House Office of Women’s Programs Jill Ruckelshaus returned home from a long day on the road to promote the Equal Rights Amendment. Instead of actually relaxing on the couch, however, she instead immediately began to worry that her husband had not properly taken care of their children in her absence. “Let me just …” she started to say, getting up from the couch. Her husband retorted, “If you want me to be in charge of the kids, you have to let me be in charge.”

That scene shot through me like an arrow.

I am one of the mere 22% of professional women who are married, mothers, and working while their spouse remains at home. A large motivation in my writing on motherhood is to help normalize the mother-as-breadwinner dynamic. To that end, you may have picked up on a theme to my articles: trusting your work-from-home partner. Confession time: it was so much easier to implicitly trust my husband and his parenting style when I worked outside of the home.

I recently came across the term maternal gatekeeping, which refers to moms who unconsciously discourage their partner by criticizing or casting doubt on the partner’s parenting, and trying to take over child care.

(Cue me, sheepishly raising my hand in admission of guilt.)

Pandemic parenting made my gatekeeping tendencies worse.

I thought the first few weeks of the pandemic were fantastic. I was home! I could help! (subtext: I know how to do this better). For instance, I tried to take over potty training, shouting from the home office, “Lady, pooping is awesome! Make a huge poop, and I’ll come put you down for naptime!” I tried to take over naptime, rushing upstairs to put her down. I set up awesome baking soda and vinegar experiments in the middle of the kitchen. It was great, or so I thought.

I have this vivid memory, about a month into the pandemic, of my husband saying to me in exasperation, “Just go back to work! Let me handle this. This is what we do every day.” Duly chastened, I retreated to our home office. Out of sight, out of mind for the toddler, right?

Recently, however, I asked him out of curiosity, what was it really like to have me home? I want to share a few of his thoughts.

Having me trying to butt in all the time was, he sheepishly shared, annoying.  It shook our daughter out of her routine. She wanted more of my attention, which I could not give her because I needed to work. So much drama ensued — she was crabbier, and cried more. She did not understand why I needed to go back to work. Toddler tantrums made his day and his role as a parent so much harder.

Remember those few times I tried to put her down for naps? Was it a successful effort? Heck no. The few times I attempted to put her down resulted in a toddler that refused to nap. As every pandemic parent learned quickly, the golden hours of naptime are sacrosanct. It is when we all accomplish actual work in a concentrated block of time. But because I disrupted our daughter’s routine, thinking that I could do naptime better, I ruined the golden hour for my husband, and his job.

Having me home and butting in left him irritated. It messed up what he was trying to do as a father. I distracted our daughter, which caused him to struggle to finish whatever task was at hand. Take, for instance, my not-so-helpful shouts of poop encouragement. Not once did they actually bring about the desired bowel movement. Instead, they brought on new wails of “I want my mama!” prolonging the already painful experience for everyone involved.

He also grimaced at the mere mention of my “helpful suggestions.” My husband found my helpful hints anxiety-inducing. The idea that he would have to deal with a nap-striking toddler off her routine gave him angst.  Needless to say, dealing with something that would inevitably cause even more disruption to his routine was not at all of interest.

My suggestions, he felt, were also far too involved. He saw every suggestion as requiring him to clean up a huge mess at the end (he’s right) and simultaneously deal with a cranky toddler (probably also right). The experiments or games were a lot of work for very little gain, in his opinion.  His approach to parenting is so much simpler than mine. I don’t mind cleaning up the big mess after a fun experiment. He would much rather have her out in the yard with the dogs hunting for frogs and chasing chipmunks.  Just as tactile. Just as engrossing. Just as likely to lead to shrieks of toddler joy. Far, far less mess. Far more in line with his philosophy of simplicity.

I admittedly hope that writing about my family dynamic, with me as the breadwinner and my husband as the caretaker, helps normalize the conversation for families like ours. But after all my “trust your partner” pep talks, to hear and acknowledge that I interfered was humbling. It took about a month for me to realize that the best thing for my family was for me to back off and get out of the way. Hard as it was, in complete honesty I will treasure the extra time with my toddler that working from home world has given me.  But going forward, I am working on taking my own advice: trust your partner.

Before I close, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the privilege I have to be able to have learned this lesson in the first place. The other lesson this pandemic has reinforced for me is the incredible strength of my fellow law-moms who are raising their children without supportive partners like mine.  Their dedication to work and family throughout these times is inspiring.

Jamie Szal is an attorney at Brann & Isaacson, where her practice focuses on assisting businesses in all aspects of state and local tax controversy, from audits and administrative proceedings through civil litigation. Jamie actively volunteers with the alumni network and Women’s Leadership Council of her alma mater, Trinity College, as well as actively participates in MothersEsquire, the Women’s Law Section of the Maine State Bar Association, and serves on the board of a dental-services non-profit in Maine. Outside of work, Jamie enjoys raising her fiercely independent, impish daughter; singing; and hiking around Maine with her husband, daughter, and dogs.

A lot of the country forgets that outside the immediate environs of New York City, the state devolves into the sort of place where state judges have shirtless, gold-chain-adorned screaming matches with the police over parking spots. Back in June, former state senator and now state Supreme Court justice Mark Grisanti was having a typical day of fighting with his neighbors when the police showed up and tried to defuse the situation. Law360 secured bodycam footage per a FOIA request and it’s, well…

Yes, that’s a shirtless state jurist pushing a cop after the officer tried to stop Grisanti’s wife from continuing to yell in the middle of the street like a “Real Housewives of Buffalo” outtake while the police try to unravel the world’s stupidest turf war. The roots of the conflict between the neighbors aren’t entirely clear but it has something to do with parking and a complete lack of dignity.

As the footage progresses (or devolves, as the case may be), Grisanti is heard referencing his family members in law enforcement and citing his friendship with the mayor of Buffalo, threatening the police that “If you don’t get the cuffs off her right now, you’re going to have a problem.”

The Grisantis were put in the back of the car for a while to chill before a detective — Grisanti’s cousin — called and talked him down.

“If you get arrested, that’s going to be all over — you know it’s going to be on the news,” Costantino said.

In Grisanti’s defense, why were the police cuffing a woman for yelling? It seems as though there would be many, many options for sidelining her that don’t involve physical manhandling. The rapid escalation to twisting a woman’s arm and throwing her in cuffs underscores a lot of the “everything’s a nail to a hammer” problems with the state of American policing. A woman wouldn’t be quiet and the police responded with physical f**king violence — that’s not OK.

On the other hand, she admits that she’d bitten one of the neighbors already so maybe she’s lucky they didn’t pull out the Hannibal Lecter mask.

But that doesn’t excuse Grisanti’s not-so-subtle demands for special treatment. That a judge might think that being close to the mayor and having ties to law enforcement could influence how police handle a case is… well, probably accurate. Still, it doesn’t help the integrity of the judicial system to see that a judge expects leniency for the well-connected.

And let’s not overlook that we’ve seen unarmed Black people killed for less than shoving a police officer. In contrast, no one was even arrested for this.

What else could have fueled this behavior? From Law360:

“You want to drop another copper’s name? You want to scream about how you know Gramaglia or the mayor?” the officer yelled at the judge, before putting handcuffs on him. “You want to make us look dirty, is that what you want to do? So how am I helping you now?”

“You’re dropping everybody’s name with a badge and you’re expecting special treatment. How does that look like to everybody in this environment right now?” the police officer said as he put the judge in the back of a police SUV. “You smell like cheap beer.”

Cheap beer… oh, now I remember where I saw this story before:

‘Intoxicated’ NY Judge Shoved Officer, Invoked Ties To Power [Law 360]

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.

Despite the fact that the second wave of the coronavirus crisis seems to be afoot, one by one, Biglaw firms are continuing to roll back their COVID-19 austerity measures. Cash seems to have been easy to come by for the most successful law firms during the pandemic, so why not?

Today, we have good news from Fox Rothschild, a firm that brought in $555,000,000 in gross revenue in 2019, placing it at No. 69 on the latest Am Law 100 ranking. Back in April, the firm announced that salaries would be slashed across the board, from partners to staff members. Specifically, a tiered salary reduction of between 10 percent and 15 percent for all attorneys and staff making more than $100,000 would take effect in May, while partners would reduce their monthly draws between 10 percent and 20 percent. At the same time, the firm announced that no layoffs would take place (but we have a feeling that the “productivity and performance-related dismissals” that occurred were likely stealth layoffs). In September, half of the cuts made to partners’ monthly draws were restored and half of the reductions to attorney and staff salaries were also restored. Now, all of these cuts are finally coming to an end.

In an announcement made earlier this week, firmwide managing partner Mark Morris said that effective November 1, monthly equity partner draws will be fully restored prospectively, and effective November 5, compensation reductions for all attorneys and staff will be fully restored prospectively. Here is a statement we received from Morris regarding the firm’s most recent salary updates:

Like many other law firms throughout the country, Fox Rothschild has spent this year confronting and addressing the economic challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past seven months, we have continually evaluated our situation to ensure we maintained financial flexibility and remained in the best position possible to serve our clients and provide the strategy and support they need to navigate these uncertain times.

Upon our most recent financial assessment, we are pleased to announce that we are able to rescind the austerity measures we implemented earlier this year.

We appreciate that many of our attorneys and staff have overcome significant obstacles during the past seven months and made sacrifices in many aspects of their lives, and they have done so while serving our clients and the firm with the highest degree of professionalism, poise and perseverance. While the uncertainty and economic impact of the pandemic will likely remain with us for the foreseeable future, I am confident that we will continue to forge ahead and provide our clients, and each other, with the services and support needed during these trying times.

Congratulations to everyone at Fox Rothschild on the positive salary news.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries or restoring previous cuts, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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.

I came across Sterling Miller’s rules for in-house counsel, courtesy of the InHouse Counsel Newsletter. They are very good rules, especially for newer practitioners and a refresher for those of us who have been in the trenches for more years than we care to count. They are the soft skills that we need.   In some ways, the rules are variants of the Golden Rule, which we learned or should have learned in kindergarten, but in our rush to success, we have lost them.

Miller sets forth more than two dozen rules. They apply to all lawyers and not just to in-house counsel. So, for example, one rule is to “say it and write it as simply as possible — get to the bottom-line ASAP.” Do I need to tell you how many times clients would call me, rather than the author of the memo to vent about what a useless memo it was?

The problem was content. The memo was a law review article (we in-house counsel were not paid by the word), rather than laying out what the law was (to the extent that it could be discerned, not always an easy task) and making suggestions about possible courses of action. Sometimes the suggestion was clear: don’t do it, but that’s a business decision for the client to make. It’s much harder to write something simply and clearer than to blither for pages. (This applies to you, outside counsel. We don’t assume that we’re paying you by the word, either.)

KISS applies here. Not the Gene Simmons band, but the acronym for “Keep it simple, stupid.” Clients appreciate brevity and the bottom line right away, especially if the issue is time sensitive.

Another Miller suggestion: “Deliver bad news and good news — fairly and honestly. Keep an even keel.” Easier said than done, isn’t it? One of the hardest things for newer practitioners to learn and get comfortable with is the idea that it’s the client’s problem, it’s not YOUR problem. Don’t take on your client’s head trips. You didn’t get the client into this mess (unless there’s malpractice lurking), and all you can do is do your best with the facts that you are given. Don’t beat around the bush with bad news. I think most people can absorb bad news if they receive it as quickly as possible and with possible suggestions as to how to overcome it. Tantrums? They will get over them. Good news? Congratulations!

One of the issues that always arose when I was trying to settle a case was the math. Plaintiff’s counsel would make a demand, and I always asked how that number was reached. In other words, show the math, show how you got to where you are. It was impossible for me to get settlement authority without explaining how the demand was reached. On more than one occasion, I was told by opposing counsel to “bring the CEO and the checkbook.” Fat chance. C-suite executives are numbers driven, and without an explanation of how the demand was reached, settlement negotiations were full stop.

Another one of Miller’s rules was to pick up the phone; don’t just email everything every time. Talking on the phone and not texting leads to less likelihood that either the text or the email can be misconstrued, leading to cliff jumping when there’s no need. It’s nice to hear a voice and schmooze for a minute or two, even if it’s just the normal pleasantries that start a conversation. Usually there’s some common ground to be found, especially in these pandemic times.

Underpromise and overdeliver. Clients love that. No further explanation needed.

We fear not knowing it all. Right? There’s no possible way that we can know it all, but we are afraid of telling the client that, worrying that the client will think  you’re a bozo because you don’t know it all. Does the client know it all? Of course not. Just don’t bulls- the client. Don’t tell her you know it when you don’t. There’s nothing wrong with having to research to provide the client with the correct information, and most clients (at least those who have a brain cell) will appreciate the care you’re taking with the matter. Nobody’s perfect.

My boss used to say to “keep the boss’s boss off the boss’s back.” As Miller says, “Don’t let the boss be surprised.” The theory is no surprises. We can handle anything, even the worst, if we’re not surprised. Sometimes outside counsel surprised us with bills that were way out of line. Did outside counsel ever call in advance to let us know that there was “incoming” on the way? Of course not. Outside counsel never liked to be the bearer of bad news.  Everything was hunky-dory … until it wasn’t. Share the bad and the ugly. There’s nothing worse than a CEO with his top blown, and we’re scrambling around searching for it.

Lastly says Miller, “Smile. Have a sense of humor.” Given the number of sourpusses who practice law, that may not be so easy but it’s worth the effort. Remember to be nice, especially in these days, but really all the time, regardless of events. Everyone has their own personal battles, and so I think we need to cut each other some slack, now more than ever. I hope that will continue when life returns to whatever normal will be and whenever that will be.

Miller’s corollary to that is “Don’t be a jerk.” Amen. I don’t know what happens in law schools that can turn decent people into jerks, but please skip that class. Your reputation is the only thing that follows you your entire career. Prize it, guard it. It’s golden.

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

Oh, good lord. The self-owns just keep on coming with these people, don’t they?

Proving that using technology and avoiding racial slurs is just too much to ask, The Daily Beast reports that someone on Rudy Giuliani’s team inadvertently posted footage to his YouTube channel that shows the former NYC mayor mocking Asians.

The offensive footage was in the extended YouTube version of Giuliani’s podcast, Common Sense. After his recent interview with Sean Spicer, the camera kept rolling — a fact Giuliani was apparently unaware of. In those unguarded moments, Giuliani started to use a stereotypical Chinese accent while mocking an assistant and even pantomiming a bow:

After a few moments of small talk with an assistant who appears to be Jayne Zirkle, an animated Giuliani started affecting a stereotypical Chinese accent while telling Zirkle that she’s “going to be the most famous model in China.”

“Ah, get me Jayne Zirkle,” he said while using the accent.

After asking others in the room what they wanted for dinner, Giuliani continued to say Zirkle’s name in the mocking accent. He then started pantomiming a bow while repeating her name. Then the video cuts out.

The Giuliani team has, obviously taken the footage down. But this is the internet my friends, and nothing is ever really gone from the internet.

It’s 2020, so its a challenge to say anything is really shocking, but that doesn’t mean this unguarded moment of offensive nonsense should pass without your scathing judgment.

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).