Category: News Feeds

We allowed our father to pass with as much dignity as is possible under the relentless assault of advancing dementia. There was no debate over whether to stop the clock and restore what was possible. He would be allowed to complete his journey on his terms. We had no choice but to come to terms with the nature of death and dementia. The vibrant, charismatic, funny dad in words and actions would not return.

That is not to say there were no debates over ongoing palliative care. I remember being selfish and demanding over medication that could prolong alertness. That was not about comfort and quality of life. It was about me. There was an uptick, but it did not last long. It was as the doctors and the hospice care team told us it would be. A gradual roller-coaster downward. A series of plateaus and declines until there was only deterioration.

I, however, became obsessed with each stage of the process. I googled mottling of the skin and learned that it is generally a sign of impending death. I asked about it each time I visited. I wanted to see the mottling. I wanted to know at what point swallowing became impossible. There would no longer be food. No intravenous feeding. Only morphine. The caregivers assured me that the body also compensates. It produces its own form of opiates. There is no pain.

I sat and watch the morphine drip as the wasting process continued with the lack of food. The dad of my past now relegated to memory. The man I loved in the bed, features unrecognizable. I researched and researched as if that somehow would give me the ability to turn back the clock. I would be the expert, not the doctors and nurses. The Dunning-Kruger Effect borne of not wanting to let go.

If successful in my search, he would once again be sitting with us at dinner. Coaching me in Little League and teaching me to drive in Schenley Park. There were so many times I wanted to scream to the nurses what I had learned and tell them what we should do differently to prolong his life. Life?

How should I define that? His chest moved up and down. His heart pumped blood. He sporadically blurted out names from the past. He spoke with his deceased brother and parents. He was alive as science defines it. For the most part, it was tears and quiet. The smell of the various liquids and lotions used to ease the transition. Kisses on the forehead. Whispering in his ear. Letting him know that his greatest fear in death would not be true in life. His sons would continue to love and take care of each other. We would also take care of the people he loved.

In the end, that was his concern. All he wanted was to know was that the people he loved would be okay without him. He did not want science to prolong the inevitable. We knew that. He did not have to tell us.

Each morning his vitals declined a bit. When I left for a July business trip, I knew that any day could be the last. I walked out of my door, crossed the street, over to his place. I again sat in the chair. I asked if this would be the day. The caregiver told me he was stable. My sister-in-law and her sister came by. I rested my head on his shoulder. I whispered that it was okay to let go. We would take care of each other. He had done a great job with his sons. I got up to leave, and to my surprise, he said, “Where are you going? Stay longer.”

I didn’t remember the last time he spoke that much to me. I replied, “just stretching, Dad.” I sat back down and held his hand. I got up to leave again. He said, “I love you, Brian.” I can only speculate that he knew the end was imminent, mustering up every ounce of strength to vocalize his love. For me, those last words will always be the voice of the dad telling me to hold the steering wheel with both hands.

I went on my business trip. He hung on. The next Wednesday, early afternoon, I got the text from my brother. “It’s happening Brian, get over here.” I got dressed and ran faster than my artificial hip had ever permitted. I burst through the front door. He was gone. We hugged. We cried. I kissed him on the forehead one last time. I spoke in his ear one last time. It was not a pretty death. It was not a movie. It was brutal to watch and be a part of. Our love of our father demanded that we do so. It was not about us.

This coming week, the entire extended family will get together for the first time since his passing for the “unveiling,” as is the Jewish tradition. We will not talk about the awfulness of dementia. We will talk about the laugh. The charisma. The driving lessons. We will recite my dad’s favorite saying when he picked up the check for every single meal or pushed casino chips over to me when I went bust at the blackjack table.

“Wait Until You Get My Bill.”

Dementia is ugly. We dealt with it the best we could. We allowed our dad to live his final months on his terms. That is what he wanted. That was his bill to us. We paid it the only way we would, with love. Always love.

I love you, Dad.

---

Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at brian@addictedlawyer.com.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Sure, every store is blasting holiday carols and there’s snow in the forecast, but December also means year-end bonuses!

In Biglaw, after the first firm announces their scale (this year, that honor is held by Milbank) the rest of the notoriously risk-averse industry steps up with a match of that scale. And the latest firm to prove they’ve got what it takes to keep up with the Milbanks and Cravaths of Biglaw? It’s Covington & Burling.

For those that need the reminder, the industry-wide bonus scale that Covington is matching is as follows:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012+ – $100,000

Remember — we can’t do this without you, dear readers! We depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

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

---

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).

[T]he record compiled thus far shows that the president has committed several impeachable offenses, including bribery, abuse of power in soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit his political campaign, obstructing Congress and obstructing justice.

I cannot help but conclude that this president has attacked each of the Constitution’s safeguards against establishing a monarchy in this country. Both the context and gravity of the president’s misconduct are clear.

If what we are talking about is not impeachable, nothing is impeachable.

— Professor Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina School of Law, in testimony given today before the House Judiciary Committee in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, explaining some of the ways Trump has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” and other impeachable actions.

Professor Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School, testified that America’s founding fathers would have been “horrified” by “[t]he very idea that a president might seek the aid of a foreign government in his reelection campaign.”

Professor Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School noted in his opening statement that “[o]n the basis of the testimony and evidence before the House, President Trump has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency.”

Even Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University School of Law, who testified that “this impeachment would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record, and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president,” later noted that “a quid pro quo to force the investigation of a political rival in exchange for military aid can be impeachable, if proven.”

---

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.

Today is eDiscovery Day, the annual celebration of the amendments that brought the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure just a little closer to the 21st century. To celebrate, Exterro is hosting a day-long eDiscovery event complete with webcasts and in-person events around the country. It’s a great opportunity to keep up to date on developments in the field and to network with others in the space.

And at 7 p.m. Eastern, check out “E-Discovery in the News: The Top E-Discovery Storylines from 2019,” an annual recap webinar featuring Zach Warren of Legaltech News, Eleanor Tyler of Bloomberg Law, and me. We’ll cover the big headlines of the year in eDiscovery and keep you entertained.

If you haven’t had a problem client or 10, you haven’t been a lawyer very long. But even baby lawyers fresh out of law school are experienced enough to know you can’t tell a problem client, “All those deep dark attorney-client privileged secrets I learned in representing you are hitting the presses if you don’t treat me right.”

Yet Rudy Giuliani, who has theoretically been a lawyer for half a century, does not seem to grasp this. Maybe his ignorance makes sense. Two months ago, I wrote a pretty well-received piece about how Rudy Giuliani is not acting as an attorney, and hasn’t been for some time. He is not Donald Trump’s private lawyer: he is Trump’s political goon and conspiracy theory curator. Since nothing Giuliani has done in years is actually the practice of law, maybe it’s only rustiness to blame for him having no clue what legal ethics are anymore. Still, it sometimes seems he knows more about the attorney role than he’s letting on, at least when it is convenient for him. Giuliani playacts as a lawyer to use the shield of zealous advocacy for a client when it suits him, while ignoring the serious obligations of the profession when it doesn’t.

Rule 1.6 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct says:

(a) A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b).

The Model Rules are just that, models, but every jurisdiction has more or less the same version of Rule 1.6 enumerated somewhere. The attorney-client privilege is a common law evidentiary concept and is technically distinct from Rule 1.6, but for the purposes of this discussion, we can consider them related enough to discuss concurrently. The gist is, if you are a (real) lawyer, you don’t get to go around spreading information “relating” to the representation of a client. That is a pretty broad prohibition, and a lawyer could quite easily be both breaching ethical duties and violating attorney-client privilege by carelessly disclosing information.

Of course, there are those paragraph (b) exceptions, and there are quite a few of them. We won’t go through all seven in the interests of space and relevancy, but check out 1-3 and 5:

(b) A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary:

(1) to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm;

(2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer’s services;

(3) to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another that is reasonably certain to result or has resulted from the client’s commission of a crime or fraud in furtherance of which the client has used the lawyer’s services;

…

(5) to establish a claim or defense on behalf of the lawyer in a controversy between the lawyer and the client, to establish a defense to a criminal charge or civil claim against the lawyer based upon conduct in which the client was involved, or to respond to allegations in any proceeding concerning the lawyer’s representation of the client;

So, if Giuliani is really representing Trump as a private lawyer, as he, Trump, and hundreds of media outlets have repeatedly claimed, Giuliani can release information he learned in the course of this representation if he reasonably believes someone’s life is in jeopardy, if he is reasonably certain the client — Trump — is going to commit or has committed a harmful crime or fraud, or to establish his own defense to charges against him which arise out of the representation.

Think about that for a moment. If Giuliani wants to release information gleaned from his purported representation of Trump, under the Rules, it has to be because he knows there is some serious weight behind charges leveled, or about to be leveled, against Trump, himself, or both.

In November, Giuliani told multiple media outlets that he had “insurance” if Trump turned on him. Subsequently, Giuliani first tried to float the moronic idea that the “insurance” he was talking about was actually dirt on the Bidens, which makes no sense, because that was what Giuliani was after in the first place, that would help rather than harm Trump and so would provide no leverage to keep Trump from turning on Giuliani, and Giuliani would have run any dirt he had on the Bidens up a flagpole months ago if he actually had it. Next, because his own (actual) lawyers made him do it, Giuliani decided to try out the lie that his claim of having “insurance” against Trump’s treachery was merely a joke.

You don’t need a law degree to know what someone means when he claims he has “insurance” against someone throwing him “under the bus.” Giuliani meant that if Trump turns on him, he’s going to air out some of the skeletons he’s uncovered in Trump’s closet.

Which is not how being a lawyer works. There are two options here. Either Giuliani is a real lawyer and believes he, Trump, or both may have committed or are about to commit a crime in the course of this representation, in which case Giuliani should probably just disclose whatever he knows rather than hang on to it to protect himself alone. Or, Giuliani is a fake lawyer, and does not know or does not give a damn about probably the most foundational tenet of legal ethics. Assuming it’s the latter is actually giving Giuliani the benefit of the doubt.

I really think Giuliani doesn’t know that you can’t blackmail clients into doing what you want by threating to release information you learned in the course of representing them. Because he’s not a real lawyer, and he hasn’t been in quite some time. Every moment we pretend otherwise makes our profession, and every individual lawyer, less respected and less valuable to society.

---

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

By the very nature of the so-called swamp, the Washington Post Style section often bleeds into political coverage. It’s often more fascinating than the main section of the paper since it usually details how the “very serious ideologues” that whip the country into Manichaean hatred all day actually sip cocktails in Georgetown townhouses together at night.

It’s exactly this kind of party that sets the scene for its recent profile piece on Neal Katyal, describing the launch of his plain language primer on impeachment helpfully titled Impeach (affiliate link) (also available in our handy holiday gift guide). In this case, it was Kalorama instead of Georgetown, but who’s keeping score? A Republican strategist, Juleanna Glover, threw the party. Michael Hayden and George Conway came by to hang out. But the star was obviously Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal, who had just — with the aid of Sam Koppelman — churned out a couple hundred pages in the span of about two weeks. Par for the course in a Biglaw litigation practice of course, but to craft a best-seller and get it through the world of publishing in that time is something to behold.

There’s a lot to say about the arguments advanced in Katyal’s book, and if you’re interested in all that you should check out the recent Above the Law interview with Katyal. But what’s stuck out of the society pages was a seemingly innocuous paragraph about how busy it is to be a high-profile Biglaw great:

Katyal didn’t immediately agree to take on the project. He had other things going on: he had to prepare for a death penalty case he’d be arguing in front of the Supreme Court in December; he had Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Love Supreme improvisational rap classes on Tuesdays in New York (mostly for fun, he said, though the improved mental elasticity could be helpful for the rat-a-tat rapport of his now-frequent television appearances); and there was that voice track he was supposed to record with members of the band the National for a charity album benefiting Planned Parenthood.

Wait… what? “[H]e had Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Love Supreme improvisational rap classes on Tuesdays in New York….” Catalog this for that Jeopardy category about the music careers of legal luminaries. The Freestyle Love Supreme Academy is an 8-week course covering “beatboxing, improv skills, word flow, and speaking truthfully through music.”

Can we get Paul Clement in these classes to set up a real Hamilton-style oral argument? Justice Ginsburg’s traded on this Notorious RBG name for a while now, give her a chance to earn it!

This is a facet of Katyal’s story that deserves more exploration! Why is the Washington Post spending more time telling me about the cheese pizza Michael Hayden ate than describing Katyal in a hoody jumping up and down to hype himself up before busting out on stage? At least the article makes clear that George Conway is absolutely auditioning to be Katyal’s hype man.

Will MC Former SG be dropping a single? “Impeachin’ ain’t easy, but it’s necessary” perhaps?

Sushi, cocktails, roasts and one lawyer’s plan to deal with ‘a national emergency’ [Washington Post]

---

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.

Choosing an egg donor can be a difficult decision. For most, it’s not the first or preferred path to parenthood, and it often presents substantial medical and financial obstacles. Plus, the choice of a specific donor will forever affect your child’s future. No pressure!

For some, a potential donor’s religion may be the most important factor. That’s particularly true where a religion has specific rules about parental lineage, and whether a child can be considered a member of the religion from birth. Famously, many Jewish denominations strictly follow matrilineal descendancy, where a child born to a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish at birth. Anyone else, according to these denominations, must go through a conversion process before becoming Jewish.

Recently, one Jewish Israeli couple turned to an egg donor for help conceiving. After the wife delivered the couple’s new baby, however, the couple received a disappointing ruling from the Israeli Rabbinical Court on the Jewish status of their child. Despite their careful choice of an anonymous egg donor that had been listed as Jewish in the Population Registry of the Interior Ministry of Israel — and the couple themselves being Jewish, including the mother who carried and delivered the baby — an Israeli Rabbinical Court rejected the child’s Jewish status.

It Is All About Gestation. In Some Places.

Friend of this column and podcast guest, American assisted reproductive technology (ART) attorney Amira Hasenbush, recently wrote a piece on Jewish Law and Assisted Reproductive Technology in the Fall 2019 ABA Family Advocate magazine. She described the different approaches taken by the major American Jewish movements addressing assisted reproductive technology. Of the Orthodox and Conservative movements — the stricter denominations of Judaism — the vast majority of rabbis “hold that the woman who gestates the child is the halachic [legal] mother of the child, and therefore the egg donor’s religion is irrelevant for purposes of transmission of Jewish heritage.” Hasenbush explained that the Reform movement — a less strict denomination of Judaism — also focuses on the gestating parent, holding that even if the intended father uses his sperm and is not Jewish and the egg donor is not Jewish but the intended mother who gestates the child is Jewish, the child will not need a formal conversion. Instead, the child will need only to affirmatively participate in “positive acts of identification.” That requirement, however, is true for all children in interfaith families.

In the present case, the egg donor was listed as Jewish in the Israeli Population Registry. And the Jewish mother carried and delivered the baby. So wait, why wasn’t this Kosher?

Gestation Rejected.

The Rabbinical Court first rejected the idea that the mother’s status as Jewish was sufficient to establish the baby’s status. Instead, it was the egg donor’s status that was relevant. And despite the egg donor being listed as Jewish, the Rabbinical Court ruled that because the donor was anonymous, the Court lacked sufficient evidence to determine if the donor was Jewish pursuant to the Orthodox Rabbinate’s higher, stricter standards than those of the secular State’s Population Registry. Specifically, the Rabbinical Court noted that the Population Registry had flaws in its determination of who was included as Jewish, and the Population Registry failed to adhere to standards that were rigorous enough to satisfy the Rabbinical Court.

Critics of the decision have pointed out other, contrary authority, where Jewish law was applied and ruled that it is the religion of the gestating mother that is determinative of the religion of the child. The Rabbinical Court’s rejection of the gestational mother’s passing of her religious lineage, in combination with their rejection of the finding of the Population Registry as to Jewish status, could have real consequences for all Israeli persons conceived by anonymous egg donation. Oy.

Why Is It So Important?

Hasenbush explained to me that being recognized as Jewish in Israel is not just a label, but also has serious, real world consequences. For example, Israel does not have civil marriage, but rather only religious marriage under the Israeli rabbinate. And because interfaith marriage is not recognized by the Israeli rabbinate, if someone is not recognized as Jewish, they may not be permitted to marry the person of their choosing in Israel without first undergoing an onerous conversion process. Also, the problem can quickly compound itself in families. If a woman is not recognized as Jewish, her children will also not receive recognition without undergoing their own formal conversion. Even then, problems may persist. For example, descendants of priests’ lineage (called Cohens) are not permitted to marry female Jewish converts.

More broadly, Hasenbush believes that the Rabbinical Court’s ruling represents a larger problem of the Israeli rabbinate’s decisions, which often exclude and stigmatize less traditional parts of the Israeli Jewish population as well as non-Jews throughout the country.

So What To Do When Choosing An Egg Donor?

I reached out to Tel Aviv-based Israeli assisted reproductive technology law attorney Victoria Gelfand. Gelfand explained that the news of the Rabbinical Court was frustrating, but she didn’t think it was *cough* unfaithful to Rabbinical authority.

She explained that many Jewish families specifically seek Jewish egg donors or surrogates so that their children will be recognized as Jewish, but ultimately that these intended parents risk failing at that goal –- at least in the eyes of the Rabbinical Courts. For this reason, Gelfand and other Israeli ART attorneys recommend that Jewish families stop worrying so much about this issue, and look for donors or surrogates based on other qualities, such as the health of the donor or the surrogate. Having a conversion process for newborn children after birth would be an overall easier goal to achieve. And girl, if you want to marry that Cohen, but don’t want to settle for a common law marriage –- just marry him by a civil ceremony allowed in so many other countries besides Israel. Destination wedding!

Becoming a parent through assisted-reproductive technology can be hard enough! Religious complications add whole new levels of unexpected complexity. My advice is to always seek a qualified attorney and discuss with them all specific issues that are of major importance to you in advance. If religious concerns are important to you, you should speak to an attorney who understands those concerns and, when applicable, the Orthodox laws surrounding them.

---

Ellen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

Last week, I wrote about the California Supreme Court’s decision striking down a law that required potential presidential candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns in order to appear on the state ballot. But another state might try a similar tactic. And if the state’s supreme court allows the disclosure law to stand, the Trump administration is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as the tax returns would soon be available to everyone on the internet almost immediately afterward.

Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution states that, to be President, the candidate must be at least thirty-five years old, a natural-born citizen, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.

Would the nation’s highest court allow states to impose their own requirements — in this case, disclosing income tax returns to the public — in addition to the qualifications written out in the U.S. Constitution? The Supreme Court has previously addressed the qualification clause where the state legislature tried to impose additional requirements on candidates seeking to run for federal office.

In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, the Supreme Court held that states cannot impose additional requirements for potential candidates seeking federal congressional seats other than those stated in the qualification clauses of the Constitution. The court noted that according to the Constitution’s framers, the sovereignty is vested in the people and confers on them the right to freely choose their representatives to the national government. Allowing state legislatures to impose their own requirements would hinder the people’s ability to choose, prevent uniformity in selecting national representatives, and would ultimately undermine the national government.

The dissent argued that the Tenth Amendment allows states to impose their own additional requirements since the U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue. The majority addressed this by noting that the Tenth Amendment does not apply because the framers did not want states to impose additional requirements for federal congressional seats.

Can the holding in Thornton apply to any state that seeks a candidate’s tax returns before allowing that candidate to appear on the state’s ballot? Using the majority’s reasoning, a state should not be allowed to impose additional requirements even using the Tenth Amendment. By imposing additional requirements, a state would be attempting to undermine the national government by filtering who can run for office.

However, Thornton can be distinguished on the ground that, according to the U.S. Constitution, the president is not elected by the people but by the Electoral College. The U.S. Constitution provides that the state legislatures appoint the electors in a manner that they direct. Perhaps a state can require prospective electors to have a copy of every presidential candidate’s tax returns to be eligible to vote.

Thornton was a 5-4 decision with the majority vote coming from the liberal wing of the court along with Justice Kennedy. Today, only three of the justices who decided the 1995 case (Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer) remain on the court. How would the Supreme Court decide the case today?

If the justices vote based on ideology as was done in Thornton, the slight conservative majority should be in favor of letting states impose additional requirements in order to be placed on the state ballot, including disclosing tax returns. However, it would not please the current Republican president who appointed two of the justices. The liberal minority can comfortably maintain their position that states should not tamper with the qualification clause of the U.S. Constitution. All eyes would likely fall on Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to see if they would side with the liberals.

This issue can be a slippery slope. Today, states are demanding tax returns. In the future, other states might want long-form birth certificates. Or marriage records if the candidate is running on family values.

A prudent legislative body would consider the effect of such disclosure laws in the long run. Particularly if a candidate they prefer would also object to disclosing such information. But today, it has gotten to the point where state governments can quickly pass disclosure laws like this targeting a particular candidate if they really wanted to. And they can quickly repeal such laws once their disfavored candidate is no longer in the running.

So what would happen if states were allowed to require candidates to disclose their past income tax returns? Or any other personal information for that matter? Election campaign strategies might change. Maybe they will cough up the information the states want. Or the candidates might ignore them and their electoral votes. President Trump needs California’s votes as much as a fish needs a bicycle. But he might also pay less attention to states where he is certain to win.

It could be a potential problem where Trump is likely to win the popular vote in a state but the state government is run by Democrats. What if the legislators of this state were to pass a tax return disclosure law? Unless the majority of the voters can vote for Trump as a write-in candidate, the state government can effectively shut them out.

Would the founding fathers want presidential candidates to publicize their income tax returns? That’s impossible to know since the income tax return was created in 1913. Maybe they would. Or maybe not. But what they didn’t want was someone who would act like an elected monarch.

But in the final analysis, should a legislature be allowed to filter who gets to run for president in its state? My opinion is no. The people can decide whether a tax return or a birth certificate is important enough to allow a candidate to run for president. Who knows what Trump’s tax returns contain? Maybe it shows income from the Russians. Or maybe it shows that his income was $100,000 instead of $100 million. Most people might want to see it out of curiosity, but I doubt most Trump supporters will change their vote regardless of what the returns contain.

If state governments are allowed to impose additional requirements, what’s to stop cities and counties from doing the same thing? It can result in all kinds of disclosure requirements which can deter good but imperfect people from running for office.

It would be interesting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court would apply the holding and reasoning of Thornton for states seeking to impose additional requirements for presidential candidates in addition to those enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. The Thornton decision was a close one and, almost 25 years later, the Supreme Court’s makeup has changed. This means the decision on the issue will be unpredictable. Will the Supreme Court respect the framers’ intentions? Or will they side with the states? While state legislatures should have a voice on how the president is elected, in this day and age, some states could use this opportunity for legislative mischief that can undermine the national elections.

---

Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

In order to stay competitive in today’s fiercely competitive legal services market, smaller law firms have to ensure they have their financial houses in order. Proper bookkeeping is crucial for the success of your practice, but it can be tedious (also, frustrating) spending disproportionate amounts of time on administrative tasks rather than the actual practice of law. Innovative legal technologies can automate and streamline your workflow, optimize your revenues, and free up your time.

Nowhere are innovative solutions more needed, or the value of automation more apparent, than in bookkeeping and billing practices. It is time to move away from walking paper checks to the bank, mailing out paper invoices, or keeping track through paper receipts — manual processes that are not only costing you time but are also putting you at risk of fraud, delayed processing, lost or stolen documents, human error, general frustration, a lack of consistent cash flow, and even lost revenue.

Accepting that technology can help increase your firm’s efficiency and accuracy, reduce costs, and enhance security when it comes to your billing practices allows you to stop spending time on the things you did not, in fact, go to law school for and get back to practicing the law.

To find how how legal technologies, such as PwC’s InsightsOfficer, can help you with your billing and bookkeeping essentials, download our “Getting Your House in Order” eBook now!

Matching the prevailing industry standard for year-end bonuses, set early in November by Milbank, is the mark of a top-tier firm. It’s a nice little bit of PR that your firm can be counted among the elite. And the folks at Willkie, Farr & Gallagher are likely welcoming the positive spin — the firm spent chunks of 2019 in the news, but it wasn’t good. If you recall, the now former co-chair of the firm, Gordon Caplan, got snared by the college admissions scandal, and though the firm quickly distanced themselves from Caplan, a change in their PR fortunes is welcomed.

That’s good news for Willkie associates, as they issued a match of the Milbank scale. That grid is as follows:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012 – $100,000

Willkie actually made the match way back in mid-November, but a tipster just alerted us to the news. Which brings me to my next point — we can’t do this without you, dear readers! We depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

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

---

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).