Law And More

Mathew Martoma: So, they can take your education away

In the media has been knocking around the issue that Mathew Martoma had lied on his application to Stanford's MBA program.  That began when the records were unsealed during his trial disclosing that he had been expelled from Harvard Law School for faking transcripts.  He likely wouldn't have been admitted to Stanford had the institution known of his earlier behavior. Those watching the Martoma saga wondered if Stanford would do anything about this additional ethical lapse. 

Now, they know.  Stanford has stripped Martoma of the MBA degree, reports the New York Post.  That means, contrary to the old saying that they can't take away your education, they can. Here is the Post coverage.

But the consequences are primarily symbolic.  Clearly, when Martoma leaves prison he won't be hunting for the conventional kind of employment in which the MBA degree could be useful. The guy is clever.  He is bound to land on his feet professionally after he serves his time.  He is also relatively young.  If he only has to put in a decade in the slammer, he can have about 40 years to build another kind of success.

The reality is that in this new opportunisitic economy success often comes despite our higher education and, as with Mark Zuckerberg, without it.  Yes, success has become unbundled from education. 

Dewey & LeBoeuf Saga: This chapter could be about criminal charges

Media sources indicate that Patton Boggs is talking to bankruptcy lawyer Al Togut, who had guided Dewey & LeBoeuf through its Chapter 11 two years ago.  The perils of Patton Boggs and the supposed presence of Togut have put Dewey & LeBoeuf back on the radar. The legal sector shudders as it fears another collapse of an elite law firm.

Now, Dewey & LeBouef could be adding to its own scary saga.  The Wall Street Journal reports, "Criminal charges against three top managers ... are expected to be unsealed ... Thursday for alleged fraud relating to the collapse of the firm."  Here is the coverage (sub. req.). One of the three could be former executive director Stephen DiCarmine.

Now Patton Boggs watchers have one more thing to monitor: Will there be criminal charges?  Among the decision-makers were there miscreants?  It's one thing to be inept at business. It's another to cross that line to breaking laws.

Jason Bohn: Done in by cell phone

Had his victim's phone not pocket-dialed her friend, lawyer Jason Bohn might not have been convicted of first-degree murder today by a Queens, New York jury.  The four minutes in which he was beating and strangling the late Weight Watchers executive Danielle Thomas went into her friend's voicemail.  Here is the coverage by the New York Post.

The convictions also, no surprise since the criminal is a lawyer, included tampering with evidence.  Bohn must have been stunned to find out that his lethal behavior had been recorded.  Setencing is scheduled for April 7. The maximum could be life without the possibility of parole.  In prison, this graduate of Columbia Law School can help other inmates with their appeals. Considering that frames this whole mess as a sort of glass half full.

Patton Boggs: Is it talking with bankruptcy/restructuring lawyer Al Togut?

Things could get a lot worse for Patton Boggs before it starts to turn around.  

Most of already know it's being sued by Chevron because of its alleged behavior during that long-running environmental lawsuit in Ecuador. We also knew that it had retained turnaround firm Zolfo Cooper.  

Now, David Lat at Abovethelaw.com reports it has brought in bankruptcy/restructuring lawyer Al Togut.  Lat notes that the information comes from two Reuters sources.  One source says that Togut has been retained.  Those with long memories will recall that Togut had been associated with the infamous Dewey & LeBoueuf bankuptcy. Here you can read the ATL account. 

If the Reuters sources are on the money, then lots of jobs are in play.  Currently Patton Boggs has about 400 lawyers and, of course, staff. Some of the partners with brandnames and books of business will land on the their feet. Most of the other lawyers will be tossed into a downsized world where there is still a manpower glut.  Staff are unlikely to find comparable jobs in money and prestige.

Macro watchers of the legal scene predicted there would be more Dewey & LeBoeufs in the U.S. But some of us didn't expect another possibility so soon after the Dewey & LeBoeuf collapse. 

Autumn Ratke, 28: 8th questionable death among financial players

Autumn Ratke, American Chief Executive Officer of First Meta, a bitcoin exchange, is dead.  She was 28.

Late last month she was found dead in her apartment in Singapore.  The results on the cause of death aren't final yet.  Ratke, observes the New York Post, is the 8th relatively young financial type to die recently in what had been declared a suicide or what sure seems like a self check-out.  Here is the Post's chronicle of the deaths. 

The bitcoin market has hit turbulence.  And there have been major shifts in other kinds of businesses in the financial sector. Last month Business Insider interviewed experts on why these types could be killing themselves.  Here is that article. 

The usual consensus is that there is plenty of pressure along with high expectations of making a bundle of money.  Given the competitive nature of the industry, who can the players find support from?  When things don't pan out as planned, the players are alone with their thoughts and feelings. 

In our Darwinian society that isolation isn't all that unusual. What is unusual is the lack of resilience.  Few strivers haven't gotten hit and hit badly in their expectations during the 2 recessions in the 21st century.  Whole sectors, such a law, have been downsizing. Baby Boomers who once were on top are subject to age bias and no longer in demand. 

Yet, they are here to keep trying.   So, the question is: Why such little bounce-back ability among financial players?

 

Pope Francis, Turnaround Expert: What Patton Boggs can learn from him

The timing couldn't be better for the turnaround of what was once the most powerful and enduring global brand: Roman Catholicism.  On this holy day Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis is having his rock star status confirmed with the launch of a new magazine Il Mio Papa (My Pope).  It is published by Mondadori.  

If anyone could turn around the scandal-plagued Roman Catholic Church Francis could.  His memes of compassionate change, tolerance and income equality resonate around the world. Here is coverage in The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the timing for a turnaround couldn't be worse for one-time lobbying and law powerhouse Patton Boggs. Over the past few years, it has cut 100 lawyers, shuttered its Newark, New Jersey office, made an abortive outreach to a possible merger partner, outsourced the job of trying to turn itself around (Zolfo Cooper).  

The situation has worsened with the development that it is now associated, both in the courts of public opinion and law, with fraud in the long-playing environmental lawsuit against Chevron.  Here are the grim details from the National Law Journal.  The bottom line on this is bad publicity and a lawsuit against it by Chevron.  Its early merger talks with Squire Sanders could represent another abortive initiative. 

However, Patton Boggs can analyze and leverage the strategy and tactics of Francis.  These make the top of the list:

Admit mistakes have been made.  Those hurt people.  In the situation of Patton Boggs, those threatened the reputation and jobs of lawyers and staff in a downsized market.

Be kind.  That boils down to, as Charles Dickens hammered during the worst of economic times, be of human kind.  Feel for others. Try to help others.  No matter how awful things got for the good guys and girls in Dickens' novels, they never lost their humanity.  Patton Boggs has to remove any garlic from its soul.

Have a plan that makes sense.  During his one year in leadership, Francis has shared his plan for change with the world.  It makes sense. We are listening. We are willing to give Catholicism another chance.  It could make competitors like Buddhism minor players in the spiritual space.

Sacrifice.  Francis drives around a Ford.  He is taking a page from the playbook of other turnaround success stories like Chrysler's during the early 1980s.  There was plenty of sacrifice, including frayed rugs in the executive suite. 

Be sunny.  Like the greats in politics, ranging from Winston Churchill to Ronald Reagan, Francis is optimistic.  He sees the glass as half full.  Patton Boggs has to find some good news.  

Like the Roman Catholic Church, Patton Boggs can have a roaring comeback. Adversity is the platform for unexpected success.

Patton Boggs & Chevron Ruling: Could this be the end of an elite lobbying/law firm?

Distressed lobbying and law firm Patton Boggs just took a wound to the heart.  After all, reputational issues are everything.  This is the era when the global court of public opinion has as much power and influence as the court of law. 

A side effect of the ruling in favor of Chevron in the Amazon pollution litigation, reports the National Law Journal, "law firm Patton Boggs came in for plenty of attention - 17 mentions in the main text of the ruling, to be exact."  Here you can read that coverage.

The short version of Patton Boggs' troubles is that it is now being sued by Chevron.  The energy company contends that Patton Boggs had been aware that the key environmental report had been ghostwritten by the case's plaintiff attorney Steven Donizer.  The court had ruled that constituted fraud. Some of us recall that in that headline-grabbing long-running Chevron litigation, Patton Boggs, as NLJ notes, "backed for a time by hedge fund Burford Capital - had fought to enforce the [Chevron] judgment in the United States." 

These developments in both the courts of public opinion and the courts of law could prevent Patton Boggs from a merger which would save it.  It had been in early talks with Squire Sanders.  But, come on, what rational entity would welcome joining together with a business with so much baggage? 

The takeaway from this is that the lawyers and staff at Patton Boggs should be even more nervous about the security of their jobs.  Could the firm fold?  Of course that's possible.  If you were X corporation would you want Patton Boggs representing you?  

Law Firms, In-house: The New Normal

The most important takeaway from Laurence Simons' Global Legal & Compliance Salary Survey is that lawyers sho0t themselves in the foot if they assume compensation has bounced back to the days of a seller's market. No one doing the hiring is treating money as a play thing the organization can have fun with.

Too many job candidates, in fact, are missing out on receiving job offers because they put their number too high.  Given new marketplace realities, they are overestimating their value.  Rebekah Mintzer covers that and other aspects of the New Normal in law firms and in-house careers in Corporate Counsel. Here you can read about that.

A subhead under that takeaway is that lawyers have to do more to earn that sum which is less they might have expected.  With leaner teams, they will have to get the hang of migrating out of the usual job description and take on more responsibilities.  In doing that, they may have to view what they have to get done in an out of the box way.  The payoff from that could be that they become more marketable. The more we know the more we potentially have to sell.

Security of Data: Law firms frequently have to comply with clients' regulations

Another pressure point has emerged in the legal sector. And it presses down on how law firms reply to RFPs.  That's the security of the data.  In The Legal Intelligencer, Gina Pasarella reports that corporate clients demand that the law firm they use not only have yearly audits about security. Now they require them to be more often. Also, more are being performed according to ISO 27000 protocols, that is standardized procedures in the tech industry. Here is that coverage from TLI. 

If client is in financial services, then the law firm must comply with the same regulations it does.  Increasingly, replying to RFPs require detailed sections on security.  And that information must be supplied quickly. Otherwise the law firm can be forced out of the competition.

A potential vulnerability is communicating remotely through, for example, smartphones. 

Displaced Lawyers: Check Balloon Before Signing Up for Online Course

The Apollo Education Group, parent of the University of Phoenix, has launched Ballon.

As The Wall Street Journal describes it, "It will start with a catalogue of nearly 15,000 technology classes from big-name providers  ... and explicitly link them to job opportunities."  Here is the coverage from WSJ (sub. req.)

Balloon could bridge the gap between what tech instruction is out there online and what will help people land jobs.  This is especially important to displaced lawyers.

From my conversations this weekend with unemployed lawyers, I got it that they are finally emerging from denial. But they have gone from hoping for a job practicing law to assuming that they need a license or certification to do something else.  No surprise they are looking for further training to become marketable. There's no intention of just walking into a supermarket or answering a help wanted for a call center and learning on the job how to function in another line of work. 

Therefore, Balloon could serve a purpose.  But the mindset, unfortunately, is still instruction-based. That could trap them into another cycle of over-education.

I took no writing courses to put together a new career path in, yes, professional writing.  Like current unemployed lawyers, marketplace forces had deep-sixed my plan to be hired as a college professor in the Humanities. For several years I drifted, including two semester in a graduate social work program and two jobs I had been fired from.  Then I decided to submit an idea to a woman's magazine.  The rest is history.  The universe was smiling on me, finally. I didn't enroll in an MFA academic program.