Law And More

Edward Snowden: Leaks a lot bigger than law-firm associates to Abovethelaw.com

Leaking fascinates us.  Since it involves risk, we wonder if we would have the courage or the playfulness to leak what our employers or clients were up to.  Extend that a bit and we then spend a lot of time focusing on what goes on in the minds, hearts, and souls of the big-time whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. His game is way beyond the leakings we have come to so enjoy on Abovethelaw.com.

Snowden, in the GUARDIAN video tape, speaks in a matter-of-fact manner.  He says he wants to preserve freedom.  He is aware that harm could come to him.  He blows off the speculation that he will defect to China, given that he fled to Hong Kong.  Of course, cynical us believe not a word of it.  We will wait patiently for more information to be uncovered about him and then we will connect the dots in our own way.

As we wait, we return to wondering.  Why would a young man earning $200,000 in an industry which is growing and who has a girlfriend give up all that for a future which probably will involve suffering, or at least continually looking over his shoulder? Would we do something like that? 

Back in the Counterculture days, we wondered about successful scholar Angela Davis.  She was risking it all for what was seen as a radical cause.  I asked a fellow graduate student at the University of Michigan who was also African America her take on Davis.  I assumed she would cheer her on.  "She has too much going for her to take those stands," answered my acquaintance.  I was stunned.  I was 24 years old then.  At age 68, Snowden's decision is what now stuns me.  

Jay Gatsby: Today he'd be praised for "reinventing" himself

In a violent scene from the latest film version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald book "The Great Gatsby," old-money Tom Buchanan vilifies Jay Gatsby for taking on an upper-class persona.  That was a different time, of course. 

Now, with so much economic, social, and cultural upheaval, Gatsby would be interviewed on CNBC for how he created wealth, through crafting his mystique.  Some of it would be viewed, though not overly harshly, as unethical, but shrugged off.  Our era is increasingly amoral.  What's key is not getting nail for anything illegal.

Another difference, of course, is that new money is no longer treated as crass.  New money creates jobs, provides funding for political campaigns, and attempts to wipe out diseases like malaria.

Bystander Effect: What are we seeing?

In this era of crowdsourcing to identity sociopaths in our society we also wonder about the accuracy of what we assume we are seeing.  After all, the first suspect for the Boston Marathon bombing was wrongly identified by sleuths on the Internet.

Yet, given the harm miscreants do, whether they are domestic terrorists or lawyers who siphon money out of client accounts, we sense that we have to do something.  No surprise, Roger Simon takes up this subject in POLITICO.  He clears the ground for fresh thinking about this by interviewing crime psychologist Robert A. Fein who frames mental illness as irrelevant and moving right to an assessment of how probable is it that someone, who might be mentally ill, will actually commit a crime.

Therefore, the issue is to determine if what we're seeing is the propensity to act on fantasies, strategic planning, boasting in the bar, or studying up on poisoning through arsenic.  That's called the "Bystander Effect." 

Right now, investigators want to ferret out who in the circles of the now-famous Brothers might have had suspicions that they had migrated from discontent to readiness to take action. Should they have reported those to the police, even if they were friends or family members?  Had the Brothers been brought in for questioning, would that have deterred them? In short, can the Bystander Effect prevent a crime? 

Rehab: Fairy tale of drunken prince/princess who lives happily ever after

The fairy tale in America is that addiction, ranging from alcohol to food, can be cured through the seemingly progressive but expensive institution of "going to rehab." Pack the prince/princess or oneself off to those 28-day stays and the light will be turned on.  The once-addicted will live happily ever after. The monsters of the mind have been slayed.

That's the mythology.  The reality is presented in the book "Inside Rehab" by Anne M. Fletcher.  The author previously published "Sober For Good."  Her research for this book included staying in more than 10 rehabs.

Essentially, "going to rehab" means bcoming a consumer of a largely unregulated industry whose methodologies are unproven and success rate frequently not measured.  Yet since science and society know so little about the causes and "cures" for the chronic disease of addiction, the industry continues to thrive.  That could be easily changed if Congress, insurance companies, and employers demand transparency about approaches and outcomes.

One theme in "Inside Rehab" is the high relapse rate of rehab alumni, although each stay might cost from $28,000 to $40,000.  Often alumni return to the same rehab several times.  Those of us in 12-step programs, which cost nothing but also have no hard data on outcomes, hear constantly tales of those multiple stays, without results, that is long-term sobriety or being free from all addictive substances.  The tragedy of that is the illusion of help. 

Since lawyers have a higher than average rate of addiction they might, through their trade associations, push to get some answers about this approach which might have promised them and their colleagues a second chance and hasn't yet delivered.

Jean Henry: Axed, Showed husband Adam Lanza's body at medical examiner's

Respect for the dead is embedded in social mores.  However, that is an organizational policy at the Connecticut Medical Examiner's office.

As the NEW YORK POST reports, a former technician there Jean Henry violated that mandate.  Last December she allowed her husband to view the body of Adam Lanza, who had committed suicide after committing mass murder at Sandy Hook School.  As a result, she has lost her job which paid $55,910.  She intends to appeal.

At such a time of community grief last December one wonders what Henry was thinking when she decided to put Lanza on view for her husband.

Aaron Greene, Morgan Gliedman Met in Rehab: Lawyers, warn clients about romance and 12 steps

Two sickies don't make one wellie, never mind two wellies.  However, the law of attraction operates so that the two sickies will find each other and intensely attempt to create wellness.  That seems to be the case of alleged domestic terrorists Aaron Greene and Morgan Gliedman.

As NEW YORK Magazine reports, the two met in rehab.  The bond was instant and romantic. Gliedman sensed she had found her soulmate and the father of her child.  She certainly did.  Unfortunately that find led her into a pile of legal troubles which she has to focus on while her parents take care of the couple's baby, born while Gliedman was incarcerated.

Lawyers might have an ethical responsibility to warn their clients about the dangers of romance in rehab.  In some courts, those with convictions related to substance abuse are given a choice of jail or rehab.  Lawyers usually recommend they try rehab.  After all, the conviction could have been their bottom and they will be open to the recovery methodologies in rehab, including introduction to the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Unfortunately, the group process leveraged in the 12 steps, with its encouragement of sharing deep feelings, can trigger romantic impulses.  It is legend in 12 step programs how many sickies become lovers, thanks to exchanging glances across a table during a 12-step meeting.

Clients emerge from rehab with more baggage than they had come in with.  If they recognize what a burden the love match has become, they will need plenty of strength and support to unbundle themselves from that mess.

"I write college papers for students and get a lot of business" - Craigslist, New York

Sooner than later there will be a comprehensive outing and crack down on enterprises ghostwriting papers for students and on the students paying for those services.  After all, Harvard recently suspended students for merely collaborating on a take-home exam. Suppose a reporter for the campus newspaper THE CRIMSON answered several of the many help-wanted on Craigslist recruiting contract ghostwriters for these papers, at $8 to $15 per page and then published the expose?

Experienced businesspeople recognize the perils of the niche they are in.  Therefore they word their ads and their consumer promotions as a kind of "coaching" or editing service.  One outfit in Pennsylvania, which incidentally pays the least ($8), hammers the "coaching" aspect, including in interviews with prospective ghostwriters.  The deliverable supposedly provides the student with the model of how a well-written paper on the subject would be organized and documented. Yes, ghostwriters must have down cold AP, APA, MLA, and Chicago style guides.

Obviously, the businessperson who put this help wanted on the New York section of Craigslist - read it here - is a newbie or, unlike the rest of us, never went to law school and became hyper-cautious about wording.  The help wanted starts out:

"I write college papers for students & get a lot of business."

Then there is a laundry list of sterling qualities the ghostwriter must have in order to be able to produce the quality demanded by the owner.  All that for $10 a page. 

The task entails research, usally requiring access to a university library with its databases of academic journals.  This is no simple job of putting a few keywords in search engines to retrieve what THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE ECONOMIST opine on the topic. 

Then the material must be organized and presented in an academic tone, usually with all the careful documented argumentation that professors demand. 

The next responsibility is to follow the conventions of the style guide in formatting the manuscript.  One guide might have no double spaces between paragraphs.  Another might indent each paragraph so many spaces. 

The next to last is to insert the text notes, foot notes, and end notes, along with a bibliography (sometime annotated), according to the exact specifications of the style guide. 

Then there is proofreading the manuscript. 

So, suppose it is a five-page paper.  That means with one outfit which pays $8 a page, the ghostwriter earns $40 or with the $10-a-page outfit, $50.  With the research, thinking, organizing, writing, documentation, and proofreading, that could work up to well below minimum wage.

At the very least everyone in the loop is engaging in an unethical activity.  Depending on the policies and procedures of the particular academic institution, it could also be against the law and constitute fraud.

If I were a parent ponying up about $50,000 a two-semester year to educate my child, I would join in class-action lawsuit with other parents who contend their children are being defrauded of their training in critical thinking and expository writing.  The defendants would include the miscreants in the ghostwriting mills, the professor who didn't smell this out, and the academic institution.  The lawsuit could be a Jane Doe kind so as not to get their own children stigmatized as cheats.

Full disclosure: I worked a few days in a supposed "coaching service" and then recognized the pickle I could be.  That was that.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss Don't Seem to Care the World Laughed at Them

Creatures of old-line rectitude which then-Harvard President Larry Summers blew off, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have landed on their feet.  Actually, it's a lot better than that.

As Jesse McKinley reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES, the twins, made rich through a settlement with Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their prototype for Facebook, are now men of influence. They received about $65 million.  That's in addition to what they get or will get from the whatever of their privileged Greenwich, Connecticut background.

Part of the Winklevoss reach comes, of course, from the media's continuing interest in these two boy scouts who are right out of the ethos of "Downton Abbey."  What reporter wouldn't keep following that story.  So rich with possibilities is that coverage that, at this point, no one would dare predict what will be the first line in each of the twins' obits in media properties ranging from THE ECONOMIST to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Another part comes from their cool identity as venture capital investors or what they call themselves "angle accelerators."  Through their company Winklevoss Capital they have invested in shopping site Hukkster and financial data enterprise SumZero.  Since they are the guys with the money, you bet they are being pursued.

They also seemed to have put their legal and moral indignation about Facebook in the past, except to joke about it as they did in their commercial for Wonderful Pistachios.  They are also both in relationships.

Square could become a fresh brand of cool. You never know.  After bearing a child out of wedlock conservative Bristol Palin made a bundle being an evangelist for values such as no-sex before marriage.  The twins could evolve into the cover boys for the financial media. 

 

Jeffrey Downs: A case much more convoluted than Aaron Charney's

Gay attorney Jeffrey Downs is suing law firms Anapol Schwartz and Raynes McCarty as well as several of their lawyers.  He contends there had been discrimination because of his sexual orientation as well as tortius interference with prospective business.

The details of that lawsuit, as presented by Zack Needles in THE LEGAL INTELLIGENCER, make this seem like a much more convoluted version of the one filed in 2007 by Aaron Charney. Back then, what Charney, who sued Sullivan & Cromwell for discrimination based on sexual orientation, disclosed about how partners treated him provided daily titillation in the media.

Needles reports that Downs contends partners described his after-work activities as including bar-hopping to get "blow jobs." They also allegedly used terms like "fags."

Essentially matters started souring for Downs at Anapol Schwartz where he was an associate when the marketing person wanted all lawyers to set up a Facebook page.  Downs balked because he perceived that as an intrusion on privacy.  In the process of pushing back on this it came out that he was gay.  Meanwhile another lawyer at the Anapol Schwartz had an offer from law firm Raynes McCarty and invited Downs to come with him.  That was all set with promotional material released about Downs' joining Raynes McCarty.  Then the offer was withdrawn, Downs claims, because those at Anapol Schwartz informed Raynes McCarty he was going to sue them.

Downs is now employed in a defense law firm at considerably less compensation than he was making.  Charney landed on his feet, with a settlement from Sullivan & Cromwell and being able to get another good job practicing law.  Time will tell how well Downs does. Meanwhile, this story has potential to catch fire in the media.  Since it's set in Philadelphia it probably won't attract Manhattan coverage.

Those Fried Frank Results: So much for magical thinking

The magical thinking in some parts of the legal sector is that the Crash was in 2007.  That was then.  Now is now and it should be business as usual - predictable and quite profitable.

That expectation is one reason so many are paying attention to the financial results announced by Fried Frank.  As AM LAW DAILY reports, the law firm had a bad first half and a good second half.  That's not what was supposed to be in the cards.  Instead, gross revenue declined 6.3%, revenue per lawyer went down 2.6%, and profit per partner declined 16.8%.

"It's unlikely that the 'business as usual' from pre-2007 will return," observes Boris Kreiman, Chief Executive Officer of Laws.com.  "Competition for new business will remain stiff and there will continue to be client churn.  That's why lawyers have to not only keep marketing but experiment with new ways of attracting and retaining business. A piece of that will be learning how to use BigData, particularly predictive analytics."

On Bloomberg, Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. had predicted the end of growth in the legal sector.  In a sense he frames it as a zero sum game.  However, through BigData, for example, law firms could develop new kinds of products, expand beyond the boundaries of conventional law practices, and not only run operations more cost efficiently but also  the strategies for managing cases. 

Full Disclosure: I assist Laws.com with communications.