Law And More

Innovation - No-Dynasty Zone

"There is no Big Law innovation dynasty." - Roy Strom, Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2021

Right now the Big Law chairpersons whose names come up when innovation is discussed include Joe Andrew at Dentons, Larry Sonsini at Wilson Sonsini and Brad Karp at Paul Weiss.

Each has an aura because innovation is sexy. 

Each is focused on a different aspect of the business of law.

For Andrew it's funding from outside the law firm for an advisory service. The source is private equity. Other law firms are watching like a hawk. In addition, in the way Dentons conducted a recent RIFs, he's blowing up the vestiges of law as a profession.

Sonsini has introduced the "product" concept to a law firm. Right now that's limited to legal tech. But the platform is there for the law firm to take on the attributes of a production facility. Think about it: law firm as factory. Time travel back to Andy Warhol.

Karp has managed to synergistically fuse social justice activism with the genetic code of a large law firm. That could be thought of as a kind of genetic engineering.

Karp's legacy could be determined by what that is generating right now in branding, building lines of cooperation with other law firms, creating new practices such as ESG, developing new business, lobbying with power structures such as the White House and recruiting and retaining talent, especially sought-after laterals.

But, as Strom cynically observes, the innovation space belongs to no one. The burden on those conjuring up disruption in that space is that they have to continue conjuring up disruption in that space. Otherwise, you know ... 

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Gun-toting McCloskey Couple - Forever Branded with a Scarlet "K" (doing a Karen)

"A St. Louis couple who pointed guns at social-justice demonstrators last year pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges and agreed to give up the weapons they used during the confrontation. Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000. Her husband, Mark McCloskey, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750." - Published in The Wall Street Journal, but originally an AP story, June 17, 2021.

The couple, both seasoned lawyers, should have recognized the legal ambiguities in using guns in an attempt to deter George Floyd protestors. Before they took the guilty plea they had contended that they assessed the protestors' activities as trespassing. Also, they claimed they perceived that their lives were in danger. Of course, they should have known better than to try to run that by the legal system. First-year law students would have smirked. 

Much of this sounds like a lawyerly version of a "Karen." The McCloskeys are white and middle class or even better situated on the socioeconomic ladder. Like the most high profile Karen - Amy Cooper - they will probably bear forever the Scarlet Letter "K" for their obnoxious behavior. 

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Wealth, Pedigree, 80 Years of Legal Public Service, Accidental Death - The Forever Haunted Legacy of the Murdaughs

"The [murder of Margaret Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh] story here is an exercise in old money, accidental death, brutal murder and the online culture of pseudo-anonymous harassment–replete with allegations of a coverup [because of the 80 years in which the family had served as elected prosecutors] and uncertain allegiances." - Colin Kalmbacher, Law & Crime, June 17, 2021.

It is possible that the murderer or murderers will never be fingered. There are so many threads to the saga.

Even if there is an arrest and conviction/plea the darkness will continue to hover over this community in South Carolina.

Given the dominance of conspiracy theory, many will assume there was more to the story than whatever. It will not be enough to have proven by an arrest and conviction/guilty plea that the murders were an act of revenge about an accidental death. Or, from envy about wealth. 

What else had gone on?

Or if there is no arrest, imaginatons will run wild. 

The region could harden into a site imputed to have paranormal activity.

The ghost of the young woman - Mallory Beach - killed in the boating accident could be returning. Every evening she stands by the water.

The murdered mother and son could stalk the fields searching for justice.

The courthouse in which the family prosecutors served could showcase strange goings-on.

The murder or murderers could receive visits from some version of the Harpies. 

An enterprising entrepreneur can start a bus tour of all the places designated to be haunted. Much of the economy of Salem, Massachusetts operates just that way. It's the theatre of the damned.

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Indiana Lawyer, Indianapolis, IN - Managing Editor

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Compliance - REMOTE - Freelance Writer

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Another School for Scandal - Munger Tolles & Olson Reports on Allegations of Sexual Misconduct at Thacher School

The 91-page report from law firm Munger Tolles & Olson details allegations of everything from actual sexual assault to unwanted touching to inappropriate comments at the Thacher School, reports Daily Mail. Those activities allegedly took place over 40 years. They were allegedly by the leadership and faculty.

Again, this is a saga of a school for scandal where tuition and board are over-the-top: $64,000 a year, currently.

As usual, there is the English teacher who allegedly seduced through his role of awakening students to the beauty of literature and the expressiveness of writing.

Also in the alleged loop had been the late Willard Wyman, former headmaster. He had been reported to have indulged in unwelcome touching and inappropriate comments. 

Also, it had been disclosed but denied that a dean investigating a student report of sexual misconduct asked if the alleged victim enjoyed it.

Thacher, like so many of the schools for scandal, is based in an out-of-the-way location - Ojai, California. The isolation can create pathological forms of intimacy.

The setting of being a posh private school can make students assume that the behavior is okay.

Parents may figure since they are paying so much their children will be insulated from the world's darkness.

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Law School, $170k Debt, Buyer's Remorse - But Happy at Last, Brad Walters, age 34

CNBC's "Make It" covers Aging Millennials.

The current article by Jennifer Liu looks at career regret. Oh, it's there. Often with tremendous student-loan debt.

Typical is Brad Walters, 34. By the end of college he had picked up $60k in student loan debt.

Nevertheless, two years later he decided to enroll in law school, picking up another $170k in debt. 

For a couple of years he did do law jobs. Then he married and had two children. Maybe that was the catalyst for him to reflect on what he really wanted to do, damn the student loan debt.

He left the field of law. He entered education. There he had lots of opportunities for international travel. Currently he is working in education in Incheon, South Korea. Happy since he exited law, Waters regrets stopping off at law school and does not find value in that experience.

Warning to Class of 2024? Because of overenrollment at 55% of the law schools they could bump into a glut market for entry-level lawyers. Even if that does not play out, as so many Millennials in this "Make It" article they might find that path wasn't for them.

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Lordstown Motors - Now This

"Lordstown Motors Corp. said in a securities filing that although it has struck vehicle-purchase agreements with fleet-management companies, the agreements don’t represent binding purchase orders. The clarification on Thursday comes after the troubled electric-truck startup’s president told reporters Tuesday the company had “pretty binding” preorders and enough interest from potential buyers to sustain factory output through the end of 2022." - Dave Sebastian, The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2021.

Just a few days ago, the new head of Lordstown Motors Angela Strand went bullish on the prospects of the EV startup. The stock price started back up.

What probably also rose had been the hopes of the folks in the surrounding economically stagnant area. The Youngstown, Ohio metro region hadn't recovered from the collapse of the steel industry. Unlike Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it hadn't diversified its economy. Not long ago, GM shuttered the Lordstown production facility for the subcompact Cruze. The plant went from three shifts to none. The area reeled. 

Lordstown Motors' stock is down to 10.29. The 52-week high had been 31.80.

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Paul Weiss Joins 20 Other Law Firms in Matching Davis Polk Standard, Continues to Disrupt Business of Law

Davis Polk had set the standard in associate compensation.

About 20 law firms had matched that $205k salary for first-year associates. Among them, reports Bloomberg Law, is Paul Weiss. Brad Karp, its chairperson, made that announcement. 

Paul Weiss is also making news about how it has been disrupting the business of law. In 2020, for example, the law firm won the New York Law Innovation Award for transcending conventional boundaries in law-firm business. 

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Shift from American Happy-Clappy to Darker Take on Life - Overdue

"'There is no happiness in life, only a mirage of it on the horizon': Vladimir Putin quotes Tolstoy as he reveals his dark philosophy on life and inspires more Bond villain comparisons after summit with Joe Biden" - Jack Newman, Daily Mail, June 17, 2021.

Putin nailed it: Life is the play-out of the abyss. That was essentially the world view of the Puritans. They saw existence on earth as struggle. The refuge from that was hard work or the Protestant Ethic. That got you to heaven too.

Then came the end of the carnage of World War 11. Ushered in, especially through pop culture like Disney, Hallmark and broadcast television, was the ethos of happy-clappy. Obey the rules and you will go to college and have everything. 

Then came the unraveling of job security. The villains in that were Jack Welch at GE and Lee Iacocca at Chrysler. Financial is everything and financial was gone, at least for the majority of Americans. Those optimistic baby boomers from the heady Eisenhower take on life currently deal with making ends meet in retirement and semiretirement. The game is not to dip too deeply into their investments. Those have been down the past four days.

America loves movements. One might start for adopting Putinism as a reality-check. Life is the experience of suffering. 

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