Law And More

Lori Loughlin, Mossimo Giannulli - Urged to Get Separate Legal Counsel

In AdmissionsGate, Lori  Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli could have taken a guilty plea, throwing themselves on the mercy of the court.

That's the usual way legal messes are managed. As the world knows, that's exactly what Felicity Huffman did and soon enough the saga will be ancient history and she can return to her career.

Instead, the two are going to trial. They are being accused of mail fraud and money laundering. Meanwhile, Loughlin and Giannulli face serious prison time.

Recently, in  a pre-trial hearing, reports Daily Mail, they were urged to present themselves separately and to not have the same legal representation. For them, that's currently law firm Latham & Watkins, which incidentally is also representing the University Southern California. 

To begin with, federal prosecutors are trying them separately. So, it is puzzling why they have had the same law firm representing them up to now.

In addition, there is the issue of the conflict of interest since Latham & Wakins is also the law firm in AdmissionsGate for the University of California.

Also, during the trial it could come up that one but not both is accused of X. Sharing a legal team makes that a legal problem that should never have existed.

If they don't make a decision now about legal representation they are unlikely to be able to change horses later. The judge warned that could be perceived as a delaying tactics. Delay usually works nicely for defendants. 

The couple's children - Olivia Jade and Bella Rose - have their own legal defense. 

Question: Had did it happen Latham & Watkins is representing all three parties in the loop?

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Post-Gender Era - But, Sanford Heisler Sharp Won't Be Out of Business

In some circles, the law firm Sanford Heisler Sharp's signature is the class action gender lawsuit against BigLaw.

A recent high-profile one has been "Tolton, et al. v. Jones Day." Here is a copy of the complaint.

However, if the post-gender era does come, Sanford has nothing to fear. A group or individual with power likely will always be treating unfairly those with less or no power. Lawsuits are in the cards.

Signs of a world without gender classifications seem to be taking shape. That includes language.

Berkeley, California has passed an ordinance banning all gender terms from the city code. Those terms range from "policewoman" to "manhole."

The popular book "Gender Outlaw" by Kate Bornstein envisions social norms which don't differentiate human beings according to the sex organs they were born with. There will be no male. There will be no female.

Increasingly the conventional notion of gender as male or female has broadened into a continuum understanding. On that continuum some human beings are at the points of being more or less male or female in attitudes and behavior.

So, there is no longer such a set notion of what's "female" or "male." On the popular network television series "Good Girls," Beth thinks strategically about criminal activity, like a man is expected to do. However, her deep love of her children would be considered a female trait. 

Also, and most importantly, with fertility rates plunging in developed economies, the female's reproductive role becomes less central to how the world operates. In The Atlantic, Derek Thompson chronicles how the future of cities - the main engine of economic growth - is childless. It might be conjected that the need for offspring could have resulted in a conspiracy to temper female career ambition. 

The time when human beings don't sort out anything based on the perception of gender could arrive sooner than traditionalists anticipate.

An unexpected consequence could be fewer serial killers. Many of those have been locked into sexual-identity distress. With that distress not taking hold any more, there would be no compulsion to kill and keep killing. If "Law & Order SVU" keeps being renewed for another season, it might feature a post-gender plot line. 

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Support for Billable Hour Comes From - SHOCKER - Clients

To businesspeople, the concept of the billable hour in the legal sector makes no good financial sense. Long story short, it is seen to reward inefficiency.

But to clients, reports Dan Packel in Law.com, the billable hour equates with creating value. For that reason, the billable hour probably is not going away any time soon. The push for its end will have to come from clients. And, right not, that's not coming.

Clients, one has to understand, usually hire law firms for high-stakes situations. It could be a merger & acquisition, a bet the ranch civil trial, or, as in the food industry, a criminal trial related to contamination. They are afraid. They want the best. As non-lawyers they can envision the best in terms of hours put in. 

This isn't just a phenomenon in the legal sector.

Some public relations firms, when farming out a project such as a keynote speech, will instruct the consultant to not hand over the deliverable to the client for X number of days. To do so sooner could send a signal to the client that not much work had been put in or that the assignment was an easy one. Therefore, the client could balk when the invoice arrives.

And, who hasn't groused that the medical doctor "only spent 2 minutes with us," even though that 2 minutes solved the medical problem?

The interpretation of time spent tilts towards perceiving more as good - and less as bad. 

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Paul, Weiss - Big Contributor to Bill de Blasio's Presidential Campaign

Based on his performance in the televised Democrat debate, current New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is not likely to win the nomination to run for U.S. president against GOP's Donald Trump.

But those in the know know that's not the objective of the game.

Being in the race confers power. That ranges from increased name recognition to the ability to trade potential votes for present and future favors. Networking is based on trades.

My hunch is that was the strategy of Jones Day partner Laura Ellsworth in being a candidate in the Pennsylvania governor's race. Of course, she came in last. However, like Connecticut's twice-failed GOP nominee for U.S. Senator Linda McMahon, Ellsworth could wind up in an appointed government position. McMahon heads the U.S. Small Business Administration.

So, BigLaw firm Paul, Weiss probably has lots to gain by financially supporting de Blasio's campaign.

According to the New York Post, 52 employees at that law firm contributed $46,250. Although the chairperson Bard Karp didn't personally contribute, some assume he influenced the internal generosity. His wife Roberta did chip in $1,000.

Law firms operate along many points of intersection of government, business, non-profit foundations, and academia.

On Abovethelaw.com, Joe Patrice reported on how Jones Day was promoting its web of associations embedded in the Trump Administration. That, of course, was a very different time. Since then many of those relationships have soured. To borrow a line from the "John Wick" film series, Jones Day has been declared by the High Table "excommunicado."

The raw reality is that to get, hold, and move on to better professional opportunities, it's very useful to become involved in politics. When doing that, money could be the loudest voice in the room signalling exuberant support.

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Norm Pattis - Back to "Runaway Wife" Defense for Fotis Dulos

It's common in criminal matters for the defense to posit another theory of the crime. That can create reasonable doubt. 

So, no surprise, Norm Pattis, lawyer for Fotis Dulos, is pushing, again, from another angle the possibility that missing spouse Jennifer Dulos staged her own disappearance. The motivation would have been revenge on the husband. They were engaged in an ugly divorce and custody battle. 

As the media reports, Pattis has presented a motion to the court to obtain access to the medical billing records (February through April) for tests Jennifer had undergone. Pattis wants to find out the diagnosis and the treatment.

Based on the information derived, a theory could be put together that Jennifer leveraged serious illness as a spite mechanism to get even with her husband. She would vanish - maybe even die - and throw shade cast on her husband. Everyone knows the spouse is the primary suspect in all crimes which take place within the relationship.

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"Boies is a bad person," Alan Dershowitz Tells Journalist Gabriel Sherman

Gabriel Sherman has fully moved on from capturing the Roger Ailes' era in conservative politics and media.

Perhaps Bob Dilenschneider, who had been Ailes' personal public relations representative, can now also move on to a post-Ailes era. Any interest in all that would represent time travel. And those in that time machine would be perceived as so yesterday. 

Sherman's latest target is this: Everyone in the Jeffrey Epstein loop. And there are plenty of BigNames in it. Those are flashed in Sherman's coverage of the latest developments in the unraveling of the Epstein alleged sex misdeeds in Vanity Fair. 

Among the most riveting tidbits is the feud between two superlawyers.

They are David Boies who represents Virginia Giuffre, a minor allegedly sexually exploited by Prince Andrew, et al.

The other is Alan Dershowitz, whom Giuffre has sued for defamation. In the vomiting up of gossip, Dershowitz has been crowded in among those allegedly receiving sexual behaviors.

In The Battle of Superlawyers, Dershowitz, reports Sherman, told the journalist, "Boies is a bad man." 

We smirk.

Clearly, Dershowitz is off his game. And maybe he has been since he retired from being a professor at Harvard Law School.

What Boies is is a lawyer. We know from the reporting of Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker that Boies will and does go to extremes in client advocacy. That's what lawyers do, at least the top ones. It's not pretty. And that could be a factor associated with the higher than average mental illness, substance abuse, and suicides among those practicing law. 

The Epstein scandal will have a long shelf life. The media will see to that.

The story meanders through New York, D.C., Palm Beach, and Prince Andrew's address in Britain. Lots of personal and professional brands could collapse.

Sherman is good at what he does and has access to the sources he needs to provide new information and insight about those in the Epstein loop.

Unfortunately, for those involved in milking the Ailes' rise and fall, the world has something much more juicy. Already ratings are disappointing for Showtime's series "The Loudest Voice in the Room."

But that's good news for Dilenschneider, et al. whose professional lives date back to a very different time. 

In media there will be no dog days of August. In legal circles, everyone will probably wind up bug-eyed following the Boies-Dershowitz feud. And we ordinary folks will again be reminded: Don't praise famous men. 

Questions: Will there be a suicide, as in the Profumo scandal in Britain? After all, Prince Andrew aka "Randy Andy" is in the loop. And, will a government topple, as had Macmillan's? 

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Heading Off Increased Regulation? - Instagram Testing Out Concealing Likes

In Australia, Instagram is testing out an app which conceals the number of likes. That tally will only be visible to the person doing the posting, not those viewing the material. 

The hypothesis of that experiment is that relieving the pressure to pile up lots of likes will allow both posters and users to enjoy the social network more. Here are more details from The Daily Mail.

Eventually, other social networks could also decide to test out eliminating not only likes but also shares and comments. 

Such a trend could head off increased regulation of these digital platforms. Studies have been coming out about the emotional harm social networks can be inflicting. There the teenagers are, viewing all the likes their classmates' posts have and their own have none of that. 

In addition, on a professional network such as LinkedIn the lack of likes and comments can wind up damaging a personal brand. 

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Prince Andrew - Will Epstein Association Trigger Another "Profumo" Scandal?

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and, by extension, the institution of the British monarchy should be nervous.

Andrew, who sometimes has been referred to as "Randy Andy," is associated with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Now that Epstein is again in major legal trouble, that association eventually can play out to be a major scandal for the royal family. In the New York Post, Maureen Callahan details how the monarchy has been fighting for its existence since the death of Princess Diane.

Depending on how much comes out about Andrew's activities with Epstein, this particular expose could be the tipping point in the end of The Royals. The public may no longer be willing to foot the bill to keep that institution going.

The Randy Andy scandal could be the most significant one since the 1961 Profumo affair. That brought down the Macmillan government. Back then, John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, had an affair with a showgirl Christine Keeler. She also may have been involved with a Russian attache. Of course, that had been perceived as a security threat.

As many know, the court has allowed public access to the documents from the Virginia Giuffre defamation lawsuit. It's assumed that Andrew's activities figure prominently in those pages. After all, it had been alleged that, on multiple occasions, Epstein forced the minor Virginia to have sex with Andrew.

The Royals have denied all the allegations. 

Time will tell how much shade Andrew will throw on the institution of the monarchy in Britain. Question: Will it still be around five years from now?

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Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Wins One in Court Pre-Trial Hearing

Steve Jobs wannabe Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is still in black.

Only at the pre-trial court hearing it wasn't the signature black turtleneck.

It was a basic black dress and black blazer. And, at age 35, she's still attractive.

Some conjecture that it had been her youthful blonde good looks which lured big establishment names such as Henry Kissinger to the Theranos board of directors. At one point superlawyer David Boies had represented her.

Her trial on 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud will begin on July 28, 2020, in San Jose, California. Here is a summary of those counts by the Department of Justice. And, here is a copy of the actual indictment. 

The contention is that she and the startup's number-two Sunny Balwani deliberately misled investors, regulators, and the public about a technology which didn't exist. Balwani, who had also been her lover, was in court but arrived separately. In a television interview he argued that Theranos represented a business failure, not a fraud. If convicted, both face decades in prison.

But meanwhile, she did win one in court. She requested that the Food and Drug Administration speed up the process of turning over documents to her legal team. It claims that would require 6 months. No way, ruled federal judge Edward Davila. He gave the regulatory agency 75 days. Here are more details from the media.

By the time of the trial, most of the tech world could be in the reputational toilet. Regulators, media, the stock market, consumers, and the public globally could have turned on it. An indication of how bad it could it get is playing out in Europe. New York University marketing professor and internet expert Scott Galloway has been predicting just that. 

My hunch is that it will be difficult for both sides - prosecution and defense - to find objective jury members in the San Jose area. The defense might request a change of venue, which could delay the trial. Delays help defendants. 

In the tabloid media this saga could go down as "The Blonde and The Old White Men." 

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Jim Cramer - Maybe He's Just Not a Digital Wallet Kind of Guy

Law enforcement arrested a security guard - Elkin Heyward - at the Lower Manhattan Museum of Jewish Heritage. 

As the New York Post reports, Heyward has been accused of grand larceny and possession of stolen property. What was allegedly stolen was "Mad Money" star Jim Cramer's wallet. It contained, along with a credit card and ID, $1,065 in cash - yeah, that old-fashioned stuff.

When Cramer was going through security at the Museum, according to the media version, he put that wallet and phone in the bin, then forgot about them. When he remembered, there was the phone, but no wallet. 

This development leaves us with myriad questions.

On the former hit series "Law & Order Criminal Intent," Detective Robert Goren keeps hammering that what's important is the question. When trying to shake loose information from witnesses and suspects, Goren poses many questions, from many angles. The positions of his head follows along with those angles. 

Here, one major question is: What was Cramer doing in a major urban area with $1,065 cash in a real-life wallet? Isn't he, a BigName in money, a digital wallet kind of guy? 

One wonders if this association with cash currency will damage his brand. 

Another question is: Given that the security guard likely had been totally aware of the video surveillance why in the world did he allegedly engage in this crime? Yes, it was all there on video.

Cramer owes his audience an explanation of why he's not totally e-. Isn't he setting a bad example? 

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