Law And More

Landlord Nation - Post-COVID-19 New World Order Can End Housing Insecurity

"Eventually the rent will be due …" - Mary Cunningham, Fellow at Urban Institute, April 7, 2020. Here is her study.

According to Cunningham's research, about 11 million low-income people in the U.S. won't be able to pay their rent on a sustained basis. As a progressive think tank, the Urban Institute advocates policies addressing what now goes by the label "housing insecurity." If no policy action is taken, homelessness can surge.

The unemployment triggered by COVID-19 has worsened housing insecurity. But the situation has been around ever since the cost of renting kept going up, often more quickly than wages in a geographic area. 

For instance, a study by Clever found that 1960, rental expense rose 72% or 2.7 times faster than household income. 

Even anecdotal evidence shows that America seems to have become Landlord Nation. Since fewer people can afford to own their homes, there are more renters. That has transformed the overall shelter situation into a landlord market. In many states there is no cap on the percentage that monthly rent can be boosted at lease-renewal time. In too many rental complexes, the sheriff arrives and he/she doesn't ring twice. The eviction notice is posted. 

From the get-go with the industrious Puritans, America has been about success. Because of Landlord nation, that concept is being retrofitted to denote the simple ability to pay the rent. That's unambiguous. Rent can be paid on time or not paid. 

When there is no need for special negotiations with the property manager, those people are often perceived as solid citizens. When there have to be frequent pleas for extensions and a history of late payments, those leasing can find themselves being informally classified as "trouble." If they are eventually evicted there can be a sigh of relief in the complex.  Those "troublemakers" are gone.

A positive side effect and part of the new order of COVID-19 could be a surge of initiatives for affordable housing - or making what is already in the housing stock more affordable. 

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Reflections on Whistleblowing as Linda Tripp Reportedly Is on Deathbed

Whistleblowing is not necessarily an act of supreme courage, driven by a sense of what's right. 

It could represent strategic grenade-throwing as had been the case with conservative Linda Tripp. Now that she is reportedly on the death bed, overdue is a comprehensive review of all whistleblowing. 

To begin with, it shouldn't be positioned and packaged as an instinctive noble act, analogous to jumping in the path of a train to rescue a child who had fallen onto the tracks.

Instead, it's represents a complex decision with both anticipated and unexpected consequences. 

Some "of a certain age" will recall Sharron Watkins who was the internal whistleblower at Enron. She informed the head Ken Lay of the strange accounting. Along the way to being saluted as a hero she had to contract legal help, was isolated, had her job responsibilities reduced, and later hit walls in being hired for work post-Enron.

Had she known the full extent of the consequences she might have done what most did back then and still do: Keep quiet and look for another job. Since then, of course, laws have been passed to protect and even reward whistleblowers. That kicked off with Sarbanes-Oxley.

More recently has been the whistleblowing by Susan Fowler. It focused on alleged sexual misconduct and other inappropriate workplace behavior at her former employer Uber. She did that in a now-famous blog post. It's contended that the outing of what was allegedly going down at Uber brought down its head Travis Kalanick. 

Like myriad whistleblowers, Fowler has been saluted.

But, interestingly her book Whistleblower, published February 18, 2020, has not caught fire. On Amazon, at least today at 3:40 P.M. ET it ranks 41,839 in terms of hard copies and 60,413 in terms of Kindle. It only has 53 reader reviews. Essentially it is a memoir.

In contrast, Demi Moore's memoir "Inside Out," although published way back on September 24, 2019, ranks on Amazon at 1,751. It has 2401 reader reviews. 

Some things just don't hang right about whistleblowing. In reading Fowler's book I wondered if she had been naïve in what she expected in the workplace, how she handled it, and her decision to later blow the whistle after she had secured other employment.

Meanwhile, although it isn't fashionable to speak ill of the dead, when Tripp dies, many probably will. That trend started in 2018 when the family of Kathleen Dehmlow published a negative paid obituary. 

UPDATE:

Linda Tripp died today. The New York Post provides details.

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Lateral Market - Wrong Hiring Could Sink Leadership's Credibility During COVID-19

What's obvious is that in many law firms partners are suffering.

There have been delays and cuts on draw.

Also, as is well known, there are myriad tactics to force partners out.

In turn, those partners know that there is a currently a target on their back if they are not pulling in the billable hours and new business.

So, in general, the law firm environment is not welcoming to the risk of hiring a high-priced lateral.

Often the expectation on the brandname's part is for a guaranteed lucrative compensation for a number of years. Few law firms can afford to take on that kind of financial commitment in The Time of Coronavirus.

Yes, as Roy Strom points out in Bloomberg, there have been some high-profile lateral hires. The one which has received the most attention has been Wilkie Farr & Gallagher hiring former Jenner & Block chairman Craig Martin (along with five partners). That was to establish a Chicago office. 

Aside from that, most lateral hiring presents a risk for both the financials of a the law firm and the branding/careers of the leadership. If the ROI for the hire doesn't pan out, the trouble so many law firms are encountering right now can be worsened exponentially. 

Another obstacle is that the hiring process has to be virtual. Nuances of chemistry might not be able to be picked up. So those in charge of hiring are, in essence, flying blind on the social fundamentals of the deal. In-person, it would be immediately obvious through vibrations if X or Y could fit with the culture and work effectively with others in that practice.

The deals which had been started before the world economic slowdown, then COVID-19 have closed or will be closing. But not many new ones have been put in play.

One elephant in the room about the lateral market is what David Lat will encounter when fully recovered from his near-death experience with COVID-15.

That has been a major media event, even being featured on "Nightline." Several months ago, Lat took the leap from his career in media to joining Lateral Link as a recruiter and managing director of its New York office. 

Before that, Lat's brand had been that he had founded the out-of-the-box legal news site Abovethelaw.com. Its edge was its sources. Junior lawyers and law students continually sent along anonymous tips. Therefore the site could break news. Within that niche, Lat became a star.

That was then.

One wonders how he can develop a brand in lateral recruiting when:

1) The publicity for his battle with COVID-19 hammers his media background, that is, as founder of ATL. A hardened brand identity can interfere with the launch of a new one. Incidentally, multiple branding identities have presented problems for those with side hustles. Here is my article published on what I labeled "mutt branding."

2) He is missing out on the dynamics of the changing legal market because, as "Nightline" communicated, his road to recovery is slow. Chronicling his saga in the media may or may not be a plus. Future prospects and others in the loop may or may not perceive this development as what they want to be associated with. 

3) On a dime, the lateral market has changed. When Lat parachuted in, it was strong. Now it isn't. And now is what brings in the income to pay the bills.

Meanwhile, right now covering the legal sector is a boom business for both journalists and bloggers. There is so much material that it is difficult to choose what to include in the day's wrap-up. One especially useful source has been Pin Hawk Law Firm Marketing Brief. It is published by Joseph Lamport. 

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Law Schools - Applications Down, But Lousy Job Market for BAs/BSs May Boost Entrollment

Like every other institution, the law school is being affected by COVID-19.

Law.com reports that even before this crisis, applications for the coming academic year had been down 4%, as of April 6th. 

Only 16 law schools experienced an increase in applications. 180 had a decline.

Now 'tis the season for sending in the deposit to book a seat as a 1L for the 2020 -2021 academic year.

To help prospective students with that decision the Law School Admissions Council hosted a webinar. 

One bit of uncertainty is whether the fall classes will be virtual. For some prospective students that's not a deal-breaker. 

 A negative may be the heavy media coverage of the current cost-cutting at law firms. Seniors reading that even partners are getting shorted on their draw may get it that the JD doesn't guarantee anything. Especially not earnings or employment security. 

What might be the tipping point in mailing in the deposit is the lousy job market for BAs/BSs.

The Class of 2020 was supposed to be entering career paradise.

Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that some seniors even wonder if they should bother looking for a job. Job offers have been snatched back. Hiring fairs cancelled. Many students are doomed to return back home, with a degree but no job. Their lifelong earnings can be lessened by this setback at the very beginning of their careers.

Moreover, the value of a college education as well as advanced professional and graduate degrees could be questioned more severely than it had been. You bet, that could throw shade on law schools. 

But, the good news for law schools is that economic downturns usually work in favor of academia. Youth tends to flee there to wait out hard times and add to their undergraduate credentials. 

However, if the legal sector crashes as it had in 2008 -2009 and jobless lawyers haunt metro areas like a Lost Generation, the number of 1Ls at law schools could be at a historic low. 

Law school deans should be very worried. A perfect storm seems to be brewing.

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May Rent - Myth that Blue Collars Are Working

It could be through the financial help of his mother who is telecommuting from home for a law firm that Rafael Nunez will be able to pay his May rent. That's even though his girlfriend will also be chipping in.

So much of the media attention has been on getting through the April rent. 

But May rent is now on the list of angst items. 

The strange wrinkle in this Nunez saga is that he's an essential worker.

Actually he's in the category of what might be considered the Blue Collar Elite: plumbing. The assumption is that he would be thriving, while one-third or more of the workforce is suffering. 

But that, it turns out is a myth, reports MarketWatch.

Blue collar essential workers like Nunez don't have enough assignments at the company where he is employed. The usual jobs involve handling the plumbing tasks for custom houses and apartments. Also, through his skills he has access to side hustles. 

The reality is that in this health/economic crisis demand has fallen off. 

There will be less joking that the unemployed/underemployed Ph.D. in English Literature or lawyer should have trained to be a plumber or some other skilled trade.

That latter includes servicing automobiles. A neighbor whose line of work is repairing cars at a dealership feels lucky to hold onto his job, even though his hours have been reduced. Because of the stay-at-home mandate fewer folks are using their cars and those using them are doing that less. The odds are that not so much will go wrong with those vehicles.

Many such as Henry Kissinger are projecting a new world order post-COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal featured Kissinger's thought leadership commentary on the end of what was. 

That new world order could mean the end of standard clichés about work. The future of work - blue collar, white collar, full-time with benefits, and gig - is in play.

Some of those knocked out of the box during the pandemic and some who never got in (as with those holding doctorates in the humanities and some members of the JD Class of 2020) may never work again or enter the workforce. 

Meanwhile, pontificating about what's related to work will make those arrogant no-nothings be labeled as pre-COVID-19. No one can anticipate, not fulling, what work will be available, how it will be done, where it will be done, and how much it will pay. 

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Norton Rose Fulbright Positions International Cost-Cutting as "Pre-emptive"

What's on the balance might not be as important to branding and new business development as how that is positioned and packaged.

This is the era of extreme public relations.

The brand is the message.

And the message is the business. 

So, it's expected that Norton Rose Fulbright puts its cost-cutting in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia as "pre-emptive measures." Law.com reports that they include:

Outreach to staff for reduction of hours/pay for a year. That would entail a 20% cut in compensation. If enough opt in, the program will be effective April 20th.

Deferred partner distributions.

Deferred salary raises.

Deferred bonuses.

Because of technology, staff functions have become increasingly threatened. With remote work becoming standard many of those positions could become downright obsolete. If staff accept NRF's proposal, they know they have jobs for at least a year.

Deferrals send a message of optimism. Underlying that arrangement is the expectation that the financial threats will lessen and business as usual will return.

However, thought thinkers such as Henry Kissinger are projecting a whole new order of things post-COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal published Kissinger's manifesto.

The play-out of a whole new order should be no surprise.

Human beings are the ones who shape institutions. Those human beings have been forever changed by this pandemic. It's common sense that this generation of leaders, managers, workers, parents, and consumers will trigger an upheaval in the status quo.

That's what the Ok, boomers can now understand about their grandparents who had lived through being able to enter the U.S. at Ellis Island, the Spanish Flu, and The Great Depression. That generation, whacked three times, traveled with darkness. 

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Clark Hill - The New Usual is Optimistic Positioning & Packaging of Cost-Cutting

Am Law 200 firm Clark Hill joins the myriad other players with its cost-cutting announcement.

In the spirit and language of the new usual it positions and packages that with optimism. The initiatives are delivered in a wrapper labeled "temporary." Most sensible people have given up on the magical thinking that COVID-19 will go poof and disappear any time soon and that its impacts will be, well, temporary.

Thought leader The Atlantic is jam-packed with commentary on the post-coronavirus world order. Here is just one of the articles. In it, Ed Yong sees the shift as so profound that babies born during the pandemic will live in a world so different that they should be anointed "Generation C." 

Abovethelaw covers the measures Clark Hill has taken. They include:

•  Furloughs 
•  Pay reductions
•  Freeze on discretionary spending
•  Suspension of the employer contribution to 401k.

Instead of those initiatives being lifted, the odds are that to them will be added more drastic mandates for cost-control. Time will not be kind to many law firms.

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Law Is About Language, Nothing in Business Is Personal - Amazon's GC David Zapolsky Should Have Known Better

The old joke is that the best and brightest in college go to law instead of business school because they are lousy in math. But they sure are off the chart in verbal skills. Much of law is transacted through language.

So, Amazon's general counsel David Zapolsky should have known better than to use the language he did to refer to fired employee Christian Smalls. Included in that description was language positioning and packaging Smalls in notes for a meeting as "not smart" and "not articulate." That material had been leaked to Vice News, reports Law.com.

What Zapolsky should have also known was that nothing should be put in writing that one doesn't want to be a headline in The Wall Street Journal. Why in the world did he make that statement in a form that could be and was leaked?

A third puzzling matter about this lawyer's behavior is that, after hell broke loose about his description of Smalls, his defense was: "My comments were personal and emotional." In a business setting, nothing is personal, nothing should be emotional. In practicing law, which is Zapolsky's function at Amazon, nothing is personal, nothing should be emotional.

If Amazon is smart and if it wants to be perceived as articulate it will terminate Zapolsky, with cause. 

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LOST! 701,000 Jobs - Implications for Law Schools

The March numbers for the U.S. Bureau of Labor show this: 701,000 nonfarm jobs were lost. Essentially that does not factor in the full extent of the carnage to the job market from COVID-19.

That could have negative implications for law schools. 

Gen Z, their target market, has already felt the economic dislocation. In professional mobility, the traction they have lost they may never regain. The bottom line issue: Given this darkening of optimism about their careers, will they be willing to invest the big money required to finance an education in law? Confidence in the economy has been shaken to the core. 

Meanwhile, if Gen Z is following the media, its members bear witness to the loss of the large salaries and job security in the legal sector. Since COVID-19 is not going away any time soon, that carnage could get lots worse. Yes, large reductions in force could become the norm.

Since practicing law is a very narrow specialization, it's hard for displaced lawyers to reimagine how they can make a living. Back in 2008 -2009, Abovethelaw made its signature describing that suffering. 

At this time, it looks like the JD Class of 2020 could have a difficult career launch. Those who land jobs may not be able to hold onto them. Those who don't get jobs can be sidelined forever. By time there is a recovery, employers will be recruiting among new graduates from law school and established laterals.

Reflection: Heavy long-term investments in preparing for a career path seem a 20th century strategy. Law schools will have to retrofit their curriculum to accommodate that shift in mindset,

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Coronavirus Economy - The Moving Van Cometh

For those aging, relocation has always been a tough decision. That's even for well-funded lawyers who looked forward to a fresh start far away from the rat race. 

Because of what might be called "The Coronavirus Economy" that decision has become lots more complex.

The process used to be fairly predictable - but still soul-wrenching since the aging are leaving what's familiar.

You retired.

You sold the family house.

You spent the golden years in North Carolina or Arizona.

Although it was an adjustment you came to enjoy your new life.

That was then.

In the Coronavirus Economy, you might be forced to make that decision years before you anticipated. That's because you lost your job. Even partners will be terminated, probably through a stealth layoff. Staff, going remote taught law firms, aren't really needed. 

After a search and even with the guidance of outplacement you can't land another job. At least not one which pays a decent wage. Research documents that those over-50 who lose a job only have a one in 10 chance of earning comparable income again.

If you are determined, though, to earn income, here, free to click open, is my book on making a buck, at any age Download Outwitting ageism. 

You may like a no-brainer line of work. Go in, get the gossip, do some stuff, go home, and collect a paycheck. 

Another reason you will have to parachute into relocation is the carnage to your portfolio. Sure, it will bounce back. But not for a long time. You get it that, despite your careful planning, you cannot afford to live in Ithaca, New York any more. And that's that.

But the Coronavirus Economy rears its head in that.

You may have trouble selling your house, at least not at the price you need or not at all. Low mortgage rates don't mean that the majority of people have the financial resources to buy and maintain a home.

So, you could be stuck in-place. Consider co-living, that is, opening your property to boarders who bring the skills you need. For example, in addition to paying rent, they can maintain the yard or re-paint the exterior. That can be a win for everyone of you in the loop. 

In addition, no place is really "cheap" any more. That will persist, even if there is a steep recession.

Sure, Tucson, AZ requires a lot less to live in than Manhattan. But, since the big migration of those from California to AZ because of the high cost of living there, Tucson has become more expensive.

To find the cost of living match you need requires research. That might turn out to be Toledo, Ohio. There a one-bedroom can go for $45o, plus utilities. Or, it could be outside the United State. International Living is a good introduction to that pricing. 

Reduced community resources for your own aging partners makes it necessary for you to stay rooted in the area. Healthcare has been forced to triage. The very old rank low on the list. You can't relocate, can you. 

Your own children are struggling financially. They lost their jobs. What seems to make financial common sense is for you to move into their house. Not only will you contribute rent. You can provide childcare. 

In addition to these factors which have arisen as a result of the coronavirus there are the traditional challenges associated with relocation.

A major one is that the first move doesn't work out. Everything might go right but you can't adjust. Or, the cost of living shoots up. It may require a few tries to find your forever home. Be prepared to accept that you made an error in judgment. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.