Law And More

Andrew Cuomo/Eric Schmidt Alliance Bridges Digital Divide for New York - Model Could Catch Fire Througout U.S.

"[Andrew] Cuomo took the recommendation from [Eric] Schmidt’s reform commission Reimagine New York, and signed a bill that requires internet providers like Verizon to offer lower-income families basic broadband access for no more than $15 a month, a cap that Cuomo says is the first of its kind in the nation. High-speed plans will be capped at $20 a month." - Theodore Schleifer, Recode, April 16, 2021.

About 7 million are eligible.

Schmidt, the former chief executive officer at Google, hammered that access to the internet is a necessity.

Of course, he's on the money, literally. It's almost impossible to embark on a job search without the internet. During COVID there also has been a scramble by many public schools to provide free internet access to low-income students for remote learning. Some also distributed tablets.

But the shut-down of in-person instruction only made more apparent the need for internet access. Even before COVID public libraries throughout America had been filled with both children and adults plugging into their internet connections. Then when the libraries closed because of the social distancing of COVID those who depended on them for digital communication were stranded. 

Likely the New York model will catch fire in myriad other states. That could be significant in helping the unemployed get back to work.

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Yale Law Professor Amy Chua aka Tiger Mom Needs Guidance in Crisis Management - The Urban Cockroach Phenomenon Dominates Her Brand

As many know, brandname law professor at Yale and iconic expert on parenting (Tiger Mom) Amy Chua had been reprimanded last week by her employer.

Essentially it had been a slap on the wrist: being stripped of the assignment to oversee a group of 1Ls next semester. Small stuff. 

Had Chua been trained in crisis management or had contracted with a public relations firm to position and package that negative development in her branding, she would have done two things. They are fundamentals in reputation restoration. 

The two musts in effective crisis communications are:

• Admit any part in what has been contended or proved to have transpired. The mea culpa humanizes. 

 

• Unless there is a need for continual briefings, lay low. Most negative developments blow over. Someone else or some other organization will be screwing up.

Instead, Chua sprung into a defensive mode. She issued this letter to colleagues. One would have expected someone trained in law - a profession that operates on language and nuance - not to have transmitted such as document.

Among other things, she contends she felt "bullied." In the Zoom meeting she demanded with the Yale Law powers that be she indicates she felt "degraded." 

Of course, as crisis-communications experts worth their salt would say, those moves following her lightweight censure have worsened the situation.

For example, influential Abovethelaw has run with these latest developments. Google loves ATL.

In short, what could be called the urban cockroach phenomenon has taken place. As anyone who has grown up in New York City or Jersey City, New Jersey knows, once one "roach" enters the space, many more will follow. Often it's impossible to "get rid of the roaches."

In this situation, alumni have come forward to refute Chua's defense. Expect more constituenices to creep onto the surface from where they had been in a safe resting state.

Here is the article I published in O'Dwyer Public Relations on how her husband Jed Rubenfeld could restore his own reputation. He had been suspended from teaching at Yale Law for two years. The reason had been alleged sexual misconduct. 

Likely, Chua will also require that kind of process of reputation restoration. Her brand is in play. It could be rescued if she takes the right steps. It could lose its entire equity if she continues making some very bad moves. 

Reflection: As Dan Goleman hammered, cognitive IQ has less to do with success that emotional intelligence.

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Not the Professionals or Human Beings They Were Pre-COVID: Legal Sector Should Anticipate Values Earthquake

The legal industry might anticipate an earthquake in values.

That force field could rock law firms and in-house legal departments. The pheonomenon could be triggered both from those inside and third parties.

The U.S. Supreme Court might be shaken up also. Last Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden announced establishing a 32-person panel to review every aspect of the High Court. 

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the majority of Americans are not the professionals and human beings they were before COVID became a reality in March 2020.

Let's look at that from our own experience. You probably have plenty to add.

First of all, they get it that they are alive. They didn't die from the virus. Sure, those they cared about or knew from work those who did die. However, they didn't. Survival provides a platform for a new start. Despite hatred of change, many are ready to do just that: Change. 

Also, they might have experienced profound anxiety about their professional status. Would their law firm lay them off? Corporations' financial performance got hit hard by COVID. In-house legal was no longer a safe (and relaxed) harbor. After so much suffering they have gained a fresh perspective about the place of work in their lives and how much they are willing to endure for traditional achievement. 

Therefore, it's no newsflash that James Suzman's "Work" is a best-seller. Although it's ponderous - 464 pages - it ranks high on Amazon - 33,314. In addition, Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer is getting attention for his "Dying for a Paycheck" movement against exploitation of the global workforce. 

And, third, social isolation provided over and over again that moment of clarity: Relationships are important. Human beings are a social animal. You bet, make time to find and nurture those human ties.

The legal industry will have to pony up real solutions for work/life balance. Read Glassdoor and the universal complaint is too much work, much of it unscheduled. That eliminates the opportunities to lock up social. For Jones Day, an associate posted on Glassdoor in January 2021: "zero work/life balance." That employee gave the firm a 2.0 out of a possible 5. 

Of course, media outlets are in the business of picking up on trends. The disruption in the cultures in the legal sector is what they will probably focus on. And it's not just the advocacy player Abovethelaw. Traditional media centers such as Law.com are also looping in. Recently it published an article that indicated some skepticism about Orrick's much-praised paid Unplug initiative. 

For decades, thought leaders will analyze how COVID transformed the perception of work per se and the collective unconscious of America. A lot is so so different. It's up to the legal sector to adjust.

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Bloomberg Law Looks at How COVID Changed the Retirement Scene

No suprise, COVID has thrown in a wrench in many retirement plans.

According to the Census Bureau, reports Bloomberg Law, 3.1 million of those over-55 now plan to take Social Security early. On the other hand, 1.4 million intend to work longer than they originally had mapped out. 

Overall, COVID has hit the career paths of the aging hard. The Guardian calls them "The Lost Generation of Unemployment."

Essentially that has meant the concept of a career has ended for them. It would be difficult to land another job on that career path.

There is the option of freelancing in that space but across the generations competition for gig assignments is stiff. 

Another option is to shake loose the mindset of a career. Instead go for income. The objective is to land the best fit of tasks which pays you the best. Ideally, it would be great if you picked up new skills in those gig slots.

Here, a complimentary read, is my guide on staying working, no matter what your age Download Outwittingageism.

Reflection: Willis Towers Watson projects that careers are totally yesterday. Instead workers will be developing a portfolio of skills and experiences. So, yes, start building your new kind of portfolio.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Manhattan Lawyers - Moving to West Coast Can Turn You Nice

Yes, the transformation does happen. And to those in all professionals. Lawyers are not exempt. 

Men and women relocate from the hardened aggressive ethos of Manhattan to the West Coast. And, eventually they loop into nice.

That can even be excessive. Like gushing with too much gratitude for small gestures such as the person in front letting you ahead on line because you only have two items. Or, belting out too many mea culpas too often for social sins such as finishing someone's sentences. 

In a "Cut" podcast on New York Magazine, Avery Trufelman discusses that shift in an interview with Jordan Green. No longer do the transplants feel they have to become annoyed when the guy sitting next to them on the plane is chatting it up. Or the bartender is too slow.

Surely then, research has to be done on if there is a correlation between the adoption of nice and the reduction of heart attacks in those over-50. But more important to careerist New York lawyers considering a lateral to a West Cost firm is this: Can being nice enhance a career? 

Consider the augmented networking opportunities. Also, will those in the law firm be genuinely helpful? Can clients pick up on the niceness and be more cooperative?

On an overcast April late morning in April 2014, I took I-95 out of the whole New York scene. Here in the southwest I have shaken off 70% of the volcanic impatience and the compulsion to push. That one change has improved the business of both my communications and coaching boutiques. Panic attacks haven't stopped but occur less often. Despite the reality that making friends is almost impossible when aging, I have one, at least. 

A useful read is "The Power of Nice" by Linda Kaplan Thaler. 

Reflection: Should you start exploring West Coast lawyering opportunities?

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Paul Weiss - Will It "Do a Jones Day" and The Possible Implications

Back in April 2017, Joe Patrice did a long-form piece on Abovethelaw about how Jones Day was leveraging its association with the Trump Administration.

Of course, because of that Jones Day was in the catbird seat for developing new business and reducing client churn.

Some recall that the branding kicked in when Jones Day partner Don McGahn began representing the 2016 Make America Great Again campaign. He himself went on to be White House Counsel. With him parachuted into federal government about a dozen other Jones Day lawyers.

Power? A pile-on of it.

Now, Bloomberg Law detailed how embedded Paul Weiss is in the Biden Administration. So, it isn't a stretch to speculate how much of an edge that will be in landing new accounts, expanding the business from current ones and discouraging churn.

Bluntly put, Paul Weiss could the liberal version of Jones Day.

With that edge, though, comes fresh challenges.

For instance, the Bloomberg Law coverage pointed out that although Paul Weiss has a progressive culture its client list isn't totally that. On it are Exxon and private equity. Also, in this era of radical politics, being looped in with Biden Administration branding makes Paul Weiss a target for just about any extreme constituency. As well as the not-so-extreme ones.

Jones Day went through a lot of that. Iconic had been the anti-Trump media coverage of its role in questioning the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

Therefore, along with the huge plus of access to the Biden Administration, Paul Weiss will be slugging it out with myriad old and new enemies. Much of that will make it into the legal, business and political media.

As with all matters in the court of public opinion, how those headlines play out depends primarily on how the law firm manages its now number-one job of public relations. The door has been opened - a favorite phrase in the legal sector - to turn over Paul Weiss and inspect its underbelly. 

That public-relations "duty" also reaches inside the law firm. The leadership will have to persuade the Millennial lawyers to buy into both its ideological stances and whatever pops up on its client list. Otherwise there could be leaks to media and the exiting of talent. 

Should Paul Weiss learn from Jones Day?

Just like its unique black box culture, that law firm has its own kind of public relations. For instance, it's not one for mea culpas. Unlike Chadbourne & Park did when settling with Kerrie Campbell, Jones Day didn't indicate it had learned useful lessons when gender bias lawsuit "Tolton, et al v. Jones Day" dissolved. 

Paul Weiss can, just as Jones Day does, also stand firm.

Or, given the amazing social skills of its well-connected chairperson Brad Karp, it can negotiate the whatevers.

What might guide us in watching this new game unfold in D.C. and New York is a classic in the theory and practice of human behavior. That's the book "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" by famous sociologist Erving Goffman.

Its takeaway is this: The person or the institution with the most power sets the "definition" - that is the rules - for what goes down. That covers everything from what issue is on the table to who speaks first to who gets to speak last. 

What will be of most interest in the next four years is who or what really has the power in America. 

Could it be elite law firm Paul Weiss?

The media?

The Biden Administration?

The radical movements? 

The control of law firms by non-lawyers?

BigTech? (Paul Weiss now is establishing a presence in Silicon Valley.)

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U.S. News & World Report Drops Standalone "Most Diverse Law School Ranking"

The influential U.S. News & World Report has taken a body blow to its brand. 

Long has it exercised total power over law schools through its annual rankings. 

That was then.

The game changer has been its about-face twice in its new standalone "Most Diverse Law Schools Ranking." More than 160 law school deans complained that the way the ranking was done did not factor in students of more than one race or ethic origin. 

In the end, reports Law.com, U.S. News & World Report tossed that metric. When the ranking of law schools is released on March 30th, that category won't be there.

Of course, that eats into the credibility of not only U.S. News & World Report but all systems ranking academic programs. Recently, elite business schools such as Harvard and Wharton refused to participate in the rankings.

It's not unthinkable that those in the loop will treat the data from U.S. News & World Report with some skepticism. In addition, the whole ranking game can be reconfigured - or even disappeared.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Lawyers - Before You Pitch Your Opinion-Editorial to The Washington Post or Publish It on LinkedIn ...

Like every aspect of communications, what is known as the "opinion-editorial" (or op-ed) keeps changing. 

Too often the high-fives that can result from having your op-ed published in establishment media, like The Wall Street Journal. or on an influential social network can wither into layers of regret. The tone, how the issue is argued, the kind of evidence put forth, user-friendliness or call to action can be very wrong. That is, in the court of public opinion,

This is especially the risk during this era of datafication. In this article published in Odwyerpr.com, I explain how datafication is changing every aspect of human existence. That includes what makes communications credible and engaging. 

The classic example of commentary which got stuck in pre-data had been HuffPost. It arrived on the scene in May 2005 - a prestigious new platform for liberal voices. They had their say. For public relations representatives, getting a placement for clients' op-eds in HuffPost was right up there with one in old-line establishment media. 

That was then. Then the mode of presentation seemed to harden into rant. Lots of conviction. Little data. Predictably, its parent Verizon put it out there for sale. Recently, its buyer BuzzFeed gutted staff.

The expectation for data, positioned and packaged to connect, has created a new set of rules for the op-ed genre. Also, post-Trump Administration, there is Passion Fatigue. Strong feeling is ceasing to move the needle on issues. Essentially the culture is exiting the age of 21st century Romanticism to what is beginning to mirror 18th century Englightenment.

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BigFour Getting Pushback for Toxicity in Workplace - Deloitte People and Purpose Head Dimple Agarwal Steps Down

"Deloitte U.K.'s deputy CEO [Dimple Agarwal] is stepping down amid reports of bullying, news that again focuses an uncomfortable spotlight on the supposedly toxic work culture at the Big Four accounting firms." - Michael Kapoor, Bloomberg Law, March 5, 2021. 

Not so long ago, at KPMG UK chair Bill Michael had announced he would be resigning. He had been outed for informing employees to stop moaning about the pandemic. Here are more details from an earlier article on that by Bloomberg Law.

Agarwal, unlike Michael, will be staying with Deloitte. However, her brandname has taken a hit and her behavior has thrown shade on the brandname of Deloitte. An aspect of what has been interpreted as bullying had been her chastising employees about their responses to what they perceived as too much work. She had been head of People and Purposes. 

What could play out from what's going down in the BigFour is that the best and brightest steer clear of them. Instead they put together their own boutiques and take on the incumbents. 

Meanwhile, it is time to read or reread the expose on global workplaces - "Dying for a Paycheck." It's by, get this, Stanford Business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. No, not all business schools are feeder pools for the next generation of bullying capitalists. Pfeffer has taken the cause mobile with podcasting.

Around the world, traditional capitalism is being questioned.

More and more professionals are coming to me for coaching because their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being can no longer hold up in their current career paths. Some are lawyers. Some already self-destructed and lost their law licenses. Some have pivoted to other career paths but admit they miss the power of practicing law.

The tragedy is that what has been outed at Deloitte and KPMG is just the tip of the iceberg. The toxicity is pervasive throughout much of work throughout the world. 

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

The Game - What They Failed to Teach You in Day Care (and Law.com has been embracing)

The game is an entity in itself. Not a platform for theory or a methodology for winning.

That's what those responsible for the next generation fail to teach them in daycare and grade school. The result is lost generation after lost generation when it comes to finding, holding and moving on to ways to make a very good living. 

In contrast, the embrace of that hardened reality - the game - is exactly what makes the James Patterson publishing franchise an over-the-top succcess.

The Patterson novel "Pop Goes The Weasel" is a prime example of that.  Geoffrey Shafer, who turns out to be a serial killer, sees his world in terms of a game. In order to identify who the miscreant is and to struggle to outwit the player's mastery, detective Alex Cross has to create a game mindset.

Incidentally, some attribute media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's sustained success to his studying at Oxford when game theory had been a dominant ideology. The context is one-dimensional. It's all the game.

The novel ends with Shafer's survival. He can start a fresh game because international law enforcement assumes he is dead. In the early tech world the version of that was this: Success in a startup allowed one to go on to play the next game. That was what it was supposed to be about. Fame? Wealth? Those aren't what counted.  

Of course, this concept that it's all a game might seem too harsh for a professional class whose nation's ethos had been God, Country and Coca-Cola. 

Well, it is, at least for public consumption. No applicant to law school could champion the game in the personal essay. In America, the court of public opinion is still shaped by those post-WWII values. In the court of law, the jury would turn against lawyers describing reality in terms of a game. Last night's episode of "Law & Order SVU" was intended to be raw because it was dealing with the game of fantasy sex. The rules are clear. But the fallout brutal, for all in the loop. However, the game is legal so it will go on. 

In early education, instead of bringing out the manufactured toys and someone else's games, savvy caretakers and teachers can nudge the next generation to identify what games are going on in the setting. How they can gain leverage. And how to define winning and losing.

All that, of course, would have to be positioned and packaged in the language of management consulting. Words shape thoughts and thoughts can result in action. That's why public relations is a growth industry. Some speculate the economy has become one of scarcity. It takes, well, unique game-playing to get a decent piece of the pie. But, embedded values, at least in the U.S., make such language verboten.

That could be loosening up, though. A sign of changing times is that much of Law.com is making transparent the game. For instance, there is a detailed Go-To list for everything in the game. Here is the Go-To for schools firms favor. 

More career coaches are guiding clients to 1) find their game and 2) ferret out the critical moves 3) be humble enough to do immediate course correction 4) build aggressively on success. Come to think of it, that seems to mirror the strategy and operation of top law firms. 

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