Law And More

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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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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Is Cutting Your Fee/Price Patriotic? - Honeywell Requests 30% Reductions from Some Vendors

Save the economy.

That's the subhead on the U.S. campaign to save the lives of those infected with the novel coronavirus.

So, price/fee cuts could be positioned and packaged as downright patriotic. You bet, they are in the public interest. 

If corporations such as Honeywell play it smart they can orchestrate initiatives for extreme reductions in whatever from vendors.

Already, reports MarketWatch, Honeywell has requested that some of its suppliers cut prices by as much as 30%. In addition, it is asking for extended payment terms. 

Meanwhile, law firms such as Venable, are struggling to save lawyer jobs through pay cuts. At Venable, the interesting wrinkle on that is that the cuts are sliding scale. Interestingly, Venable states such a measure is "proactive." That is, it is sending the message that it isn't acting because of any financial distress but because of an abundance of caution. 

Branding, sales, attractiveness as a merger partner, the ability to attract talent - all of these depend on how businesses, including those in the legal loop, are messaging during this global economic crisis. 

What is in the public interest has become the loudest voice in the room.

Saving the economy is in the public interest.

Saving companies is in the public interest.

Saving the jobs of lawyers is in the public interest. 

As the old saying goes, crisis is opportunity. Organizations can gain high brand equity by doing what's in the public interest and communicating that in a way that engages. For many law firms, the latter is a tough nut to crack. They tend to turn inward and focus on themselves. The communications come across as self-serving. 

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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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April 1, 2020 in Year of COVID-19: The Sheriff Doesn't Ring Twice

 

It's come to this: rationing of emergency medical care. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that at NYU Langone Health, Robert Femea gave ER front lines "sole discretion" for who is put on a ventilator. They also have permission to withhold futile incubation. In that decision-making loop the Ok, Boomer could be assessed as, crudely put, not a good bet for treating.

So goes another day in the coronavirus pandemic.

Andrew Cuomo becomes increasingly attractive as a presidential candidate.

His approval rating, depending on the latest presser, is around 90%. On CNN, his news-anchor brother Chris Cuomo brought up the possibility of Andrew as next U.S. president.

Among the many edges Cuomo has is that the public trusts him. That is so much so that he can make errors of judgment and is quickly forgiven.

Celebrity culture might be ending.

Folks are too scared about dying from the virus to give a damn what Ellen DeGeneres throws out there as guidance or supposed inspiration. 

It's posited that celebrity culture began with Teddy Roosevelt's flamboyant daughter Alice. The Ok, Boomer might remember the catchy song associated with her "Alice Blue Gown.'

Instead of celebrities America is embracing those ordinary people who serve in necessary functions.

On social networks, there are lots of likes for and comments about the workers at Aldi. We cheer that they are receiving "hazard" pay for manning the grocery lines. 

Tomorrow, April 1st, is THE DAY.

That's when many bills, including rent, are due.

As a public service, some corporations are letting it be known that they are open to negotiation. For example, when I called into my Bank of America Visa card about rewards (you bet, those can help out plenty with balances), the automated messaging was front loaded with this: The powers that be invite discussions about alternate ways to approach payment.  

But there are businesses which might not be concerned about the branding implication of taking swift action against those not paying their bills on time. After GM shuttered the Lordstown, Ohio plant, evictions from apartments were routine. And the sheriff doesn't ring twice.

Not everyone is in a financial pickle - lessons learned. 

There were individual catastrophes before The Time of Coronavirus. In 2003, I had lost my nest egg, business, and mind. Here is my book on that, including lessons learned, which can be downloaded free. 

Not only did I resolve never again to live above my means. I embraced what's now called "radical frugality" or "minimalism." Then I referred to it as a "vow of poverty." In the front lines of that psychic (and behavioral) shift had been cognitive therapist, based in West Hartford, Connecticut, Amy Karnilowicz. 

The results included going from six-figure debt to having a surplus of income at the end of most months and maintaining an investment portfolio.

Takeaway: Research how to live cheaply. It can be done, even in America. My most recent initiative has been to donate my automobile to Kars4Kids. That, according to Nerd Wallet, can save someone an average of $8,469 a year. I had been at that fork in the road: Buy a new car or figure out how to get from Points A to Points B, C, and D without a car.

Some can enjoy the pause and some bump up against the tipping point of despair.  

On social networks, brandname lawyer Norm Pattis (he had defended Connecticut's Fotis Dulos) reflects that slowing down is not a bad thing. The courthouses are closed so he and other lawyers are not cranking out the usual lawyerly things like briefs and aren't appearing before a jury.

However, Pattis is self-employed. He is positioned to manage his financial everything. The self-employed have more wiggle room in hard times. 

Lawyers employed by law firms aren't so fortunate. Recently Womble Bond Dickinson laid off junior lawyers. Reed Smith is slowing down cash distributions to partners. 

Ironically, those lawyers losing jobs might find themselves scrambling for help, just like the former servers in restaurants and the clerks in department stores.

They should click into the Paul Weiss Coronavirus Relief Center, created by lawyers working pro bono. It simplifies the mazes for help.

Red tape can be daunting. It could also be the tipping point into despair.

On an individual basis, pitch in with helping those allergic to red tape to get the information and aid they need. Recently, readers who are gig workers have been asking me how to apply for unemployment. That's permitted by the CARES Act. Here is my public service post on that development for contract workers and the self-employed. 

Allow ourselves to change. 

The New York liberal in me is being forced to re-think values. Where I am living now (very affordably) is not a coronavirus hotspot. But an hour away is one. Governors, mayors, health officials, and medical personnel are deciding whether the hospitals here will be open for those from the hotspot. 

This time my mindset is the conservative NIMYB. That is, not in my background. So far the cases of the virus and the deaths are low in this county. Allowing those from a hotspot to be treated here could be the game-changer.

"At my age," as the saying goes, I never expected to have to be "tested" so severely. After I bounced back in 2004 from my individual year in hell I assumed I was entitled to a smooth ride. HaHa. 

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The End of Legalese, and Done with New York Accent

Daily Andrew Cuomo gives a presser. 

Because he is doing such an amazing job managing the COVID-19 in his state, his New York accent has become cool.

It's the same way in which the young dashing John F. Kennedy made the Boston accent fashionable.

And when English majors had dominated in liberal arts colleges a British accent had enormous status. Those students who spent a semester in England would return with their clumsy efforts to simulate that British accent.

In addition, blunt - which is common in New York - has become okay. That could catch on even in the rhetorically cautious corporate sector.

Who knows, lawyers and law student might even talk straight. That could be the end of legalese.

Before this, those who had their eyes on success would work to acquire the midwestern way of enunciation and the safe semantics. Some even would consult with a speech therapist for accent reduction if, for example, they had grown up in New York or southern states.

If the Draft Cuomo initiative gains traction and the current governor of New York becomes U.S. president, there could be a rush to acquire the New York accent and shake off the socialization of being overly diplomatic. 

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Feuds, Ranging from Farrow/Allen to Dershowitz/Boies: Refuge from Exhaustion of COVID-19

Cain and Able

Families of Romeo and Juliet

Jack O'Dwyer and the PRSA

Harry/Meghan and The Firm

And, the Farrow Clan and Woody Allen.

Feuds are a mainstay of civilization. In difficult times they are solid platforms for gossip. Nice distraction.

In this era of COVID-19, we need lots more of that. Less Netflix. Less following the news and emails from marketers about the pandemic. Less  losing trust in leadership (with the exception of Andrew Cuomo and where is Joe Biden). 

Along the way, feuds can provide lucrative work for those in public relations and law. Those sectors, just like most of professional services during the pandemic, need the business. The Ford mechanic in my residential complex is among the very few currently making a good living. (I have been saved by those taking out sponsored content on my three syndicated blogs.)

What is most titillating about feuds is this: Entities such as the New York Post take sides, with great passion. That's lots of fun. I had enjoyed supporting O'Dwyer against the PRSA. Most of us who drift into the loop have fairly boring lives. 

Usually both those sides claim they have the upper hand. 

But in the latest round between the Farrows and Allen, the latter might be winning. Not only did he get his memoir "Apropos of Nothing" published. Most know the story of how Hachette backed out and Arcade rode to the rescue. 

In addition, the book is doing well. On Amazon, it ranks a wonderful high: #529. Of the 66 reviews, 76% give it a 5. Only 4% give it a 1.

Most importantly, it allows Allen to raise questions about Saint Mia, supposedly Mother Earth and Global Do-Gooder.

That mirrors how Christopher Hitchens was able to raise questions about Mother Teresa. Many recall his iconoclastic book "The Missionary Position."

No, that didn't destroy Mother Teresa. But it performed enough brand deflation that when she died, around the same time as Princess Diana, the world didn't kick into universal mourning. Interestingly, when Hitchens himself died there was universal mourning.

In the U.S., Allen might be, to borrow that term from "John Wick 3," excommunicado.

 But his work is doing well enough in Europe.

He did extricate himself from Mia. Anyone from what might be a dysfunctional family system understands how difficult that is. I  broke away twice, only to go back, with great regrets. The bonds can be the jaws of spiritual death.

His marriage seems stable.

He can continue to do what he loves: Make films.

And, he made it to age 85. No self-destruction through the usual suspects.

The peril to the new front line of the Farrow faction - investigative reporter Ronan Farrow - is that the dynamics can become all-too-consuming.

The attention shifts from work per se to maintaining the feud.

The branding becomes cartoonish as it tends to do in so many human conflicts. Think about one-time superlawyers Alan Dershowitz and David Boies. They duke it out like out-of-shape former prize fighters. 

Sad, also.

Talented Ronan can wind up that way. 

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Law Firms - The Bad Politics of Layoffs

Man the Political Animal has replaced Economic Man.

At least in the corridors of power. And, much of the media and on Main Street.

Therefore, for law firms, layoffs are not a wise way to manage a 2008-like crisis. Especially if those reductions in force impact the Little Guy. The Little Guy can include both staff and junior lawyers. 

Essentially that was the message from the Law.com podcast focused on two issues:

1) Is the legal sector sliding into another steep downturn, much like or worse than that of The Great Recession?

2) If so, what might be the emerging best practices? Beware, the old ways could get law firms branded as The Enemy. 

The guests were Bill Brandt, founder of DSI, and Keith Wetmore of Major, Lindsay & Africa. 

The layoff issue is filled with complexity. 

On the one hand, the current situation of across-the-board remote work makes most of administrative staff not needed. In addition, as those following the business of law firms know, there had been lots of hiring of lawyers during the recovery. Overcapacity is a reality.

On the other hand, both government leaders and the media have made it their business to highlight the tragedy of workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronarvirus. The pain is beyond money. In America, we are our jobs. That's that.

On PBS, thought leaders have pointed out that in other nations such as Denmark the approach during this crisis was to do whatever was/is needed to keep businesses open and people employed.

In the U.S., businesses frequently had no choice but to shut down and let workers go. Post-crisis, it will take time for those businesses to rebuild. Anyone who has naively taken a break from a career gets it: Re-entry is tough, maybe impossible.

The alternates to layoffs are many. They range from requesting extensions of lines of credit to instituting furloughs. Through the latter, workers can collect government-funded unemployment compensation in the interim. That expense is not on the law firm. Then, when the timing is right, they can circle back to their jobs.

I would add that, once back on the job, they can be trained to perform the functions that the new normal demands. Both Brandt and Wetmore hammer that the legal sector will never return to what it had been before COVID-19. The scope of this assault on business-as-usual is driving law firms to rethink all their processes.

Interestingly, in The Atlantic, Ed Yong presents the post-pandemic world order. He envisions the overall shift to be so profound that babies born today will be entering a whole new chapter in the history of mankind.

Consequently, they should be labeled "Generation C." What the world is after the coronavirus is all they know. The analogy is  Generation Z, digital natives. They never experienced an analog culture. As a result, just about every institution had to change to accommodate their reality. Generation C's reality won't be that of Q1 2020.

Another recommendation from the podcast, also related to the politics of The Time of COVID-19, is that law firms should be creating and transmitting positive messages.

Yes, the thought leadership kind.

Yes, both internally and to other constituencies such as clients.

Yes, law firm leadership should be picking up the phone and contacting clients on a very human level. Let them discuss their anxieties. Old-fashioned hand-holding? Corny? Probably, but really needed right now. Old is new again. 

Law firm Paul Weiss has already gone beyond that. It has moved to the next step: taking action.

Paul Weiss' Chairman Brad Karp created the pro-bono initiative Coronavirus Relief Center. 

The shorthand way of describing that is a kind of UX design that guides the public through the maze of what's available to help them during COVID-19. The configuration simplifies and streamlines.

Anyone who has struggled to resolve a billing issue, for example, with an insurance company or hospital, understands the extreme frustration.

Here is how Karp describes the initiative in his own words. 

How will the law firm be structured and what will be its values in the future? 

First the dust has to settle before even the experts on the business of law can speculate about that. 

Meanwhile, the 19th century guideline for law firms to embrace is the meme from the novels of Charles Dickens. No matter what ordeals his characters had to endure in the Industrial Revolution what got them through was what he called "the milk of human kindness." That held off despair, no matter what.

Sheltered-in-place, law firm leaders might download Kindle versions of Dickens' novels like "David Copperfield."

During this unique kind of economic upheaval, brands, including those of law firms, need to soften. Not harden. Generation C will be living in a very different kind of capitalism than dominated before COVID-19. That is beginning to configure right now.

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U.S. President Andrew Cuomo - Looking More and More Likely

"Some Democrats are openly talking up New York governor Andrew Cuomo whose profile has soared during the crisis [COVID-19], as a Biden stand-in." - John Fund, NR, March 25, 2020. 

How can we gauge how much traction the draft-Cuomo initiative will have? 

The answer is obvious: Check how the conservative and highly influential Drudge Report positions and packages the governor of New York.

If the traction is intensifying, the Drudge Report headlines will feature any and all negatives associated with how Cuomo is handling the New York state COVID-19 catastrophe.

On the left hand side will be links to dirt being dug up on Cuomo.

And expect, as had been the situation with former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, unflattering photos of Cuomo. Some could be photoshopped.

There could be:

Overly ambitious Cuomo 

Haggard-looking Cuomo

Sick (maybe with COVID-19) Cuomo

Angry Cuomo

Cuomo when part of the Kennedy Tribe

Cuomo in the political wilderness

Meanwhile, losing traction has been Biden. The most politically brutal description of his current status is "a melting ice cube." 

Count on the Drudge Report to shift from documenting moments of supposed dementia for Biden to rhetorical moments such as alleged tone-deafness of Cuomo.

Let Campaign 2020 restart.

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