Law And More

Jim Cramer - Has He Crossed the Line from Analyst to Scaremonger?

Lines get crossed. 

Then there is usually no way back. 

During his interview with "The Street Live," stock market analyst Jim Cramer seemed to have gone that way. Mediaite reports that he seemed to be wild in speculating how many cases of Delta variant could occur in the near future. And instead of the fall being a time of reopening it could be play out as the reclosing. 

That's scary. This is a financial expert who supposedly is in-the-know. 

Can his following continue to follow him, expecting objective takes on market movements and more? 

To me he has crossed that line.

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Activision Blizzard's Workers Did Walk Out - Bobby Kotick's Crisis Management Was Too Little, Too Late

The drama at video-game creator Activision Blizzard hasn't let up. 

There had been a chance it would. That was when the head guy Bobby Kotick did a mea culpa and announced he had contracted with law firm Wilmer Hale to investigate allegations about a "frat house" culture.

Before that, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing had filed a lawsuit against the corporation for sexual misconduct and more. The more includes that only 20% of employees are female. Employees experienced Kotick's reponse to that lawsuit as tone-deaf. They threatened to walk out. 

Kotick had been struggling to prevent the employees from doing that yesterday. But walk they did.

The Guardian reports:

"Employees of Activision Blizzard, the video game company that produces World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, staged a walkout Wednesday morning to call for better working conditions ... Hundreds of workers gathered outside the company’s headquarters in Irvine, California, Wednesday morning while others, unable to attend in person, took part in a virtual protest."

Yes, that made a nice photo-op for the media.

Also, as Bloomberg reports, fans are threatening a boycott.

Meanwhile, the stock is still down. After the announcement of the lawsuit, it had plunged. Yesterday it had closed at 84.82. That was down from the 52-week high of 104.53.

So, what should other corporatons be pondering? They have to ask themselves:  Could we be the next Activision Blizzard? And what should we do about that?

The first stop should be, obviously, at your law firm. Cutural issues are pivoting into legal landmines. Activision Blizzard is the most recent example of that.

If your law firm is state-of-the-art as is Paul Weiss, it will have in-place a practice customized to help you navigate both internal and external crises as values keep shifting in business. The common moniker for that is ESG (Environmental Social and Governance). Essentially ESG focuses on what has been added to corporate responsibilty beyond the bottom line. That ranges from the well-being of employees to protection of the enviroment. 

Chaired by Brad Karp, Paul Weiss launched in April 2020 its ESG practice. Here is what it does: 

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

Note that its mission explicitly includes "crisis management."

The meme-in-waiting could be: Not being the next Activision Blizzard.

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Activision Blizzard - Beyond the Lawsuit, Threatened Walkout, $8 Billion Drop in Stock Price to Question of Prevention

Workplace culture, again.

And again there is the issue of a leader's being tone-deaf.

That's what Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick admitted to being, reports Bloomberg Law. He did that to prevent a walkout of employees tomorrow. Here is his letter to constituents, including the employees.

That walkout was planned as a response to the corporation's perceived lack of an appropriate response to the filing of a discrimination lawsuit.

That complaint is "California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard."

Here is a copy of the complaint.

And here is the press release on that filing from that Department.

Essentially, it is an allegation of an "Animal House" type workplace culture. The more up-to-date language for this, of course, is "frat-boy culture."

In addition, as is becoming increasingly standard, today Kotick contracted with law firm WilmerHale to conduct an internal review of the accusations in the lawsuit. Meanwhile also today, the stock lost 9% of its value, documents Insider. Since the filing of the lawsuit last Friday the market value of the video-gaming company has gone down almost $8 billion. Activision Blizzard is known for its popular video games such as "Overwatch," "Call of Duty," and "Candy Crush."

Some of those observing this rapid unraveling of a supposed cool video-game brandname as overdue. The alleged frat-boy antics were supposedly long embedded in the culture. 

The smart crisis management today by Kotick is a sign that the corporation can turn this around. Investors can probably expect the stock to begin rebounding.

Unlike equally tone-deaf Eric Grossman at Morgan Stanley and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, Kotick fixed his initial blunders. Currently he is following the fundamentals of crisis management. Not only did he do his mea culpa. He also took the action of authorizing a respected law firm to do the kind of investigation which mainstream America found out existed during the allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox. Those actions send the right signals. 

However, the elephant in the room is this question: Could all this have been prevented? And, will investors begin to expect preventive measures. If they have not been taken, the CEO could be fired. Already, reports The Wall Street Journal, that is happening. It is more likely that CEOs will lose their positions for a failure in managing a social issue than a financial one.

If a corporation such as Activision Blizzard has on retainer a law firm or multiple law firms which have ESG practices (Environmental Social and Enviromental) couldn't there have been proactive guidance and actions taken? That is, those heading the ESG practices alert the client to the risks - legal, political, branding, stockprice, and customer relations - related to both values and actual behavior. Next, there are recommended initiatives. 

Do the current roles of lawyers, at least in ESG practices, include that of culture coach?

Some ESG practices such as the one created in April 2020 at Paul Weiss by Brad Karp are structured to cover that kind of territory.  Following is the mission statement. Note the language and tone are about guidance. 

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

In addition, law firms such as Jenner & Block which have practices specifically focused on toxic workplaces also can come to provide proactive guidance. The target market for that would be businesses blind to how they are operating right on the cultural third rail. 

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Apollo Fund Rebrands - Wealth Also Requires Reputation Restoration and Lots of Help from ESG Practices

"Father, forgive me. I had acquired wealth."

Finally, sizes up Bloomberg, the Apollo Fund is moving out of the shadow of scandal. Investors are re-committed. 

The specifics of the previous Apollo brand tarnishing included media-grabbing tidbits like association with Jeffrey Epstein. 

Okay, Epstein was a bad guy.

But the intensity of the hit to the Apollo brand and its one-time head Leon Black is not really about that, is it? The root of the self-righteous hysteria seems to be this: America's ambivalence about wealth. Both institutional and personal. 

On the one hand, the Puritan ethos had the acquisition of wealth as a the play-out of the right moral values. The lack of it was interpreted as a lack of those. That's not gone away. Shame on you. You're not on the list of billionaires under-40.  

On the other hand, there is the embedded meme: Money is the root of all evil. Had Black not possessed such personal wealth he wouldn't have been able to have become involved in a romantic dalliance resulting in a lawsuit against him and a countersuit by him, right. We're certain of that. We praise MacKenzie Scott for giving away so much of her wealth.

The problem is that the ambivance (along with the certitude) is growing. That means so much confusion. 

On an individual level, the Hamptons had become a symbol of decadence. The media does photos of disgraced "Today" executive Matt Lauer you know where: the Hamptons. 

As for institutional wealth. Where to begin. Yes, folks want the returns on their investments in public companies to be amazing. Simultaneously they want the corporations producing them not to showcase wealth in terms of power and influence.

No, they shouldn't be dictating where the employees are working from.

No, they cannot choose whom they want to hire.

No they can't just operate the business when there is so much suffering in the world. And, the brass is getting paid too damn much. Wall Street? You don't want your kid training there as a junior analyst. And as a lawyer do you want to work at a BigLaw firm representing Wall Street? 

A proven out public relations firm like Edelman might have to be parachuted in to design a campaign for rebranding wealth as an economic-growth necessity. It's like the car industry is the 1950s. What was good for GM was good for the creation of the middle class. Only the creation of more wealth now will restore that middle class. Tighten that up as a message.

In addition, corporate leadership has to get smarter about identifying where the landmines are on this one and how to not step on them. That's the rub. What was a standard value a month ago is verboten yesterday and today who the hell knows. Check your values before you start announcing policies this morning.

That's why law firms' ESG (environmental, social, goverance) practices may be evolving into the most critical service to current clients and to prospective ones. That could be inventing a new category of what law firms do, in addition to the traditional transactional and litigation segments. Actually, that could be more important than the latter two. Will law firms come to declare that the real business that they are in is saving American capitalism? Part of that is figuring out social justice for the clients.

Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp, has captured that new core function of a law firm in how it has positioned and packaged its own ESG practice mission.

Essentially the language is code for how to succeed despite what's happening externally and internally (employee activism). The current cultural upheaval doesn't get corporations off the hook for producing over-the-top financial performance. But they better do that and communicate about that in ways that walk the line on the perception of wealth.

Here is the Paul Weiss mission:

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

Meanwhile, the Delta variant has introduced more uncertainty. Folks don't like that. Individuals and organizations with wealth will likely be taking it on the chin. There could be greater expectations of help from them as well as vilification of what they are assumed to be about. Give us your money and get out of our sight.

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The Laugh: Kamala Harris Should Know Better

The unique laugh of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has become a high-profile issue, reports MSN.

That shouldn't have happened.

Harris should have known how a vestige of pre-feminism is that females are not allowed to lean in to humor. At least not too much of it. The exceptions are those whose living is in the funny box. Think Tiny Fey.

And, like money, politics isn't funny. I hammer to my clients in financial services to hold any humor in their marketing materials.

Sure, SNL can make politics funny. But for the majority of both voters and those voted for or not voted for, the art and science of politics don't involve humor. Politics is serious business. Everything from tax rates to workers' rights depends on it.

In addition, Harris is not dealing from a position of strength. She has made many myriad mistakes. Also floating around is the growing assessment that she is not up to the job. Instead of showcasing mirth she should be adopting a persona of gravitas. 

If the White House had hired a presentation coach for Harris it should fire that vendor. Search for one more tuned in to what the mainstream expects a woman to look, speak, and smile but not laugh.

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The Language of Politics - No Country for The Gush

In the media, it's been the many nights of the long knives for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. 

That latest attack is in the headline by Daily Mail. It includes this: "Harris gushes"

Nobody wants hyperbole, not after all we have been through with COVID. Now there could be almost a total circling back to COVID with the Delta variant. Throw in inflation. And, are the progressives becoming too radical?

How can Harris get her act right, finally? She should study politicos with staying power. They range from Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama. They connect. They don't push for rhetorical effect.

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Allen & Co. Summer Camp for Billionaires - Bill Gates' Platform for Reputation Restoration?

At Allen & Co. Summer Camp for Billionaires, Bill Gates made the public admission that his divorce was his fault, reports the New York Post. 

Some observed that the mea culpa was emotional - that is, sincere.

Others weren't so sure. 

Given what we now know about Gates' inner darkness it's easy to speculate that Gates was delivering a performance. The objective: the first steps in reputation restoration. 

His brand is currently in tatters. However, he has the financial resources to buy the best public relations experts with specializations in comebacks. 

The fundamental in crisis communications is for the miscreants to admit in public their "sins." 

The next move is the creation of a plan for reform. 

Will we next be hearing that Gates is conferring with a psychotherapist, spiritual counselor or life coach? 

Soon enough there could be a long article about him in The New Yorker. The message would be: Gates has learned much since the filing of divorce papers. 

America, as the cliche goes, is the land of second chances. So, of course, Gates could catapult back to being a respected leader. 

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BigLaw - Of Course, You're Going to Recruit for Talent on TikTok (also beef up your social-justice cred)

"Some lawyers [such as Joanne Molinari] at Kirkland & Ellis, Morrison & Foerster and other huge firms explore their interests outside the legal profession, while others demystify the world of Big Law on the app. The support of their heavyweight firms may signal a cultural shift amid a scramble for talent in a traditionally straight-laced industry." - Tiana Headley, Bloomberg Law, July 12, 2021.

Obviously - to use that common expression in courtroom processes - this "opens the door" to BigLaw law firms embracing the promotional horsepower of TikTok. That applies to everything, from recruiting talent to differentiating themselves in the social-justice niche.

You bet, have a few summers chat up on TikTok what they are getting out of their Zoom experience. Highlight how partners loop in on a Zoom briefing. They share their unique experiences with antitrust. They even speculate with the summers: Could the Biden Administration be overreaching with how it is reconfiguring the role of the FTC?

Seasoned lawysers who had been laterals poached from another firm can also be loose and real on TikTok. They open up about how to go about career mobility in the legal sector. What are the pitfalls? And how they are damn sure they have bypassed so many of them by coming to Law Firm X. The leadership at X - for they are jolly good fellows, they really are. And take that from a lawyer who's been around the bend. 

Social justice branding, as Bloomberg Law pounds, currently is a prerequisite for many players in BigLaw. The challenge is developing unique positioning. What are your social justice activities saying about you and your law firm? In this, BigLaw can't be a monolith. A generic "we do good" - smirksmirk. 

An early adopter in social-justice initiatives with its Coronavirus Relief Center, Paul Weiss, headed by Brad Karp, might be thought of as "owning" that space. At least for now. But there is no dynastic right in any aspect of social justice.

Paul Weiss can reinforce its mission by staging on TikTok tutorials about the lessons it has learned about moving the dial on reducing suffering since it had invented the Center. That was seemingly light years ago when COVID first upended the world. Not all approaches to doing good are equally effective or efficient. 

Meanwhile marketers and public relations representatives in BigLaw should be designing public information campaigns on TikTok about how to think and talk like a lawyer. That's both the art of critical thinking and the in-the-trenches presentation of legal points. The latter is essential often even when trying to return an item at Best Buy. I recently arrived locked and loaded with legal language at the Sierra Vista, Arizona, Best Buy store. I contended it had sold the wrong printer cartridge. The "case" was "settled" with a store credit. 

Reflect on this: Part of the disruption in the legal sector involves empowering Everyman and Everywoman to have confidence about managing legalities w/o the traditional pricey delivery of legal services. Sure, Everyman/Everywoman, take a peek at those online services, before coming to us. Yeah, law firms, also tell TikTok viewers about your captive services. That will help them feel a part of what is going on in the legal sector. "Court TV" establishes that same kind of connection.

Law firms not on TikTok could come across as hiding behind a mystique about eliteness. Not at all good. 

Ever since the white-shoe firm Jones Day seemed to play it all wrong pitching that way to a blue-collar jury in the Rhode Island Lead Paint Class Action Public Nuisance trial (2005 - 2006) that kind of way to face a jury or the world has been suspect. Law firms can no longer remain an aloof subculture. They have to be a transparent institution. 

Sure, elite might sell to Wall Street clients and so many transactional accounts but in much of litigation and in the court of public opinion its shelf life has expired. 

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Maria Bartiromo - Greek Chorus Chants, "Beware Your Long Game"

"[Maria] Bartiromo didn’t offer any pushback [during 'Sunday Morning Futures' interview on Fox] to the myriad of demonstrably-false claims Trump put forward throughout the interview, and it’s unclear where exactly the speculation she brought up is actually coming from. Following the insurrection, Bartiromo — who has been widely called out for backing Trump’s conspiracies about the 2020 election — pushed the bogus claim that Democrats 'infiltrated' the Capitol riot and disguised themselves as Trump supporters." - Ken Meyer, Mediaite, July 11, 2021.

As with all career unravelings, this collapse of the credibility of a one-time female pioneer in television financial reporting (we recall "Money Honey") is scary.

Could it happen to us?

What decisions are we making now which could wind up pushing us into being caricatures of the professional self we had been?

Is a comeback possible?

So, the default is to struggle to analyze the tipping points in Bartiromo's slide into irrelevance. 

Did aging have a part in that? Born on September 11, 1967, she will be 54 next fall. The world of media can be brutal in general and more so for females. In 2014, I conceded I had aged out of the Manhattan media scene and high-tailed it a professional setting with less age bias.

In sizing up Bartiromo, we also get it that conservative politics pushes its supporters into an orthodoxy. In that box there is little wiggle room for thought leadership. In 2050, no one will likely be pondering a seminal article or book by Bartiromo.

And there is the backstory of a loyalty to the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes. His own career ended with allegations of sexual terrorism. What's puzzling is why she took that position of extreme support. Had she lost confidence in her ability to navigate the changing world of financial reporting without that kind of platform under her? That platform, of course, was the bridge to Trumpism. 

Cynics and pragmatists will observe: The aging Bartiromo still has work. That's a testament to her ability to survive in a tough highly competitive industry. Right.

Maybe not. 

Those focused on assessing a legacy could position and package the Bartiromo saga as a kind of Greek tragedy of hubris, with a heaping side disk of myopia. One can almost hear the Greek Chorus chanting: Maria, beware your long game.

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POTUS EO on Competition - Ethos of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"

Earnest

Visionary

And, in terms of implementation through more than a dozen federal agencies, a test of the political and management skills of the Biden Administration.

That's the Executive Order on Competition, which you can read here. Its 72 initiatives cover everything from non-compete clauses imposed on low-wage workers to mergers. 

The platitude applied to sum up its ethos is to circle back to the priorities of "trustbuster" Teddy Roosevelt.

However, the more insightful way to capture what it is about is to resurrect the spirit and the messaging of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

Essentially that 1939 film, directed by Frank Capra, celebrates the power of doing the right thing on behalf of Everyman (or what Joe Biden refers to as the "little guy). The movie's protagonist Jefferson Smith represents the ultimate whistleblower about what has gone so wrong in America. 

In the Capra world, those noble causes win out. Like now, back then it was a time of crisis. The background for "Mr. Smith" was The Great Depression. Now, the times are about the uncertainties of the Post-COVID economy (along with the return of COVID), surging inflation and hardened polarization.

Watching "Mr. Smith" this weekend can be uplifting. Downright inspiring. 

However, this weekend the little guy whom Biden is determined to help could be wondering what really will play out from the 72 initiatives. And how much will it improve the life of the little guy? 

Go to various "listening posts" around America, such as the check-out lines in Walmart (I take in what those I coach say), and it's likely that what will be picked up is the sense of powerlessness.

The tone and content mirror the resignation of those who endured the Frank Hague political machine in the mid 20th century. What resonates in my consciouness is the mantra: You can't fight City Hall. The residents of Hudson County, New Jersey, such as my immigrant family, accepted their powerlessness. Everything from jobs to getting your mother in a nursing home had been determined by the Machine.

Does the Biden Administration have the little people behind this EO? Do the people believe things can change?  Or will the loudest voice in the corridors of power be those of entrenched interests? The lobbyists reportedly are already busy conjuring up counterstrategies.

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