Law And More

When First Daugthers Are No Longer in Protected Category

First, Bill Clinton rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The return of Monica Lewinsky to the media resurrected memories of The Intern, The Starr Report, and The Impeachment.

Hillary Clinton has never been a masterful politico. During her two unsuccessful runs for president she made a lot of the wrong moves.

Both are fading from the spotlight.

But they leave behind their daughter Chelsea Clinton as scapegoat. Like her mother, she has no presence. She isn't skilled as a charmer.

So, she is quite the convenient target.

Last night the members of the media gleefully piled on.

It was at the NYU grieving event for the New Zealand victims of what appears to be a hate massacre. Student who is a senior Leen Dweik was the loudest voice in room (and on streaming video).

She accused Chelsea of stirring the cauldron of hate. Specifically, it was Chelsea's accusations that U.S. House Representative Ilham Omar's remarks were anti-Semitic. Here, in the New York Post, is an example of the coverage.

The target, lacking her father's pull force with people, was unable to push back. She offered the kind of apology that intensified the attack.

Of course, there has been an outbreak of tweets. Some were supportive of Chelsea. Others recommended that she get the hell off the national stage. She simply doesn't have what the role demands.

The next few months experts in politics and public relations will be closely following and interpreting Chelsea's moves.

Probably not since the First Daughters in the Lyndon Johnson Administration has one been so unpopular. Meanwhile Jenna Bush is thriving in network television. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

"20/20" Special on Elizabeth Holmes - Flashbacks of Andrew Bachman

"20/20" did a masterful job of telling a story tonight.

However, not until Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes takes a guilty plea in criminal charges or goes on trial will there be anything new. Just about everything presented in the two-hour narrative already had been presented, in one format or another. 

The lack of new pieces to the puzzle of who Holmes is as a human being and as a business leader did, however, give us in the audiences plenty of opportunity to reflect on the Holmes types we have encountered in our own careers.

My favorite to focus on in trying to figure out has been Andrew Bachman. Here is his story. When a student at Babson he put together with other classmates the startup Tattoo Media. Later it sold for $60 million. The fame was fast and intense, including an invitation to the White House. 

The problem was that the enterprise involved mobile cramming. First the FTC parachuted in. Bachman settled essentially by liquidating his assets. Later, when the Southern District of New York prosecutors moved in, Bachman took a guilty plea. 

Like Holmes, Bachman was from an upper middle class background. There was no need for him to go rogue for a rags to riches grab. So, I have to conclude that what Holmes allegedly did and what Bachman admitted guilt for had to have been an "inside job." That is, it had to have roots in what was their unique internal wiring. 

Is there any way employees, investors, and consumers can spot that ahead of time? Likely not.

The wiring seems to comes with the gifts of charisma and effective marketing. There will be many more Holmes and many more Bachmans. 

For years, I blamed myself for not picking up that Bachman was, to put it gently, "off" and allowing myself in ghostwriting for him to be bullied and more. Now I get it: He was very good at what he was up to in the world.

So was Holmes. There are probably 10 more of her kind pulling off the same sorts of business charades. Even if what she was conjuring up hadn't been fraud, it was a business failure that cost many a great deal. That ranged from money to careers. Because of the broken brand Theranos is, many of the former employees are struggling to find new jobs. Here CNN chronicles those professional tragedies. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

$2 Billion "College Counseling" Industry on the Defensive

Only time will tell if the ethical players in the $2 billion "college counseling" industry will survive the current elite college admissions scandal.

Right now, as The Boston Globe discusses, the entire industry is on the defensive.

Firms in the loop range from Top Tier Admissions to Ivy Coach. Mastermind of the scam, Rick Singer named his enterprise The Key.

But even before the outing of the downright illegal practices in the admissions game, the industry was vulnerable to scrutiny. It frequently operates on a stealth basis. It's unregulated. To hang out a shingle or become an employee in it, you don't need a license or any specific credential. 

In itself, the scandal can drive clients away. Parents might not want to risk getting involved with a shady operation. If that is outed, both they and their child could be punished. And who knows which ones are totally legit. The line between what is ethical and legal and unethical and illegal is blurry. For example, how far can the counselor go in coaching the high school student for the college interview? 

The nervousness in the industry is palpable. A few of those in this niche have checked my LinkedIn profile.

This week I have been publishing a series of articles about the businesses and individuals who ghostwrite the personal essay part of the application. They don't coach the direction of the essay. They don't edit. They do a total ghostwrite.

In addition, I have recommended that the FBI do stings on those term paper ghostwriting mills. The customers for this service - that is, college students - don't lift a finger except to place the order and authorize payment. Everything ranging from the strategic planning to the research to the writing is done by the service. The owners of the firms, the ghostwriters, and the students should all be prosecuted. 

Both kinds of cheating are currently big global businesses. Yes, the stings should be international, just like on television shows. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

 

David Solomon Begins ReShaping Goldman Sachs in His Image with Layoffs

Already, 65 Goldman Sachs' employees have been laid off in the New York office.

Others in trading and sales also have been lopped off.

So kicks off the David Solomon era at that iconic financial institution.

Sources, reports the New York Post, predict lots more heads will roll. From an investment banking background, Solomon is likely to focus cuts in trading. Also, fixed income could be a target since trading in that niche is down 18%.

When there is a change in leadership even high performers can fill with angst about everything from job security to promotability. The priorities can shift. Politics also rules.

Members in the business media will continue to watch Solomon's moves to connect the dots about what kind of culture will emerge at Goldman Sachs. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

That Was Fast - Class Action Lawsuit Filed in "EliteAdmissionsGate"

The plaintiff class includes those rejected in their applications for admission to elite universities and/or who contend the value of their current or coming degree could erode because of this scandal.

The lawyer filing this class action lawsuit is John Medler Jr. of Irvine, California. Here is a copy of the 30-page complaint.

That represents the first bit of litigation filed after the outing of what could be labeled "EliteAdmissionsGate."

The defendants include 7 universities, ranging from Sanford to Yale, mastermind of the scam Rick Singer, and the companies he had been associated with. Here are more details from Courthouse News. 

A reality in this injustice is that applicants, many middle class or lower income, have to pony up about 80 bucks to fill out an application for Yale. Then, as plaintiff Erica Olsen laments, she was turned down. A less qualified applicant could have been admitted based on fraudulent credentials.

Many more lawsuits could be filed.

This scandal could be the tipping point in the rage against the Gilded Age players and perceived inequality.

Could there be an analogue of the feelings associated with the Russian Revolution? Will those who view themselves as "screwed" in a rigged economic system occupy the mansions of the entitled in Greenwich, Connecticut?

I had published a comic novel "The Guy From Greenwich." Now out of print, it had been #60 on Amazon in 2009. 

An economic slowdown, with declining employment opportunities, could increase that rage, becoming a solid platform for filing lawsuits.

Today The Wall Street Journal reports that economic experts are cutting their projections for GDP growth and job creation for Q1 2019. Already I have felt that in my business. There is an upsurge in the demand for marketing content, which is standard at the beginning of a recession. Also, in my specialized niche of career-transition content there is an uptick in orders. 

Should graduates of low-ranked universities and colleges not be able to land jobs they could easily be recruited for class actions in litigation as well as days of rage. The last time the latter broke out en masse had been during the counterculture. No aspect of the establishment was safe from the reformers. The mantra was: Power to the People. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

What Should Be Next Sting for FBI: College Term Paper Research/Ghostwriting Mills

Funny business during the college admissions process is just the tip of the iceberg.

The more common area of paying to play is researching and ghostwriting (including inserting footnotes) term papers, essays, and even supposed creative writing exercises. This is where the FBI should conduct its next sting: those ghostwriting mills. 

Some are legit, that is, they stay in the box of okay ethics and the law. They provide struggling students with coaching on how to approach a writing project and then direction during the composition process.

This service, advertising for academic writers on the Boston part of Craigslist help-wanted. Or, this service could cross the line over to actually involving the "customer," that is the student paying for the service, in a type of unethical and illegal deception.

The large amount of educational loan money available to any individual student finances this. 

The game can go like this. The professor assigns a 2,500-word research paper on the theory that Hamlet in that famous drama by William Shakespeare is a sociopath. It must have at least five sources. The student passes that "job description" to the ghostwriting service, which then appears on a dashboard, with the fee which will paid to the writer. The freelance ghostwriter, with appropriate background, then clicks on a kind of "will do." And, the students no only cheat the system. They cheat themselves of the training in critical thinking and composition they are paying six figures to acquire.

The amazing thing is that not many professors are picking up that so many projects submitted for a grade are ghostwritten.

Time for the FBI to ensnare the owners of the services, the ghostwriters, and the students. A big chunk of corruption will be squeezed out of higher education.

Perhaps this sting can be featured on Dick Wolf's new series "FBI." It has been renewed for another season. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

"EliteAdmissionsGate" - Next Shoes to Drop (the theatre is over)

The theatre is over in what could be labeled "EliteAdmissionsGate."

Yeah, there was that arrest at dawn with guns drawn.

A prominent lawyer has been put on leave.

The mastermind took a guilty plea.

Members of the media now are focusing on three things within the universities affected:

What is their legal exposure. What did they know, what should they have known. Expect resignations. The General Counsel will be busy.

Possible civil suits filed against them, including by students who had been rejected for admission. Any clever plaintiff lawyer could troll for members of a class action lawsuit.

How what is and ongoing fallout will be positioned and packaged by the best public relations experts. Currently, the institutions of higher education are making lame claims that the allegations do not reflect their values. Meanwhile, members of the media have been hammering questions about how Jared Kushner got into Harvard. Did his father's donation give him an unethical edge? So much for values. (Harvard was not involved in the sting.)

In addition, already, brandname universities have been feeling the legal and public relations heat from lawsuits for alleged sexual harassment. 

For example, a high-profile one for $70 million has been filed against Dartmouth for alleged systemic sexual harassment. Plaintiffs contend Dartmouth was aware of the misconduct and did not take appropriate action. Plaintiffs are represented by powerhouse Sanford Heisler Sharp. 

An even more threating situation, though, is the national decline in confidence for "investing" in college degrees. Part of that, documents Boston Magazine, is that rising tuition has been a tipping point in getting parents to re-think how to launch their children into marketable lines of work. Trade schools have loomed as alternates. 

Of course, the elite schools involved in this scandal won't be shutting down, at least not any time soon. But across America, other institutions of higher learning are. Education Dive is maintaining a body count

The bottom line: More parents and their offspring can conclude the academic game is rigged by the rich and powerful. Therefore, they should use their common sense and seek career credentials elsewhere and that are less expensive. Moreover, a lack of high school loan debt would catapult the economy into another boom. The iGen can buy houses and put several SUVs in the garage. 

Blue collar career paths could be the new cool. 

As Fortune explains, for example, there is a shortage of truck drivers.

Training for that line of work in Northeast Ohio requires about eight weeks. The tuition is about $7,000. Loans are available. According to ZipRecruiter, the median pay for long-haul drivers is $70,727.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Sins of the Father - Legacy (and earning power) of Gordon Caplan

In both the courts of public opinion and the court of law Gordon Caplan is allegedly in big trouble.

The nation tends to view him as an arrogant wealthy guy who assumed he could buy what others have to work hard to get. The legal community is probably ripped that he throws shade on all lawyers. 

His legal mess could result in an irreversible loss of high income. His financial future depends on how his legal situation plays out. Not only could his job blow up. He could have to surrender his license to practice law. Also, will there be jail time? Inmate jobs pay peanuts.

All this brings back the biblical notion of how the sins of the father haunt future generations. In "Genesis," Adam screwed up. Look at the struggle we his children still deal with. Yes, because of his sin, it has been Paradise Lost.

Caplan's daughter is a sitting duck for bullying, on social media such as Instagram and in-person. Her own children, if she retains hope of better days, can also be doomed. Members of the media don't let stories go. They re-visit the situation obsessively. 

Perhaps this saga is a medieval morality tale. Embedded in it is a warning that the universe mandates humans stay in the box. Wandering beyond the box can bring down tragedy for the children.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Gordon Caplan, Co-Chair of Willkie Farr - "AdmissionsGate" Allegations Tip of HigherEd Cheating Iceberg

How sweet it is.

The 1% and the few tiers under it have been ensnared in a massive scandal.

Essentially, it's about exotic forms of cheating to have someone admitted to an elite institution of higher education.

Here is a copy of the indictment.

Here is the media coverage.

The alleged scam could go by the name "AdmissionsGate" or "AthleteGate."

The latter refers to the allegation that former Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith "billed" at about $400k an assignment creating faux credentials for non-athlete applicants to be admitted as athletes. 

Among those accused has been co-chair of law firm Willkie Farr - Gordon Caplan. Allegedly he ponied up $75k to have a professional test-taker sit in for his daughter. Here are more details from Kathryn Rubino at Abovethelaw.com.

About 40 have been swept up into this mess - directly. More will be - indirectly. Likely presidents and deans will have to resign for not ensuring adequate checks and balances in the admissions process.

But, hell, this particular high-end scam is just the tip of the iceberg in college admissions as well as then navigating toward being awarded a degree.

There is a growing global industry which owns the personal essay niche. That statement by an applicant is an important part of the package presented.

Here is the article I published with tips on how applicants can approach this writing task. The article assumes the applicants will accept the ethical responsibility to put together the personal statement themselves.

Across the world, fewer are doing that. Clever firms and individuals in this niche position and package their services as coaching and editing. They mandate the customer put something down on paper. Then they overhaul it way beyond the original content. That's what submitted to the admissions committee.

The less clever simply advertise the service as a form of ghostwriting. They place help-wanted on all sections of the international help-wanted site Craigslist for ghostwriters. Sometimes the ghostwriters, as is traditional in executive communications, will interview the applicant by Skype or in-person. Other times they will work from a data sheet. 

The industry can be lucrative. For those businesses and individuals with a track record for producing the essays which catapult applicants into what are considered the Ivies around the world there's big money. For small fry, the ghostwriting can be billed at about $25 an hour. An outfit in Boston - a city whose major industry is higher education - pays ghostwriters 80 bucks an essay. Peanuts. The trick is to grab assignments for elite school admissions.

Of course. once admitted the cheating can extend as far as the student's budget will go. A growing number of global services and solos will research and ghostwrite term papers. That includes the footnotes. Others will tune in to an online course and fulfill all the requirements. There are also note-takers who attend large lecture classes. 

The noble concept of higher education has become as corrupt as any banana republic.

That wasn't always the situation, of course.

When I was an adjunct professor I detected only one case of cheating. It was plain-vanilla plagiarism. No exotic ghostwriter seemed to be the middleman. Back then, there wasn't the large amount of student loan money floating around. Most of those in college couldn't afford to hire ghostwriters, note-takers, and test-takers. 

Unfortunately, with so many white-collar positions vanishing, there's no shortage of talent willing to get into this line of work.

Recently, a displaced journalist felt "forced" to cross the line. He had read my essay on how to approach the college admission personal statement. He came to me to sort of "apologize" for abandoning his ethics code. I informed him of legit work in researching and creating content for businesses in the career niche. There's plenty of it and there will be plenty more if the recession is severe.

Proposal: Appoint a Sheriff of Academia to set up stings to apprehend both those who are willing to pay for cheaters and those who implement the cheating. Make the sentence mandatory prison for five years. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Outdated Professional Networks - Careers That Don't Scale, Brands That Fade

The signature of ivy educational institutions had been Forever Professional Networks. 

That was then.

The reality is that in this globalized, digitalized economy, we in professional life have to keep changing. So must our networks.

Throughout legal services, the barbarians are at the gates. They range from BigAccounting poaching market share to AI.

Protecting and scaling your business are ongoing musts. Connections from the past - with the past being as recent as two months ago - may be more of a burden than a help.

A sign of that is the sustained brisk sales of the 2011 book "Necessary Endings."

Authored by executive coach Henry Cloud, it ranks on Amazon at 5,055. Here you can order it. Cloud presents example after example of what can happen to a career - and an entire organization - when past connections aren't ditched. 

Not that the decision to assess our network is an easy one. There seems to be a human tendency to create and hang out in comfort zones. They make us feel safe, simplify our daily living, and even seemingly keep us in the not-getting-into-trouble box.  

But they can also create increasing distance from awareness of and access to emerging opportunities.

In order to evaluate what connections continue to be useful and what new ones have to be developed is challenging. There is also no guarantee of making the right moves. That's because it requires figuring out what in our business is working, what isn't, and what needs to be added. Given the massive ambiguity, you can be frozen into sticking with the status quo.

Cloud suggests escape routes from the past. Yes, order the book.

Here, free to download, is my own book on finding the ramp out of what is and developing the courage to follow a fresh route of human connections. It is directed at the over-50 but the fundamentals apply to all generations. My iGen intern thinks it will help her shake off the "college experience" and go after that first real job as a "certified adult," as she puts it.

Another tool could be investing in a seminar custom-made to change behavior. Among them are what tutorials have been developed by Dale Carnegie Systems.

When my niche specialization in traditional executive communications collapsed, I enrolled in a Dale Carnegie hands-on workshop for marketing and sales. Job number-one was determining what we were going to sell.

That, of course, goes back to the Ted Levitt insight about the importance of broadly defining what business we really are in. Had the railroads recognized they were in the transportation one, not the narrow railcar box, they could have continued to scale in the era of airplane travel. 

There is also the advantage of having a one-on-one coach. Unlike therapy, the objective is professional success. The focus is not curing but determining how to bypass what gets in the way.

My communications clients who hired coaches report that the most effective kind of coaching is that which operates narrowly on achieving the objective. That seemed to them far more important than developing a relationship with the coach.

The need to purge the past isn't new. Way back in the 20th century Judith Viorst published what was then groundbreaking. That was the book "Necessary Losses." Essentially it gave permission to dump those relationships, ranging from law school to the first few jobs. No surprise, it still ranks high on amazon. Here you can order it.

The good news is that technology has provided a convenient (but still brutal) way to signal a good-bye. We can unfriend, remove, and block. Usually, it's a lousy investment in time to "talk it over." That only invites anything from defensiveness to an attack.

Reflection: There is a meme in some self-help programs. That's Drop The Rock. In the 21st century, that rock is usually an outdated network. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com.