According to Equilar’s latest General Counsel Pay Trends study, which crunches pay data from publicly traded companies in the U.S., male general counsel make on average 18.6 percent more than women in the same roles, reports Above the Law.

That gap is the largest recorded since Equilar began studying the metric in 2014.

The report shows that “in the 2017 to 2018 period, median GC compensation for men increased — from $2.52 million to $2.63 million — while median pay for women GCs fell — from $2.44 million to $2.21 million,” writes Above the Law’s Kathryn Rubino.

The publication analyzes the compensation of general counsel disclosed in SEC filings for the past five fiscal years. The companies are the 500 largest, by reported revenue, U.S.-headquartered companies that trade on one of the three major U.S. stock exchanges.

Read the Above the Law article.

The judgment in the Oklahoma opioid litigation, if upheld, could yield a huge return on investment for the private lawyers hired by Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Mike Hunter, reports Legal Newsline.

“Under their 2017 contract with the state, those lawyers — Whitten Burrage, Nix Patterson and Glenn Coffee & Associates — get 25% of any award up to $100 million with that percentage falling to 15% of anything over $500 million,” writes Legal Newsline’s Daniel Fisher.

And more big bucks could be in the pipeline: “They stand to earn $90 million in fees from this verdict, on top of $59 million of the $260 million Purdue Pharma settlement and another $21 million from an $85 million Teva settlement in June.”

Read the Legal Newsline article.

SmartAsset has published the results of a study designed to rank states from best to worst to practice law.

Criteria include the number of lawyers per 1,000 workers, average annual income, five-year earnings and job growth, median home value and the percentage of law offices relative to total establishments.

Illinois tops the list, with Idaho and Maine tied at the bottom. Delaware and North Dakota were excluded because of insufficient data.

In 2018, Illinois lawyers earned an average of $152,980, according to the study. The average for Idaho was $99,360.

Read the SmartAsset article.

Onit and SimpleLegal have jointly published a white paper on the benefits of disruption in the legal department.

“Driving Disruption in the Law Department” is available on Onit’s website for downloading at no charge.

“The growth of legal operations has been undeniable,” Onit says on its website. “We’re starting to see communities of strategic, business-minded individuals come together to drive disruption and influence operational change within the legal department.”

The joint white paper covers:

• Why legal department disruption is a “good” thing
• How process, technology, and data play a role in disruption
• The rise of industry organizations including CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) and ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel)
• 7 predictions for the future of legal operations by Onit CEO and founder Eric M. Elfman and SimpleLegal CEO and co-founder Nathan Wenzel
• How the legal community and technology vendors can work together to drive change and innovation

Download the white paper.

The families of three American war veterans who died at a railroad crossing in Midland, Texas, in 2012 are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review their legal case, arguing it could impact safety at many of the nation’s 250,000 railroad crossings.

The veterans – Army Sgt. Maj. Lawrence Boivin, Marine Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gary Stouffer and Army Sgt. Maj. William Lubbers – were three of the four who died when a Union Pacific train rammed a parade float carrying wounded war heroes. The veterans’ families sued Union Pacific, but a Texas court granted summary judgment for the railroad, and the 11th Court of Appeals in Eastland affirmed. Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

“We believe the Texas courts have made significant errors of nationwide importance and we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to correct them before there’s another needless tragedy elsewhere,” said attorney Doug Alexander of Alexander Dubose & Jefferson in Austin, who represents the plaintiffs.

According to Alexander, the most critical error involves the amount of warning time that elapsed before the Union Pacific train entered the Garfield Street crossing, where the crash occurred. Based on a federally mandated agreement between the railroad and the Texas Department of Transportation, the warning time was supposed to have been set at 30 seconds.

Union Pacific actually set the timer higher – to 35 seconds – which compensated for a defect in the track’s warning-system circuitry and allowed the system to give 30 seconds warning, as it was supposed to, plaintiffs claim in filings.

According to a release from the plaintiffs’ law firm, eight months before the crash, Union Pacific reduced the warning time by 10 seconds, without getting written approval from the Texas DOT or the City of Midland, as it had agreed to do. Coupled with the circuitry defect, the float the veterans were riding on received only 20.4 seconds of warning, almost 10 seconds less than mandated.

Union Pacific argued the warning still exceeded the 20-second minimum that a Federal Railway Administration (FRA) regulation requires and the Texas courts agreed.

But the plaintiffs argue the 20-second amount is a baseline minimum, not intended to replace the requirements of the agreement, but rather enforce them. They point to one of the FRA’s own bulletins, which says some crossings require at least 35 seconds of warning time or even more.

“If this decision is allowed to stand, then Texas courts have effectively nullified the federally mandated agreements for warning times at crossings all over the country,” Mr. Alexander said. “We don’t believe that’s what Congress intended and we certainly don’t believe it is safe.”

Supporters of the veterans’ families have been signing an online petition (https://www.change.org/p/union-pacific-justice-for-all-veterans-killed-by-union-pacific-train) asking Union Pacific to take care of the veterans’ families.

The case is Catherine Stouffer et al. v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Katlyn E. DeBoer and Zachary K. Iacovino have joined Freeborn & Peters LLP’s Chicago office as associates in the Litigation and Corporate practice groups, respectively.

A member of Freeborn’s Complex Litigation Team, DeBoer has experience drafting substantive motions and pleadings, developing case strategy, engaging in large-scale discovery, taking depositions, and preparing for trial, the firm said in a release.

Prior to joining Freeborn, DeBoer was an associate at Winston & Strawn LLP, where she represented clients in complex civil litigation and white-collar matters, including trade secrets and civil racketeering actions. Previously, she served as a judicial clerk for Judge John E. Jones III in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

DeBoer received her J.D. (summa cum laude) from Chicago-Kent College of Law and her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa.

A member of Freeborn’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Industry Group, Iacovino focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, commercial contracts, and general corporate and organizational matters. He represents buyers and sellers in asset acquisitions and divestitures, take-private stock acquisitions, cross-border transactions, equity investments and joint ventures, financing and lending transactions, and corporate restructuring, among other matters.

Prior to joining Freeborn, Iacovino was an associate at Cheng Cohen LLC.

Iacovino received his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tampa.

Highly regarded as a Litigation Powerhouse®, Freeborn has a Big Law-caliber reputation in litigation, with nationwide and international capabilities and one of the largest litigation departments among Chicago-based law firms – currently with more than 90 litigators. Many of Freeborn’s litigators are former federal and state prosecutors with decades of trial experience handling all areas of complex disputes and litigation in federal and state courts.

Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. announced that associate Janie Reilly Eddy has joined the firm’s SDV Northeast office.

The firm said Edd7y has a background in litigation, handling matters from inception through resolution and advising and guiding clients through viable litigation options. Her experience includes discovery and motion practice as well as settlement negotiations, mediations, arbitrations and trials.

Law firm Dentons Europe LLP won Delaware court approval to have a former client’s $92 million arbitration award seized so that it can be paid for its legal services, reports Bloomberg Law.

The firm sued its former client, Customs and Tax Consultancy LLC (CTC), after CTC allegedly failed to pay for legal fees accrued in its arbitration victory against the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The court sided with Dentons’ effort to get paid for its legal fees by having the court authorize arbitration award broker ClaimTrading Ltd. to seize the award and market it on behalf of CTC, explains Bloomberg’s Leslie A. Pappas.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Two powerful Wall Street investment bankers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in back taxes and penalties after one of the world’s most prestigious law firms allegedly botched their pay packages, according to a report in the New York Post.

The Post‘s Kevin Dugan writes: “The two bankers — Michael Kramer and Derron Slonecker — face an IRS crackdown on $10.4 million in compensation after their bank’s law firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, screwed up a deadline for routine paperwork, according to sources and a report Weil commissioned on the matter.”

The report says the law firm may have failed to disclose the alleged mistake to their client, investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners, in a timely fashion, according to Dugan.

Read the  NY Post article.

Steven Fabrizio, a high-level executive at the Motion Picture Association of America, has been fired by the organization following his arrest on charges he sexually abused and blackmailed a woman he contacted through an online dating service for “sugar daddies,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

The MPAA’s senior executive vice president and global general counsel for the MPAA was arrested Aug. 23 after the woman told Washington, D.C., police he coerced her into sex by threatening her, according to a report filed by the officers, writes the Times‘ Ryan Faughnder.

The MPAA is the lobbying arm of film studios Walt Disney Co., Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and Netflix.

Read the LA Times article.

Above the Law reports it was tipped off by insiders at Biglaw firm Quinn Emanuel about a policy at the firm that has left some associates hoodwinked over losing some of their vacation time.

“According to our tipsters, in previous years the firm has allowed associates that attend the [firm’s annual hike] to bill the time to a non-billable client number,” explains Above the Law senior editor Kathryn Rubino. “When associates attempted to repeat the practice this year however, they were told that time should, instead, be charged to their vacation time.”

She adds that the firm defended the policy because it subsidizes the travel costs associated with the trip, which took place in Interlaken, Switzerland this year.

Read the Above the Law article.

Vice News recently reported on the technological revolution overtaking the world in transportation, distribution, food service, health – and legal.

The HBO VICE News special features LawGeex in its report on “The Future of Work.”

In a repeat of the AI vs. Lawyer competition — this time officiated by HBO’s Vice News — the LawGeex AI came out ahead again.

On its website, LawGeex displays a short clip showing how LawGeex performed better in both speed and accuracy.

Read more about the competition.

Matthew Tuchband has joined Arent Fox LLP in the firm’s International Trade practice.

Tuchband, who has spent more than 20 years at the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of the Chief Counsel (Foreign Assets Control) in the Office of the General Counsel, joins the firm’s Washington, D.C. office and will advise clients on all aspects of international trade with a focus on sanctions.

In his most recent role as deputy chief counsel for Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department — which he held from 2005 to 2019 (including over one year as acting chief counsel from April 2012 to August 2013) — Tuchband was responsible for overseeing a team of attorneys providing legal counsel and review of all economic sanctions actions of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). During his tenure at Treasury, Tuchband was involved in many important sanctions developments, including the formation and evolution of the “50 percent” rule and the increasing use of “secondary sanctions,” the firm said in a release.

Tuchband has experience in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), having been involved in the drafting of more than 65 Executive orders, including recent Executive orders on Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea.

During his time at Treasury, Tuchband conducted reviews of all OFAC-issued regulations, including all those published from 2005 to the present. He provided review and final legal sign-off on OFAC compliance, enforcement, licensing, designation, and delisting actions and worked closely with the Department of Justice on various cases brought against OFAC. Tuchband received the Secretary’s Honor Award, the Legal Division’s Excellence in Management Award, and several Meritorious Service Awards, among others.

Before joining federal government, Tuchband was an associate at Crowell & Morning LLP where he focused on export and transaction controls, customs, antidumping, and general litigation, including litigation strategy, pleadings, and depositions. He earned his JD, cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center and his BA, cum laude, from Brandeis University.

Jon C. Yonemitsu has joined Littler as a shareholder in its San Diego office. He joins Littler from Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP. Yonemitsu’s arrival follows the return of shareholder Liseanne Kelly, who rejoined Littler earlier this year.

The firm said Yonemitsu counsels and defends companies in a wide range of employment law matters, including discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, and the California Family Rights Act. He has experience representing clients in single and multi-plaintiff employment litigation, wage and hour class and collective action litigation, and Private Attorneys General Act claims, as well as before federal and state administrative agencies.

In addition to his litigation practice, Yonemitsu counsels employers on federal and state compliance matters, including in relation to hiring and termination, wage and hour issues, employee handbooks, workplace trainings, data security and restrictive covenants.

Before entering private practice, Yonemitsu served as deputy district attorney at the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office. He earned his J.D. from California Western School of Law and his B.A. from Oregon State University.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has issued a major decision that could restore billions of dollars in Post-9/11 GI Bill and other educational benefits to military service members of the Post-9/11 era, according to a release from Hunton Andrews Kurth.

The firm’s release describes the case:

Since World War II, Congress has provided veterans with different GI Bill benefits for different periods of qualifying service. Nevertheless, since 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs has required veterans with more than one period of separately qualifying service to relinquish or exhaust their entitlement to Montgomery GI Bill benefits before utilizing their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, thereby capping most veterans’ combined GI Bill benefits at 36 months.

In BO v. Wilkie, the court on Aug. 15 rejected this practice, declaring that the law “require[s] neither relinquishment nor exhaustion” and determined that the law allows veterans with separately qualifying service “to receive entitlement under both programs subject to a 36-month cap on utilization of each of the two separate programs and a 48-month cap overall.”

The court reversed a decision by the VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals and ordered the board to recalculate BO’s entitlement to GI Bill benefits. Attorneys from Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and Dominion Energy, the appellant’s pro bono counsel, estimate that the decision impacts millions of veterans affected by the VA’s illegal practice and those who would have been affected.

“BO” is the identifier given to the veteran in this case, which is sealed to protect national security and BO’s service as a federal counterterrorism agent. BO is also a highly decorated Army combat veteran of the pre- and post-9/11 eras. After an initial period of enlisted military service, he attended college on the Montgomery GI Bill, then returned to the Army as a commissioned officer. In 2015, he applied for post-9/11 benefits based on his commissioned service so that he could attend Yale Divinity School and then become an Army chaplain.

But based on its misreading of the law, the VA forced BO to forfeit his remaining Montgomery benefits and limited his Post-9/11 benefits to the amount of the forfeited benefits. The VA rejected his repeated calls to correct its error, forcing him to appeal its decision. During the lengthy appellate process, BO had to give up his Yale admission and became ineligible to return to the Army because of his age, but he continued to press his appeal to receive the correct amount of benefits, and, more importantly to him, for the benefit of all veterans.

“BO urges the VA to take immediate, affirmative action not only to correct his educational entitlements, but also to identify the many veterans impacted by the court’s decision and notify them of the restoration of their hard-earned benefits,” said Hunton Andrews Kurth lawyer Timothy L. McHugh, who represented the appellant.

The legal team also included Dominion Energy senior counsel David J. DePippo, as well as lawyers and staff with Hunton Andrews Kurth’s Veterans Pro Bono Program.

Derek Zaba has joined Sidley Austin LLP as a partner in the firm’s global M&A and Private Equity group and co-leader of the shareholder activism practice.

Zaba is joining Sidley in Northern California from PJT Camberview Partners, a leading provider of investor-led advice to public companies.

The firm said Zaba will focus his practice on counseling boards and C-suite executives of public companies in shareholder activism matters and contested M&A transactions, as well as on corporate governance concerns.

Zaba joined Camberview in 2015 and ultimately served as the head of its activism and contested M&A practice. At Camberview, he advised clients on activism-related matters. Previously, Zaba was an investment professional at two hedge funds. He started his legal career as a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Alex Purvis, a partner in Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP’s Jackson, Miss., office, has been accepted as a Fellow in the American College of Coverage Counsel (ACCC).

In a release, the firm said the ACCC engages in a rigorous vetting process prior to inviting a lawyer to become a Fellow. Its Fellows include many of the most prominent members of the insurance law bar.

A member of Bradley’s Litigation and Insurance practice groups, Purvis is a litigator and policyholder coverage lawyer whose background includes experience in product liability, construction and complex commercial litigation.

The firm said the ACCC is the preeminent association of U.S. and Canadian lawyers who represent the interests of insurers and policyholders. The ACCC focuses on educating all sectors involved in the field of insurance law – including the judiciary, legal and insurance professionals, law students, and businesses – on cutting edge, emerging and critical issues such as developing trends in insurance law and bad faith, trial practice and alternative dispute resolution, policy formation, and claims handling.

U.S. News’ list of law schools with the highest tuition reveals that the average tuition and fees for the 2018-2019 academic year was at least $64,000.

Above the Law took a look at the report and noted that all 10 on the short list are private, such as Columbia University, which tops the list.

Senior editor Staci Zaretsky comments: “It’s certainly worth noting that the private law schools that made this list are among the best in the country. At highly ranked schools like these, you get what you pay for, and in the law school world, that usually means a high-paying paid job as an attorney that will allow you to service your enormous debt obligations in a timely fashion — and to be quite frank, with up to six figures of debt to pay off, that’s priceless.”

Read the Above the Law article.

The Dallas Morning News reports that career Fort Worth defense contractor is in trouble for allegedly making false claims about the type of aluminum he provided under a contract for aircraft landing gear, court records show.

Ross Hyde, 63, has been charged in federal court and faces up to five years in prison, if convicted, writes the News‘ Kevin Krause.

Hyde’s company, Vista Machining Co., has supplied the Pentagon with parts for tanks, aircraft and other military equipment, but inspectors said many of his products were cheap replacements, some illegally obtained from China, which he tried to hide from the government.

Read the  Morning News article.

Having a robust LinkedIn profile is critical to anybody who wants to improve their online presence, but  a LinkedIn profile is fairly static, however, only changing when there’s a new job or award, etc.

Amy Boardman Hunt of Muse Communications points out that publishing an article – quarterly, monthly, or even weekly – is a solid way to keep your profile updated and maintain your presence on LinkedIn.

After explaining the difference between a LinkedIn article and a post, Hunt gives some pointers on how to write an article.

The post covers how to select subjects for articles, how long they should be, writing headlines, avoiding jargon or legalese, formatting, sharing the content beyond LinkedIn, and then checking on LindedIn analytics.

Read the article.