Bloomberg Law reports that an Ohio attorney who was found guilty of a felony for helping clients try to evade federal taxes was suspended for two years by the state’s highest court.

The Ohio Supreme Court found that actions of Gregory Thomas Plesich violated professional ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from helping clients break the law and that he violated rules that forbid lawyers from committing acts that reflect adversely on the legal profession and from acting dishonestly.

Bloomberg Law’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione explains:

“Plesich deposited two checks from them totaling almost $200,000 into his client trust account in 2013. The money was not payment for legal services. He then wrote 29 checks from that account over the course of a year ranging in amounts from $3,000 to $7,500 to the wife.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Pittsburgh-based Biglaw firm K&L Gates has been steadily losing attorneys all year long, reports Above the Law, citing ALM Intelligence data.

The data show that “from December 2018 through October 2019, the firm lost a total of 96 partners, while only picking up 32 in that timeframe. That net decrease represents 7.9 percent of the total partnership. And across all attorneys, the firm is net down 56 lawyers.”

During that period the firm hired more associates than it lost — 164 hires and 154 departures.

Read the Above the Law article.

Smart lawyers find ways to get multiple uses out of their best marketing efforts by recycling their content in a variety of other formats, writes Amy Boardman Hunt for Muse Communications.

“Recycling your best content – particularly ‘evergreen’ content that’s not tied to a breaking news story, such as a court ruling or current event – can save you time and effort and give you valuable material that you can use for months or even years,” she explains.

She gives examples of ways to turn existing content into multiple formats and how to produce content that has lasting value.

Read the article.

Forbes reports that the national average annual wage of an lawyer is $144,230, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is not far from being three-times the average annual salary for all occupations, $51,960.

But Forbes contributor Andrew DePietro explains that average salary is for the U.S. overall, which hides significant differences depending on geography, from state to state.

For example, the average lawyer salary in California, $171,550, is about double the salary in Montana, which is $88,600.

The report lists average salaries for all states.

Read the article.

Another Biglaw firm has announced its bonus scales for associates, but this one adds something extra for those lawyers who put in the really long hours, reports Above the Law.

Schulte, Roth & Zabel announced a bonus scale that is in line with other Biglaw firms that have already announced. Associates in the classes of 2010-2012 will receive $100,000, while more recent hires can expect bonuses ranging from $15,000 to $90,000, depending on their length of service.

The firm will provide extra payouts of $20,000 or $40,000 to associates who hit billable-hour marks of 2,300 or 2,500 hours, respectively.

Read the Above the Law article.

Lawyers have long been a reliable source of campaign funds for Democratic presidential hopefuls. But the legal set’s political contributions haven’t been this blue since at least 2004, according to a report by Bloomberg Law, citing a study by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Lawyers and employees of the nation’s law firms have contributed nearly $17 million to presidential campaigns so far this election cycle, and 95 percent of the total has gone to Democrats, the study found.

President Trump’s campaign raised slightly more than $785,000 from lawyers and law firms.

The report quotes Maya Sen, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who co-authored a paper, “The Political Ideologies of American Lawyers”:

“Well-educated professions are very left-leaning at the moment. It’s a new dynamic in American politics. We really haven’t seen this before.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Women make up as many as 50 percent of new associates, yet they leave law firms much more frequently than men, the American Bar Association found in a new study.

Bloomberg Law, reporting on the ABA study, summarized the findings:

“The report found that there are big differences in how the genders view their firm’s handling of promotions, leadership opportunities and equity partnerships.

“Some 91% of firm leaders, for example, felt their firms are “actively advocates of gender diversity,” while only 62% of the women lawyers responding thought the same thing.”

The study found that women cited the level of stress at work, care-taking commitments, differences in pay, and the firm’s emphasis on marketing as negative factors.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

A survey of chief legal officers by the consulting firm Altman Weil found that 76 percent of the respondents think there will be a recession in the United States within the next two years.

And that finding may be the reason why corporate legal departments are showing caution in spending, points out the ABA Journal on a report on the survey results.

One of the findings indicates that only 27 percent of departments increased their spending on law firms in 2019, down from 42 percent that did so last year.

Read the  ABA Journal article.

Image by Gage Skidmore

After a weekslong search to find a lawyer who would represent Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer finally found a legal team to represent him in the criminal investigation into his activities related to Ukraine, reports The New York Times.

Although Giuliani has a wide range of close associates, “at least four prominent attorneys declined for various reasons, according to people familiar with the matter. They included Mary Jo White, who also once led the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District, as well as Theodore V. Wells Jr., a trial lawyer at Paul, Weiss, according to people familiar with those discussions,” the Times reports.

He announced he will be represented by three lawyers, including his longtime friend, Robert J. Costello. Giuliani and Costello crossed paths last year during the investigation of another Trump associate, Michael D. Cohen.

Read the NY Times article.

Biglaw firm Milbank was the first to announce its associate bonuses this season.

The scale at Milbank is the same as last year’s, Above the Law reports. The bonuses range from $15,000 to $100,000 and will be paid on Dec. 31, according to senior editor Staci Zaretsky.

And that lack of an increase is causing some negative feedback, writes Above the Law’s executive editor Elie Mystal:

“Based on my inbox, associates are not exactly thrilled about the extra $15,000 to $100,000 this scale provides. Of particular issue is the fact that in 2018, associates got summer bonuses. In 2019, they did not. So, in overall bonus compensation, a same-scale bonus actually results in less compensation for associates.”

Read the Above the Law articles here and here.

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in favor of O’Melveny & Myers in a case alleging the Biglaw firm was conflicted in its representation a decade ago of a now-defunct investment firm Aletheia Research and Management, reports Bloomberg Law.

The ruling let stand an arbitrator’s August finding that O’Melveny didn’t commit legal malpractice, noting that “only in very unusual circumstances” does this occur and the investment firm’s trustee didn’t meet this standard, according to Bloomberg’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione.

A Chapter 7 estate trustee for Aletheia had argued that the law firm’s failure to recommend that Aletheia hire independent counsel to review the company’s relationship with its founders contributed to the company’s ultimate downfall.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is accused in a new lawsuit in New York of discriminating and retaliating against a black former associate because of his complaints about racial bias at the law firm.

Kaloma Cardwell alleges the firm denied him job assignments — causing him to go from billing more than 100 hours per month to zero billable hours for four consecutive months. The firm then fired him, according to his complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Cardwell was the only black attorney hired in the firm’s 2014 class of more than 120 new associates, and one of only four black attorneys at the entire firm, the complaint says.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The 10th edition of “Best Law Firms,” published by U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers, ranks 14,365 law firms in various areas of legal practice.

Presented in tiers, the rankings give designations to firms in 75 major practice areas nationally and in 127 practice areas regionally.

In the group of 75 practice areas, some of the firms earning top recognition include Jones Day in commercial litigation, K&L Gates in corporate law, Troutman Sanders in energy law, McDermott Will & Emery in health care law, Covington & Burling in insurance, Bracewell in oil and gas, and Cooley in technology law.

Read the article.

DLA Piper, fighting a sexual-assault claim against a former partner, filed a response to the accusation Tuesday, saying the lawyer who filed the complaint orchestrated a “flirtation” to advance her career, reports Bloomberg News.

DLA and former partner Louis Lehot parted ways after his colleague Vanina Guerrero accused the star Silicon Valley lawyer of sexually assaulting her.

The firm said it conducted an “impartial investigation” of the matter.

“Ms. Guerrero was a willing participant in a lengthy emotional flirtation with Mr. Lehot that she orchestrated to advance her career,” DLA Piper said in a letter to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing Guerrero’s emails.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Jones Day’s “hypercentralized,” subjective decision-making process places final control over pay, promotion, and other significant decisions “unchecked in the hands of one man,” six female former lawyers told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

That man is managing partner Stephen J. Brogan, claim Nilab Tolton and the five other lead plaintiffs. They filed a supplemental memorandum Oct. 24  opposing Jones Day’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings in their proposed class action, filed in April, according to a Bloomberg Law article.

Brogan backs his “totalitarian grip” on Jones Day with a “no whining policy” under which women aren’t allowed to raise sex-based inequities, they say.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

When Pepper Hamilton partner David Stratton received an invitation to the firm’s upcoming judicial diversity panel, he forwarded the message to two other partners with a derisive comment about the affinity groups, according to a report on Above the Law.

The problem, though, is that he later sent an apology for his snippy comment, he used the reply-all feature. That was a bad idea, because not everyone was even aware of his original, wildly inappropriate comments until the apology was sent.

Above the Law senior editor Kathryn Rubino said the firm’s bosses weren’t happy with this turn of events. “They quickly sent their own email from managing partner Thomas Cole, distancing themselves from Stratton’s off-color comments, and assuring everyone the matter is being properly handled behind the scenes,” she writes.

Read the Above the Law article.

The proposed changes to the rules for lawyer advertising in Texas are on track to be submitted for official approval, according to Bruce Vincent, writing on the website of Muse Communications.

The State Bar of Texas’ board of directors will have 120 days to consider the amended rules that are expected to be submitted by the Committee on Disciplinary Rules and Referenda in January.

Some of the new rules cover such topics as the use of trade names for lawyers, claims of legal specialization, the submission of law firm websites for approval, and gifts to nonlawyer referral sources.

Read the article.

Image by Tony webster

The ABA Journal reports that an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit claims that the former general counsel of Wynn Resorts approved a “secret undercover operation” to gather derogatory information about a former salon employee who provided information to the Wall Street Journal.

Plaintiffs claim that former Wynn general counsel Kim Sinatra was part of a civil conspiracy targeting Jorgen Nielsen, the former artistic director of a salon at Wynn Las Vegas.

The Journal‘s Debra Cassens Weiss reports: “The suit alleges that Sinatra and two other defendants participated in a plan to send ‘an undercover operative’ posing as a client to the new salon that employed Nielsen. The place was the salon at Palms Casino Resort.”

Read the  ABA Journal article.

All five shareholders in the trial and appellate firm Johnston Tobey Baruch are recognized in the 2020 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and three earned the distinction of being selected Lawyers of the Year for Dallas-Fort Worth.

Firm managing shareholder Randy Johnston’s work with plaintiffs in professional malpractice solidified his selection as Lawyer of the Year. Renowned in Texas legal circles, his experience in commercial and mergers and acquisitions litigation, along with legal and professional malpractice law, secured his Best Lawyers honors.

Shareholder and firm co-founder Robert Tobey earned Lawyer of the Year honors for his legal malpractice work on behalf of plaintiffs. He also won recognition for malpractice defense and commercial litigation. Shareholder Chad Baruch’s exceptional appellate work also earned him a Lawyer of the Year designation.

No other law firm this size in Texas has received this many Lawyer of the Year honors for 2020.

Shareholder Karen Fitzgerald’s work with individuals in employment law and her litigation skills in labor and employment led to her selection. Coyt Johnston earned Best Lawyers honors for his commercial and mergers and acquisitions litigation skills.

Read more about the honors and
five benefits of hiring a smaller firm.

Exterro has published the 2019 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report, comparing in-house legal processes among 180 participating legal departments.

Compared to last year’s results, legal teams are choosing to coordinate services with fewer outside partners and are moving more operations in-house.

The report can be downloaded at no charge from the Exterro website.

Exterro says on its website that the report provides:

• 4 important takeaways to help improve your legal processes in 2020

• Results to 29 questions surrounding in-house legal activities

• Data to help drive change in your in-house legal department

Download the report.