The American Bar Association’s (ABA) pro bono project enjoyed the most volunteer participation ever in 2021, with more than 140 attorneys handling at least 50 legal inquiries last year.

The online program, ABA Free Legal Answers, includes participation from more than 10,000 U.S. lawyers in 45 states, according to information from the trade group. The web-based ask-and-answer service is aimed at helping income-eligible residents get legal assistance from volunteer attorneys.

“For those who cannot afford an attorney and have nowhere else to turn, ABA Free Legal Answers serves as a critical resource,” said ABA President Reginald Turner in a statement. “We are proud of the more than 10,000 volunteer lawyers nationwide who are helping to meet these important legal needs, and particularly pleased about the efforts of our FLA Pro Bono Leaders. We urge other attorneys to step up and assist as well.”

Recently, the ABA recognized the most prolific volunteer attorneys with the publication of its 2021 Pro Bono Leaders list. Texas led the pack with 14 individuals, organizations, schools or law firms answering more than 50 inquiries. Illinois, though, was a close second with 13 such entities qualifying for recognition.

“ABA Free Legal Answers offers a flexible online platform, even in pandemic conditions, to do this important pro bono work from our offices, homes, makeshift workstations at the courthouse and on our own time,” said attorney Brandon A. Robinson. “Participating on the platform with hundreds of North Carolinians has been one of my daily joys during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

From Twitter

Ukraine Advice Project UK @ukraine_advice Mar 11

"IMPORTANT UPDATE Since the project began on Monday 28 February, the response from the profession has been humbling, and somewhat overwhelming. The project has registered over 430 volunteer lawyers to date and given pro bono advice on almost 700 requests."

According to the ABA, the program has helped answer close to 200,000 inquiries and has doubled in volume over the last two years.

Earlier this year, The Association of Pro Bono Counsel put out a report detailing the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the pro bono service industry, and highlighted some of the ways to retain best practices moving forward. The report “Positive Change: How the Pandemic Changed Pro Bono and What We Should Keep,” includes analysis from the legal services community, non-profit legal advocates and experts in the field, according to the Counsel. “We hope it will spark thoughtful discussion about how we pro bono volunteers, legal services organizations, bar associations and the courts can continue to expand access to justice for all members of our communities,” reads information from the group.

According to the report, the Counsel recommends legal service providers offer things like virtual clinics, online platforms, in-person meetings when technological resources are unavailable, technological resources for volunteers and e-filing, among other things.

“This final report documents changes to the delivery of pro bono legal services during the pandemic, with the focus primarily on how the adjustments to intake, representation and advocacy impacted clients,” notes the report. “Our hope is that documenting and sharing these experiences and practices will inspire those responsible for delivering pro bono legal services… and those responsible for the systems with which pro bono client communities interact … to consider keeping the changes that benefited client communities, and to continue to develop accessible, client-centered systems that deliver just outcomes.”

Document automation means creating automated templates, using software, for legal documents (such as contracts).

Once the templates are created, users of the software usually answer questionnaires. Once it has this information, the software can instantly generate the contract, and you’re done.

The purpose is to automate the repetitive process of building a document from scratch each time you need a new contract.

In practice, many contracts are extremely similar, with just a few variations. So, for example, once you create an NDA template, the next time you need an NDA, you can generate the template much more quickly using the questionnaire.

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As a lawyer, you might not think of your work as “creative.”

True, on your off time, you might pursue creative endeavors such as writing, cooking, painting, or practicing a musical instrument. But the practice of law requires a rigorously analytic mindset that relies on precise, predictable processes and precedents.

From a professional standpoint, you probably relegate “creativity” to realms like advertising and product design.

But take a closer look at what you do, and you’ll see that you’re often called upon to come up with solutions that aren’t necessarily found in case law and legal textbooks.

During a difficult negotiation you’re handling for a business client, say, or in researching a legal problem that seems to have no obvious precedents, you may have suddenly come upon the solution while reading a book on a different topic, or while mulling over the matter during a long walk.

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There’s no question about it, content marketing is today’s marketing. It’s what everyone in the marketing world is talking about and has been talking about for the last couple of years.

And with good reason: within one broad banner, content marketing encompasses almost every aspect of marketing, client engagement and brand promotion.

It makes sense, then, that content marketing has been touted as the “must have” strategy for businesses, and many have jumped on board the content marketing train.

According to Hubspot, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing but costs 62% less. Furthermore, companies that publish at least 16 blog posts per month average 3.5 times more traffic than those that post four or fewer.

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General Electric's general counsel's 2012 compensation package afforded him almost $11 million in cash, making him the highest paid general counsel on Corporate Counsel magazine's latest list of the nation's 100 highest paid GCs. So reports Law.com.

At $1,853,671, the average take-home pay enjoyed by the lawyers on the list this year is the highest it has ever been.

Read the full article from Law.com here.

After entering a guilty plea, John Farahi, founder of Newpoint Financial Services Inc., was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on March 20, according to a National Law Journal story. The Beverly Hills businessman admitted his role in a $20 million Ponzi scheme and the plea could have ramifications for former Nixon Peabody securities partner David Tamman, who was found guilty for his role in the scheme.

Tamman’s lawyer, though, insists the two instances are different and “suspect the judge will listen to what we have to say and make a decision accordingly."

Read the full article from the National Law Journal here.

A Los Angeles nutrition company is locked in a legal battle with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has accused the company of perpetuating a pyramid scheme. Herbalife officials said the company will up their legal defense costs from $25 million to $40 million in the wake of Ackman’s accusations, according to a Los Angeles Times article.

Ackman, who reportedly bet $1 billion the company is a sham, has said most of the company’s sales people lose money and expects the company’s shares to fall to zero.

Read the full article from the Los Angeles Times here.

Food and Drug Administration logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When attorney F. Lee Bailey was indicted for mail fraud in 1973, he quoted a popular aphorism referencing the difference between how England and the U.S. treat their criminal defense lawyers.  “In England they are apt to be knighted; in the United States they are apt to be indicted.”  There is quite a bit of truth in the saying and the dangers inherent in practicing law in the U.S. are not only faced by defense lawyers.  Sensing an opportunity, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has recently set its sights on corporate in-house counsel.

In November, 2010, Lauren Stevens, a former vice president and general counsel for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, was indicted on federal charges of making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation.  Stevens was accused of making false and misleading statements in a series of letters to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on behalf of her employer.  Despite it having been obvious from the beginning that Stevens was only relaying information furnished by her client and had no intent or motive to mislead federal investigators, she was enthusiastically pursued by the DOJ.  “Where facts and law allow, the Justice Department will pursue individuals responsible for illegal conduct just as vigorously as we pursue corporations,” Tony West, assistant attorney general for the civil division, said in a statement.  It should be noted that despite the DOJ’s stated commitment to pursue corporations, GlaxoSmithKline’s name was noticeably absent from the Stevens indictment.  West continued, “Criminal charges are appropriate when false statements such as those alleged here are made to the FDA.”

Read the full article here...

The practical applications of advanced artificial intelligences (AI) are virtually endless, and educators, scholars, lawmakers and even theists are facing an expansive list of questions and concerns around the ethics and legalities of its wide scale implementation.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of high-profile examples of how OpenAI’s nascent chatbot, the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer known as ChatGPT, may push the boundaries of nearly every established element of the legal space. In addition to taking and passing a law exam, the technology’s applications span everything from e-discovery to trial law and more and are being thoroughly examined by public and private pundits from every corner of the legal industry. In Massachusetts, state Sen. Barry Finegold cleverly introduced legislation to govern the impressive technology drafted by the tech itself.

From Twitter

Barry Finegold @Barry_Finegold· Jan 26

"Thanks for the assist, @OpenAI! For the full text of my legislation (An Act drafted with the help of ChatGPT to regulate generative artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT), please visit: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/SD1827…. #mapoli #ChatGPT 1/7 https://twitter.com/i/status/1618742425232740352"

As is often the case, legislative frameworks are forced to adapt to rapidly changing technologies. Now, it seems this process may need to be accelerated as AI is already aggressively being integrated into the status quo. Another example of this is the recent announcement from Ironclad, a digital contracting platform, that it will be using OpenAI technology to complement its existing services.

“There has been a ‘race for novelty’ in our industry, but Ironclad has always prioritized investing in technology that drives impact and real business results for our customers. After testing GPT3 within Ironclad for several months, it’s clear that this is much more than novelty; it’s a groundbreaking innovation,” according to the platform. “In that spirit, we have been working with OpenAI to put the power of GPT3 to work across our product.”

According to the announcement, that product, which will be called “AI Assist,” is in beta testing. “… AI Assist lets users instantly generate redlines to an entire document. Those redlines–made using generative AI–appear as tracked changes, which allow human users to quickly scan and accept, or reject, those redlines in just a single click,” according to the product description.

The White House also weighed in on the subject with its recent release of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force report.

The report represents the federal government’s efforts to create a roadmap for how to address the many pressing issues related to artificial intelligence and develop a way to ensure adequate access to the necessary resources needed by those working on its research and development. “AI advances hold tremendous promise for tackling our hardest problems and achieving our greatest aspirations,” said Arati Prabhakar, the policy director for the Office of Science and Technology. “We will only realize this potential when many more kinds of researchers have access to the powerful capabilities that underpin AI advances.”

According to the White House, the NAIRR Task Force was established in the National AI Initiative Act of 2020 and is co-chaired by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation. It features representation from private entities, academia and the public sector. “OSTP’s work on AI, including the development of an updated National AI R&D Strategic Plan and the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, is intended to maximize its benefits, while ensuring that AI-driven systems do not harm Americans’ rights or freedoms,” said Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Alexander Macgillivray.

Read the AI Bill of Rights here. 

The American Bar Association has begun the piecemeal release of its ABA TechReport 2021, which takes a comprehensive look into how lawyers use technology in their everyday practices.

The first segment of the report was released on Wednesday, Nov. 10. In total, the publication will provide observation, analysis and predictions on a number of topics from leaders in the legal tech space, according to the trade association.

The report will be separated into eight different segments with the first portion of the report focusing on cloud computing. One area of particular note is with respect to data protection while engaging with the cloud.

“The 2021 Survey highlights a major concern that, while lawyers talk the talk about security concerns in cloud computing, to a shocking degree they do not walk the walk,” reads the report. “The poor results in the cybersecurity category should be a major concern for the legal profession. If you take only one thing from this TechReport to add to your 2021 technology agenda, it should be to up your game on cloud security, for your sake and, even more so, for the sake of your clients.” 

From Twitter

Digital Legal Lab @SectorplanDLS Nov 6

"There’s still time to submit your abstract for Digital Legal Talks 2021! We welcome published & unpublished work on law & digital technologies from interdisciplinary perspectives. More info & get involved here https://sectorplandls.nl/wordpress/digital-legal-talks-2021/"

Among some of the other topics covered in the report, which was compiled by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, include the impact of COVID-19, budget allocations and employee wellness.

For example, according to information in the survey, 26% of respondents reported a decrease in access to print materials as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This decrease was most obvious in firms of 100 or more, as 44% of attorneys in those firms reported a decline in access to print materials. Only 4% of those asked reported an increase in access to print materials, notes the tech resource center.

Further, the report also indicates law firms have increased their attentiveness to technology, and as such are budgeting for it at a higher clip than ever. The report points out 65% of firms are now setting aside funding for technology, while that number was only 62% in 2020, 60% the year before and even lower in 2018. As has been the case traditionally, larger firms tend to be more inclined to budget for technological changes than smaller ones.

According to analysis from technology consulting and research firm Gartner, in-house legal departments have been hesitant to shift toward new technological paradigms like automation, but COVID-19 might have accelerated the need to adopt such changes.

“The new pressures brought about by the coronavirus pandemic certainly have acted as a catalyst for this shift,” said Zack Hutto, a director at Gartner. “Legal and compliance teams have rarely been frontrunners to modernize, digitalize and automate. The pandemic has flattened staffing budgets and increased legal workloads; technology is the most obvious solution for many legal departments.”

From Twitter

MarkUpgrade @markupgrade
"With the pandemic legal companies are seeking more innovation to enhance efficiency and decrease costs, hence turning to technology. Check out the #naming choices of the top players in the #legaltech sector
https://t.co/Xg4fEzAPWL?amp=1"

According to information from the ABA, the remaining segments of the report will be posted on Wednesdays through Dec. 29. The other topics are as follows:

• “Websites & Marketing”
• “Practice Management”
• “Budgeting & Planning”
• “Technology Training”
• “Solo & Small Firm”
• “Cybersecurity”
• “Life & Practice”

There’s no better time than now to sit down and plan for success. Law firms like yours need actionable steps and clear attainable business goals to achieve success and facilitate the growth of your business. 

Download FindLaw’s 2022 Law Firm Business planner today, in digital format.

Established in 2011 with seven staff, California-based employment law firm LightGabler has always been a very “tech-forward” firm — in fact, it has operated entirely paperless since its first day in operation. Today, it has 17 attorneys and a total team of 26 providing day-to-day employment advice and complex litigation counsel (in both federal and state courts) to businesses of all sizes and in all sectors. Since the firm’s inception it has been using ProLaw®, the comprehensive business management solution from Thomson Reuters, hosting it in the cloud.

LightGabler’s founders were already familiar with ProLaw, having used it successfully at the large firm where they previously worked. Running on relatively lean staff numbers, it was important to implement one solution that LightGabler could use for all of its practice management and matter management needs, including billing, timekeeping, accounting, reporting, contacts management, conflicts checks, and document control.

"I wanted a practice management program that can do it all, and I think ProLaw is the leader in that regard"

Jody Toerner, Executive Director

“ProLaw is an all-inclusive option and that’s key for us,” says LightGabler’s Executive Director Jody Toerner, who is responsible for all of the firm’s IT and accounting as well as its general operations. “Whereas some firms are running several different programs at once for different things, we have everything in one place, making it easy to use and saving us time. We don’t need anything else.”

For example, LightGabler uses ProLaw to create a database of contacts that can be seamlessly linked into client matters. It uses it as a virtual filing cabinet for client documents and emails — which is fully searchable — and as a repository for master documents. All pre-bills are edited and invoices tracked through ProLaw. Timekeeping reports can be run, detailing billable time and expenses. Accounting reports are converted into PDF format for review or into Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheets for data manipulation. The firm even cuts all of its checks through ProLaw.

The importance of interconnectivity

Toerner appreciates this wide scope of features and functionality, but just as importantly, she likes how interconnected the different parts of the system are and how they work together as a whole.

“ProLaw has a ton of bells and whistles, and even as an extensive ProLaw user myself, there’s still more to learn,” says Toerner. “That said, it’s so easy and efficient to maneuver around. One of the best things is the ability to “hot-key” directly into specific areas, without having to continually open new windows. So, if I’m in a matter and I want to know what a client owes us, I can just hit the ledger button and see the information instantly. Or a user can hit the timekeeping button and enter billable time from wherever they are in the system or in email. That’s genius.”

The integration between ProLaw and Microsoft Outlook® is one Toerner says is particularly valuable. She explains that attorneys like the ability to save emails into ProLaw, creating real-time visibility on matter status within the system, all the while enabling emails to stay “live” in Outlook so that those conversations with clients and contacts remain open.

With so much functionality available, it’s useful to be able to customize what options are available to users in ProLaw. For instance, LightGabler finds it helpful to minimize the list of fields that attorneys can choose from when managing their matters, so they are only viewing the ones they may need. The firm also implements customized settings around who can access its accounting data for security reasons. Toerner makes the point that it is possible to experiment with customization without fear of inadvertently causing problems that could impair the smooth running of the system.

"Being able to access such a comprehensive system from anywhere, on any device, is a huge benefit."

Jody Toerner

Talking in the cloud

Interconnectivity and integration also matter greatly when it comes to operating ProLaw in the cloud. Streamlined, remote accessibility allows attorneys to view documents and work on matters in ProLaw from anywhere, at any time, from any device. This “talking in the cloud,” as Toerner calls it, had always mattered to LightGabler, but it took on new meaning when the coronavirus pandemic hit, forcing firms to shift to remote working. Having ProLaw in the cloud meant that LightGabler was well positioned when this happened: its attorneys were already working this way; now paralegals and support staff also started to access ProLaw remotely.

“We’ve been very busy since the start of COVID-19, but we’ve had no downtime at all in terms of our ability to provide services to clients, because we had ProLaw set up in the cloud,” says Toerner. “I know that some other firms that hadn’t taken the leap into the cloud have really struggled.”

When the firm moved its cloud hosting provision to LevelCloud, with whom ProLaw has partnered since 2019, Toerner describes this as a game-changing moment. Its seamless integration with ProLaw was the main motivation for LightGabler to move from its previous cloud-hosting provider to LevelCloud. “I was thrilled when ProLaw opened the gates to LevelCloud to enable their servers to work together. We switched to LevelCloud and haven’t looked back,” she says.

Another reason for LightGabler’s choice of LevelCloud was that it wanted a private cloud-hosting solution, rather than being on a shared server with other firms. Toerner feels totally secure with having all of the firm’s files in the cloud. She notes that other firms are likely to have to follow suit sooner or later, given that “this is the way the world is moving.”

As proof of the power of such a shift, Toerner points out that her firm comprises users aged between 25 and 81 — and that the eldest is one of the solution’s biggest proponents. “Younger staff are great at coming up with ideas and questions about what ProLaw can do, and our 81-year-old attorney raves about it,” says Toerner. She understands technology can sometimes be a source of frustration in law firms if it fails to help attorneys operate more efficiently and effectively, but Toerner has no such concerns here. Overall, users seem very satisfied with ProLaw being hosted in LevelCloud.

Cost-effective systems and support

Having ProLaw hosted in the cloud removes the need for costly in-house servers or IT support, saving the firm tens of thousands of dollars per year. “When you map out all the costs involved in having local servers and IT support — and in running a variety of programs for different needs, like timekeeping and contacts management — there are huge cost savings to be made from having one externally maintained, all-inclusive program and one vendor,” says Toerner. ProLaw does all the software updates and maintenance and Toerner has one direct contact at LevelCloud who liaises with ProLaw to troubleshoot any back-end issues that arise.

That takes a huge amount of pressure off Toerner personally in terms of ensuring the firm’s critical technologies are well supported. As well as saving on costs and complexity, using an external hosting provider means that, rather than just having one internal member of support staff available to help a large group of users, the firm can have several specialists advising individuals all at the same time.

Training is relatively straightforward and is conducted internally by Toerner herself, who estimates that most people become fully comfortable with using it within a month. “It’s easy to teach people how to use ProLaw, and once they get going, they’re fine,” she says. “Most people wouldn’t want to go back to a paper-based system, and I certainly wouldn’t. We want to move with the times, and ProLaw enables us to do that. I’d recommend it for sure.”

LightGabler’s future plans for using ProLaw even more extensively include increasing the amount of report customization it undertakes and using the document assembly tool, which is the only component of ProLaw that the firm does not currently deploy. “Being able to click on a couple of buttons in ProLaw to create a template letter, for example, that can just be filled in — that would be a major time saver for us,” says Toerner. “We do everything else in ProLaw, that’s all that’s left.” 

LightGabler

LightGabler advises businesses across California on employment issues, employment and business litigation (including complex class, collective, and representative actions), intellectual property, and unfair competition. Its offices are in Camarillo in Ventura County.

Business challenges

Operating a paperless office, LightGabler needed a holistic solution that could meet all of its practice management needs, but one that worked effectively and efficiently in the cloud, enabling anywhere, anytime accessibility.

Why ProLaw

ProLaw delivers a comprehensive array of features and functionality all in one place. Critically, everything works together smoothly, with users able to “hot-key” quickly to different areas of the system. Its seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook and LevelCloud was another major plus.

Benefits

• All-in-one solution with extensive features and functionality
• Fast, efficient maneuverability around the program
• Makes processes like timekeeping and billing easy
• Interconnects with Microsoft Outlook and cloud-based service providers
• Remote accessibility, with no need for internal servers or IT support

President Joe Biden brought together gender equality advocates as he called for the passage of Paycheck Fairness Act during the White House’s commemoration of Equal Pay Day 2023.

Policymakers, legal advocates and top White House officials were among the many stakeholders on hand to push for greater pay equity between men and women during this year’s iteration of the day-long advocacy event. Equal Pay Day, which this year takes place in the middle of Women’s History Month, aims to raise awareness of gender-based compensation issues and highlight legislative solutions to those issues.

“Equal Pay Day–the day of the year when women working in the U.S. finally earn the same amount as men did in the year before–is an unfortunate reminder that historic wage inequity continues,” said Julie Su, Acting Secretary of Labor. “The Biden-Harris administration has made unprecedented investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and remains determined to remove barriers that prevent women from obtaining good-paying jobs found in the projects these investments will fund to help close the gender wage gap.”

Wendy Chun-Hoon, director of the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau and Jennifer Klein, assistant to the president and director of the Gender Policy Council, were among those who met with state legislative leaders invited to participate in the White House event. Legislators from states tackling gender equality issues like California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, (including the state's Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard), were represented at the event.

“States have long been on the frontlines of fighting to close the gender pay gap and, in the last few years, pay transparency efforts have emerged as a critical tool to achieve equal pay,” according to information from the White House. “Eight states have now enacted salary range transparency laws, which require employers to disclose salary ranges to job applicants, either in job postings, during the hiring process, or upon request.”

From Twitter

Clooney Foundation for Justice @ClooneyFDN ·Mar 7

"This #InternationalWomensDay, we are thrilled to launch our Waging Justice for Women Legal Fellowship Programme, which will support the next generation of women lawyers and empower them to advance rights for #women and #girls in their communities. https://cfj.org/wjw-fellowships/"

Biden also announced executive actions aimed at eliminating the gender wage gap and promoting fair pay, transparency and equity for federal employees, contractors and job applicants in addition to advocating the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would “strengthen existing equal pay protections, further combat discriminatory pay practices, and enhance penalties for certain equal pay violations,” according to the White House.

“To build an inclusive economy, we need to enable workers to obtain jobs based on their interests, skills and aptitude rather than gender, race or ethnicity, and promote good-paying jobs that follow fair wage setting practices, like those found in union employment, to help to eliminate the wage gap,” Su adds.

Statistics from the Woman Lawyers Association of Michigan indicate Black women, Native American women, Latina women, LGBTQ individuals and mothers all earn less than Asian American and white women. Native American women, per the association, make only $0.51 on the dollar when compared to men, and Latina women were not far ahead of them making $0.54.

The gender wage gap is not only discriminatory, it undermines the financial stability of families and slows our economic growth. Despite current protections, inadequate remedies and limited enforcement tools have allowed gender-based wage discrimination to persist—leaving women, particularly women of color, without the pay they deserve,” said Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Robert C. “Bobby” Scott.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona did not mince words when it came to discussing the future of law school rankings as he lambasted the “unhealthy obsession with selectivity” he says they create.

Cardona delivered the keynote speech at the Conference on Best Practices for Law School Data held Wednesday, March 1 at Harvard Law School. There, he criticized the overreliance law schools and prospective students have had on rankings like those published by U.S. News and World Report and called for a new normal where those rankings play less of a role in students’ and law schools’ decision-making process.

“It's time to stop worshiping at the false altar of U.S. News and World Report,” Cardona said. “It's time to focus on what truly matters: delivering value and upward mobility.”

The conference was sponsored by the law schools at Harvard University and Yale University, and it featured input from education experts and law deans from around the nation. The one-day conference focused on what types of data applicants need to make the best possible decisions regarding their legal education and what a future “beyond” the U.S. News & World Report rankings should look like.

“By providing a forum for law schools to share and discuss best practices in sharing data, we hope to help ensure prospective students are well positioned to choose the law school that will enable them to achieve their highest aspirations,” said Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning.

According to Yale, a number of schools, including Yale, announced they would no longer participate in the publication’s ranking system. Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken said Yale was the first school to make that announcement, and since it did about 25% of schools ranked, along with a number of medical colleges, have opted to no longer willingly participate in the rankings.

Prior to the conference, U.S. News & World Report Executive Chairman Eric Gertler penned a passionate defense of the rankings in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal. The piece, entitled “Why Elite Law and Medical Schools Can’t Stand U.S. News,” rejected the notion that the rankings are detrimental to students and jabbed at administrators he said “don’t like to be held accountable.”

From Twitter 

Mark Stucker @YCBKpodcast ·Feb 26

"A few dozen have dropped out of the Law School rankings & every week, more drop out of the Law & Med school rankings, but people kept asking, what about their main “best college rankings”. RISD dropped out as an Art and Design school last week."

“There’s a cruel irony in our current higher education system. Our most underserved students typically attend our most-underfunded colleges. These schools are accessible and inclusive, but they often lack the resources to help students complete their degrees,” said Cardona. “Meanwhile, rankings discourage institutions with the largest endowments and greatest capacity to enroll and graduate more underserved students from doing so because it may hurt their selectivity. Instead, the most life-changing higher education opportunities go to young people who already have every socioeconomic advantage.”

Cardona did emphasize the value of data overall and pointed to the education department’s College Scorecard, which provides graduation rates, student debt, costs and other school information, as a useful resource. “Transparency is paramount from colleges and from ranking publications,” he said.

Gerken agreed with the sentiment and added the focus of the conference was “not just how to make choosing law school easier and more transparent for prospective students, but to refocus the conversation on the values of the profession and the future of legal education.”

“For too long we have been cabined by a ranking system that tries to squeeze what cannot be measured into a system that has an impossibly wide range of institutions inside of it,” Gerken said. “I believe that the results have been damaging to the future of legal education and to the future of our profession.”

The practice of plea bargaining is increasingly commonplace in the U.S. criminal justice system, but the findings of a newly published, years-long study indicate the practice may be doing more harm than good when it comes to delivering actual justice.

The report from the Plea Bargain Task Force, which was convened in 2019 by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Criminal Justice Section, found 98% of nationwide convictions were obtained via plea bargain. However, the report indicates myriad shortcomings with this approach and identified it as “often unjust, unfair and [lacking] transparency.”

“While the plea-bargaining process in the United States is broad and varied, the task force determined that it was vitally important to craft a single set of principles to guide plea practices generally,” according to the report. “These principles represent our conclusions about how plea bargaining should operate within our larger criminal justice system, a system based on the fundamental constitutional right to trial.”

The status quo does offer some benefits like cost-savings, certainty and a built-in incentive for defendants to cooperate in criminal cases. However, overall, the system does not seem to be working as intended, said the authors, according to the study. “The integrity of the criminal system is negatively affected by the sheer number of cases resolved by pleas. Police and government misconduct often goes unchecked because so few defendants proceed to pretrial hearings where such misconduct is litigated,” the report concludes.

From Twitter

Mass. Lawyers Weekly @masslw

"A murder defendant’s right to due process was not violated by the commonwealth’s offer of a 'package deal' plea bargain, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled. https://masslawyersweekly.com/2023/02/28/package-deal-plea-offer-deemed-valid/"

The task force is comprised of legal professionals working as defense attorneys, prosecutors and academics, and also includes representatives from advocacy organizations as well as think tanks. While convened by the ABA, the report and its findings have not been approved by the ABA’s Board of Governors nor its House of Delegates, it adds.

The report includes recommendations the authors said lawmakers and court administrators can use to create a more equitable criminal justice system. It calls for, among other things, a “vibrant and active docket of criminal trials” as well as pre-trial and post-trial litigation in order to promote transparency and accountability. It also calls for the prohibition of “impermissibly coercive incentives” forcing defendants to take a deal rather than pursue trial. Further, the report recommends lawmakers and judicial administrators look at the value of eliminating the “trail penalty.”

“A substantial difference between the sentence offered prior to trial and the sentence received after trial undermines the integrity of the criminal system and reflects a penalty for exercising one’s right to trial,” suggests the report.

Additionally, the report suggests disallowing defendants from being able to waive certain rights including the right to:

• Effective counsel
• Challenge sentencing errors
• Challenge the constitutionality of the statute of conviction
• Appeal

From Twitter

Duke News @DukeNews ·Feb 27

"Researchers at @DukeLaw say 90-95% of criminal cases in NC are resolved through a plea bargain, though prof @brandonlgarrett says little is known about how or why a plea deal is made. The school’s Plea Tracker Project aims to boost transparency. https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/durham-county-news/duke-law-plea-tracker-aims-to-provide-transparency-in-prosecutors-plea-bargaining-decisions/"

In addition to the work of the ABA-convened Plea Bargain Task Force, a separate study conducted by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law and the Durham County District Attorney’s Office analyzed nearly 2,000 charges disposed from April 2021 to April 2022 in Durham County. “Reporting cases to the Plea Tracker causes prosecutors to pause, reflect on their decisions, and in turn, check implicit biases,” said Assistant District Attorney Daniel Spiegel.

According to Duke University School of Law, its plea tracking project is expected to continue with a new, expanded system in the near future.

Alternative legal services providers (ALSPs) enjoyed tremendous growth as law firms and corporations alike appear poised to continue to utilize their products. To that end, a new study from Thomson Reuters Institute, the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law delineates just how popular the alternative services sector has become over the last two years.

According to the biennial report, which is entitled “Alternative Legal Services Providers 2023,” ALSPs have evolved into a $20.6 billion market and grew at a 20% compounded annual growth rate between 2019 to 2021. That rate jumped five percentage points when compared to the 2017 to 2019 iteration of the study.

“Both law firms and in-house counsel are increasingly seeing the value of alternative legal services providers,” said lead author James W. Jones, a senior fellow at the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law. “Meanwhile, ALSPs are expanding the services they offer to law firms and corporate law departments by providing specialized services, improving cost efficiency, and delivering greater flexibility in headcount.”

From Twitter

HireAnEsquire @HireAnEsquire ·Feb 8

"Layoff season in #legal industry may bring challenges, but alternative legal service providers and boutique firms are seeing an uptick in business. Job market is strong with 4.5 million jobs added last year. Stay alert for new opportunities! Read more: https://bit.ly/3YaczL5"

The report, according to its authors, is evidence the legal industry is evolving and the line between traditional legal service providers and their alternative counterparts is continually blurring.

Gartner Peer Insights, which provides reviews and ratings of a wide variety of tech solutions, notes there are several different kinds of alternative service outlets including staffing ALSPs and managed services ALSPs. It describes them as “ … non-law-firm providers or law firms with purpose-built delivery services that perform legal support work at a lower cost than traditional law firms and corporate legal departments.”

The fourth installment of the ALSP report featured survey data collected between June 1, 2022 and July 18, 2022. It includes almost 650 respondents from law departments and law firms in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and Europe, notes the report.

From Twitter

Apperio @ApperioLtd ·Jan 24

“38% of CLOs said they plan to hire more lawyers this year, compared to 45% in 2022...plan to send more work to law firms and alternative legal service providers this year than last year.” New CLO survey by @ACCinhouse https://acc.com/about/newsroom/news/acc-2023-clo-survey-partnership-exterro-shows-clo-role-continues-grow-focus"

Data from the reports shows most of the alternative service providers are independent shops—that segment accounts for 87% of the total ALSP revenue—but there is a rapidly growing segment of “captive ALSPs,” which are owned by law firms themselves, reads information from the report’s authors.

Additional findings indicate more than half the “large” firms surveyed said they use the providers for legal tech consulting, while 37% and 31% of mid-sized and small law firms, respectively, reported seeking out their services to those same ends.

“ALSPs are demonstrating value in helping law firms identify and implement the right technology solutions as well as providing training and support,” said Michael Abbott, head of the Thomson Reuters Institute. “The ALSP market increasingly includes software companies and providers of comprehensive legal technologies.”

To read the full report, visit here.