Around the Gavel

Episode Notes

Transcript

Above the Law – Thinking Like a Lawyer
Around the Gavel
05/21/2019

[Music]

Intro: Welcome to Thinking Like a Lawyer with your hosts Elie Mystal and Joe Patrice, talking about legal news and pop culture, all while thinking like a lawyer, here on Legal Talk Network.

[Music]

Joe Patrice: Hello. Welcome to Thinking Like a Lawyer. I am Joe Patrice from Above the Law. Elie Mystal is not with us today again, unfortunately; but we do have our standard co-host, who fills in whenever Elie is gone, which unfortunately has been more frequently of late. Kathryn Rubino, how are you?

Kathryn Rubino: Hey there, how are you?

Joe Patrice: I am good, I am good, I am good. So welcome back to the show.

Kathryn Rubino: Thank you. Thanks for having me back.

Joe Patrice: Well, thanks for being back and thanks to Smith.ai of course, who is our sponsor. And we are going to do another episode, we don’t really have an agenda today, we have guests for the next couple of weeks; but right now, we are just going to kind of have a chat about legal news. I think we might follow a similar format to last time.

Kathryn Rubino: It was fun, kind of did a quick fire, here are some hot topics in the legal news right now and get your take and my take on the various issues. So I have a couple of questions I have prepared.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, that’s awesome and I do too. What I like about that was, I was going to say like, sometimes I kind of forget that people don’t necessarily listen to us every episode.

Kathryn Rubino: True.

Joe Patrice: They should. You should be subscribing to this show and you should be giving it reviews and all that sort of thing, but some people don’t listen to every single episode and so they might have needed that refresher that you just provided for what we did last episode, because sometimes you miss things and then you need to know about them, like are you missing calls, are you spread too thin, interruptions kill your productivity, but clients demand a quick response?

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So, we have some questions you are saying. Do you want to start or do you want me to start? I think we are kind of we both have —

Kathryn Rubino: Both have a few questions. I don’t mind starting. Do you want to put couple of minutes on the clock?

Joe Patrice: All right, okay, go for it.

Kathryn Rubino: Okay. The first question is, we are about a year out from the 2008 big law salary hikes.

Joe Patrice: Oh.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, some analysts have suggested that that kind of cash outlay is finally catching up to some of the firms and that they will be much harsher when it comes to underperforming associates and practice groups, do you think more layoffs are coming to big law?

Joe Patrice: Well, that’s actually two questions in my mind. I think being more harsh towards underperforming associates, this is something that we tagged at the time.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: There was a move for these firms to up their salary numbers and that’s great, and for the elite firms that was probably necessary, but everybody kind of followed and that means that you lose something for the elite firms.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, about a hundred firms wound up actually increasing last year.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, and when they do that, the firms that are in the Am Law 50 or so and really making the big bucks, they can afford that, they actually need to afford that in order to compete for that talent. Firms that are lagging behind in their revenue, they are trying to keep up with those Joneses’ days, but they are just putting a situation where they have to make some changes.

Sometimes those firms’ success in generating talent was not pay, but being able to say, we pay less but you only have to work 1800 hours. When you match the pay, you change that culture, and sometimes not necessarily for the best. If you’re going to force people to do 2000 hours a year, no matter where you are, then maybe you may as well just stay at the big firm instead of going to the smaller one, or not in smaller but midsized one.

I mean, what do you think about the layoffs side which I thought was a kind of a separate question, do you see layoffs coming?

Kathryn Rubino: Well, I mean, I think that they are somewhat related, because I think oftentimes particularly in big law there is the notion of stealth layoffs where a firm is announcing and they are not kind of doing across-the-board layoffs, but all of a sudden practices or performances that may have easily gotten a pass in boom years, all of a sudden people find themselves laid off.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I think there is something to be said for the economic downturn that I think a lot of us think —

Kathryn Rubino: It’s coming.

Joe Patrice: — it’s coming. Especially earlier this week we learned a little bit more about the finances of some of the big firms and we saw that while this was actually one of the better quarters and end of years of last year that big law seen in a while, it still was largely driven by increasing billing rates and at a certain point that its elasticity is going to wear out, and when demand is not really going up all that much and definitely not going up that much for all the mid-tier firms and those are exactly the sorts of firms that followed when they appropriately shouldn’t have.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

(00:05:08)

Joe Patrice: That’s going to cause some problems I think, but I digress. So, that’s kind of this separate question. Yeah, I think they are probably related, but I think I am more worried about the changing culture in the short term for those firms and then over the long term. I am worried about the other.

[Air Horn]

Kathryn Rubino: There we go.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Next question, the international —

Joe Patrice: Okay.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh, it’s not — are you going to go?

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I kind of thought I would.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh I thought, I would —

Joe Patrice: I just thought that we were trying to be fair here.

Kathryn Rubino: Well, I thought I would do all my questions for — I mean we are all going to have a chance to talk eventually.

Joe Patrice: Oh, okay.

Kathryn Rubino: Sorry, I mean, I didn’t know that you were so sensitive to —

Joe Patrice: Yeah — no, I am. So, we also got this week a list out of Law360 of the biggest law firms, just like a straight list of headcount, who is the biggest law firms. This is a ranking, obviously rankings get attention. Is this a useful ranking?

Kathryn Rubino: Nope.

Joe Patrice: Okay, thanks.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean —

Joe Patrice: Where is that air horn?

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, I think that it is, I guess informational and kind of a niche trivia question to find out which law firm is physically — has the largest headcount or something like that, but it doesn’t really seem to have too big of an impact on their practice areas or something like that. I think that profitability measurements are far more important when you are trying to suss out who are the best of the best kind of law firms, and obviously headcounts can help in profitability, but it’s not necessary — particularly if they are paying so much to associates, it may not be particularly relevant. And it’s different business models and it’s kind of comparing apples to oranges. Some law firms have one or two offices very focused in New York and DC, Wachtell is very tiny.

Joe Patrice: Compared to — certainly compared to something first.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, I mean — I think they have the second smallest law firm in terms of headcount in the Am Law 100, themselves and Cahill are both under 300 attorneys, but they are both profitable, they are still in the Am Law, at the top of the Am Law and I’m not sure that that really matters when you are talking about some of these international variants and some of these very large firms.

Joe Patrice: Yeah — no, I think that’s right. I think it’s a best and indirect indicator, like it’s an indicator. I also think this is one of those indicators that meant more during the odds when we had that high pressure growth phase, where everyone believed the only way to success was more growth, and it’s not to say there aren’t firms following aggressive growth strategies now, but I think this is where our friend — a friend of the show, Bruce MacEwen’s ‘Growth Is Dead: Now What?’ book comes in.

We have turned the tipping point where just inexorable growth is not the way in which a law firm can build its way to success consistently. And now that we are at that point, are these sorts of rankings really not that useful, at least directly, because, just because the firms manage to grow a lot, doesn’t necessarily mean it has success.

Kathryn Rubino: I agree.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: So now it’s my turn again?

[Air horn]

Kathryn Rubino: Oh, okay.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, do you want — do you like the air horn? Do you want to try something else? I don’t know.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean you want to mix up the soundboard here a little? I mean —

Joe Patrice: I don’t know like —

Kathryn Rubino: You could go for it.

Joe Patrice: I don’t know even know like what —

Kathryn Rubino: The world is yours oyster, Joe Patrice.

Joe Patrice: I just feel like the air horn makes sense in like a –

Kathryn Rubino: Aaaa…

Joe Patrice: Well, no, it’s getting — that was wow, that sounded like —

Kathryn Rubino: Poor? Is that a poor performance of an air horn right there?

Joe Patrice: That was a poor performance of air horn.

Kathryn Rubino: I never thought of myself as an air horn specialist.

Joe Patrice: Yeah — no, but I just — I don’t know, I was just thinking like – I don’t know.

Kathryn Rubino: All right. Go ahead and really mix it up. Go ahead, all right.

Joe Patrice: Let’s see, all right.

Kathryn Rubino: So, let me ask you the question first.

Joe Patrice: Okay.

Kathryn Rubino: The International Bar Association in collaboration with the market research company, Acritas, put out a survey, the results of which they put out this week, about sexual harassment and bullying in the legal industry. It’s a global survey and one-third of female attorneys globally say they have been sexually harassed at work, are you surprised by that number?

Joe Patrice: One-third?

Kathryn Rubino: One-third.

Joe Patrice: Not really, if anything may be that it’s only one-third.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s actually over one-third, I guess it’s 36.6%, I mean that’s — I mean I think that it’s — I’m not particularly surprised by that information, but I also think that it should be surprising, we should be horrified by that number and some of the breakdowns were even worse. Those who have said that they had government legal jobs, women in government legal jobs reported 52.5% women so they have been sexually harassed, and in legal jobs within the judiciary 46.6% of women said that they were sexually harassed.

Joe Patrice: I think, yes.

Kathryn Rubino: Those are horrible numbers.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, although it doesn’t actually shock me that the government and judiciary are worse.

Kathryn Rubino: Really, I thought that those are particular surprising. I mean, it seems to me like people who work at the government and/or judiciary should be more aware of sexual harassment if probably gotten trainings, mandatory trainings and get pamphlets and such, I was a little surprised.

Joe Patrice: You have got the word “should” in there —

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: — and that’s true, but I mean, what we saw, what we have been seeing in the Federal judiciary just to take one small segment.

Kathryn Rubino: Because again, these are global numbers.

(00:10:00)

Joe Patrice: These are power positions and position is kind of ultimate authority and people abuse those, and I think that with State judges it’s increasingly worse too because it’s by a factor worse because you are dealing with people who are there, who are elected so they are politicians too. They already have built in that egotistical belief that everything should flow to them, which is problematic.

I think that the government side, you deal with a whole bunch of people who think they are never going to get fired so they stick around forever; whereas, in the corporate world, I do think as bad as it is, there is an increased attention upon it. There are structures that people believe you must have in those worlds and more oversight, which certainly doesn’t solve the problem as those numbers say but is why, it’s slightly better than the government.

Kathryn Rubino: Actually I think law firms actually perform the best. In-house legal departments had 42% of women reporting sexual harassment, which is still —

Joe Patrice: Wow. I countered law firms as corporate but they are entities that 00:10:54 like that, but good point.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure. Yeah, and bigger law firms appear to be slightly better as well, but it was kind of interesting to me and I think you are right that there is sort of these systems in some of these government offices that apparently is allowing terrible harassment to come but hopefully, this serves as some measure of a wake-up call within the industry.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I mean for people trying to get into this industry, this is which we do have several prelaw listeners. This is an unfortunate reality that still is out there.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s something certainly we need to be aware of, I think. Information is always good, being aware that just because you are a layer, it doesn’t mean you are immune from sexual harassment, you can experience it, it is potentially a part of your professional career, and to be aware of that before you start, your career is probably useful.

[Car Horn]

Kathryn Rubino: Wooh!

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: I like it.

Joe Patrice: Like that? All right, we will keep testing things out. So big story this week that a lot of people are still arguing about Ron Sullivan, who is a professor at Harvard Law School, faced some student protest, he is also in addition to being a law professor he was a Dean at the Undergraduate Harvard Institution when basically that put him in charge of a dorm sort of, it’s a weird system whatever we roll with it, but that’s a thing that he also did.

He briefly took on the Harvey Weinstein representation, there were some protests over that, and it resulted in the school taking away his deanship, but he remains obviously a professor at Harvard Law School.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: So there’s been a lot of attention and hand-wringing in editorials and social media all over the place about how this is wrong and people’s Sixth Amendment rights are being trampled upon and we’re letting the mob dictate whether or not you get to have a lawyer. What do you take on that? I wrote a story about this, so we know mine.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, yeah, I don’t disagree with you fundamentally, but I mean, I think this is very analogous to big law partner who wants to represent a client but the rest of the partnerships as you can, there is a pre-existing conflict because we have these other pre-existing clients. It happens all the time in big law. You can’t just have any client you want, you have to go through client checks and sometimes firewalling you off from it is insufficient, that happens a lot, it’s reality of the sort of legal industry.

And I think that this is that kind of an example. I think that when you’re put in a position where you are responsible for listening to and potentially responding to people’s complaints of harassment and sexual assault to turn around and represent somebody who has been credibly accused repeatedly of the worst kinds of sexual harassment and assault, I think that there’s a real problem there, and how is a student supposed to be comfortable going to the person that they were supposed to report sexual harassment and assault to, when they have come out in support of Harvey Weinstein?

Joe Patrice: Well — and that’s more or less kind of my take. The issue is and you say these conflicts and I think these conflicts are critical. It’s not that he can’t represent Harvey Weinstein, nobody’s mad at Jose Baez, who’s also Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer, nobody is mad at him for representing Harvey Weinstein; like you may disagree with him, but nobody is like lining up to protest him. Why? Because he doesn’t have a reason not to; he is a criminal defense lawyer, that’s all he is.

In this case Sullivan was just given kind of the choice of like, well, if you are going to hold this job, you can’t be doing this, and that’s it, and that’s totally fair. That’s why you said the firm partnership, which I think is a great analogy, we are dealing with a situation where a person is taking a paycheck and a title to do something and then turning around and doing something that interferes with that and the people who pay him the first job have absolutely the right to say I think there’s a problem with you taking that.

[Air Horn]

And I hit the air horn again, sorry. I should’ve like mixed it up.

Kathryn Rubino: Mixed it a little, but it’s okay.

Joe Patrice: I mean I understand, all right, go, go, go.

Kathryn Rubino: Okay, so according to papers filed by the government in the Greg Craig case, Skadden appears to have hired Paul Manafort’s daughter just in order to secure Manafort’s Ukraine business, are you surprised? Do you think this kind of a quid pro quo is unusual within big law?

(00:15:04)

Joe Patrice: I don’t know as though it’s unusual.

Kathryn Rubino: I guess I have never been on a hiring committee of a big law firm, so I guess I don’t really know, but it seems a little odd.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I don’t know whether it’s quid pro quo or just like —

Kathryn Rubino: Scratching one’s back.

Joe Patrice: Friendly, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Well, yeah, I mean apparently Craig had written an actual email after she had been rejected from the firm saying, we really kind of need this, which seems a little above, but it also kind of struck me that given all the problems of this Ukrainian business, the firm has file — has paid some — what’s the word?

Joe Patrice: I don’t know.

Kathryn Rubino: Like money.

Joe Patrice: I am just happy that you are looking for a word, because for a second I thought you had a script. I was like she is just staring.

Kathryn Rubino: No, they have paid money because sanction —

Joe Patrice: I mean, they have been fined, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s the word. Oh my gosh, it’s like the tiniest little word, I just did not have it there, but they have been fined money. One of their former associates has been convicted of lying to investigators as a former counsel, Greg Craig is under — has been arrested and was indicted and is going to trial about similar offenses, all stemming from the same Ukrainian engagement. It seems like it was not really worth it.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I don’t know. Like I think it is problematic the way in which these sorts of decisions get made at the higher levels of all manners of privilege, but like I don’t necessarily know as though it was at the — how nefarious it was.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure, I don’t think there is anything like per se wrong about it, I just think it kind of flies in the face of sort of the meritocracy myth that a lot of big law firms seem to operate under.

Joe Patrice: That’s fair. Do we believe the legal world is truly a meritocracy? No.

Kathryn Rubino: No.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no, I think that is absolutely true.

Kathryn Rubino: What was that?

Joe Patrice: Duck, I guess.

Kathryn Rubino: It sounded like a man coughing/a duck.

Joe Patrice: Oh yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean it’s fine, but.

Joe Patrice: So the last one I have is the Alabama Abortion Law that just came down, putting aside all substantive matters of this, let’s just dispassionately look at this as attorneys. If you are trying to deal with — if you are one of those people who sees the Supreme Court as now open to overturning things, is this law a good strategic move?

Kathryn Rubino: No, I mean just as a matter of sort of strategy, it seems problematic, because it’s an outright ban. It’s not sort of that slow decreasing of reproductive freedom, but death by a thousand cuts kind of mentality, which I think has been very successful for anti-choice activists. This is very different than that.

It seems to be kind of pushing in where the job is already being done by other states and other kind of terrible, in my opinion, laws. But I think that this kind of goes a step too far. I don’t think that — I think that putting — Chief Justice Roberts is the center of the court now, I think that this kind of a law is going to be much more troublesome for him to affirm than more of these kind of — these other laws that just put extreme burdens on women who are seeking to use their rights.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, it just struck me that there is not a good strategy here. In that, you have got a court that has already made clear that they are willing to entertain restrictions that didn’t exist before, and to jump that extra mile, now you have put Roberts, somebody who cares about the institutional strength of the court; Shelby County is a good example here. There was an opportunity theoretically to get rid of the Voting Rights Act, but he didn’t want to do that, he didn’t want to invite all that that would, so he messed with the preclearance rules.

Kathryn Rubino: Carved it.

Joe Patrice: And carved it, like this is what the court is now prepared to do for you, if this is your ultimate goal, why would you engage in a litigation strategy, and make no mistake, this bill is a litigation strategy.

Kathryn Rubino: Of course.

Joe Patrice: There is no plan that it’s ever to go into effect. It’s just a litigation strategy. If this is your goal, then I don’t see how as a litigation strategy, this makes any sense, because you need to read the room and read what you can get and start tailoring your arguments to get where it needs to go, and the court I think — my take was, any one of those various GIFs, depending on which pronunciation you want to believe, the correct one or the wrong one, but the — any one of those about missing the point, where like a point gets thrown and somebody ducks.

(00:19:54)

Like that’s what I feel happened coming out of cases like Shelby County, Jaynes and this week the Hyatt case. They were signaling that they are willing to hear restrictions, even though they have had issues with them before, not the go whole hog argument.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, I mean as a strategy I think that the sort of heartbeat bills that have become very popular are likely to be much more successful.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, this just threw a wrench in a litigation strategy that had been kind of rolling forward successfully I thought.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean it’s been absolutely devastating for many women across this country.

Joe Patrice: Well, sure. Again, I said put aside all that, just talk about it as litigators.

Kathryn Rubino: That is proof that it is a very effective strategy is what I am saying.

Joe Patrice: Right, yeah, as litigators.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, I hear what you are saying. Okay then. Next question, so according to data collected by ALM as part of their Am Law 100 ranking, it was revealed that the firm with the highest number of billable hours per attorney, Fish & Richardson, that number, the average number of billable hours per lawyers of that firm is 1,916 hours a year. Are you surprised with that number? Is it high? Is it low? What do you we think about that?

Joe Patrice: That’s the highest?

Kathryn Rubino: That is the average highest, right.

Joe Patrice: Okay, so taking everything, that average is the highest. Yeah, I think I am a little shocked, I would think somewhere just barely north of 2,000 was the average.

Kathryn Rubino: And this is up from last year’s average high.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: And I think that what’s also important — why calling attention to this number I think is pretty important is because lots of firms have billable hour requirements to get your bonuses, right, 2000 hours is not unheard of in order to get your bonuses, and at the firm that has the highest billable hours per lawyer, it is under 2,000. So that means that if a firm has a 2,000 hour cap, a lot of people are not going to hit that mark.

Joe Patrice: Well, let me pull back on that. Now, that’s all lawyers. See, I think that a lot of partners are the people who are in the below level.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh, interesting.

Joe Patrice: That would be my guess, a lot of more high quality hours, but not as many.

Kathryn Rubino: More profitable hours.

Joe Patrice: Yes. High quality, high effort hours, but less time, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Well, it’s certainly I think something to be aware of when you are kind of thinking about whether or not you are likely to make your hours, whatever those requirements may be. Sure, you might be right that it is motivated by a lot of the more senior attorneys who are less worried about what their billable requirements are, but everyone thinks oh, well, I will just work those hours as if all hours come magically from the work Gods and sometimes it’s hard to make hours, not through any fault of an associate, but rather because of the work that’s available at that moment or that year, and it may not be their fault. And if you have a pretty draconian bonus policy, it’s easy to find yourself on the wrong side of that.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. Well, I have no more questions.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh, I have another one.

Joe Patrice: oh, cool.

Kathryn Rubino: You are ready?

Joe Patrice: Yeah, oh yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s kind of scary, I don’t really like dogs.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, fair enough.

Kathryn Rubino: Okay.

Joe Patrice: That’s why I did it. No, go on.

Kathryn Rubino: Of course. Okay, also part of the Am Law 100 data, now just 16 Am Law 100 firms have a single tier of partnership. Why? And that’s because the rise of sort of income partners, people who make, I think as defined by ALM more than 50% of their annual income on a fixed basis, why have income partnerships taken off? Why are they so popular in big law right now?

Joe Patrice: I think that there is a drive to de-equitize that’s probably detrimental to the profession as a profession, but it is very helpful to the profession as a corporate business.

Kathryn Rubino: Business model.

Joe Patrice: I don’t know necessarily know about business model, but definitely if you want to run a law firm that is, we are going to scorched-earth, get as much money as we can and get out, then this is the most effective way. It allows you to consolidate the actual profits to a smaller and smaller group of people and you can also drag along a lot of people who — like basically it’s the people who years ago would be counsel, but that people then go well, counsel, that’s not a partner, so instead they just call them all partners and some of them get money and some of them don’t.

And it’s unfortunate. I think it’s kind of demeaning to the structure that this profession is operated on for a long time, but that’s where it is.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure, it kind of undermines the supposed collegiality of a partnership.

Joe Patrice: Right, yes, I think that’s the way —

Kathryn Rubino: But it also allows some firms to say that their partnership is diverse, even though those people may not be full equity partners.

Joe Patrice: Right, and that’s the bad thing, right?

Kathryn Rubino: 100%.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, like they are hiding diversity — they are hiding their failure to diversify by saying they are “partners”.

Kathryn Rubino: Right, but they are creating a lower tier, which they are able to sort of meet their diversity needs without allowing them to advance to that highest level.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no, I agree. I don’t really have much more to say about this, it’s —

Kathryn Rubino: I mean it’s a business decision at the end of the day and I understand that that’s what’s kind of motivating it, but you are right, it does kind of change the notion of what the profession means, at least at the top levels.

(00:25:00)

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I mean basically if you are an income partner, if you have any kind of business of your own, not like the kind of you are there just as a service, like a senior management level attorney, which also has its value, don’t get me wrong, but if you are being treated as an income partner and you have some manner of business, you probably should try to —

Kathryn Rubino: Find somebody that values that.

Joe Patrice: At least shop around, because there will be places who are willing to give you equity.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, and there is a lateral feeding frenzy right now and I think that’s true for all lawyers across the board, you should always know exactly how much you are worth.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. All right, that was the sensor beep; it wasn’t that we said anything bad, that was just I am testing different sounds.

Kathryn Rubino: Fair enough, fair enough.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, so that was a weird one, we won’t do that one.

Kathryn Rubino: Well, that’s the end of my questions.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, all right. Well, that’s good, because we are kind of at the end of the show.

Kathryn Rubino: It’s almost like we planned this out.

Joe Patrice: Almost.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean we didn’t.

Joe Patrice: But we didn’t at all.

Kathryn Rubino: We definitely did not.

Joe Patrice: No, we threw it together at the end, but not that we — that’s not really fair, we had written these questions, we just —

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: We had not rehearsed.

Kathryn Rubino: At some point before we turned on the microphones.

Joe Patrice: We didn’t rehearse or anything, so that we wouldn’t lose the spontaneity.

Kathryn Rubino: Goodness, no, you can tell because I just stopped talking for about 20 seconds.

Joe Patrice: That was weird, really weird, but I am glad you are okay.

Kathryn Rubino: I couldn’t come up with the word fine, fine, F-I-N-E, that was the word I was struggling on.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, but I am glad you are okay.

Kathryn Rubino: Here we are.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. So if you are listening to this show, again, you should be subscribing to it, giving it reviews, yada, yada, yada. You should be reading Above the Law, listening to The Jabot, which is Kathryn’s podcast, which I got some guff from people, because in a previous episode I threw —

Kathryn Rubino: You talked smack about it, that’s why.

Joe Patrice: I did talk some smack.

Kathryn Rubino: That is why. I mean it was a clear reason.

Joe Patrice: I didn’t mean it that way. I meant —

Kathryn Rubino: You meant it that way.

Joe Patrice: But you know what?

Kathryn Rubino: You meant it.

Joe Patrice: What happened, we got a good sense of your loyal audience, because people backlashed, and so in the end —

Kathryn Rubino: Or just people who don’t like when you are a jerk.

Joe Patrice: That can’t be, because then no one would listen to this show.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. But yeah, so listen to The Jabot, which is her podcast, listen to the other offerings of Legal Talk Network. You can follow us on Twitter. I am @JosephPatrice, she is at —

Kathryn Rubino: @Kathryn1.

Joe Patrice: Kathryn1 spelled the way that it says on now on the right.

Kathryn Rubino: Kathryn, see how much faster that was than trying to —

Joe Patrice: Anyway, so do all of these things, and with that I think we are done. Next week we will have a guest and we will chat a little bit with a lawyer about their career.

Kathryn Rubino: Bye.

Joe Patrice: Bye.

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