Alina Habba Goes Full Lionel Hutz In Latest Trump Trial

Episode Notes

Transcript

Joe Patrice:

We’re back. Hey, this is Thinking Like A Lawyer. I’m Joe Patrice from Above the Law.

Kathryn Rubino:

Hi Joe Patrice.

Joe Patrice:

Hi. That’s Kathryn Rubino and Chris Williams is here somewhere

Chris Williams:

Right Here

Joe Patrice:

There we go. We are all your editors that are Above The Law. We produce the show every week to give you a little rundown of some of the big stories that were in the week. That was, yeah, that’s like a clever,

Kathryn Rubino:

You should write that down and use it again.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:

Okay. You might have a script. One might.

Joe Patrice:

Oh, oh, I’m sorry. That sound effect of course means that we’re going to begin our small talk section of the show.

Kathryn Rubino:

Joe is a dick. That’s how I’m starting small talk. I think it’s fair.

Joe Patrice:

Alright. So yeah. So small talk. It was cold. It’s very cold.

Kathryn Rubino:

Listeners in my recall

Chris Williams:

Last week are literally talking about the weather right now.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:

I’m barreling right through what he’s saying. Don’t

Chris Williams:

Worry. Okay. Good, good, good.

Kathryn Rubino:

Don’t worry. Listeners will recall last week I was joined by my baby who is ill, but the good news is she’s on the men’s. Not a hundred percent, because I don’t think anything gets cured anymore in a week. That was really cute. That was like babies saying. Yeah, it was real

Joe Patrice:

Cute. Yeah. That’s how, yeah. We’re all

Kathryn Rubino:

Cute. I like that. Good one. Good one. Good one. Yeah. But she had a terrible rash. We think it was fifth disease, which I’d never heard of, but lots of rashes. Lots of fevers, but we’re on the other side of the worst of it, so I just wanted to give a little update for those of you who are following along.

Joe Patrice:

That makes sense. Awesome. So that’s good to hear. Otherwise, yeah, no, I mean, I really didn’t have anything but the weather to talk about just because it’s been just so brutal.

Kathryn Rubino:

Really brutal. Is that, I don’t

Joe Patrice:

Know. Bitterly cold. Did you not go outside?

Kathryn Rubino:

Well, I had a sick child. That’s

Joe Patrice:

Fair. That’s fair.

Kathryn Rubino:

Fair. The amount of out, I mean, I guess I went to the doctor, but it felt cold, but not uniquely cold. But also we’ve had really mild winters the last couple of years. I feel like we’re due.

Chris Williams:

I feel like it’s been above zero.

Joe Patrice:

It has. That is true. Unless you’re talking about Celsius.

Chris Williams:

We aren’t. We aren’t aren’t here. We

Kathryn Rubino:

Never did. Yeah. See this. Were American.

Chris Williams:

Yeah. mca. We measure temperature in bald eagles, big Macs, and genocide. Denial. Those are the main units of

Joe Patrice:

Measurement. Well, anyway, so

Kathryn Rubino:

What’d you do this week, Chris?

Chris Williams:

Oh, I was in your camp. Not baby camp, but being inside camp. I just played a lot of this games called Monster Hunter, world Ice Born, and when I tell you I’ve slain so many monsters,

Kathryn Rubino:

I’m glad you’re keeping us all safe here.

Chris Williams:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do my part, I protect and surf. No, it felt like the parts of a Lewis and Clark expedition, they leave out. It’s like, oh, look at that beautiful landscape. Let’s go kill that thing. It’s been really fun. It’s really fun.

Kathryn Rubino:

I think we might’ve figured out what happened to the buffalo.

Chris Williams:

Yeah. I

Kathryn Rubino:

Found it’s going wide, right?

Joe Patrice:

Oh, oh, that that was, oh, that was hard. That

Chris Williams:

Was good. That was good. There needs to be a zing sound effect. That was,

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah.

Joe Patrice:

I didn’t even see it coming.

Chris Williams:

Neither did they.

Kathryn Rubino:

Oh,

Joe Patrice:

Wow. Sorry, Buffalo.

Kathryn Rubino:

I mean, it did stink for them. Yeah. But also we get another week of Taylor Swift attending. That’s true. NFL games. So win-win

Chris Williams:

Taylor works in mysterious ways.

Joe Patrice:

Alright. I think that’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Maybe Jason Kelsey in his shirtless antics will continue as well. He does a lot of things to look over to

Joe Patrice:

And with the mention of Taylor Swift, that will conclude small

Speaker 4:

Talk.

Joe Patrice:

Hey, everybody. Hey. Want to talk about some legal stuff?

Kathryn Rubino:

No.

Joe Patrice:

Okay, good. Then. Well, let’s talk about Alina Haba.

Kathryn Rubino:

You’re welcome.

Joe Patrice:

Good. Trump’s attorney known for such hits as really just being a parking garage attorney and saying that she’d rather be pretty than smart. She can fake being smart has failed to fake being smart in the trial that she’s now taking part in. She’s been chastised multiple times by the judge for all manner of basic Courtroom. She’s asked for mistrials based on nothing. She doesn’t seem to understand what spoliation means. She’s tried to introduce exhibits without laying a foundation or even pre-marking them. She’s been yelled at by the judge to sit down a few times and to stand up when she tried to talk to him without standing.

Kathryn Rubino:

I think it’s interesting, her Courtroom antics, it’s not just basic Courtroom procedure, obviously that’s a big part of it, but it’s kind of gone mainstream. It’s not just nerds anymore who are making fun of her. Seth Meyers went after her because of Judge Kaplan.

Chris Williams:

Wait, is that your example of not a nerd?

Kathryn Rubino:

Well, it’s mainstream. It’s mainstream.

Chris Williams:

Mainstream,

Joe Patrice:

A network.

Chris Williams:

I just wanted to call Seth Meyer of nerd. I felt like somebody had to do

Kathryn Rubino:

It.

Joe Patrice:

It’s on a network that comes.

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah. I think that a first year associate at a big law firm could do a better job because at least they’d have the common decency to be chag grinned the first time.

Joe Patrice:

Well, that’s the part that gets me is if you aren’t capable of being a Courtroom attorney, because this is just, and that’s not even a knock. This isn’t really her practice area. Figure it out. Do some work to try and get it figured out. That seems to be not what happened. And I will throw in a quick plug for any Rising, any current two Ls who will be Rising three Ls. I actually wrote an article about Alina last week that had a little nugget within it, which is that there’s a pretty cool trial advocacy, boutique trial advocacy academy. That boutique law firm, Molo Lampkins running seems cool as you can, could do

Kathryn Rubino:

Better job than

Joe Patrice:

Could spend a week learning to do the stuff that Alina doesn’t do, and they’ll give you 4,500 bucks for it. But anyway, it speaks to the way in which that’s all it really takes to be passively competent in a Courtroom. You could sit down with somebody and work for a week and figure it out. Well, yeah. I mean, you’re not going to be the world’s greatest attorney at that point, but you’re not going to get yelled at for not marking exhibits and stuff.

Kathryn Rubino:

The thing that gets me, I remember as a young attorney the first time the partner I worked with said that I was ready to take a deposition and had just the terror or defend a deposition. I guess I did that first and just sort of the terror that I had that I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t object at the right times, that I would miss something. And I just remember going over every possible permutation of when I should say something, when I shouldn’t, possible question and just kind of obsessing about it and what really compare and contrast that to Alina’s performance in the Courtroom. And we always knew that Trump’s attorneys had no shame, but this is just putting it up in lights right there, because she has no shame. She doesn’t even have the decency to be horrifically embarrassed about what she’s doing. I’m embarrassed for her. It’s painful to watch

Chris Williams:

Two things. One, yes. It’s harder to imagine a better Trump lawyer if Trump was practicing. This is what it will look like somehow worse, but it will look like this. Second thing, I just wish I was a fly on the wall for whatever person is teaching trial team to law students. These are just clear examples of things not to do.

Kathryn Rubino:

Oh

Joe Patrice:

Man. Yeah.

Chris Williams:

This is really one of those hypos come to life situations where it’s like, oh, and here we don’t do this.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, I’ll bet every absolutely nerdy mock trial team out there is having pizza parties watching this sort of stuff.

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah, I get that. Right. But the person I think I feel the worst for in this whole debacle is Louis Kaplan. That man seems to be on his very last nerve and still has to acts like a dignified judge.

Joe Patrice:

As I think about it, and I think about the southern district, I couldn’t have hoped for another judge to have this case. Just somebody who has the ability to manage this sort of craziness. Not going to take any guff

Kathryn Rubino:

From being swallowed. Exactly. Zero bss.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. That’s not a knock on anybody else in the district, but I could imagine other folks trying frustratedly trying to accommodate the insanity, and that is just not where he is at this point in his career. So yeah, it’s an interesting Well, and look, Alina’s making bank off of it. We did get some insight into how much money she’s making because Trump pays, it appears as though Trump is paying a lot of his attorneys from his super Pac. That way it’s not his actual money.

Kathryn Rubino:

Well, at least they’re getting paid.

Joe Patrice:

So the upside is they’re getting paid. The downside is everyone gets to see what they’re getting paid. And over the first half of last year, Alina managed to pull down one and a half mil. I assume it’s more now, obviously she’s had the whole second half of last year and she’s in a trial now. I got to think that she’s faking being smart might actually be paying off for her. Yeah.

Chris Williams:

1.5

Joe Patrice:

Is pretty smart, pretty smart. If she keeps her license out of this, she’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Golden. If that’s a big

Chris Williams:

Friend, even if not, that’s a nice little nest egg. Long as she avoids prison.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. Look, I don’t think there’s any allegations of anything criminal cropping up probably, but she does have a disciplinary issue. She’s been hauled into court by someone who worked at Trump’s club that Alina, according to the texts that are included in the complaint, Alina was telling her, oh yeah, don’t file a grievance against your employer. I can handle this for you, but secretly also angling to work for Trump. At the same time, she’s letting on that she might be helping this person. The texts, assuming they are accurate, do not look particularly great for Alina. We’ll see how that goes. And then who knows what comes from irritating. Kaplan McDermott Will and Emory is Vault’s number one law firm for associate satisfaction three years running. Why? Because they’re doing big law better. At McDermott, you define what your success looks like, they help you achieve it. Award-winning professional development program and hands-on mentorship propel you toward your goals while the industry leading wellness benefits help you feel your best. So you can do your best. Want to see how your life could be better at McDermott? Head to mw.com/ Above, the Law. Okay. Next up is a story that you covered. Kathryn? Me? Yeah, from Troutman. I

Kathryn Rubino:

Probably should have read your email. Huh?

Joe Patrice:

It would’ve been

Kathryn Rubino:

Great. I’ll figure it out. I wrote about it, so I must know it

Joe Patrice:

One would hope.

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah. Oh, I remember now.

Joe Patrice:

My God,

Kathryn Rubino:

This is this professional operation here. No, there was a complaint filed by a former associate at a Troutman Pepper claiming racial discrimination filed in the district court for district of Columbia and alleges racial discrimination. And retaliation says that she received positive reviews for her work, but then started work for a particular partner who made belittling comments about her work and had aggressive emails questioning her competence. And she says that she complained about the demeaning, dehumanizing and demoralizing, and that’s a quote email to HR and was let go from the firm as a result of the complaining about the emails. And I think that in the complaint she says that what she was told was that it was not racial discrimination, the sort of belittling email that she received and that the partner in question treats everybody like that.

Joe Patrice:

So there’s a lot to untangle here. Obviously, there’s the question of whether or not the big law culture of being a complete asshole to everybody

Kathryn Rubino:

Insulates you from racial discrimination. Yeah.

Joe Patrice:

Well, whether or not it’s appropriate or professional in the first place, then whether or not it insulates you from racial discrimination. It really,

Kathryn Rubino:

I mean, I don’t think it’s appropriate, but I think it’s still unfortunately, a reality at a lot of firms.

Joe Patrice:

When I read through the complaint, it seemed to me as though the critical aspect was kind of the negative space. The partner in question probably is just an asshole all the time, but the allegation was that these sorts of emails only happened to the black associates that other folks didn’t get this level of his assholeness. So it’s not so much that he wasn’t an asshole, but he tempers it in certain cases. And that was a large aspect, at least according to the complaint of the story. It’s bad no matter what though, even if this turns out not to be a racial discrimination claim, like the hostile work environment that gets created, this is a problem and it’s a problem. The big law needs to take more seriously because one aspect that of this story is let’s assume the associate actually does have issues. No one seemingly informed them of that throughout this whole thing. Only positive reviews until now. And if you as a firm think there’s some sort of an issue, you have to proactively try to work around that. Because if you don’t leave a trail of why things aren’t working or at least try to, you don’t have to formally have every time you meet with them, say, here’s 8 million things wrong, but you’ve got to at least foreground

Kathryn Rubino:

It. I think that this goes back to one of an argument I’ve been making since I started working here at Above, the Law, which is that big law does a really terrible job of teaching folks how to manage. Just because you are good at bringing in your third uncle twice removed brother’s business to the firm and makes a lot of money for the firm doesn’t mean you’re capable of managing young attorneys of any variety. And there’s very little training and most big law firms in order to get people up to speed and understanding the basics of management, that people who go to business school take all entire classes in.

Joe Patrice:

One of the allegations was that the associate tried to put the notary signature on a different page than the signature block. Just little stuff like that that apparently set off the

Kathryn Rubino:

Stuff. I mean, listen, I once got yelled at for putting the staple in the wrong direction on. I mean, I’m saying these kind of things absolutely happen. Well,

Joe Patrice:

That’s what I’m getting at. This mistake is one that you learn not to make, but it’s also one that nobody sits down and teaches you because why the hell would they, it doesn’t strike you as something that requires a course. And that gets to the heart of I’m all in favor of hybrid work. And I think that it’s unfair that senior attorneys who delivered one of the most profitable years in big law history while they were all on lockdown, are now forced to commute back into the office every day. That’s not great. But there is something to be said for the sort of training that happens to associates, put staples this direction, put the notary on the same page as the signature block. That’s stuff that only happens when you’re in a room with somebody and you do it and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, actually, and that is lost. And I thought as I read the complaint, one of the hidden message underneath the surface of the complaint the whole way I was thinking, this is somebody who joined the firm during a lockdown era. And there’s probably a lot of these soft learning lessons that one would expect a fourth year associate to already have gotten if they’d been in an office the whole time. But they haven’t been. And then just a complete lack of,

Kathryn Rubino:

And that goes back to firm leaders across the board, not just this firm in question, but in general are saying that junior and mid-level associates are not where they expect them to be because of the sort of learning gap because of covid. And even though those years were profitable, they’re not creating the attorneys that will maintain that profitability. So that’s a real struggle I think that a lot of firms are trying to figure out and strike the right balance, et cetera, et cetera. But I also wonder if part of the lack of management skills that the partnership has is that not every member of the partnership is clued into this. And the fact that these are not necessarily the bad attorneys. These are not necessarily people who can’t be taught, but just because someone’s a fourth year and you expect X from a fourth year, you have to understand that yes, they’re a fourth year, but two and a half of those years we’re at home.

And that means that there are certain things, they’re not bad, they’re not dumb, they’re not incapable of being taught, but they didn’t get those same experiences that you typically expect fourth years or fifth years or whatever to have. And I don’t know that every firm is doing a great job of making sure that everybody in a management position, which to be honest, the senior associates on upward are aware of that fact or making sure that they’re getting people up to speed in a way that’s productive as opposed to blaming folks for not knowing what they don’t know. Yeah.

Chris Williams:

I think that was the saddest thing about it is one, the associate was actively seeking out help, trying to be better about something. And I felt like a good example of what the partner was saying was bad was what he was doing. He was like, you should have known, I was very clear, he was very vague about the criticism. Even if he was, like I said this earlier, copy and paste. It shouldn’t be that hard to get help,

Kathryn Rubino:

But this isn’t the end of the story. We are not the only people who have been talking about it.

Joe Patrice:

Right. Well, this story did spark some just kind of racist nonsense on social media. Of

Kathryn Rubino:

Course it did.

Joe Patrice:

Ted Frank, who is a notable lawyer for trying to blow up class actions in this country, well, actually he says he’s defending victims in class actions. It just happens to be that he only does it in a way that makes it such that nobody pursues class actions. But anyway, this guy decides to go on a Lenivy tirade about how the associate clearly had a bad LSAT score based on nothing really in particular based

Kathryn Rubino:

On vibes.

Joe Patrice:

Based on vibes. Well, that’s really what it was. Put aside, kind of the racist implications of a lot of the stuff he was saying. It already is there. When you start filling in attributes to a person, there’s some sort of empty slate. You have a complaint, and that is only one side of the story, but you only have one side of the story to evaluate. And when you start jumping in with, so obviously they were bad at the L, what the hell does the LSAT have to do with writing memos anyway? Yeah,

Kathryn Rubino:

No, nothing.

Joe Patrice:

It’s not like the LSAT test that

Chris Williams:

In Ted Frank’s defense, I have seen a couple wrongly play staples, and I thought, damn, your logical reasoning,

Joe Patrice:

Your logic game score has nothing to do with either of this anyway. Like,

Chris Williams:

Wow, you can’t tell where Tim sits next to Cheryl if Steve must.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. It just, but it did. In all seriousness, it did this whole episode, what came through in it, which I thought was a troubling thing to observe, was just the way in which it really is filling out like a character bio, like a DD character bio or something. You have this person and you start ascribing all sorts of stuff to them. They clearly had a low LSAT score. They clearly have a bad attitude, all this sort of stuff that he was putting on this based on, at this juncture, only a record that is from the associate’s perspective. So there’s not even a good record on the other side to balance it with. So the fact that you’re doing that is particularly egregious. That’s the

Chris Williams:

Thing about projection. It doesn’t take much. Yeah.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. Well, and it reminded me of our old friend Amy W’s situation, right? When she would say stuff like that, black students never finish in the top half at Penn. What did she have to base that on? Nothing. She has no access to any of those records. But vibes, man. Just vibes. Yeah. But this is the way this goes. Racial discrimination suit comes out bunches of people are going to start saying a bunch of racist stuff about it. So here

Kathryn Rubino:

We go. Racists are in fact going to racist. Yeah.

Joe Patrice:

Okay. Hey, Clarence Thomas is under some sort of an investigation probably. Maybe you go. Yeah. So the judicial conference put out, well, it would be through the action of watchdog groups. The judicial conference had to put out its latest report, the minutes from its meeting, because it probably would’ve loved to sit on them, but they had to come out and in it, it doesn’t name Clarence Thomas, but it does say that they are currently investigating a filer who failed to disclose a number of gifts. The timeline is in line with when we know lots of people were reporting to the conference that things about Clarence Thomas and ProPublica was doing. Its absolutely can’t imagine they don’t get a Pulitzer kind of work on this exact question. So it does seem as though there’s some sort of investigation happening. So that’s a positive. Yay. Especially considering back in 2011 into 2012, there were similar reports against Thomas that the conference just appeared to have swept under the rug. Now, flip side is what are they going to do about this? They can’t impeach a guy. They can refer, if they find anything, they can refer it to Merrick Garland for a possible prosecution, which would result in maybe some fines. But would he even do that, get to that point? Will it get to the point of that kind of referral then? Would the DOJ do anything, then would the courts honor the fact that the DOJ did something? Which is a real question. Also,

Chris Williams:

One more thing about, there’s

Joe Patrice:

A long way to go. One

Chris Williams:

More thing about the fines. Whatever they find ’em, Harlan Crowe can afford to pay it.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, yeah. Harlan’s got ’em covered. I think the appropriate take this is that it’s cautiously positive. It is good to know that the judicial conference takes this seriously enough to at least mention it. Yeah. I mean,

Kathryn Rubino:

I think it’s distinctly positive. I think it’s disheartening that we are this excited about it though. Yeah. This is the definition of a baby step. Yeah.

Joe Patrice:

I would be interested to see why there wasn’t a parallel conversation about Alito. We did have the Wall Street, Journal Prebuttal that he came out with where he basically was like, yeah, sure. I took private planes to luxury resorts, but they weren’t really that

Chris Williams:

Luxury. You go for the black guy first. I

Joe Patrice:

Mean, well, there is something to be said for. There’s a more extensive brand

Kathryn Rubino:

That’s a slam dunk. Maybe we just go there first.

Joe Patrice:

I also, we got to remember the give ourselves a little bit of a pat on the back, even though it wasn’t really us. It was our former colleague, David Latt. But the Alito thing, his primary defense was, I didn’t even know that litigant whose plane I was on. I barely even heard of him. And then ProPublica had dug up that Above the Law back in the day. David had attended a dinner in which Alito and that guy had introduced each other and piled around about how great and close they were. I assumed they figured this was a closed dinner of like-minded people that no one would ever hear about. But there was a record. He absolutely knew this guy really well.

Kathryn Rubino:

It was a dinner of like-minded people, but still one of the was a reporter. Yeah.

Chris Williams:

I wonder if somebody at ProPublica is just Above the Law historian, or if Dave sent a tip was like, actually,

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, no. I’m sure they found it by searching. It does come up when you search their names. That happened, but it was really useful years after the fact that that archive existed. So that’s the pat on the back for us.

Chris Williams:

Shout out the la

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. What else do we have to talk about? Anything? Are we good?

Kathryn Rubino:

No, I think we’re good.

Joe Patrice:

Excellent. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in. You should subscribe to the show so that you get new episodes when they come out. You should give it reviews, stars, write something. That’s all important stuff. You should listen to the other shows. We’ve got Kathryn’s the host of the ot. I am a guest on the Legal Tech Week Journalist Roundtable, which is going to be, I’m not going to be on this week, but it’s going to be exciting in the next little bit because we’re going to entering Legal Tech conference season.

Kathryn Rubino:

Stop it. It’s not exciting.

Joe Patrice:

It’s so exciting.

Chris Williams:

Stop trying to make legal,

Kathryn Rubino:

Legal tech work. Are you Talk about AI again,

Joe Patrice:

Legal week, legal week’s coming. It’s exciting.

Kathryn Rubino:

Jesus.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. See everybody there.

Chris Williams:

Me and Kathryn need to make a soundboard effect where it’s like Jerry Sefo saying, what’s the deal with algorithms whenever Joe

Kathryn Rubino:

Starts talking about ai.

Joe Patrice:

Anyway, check out the other shows from the Legal Talk Network. You should be reading Above the Law. So you read these and other stories before they out. You should follow us on social medias. The publication is at ATL blog. I’m at Joseph Patrice Kathryn’s at Kathryn one. The Numer one Chris is at writes for rent as in writing, like typing and over at Blue Sky on Joe, Patrice, and the rest is all kind of the same. And that is peace. Bye. Peace.

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