Don’t Throw Clients Under The Bus, Unless They’re Protesters

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Joe Patrice: Hello and welcome to another episode of Thinking Like a Lawyer.  I’m Joe Patrice from Above the Law.

Kathryn Rubino: Hello.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I was able to get that in because Kathryn wasn’t paying attention.  That’s Kathryn Rubino also senior editor here at Above the Law.  You have stumbled into Thinking Like a Lawyer which I assume you listen to all the time anyway.

Kathryn Rubino: — but, you know, it may not be.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, and probably because — it may not be, and if it isn’t —

Kathryn Rubino: Maybe you thought you were getting Thinking like a — something else, I don’t know.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I mean, there is a good show called Thinking Like an Economist.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure, but —

Joe Patrice: But that’s not — that’s a different thing.  But yeah, welcome and you are here to hear some scintillating coverage of the news of the week in the legal world as brought to you by Above the Law and, yeah.  So, how are you?

Kathryn Rubino: I’m doing all right.

Joe Patrice: Were you talking into the microphone there?

Kathryn Rubino: Am I not?  I felt like I was.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, like a little bit.  I mean not well because it’s a little bit off-kilter, that’s all.  That’s all I’m saying.

Kathryn Rubino: Is this better?

Joe Patrice: I mean, as far as I can tell.

Kathryn Rubino: I don’t really understand microphones, they’re rough.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I know.  Well, there’s a little elf that lives inside it and it records the things — like writes down the things that you say in there.

Kathryn Rubino: See, I thought it was a hamster.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no.

Kathryn Rubino: Interesting, it’s elves.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no, it’s elves and you have to balance the humors correctly and then the microphone works.  Yeah, so, that’s —

Kathryn Rubino: Kathryn Rubino still, yeah.

Joe Patrice: That’s Kathryn’s day.  So, yeah, we were going to chat about the legal stories of the week, is there — unless there is anything else you wanted to like break the ice with here?

Kathryn Rubino: No.  I mean, I think that our microphone travails aren’t challenging enough, we shouldn’t belabor the point.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I guess the Supreme Court today decided they were going to take another second amendment case, so, you know, that’s —

Kathryn Rubino: Probably bad news.

Joe Patrice: That’s going to happen.  Well, you know what’s interesting, I actually — I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.  I was just about to pitch like I was just about to hit send on this tweet but like it’s, you know, obviously some discouraging news.  The last time they touched the second amendment, they made a decision that was way out of line with the preceding 200 years of American Constitutional History.  And so, there is some reason to believe they’re going to push that further on the other hand especially for a case that’s completely moot.  However, which they’ve decided to take for some reason also.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, I think we know why, right?

Joe Patrice: Exactly.

Kathryn Rubino: I think that they want to push a very specific political agenda.

Joe Patrice: But the ridiculous part about it from my perspective, and like the way in which it kind of shows the pure incoherence of all this is —

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

Joe Patrice: — it’s about saying, “Hey, you can carry around a concealed weapon without any –” like states and jurisdictions can’t force you to have to, you know, register or whatever concealed weapons because everyone should have a —

Kathryn Rubino: Well-regulated means.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, why not.

Kathryn Rubino: Something very different, obviously.

Joe Patrice: Well-regulated is being written out of the constitution obviously, but —

Kathryn Rubino: But originalism.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I know, huh.

Kathryn Rubino: Yes.

Joe Patrice: It’s weird how those originals were.

Kathryn Rubino: The originals, I put those words specifically into the amendment.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, well —

Kathryn Rubino: And yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, yeah, yeah, shrug.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.

Joe Patrice: What gets me about it is, I think it will show something of the incoherence of all this because I don’t know, is that a lived experience of gun laws in big cities will change at all, because it strikes me if I’m running a big city and I’m talking to the police or whatever.  I don’t understand how this — the Siri, it’s real easy to make a pretextual stop with somebody who’s packing a gun, right?

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: Like I mean, that’s a real easy stop to make.  You know, it’s easy to say, “Hey, I felt threatened by this,” all the stuff that we question whether or not it complies with the fourth amendment seems as though it’s real easy when it comes to somebody carrying around a hand cannon concealed.  And on top of that, these are all searches that this exact same Supreme Court has mostly rubber stamped as totally cool.  So, I don’t really understand how it changes much.  They say like, “Oh, you can carry a concealed weapon,” and then we’re just going to have tons of cases where cops say, “Whether based on anything or not, yeah, I felt a little bit threatened so that’s why I seized it and arrested him,” and then that’s just going to be fine because that’s what the court says.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure, but that’s also terrible.

Joe Patrice: Right.  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Okay, okay.

Joe Patrice: No.

Kathryn Rubino: I was like, um, that seems like a bad thing to me.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  No, obviously, but the issue is — my point is that it shows kind of the incoherence of all this.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh sure.

Joe Patrice: Because their attempt to change the gun laws will not actually change the way in which the lived experience of this goes.  The people that the cops stopped for carrying guns around already they can still do under the exact kind of stops that this Supreme Court says that you can do all the time with no problem, which is not great, but hey, some more forward thinking and proactive regulation would be a better way of handling it.  But you know, I just don’t see how it changes anything in a functional way because of the way in which this court has legalized all those kinds of stops.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, I do wonder though if this will have an impact on the court reform movement that is also growing —

Joe Patrice: Yeah, maybe.

Kathryn Rubino: — growing in strength and steam, you know, obviously Biden has a task force that’s been put together to look at some of these issues.

(00:05:03)

Our former colleague, Ellie Mystal has been a big fan of court packing.  You’ve been not as big a fan as we talked about last week’s episode, but do you think that there is absolutely room for court reform.  But I think that if —

Joe Patrice: Yeah, term limits is what I had —

Kathryn Rubino: Right, yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: You should also listen to last week’s episode where we delve into this in a little bit more depth.  But you know, there’s definitely a lot of room and I think that even for folks who may be a little bit squeamish at the notion of big reform of the Supreme Court.  If they take these sorts of cases and really try to rewrite second amendment jurisprudence in such an aggressive way, I think that this will push people who are kind of on the fence on it to supporting more court reform.  And I think for someone like Chief Justice Roberts who is not interested in court reform and wants to kind of maintain the status quo and shore up the reputation and the legacy of, you know, the Roberts Court, this could be very problematic.

Joe Patrice: I think it could be.  I mean, I feel as though Roberts doesn’t care on this particular point.  But I do think it shows it kind of exposes that they aren’t really all that — they don’t really control all that much.  If they do this groundbreaking change and nothing actually changes in the world in a functional way in big cities, I think it kind of shows how useless the whole institution is, which is not good for the institution.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, yeah.  Well —

Joe Patrice: Which is why this is a dumb place for them to try and stick their nose, but —

Kathryn Rubino: Right, and it potentially backfires, I think in a really fundamental way in terms of court reform becoming more on the ground, becoming more of a thing that liberals in the left wing can campaign on the same way that the conservatives have done for generations now.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  Anyway, just another thing brought to you by your Shadow Docket, the completely —

Kathryn Rubino: Undemocratic.

Joe Patrice: — very, very, very skeevy and anti-democratic way in which this court now operates.  Anyway, I have a question.  I think we should —

Kathryn Rubino: I have an answer.

Joe Patrice: Well, let’s talk about law firms for a second.

Kathryn Rubino: Okay.

Joe Patrice: Well, before we do, let’s just say, “Hey, how have law firms weathered previous economic downturns and come out stronger on the other side?  LexisNexis InterAction has released an in-depth global research report confronting the 2020 downturn lessons learned during previous economic crises.  Download your free copy at interaction.com/likealawyer to see tips, strategies, plans, and statistics from leaders who have been through this before and how they’ve reached success again.”  You have a story about a partner who is not on the website anymore.

Kathryn Rubino: Crazy, isn’t it?  Yeah.  There is kind of a — like similar to like this shadow docket.  There is this kind of underground way that you often can track what’s going on at law firms.  You know, when folks leave law firms, it’s rare that there’s sort of a press release that goes around that maybe if they get some great government job.  But you know, kind of tracking who’s currently on the website and who isn’t is definitely a way to find out what’s going on at law firms.  And at Littler, there was a partner, Gavin Appleby that is no longer on the website.

Joe Patrice: I don’t have that sound effect, so —

Kathryn Rubino: Really?

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no.

Kathryn Rubino: I feel like that’s a good — a pretty basic sound effect.

Joe Patrice: It is, but for some reason, I don’t have it.  I’ll have to try and find a way of getting that.  Go on.

Kathryn Rubino: All right.  Anyway, he’s no longer on the firm’s website and it turned out he’s in some hot water for throwing a client under the bus.  Yeah, it’s not great.  Littler is a noted employment litigation firm and it comes out of an employment case where they are defending someone who is accused of — or had a bunch of allegations about payroll issues and as a result, ADP who is sort of this, you know, payroll giant.

Joe Patrice: Yes.

Kathryn Rubino: A lot of firms outsource their stuff to.  ADP was served a third-party subpoena for some documents and some results and apparently, they had produced whatever relevant materials within five days of receiving the subpoena, great, whatever.  So, Littler, in this instance represented the defendant and that was who they gave their documents to and Gavin Appleby apparently represented to the courts that ADP had not responded to the subpoena.  And the court, you know, there was a couple of motions as a result of this with, you know, these documents were not produced until the last minute and eventually ADP was like, “What is going on?”  There has been a bunch of rulings about it and whatnot.  And the really interesting part is that not in this matter, but in other matters, ADP is represented by Littler.

Joe Patrice: Oh.  Well, I mean, that’s what happens when you’re the big dog in employment.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: You know?  You’re involved a lot with ADP.

Kathryn Rubino: I can imagine.  But the point is that they did in fact produce the documents, it was represented to the courts that they did not produce the documents.  A whole big issue, the court awarded costs to ADP for having to represent itself.  According to Littler’s statement, they are trying to make everything as right as they can and needless to say or perhaps we just said in the beginning, Appleby is no longer on the website.

(00:10:05)

Joe Patrice: Yeah, well, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, listen, misrepresentations to the court will do that.  Probably should do that no matter what when you’re also throwing a client under the bus in the process of making said misrepresentations, it gets worse, it gets worse for you.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  No, I think that’s fair.  Yeah, that was a big story last week, obviously, because I think a lot of our readership is interested in seeing people disappear from websites and certainly one of my big stories a few years ago was when Greg Craig disappeared from the website.  And I was like, “What’s going on here?”

Kathryn Rubino: Why, is that true?

Joe Patrice: And you know, what was going on here is being involved in some problematic cases with regard in particular to the whole Russia-Ukraine —

Kathryn Rubino: Investigation.

Joe Patrice: — investigation.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.

Joe Patrice: Anyway, yeah, so keep an eye on those big law websites and obviously if you’re all out there and you see these disappearances, you know, the only way we are able to know about them really because we aren’t tracking every website at all times, —

Kathryn Rubino: There’s a lot of big law firms.

Joe Patrice: — is to let us know.

Kathryn Rubino: There’s a lot of websites, there’s a lot of pages there.  That’s not something we’re able to —

Joe Patrice: Keep us informed obviously at [email protected] or, you know, just keep us informed of whatever you want to talk about by sending us emails there, obviously.  We’ve tried this before, we’ve never been able to really get a good mail bag going with this website — with this podcast.  It’s like people will occasionally send in a few things here and there, but we don’t really get the deluge of here’s like five or six good questions a week.  It’d be nice if folks could send those in, we’ll gather them up and maybe have a mailbag at the —

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, if you want to do it with the subject line mailbag, we will be happy to take a look if we get a bunch of them.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, let’s start pushing that again.  I just think that that’s a good thing like obviously we do our day-to-day job of writing for Above the Law, but we also do this on the side and we would love some input on how to do that, because, you know, sometimes, lawyers have to wear two hats.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.

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Kathryn Rubino: You who’s very sleek, very sleek.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I’m doing what I can.  So, I guess, we should — continuing the conversation about big law, what we are going to talk once again about bonuses a little bit.  See, all of the —

Kathryn Rubino: This is a very long sound effect.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, that one’s a little bit longer, whatever.  It’s deserved.

Kathryn Rubino:  Plenty of those is bonuses probably — yeah.

Joe Patrice: We’ve got special bonuses happening and we’ve talked about those everywhere.  But I wanted to talk a little bit about since you just mentioned Littler, let’s talk a little bit about Littler and while everyone’s been sitting around waiting for special bonuses to match the market, Littler send out their firmwide notification informing all the associates that they appreciate everyone’s hard work and they gave them hats.  Well, and that’s not fair.  Some folks got desk plants, but hats and desk plants, how does that stack up to a, I don’t know, like $16,000 to $40,000 to $65,000 bonus?

Kathryn Rubino: Poorly.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I thought you might think that.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, it’s pretty accurate.

Joe Patrice: And they’re not alone.

Kathryn Rubino: No, no.  There are a couple of firms that have been giving out non-monetary gifts.  There was some stress balls that were given out.  Greenberg Traurig is doing an RV tour across the country of each of their 30 U.S. offices, which is supposed to be a way to get folks together but is not money.  Yeah, there’s been a few of those and they have not been particularly well-received, you know —

Joe Patrice: Yeah, Husch Blackwell sent out the stress balls.

Kathryn Rubino: Right, yes, yes.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: At Kramer Levin also sent out plants.  They also gave out special bonuses, but their special bonuses were tied to an increased hours requirements and folks are real salty about that at the firm.  So, when they got the plants as well, they didn’t feel great about it.  They still did not soothe any of their hard feelings about the hours requirements.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  It’s one of those situations where I feel like if you’re — and you don’t want to encourage folks not to be giving out the bonus to match the market because, you know, associates have done the work, and they are talented enough to go work at other places theoretically, so, you would want a match.  That said, I feel like if you aren’t going to match the market, just do nothing.  I feel like you’re way better off doing nothing than by sending a hat and making it obvious that you’re doing nothing.

Kathryn Rubino: Well, I mean, I think that some of it is just kind of unfortunate timing in the sense that some of these gifts have been tied to staff appreciation week.  And so, they’ve been given not just to staff members, but to associates as well.  So, it’s, you know, everybody in the firm, I think, Carlson and Brady also gave out $30 Uber Eats gift cards, which she knows another one of those where it’s like not money or it’s a little bit of money, but it’s not real bonuses.  So, you know, those have all been kind of looked at askew.

(00:15:04)

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  And so, some of it may have just been because it was during administrative professional’s week, yeah, it’s fair.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.  And some of the emails that went out were, you know, we appreciate you for staff appreciation week and they went out to the full list of staff as well as associates.  So, you know, there’s that aspect to it and I get that they are trying to do something, but it stings, I think, for folks who are hoping that they’re going to get these full special bonuses.

Joe Patrice: I wanted to go to the Uber Eats thing, because I think that’s there’s an important transition there to a slightly different situation which is the what’s happening with Kirkland.  Now, Kirkland and Ellis is giving out big bonuses because they’re the market compensation leader, really.  I mean, obviously there’s Wachtel.

Kathryn Rubino: They’re the wealthiest —

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: They are the wealthiest law firm.

Joe Patrice: Obviously, there are exceptions.  There is Wachtel and there are like crazy bonuses and there are some boutiques that do different things that said.  Kirkland is your — the mainstream comp leader, I think, is probably the right answer.  So, what Kirkland’s doing though, they have match bonuses but on top of that, they are now giving a — they alerted associates that associates are allowed to expense up to $100 per meal on 10 meals going forward, just whatever they are.  You don’t need a business reason, we’ll pick up the tab for us 200.

Kathryn Rubino: Right, and they don’t have to be — you can do it for multiple people, it doesn’t have to be —

Joe Patrice: You can do it with friends and whatever.

Kathryn Rubino: Family members, yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.

Joe Patrice: So, up to $1,000 of food.

Kathryn Rubino: A thousand, I mean, first of all, that’s a big difference, right?

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: When you’re talking about like a hat or a thousand dollars’ worth of take out, oh, that’s —

Joe Patrice: Well, right, and I also think like unlike the hat which is a replacement for the special bonus, folks are getting special bonuses there, but on top of that, they’re getting this.  And it brought me back to a conversation we had several episodes ago about Davis Polk and their gift.

Kathryn Rubino: Another person who’s in the runnings be called compensation leader.

Joe Patrice: Right, yes, depending on your definition of leader, they’re not really leading in the —

Kathryn Rubino: Well, they’re the ones who started the —

Joe Patrice: Right.  They’re leading as in people are following them not leading as in having more than other people.

Kathryn Rubino: Right, right, right.

Joe Patrice: That distinction I think is important but whatever.  We also did a whole episode on that; the archives are fun.  But that said, but we talked about, that was Davis Polk and Davis Polk offered in addition to their last round of bonuses they had these gifts where associates were encouraged to choose and a lot of gifts were valued around between $1,000 and $1,500, buy yourself something nice.  Basically, get this —

Kathryn Rubino: Right, luggage or — yeah.

Joe Patrice: — workout equipment, this luggage, this trick, this water rafting trip, whatever.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

Joe Patrice: It was one of those situations where we said that this was a good trend and while you don’t want to ever replace giving people money especially with the debt that we fourth law students do go into and then have to pay off as early lawyers.  Obviously, they need the money, but it also becomes something hollow it feels like when you get that big bonus and all it does is disappear into a (00:17:54) of debt.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, a black hole of debt, yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. And you know, just offering even a small thing compared to the size of real bonuses, a small token of, “Hey, do this thing and you will — for you, you will have to enjoy.  We’re making you do something for you.

Kathryn Rubino: I think two things that I think are very important about these distinctions that we’re trying to draw here, it is small compared to bonuses, but it’s not insubstantial, right?

Joe Patrice: Right, exactly.

Kathryn Rubino: It’s not a $30 meal which is very, very little, right?  But a $1,000 worth of meals, you know, a new workout system for $1,500, that is substantial, but it is not anything that really puts the firm out in a tremendous way, but it is something that the firm is kind of telling you, “Take care of yourself in some way.  Have dinner with friends, you know, take care of yourself.”  In which the Davis Polk allowed folks to choose between various gift packages.  Whichever one kind of works best for them.  If you want to trip, if you want new luggage, yeah, do it, get fancy luggage.  You know, take a white-water rafting trip, whatever it is, you know, and it’s kind of saying, “You’re going to need to decompress,” especially coming out after this whole quarantine-sich the world is in.  You know, there is a lot of mental health issues that have been supercharged as a result and making sure that folks are in a good mental space is really important and trying to force associates to take time for themselves, I think, is a very important thing.  And I hope we see more of this trend.  Oreck is another firm that has done a lot trying to tell folks they should take time off and paying them for that time. And so, those are the kinds of trends that we like to see.  Things that kind of focus on well-being as opposed to just your ability to bill more hours.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, yeah, and it’s a wonderful trend and obviously Davis Polk kind of started down this road.

Kathryn Rubino: I know, I hope you see more folks, yeah.

Joe Patrice: And Kirkland is doing this, I do think it would be nice to see more of this, because it is —

Kathryn Rubino: And as work is definitely done, stuff like that where they pay for a vacation time and stuff like that.  So, that is an even more extravagant version.

(00:19:58)

But any of these trends where we’re trying to get folks to take care of themselves now that we’ve sort of mostly gotten through the worst of the pandemic recognizing that there are still long-term effects even for those who happen to have not contracted COVID-19, there’s still long-term mental health effects that we’re going to continue to see, you know, as we escape from underneath the thumb of the pandemic.  This is real and making sure that your associates then are good, and not just your associates, all of your employees are in a good mental health space is only going to benefit firms long-term making folks, first of all, more loyal to the firm, making folks more productive for the firm as well.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, well, I have exactly no transition for this.  Let’s hear from our friends from Lexicon.

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Joe Patrice: To close out, I guess, one final thing.  I guess, this is a throwback to the old days of Ellie’s grinding of gears, I suppose.  This is like my grinding of gears literally almost in this instance.  Although, I guess, most people have automatics anymore, but —

Kathryn Rubino: Is that a car joke?

Joe Patrice: It is because this is a story unfortunately about vehicles and vehicular manslaughter as it turns out, which is —

Kathryn Rubino: It’s not fun.

Joe Patrice: No.  Which is years ago actually, if possibly even on an episode of this show, Ellie and I talked about a tweet from Tennessee Law Professor, Glenn Reynolds in which he advocated for people to run over protesters because he thought that was funny, which is what Glenn Reynolds —

Kathryn Rubino: Horrifying, yeah.

Joe Patrice: Which is what Glenn Reynolds’ Twitter account is all about, that sort of horrifying awfulness with the intellectual veneer of, “Oh, I’m a law professor,” but really just like saying the most crass baseless awful stuff.

Kathryn Rubino: So, was this before or after Heather —

Joe Patrice: Oh, it was before and then the — when Heather Howard died — was killed in the exact way that Glenn Reynolds had been cheerleading, he just disappeared from media for a little bit and let it all blow over and came right back.  The law school of course did nothing because tenure — yeah, tenure is a bitch.  So, but this proposal way back in 2016 which led to somebody’s death in 2017 is now unfortunately becoming the law in several states.  Several states now Oklahoma, Iowa, a few others have these laws in the pipelines are now legalizing that if you feel subjectively that protesters are in your way, you’re allowed to run them over and face no criminal or civil liability for that.

Kathryn Rubino: So, it’s just like The Purge?

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  But I mean, that was the analogy I used.  It is very much The Purge logic that for the next — if a protest is happening, then for the next 24 hours, everything’s legal.  They are —

Kathryn Rubino: That’s awful.

Joe Patrice: Yes.  It is functionally authorizing a vigilante style justice to make anybody willing to engage in a protest feel that it is a potential death penalty if they get caught out.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, it’s almost as if folks don’t realize that the right to protest is inscribed in the bill of rights.

Joe Patrice: It is certainly in there, and it is something that —

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, despite what Amy Coney Barrett did not remember?

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  No, yeah, she may not be on top of it and it’s okay.  I mean, she shouldn’t have to be on top of it, it’s not like she’s a judge or anything.  Yeah, so, there is a new attempt by these states to basically criminalize — well, not criminalize, put a death penalty or the possibility of it on protesters as well as deputize random citizens to make that decision.  It is judged by whether or not the citizen is reasonably afraid of the protesters which is obviously going to function as coded language.  I assume they pro-gun rally well, even though the people will be carrying guns will not count as being reasonably objectively afraid of those folks.  But —

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.  Yeah, it’s just a way to reinscribe racism.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, but having a give peace a chance sign probably does mean that you were afraid of that person, I guess.  It’s barely horrifying development.  Obviously, this is a sort of — these are the sort of laws that you would assume a supreme court might be in a position to strike down as challenges to the first day — to the functioning of the first amendment.  Obviously, this supreme court is not going to do those things and this is the dystopian hellscape that we’re in.  But hey —

Kathryn Rubino: It’s deeply disturbing.

(00:25:00)

Joe Patrice: The Purge needs another sequel, I guess so, here we are.

Kathryn Rubino: But this is real life.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, yeah, well —

Kathryn Rubino: And how do you even like the movies?

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: What’s most exciting like horror movies, it’s not like The Purge is —

Joe Patrice: You know, that’s the thing, I also don’t like horror movies, but The Purge movies weirdly are actually fairly rich with social commentary.  A lot of what those movies talk about is exactly this sort of world being developed that we’re watching right here.  Yeah, so, a little problematic, keep your eye out for those.

Kathryn Rubino: Law, law, I think.

Joe Patrice: And yeah, and I think lawyers, we have an obligation to push back against this stuff to challenge these laws in courts even though maybe we’ve got a stack deck against us right now to be lobbying that this is just not how you do things and to, you know, if we were, for instance, administrators at a law school that employed somebody who cheerleaded this sort of thing to, you know, not let that happen and fire those people would be a great —

Kathryn Rubino: That will happen, but yeah.

Joe Patrice: — thing to do, but we’re not going to do that, so, here we are.  This is the dystopian world that you ask for.  So, yeah, on that cheery note, I think we’re done.

Kathryn Rubino: It’s super depressing.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.  Next week, we’re going to be coming kind of remotely because we’ve got — we’re going to be busy all day on the day we’re recording.  So, hopefully, we’ll be able to get something in.  I mean, no promises.  So, if we do miss a week, that’s why, but we should be able to squeeze in a show.

Kathryn Rubino: My guess is, we’ll be able to squeeze a half hour outside.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, so, we’re going to —

Kathryn Rubino: Somewhere along the line.

Joe Patrice: We’re going to try, but schedules are getting a little tight this week.  But then, yeah, so, in the meantime, you should be reviewing the show, giving it stars, writing something about it, subscribing if you haven’t already done that.  You should be reading Above the Law, you should be sending us tips and mailbag questions, and stuff like that.  Like a good —

Kathryn Rubino: Definitely mailbag questions.

Joe Patrice: A good generic question.  Like we talk a lot about the week — the news of the week, but then, you know, sometimes there are like more broad-based questions.  In the past, Ellie and I used to do a show about which law school to pick between applicants who are into a couple of different and like trying to decide which one to choose.  Those kinds of higher-level questions, where should I go to work, what should I do, like what’s the best thing I can do for myself for the bar exam.  These are the kinds of advice questions we would totally love to field from time to time.

Kathryn Rubino: Whether or not we’re qualified to answer them.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I mean, why not.  You should be reading Above the Law.  As always, you can follow us on social media.  I’m @josephpatrice, she’s @kathryn1, which is the numeral one as she points out.  You should be listening to The Jabot, which is her other podcast.  You can listen — catch me on Legal Tech Week The Journalists Roundtable as well as — we’ve got a little clubhouse thing going, The Legal Tech Trending News Group on Clubhouse on Wednesdays if you’re into the clubhouse world.  And with all of that said, I think we’re done.  Oh yeah, I guess, thank you also to Lexicon, NODA powered by M&T Bank and LexisNexus InterAction.

Kathryn Rubino: Peace.

Joe Patrice: And yeah, I think that is the appropriate time for you to say that.

(00:28:17)