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3. Paul Weiss leader cites potential ‘existential…

Law Firms

Paul Weiss leader cites potential ‘existential crisis’ as 1 reason for Trump deal; critics include 141 firm alumni

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 24, 2025, 1:49 pm CDT

An executive order targeting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison “could easily have destroyed our firm,” the law firm’s chairman, Brad Karp, told employees in a March 23 statement defending the deal that he reached with President Donald Trump.

Karp’s message, printed by Original Jurisdiction, said Paul Weiss was facing an “existential crisis” as a result of a March 14 executive order by Trump. The order had suspended security clearances held by people at the firm, restricted their access to government buildings, required government contractors to disclose whether they do business with the firm, and required agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with Paul Weiss or its clients.

The executive order is being revoked as a result of the deal, Trump announced in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, March 20. According to Trump, the deal provides that Paul Weiss:

  • Will not deny representation to clients because of lawyers’ personal political views.

  • Will take on a wide variety of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints.

  • Will dedicate $40 million in pro bono legal services “to support the administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our nation’s veterans, fairness in the justice system, the president’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and other mutually agreed projects.”

  • “Affirms its commitment to merit-based hiring, promotion and retention and will not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies.”

Karp sent a copy of the agreement to firm employees that differs from Trump’s description, the New York Times reports. Karp’s version does not mention DEI, but it did affirm a commitment to merits-based employment practices and to hire an outside expert to audit those practices.

Karp also said under the agreement, “the administration is not dictating what matters we take on, approving our matters or anything like that.”

The Truth Social post also quoted a White House statement that said Karp had “acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz,” who worked on a criminal case against Trump while he was with the New York district attorney’s office. But Karp’s copy of the agreement did not mention Pomerantz, who has denied doing anything wrong, according to the New York Times.

Karp negotiated the agreement just a few months after suffering a heart attack, the New York Times reports in another article. The deal was supported by “the vast majority” of the firm’s partners, the New York Times said, which relied on anonymous sources.

Karp said he was initially “hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side” after Trump issued the executive order. Instead “certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” he said.

Paul Weiss initially planned to challenge the executive order in a lawsuit, but it soon became clear that a successful legal challenge “would not solve the fundamental problem, which was that clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the administration,” Karp said. In reaching a deal, Karp said, “we were guided by our obligation to protect our clients’ interests” and the need to ensure that the firm would survive.

Critics of the deal include 141 Paul Weiss alumni who signed a March 24 letter protesting the firm’s decision, according to a March 24 press release.

“We expected the firm to be a leader in standing up for the legal profession, the adversary system and the right to counsel,” the letter said. “Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.”

Taking the other side is Stephen Gillers, a professor at the New York University School of Law, who told Law.com that Paul Weiss “had no obligation to fight Trump in court.”

The firm “has obligations to its clients, who must deal with the federal government regularly as an adversary or a regulator, and to its thousands of employees, including lawyers,” he said.

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3. Online ‘gangsta rap’ discussion wasn’t real…

Law Firms

Online ‘gangsta rap’ discussion wasn’t real reason for McCarter associate’s firing, suit alleges

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 7, 2025, 12:30 pm CST

A former McCarter & English staff associate alleges that the law firm subjected him to a hostile workplace based on his status as a military combat veteran and fired him on the pretext of violating the firm’s social media policy.

Lawyer William D. Brown Jr., a former Navy SEAL who served in the Iraq War, said he was actually fired for complaints about unequal pay and his push to include veterans in the firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Law.com has coverage of the Dec. 24 lawsuit (previewed here), filed in Essex County, New Jersey, superior court.

Brown said he made $100,000 per year in 2023 after six years at the firm as a career bankruptcy associate, compared to $170,000 in base pay for newly hired regular associates. His bankruptcy work was trimmed after a new chairman took over, and he was assigned to child sexual-abuse defense work despite his distaste for the matters, the suit says.

The LinkedIn post that purportedly led to his firing discussed the glorification of violence and drugs in “gangsta rap” lyrics and “radical culture within the Islamic world” that glorifies violence, Law.com previously reported. The firm said the post promoted negative stereotypes of Muslim and Black Americans.

Brown claimed that there were separate standards of conduct at McCarter & English in its interaction with employees “who adhered to political left orthodoxy” and those “who happened to not endorse the same leftist worldview.”

Brown cited an incident in which a tax partner asked him how many people he had killed. The partner later apologized. But the question led Brown to think that rather being perceived as an honorable person who served his nation, he was “feared, loathed and discounted as a mere ‘killer,’” the suit says.

Brown also said a partner asked him “if he was mentally sound” after he asserted on LinkedIn that veterans are paid less than others for substantially the same work and denied opportunities when they speak up for themselves.

A McCarter & English spokesperson provided a statement to Law.com.

“As always with an initial complaint, it tells one side of the story,” the statement said. “Once the full history is brought to light, we are confident we will be fully vindicated. We intend to defend this case against the firm and clear the names of those individuals referenced within the complaint.”

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3. 2nd Circuit cites push notifications to jurors…

Tort Law

2nd Circuit cites push notifications to jurors as one reason why Sarah Palin deserves new defamation trial

By Debra Cassens Weiss

August 28, 2024, 2:54 pm CDT

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican, is entitled to a new trial in her defamation case against the New York Times, partly because a jury finding of no liability was marred by push notifications received by jurors, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New York said U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York wrongly intruded on the province of the jury when he ruled during deliberations that the case should be dismissed because of insufficient evidence that the newspaper and one of its editors acted with actual malice.

Rakoff allowed the jury to issue a verdict anyway, and it found no liability. But the verdict was marred by some of Rakoff’s decisions and by push notifications that some jurors received about Rakoff’s finding of no actual malice, the appeals court said in its Aug. 28 opinion.

Law360 covered the 2nd Circuit’s decision in favor of Palin, a Republican who was the 2008 vice presidential candidate. She had sued over a June 2017 editorial linking the shooting of a Democratic congresswoman with a digital crosshairs graphic published by Palin’s political action committee.

Rakoff’s law clerk had learned about the push notifications when interviewing jurors following the verdict to see whether they had problems understanding the legal instructions.

A push notification from a news application can appear at the top of a cellphone or on a lockscreen even when the app is closed, the 2nd Circuit explained.

Jurors said they were not prejudiced by the push notifications, which were “an unfortunate surprise” to Rakoff, the appeals court said. But Rakoff was wrong in concluding that the jury verdict was not prejudiced, the appeals court concluded.

“Given a judge’s special position of influence with a jury, we think a jury’s verdict reached with the knowledge of the judge’s already-announced disposition of the case will rarely be untainted, no matter what the jurors say upon subsequent inquiry,” the 2nd Circuit said. “We therefore conclude that a new trial is warranted on this basis.”

The 2nd Circuit panel also said Rakoff erred by excluding some evidence offered by Palin and by improper jury instructions.

The New York Times editorial had linked a 2011 shooting that wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona, to a map by Palin’s political action committee showing targeted electoral districts in a crosshairs. Six people were killed in the shooting, including a federal judge.

The New York Times had declared that “the link to political incitement was clear,” even though the attack was viewed as stemming from the perpetrator’s mental illness, according to the 2nd Circuit.

The New York Times later issued corrections saying the crosshairs were placed over targeted electoral districts, not photos of politicians, and saying there was no established link between political rhetoric and the shooting.

Palin sued the New York Times and James Bennet, then the editorial page editor, who had written the sentence about the link to political incitement being clear.

The 2nd Circuit said Rakoff should have allowed evidence that Bennet’s brother, Michael Bennet, was a Colorado Democratic U.S. senator, that Bennet was involved in his brother’s 2010 reelection bid, that the crosshairs map targeted the districts of two Democrats in the House of Representatives who endorsed Bennet’s brother, and that Palin had endorsed the person running against Sen. Bennet.

The appeals court said the evidence was relevant, and it could lead a reasonable juror to infer that Bennet had “a reason to personally dislike Palin, and that it was therefore more likely that he intentionally or recklessly, rather than inadvertently, connected her” to the shooter who wounded Giffords.

Rakoff should also have allowed introduction of three prior New York Times opinion articles that could “be plausibly read” as casting significant doubt on links between the shooting and the crosshairs map, the 2nd Circuit said. Bennet had testified that he “must have read” the prior articles.

Judge John M. Walker Jr., an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, wrote the panel opinion. It was the second time that the 2nd Circuit ruled in the case. Rakoff had previously tossed the case without a trial, but the appeals court ruled in 2019 that he followed the wrong procedure and reinstated the lawsuit.

The case is Palin v. New York Times Co.

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3. Defendant acquitted by reason of insanity…

U.S. Supreme Court

Defendant acquitted by reason of insanity can’t be retried, despite inconsistency, SCOTUS rules in Jackson opinion

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 21, 2024, 3:13 pm CST

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Georgia can’t retry a defendant who was found not guilty of malice murder by reason of insanity, even though the verdict was inconsistent with jury findings on other charges.

“The jury’s verdict constituted an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes, and an acquittal is an acquittal notwithstanding its apparent inconsistency with other verdicts that the jury may have rendered,” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court in a Feb. 21 decision.

The defendant, Damian McElrath, was accused of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault for the 2012 killing of his adoptive mother. McElrath was diagnosed with schizophrenia during a two-week hospitalization, and he killed his mother one week after his discharge.

McElrath told police that he killed his mother because he thought that she was poisoning his food. Jurors found McElrath not guilty by reason of insanity for malice murder. But on the other charges, jurors found McElrath guilty but mentally ill. The assault conviction was a predicate for felony murder and merged into the felony murder conviction.

A defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity in Georgia if, at the time of the crime, he did not have mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong or he committed the crime because of a delusional compulsion to act that overcame his will to resist committing the crime. A defendant acquitted on this basis is committed to a state mental health facility until a court determines he may be released.

A defendant who is found guilty but mentally ill may, at the discretion of the corrections department, be referred for mental health treatment.

The verdicts were inconsistent because they required different mental states that can’t exist at the same time, the Georgia Supreme Court said.

The state supreme court determined that both murder verdicts should be set aside under the state’s repugnancy doctrine, which says a verdict can be set aside if it involves affirmative findings by the jury that are not legally and logically possible. The state supreme court authorized a retrial on all charges.

The Supreme Court rejected Georgia’s reasoning and held that McElrath can’t be retried on the malice murder charge.

“Georgia is mistaken,” Jackson wrote. “Once there has been an acquittal, our cases prohibit any speculation about the reasons for a jury’s verdict—even when there are specific jury findings that provide a factual basis for such speculation. … We simply cannot know why the jury in McElrath’s case acted as it did, and the double jeopardy clause forbids us to guess.”

On remand, the Supreme Court said in a footnote, Georgia courts can address the status of McElrath’s vacated felony murder conviction under state law.

Bloomberg Law and the Equal Justice Initiative covered the decision, while SCOTUSblog covered the opinion announcement on its live blog. The Washington Post had previous coverage of the case.

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3. This is the No. 1 reason associates stay…

Careers

This is the No. 1 reason associates stay at their law firms, new study says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 8, 2024, 9:03 am CST

Compensation is the top reason associates stay at their law firms, according to a new study by the NALP Foundation.

The inaugural “Stay Study” asked 3,374 associates from 57 law firms in Canada and the United States to rank and rate 15 factors that influence their decision to stay in their jobs. The foundation revealed the results in a Feb. 6 press release.

Fiona Trevelyan Hornblower, president and CEO of the NALP Foundation, told Law.com that associates revealed in narrative responses that the importance of compensation was related to sacrifices that they made to achieve billable hours requirements.

“They’re not chasing the almighty dollar, they’re saying we want recognition for the work and the toll that it takes on our lives,” Hornblower told Law.com.

Surveyed associates reported high levels of engagement and a positive experience at their firms.

Seventy-two percent of the associates reported that they were highly or somewhat engaged. Levels were higher for associates working in the office.

Eighty-one percent of the associates said they had a positive experience, with fully remote workers reporting the highest positive experience.

“What comes across loud and clear from the data is that this is a very engaged set of associates, contrary to how they’re sometimes represented,” Hornblower told Law.com.

The top five stay factors are:

1. Compensation. Associates rated salaries higher in importance than bonuses, the two subfactors in this category. Compensation received high scores from associates across all firm sizes and no matter their seniority level.

2. Work-life balance. Women rated this factor higher in importance than men. Subfactors were firm support for work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, practice group and team support for work-life balance, and remote work arrangements.

3. Career path. Two subfactors—opportunities for advancement/partnership and clarity about requirements—were rated as more important than the subfactors of alternative career paths and alumni program/outplacement assistance.

4. Hybrid work policies. In narrative comments, associates made clear that they do not want their firms to backtrack on remote and flexible work options.

5. Firm policies. Associates rated the subfactors of billable-hour and leave policies higher in importance than nonbillable and pro bono credit.

The report is titled Should I Stay or Should I Go? Key Factors Driving Law Firm Associate Retention. It is available for purchase online.

The NALP Foundation was created in 1996 by the National Association for Law Placement.