James D. McGinley has been appointed as Clerk of the Superior Court by Chief Judge Lee Satterfield and DC Courts Executive Officer Anne Wicks. His appointment will be effective June 8, 2015.
As Court Clerk, McGinley will oversee all Superior Court operations, including Civil, Criminal, Domestic Violence, Family Court, Multi-Door Dispute Resolution (Mediation), Probate, Special Operations (including Interpreter Services and the Jurors’ Office) and Tax Divisions, as well as the Crime Victims Compensation Program.
McGinley has a combination of senior leadership experience as both a seasoned litigator and a career military officer. Formerly a partner in the civil litigation firm of Hiepler & Hiepler, McGinley also served as a Pro Tem Judge for the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Ventura. He has extensive experience in complex civil litigation, international negotiation, enterprise-wide leadership, and the management of multi-agency projects.
In 2013, Colonel McGinley--a veteran with three combat tours--retired after a 30-year career as a naval aviator in the United States Marine Corps. Additionally, he served as the Director of the al Anbar Provincial Joint Coordination Center, and the Deputy Commander of both the Iraq Assistance Group and Expeditionary Strike Group Five.
During his career, he led service members from diverse backgrounds, trained Iraqis at the highest level of government, and served in the Pentagon on the Joint Staff. McGinley's combat decorations include the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.
On top of his decorated military background, McGinley is a dynamic speaker. He has been featured at several conferences, including the Society of Chief Medical Examiners, the Nevada Trial Lawyers Annual Meeting, and was the chairman and keynote speaker at the Mealey’s HMO Liability conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
McGinley’s trial work fighting bad faith insurance practices has been highlighted in a Time magazine cover story and a lead story on 60 Minutes.
As a published legal author, McGinley was the California Survey Editor of the Pepperdine Law Review and a Peer Reviewer of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.
McGinley holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (International Relations) from California State University, Long Beach; a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law, Malibu, California; and a Master of Laws in National Security Law and a Certificate in International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution from Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.
Criminal cases usually start by the police observing an individual doing some kind of wrong and then arresting that person or someone else observes it and informs the police. The police will then respond to the incident. For example, if the police directly observed alleged criminal activity, they will try to apprehend the suspect and conduct an arrest.
If they are responding to a report of a crime, they might show up at the scene, ask witnesses questions about what happened and who was involved, among other things. If the police officer identifies the suspect, apprehends him, and believes there is sufficient evidence, the officer will likely arrest the suspect and “book” him at the jail. Booking is where a formal report of the arrest is taken down, and where the suspect’s picture and fingerprints are taken.
For misdemeanor cases, the officer may choose to issue a citation rather than booking the person into jail. In other cases, the police will conduct a longer investigation, where they will perhaps observe a person’s activities, and present the findings of their investigation to the prosecutor for a determination on whether an arrest should be made.
This is the typical process a traffic, misdemeanor, or Felony case takes in the District of Columbia:
Citation Issued or Arrest & Booking
Initial Appearance in Court/Arraignment
Usually hearing within 24 hours (no court on Sunday) if defendant is held in jail.
Magistrate and/or Associate Judge read charges to defendant; determines if there are grounds for charge(s).
Constitutional rights asserted; sets conditions of release; or held
Counsel appointed for indigent defendants.
This usually occurs in courtroom C10; unless Domestic Violence (courtroom 119) or Traffic (Courtrooms 115, 116,120)
Traffic Cases
Charged by information
Case set for status (2 to 3 weeks after arraignment)
Diversion, plea or set for trial (if trial is set usually within 45 days)
Trial/Sentencing (sentencing typical done same day)
Misdemeanor Cases
Charged by information
Case set for status (2 to 3 weeks after arraignment)
Diversion,plea or set for trial (if trial is set usually within 45 days)
Trial/Sentencing (sentencing typical done same day)
Felony Cases
Initial Charged by Complaint
Case Set for Preliminary hearing
Required to be held within 3 to 5 days (depends) after initial appearance if defendant is in custody/jail; within 20 days of initial appearance if not in custody, unless waived (given up) by defendant.
On almost all felony cases, the U.S. Attorney will seek an indictment(charged) by grand jury
The grand jury may consist of sixteen to twenty-three members. Twelve or more jurors must concur in order to return an indictment
Arraignment
Status (usually 3 to 4 weeks after arraignment)
Trial ( 4 to 5 months after status hearing unless defendant held)
Sentencing (2 months after trial)
Detention Prior to Status or Preliminary hearing
Pending case, on parole or probation
The person is charged with a crime of violence or dangerous crime, obstruction of justice
Serious risk of flight
Pretrial Matters
Defense and prosecution continue to investigate, consult and prepare for trial even if not set for trial
Pretrial Services Agency usually supervise individuals on release in misdemeanor and felony cases.
Attorneys file motions (e.g., to exclude some or all evidence because it was obtained illegally by police; to dismiss the charges because the arrest was illegal). A judge or magistrate enters decisions on these motions (motions heard on trial day).
Prosecutor and defense attorney usually engage in “plea negotiations” between arraignment and status in misdemeanors. In felony cases plea negotiations may take place at any stage.
Trial
Must take place within 100 days if you are being held (this can be waived)
Indictable cases go to a jury trial, unless defendant requests a trial before a judge.
Jury trials: 12 jurors; a verdict of guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” or not guilty must be unanimous, or the judge will declare a mistrial. A prosecutor may bring the case to a jury trial again after a mistrial.
Sentencing
Defendants who are convicted can be sentenced to jail, prison, probation, treatment (for drugs or alcohol addiction), pay a fine and/or restitution to the victim.
Not Every case the Same
Not every case will follow the same path, and at a lot of junctures, there will be strategic decisions that will need to be made.
Social media use by law firms for marketing, investigation, and hiring is exploding and can open the door to ethics and legal claims if a law firm does not manage its social media outreach in compliance with bar association guidelines and federal regulations. Does your law firm make any of the following mistakes?
No Social Media Policy – many law firms don’t have any social media policies at all.
No Social Media policies governing employee official, professional and personal use of social media.
Not updating your law firm Social Media policies to stay current with the flood of new social media guidelines, decisions and regulations being issued by bar associations and federal agencies including the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); the Federal Trade Commission; and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
No Social Media Terms of Public Participation notifying the public of conduct permitted on your law firm’s Social Media sites.
No Social Media Take Down Policy for objectionable public comments/activity on your law firm Social Media sites such as illegal endorsements; hate speech; cyber threats/harassment; obscenity; political activity; privacy invasions and/or violation of intellectual property laws.
Not consistently reviewing public comments/activity on your law firm Social Media sites and taking appropriate action.
No written provision that your law firm owns all of its Social Media sites and followers/contacts.
Failure to designate your law firm Social Media Administrator + 1 with password access to all your law firm’s Social Media sites.
No written requirement signed by your Social Media Administrator that they will relinquish access to all your law firm’s Social Media sites upon departure.
No policy or guidelines preventing NLRB or EEOC violations by your law firm Human Resources Department when using Social Media in hiring, recruiting, and/or employee discipline.
Linda Priebe is Chair of Ethics and Compliance at Culhane Meadows PLLC in Washington DC. She is a frequent speaker on the ethics of social media for lawyers and social media legal compliance for business. She is also former Deputy General Counsel and Ethics Official at the White House Office of Drug Policy during three Administrations. There she was legal counsel for social and digital media compliance and ethics. In 2014 she was named a Super Lawyer in Washington DC by Thompson Reuters.
This is an article written by Nicole Black, director of MyCase.com. In this article, Ms. Black discusses cloud computing and the ways attorneys can confidentially store client information as long as they "exercise reasonable care in choosing their legal software providers." Ms. Black will be a presenter at the D.C. Bar's Practice 360°--A Day for Lawyers and Small Firms. Practice 360° will be held on May 15, 2015 and is free for D.C. Bar Members.
According to the Washington Post, W. Jerrold "Jerry" Scoutt Jr.--a founding partner of the aviation law firm Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger died Feb. 27 at his home in Bethesda, Md.
"Mr. Scoutt was born Will Jerrold Scoutt Jr. in Hastings, Neb. Early in his career, he was a partner at several private practices in Washington. He was board chairman and legal counsel for World Airways for 15 years until retiring in 1993, and served as the interim president and chief executive of the charter carrier company in 1984. He served on the board of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., and was a member of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Washington. Upon his retirement, Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger established a grant prize in his honor for lawyers who provide legal services to disadvantaged D.C. residents."
Mr. Scoutt has an award named after him that "recognizes outstanding legal services lawyers in our community and is one of the highest honors available solely to public interest lawyers in the District of Columbia." The D.C. Bar Foundation administers the award at the D.C. Bar's Judicial Reception.
"It is with deep sadness that we mark the passing of one of our founding partners. Jerry was a gifted lawyer, a compassionate member of the community and a dear friend," said Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger on its website.
Mr. Scoutt has built a profound legacy in public interest law and will be missed throughout the legal community.
A memorial service to celebrate his life will be held at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, 1830 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC on May 9 at 2 p.m.
Lawyers tend to cringe when they hear the word “encryption.” To most lawyers, encryption is a dark art, full of mathematical jargon and incomprehensible to the average human being.
When South Carolina suffered a major data breach of taxpayer data, what did Governor Nikki Halley say? “A lot of banks don’t encrypt. It’s very complicated. It’s very cumbersome. There’s a lot of numbers involved with it.” Leaving aside the laughable notion that a lot of banks don’t encrypt data, the rest of her quote is in keeping with what we hear from lawyers. What we hear always translates into the same thing: Encryption is hard.
So let’s make this more fun with some things you can relate to.
Encryption is designed to secure data from prying eyes. It keeps secrets secret. Think about your childhood. Did you play with invisible ink? Did you watch the mailbox for a magic decoder ring? Perhaps you spoke Pig Latin with a sibling so your parents remained clueless about what you were plotting.
You’ve seen secrets hidden in the movies – remember the World War II Navajo code talkers in “Windtalkers?” Cryptography has been featured in many movies, including the National Treasure movies, Sneakers and, perhaps most famously, in The Da Vinci Code.
In the simplest terms, cryptography is the science of secret communication. It involves transmitting and storing data in a form that only the intended recipient can read. Encryption is one form of cryptography.
Encryption is the conversion of data into a form, called a ciphertext, that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people. Decryption is the process of converting encrypted data back into its original form (plaintext), so it can be understood.
Encryption can protect stored data (on servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, portable devices, etc.) and transmitted data (over wired and wireless networks, including e-mail). Today’s cryptography can be found in streams of binary code that pass over wired networks, wireless networks and Internet communications pathways.
Fortunately, you don’t have to understand the math and computer science behind encryption in order to use it. There are now many easy-to-use encryption tools available for end-users. Many of our clients are adopting ZixCorp for e-mail encryption, which integrates with Outlook. You don’t need to use it all the time – just when you are transmitting sensitive data. Bottom line – it is EASY(press the “Encrypt and Send” button) – and inexpensive. Clients love it.
Trust us, it has now reached the point where all attorneys ethically should have encryption available for use, where appropriate, to protect client data.
Nelson and Simek have been frequent presenters at ABA TECHSHOW. Nelson served as Chair of the 2006 TECHSHOW Planning Board. Together, they are the principals of Sensei Enterprises.
April 1st is the deadline for nonprofits to file their Biennial Report, Form BRA-25, with the D.C. Government's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
Every nonprofit is required to file a biennial report the April 1st immediately following the year the organization was incorporated and every two years thereafter. Depending on the year in which your nonprofit was formed, you may have to file the form during even-numbered or odd-numbered years. If you don't know in which category your nonprofit falls, you can go to the DCRA website and check your organization's filing status.
You should also check to see if your nonprofit filed the biennial reports that were due in prior years, and whether it is in good standing with the D.C. Government.
A filing fee of $80 must accompany the BRA-25. You can file the form online by going to the DCRA website.
If a nonprofit does not file the form by April 1st, it will have to pay a late fee of $50. In addition, if a nonprofit does not file the form within five months of the April 1st due date, its corporate status will be revoked and it will no longer be authorized to do business in D.C. If that happens, the validity of the nonprofit's contracts, such as its lease, grant agreements and other agreements, could be questioned.
The good news is that a nonprofit whose corporate status has been revoked may file for reinstatement. In order to be reinstated, an organization must file all past due biennial reports with the accompanying filing and late fees, as well as Form GN-5, asking for reinstatement. There is an additional $80 fee for reinstatement.
1. LinkedIn’s Help and Support materials (http://learn.linkedin.com/), including starter guides, are clearly written and useful.
2. Because LinkedIn has been around for a long time, many other people have had the same question you have. Check LinkedIn’s Help Forum (http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/list/search/1/d/c) to see if you can find the answer to your question.
3. Use a scheduling tool like HootSuite (http://www.hootsuite.com) to schedule LinkedIn Updates in advance and keep your Profile updated, even when you are on the go. If you participate in other social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, using HootSuite will allow you to post updates to multiple networks at once, all in one place.
4. Customize privacy and account settings on a regular basis.
5. Create a “vanity” URL for your Profile page.
6. Customize the Web site links on your Profile to give people reasons to visit your Web site, blog, or other sites.
7. Reorder your Profile according to what is most important to your audience.
8. Use the “Profile Strength meter” and the suggestions LinkedIn provides to create a robust LinkedIn Profile.
9. Make good use of your “Professional Headline” by giving it an external focus. Think of it as your LinkedIn “elevator speech.”
10. Add Skills to your Profile. This relatively new feature might become helpful in fine-tuning who best fits your needs in hiring or other settings. It also will help with Endorsement suggestions LinkedIn makes on your behalf.
11. Have a plan for adding Connections (i.e., quality or quantity, local or global, inside your current organization or outside).
12. Do not blindly accept invitations—use them as an opportunity to create or advance relationships by sending a personal reply.
13. Send personalized invitations so people remember you and are encouraged to accept your invitations.
14. Request recommendations (where appropriate).
15. Give recommendations (even if you cannot get them). If you don’t have time to write recommendations, endorse your Connections on their best and most relevant skills.
16. Become familiar with your jurisdiction’s ethical rules affecting LinkedIn participation.
Allison Shields is the President of Legal Ease Consulting, Inc., which offers coaching and consulting services for lawyers and law firms in the areas of marketing, social media, business development, productivity, practice management, and client service. Dennis Kennedy is an information technology lawyer and widely-published legal technology author, blogger and speaker. Dennis writes the technology column for the ABA Journal.
Kennedy and Shields will present “LinkedIn’s Next Level – Getting More Return on Your Networking” on Thursday, April 16, 2:00-3:00 PM at ABA TECHSHOW 2015. This post is adapted from a list of 50 LinkedIn tips for lawyers included in their materials for that presentation.
So, there you are on the course and you are playing “best ball”/”Captain’s choice” where everyone on the team hits the ball off of the first tee, then the Team Captain gets to select which ball everyone will play from.
The longest ball may have fallen into the rough or woods with cleaner shots being yards behind the balls that went the furthest but with obstacles. It is in this moment that you can learn a lot about the captain of the team and the teammates by the choices and conversations that occur next.
Does the captain take into account everyone’s skill and comfort levels with the game, or does he/or she choose the ball that they are comfortable playing through (often the longest ball that went the farthest but lies behind obstacles). This is one example of the strong parallels between leadership on the golf course and in the boardroom.
As workplace inclusion continues to be an important topic for organizations across all sectors, organizations continue to invest in costly and time-consuming diversity and leadership training; however, perhaps one of the places where we can have the biggest impact on both of those areas is in one of the most loved and played games in the world: golf.
For organizations who want to focus on leadership, diversity, eliminating bias, and increasing diversity, starting to look at how their organization and leaders are conducting themselves on the fairways can have broader implications in the boardroom.
If you haven’t already made your organization's golf strategy part of your leadership development and diversity strategy here are some great ways to start:
Ensure any memberships or golf expense policies are equitably distributed across diverse slate of leaders.
Make sure that invitations to customers and internal employees don’t exclude women and minorities. People are more likely to make assumptions that someone doesn't play if they are a member of a historically underrepresented population.
Engage thought leaders who specialize in the Art of the Game and its relation to business to coach your leaders on their golf course conduct and leadership. Understanding how your behavior impacts team dynamics can enhance workplace performance.
Strategically host events with diverse foursomes. Avoid gender-separated tournaments and enjoy the process of finding ways to encourage people to build relationships across difference at your events.
Golf is a game where good business practices and the qualities of good sportsmanship converge to build excellent relationships. Inclusion of women and minorities as active participants in the game of golf can optimize your internal and external ROI not to mention increase the enjoyment for everyone involved on the course and off.
Rose Harper is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, lecturer, sport event manager, contributing writer to golf publications and a passionate golfer. Her legendary contributions to the game of golf include founding the PGA Tour Wives Association, initiating Golf Digest’s Minority Summit and reformatting PGA player credentials. Rose established a minority-joint venture design team with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to provide a golf course feasibility study for the Nation’s Capital, and organized the first ever multi-racial golf event in the history of South Africa. In 1995, Rose founded her consulting company, The Grass Ceiling, Inc., as a business empowerment firm specializing in demonstrating how the game of golf can serve as an effective platform for business development. Rose Harper is the author of two golf-related books: The Art of the Deal: Golf – Access to Success (2014), and The Golfer’s Cookbook (1975).
1. DC Bar President Brigida Benitez sheds light about the growing legal field of anticorruption. She says that according to public records "there are more than 100 companies under investigation by U.S. authorities for possible violations of the FCPA" and many of the key investigations are being conducted right here in the District of Columbia. Needless to say, many DC Bar Members are on involved with these anticorruption cases.
2.Elder Abuse statistics are high. A report by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that five million elderly Americans are affected each year. This includes physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, as well as neglect, abandonment, and financial exploitation. Also, according to the report, just one in 24 cases of elder abuse is reported to authorities.
3. John Grisham has released another book. "In Gray Mountain, Grisham presents a landscape of lawyering possibilities in a rookie lawyer’s unexpected travels from a boring and tedious associateship in a big firm in New York City to an unpaid internship in a small town general practice in rural Virginia." Find the Review Here
4. "Lawyers in the District have many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of their regular practice, but the goal is to find pro bono work that is really meaningful and to enjoy the work that you are doing, not just to check the proverbial box." For Pro Bono work, finding the right fit is key!
6. If congressional efforts to block implementation of the marijuana legalization initiative succeed, it is likely that the District's medical marijuana program will still continue. Lawyers will need to remember that marijuana is still illegal under federal law and Rule 1.2(e) of the Rules of Professional Conduct will be in affect. This rule "forbids a lawyer to counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal."
7. First-ever elected DC Attorney General Karl Racine says the road to winning the election was a "wild ride. It was like getting on a rollercoaster for the first time: It was exciting, there were people all around, there were ups and downs, there were thrilling moments, and there were moments where I just wanted to get off."
8. The DC Bar launched a brand new strategic planning process. #DCBar2020
9. DC Bar Members are on the move! Not only have they moved up the ranks with honors and appointments, but we have quite a few published authors. Catch up with our members here
1. Tuohey is a past President of the D.C. Bar (1993-94). Tuohey said that having served as president of the D.C. Bar helped him to prepare for his new position with Mayor Muriel Bowser's Administration. “Working with [D.C. Bar Chief Executive Officer Katherine A. Mazzaferri] and the staff and a lot of lawyers, that was a great experience in terms of management and leadership,” he said. “That’s going to come in real handy.”
3. In 2012, Tuohey was a front-runner for U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. He was also a legal advisor to the Commission on Policing Northern Ireland. According to Irish Central, "he was Grand Marshal of the 2008 St.Patrick’s Parade in Washington D.C. and has made the Irish America Magazine Legal 100 list for several years."
4. Added "Washingtonian of the Year" in 2005 to his array of awards. Other prestigious awards include: "D.C. Lawyer of the Year," Bar Association of the District of Columbia, 2001; America's Leading Lawyers for Business (litigation, white-collar crime, and government investigations); International Who's Who of Business Crime Lawyers; and Top 100 Most Influential Lawyers in Washington Region.
5. Graduated from Fordham Law School in 1973. The Fordham Law Alumni Association presented Tuohey with a Medal of Achievement in 2013. This is the highest honor by Fordham Law to its alumni.
“Mark is a man who treasures friendships and community, and we are so honored to recognize him today as an integral member of our own Fordham Law community,” said Mark Hyland ’80, FLAA President, in presenting the award to Tuohey. “Fordham Law School will always cherish its own lifelong ambassador—Mark Tuohey—a man for Fordham, a man for Washington D.C., and, in the most noble tradition of the Jesuits, a man for others.”
6. As an assistant U.S. attorney during the 70s, Tuohey recieved national attention for handling the Hanafi Muslim hostage case. This case was an incident in which 134 people were taken captive in Washington.
Did you know that about 260,000 Americans get married in the United States every year on Valentine's Day? Typically, the District of Columbia Superior Court is closed on Saturdays, but cupid requested that the court stays open for people wanting to get married on Love's Holiday.
This will be the first time ever that the DC Superior Court's Marriage Bureau has opened its calendar for Saturday weddings. On February 14, court officiants will perform 14 weddings beginning at 9 a.m. in each of the two marriage ceremony rooms.
“We are pleased to accommodate this number of couples who want to have this special date as their anniversary date. I appreciate court staff taking time away from their family and friends and coming to work on a Saturday morning so that we can perform these couples’ marriage ceremonies on this special date,” said Chief Judge Lee Satterfield.
“We expect to see a lot of smiling faces this Saturday, on the faces of the newly-married couples and their loved ones, and on the faces of court staff who so enjoy being witness to this special time in peoples’ lives.”
The DC Superior Court’s Marriage Bureau processed over 5000 marriage license applications per year in recent years, over 7500 in 2013. Over 2400 couples were married at the courthouse last year.
1. I will dedicate time to my own development. There are a number of inter-related areas of self-development that influence one’s ability to lead with calmness and clarity. Making time to develop oneself in the following areas is essential to leadership maturity: Physical well-being, Self-awareness, Emotional calmness and regulation, Thinking broadly and deeply
2. I will acknowledge and work on my own part in problems. When relationship and leadership challenges arise in any organization, everyone involved is playing a part in the challenge. Understanding the part I play and working to modify myself is the most effective means of influencing what is going on.
3. I will dedicate time to people development. Most leaders focus on getting things done, and on executing on projects, tasks. One of the most important purposes of a leader is promoting the growth in responsibility, autonomy and confidence in those s/he leads. Leaders who understand this make time to talk to their people about growth and development.
4. I will let others do their job. Experiential learning is part of growth. If leaders are constantly telling people what to do and how to do it, the others are not learning how to think and function for themselves. One of the most difficult jobs of a leader is staying out of everyone else’s way so they can bring their best self to their work.
5. I will be strategically calm in the face of mistakes. People learn from mistakes. Adopting a calm (non-anxious) presence in the face of mistakes helps others calm down so they can think through their problems instead of just react. If the leader can be less reactive to what is going on than those around her/him, the leader can be helpful. If the leader cannot be less reactive, the leader cannot be helpful.
Would you like to step into spring with a positive impact on your leadership effectiveness? All you have to do is push through the rest of winter by applying these resolutions to your leadership capabilities!
About Stan Proffitt: An executive coach and leadership teacher whose diverse academic and professional background has enabled him to connect with and inspire a wide range of top-level leaders. Stan’s background includes a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education, ten years in the Behavioral Health field in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and 17 years of experience in Organizational Development, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching. He continues his study of human relationship functioning through the Post-Graduate Program at the Bowen Center for the Study of Families and the Georgetown Family Center in Washington, D.C.
John C. Cruden D.C. Bar President 2005-2006 Mr. Cruden currently serves as the president of the Environmental Law Institute.
Statement Released by United States Attorney General Eric Holder
“I am delighted to welcome John Cruden back to the Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“John has already devoted more than two decades of his life and service to the department – enforcing our nation’s environmental laws; protecting our air, water, land, and wildlife; defending federal agencies; and honoring U.S. treaty rights and obligations to Native Americans. From Exxon Valdez to Love Canal to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, John Cruden has consistently demonstrated the tenacity, the leadership, and the strength of character that represents the very best that this Department of Justice has to offer. He is uniquely qualified to lead this division’s efforts to meet the challenges posed by climate change, illegal wildlife trafficking, pollution, and natural resource management, among many other pressing issues.
“I also want to express my deep gratitude to Sam Hirsch and Bob Dreher, who have led ENRD with great distinction in a time of significant challenges. Their stewardship has been invaluable to the division’s mission and people. Their service has helped make the division one of the best places to work in the federal government. And their outstanding leadership has been vital in advancing our efforts to protect the American people and our environment.”
Reaction from the Bitcoin community has been mixed. Some Bitcoin supporters have welcomed, or at least accepted, greater federal and state involvement, while others have criticized both the specific rules and the rulemaking process. It would be a mistake to place all Bitcoin advocates in one of these two categories. There are actually multiple Bitcoin “constituencies,” and understanding these groups helps explain why effective regulation will be such a challenge.
Supporters of Bitcoin (or other virtual currency) generally fall into one of these categories:
Technologists: Technologists are attracted to the newest technological advances, and they see Bitcoin as the next “Internet.” Technologists focus on Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology that allows for trusted, de-centralized, and quausi-anonymous payments. Their interest is more in the ideas and technological possibilities behind Bitcoin rather than any business opportunity.
Humanitarians: Humanitarians believe that Bitcoin can assist developing economies. Humanitarians see Bitcoin as providing a reasonably stable form of value in countries that restrict foreign currencies but have rampant inflation. They also praise Bitcoin’s ability to effect inexpensive international payments.
Investors: Investors view Bitcoin as the next dot-com boom. They believe that the right startup companies can make millions or billions of dollars by building the “killer app” for Bitcoin or otherwise bringing Bitcoin to widespread use.
Libertarians: Libertarians are excited about Bitcoin’s potential as an alternative to the heavily regulated traditional banking and currency systems. Libertarians believe that a payment or currency system does not require the current level of government interference, and that Bitcoin, if successful, could prove their case. Some members of this group believe that governments should not control the financial system and that any regulation of Bitcoin is per se illegitimate.
Criminals: Bitcoin is attractive to some financial criminals. Bitcoin payments are irreversible, quasi-anonymous, and operate largely outside of traditional U.S. financial institutions and these institutions’ transaction monitoring systems.
In general, investors support regulation because they favor certainty over regulatory risk, while Libertarians (and certainly Criminals) oppose regulation. This does not mean, however, that every sensible regulatory proposal is “good” for virtual currency in the long run. Bitcoin is unlikely to gain widespread adoption if the public views Bitcoin transactions as a haven for criminals or as an anti-government device, nor will Bitcoin reach its potential unless Investors are confident enough to place large sums of money behind the most promising startups.
At the same time, Bitcoin is also unlikely to succeed if even the best-intentioned regulations drive the Technologists, many of whom are also Libertarians, away from Bitcoin to the next promising technological invention. Careless regulation may also eliminate many of the advantages Bitcoin promises to the developing world by making Bitcoin too expensive to use in a compliant manner.
The challenge for regulators is to make rules comprehensive enough to make Bitcoin less attractive to criminals and more attractive to investors, while also leaving enough flexibility for the Technologists to innovate and for the Humanitarians to use Bitcoin for good causes.
Meeting this challenge will be difficult, and it requires federal and state authorities to be extra careful when deciding what rules will govern virtual currency. More regulation is probably essential for Bitcoin’s continued growth, but unwise regulation might stop existing growth entirely and shift Technologists and other first movers to another innovation.
This material does not represent legal advice as to any particular set of facts; nor does it represent any undertaking to keep recipients advised of all legal developments.
By Stan Proffitt President of Shoshin Leadership, Inc.
How can I get my team to be more accountable?”
“How do I motivate my workforce?”
I hear the questions above on a weekly basis. In my view, the questions themselves reveal a major root of the problem. The mindset that produces the above questions is focused on changing others. I know of no quicker path to frustration than trying to change others.
An important distinction needs to be made between influencing others and “getting others to change.” The difference is subtle, but each focus emanates from a profoundly different understanding of how relationships work.
A focus on getting others to change betrays a linear thought process lurking beneath the surface. In linear thinking there is a do this/get that mentality. There is a time for linear thinking. Some examples that come to mind include:
Fixing a car
Correcting a golf swing
Revising code in a software program
Linear thinking can be useful when there is a “cause” that can be identified. The problem is that leaders, conditioned to fix problems and get things done, tend to apply linear thinking in situations where there are multiple contributing factors mutually influencing each other.
Leadership is essentially a relationship process. As such, there are many variables that influence how people function. A more useful mindset in navigating through and influencing a broader range of variables can be referred to as Systems Thinking.
In Systems Thinking, one considers multiple variables that contribute to what is going on. One of those variables is ALWAYS oneself. The sobering news is, in every relationship I have, I contribute to any problems or short-comings. The path to influencing the system at large involves shifting my own contribution to what is going on.
The purpose is not to change others. The purpose is to change myself, knowing that when I change, the others will have to respond to that change in some way.
About Stan Proffitt: An executive coach and leadership teacher whose diverse academic and professional background has enabled him to connect with and inspire a wide range of top-level leaders. Stan’s background includes an Bachelor of Science degree in physical education, ten years in the Behavioral Health field in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and 17 years of experience in Organizational Development, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching. He continues his study of human relationship functioning through the Post-Graduate Program at the Bowen Center for the Study of Families and the Georgetown Family Center in Washington, D.C.
From Attorney General-Elect Karl Racine Transition Team
Photo: http://votekarlracine.com/
Today, Attorney General-Elect Karl Racine named Pauline Schneider and Natalie Ludaway as Co-Chairwomen of his transition team.
Racine said, “We are very pleased that Pauline Schneider and Natalie Ludaway are coming on board. Pauline’s reputation is sterling, and her knowledge of Government and Finance will be a significant contribution in preparing to operate the first independent Office of Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Natalie is a trusted and close friend, and we served together on the D.C. Judicial Nominations Committee. Like Pauline, Natalie has an impeccable reputation in the practice of law. I am very lucky to have their counsel.”
Schneider is a Special Counsel to the D.C. office of Ballard Spahr, LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm with 500 attorneys in 14 offices across the United States. Ms. Schneider specializes in Public Finance and Governmental Affairs including service as Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for the District of Columbia.
Schneider responded, “With Karl Racine as Attorney General, D.C. will take great strides forward. It is an honor to work on behalf of the people of the District in this role and work with Attorney General-Elect Racine in beginning the hard-work to integrate a new vision for a now independent office.”
Ludaway leads the boutique practice at Leftwich & Ludaway, a D.C.-based law firm. Ms. Ludway specializes in civil and commercial litigation with significant experience in alternative dispute resolution as well as overseeing internal investigations in the public and private sector.
Ludaway added, “There is work to be done, and the first independent Attorney General needs to ensure that the OAG will be ethical and fair in the delivery of services to District residents.”
In addition to Ms. Schneider and Ms. Ludaway, Racine named Kim Whatley as Transition Director. Ms. Whatley was an unpaid Senior Aide to Racine during the campaign, having taken a leave of absence from her position as the Executive Director of the D.C. Judicial Nominations Commission. Both Racine and Whatley are unpaid members of the transition team as are Schneider and Ludaway.
Sean Rankin, the general consultant to the campaign, has been named Communications Director, and Marrisa Geller has been named Public Affairs Specialist. Legal researchers and attorney advisors including Sean Treanor, Ebony Wade, and Simon Chan have been added as well.
By Marc A. Schindler and Jason Ziedenberg, Justice Policy Institute
Unofficial election results for Initiative 71-Legalization of Marijuana in the District of Columbia. The election was held Nov. 4, 2014.
The passage of Measure 71 represents important and much needed progress for District of Columbia residents. D.C voters have clearly shown that they do not want their criminal justice system to focus on the arrest or prosecution of people for marijuana use or possession.
However, we need more than reform to our drug laws to make the system fairer, keep communities safe, and help more people who have been involved with the justice system successfully transition back to their communities.
Let’s build on the momentum of Measure 71 by refocusing on: Helping formerly incarcerated people secure a job and housing; finding more ways to keep people out of far-flung prisons and closer to home; and keeping young people out of the adult criminal justice system entirely.
How can we begin to change these issues? The District's top leadership--Mayor, DC Council, and Attorney General--will play a pivotal role in influencing change in the following ways:
Reduce the barriers facing people returning from prison. The city has taken important steps by putting money and effort into improving reentry services through the Office of Returning Citizens, helping individuals in the jail vote, and efforts to “ban the box” (when written job applications or employers ask job candidates to identify if have a criminal record).
But, we still have a long way to go to address the statutory and regulatory barriers we’ve placed on people with criminal convictions from getting a job, and getting housing.
The District should heed the important message of a report from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs: Address all the statutory and policy barriers that make it harder for the 60,000 individuals with a criminal record or the 35,000 people who have merely been arrested to access housing and jobs.
Keep more people close to home by improving supervision and sentencing, and reducing our use of the jail. When someone in D.C. is sentenced to a long prison term,they are often sent hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of miles away from their home because of the deal the City struck with Congress to have our prisoners housed in the federal system.
Research by the Urban Institute shows that one in five D.C. prisoners is imprisoned more than 500 miles from the District—some as far away as Florida, Texas or California. When we can keep people close to home, they can maintain community connections, support and be supported by their families, and are more likely to leave crime behind them.
We need to broaden our sentencing options, enhance treatment, and limit the use of the D.C. jail and supervise individuals in the community as often as possible to keep more D.C. residents close to home. Some key steps include:
Sentencing reform: We should look at ways to reduce select sentences, and reduce the number of people who commit nonviolent offenses from going to prison from D.C. If we can better serve individuals on community supervision, use a much smaller jail as a last resort a sentencing option, we can reduce the number of people we are currently sending to Federal prisons;
Use the dollars we spend on the private, for-profit Central Treatment Facility differently: We should cancel the contract with Corrections Corporation of America to run the Central Treatment Facility. Instead, we should build on the experiences we have had in D.C. and other jurisdictions and build stronger networks of nonprofit service providers to meet individuals treatment needs.
Swift, certain, and smart supervision practices: We need to work with the federal government to help the Pretrial Services Agency and Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in their shift to “swift and certain” supervision practices. Let’s give probation and pretrial supervision staff the training, tools, and resources they need to quickly respond to behavior, hold individuals accountable, and link their supervision to services so they can succeed in the community.
Narrow the use of specialty courts. D.C.’s drug and mental health court alternatives to prison should be limited and used only for people who would go to prison otherwise. They must not widen the net for people who could get treatment without an arrest, or conviction through diversion. The City should also find other ways to get people the treatment they need before they end up with a conviction, when drug treatment was what they needed.
Keep young people out of D.C.’s adult criminal justice system. Finally, the City should move quickly with the legislation before it to reduce the number of young people tried as adults and stop holding youth in adult correctional facilities, and follow up with broader reforms to the youth justice system in 2015.
When youth are transferred to the adult system, incarcerated in adult jails and correctional institutions, and carry a criminal conviction, the research has shown that these youth are more likely to reoffend than youth kept in the juvenile justice system.
This legislation would change sentencing and juvenile corrections practices so that fewer young people end up being tried as adults, end up in adult jails. Instead, we should serve these young people in the juvenile justice system. The Council should pass and the Mayor should sign YOARA this year.
To help implement YOARA, the next administration should take common sense steps to emulate what other states have done to reduce youth incarceration.
The District should screen youth who commit misdemeanor offenses out of the system so that only those youth who need intensive services are committed to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), and expand diversion options so that even more youth can avoid a commitment all-together.
And, our new Attorney General-Elect Karl Racine can play a role in this too. He can direct juvenile prosecutors to no longer request pretrial detention for misdemeanant youth—something that would free up space at the Youth Services Center so that the young people currently held in the adult jail could be safely held in the juvenile justice system.
Conclusion We are proud to be part of a City that has endorsed an enlightened approach to drug laws that criminalized too many people in a racially disparate way. But, rather than see Measure 71 and marijuana law reform as an endpoint, this should only be the beginning of practical and common-sense criminal justice reforms to build safer, healthier, and stronger communities.
Testimony in support of Youth Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act [Justice Policy Institute]
Marc A. Schindler and Jason Ziedenberg are, respectively, the Executive Director, and Research and Policy Director of the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank working to reduce the use of incarceration. Schindler previously served as General Counsel and Interim Director of DYRS, and Ziedenberg previously served as Research and Evaluation Officer at DYRS.
Lawyers from Big Law have regularly served as the city's top attorney reports the National Law Journal
CANDIDATES: Five lawyers—Lorelie Masters, Karl Racine, Edward “Smitty” Smith, Lateefah Williams and Paul Zukerberg (left to right)—are vying to be the first-ever elected D.C. attorney general in the November election. The candidates appeared last week at a forum, above, at O’Melveny & Myers.
Photo used with permission by The National Law Journal/Diego M. Radzinschi
"Lawyers who spent much of their careers as partners at big law firms have regularly served as D.C.'s attorney general. Irvin Nathan, who now holds the post, spent more than 30 years at Arnold & Porter. He was general counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 until his appointment in 2011.
Nathan's predecessor, Peter Nickles, and the late Charles Ruff, who went on to become White House counsel, were partners at Covington & Burling. The late John Payton, who later served as head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., came from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.
"Being a law firm partner at a major firm in town is often one indication of you just being an experienced lawyer of stature," said Walter Smith, executive director of the DC Appleseed Center for Law & Justice. "It's not the only one by any stretch of the imagination." Law firms, he noted, "usually don't make people partners until they have demonstrated they are accomplished."
Nickles, senior counsel to Covington, served as attorney general from 2008 to 2011. He said his management of lawyers and law firm operations at Covington, before becoming attorney general, was useful preparation. There's another upside to being from the law firm world, Nickles said: having a large network to tap when he needed pro bono help.
Private-practice attorneys can face certain learning curves, however. "Someone with pure Big Law experience is used to an environment where civil services rules don't apply, union rules aren't involved," said Katherine "Shelley" Broderick, dean of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. "Hiring and firing is pretty straightforward whereas in a government setting, it just isn't."
A. Scott Bolden, managing partner of Reed Smith's Washington office and a former D.C. Council lawyer, said private practitioners have to adjust to the sometimes slower pace of city government.
"In the government … policy and politics and process and procedures within a regulatory scheme can often dominate decision-making," Bolden said.
Schertler & Onorato partner Robert Spagnoletti was an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington before becoming attorney general in 2003. With a background in government — including working in an office where, like the attorney general's office, lawyers were unionized — he said he felt comfortable handling day-to-day administrative functions.
Lawyers who came from outside of government to the attorney general's job were more likely to focus on "big-ticket" issues and delegate daily operations, Spagnoletti said.
Many former officeholders had done public interest work, full-time or part-time as pro bono counsel. Before becoming attorney general in 2007, Linda Singer was a public defender in New York and was executive director of the Appleseed Foundation, a network of public interest law groups.
"Your job is to represent the government and to represent the people of the District of Columbia," said Singer, now a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. "Certainly an appreciation of the complexity of those dual functions was something that I brought, and an understanding of how litigation interacts with and affects public policy."
Thorn Pozen of Goldblatt Martin Pozen said the experiences that lawyers from outside of D.C. government brought to the office, whether it was law firm management, public interest law or federal government service, were useful — to a point. Pozen was special counsel under Nathan, Nickles and Singer.
"The D.C. government is a different animal than anyone who has not been involved in D.C. government has seen," Pozen said. "I don't know that either firm or federal government experience is something that's going to prepare one for the day-to-day, rough-and-tumble of the D.C. government."
I never thought I’d write a book about debt. Never. Strange as it sounds, this book owes it existence to two people: my mother and Brad Pitt.
It began with my mom. She started getting calls from a debt collector over a debt that she didn’t even owe. So, I started investigating the debt collections industry and discovered that my hometown – Buffalo, N.Y. – was one of the epicenters.
I ended up writing a profile about a collector, from Buffalo, for the New Yorker. After the article came out, I got a call from Brad Pitt’s producer, telling me that he wanted to turn the story into a TV series with HBO. I was shocked. But, he was serious.
So, I end up traveling back to Buffalo, with the screenwriter, and we stayed at my parent’s house. It was surreal. The screenwriter was staying up on the third floor and my dad and his wife are making meals for him in the kitchen. My job on this trip was to line up some interesting people for the screenwriter to meet, so his script seemed authentic.
Back when I was doing my story for the New Yorker, no one wanted to talk with me. Now, all of a sudden, I am doing a project with “Brad,” and people are tripping over themselves to talk.
One night, the screenwriter and I go out to dinner with a banker and a former armed robber who had gone into business with one another. They tell me an incredible tale.
They purchased $1.5 billion worth of bad debt for pennies on the dollar. Their aim was to make a fortune. All goes well on this unlikely venture until some of the debt is stolen and the former armed robber must delve into an underworld where debt is bought and sold on street corners. This quest ends in a showdown with guns in the inner city of Buffalo, N.Y.
My book tells the story of Aaron and Brandon’s unlikely partnership and it also tracks the stolen portfolio of debt they set out to retrieve. To its handlers, that portfolio was just a spreadsheet containing the names and social security numbers of debtors and the amounts they owed; but that same spreadsheet was also a collection of stories about Americans whose financial lives had unraveled.
My book chronicles some of those lives and simultaneously explores a thriving industry that buys and sells old loans like precious jewels. In many blighted neighborhoods, in Buffalo and elsewhere, small shops that collect debt—often by unsavory means—are sources of employment and engines of mobility for people who, otherwise, would be hard-pressed to find work.
Across the country, a much larger industry traffics in old debts, frequently using dubious methods to pressure debtors into paying up, even on debts they have already settled or for which they are no longer liable. As sensational as this may sound, it is exactly what one might expect in a country that is driven by profit, mired in debt, and not fully able or willing to tame the marketplace that is created when these two forces meet.
I look forward to sharing these and other stories when I visit Washington D.C. and have lunch with the D.C. Bar. I hope you will join me!
With volunteers like Brigida Benitez and Timothy Webster, the immigration clinic broadens its reach.
D.C. Bar President Brigida Benitez and President-Elect Timothy K. Webster joined 17 other lawyers to help provide legal information, brief advice, and referral services for civil legal matters governed by U.S. immigration law.
"The Immigration Clinic is a great example of the multiplier effect that is at the core of the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program. Volunteers who are not immigration lawyers—myself included—were able to tap the broad experience of a core group of expert mentors to advise 39 individuals in just a few hours," Webster said. "Every time I volunteer at the clinic, I'm reminded that there is such a tremendous unmet need in our community for legal services and that spending just a few hours on a Saturday morning can have a positive impact on people's lives," Benitez said.
There has been a dramatic surge in biking in the District of Columbia, earning our city plaudits as “the new U.S. bike city to watch.”[1] With that come changes: to transportation infrastructure, to the applicable legal framework governing liability in the event of accidents, and to attitudes and behavior.
Bicyclists in the District have adopted bike riding as a way of life. Value-based reasons to use a bicycle for downtown transportation include: Increased exercise/fitness, engaging in a sustainable mode of transportation, reducing your personal carbon footprint, and personal pleasure/fresh air are all good reasons to jump on a bike instead of a cab or car.
For me, using a bike as my primary mode of in-town transportation has been an important way to keeping my life in balance, particularly last year, when I was trying to manage my solo law practice while I served as D.C. Bar president.
A key game-changer in the convenience of in-town biking was the roll-out of Capital Bikeshare, D.C’s wildly popular bike-sharing program. Started in 2010 as the first commercial bike-sharing program in a major U.S. city, DC’s Capital Bikeshare has now grown to more than 1,700 bikes and nearly 200 stations, with 8,000 trips a day across D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. [2]
During my year as bar president, I jumped on a “CaBi” at the Capital bikeshare station near my office three or more times a week and zipped downtown on a dedicated bike lane to attend D.C. Bar meetings or related events.
For trips between downtown and near-downtown locations, bicycling is faster and cheaper over any other form of downtown transportation, including taxicabs, Metrorail, Metrobus, or the D.C. Circulator. Membership in Capital Bikeshare is a mere $75 per year, with no per use cost for trips under a half hour. And many employers negotiate subsidies for their employees so that the annual cost is much lower. They are also set up for one time uses as well.
Whether you are in private practice or a salaried employee, time spent in traffic can be directly translated to lost income or personal time, not to mention the toll on your mental health. In the last decade, the city’s bike lane network has increased by over 300%.[3]
Using the dedicated bike lanes on G, L , M, 13th, and 15th Streets, and Pennsylvania and New Hampshire Avenues, with more planned, bicycles can skim by the cars creeping along without fear of being broad-sided or “doored.” [4]
Multiply those daily time savings by your hourly rate and you will realize that the annual time saved can allow you to accomplish more at work and/or free up time for your personal life. If you use Capital Bikeshare frequently, as I do, the savings can add up to thousands of dollars and hundreds of hoursper year.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority now accommodates flexible use of bicycles with other modes of public transportation. Capital Bikeshare allows you to ride a bike during the workday even if you don’t ride your own bicycle to work. If you do use your own bike, Metrobuses and the D.C. Circulator are all equipped with bike racks and bikes are allowed on the Metrorail system during non-peak hours.
Challenges to biking -- weather, safety and fashion – are easily navigated. I don’t bike in the rain or the snow, but otherwise, the cold or heat is perfectly manageable for short trips during the workday. Capital Bikeshare bikes are low to the ground with adjustable seats, are easily balanced, and have front and rear flashing LED lights that are powered by movement. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) offers classes in confident city cycling.[5]
Fashion is also no obstacle: I can wear a skirt comfortably, and CaBi bikes have gear guards so that you don’t risk getting your cuffs chewed by the gears or have to wear trouser clips.
And then there’s the helmet conundrum. D.C. does not have a mandatory helmet law for adults. According to WABA, mandatory helmet laws can decrease ridership, since “If you’re not allowed to ride a bike without a helmet, often that means you won’t ride a bike.”[6]
All the same, the first of many wise pieces of advice that D.C. Bar President Tom Williamson gave me when I was president-elect was: always wear a helmet. Helmets don’t prevent the things that cause a crash, but they do offer a last line of defense when things go wrong.[7]
If dangling a bike helmet from your wrist doesn’t fit your professional image, don’t let that dissuade you from either riding a bike or wearing a helmet. Thanks to D.C. lawyer turned entrepreneur Debra Zuzin, who designed a stylish helmet tote bag that is easy to carry on a bike, you can carry a helmet in a bag that complements your work wardrobe.[8]
Even the fear of “helmet hair” is no longer an impediment to biking. There is now an airbag "helmet" that resembles a fashionable collar worn around the neck, which inflates instantly during a crash.[9]
So come join the most sensible, sustainable, and fun way to navigate the streets of D.C.
Carey Nuttal holds his daughter in front of the Superior Court of DC.
Public Spirit derived from Public Spirited:
pub·lic-spir·it·ed (pblk-spr-td)
adj. Motivated by or exhibiting devotion to the public welfare.
Carey Nuttall is a frequent volunteer in the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program’s Pro Se Plus Divorce and Custody clinics. The Pro Bono Program recently sat down with Carrey to ask him about his experience.
DCBPB: When and how did you first get involved with the Pro Bono Program’s Pro Se Divorce and Child Custody Clinics—and what brings you back year after year?
CN: I think it was about six years ago when I became aware of the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program through our firms’ pro bono partner and coordinator. I was looking for pro bono opportunities, something with some regularity that didn’t involve litigation because I didn’t have the skill set for it. Among the things we talked about were the Pro Bono Program’s Pro Se Plus clinics which really interested me. I completed the training the Pro Bono Program offers and started volunteering in the clinic shortly afterwards.
I started my career as an attorney at FDA because, among other reasons, public service did and still does interest me. I think one of the things I appreciate most about what I do for pro bono is the change of pace. There’s what I do on a daily basis in terms of regulatory counseling and advising people who are in one way or another regulated by the FDA, and then there’s my pro bono work which allows me to flex a different kind of mental muscle and to be involved in something different from my day to day routine.
DCBPBP: Some volunteers prefer to stay away from family law matters. Why do you think it’s important to do pro bono work in the area of family law?
CN: To me, family law was something that, even though it isn’t part of my daily practice, tends to affect many families. We all know people who are getting divorced or are having child custody issues; I myself had people coming to me for advice as an attorney, and I didn’t know anything about it. It was interesting to me because it is so commonplace.
People need to represent themselves in family law matters for a variety of reasons and having more information about that process, about the legal standards that are going to be applicable, and what they can expect when they go to court are really valuable. I could see how it would make a meaningful difference in terms of pro bono work.
DCBPB: Can you walk us through a typical Pro Se Divorce and Custody clinic and what you do as a team leader?
CN: Sure. The Pro Se Divorce and the Custody Clinics both have essentially two parts. The first part is what I think of as a classroom session. There’s a presentation to provide people a good overview of the things they need to know in the context of pursuing a divorce, child custody, and/or support case or all three. We try to get people to understand the procedural elements of both starting a case and how it would progress. Basic things for getting a case started including how you file and how to notify the other party or parties that a case has begun.
Additionally, we cover the principle substantive decisions the court can make in the context of one of these family law cases: What are the applicable legal standards and what kinds of information is the court going to weigh on? We also go over mediation to help people understand that even though the court can weigh in, they don’t have to wait for the court. If they are able to reach a compromise on issues then everyone is happy, including the court.
We give people a lot of information all at once and provide a good base of knowledge to operate from. One way that I like to think about it is providing information so that they can proceed with confidence rather than fear. It can be daunting when you think about it: I don’t know what I don’t know. Once you have the information in hand, it’s really empowering for folks in representing themselves in the family court system.
The second part of the clinic happens in a subsequent week. People can come back if they have additional questions, need more information specific to their type of situation or if they want to have us look over forms they have filled out. The clinic volunteers divide up and talk to people one at a time to delve a little bit deeper. In both instances we are trying to give legal information and not legal advice. People are going to have to make their strategic legal decisions themselves based on the information we give them. We are not creating an attorney-client relationship but one that is a little broader based.
DCBPB: We were informed that you have received a spontaneous ovation at the completion of one of the clinics. What’s your strategy for running a successful clinic and connecting with the participants?
CN: I like to make it a little bit fun. Obviously, people who attend the divorce or child custody clinic are not there for reasons that are usually fun. Most are a little daunted by what they face. I think that by injecting a little humor every now and then, poking fun at the ridiculousness of the process, goes a long way with people. I try to be practical and help them understand what the process might be like in a more down to earth way.
DCBPB: Is your firm supportive of the pro bono work that you do?
CN: Absolutely. One of the great things about Squire Patton Boggs is a long history of and commitment to pro bono. We have a robust pro bono requirement that is not seen or felt as a burden but as an opportunity by nearly everyone I know at the firm. There is a lot of encouragement and support and they hope we will be out there doing pro bono work. It has been a part of the firm’s fabric since well before I arrived.
DCBPBP: Do you have any advice for D.C. Bar members who are thinking about volunteering?
CN: I’d say do it! Whatever it is you’re interested in, there’s something for you. Family law is interesting because you get to see a variety of people and hear their stories, which keeps things fresh. But even if that’s not your thing, find something where you can spend that time giving a little bit back. It’s a nice way of rounding out what you do, it helps you feel better about what you do. It helps you feel better about other people.
I’ve really met a lot of fantastic people doing this program; other volunteers, D.C. Bar staff members, you name it. No matter what it is you want to do, there are people in place and there’s a structure to help you help other people. Just because you don’t know everything there is to know about something, that shouldn’t keep you away.
DCBPBP: When you are not working or volunteering, how do you like to spend your free time?
CN: Mostly a variety of traditional, typical family activities. I have three kids, so soccer games, music lessons, that’s big part of it. I also love music and find myself trying to make it out to concerts at the 9:30 Club or other places in D.C. There are great places to see concerts living here in D.C.
Carey Nuttall is a partner at Patton Boggs where he advises a diverse array of clients on a wide variety of FDA-related regulatory, public policy and enforcement matters, and related FTC regulatory matters. Prior to joining Patton Boggs, Carey was an Associate Chief Counsel for Enforcement in FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.
Josh Toll with his colleagues from left to right: Associate Alex Pogozelski, former pro bono intern Jennifer Riso, and Josh Toll
Public Spirit derived from Public Spirited:
pub·lic-spir·it·ed (pblk-spr-td)
adj. Motivated by or exhibiting devotion to the public welfare.
Josh Toll, Pro Bono Counsel at King and Spalding, and a frequent volunteer in several D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program clinics recently sat down with us to discuss his experience.
DCBPBP: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions about your pro bono service. As King & Spalding’s Pro Bono Counsel, you must feel strongly about pro bono service. What sparked your interest in this area?
JT: I am fortunate to have grown up in a very giving family where community service and volunteering were really emphasized. One of the main reasons I wanted to go to law school was to be able to help those less fortunate, and pro bono work is a great way to do that.
DCBPBP: How long have you been doing pro bono work, and what types of matters have you worked on?
JT: Pro bono work is extremely meaningful to me and I have been doing it for my entire legal career, going back to 1997. I have worked on a variety of pro bono matters, everything from representing indigent tenants in landlord-tenant actions to family law to representing inmates on death row. I have really enjoyed all of the pro bono matters that I have worked on, but I particularly enjoy being in the courtroom so I tend to seek out litigation pro bono opportunities.
DCBPBP: How has King and Spalding partnered with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program?
JT: King & Spalding participates in the Pro Bono Program’s Advocacy & Justice Clinic and has had a wonderful experience. The Pro Bono Program staff does an amazing job running the clinic and providing great mentorship, which has allowed us to obtain life-changing results for our clients.
King & Spalding also recently joined the Advice & Referral Clinic, which is a Saturday walk-in clinic where anyone with a civil legal matter covered by D.C. or federal law can speak one-on-one with a lawyer. It’s a discrete commitment of time for volunteers. I have participated twice now and have really enjoyed it, and have found that it is a big hit among my colleagues who want to get involved but with a manageable time commitment.
DCBPBP: Is there one client or pro bono matter that you remember that helps keep the tremendous need for pro bono service fresh for you?
JT: Yes. There is a client that was referred to us by the Pro Bono Program’s Advocacy and Justice Clinic two years ago who was an immigrant single mother with limited proficiency in English facing a divorce and child custody lawsuit. The case was a great example of the importance of pro bono to vindicate the needs of the most vulnerable members of our society. In addition to successfully representing the client in the family law action, we expanded our representation and assisted her with her immigration and landlord-tenant issues as well. Throughout all of the different cases, our client has been extremely grateful for our assistance.
DCBPBP: What is the most important thing you have learned from doing pro bono work?
JT: My pro bono work has been incredibly meaningful and has brought me a wealth of knowledge as well as opportunities for professional and personal growth. While it is definitely a great way to build legal skills and confront novel and interesting issues, I think the biggest thing has been that pro bono work has shown me how rewarding it is to help a client overcome big obstacles and take their life in a positive direction.
DCBPBP: What tips would you give to your colleagues at other large firms who are thinking about doing pro bono work?
JT: I would counsel my colleagues at other large firms to take that leap of faith and not worry about leaving their comfort zone. The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program and other organizations in D.C. offer wonderful training and mentorship, and they will guide you every step of the way.
DCBPBP: Aside from doing tons of pro bono work – what else do you enjoy doing in DC?
JT: I love going to see concerts, primarily at the 9:30 club and Black Cat, hiking the Billy Goat trail and trails in Shenandoah Valley, and I am constantly reading, usually multiple books at once.
Joshua C. Toll is counsel with the Special Matters and Government Investigations team in King & Spalding’s Washington, D.C., office. He focuses on government investigations, white collar criminal litigation, complex civil litigation, internal investigations and compliance counseling. Mr. Toll is also Pro Bono Counsel for the firm and is in charge of the firm’s overall pro bono program across all offices. Previously he was Chairman of the Pro Bono Committee for King & Spalding’s Washington D.C. office. Prior to joining King & Spalding, he was a trial attorney with the Office of the Public Defender of Maryland.
R. Scott Oswald, faculty member and chairperson for our upcoming CLE "Changing Currents in Employment Law 2014: Recent Trends and Developments," takes a few moments to give us a sneak peak into the class. Mr. Oswald has litigated nearly fifty trials to verdict and recovered more than $90 million in judgments and settlements in employment and whistleblower actions. He is an accomplished trial lawyer in whistleblower protection, qui tam, wrongful discharge, employment discrimination, FMLA, USERRA, non-compete, and wage and overtime actions in federal and state courts.
Mr. Oswald is one of ten panelists that will be discussing the latest trends in Employment Law.
Q. Can you give me a brief overview of the “Changing Currents in Employment Law” series?
A. Changing Currents in Employment Law is a CLE hosted by the DC Bar that has existed for almost a decade now. Every year, we assemble some of the Washington area’s leading employment law practitioners from both the management and employee bar who offer an overview of the most important trends affecting employees, employers, and their counsel. We typically have around ten panelists who provide, what in essence is really a “race across the rooftops” of recent court decisions and legislation that affect the way that we practice law.
Q. What can attendees expect to learn by attending this panel?
A. While we do focus on the law and substantive changes over the last year, I think one of the most important benefits to attending this CLE is the practical tips that our panelists provide. As I mentioned, we have highly accomplished practitioners serving as panelists who are prepared to share the wealth of experience that they have developed from years – and even decades – inside and outside of the courtroom. Sure, we want attendees to walk away from the panel with a clearer understanding of changes to the law, but, of equal importance, we want them to leave feeling more confident when they are in the courtroom, dealing with opposing counsel, or even just advising their clients.
To give just a brief run down, the panels this year include:
From Causation to Coverage: The Effects of Burrage and Lawson on Whistleblower Claims in 2014 and Beyond (Dan Westman and R. Scott Oswald)
“Short Term” Disabilities and Reasonable Accommodations under the ADAAA (Elizabeth Torphy-Donzella and Avi Kumin)
Non-Competition Enforcement and Invalidation: Tools to Fight For Your Client’s Right to [Restrict] Work (Carla Brown and Kara Ariail
Avoiding Litigation Without Giving up the Farm: Settlement Strategies, Negotiations, and Concerns in the 21st Century (Carter DeLorme, Andy Dansicker, and Lewis Saret)
A Company’s Duty to Investigate and the Implications Thereof (Danny Onorato and Dave Schertler)
Q. Can you give me an example of the type of practical tips that an attendee will take with him or her from this year’s panel?
A. I think that one of this year’s panels illustrates exactly the point I’m trying to make. As I mentioned, we have Carter DeLorme from Jones Day and Andy Dansicker from the Law Office of Andrew M. Dansicker serving on a panel entitled “Avoiding Litigation Without Giving up the Farm: Settlement Strategies, Negotiations, and Concerns in the 21st Century.” In this panel, Carter and Andy will discuss the types of provisions that they try to include in settlement agreements in order to protect their corporate and employee clients.
They also discuss the mechanics for negotiating these agreements with opposing counsel. We have also asked Lewis Saret to weigh in on the tax implications of settlement agreements. This is something that employment attorneys are constantly asked by their clients. I don’t know that I have ever settled a case without my client asking me about the tax consequences of the settlement.
Q. This sounds like something that may be designed more for the experienced employment law practitioner. Does the attendee need to have an intimate knowledge of employment laws in order to get the most out of the panel?
A. Not at all. And I think this point is one of the biggest benefits of Changing Currents. There is information that will be relevant to everyone – from counsel with years of experience in litigating employment matters to the generalist who may only touch on employment issues once or twice a year.
As far as the latter group is concerned, we have practitioners on one panel – Dave Schertler and Danny Onorato – discussing what goes on behind the scenes when a company receives a report of unlawful activity from an employee. We also have Kara Ariail and Carla Brown discussing strategies for dealing with non-compete issues. These issues really transcend what is typically thought of as “employment law” and I think that a general understanding is important to any practitioner.
Q. Well what can more experienced practitioners get out of attending?
A. Though we certainly keep the less experienced attorneys in mind, Changing Currents is really ideal for those practitioners who spend their careers focusing on the employment law arena. Panelists go into great detail about the intricacies and nuances of the various statutes under which we all operate.
For example, I am serving on a panel with Dan Westman from Morrison Foerster where we will discuss recent changes to various whistleblower statutes, including Sarbanes-Oxley, and how recent Supreme Court precedent will affect the way that courts deal with causation under the False Claims Act’s anti-retaliation provisions.
Though we will provide a high-level overview of each statute, the discussion will appeal to practitioners who want a more nuanced understanding of how to proceed with whistleblower claims. Likewise, Elizabth Torphy-Donzella and Avi Kumin will provide similar treatment to the Americans with Disabilities Act and its recent amendments. Understanding the intricacies of the ADAAA is fundamental to any practitioner working in this field.
That all being said, experienced employment attorneys and novice alike all need CLE credit!
Q. Can you tell me a little bit more about you and your practice?
A. I began practicing law in 1997. I have brought more than forty jury trials to verdict and litigated in countless more. My firm – The Employment Law Group – is dedicated to representing employees who claim wrongdoing by their employers under whistleblower and civil rights laws.
Q. If you could leave readers with one message about Changing Currents, what would it be?
A. Employment litigation is rarely black and white. It requires a detailed understanding of the law as well as diligent and, often times, creative advocacy by attorneys. I think that Changing Currents and, more importantly, our excellent panelists do a phenomenal job of both providing a review of substantive law and identifying tips and “best practices” for counsel. I am confident that there is something for everyone who will attend.
“I just want to be happy!” I catch myself saying out loud.
There are three areas of life that challenge me to the core: (1) Work, (2) Relationships, and (3) Work Relationships. #lifedoesnotcomewithamanual.
If I “just want to be happy,” then what in the world is stopping me?
Let’s go back and explore this question a bit. It’s a Friday morning. I wake. Everything is normal: the routine, the rush. As I am about to leave for the day, my husband and I get into it. Ahhhhhh, it’s the same fight we have almost every time. The one where no one is listening, no one feels heard, both parties are craving a little kindness.
I don’t have time to stay and work it out. I leave the apartment feeling off-center. I get into the car and start driving. My head is running through the list of things I need to do. There’s a back-up on the expressway and I am growing anxious about being late. Where’s all my yoga zen now?
I know I cannot arrive on time, so I turn around defeated. I pull into a Target parking lot. It’s not even 9am. The parking lot is nearly empty and I sit there with all the empty spaces surrounding me…wondering…what—am—I—doing? Nearly in tears over the fight with my husband, I refuse to let go and cry. Instead, I take out my Blackberry (yes, I still use a Blackberry, and no, that’s not why I’m unhappy).
I send an email that goes something like this, “Hi Katherine, I am sorry, but I am not going to make it today.” Then I say something about the heavy traffic, but I do not stop there. I go on to say, “I have been fighting with my husband all morning, and quite frankly I don’t belong operating a vehicle.” I need to salvage the day, but how am I going to read regulations feeling like this? Trying to do any work right now would be pure negligence.
Sometimes being a lawyer is challenging because of the nature of our work, and sometimes being a lawyer is challenging because of the work/life. I’m not good at compartmentalizing. I do my best work, when I feel good about my work/life. It’s hard to read code and regulations or draft documents when I have a pit in my stomach or if something just doesn’t feel right.
So, the question becomes, how do I elevate myself out of the chaos and frustration from work or work/life? The obvious answer is not to cause the chaos and frustration, but sometimes no matter how hard I try, life has other plans. What can I do in those moments?
There’s something about sitting in an empty Target parking lot, at 9am, that forces me to take a serrrrrriiioussss look—at—myself. I realize I’m starring in my own little drama. A theatre that seats one. The stage: my mind. My thoughts: the actors. I’m starting to feel sorry for my husband.
Speaking of the stage…a little over a year ago, I purchased tickets to see Maya Angelou give a talk. We drove to Norfolk, Virginia, arriving late after underestimating the traffic. #blamethetraffic #again.
I often think about what she said that night. She was nearly finished with her talk when we sat down. Sitting on stage in front of hundreds of people, speaking to the audience like we were old friends sitting in her living room, Maya Angelou closed with a story. It was about forgiveness. She said that if you flip around the word “forgive,” you get “give for,” reminding her that one of the ways to forgive is by “giving thanks for…” Essential gratitude.
Earlier I posed the question: if I “just want to be happy,” then what is stopping me?
Gratitude. Or better said, lack thereof. What if I am grateful for my husband instead of defensive? What if I am grateful for the traffic that keeps me from speeding down the road into a potential accident?
What if I am grateful for those challenging clients? What do they teach me? What if I am grateful for the adversary who gives me a chance to practice patience? What if I am grateful for those anxious moments that show me the benefits of calm? What if I am grateful for each and every opportunity to grow, feel, struggle, love, lose, and forgive myself and others? That is aiming high, but perhaps I could start by simply being grateful for one thing: my breath.
When work or work/life is challenging me to the core, could I turn to gratitude for help? In those moments when the phone is ringing, the emails backlogged, and the personalities clashing, the deadline looming, could I be grateful for something? I think I could.
Much like Maya Angelou flipped the word “forgive,” we could flip how we see life, how we approach work, how we interact with the world. No one can tell me how to be content. Contentment does not come from a book or a class. This life is a journey. This life is a mystery. What am I supposed to do with this life? I do not know. But, what I do know is that I can “give for.” And that is something worth contemplating.
Lisa Britton is the instructor for “Cultivating Contentment: Living & Lawyering.” This series concentrates on relaxation yoga and tools for learning to think differently about ourselves and how we approach the challenges in our lives. No experience is necessary.
The Pro Bono Program interviews Laura Klein, Department of Justice Pro Bono Program Manager
DCBPB: First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to speak with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program today. Being the Department of Justice Pro Bono Program Manager keeps you busy. Can you tell us a little more about your position?
LK: As the Department of Justice Pro Bono Program (DOJ PBP) Manager, I run both the DOJ PBP and the Federal Government Pro Bono Program, which includes over 40 federal agencies, in the Executive Branch. I oversee our programs nationwide including our headquarters in DC. My duties include recruiting federal government attorneys to do pro bono work. I organize trainings and events and educational sessions, to encourage our attorneys to get involved. In addition to their substantive mentoring from the legal service agencies, I am also a source of support for them, which is a pretty big part of my job. I also work with the legal service organizations to develop opportunities that are appropriate for government attorneys.
DCBPB: That sounds like a job for more than one person!
LK: There are many days that it feels that way!
DCBPB: What did you do before you had this position?
LK: I have been in this position for twelve years and before that I was with the DOJ. I was a litigator and I also did policy work. Which I think really helps me in this job. I understand the pressures on the attorneys. I understand the limitations of what they can do, because that was me.
DCBPB: What types of pro bono matters are federal employees permitted to be involved in?
LK: Probably the best way to answer that is to first say what we are not allowed to be involved in, which includes, any matters in which the federal government has a direct and substantial interest. It’s actually in the criminal code, so we take that very seriously. For example, we cannot give legal advice on immigration matters, public benefits such as Medicare/Medicaid, SSI/SSDI, federal tax matters and in D.C. most criminal matters are off-limits to federal attorneys, because they are prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office. So, we have all of those issues off limits, but that leaves quite a few things that we can do. Most of our attorneys focus on family law, housing law, domestic violence cases, drafting wills, personal injury and consumer issues. Anything that is local law, and which doesn’t pose any kind of federal conflict tends to be fine.
DCBPB: What are the different ways that federal employees can participate in D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program clinics and programs?
LK: We do a lot with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program. Federal government attorneys staff the Advice & Referral Clinic every month, in both locations, which makes the federal government the largest source of volunteers for that clinic. We have literally hundreds of our attorneys staffing that clinic every year. We also staff the Advocacy & Justice Clinic four times each year. We place approximately 40 cases every year, and so that’s a very big part of our program and I know that we keep you guys pretty busy, screening cases and providing mentoring to our volunteers.
We also helped start the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program/Bread for the City Wills Clinic and we are currently the sole source of volunteers for that Clinic. I work with the attorneys at the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program and Bread for the City to set up the clinic dates and then I recruit the attorneys. It’s a point of pride for us that we helped start that clinic.
Our attorneys also volunteer at the Pro Se Plus Divorce and Custody clinics. So, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program is definitely our primary partners in terms of pro bono opportunities in D.C.
DCBPB: What kind of experience do federal employees need to undertake pro bono service?
LK: Well, I wouldn’t say that federal attorneys are any different than private sector attorneys in terms of what kind of experience they bring to the table. If they are licensed attorneys we want them to volunteer and we will provide whatever resources and support that they need to be successful. And, that will vary on a case by case basis. If they want to work at the Advice & Referral Clinic, no experience at all is necessary, as long as they are a member in good standing of a bar. Experience isn’t really the main requirement, it’s really the desire to put in the effort, because we’ll provide them with whatever training and support and mentoring they need.
DCBPB: What kind of reaction do you normally get initially from federal employees when you ask them about volunteering or that you are trying to recruit?
LK: There is definitely widespread interest in volunteering. I find that people often don’t know how to get involved and that if I show them where the opportunities are they are willing to give them a try. I recently did a presentation at an office that had never showed interest in volunteering before, and then more than half the office signed up to work at the Advice and Referral Clinic. Usually, it’s just a matter of providing the information and showing them how easy it is to get involved.
DCBPB: What kinds of resources are available to federal employees?
LK:There are many resources available through our program. Contacting me is one. The new national practice area of probono.net which just launched is another. It contains a wealth of information for people interested in doing pro bono work. Available volunteer opportunities are posted there as well as the pro bono policies of major federal agencies, answers to frequently asked questions about federal pro bono work, volunteer guides from across the county, and contact information for federal pro bono coordinators. Probono.net is also a substantive resource on various areas of law with concrete information for our volunteers to utilize when they are meeting with the people who are seeking advice at the various free legal clinics. It’s really a phenomenal resource and we’re very excited.
DCBPB: What about federal employees who are not licensed in the District? Are there still ways that they can serve?
LK: Absolutely. We are so fortunate in D.C. because we have D.C. Court of Appeals Rule 49 which allows federal employees to do pro bono work here regardless of where in the United States they are licensed. Most of our volunteers are not licensed in D.C. A lot of people come to work in D.C. from all over the country and they don’t change their bar license because they don’t have to do that in order to represent the federal government and Rule 49 allows all those people to do pro bono work . It is truly a key to the success of our program.
DCBPB: What’s the one thing you wish all federal employees knew about doing pro bono in D.C.?
LK: I wish they all knew how easy it is to get involved. People just don’t realize the variety of opportunities that are out there. They don’t understand that we can accommodate whatever their schedule is and have all sorts of resources available to do the pro bono work so when you’re getting involved you’re not on your own.
To learn more about pro bono volunteer opportunities for government attorneys visit probono.net then email Laura Klein at [email protected].
A new CIA chief is recruited from the corporate world to clean up a bureaucratic mess, and he immediately becomes entangled in a scheme where he can’t tell the good guys (men and women in the agency) from the bad.
In the post-Snowden era, the new chief finds himself in an agency filled with strange characters and mysterious leakers, all with secret lives. “The worst calamity for an intelligence agency is a penetration agent or a code break,” Ignatius writes. His tale takes us to Hamburg, London, Berlin, Basel, and Cambridge, much as Robert Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth did in their protagonists’ escapades. He introduces readers to Internet spying by and into government intelligence networks.
At times, the intrigues become confusing: “There are no more black hats and white hats. It’s all the same hat. They’re all working together.”
Ignatius’ examination of the history of international spying, particularly the US–UK post-World War II link, is interesting. He suggests that the idea that the CIA is “a sort of clandestine version of the immaculate birth” arising after the war is wrong. Characters and documents he cites indicate that our agency was created by the UK, “in geek-speak . . . they owned the firmware.” The CIA is a foreign implant, Ignatius’ hacker anti-hero argues, “a covert action,” and American pseudo-patriots are planning to expose that, if their conspiracy theory is correct.
The target is global finance. Someone, or some group, is hacking into the central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements. An international financial crisis occurs, moving huge funds from rich countries to poor ones as a “moral” statement to the world from the new-age Robin Hoods. The new CIA chief has to stop it from happening, can’t do it alone, and needs to find allies.
He learns the CIA is not like the business world he knew. “[T]he reasons people were drawn into CIA careers also made them unsuitable partners, by definition: They were good liars; they knew how to conceal their feelings; they knew how to do bad things and get up the next morning and do them again . . . the CIA had its own rules.”
Ronald Goldfarb is a Washington, D.C., attorney, author, and literary agent whose reviews appear regularly in Washington Lawyer. Reach him at [email protected].
A line started forming long before the doors opened at Bread for the City’s Southeast Center on Good Hope Road in Anacostia at the last Advice & Referral Clinic. Clients arrived early for an opportunity to meet one-on-one with a volunteer lawyer for free legal assistance.
In fact, the number of clients served tied met the all-time high of 58, for this location. After walking through the door clients were quickly greeted and guided through a sign-in process that determines their legal needs. Meanwhile, the volunteer attorneys were finishing up a brief training on what to expect once they start seeing clients.
This month’s volunteers came from the D.C. Access to Justice Commission, Department of Justice, and D.C. Bar Litigation Section, along with volunteer mentors from the D.C. Bar Labor & Employment Law and Estates, Trusts & Probate Law Sections. The pace of the attorney/client meetings is fast. One attorney can assist several clients in the course of a few hours and that assistance can go a long way in easing the clients’ fears about their legal issues.
Volunteers from the D.C. Access to Justice Commission served at the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program's Advice & Referral Clinic on September 13. Left to Right: James Sandman, Sheldon Krantz, Peter B. Edelman (Chair), Mark Herzog and George Jones
“Over the last few years, demand at the Southeast clinic site has doubled. This month, the Clinic served almost triple the number of clients that would have been seen on a typical Saturday in 2010. This Clinic simply couldn’t happen without the caring, compassionate volunteers who give up their Saturday mornings to expand access to justice for D.C. residents. We are incredibly grateful for our volunteers’ time and passion for pro bono service and for Bread for the City’s generosity in opening its space to us each month,” remarked Pro Bono Program Managing Attorney Leah Myers.
It is estimated that about 70 percent of individuals requesting free legal assistance require only brief services—not full representation—to solve their legal problems. On the second Saturday of every month the Advice & Referral Clinic operates out of Bread for the City’s Northwest and Southeast locations. The Clinics offer individuals without representation the opportunity to discuss with volunteer attorneys most matters governed by D.C. or federal law, including bankruptcy/debt collection, consumer, employment, family, health, housing, personal injury, probate, public benefits, and tax law issues.
In addition to providing a wide range of services on-site, the Advice & Referral Clinic is a point of entry into the legal services community. For eligible clients who require more than brief services, clinic volunteers make referrals to the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program Advocacy & Justice Clinic, Bankruptcy Clinic, Health Care Access Project, and Wills Clinic, as well as numerous outside legal and social services providers.
Learn more about the Advice & Referral Clinic and how you can get involved.
One of the major highlights of the year was the launching of the Bar’s new Web site, which features a streamlined navigational system designed to facilitate a more user-friendly experience. Lawyers and the general public now have greater access to legal information; a greater capacity to obtain and file forms; an enhanced ability to register for courses, clinics, and programs; and the convenience of a new one-stop online marketplace. The mobile-friendly site allows users to obtain Bar information and services on portable devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops.
The new Web site has propelled the Bar into a new era of interactive communications, and in the coming months the Bar will continue to expand its range of online capabilities and services, including the provision of online continuing legal education courses that fulfill MCLE requirements in other jurisdictions.
2. President Andrea Ferster's Low Bono Initiative
In November, Ferster convened a meeting of 24 leaders of the District of Columbia legal community to discuss what could be done to expand access to legal help for persons of modest means who do not qualify for pro bono legal services but who cannot afford a private, market-rate lawyer. Participants of the daylong dialogue identified possible approaches that could be undertaken by the local legal community, including a law school-based incubator program, a reduced-fee lawyer referral service, and expanded self-help centers.
The participants also sought to identify opportunities for lawyers who find themselves in a market with limited employment options by exploring ways to pair those who are willing and able to provide legal assistance at a reduced rate with clients who would benefit from reduced-fee legal services.
In 2013 the CLE Program published Family-Based Immigration: A Lawyer’s Guide, a comprehensive manual written, edited, and reviewed by a group of volunteer CLE faculty members. The new course book, which has been named Bar Project of the Year, covers the life cycle of a family-based immigration case and is available for purchase from the Bar’s new online marketplace.
New courses on legal ethics, litigation skills, same-sex marriage, the use of DNA evidence in criminal trials, and an introduction to white collar criminal investigations were also popular additions to the CLE curriculum.
The Sections utilized advanced technological resources such as Webinar programming to provide members with a wider range of options for participation.
Another highlight was the District of Columbia Affairs Section’s inaugural D.C. Cup Moot Court Competition, which drew participants from six D.C. area law schools and was a major success.
4. Bolstering Members and the Community
The Pro Bono Program, which hosts the community-based LawHelp.org/DC, launched a new tool for pro se litigants in family law cases. The program generated six interactive online interviews that enable pro se litigants with divorce, custody, and child support matters to fill out form pleadings without need for outside assistance. By employing a user-friendly, plain-language format that avoids legal jargon, the Pro Bono Program is able to assist more individuals in their pro se filings.
The interactive interviews gather a pro se litigant’s information, and, based on the individual’s answers to those questions, the tool would then display a printable document that the litigant can file in D.C. Superior Court. The family law online interviews are also a convenient and easy-to-use resource for other legal services organizations.
In March the Pro Bono Program launched the Unaffiliated Lawyers Working Group to explore ways to enhance volunteer opportunities for solo and small firm practitioners, senior lawyers, and recent law school graduates. By leveraging volunteer and staff resources, the working group seeks to serve the greatest number of clients and provide them with high-quality representation while simultaneously expanding opportunities for lawyer participation.
5. Preparing Future Leaders
The Bar renamed its Leadership Academy the John Payton Leadership Academy to honor the legacy of its former president. Payton devoted much of his career to the training of young lawyers and served as a mentor to many.
Now in its second year, the academy kicked off in March and produced 16 new graduates. The academy’s intensive three-day curriculum provides instruction on effective skills and the structure and activities of the Bar, while encouraging participants to use their leadership skills in professional settings, local bar associations, and community organizations.
Graduates from last year’s inaugural class have been active in Bar leadership roles, with a number of alumni serving on Bar committees or running for election to Bar offices. The third leadership academy will be held in the spring of 2015, and applications will be available this fall.
6. Inspiring Excellence
The Bar’s Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) received the Caron Employee Assistance Excellence Award from Caron Treatment Centers in recognition of its service to the legal community over the past 28 years. The LAP offers free, confidential assistance to lawyers, judges, and law students experiencing problems such as alcohol and drug addiction, depression, job dissatisfaction, or any other mental health issues that interfere with their personal and professional lives.
7. Upholding Integrity
To protect the integrity of the legal profession, the Bar administers the Clients’ Security Fund (CSF) to reimburse clients for losses caused by dishonest conduct of members of the Bar. As of April, the CSF paid $44,438 to former clients of D.C. Bar members as a result of the attorneys’ dishonest conduct during fiscal year 2013–2014.
This year the Bar’s Legal Ethics Committee published Legal Ethics Opinion 366, which identifies and addresses common situations in private adoptions that give rise to significant ethical obligations under the Rules, specifically under the conflict of interest rules. The opinion also provides guidance to lawyers on ethical duties related to communications with unrepresented parties, as well as on the duties of confidentiality owed to both current and former clients.
My old friend and lawyer colleague Kurt Shaffert passed away on July 31. He was a trial attorney with the USDOJ Antitrust Division, not a Section Chief. But he deserves to be remembered as a very significant professional with the agency, and a credit to the Bar -- a model of the decent and diligent lawyer that keeps a government agency afloat. Kurt was deeply proud to be in the service of the U.S. government, and was in turn deeply respected by his colleagues.
Hays Gorey recalls: “I had the pleasure of working with Kurt on a patent-antitrust case that we tried before Judge Aubrey Robinson in the US District Court in DC. We won the case, but that is not what made the experience worthwhile. What made it worthwhile was being able to learn at the knee of the master.
Kurt was a truly gifted lawyer, enormously confident and calm in the face of adversity, prodigious in his output, when necessary, and well organized, down to the decimal point. And, what made the experience of working with him even more worthwhile was getting to know him as a person. He was solid at the core, kind and engaging -- a real mensch. Godspeed.”
Gail Kursh, who was Chief of a Section in which Kurt worked for many years, said “I worked closely with Kurt at the Antitrust Division for many years and knew him as a man of great integrity and compassion.”
Chuck Schwidde said: “We were active together in the Antitrust Professional group of the Antitrust Division. Kurt was an excellent president of that group. He will be missed, but we are all better off for having known him and been the recipients of his wise counsel."
Kurt's family asked for memorial support for a group that helps refugees, which brings that aspect of Kurt's history to mind. He would recall, a little reluctantly, how at 10 years old he became a refugee from Nazi Austria. He and his family struggled to make a new life in the US. He was very grateful and proud to be an American, and felt that working as a lawyer for the USDOJ was a great honor.
As a friend I knew of Kurt’s diverse interests, including a devotion to attending the Washington Opera dressed in a tuxedo. His devotion to his family and friends was great.
I worked with Kurt as he generously organized a USDOJ sponsored series of memorial lectures for Lew Bernstein, a revered Section Chief at the Antitrust Division who was a friend and mentor to Kurt. Kurt knew that Lew’s widow wanted the lectures as a gesture of respect for Lew’s work.
My role was to facilitate D.C. Bar Section financing for the pre-lecture reception, which for the initial year of the event was limited. That first year Kurt and I saved money by catering the reception ourselves, without professional help. Kurt was not entirely comfortable with his role presiding over the reception, but he was his usual gracious, stately, and unflappable self.
Brilliant and accomplished, Kurt Shaffert was simply doing whatever was needed to make a success of the event to honor his old friend. He succeeded in bringing a positive experience to Lew Bernstein’s widow, who was in the audience.
Kurt Shaffert followed in the public service tradition of his friend and mentor Lew Bernstein, and deserves to be revered in the same way.
Written by Tom Gilbertsen, Member of the D.C. Bar Lawyer Assistance Committee
As folks were pushing back from the conference table after a recent litigation section meeting at my firm, a senior partner asked us to hold on for a second. He then shared with us the story of his good friend – a partner at another leading firm in town – who recently committed suicide.
“This is a tough profession, and I know we’re all tough people,” my partner said. “But we need to be mindful of each other. When you see a colleague who seems to be suffering, go ahead and knock on that closed door. Walk into that office. Ask how they’re doing. Speak up.”
That guidance is pitch-perfect, especially in a profession that presents heightened risks of suicidal behavior. Although suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults aged 25-54,[1] it is the third leading cause of death among lawyers of all ages. In one state study, 11% of attorneys surveyed said that they had thought about suicide at least monthly within the past year.[2]
The law can be a labor of love for many, but the personality traits driving our success as lawyers also drive increased suicide risks. Lawyers tend to be perfectionistic, aggressive, see the problems in a given situation (pessimistic) and often exhibit a low interest in feelings and unwilling to seek help (or admit to the need for help). Makes sense right?
That’s why people hire us: to get things done perfectly, aggressively, without help. It should come as no surprise that lawyers as a group display a high need for autonomy, but we score much lower than the general population for traits such as resilience and sociability.[3]
So the flip side of the coin, according to a number of studies, is that successful lawyers tend to isolate in the face of difficulty, which exposes our community to heightened risks of suicidal behavior. And while attorneys suffer heightened risks for suicidal behavior in the best of times, recent times have been anything but the best in our profession.
Last year the American Bar Association presented an important program called “Recognizing the Warning Signs of Suicide in Your Clients and Colleagues,” which remains available for free at the ABA website.[4] In addition to sharing research about the heightened suicide risks in our profession, the program identifies several warning signs and risk factors about which all of us should be aware.
There are a number of “perpetuating” risk factors -- unchangeable aspects of a person’s family history or own medical, developmental and emotional illness or traumas (history of abuse, neglect, family violence, previous suicidal behavior) that increase the likelihood for suicidal behavior. And there are “predisposing” risk factors that increase a person’s vulnerability to suicidal behavior, but which can be changed or alleviated through intervention – such as psychiatric illness and substance abuse.
Approximately half of all those who die by suicide are legally intoxicated at the time of death. Among the behavioral observations that a person’s suicide risk may be increasing are (a) indirect references to one’s own death or arrangements being made; (b) expressing shame or guilt or threat of exposure; (c) recent significant medical care with anxiety-provoking diagnosis; (d) expressions of hopelessness, being “trapped,” or anger; (e) dramatic mood swings; (f) complaints of sleeplessness; (g) increasing use of drugs, including alcohol; (h) withdrawing from friends or family; and (i) anxious, agitated or reckless behaviors.
While any one of these risk factors or behaviors might not raise alarms alone, we should be concerned when they present together (“co-morbidity”) in a colleague or loved one.[5] Most important is the guidance my colleague offered: “Speak up.”
A list of suicide hotlines in the Washington, D.C. area may be found at www.suicidehotlines.com; another resource is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; additional information is at www.afsp.org.
The District of Columbia Bar’s Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) is a vital resource for attorneys in crisis, offering free and confidential counseling and referral resources. The LAP staff can be reached at (202) 347-3131.
Here are five tips from the Lawyer Assistance Program on how you can work toward a better work-life balance:
1. Achieving a better Work-Life balance doesn’t just happen. It requires changing your behavior and setting new boundaries. Take a walk at lunchtime - a change of scenery, moving your body and breathing fresh air will give you more energy. Leave work in the evening when you are tired. Working long hours after the dinner hour brings diminishing returns - your productivity will decline with each passing minute. If you must work longer hours, do so only when an urgent project demands it, and not as a rule.
2. If you have an urgent project and must work more than 8 hours in a day, make it a priority to take time for both a lunch break and a dinner break and a stretch or a walk. Remember the old saying about traveling on an airplane and using the air mask if the oxygen gets low? You must put the air mask on yourself first and then assist others who may need help with their mask. If you do not take care of yourself, you will not be able to be your best at work or at home.
3. If you are not taking care of yourself and your needs are at the bottom of your priorities, please do yourself a favor and take stock to figure out why. You may be depressed, or have low self-esteem, or you may place priority on your ability to care for others and as a result, you let your own needs go unmet. There is a reason you do this, and it will benefit you to find out the reason and start changing.
4. Setting new boundaries between work and home will feel uncomfortable at first, until you get used to it. It is like breaking in a new pair of shoes. It is difficult for us to change, but they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This applies to the problem of an imbalance between work and home. You will need to change your behavior in order to get different results. If you say you want more balance, you must follow up with action.
5. Place a priority on your relationships with friends and family, especially those who have known you for a long time. Nourish your relationships with people in your home life, and carve out time to be with them. Go on a “technology fast” and instead of spending time on Facebook or Twitter, connect the old-fashioned way by arranging a date to get together with a friend for face-to-face time during a lunch break or on a weekend.
D.C. Chamber of Commerce: Volunteer attorneys meet one-on-one with clients at the CED Project’s Small Business Legal Clinic this month. The CED Project runs eleven Small Business Legal Clinics annually, where volunteer attorneys provide legal information to current and aspiring business owners who operate in economically disadvantaged areas or who have limited financial resources. Pictured with clients (front table) are Attorney Christine Corkran, an associate in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP; (back table) Attorney Chris L. Caldwell, and Thomas P. Conaghan, a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP.
Pro bono hours performed by attorneys at 61 D.C. law firms increased by 7.21% in 2013, according to the annual D.C. Bar Pro Bono Initiative report. Firms participating in the Pro Bono Initiative agree to an annual pro bono commitment of either 3% or 5% of total client billable hours, or an average of 60 or 100 hours for every lawyer in the firm. The Pro Bono Initiative began in 2001 and uses standards created by the Pro Bono Institute modeled on its Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge®. Each year, participating firms report their results to the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program through a survey which is compiled into a report.
Pro Bono Attorney Hours:
The Pro Bono Initiative survey measures attorney pro bono hours and other factors. Findings this year include:
The 61 reporting firms contributed a combined 880,145 pro bono hours with 10,020 full-time equivalent attorneys in their D.C. office – an average of 88 hours per attorney
7 firms contributed 7% or more of their billable hours to pro bono work, more than double the average pledge of 3.4%.
83% of the attorneys in the responding firms participated in pro bono work in 2013.
Management Practices:
The survey also tracks firm management practices regarding pro bono. This year’s survey found:
96.7% of firms credit non-partner attorneys’ pro bono hours toward billable hours requirements and bonuses.
75% of firms have either a part-time or a full-time attorney managing the firm’s pro bono program.
25% of firms set a minimum pro bono requirement for attorneys and 77% expect partners to perform pro bono service.
Need for Pro Bono Legal Services
People living in poverty not only are the least able to afford private counsel, they often are the most legally vulnerable and require enhanced services to address the many legal issues that they encounter merely to survive. According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2012 American Community Survey[1], an estimated 18.5% of the District’s population is living below the poverty line with children under the age of 18 making up 28%. The District’s poverty rate is significantly higher than the national average.
In 2013, more than 35,000 cases were filed in the Landlord and Tenant Branch of the D.C. Superior Court[2]. Despite all of the resources provided by the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program and other legal services organizations, only a small percentage of tenants attempting to defend against imminent eviction are represented by counsel. Historically[3], in Family Court, nearly 77% of plaintiffs and 38 percent of respondents proceed pro se in divorce, custody and miscellaneous cases, and 98 percent of respondents are pro se in child support cases.
Although the extensive network of legal services organizations stretches its resources to serve as many clients as possible, the District of Columbia relies on the pro bono commitment of its private bar to help fill the justice gap. While private practitioners contribute hundreds of thousands of hours annually to help low-income families avoid eviction, appeal denials of public benefits, assert their employment rights, and initiate consumer protection actions, it is likely that only small percent of the legal needs of the low-income community are being addressed.
The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program is continuously working to expand access to justice by recruiting, training and supporting more lawyers in private practice to perform pro bono service.
By Tracy Rezvani and George Slover 2013-2014 Cochairs, Antitrust and Consumer Law Section
At the D.C. Bar’s annual dinner last month, our section, the Antitrust and Consumer Law Section, was recognized as Section of the Year. Our Bar is fortunate to have many active sections, any one of which would be deserving of such recognition. Still, it was an honor for our section to be the one to receive it this time.
One of the activities in which our section has been involved over the past couple of years, which was not listed by the Bar as a reason for our recognition, but of which we are nonetheless quite proud, is an opportunity we've had for engagement in the D.C. Council on two bills of particular importance for consumers.
The first bill strengthened the Consumer Protection Procedures Act, or CPPA, to reaffirm the right of consumers to bring action as “private attorneys general,” after a 2010 D.C. Court of Appeals decision in Grayson v. AT&T Corp. had created uncertainty regarding that right.
Our section’s decision to send the Council a statement in support of the bill led to our being invited to testify before the D.C. Council committee considering it, and then to our being invited to assist the bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Mary Cheh, and the committee chair, Councilmember Yvette Alexander, and their staff in refining the bill’s text to ensure that it was written the best that it could be to achieve its intended effect. They were very appreciative of our assistance, and we were pleased to see the efforts of all bear fruit when the bill was signed and became law.
The other bill, still pending in the Council, would strengthen protections for homeowners against losing their homes in unfair tax lien sales without proper notice or a fair opportunity to cure any tax delinquency. As with the CPPA bill, our section has sent the Council a statement in support of the bill. We have similar high hopes for its success, and stand ready to help with its consideration.
Who knows when other opportunities like this might come our way? We will certainly be watching out for them. But, our point in writing now is to encourage other sections to be open to and on the lookout for similar opportunities to engage with the DC Council.
As our section has learned, acting on such opportunities can be a very satisfying way to serve the Bar, the law, and the citizens of the District of Columbia.
For more information on the Antitrust and Consumer Law Section, please visit here.
President-Elect Brigida Benitez--partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP--recently sat down with Kathryn Alfisi to do an interview for the June issue of the Washington Lawyer. She was officially sworn in as the 43rd D.C. Bar President at the Celebration of Leadership on June 17.
WL: What are your priorities as Bar president?
First, I want to promote the Bar’s continued leadership and support for access to justice and pro bono services. The Bar has been a leader in these areas, and the need is as great as ever. I think it should be a priority to support access to justice and pro bono services to fulfill that very important aspect of our profession. I believe that public service is the heart of our profession. I began my service to the Bar in the area of pro bono, and that remains important to me. We are really lucky to have what is regarded as the best pro bono program in the country. I want to make sure that I support the program and that I help any way that I can to improve it.
One thing that’s in the works is implementing a strategic planning process for the Pro Bono Program. The last time the Bar did this was in the early 1990s, so it’s a good opportunity to really assess where the program is, what it could be doing better, and what things should it focus on in the coming years.
Second, I want to address the impact of an increasingly global profession. This is an opportunity for our bar, and it’s an opportunity we should seize on immediately. We should position the Bar in the context of our global legal profession. We need to address the steps that the Bar can take to be ahead of the curve and how it can better serve its members throughout the District of Columbia, the country, and the world.
We have more than 100,000 members globally, we have a number of members who are engaged in cross-border practices, and we’re going to see more foreign lawyers who are going to seek admission to our bar. All of these things have implications as far as what we should be doing as a bar. We must ask, how we can better serve our members, and what kinds of procedures, practices, and rules should we be thinking about as we move forward? I plan to convene a task force to study these issues and make recommendations to the Bar.
Finally, I want to focus on strategic planning for the Bar. I served on the Bar’s first Strategic Planning Committee five years ago, and I think the development of a strategic plan has been key in maintaining the Bar’s focus on its mission and priorities. Five years later, I think it’s an opportune time to form a committee to reexamine the Bar’s strategic plan and its implementation. One of my priorities in doing so is to ensure that we are serving our members and increasing professional development opportunities for members at all levels and from all segments of the profession.
Underscoring these three key areas is a shared sense of the value diversity has played in our success and will continue to play in the future of our Bar. We are fortunate to have a tremendously diverse Bar in the broadest sense. I share the Bar’s commitment to diversity and to capitalizing on that diversity for our continued success.
Kurt Jacobs is a counsel in the Washington office of Sidley Austin LLP and a member of the firm’s Energy Practice Group. His dedication to pro bono service is evident throughout his 22 years of legal practice in the District. He has represented numerous pro bono clients in housing matters, including filing suits to restore clients’ participation in the Section 8 voucher program, stopping a loan consolidation company’s foreclosure on an elderly woman’s home, representing a client denied housing because of her disability, defending tenants in landlords’ suits for possession and providing information to scores of tenants and landlords through the Landlord Tenant Resource Center.
He has worked on a broad range of pro bono matters, including assisting federal public defenders with Supreme Court briefs. From 2008 to 2014, he served as Vice President, President and Immediate Past President of Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington, a nonprofit that assists indigent persons to find housing and jobs in the Washington Metropolitan area.
DCBV: While your daily practice is with the Energy Practice group at Sidley Austin LLP doing energy regulatory litigation and counseling, your pro bono practice is primarily in landlord-tenant law. Why the interest in landlord-tenant practice?
KJ: Preventing homelessness is of enormous importance to my landlord/tenant clients and their children and it brings me profound satisfaction. Keeping a roof over their heads enables clients to retain their basic human dignity and keep jobs. It also makes it easier and more likely that they will obtain employment, pursue GED degrees and other education goals, and provide stability for their children. Representing a person whose section 8 housing voucher has been terminated by the D.C. Housing Authority, or whose landlord is suing them for possession, takes skill and determination.
However, it takes only a moderate amount of time relative to many other types of legal proceedings and produces a world of good for the client. I have also found that bringing suit to restore terminated housing benefits to an indigent client raises many issues that are similar to those found in an energy regulatory practice or any administrative law practice. I enjoy advocating for fairness, accountability and reasonableness in the housing context, just as in energy and other administrative contexts.
DCBV: What is the Landlord-Tenant Resource Center and how does it work?
KJ: The Landlord-Tenant Resource Center is an office suite within Building B of the D.C. Superior Court. From 9 am to 12 pm, Monday through Friday, landlords and tenants who have proceedings pending in Landlord-Tenant Court or who simply have a landlord-tenant problem come to the Center to obtain information relevant to their case or problem from volunteer attorneys. Often, a law firm agrees to staff the Center with three attorneys and a paralegal for one morning each month.
Volunteers interview each landlord or tenant, extract and summarize the facts relevant to the pending case or problem, then consult with a D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program attorney specializing in landlord-tenant matters. If the landlord or tenant chooses to make a filing in the Landlord Tenant Court, the volunteer may also help them draft that filing. During one four-hour session, a volunteer attorney often interviews and provides legal information to between four and eight tenants or landlords.
DCBV: Beyond volunteering at the Landlord Tenant Resource Center, you’ve also taken and successfully handled several full pro bono housing cases. Can you compare the experience of volunteering through the Center’s pro-se brief assistance model and the long-term pro bono representation model?
KJ: Volunteering at the Center is a brief but intense experience. Wrapping one’s head around the circumstances of four to eight different tenants or landlords and the legal options available to them in a single session can be draining and a bit of an emotional roller coaster. There are uplifting moments when there is helpful legal information to give a landlord or tenant.
And, there are depressing moments: sometimes a tenant has no resources or legal defenses and almost certainly will be evicted, or a landlord of modest means who has long suffered a problem tenant will likely be in a financially burdensome or physically threatening situation for months to come. There are large numbers of people who are helped significantly by my volunteer work in just one session at the Center, while there are many who come too late to be helped.
Though it takes time, the “long-term” model affords an actual attorney-client relationship as we see the case though from beginning to end. These cases have often been prescreened by the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program or Bread for the City and thus have a better than average likelihood of ending in success for the client. The long-term approach provides the deep satisfaction of investigating and developing all the factual circumstances and creative legal arguments helpful to the client, as well as exercising skill in brief and motion writing, oral argument, and hearings, and sometimes setting a precedent that will be helpful to others.
DCBV: Briefly, can you share a few of the major housing issues facing low-income D.C. residents—and what a lawyer can do to help?
KJ: One major issue that low-income D.C. residents face is the threatened or actual termination of their federally funded Section 8 vouchers and related rent support, which usually results in a suit for possession for nonpayment of rent filed by their landlord. While D.C. residents in the Section 8 program are required to recertify their eligibility every year, they often never receive notices of recertification meetings with the housing authority.
Similarly, they often fail to receive notices of alleged deficiencies (i.e., missing documents) in the hefty recertification packets they are required to file. In litigating these cases, however, one often finds only drafts of notices, or no notices, and no actual proof of mailing in DCHA’s files. Attorneys can represent low-income D.C. residents in suits seeking restoration of their Section 8 vouchers and the federal housing subsidy to which they are legally entitled, raising claims of lack of notice, lack of due process, and failure by the agency to follow its own regulations, thereby fending off the landlord’s possession suit until wrongfully terminated vouchers are restored.
A second major issue faced by low-income residents with disabilities is the loss of housing due to housing providers’ unlawful refusal to accommodate disabilities. Low-income residents are frequently denied or forced out of housing due to disabilities such as blindness or wheelchair use, and can benefit enormously from representation by an attorney willing to fight for their disabled clients’ right to have a home.
DCBV: What was the most rewarding pro bono experience you have had so far in your career? Do you have a most memorable client or matter, or any one client or matter that sticks with you?
KJ: Most of my pro bono clients and representations stick with me and have been very rewarding. I recently represented a young mother of an infant whose landlord sought to evict her on grounds that she allegedly repeatedly caused disruptions despite receiving a notice to correct her behavior or be evicted. Investigation revealed that an employee of the landlord had repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, propositioned her. He was also responsible for filing tenant infraction reports against her, alleging disruptions, which were largely fabricated.
Further, the landlord’s discovery responses failed to identify any alleged disruptions occurring between the end of a thirty-day statutorily required “correction period” set out in the landlord’s notice and the date the landlord initiated its suit for possession, providing grounds for granting summary judgment in favor of the client, and enabling her to continue to have housing, rather than live in a shelter, and to pursue a nursing degree.
In a different area, law firm colleagues and I represented, and wrote the briefs for Mr. Dickerson, in United States v. Dickerson, in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed that Miranda warnings are constitutionally required, and which led to me appearing twice on MSNB’s show Equal Time to debate Col. Oliver North about the merits of Miranda warnings and the Supreme Court’s opinion reaffirming that they are constitutionally required. Both of these pro bono representations, and numerous others, have been immensely rewarding and continue to stick with me.
Mr. Jacobs will be recognized for outstanding leadership and achievement in pro bono service at the Celebration of Leadership 2014.
Allen Snyder is a volunteer special counsel with the Children’s Law Center (CLC), dedicating all of his time to pro bono service. He completed 1,000 hours of pro bono work in both 2012 and 2013. Before joining CLC, Snyder had a 30-year career as a litigator with Hogan Lovells (previously Hogan & Hartson LLP). After retiring in 2002, he joined CLC as special counsel to develop and guide the organization’s general appellate practice, particularly to create and implement a long-term appellate strategy for key issues of concern arising from abuse and neglect, adoption, custody, and special education cases.
DCBV: You’ve had over 40 years of incredibly successful practice since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971. You were a Supreme Court clerk, partner at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) and are now volunteer special counsel with the Children’s Law Center. Share a few of your favorite highlights from your long legal career.
AS: I was very lucky to have so many fascinating cases over the years. The cases I felt the best about were the Supreme Court and other cases I handled on Civil Rights and First Amendment issues, where I felt our efforts really made a difference to a lot of people. Unusual, fun cases included representing the House Ethics Committee in prosecuting Congressmen caught up in the Abscam sting, and representing Elizabeth Taylor in enjoining ABC from producing a docudrama about her life.
In many ways, though, the work I look back on with the most pride was my time as Chair of the Board on Professional Responsibility (BPR), the Court of Appeals-appointed body that administers (and handles adjudications, subject to Court of Appeals review, in) the D.C. attorney discipline system. As Chair of the Board, and when working on its appellate opinions, I tried hard not only to administer due process and justice to the accused attorneys, but also to recognize the BPR's role in protecting the "consumers" of legal services, the clients who were allegedly wronged.
We managed to substantially speed up the notoriously slow adjudication process, and to achieve what our Board considered a better balance between the rights of the accused attorneys and the rights and legitimate needs of the affected clients and the judicial system.
DCBV: What inspired you to begin volunteering as special counsel with the Children’s Law Center in 2011?
AS: When my wife and I retired, we planned to travel and do a number of things our busy careers had never allowed us to do, but we also wanted to do some community service, working directly with children or families in need. We began serving as temporary foster parents for the Montgomery County court system and over a period of a few years had 15 foster kids for varying (but usually short) periods of time.
To our surprise (but ultimately great joy), we fell in love with our last foster child, who arrived in our home at age 2 months, and whom we ultimately adopted (she’s 9 years old now, and wonderful!). Through that foster and adoptive parenting experience, I learned a fair amount about the abuse and neglect judicial system, and started forming opinions on ways it could be improved. Some of those opinions, which I mentioned to friends, got to the ear of Judith Sandalow, the Executive Director of Children’s Law Center (CLC). Judith asked me to start a new appellate section at CLC. Since my daughter had recently started school, which freed up a lot of my time, I happily agreed.
DCBV:What is your role as special counsel for CLC?
AS: I head up a group of terrific appellate lawyers and a paralegal who mentor and assist other CLC attorneys on appeals of the cases they handled in Superior Court (most often as Guardians ad Litem representing the child’s best interests), and who handle on our own appellate cases that are particularly complex or raise broad, systemic issues of importance to children’s rights generally.
DCBV:What was the most rewarding pro bono experience you have had so far in your career? Do you have a most memorable client or matter, or any one client or matter that sticks with you?
AS: In one of the first cases I worked on at Hogan, John Ferren and I obtained an injunction against the Nixon Administration’s efforts to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO, a key part of Johnson’s War on Poverty) by “impounding” Congressionally appropriated funds for OEO. The case raised interesting legal issues, moved fast (over in several weeks), and saved a lot of anti-poverty programs. Felt pretty good for a 26-year-old to be involved in!
DCBV: Having experienced firsthand (and quite successfully) both private law firm practice and practice within the D.C. legal services community, what advice can you share with law firms that wish to expand their pro bono programs or collaborate with the legal services community?
AS: There is tremendous unmet need for attorneys’ assistance in a wide variety of areas. Many law firms are doing a great job of allowing/encouraging their attorneys to work in this area, but much more needs to be done. In addition to firm help, I have learned from my own experience that it is so much easier for a retired attorney to do pro bono work than it ever was when engaged in an active, full-time practice.
I spend well over 1000 hours a year at CLC working with wonderful people who care deeply about issues that are intellectually interesting and very important to me, and yet it is quite easy to find the time to do this now that I am retired. Many other senior attorneys who are contemplating retirement – and possibly wondering whether they would find enough interesting, fulfilling things to do if they retire – would undoubtedly find similar satisfaction if they found an organization or cause that was meaningful to them.
D.C. is awash in think tanks, foundations, legal services organizations and other groups on almost every issue of public importance – a senior attorney’s experience could be valuable to them and mutually rewarding.
Mr. Snyder will be recognized for outstanding leadership and achievement in pro bono service at the Celebration of Leadership 2014.
How many of you know someone who struggles with extremes? Do you remember the conversation about “that lawyer?” You know who I am talking about, right? The other lawyer, of course. Not you (and certainly not me!).
Okay, I’ll confess. Yes, me. I struggle with extremes. Yup, I admit it. I have a tough time making balance make sense. Not just trying to stand on one leg or do the tree pose, but in life. Working in a profession that rewards extremes makes things even more confusing. If I am extremely worried, then I must be working extremely hard. Right?
What would it be like to eliminate worry…to have a quiet mind…to be present and calm no matter what? Now is the time when I tell you all the benefits of yoga and how yoga can cure your worries, quiet your mind, and make you constantly calm. I wish. Yoga is not a cure-all. It is not a panacea. Yoga does not provide all the answers. If anything, yoga raises questions. Why am I so worried? Why does my mind chatter? Why is it so hard to remain calm?
If yoga raises so many questions, then what good is it? That’s the beauty of yoga. It creates a space to look inside…to observe…to notice what comes up…to feel what is there emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Yes, yoga promotes physical strength, balance, and flexibility, but it also encourages mental and emotional strength, balance, and flexibility. I love that. Practicing yoga creates a contrast to everyday extremes, so when I start to lose balance, I notice it, even with something as simple as slouching at the computer too long.
One of my beloved yoga teachers has a quote on her studio wall by Anais Nin. It says, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." As lawyers, we calculate risks, advise about the risks, and take risks. Perhaps it is a risk to look inside. We might not like what we see; but, if we simply take a moment to look, we just might.
I go through life so franticly trying to please everyone by being “enough.” Yoga helps me to see the frantic people pleasing and the sense of lack for what it truly is: more mind chattering. And, more importantly, what it is not: the true essence of me.
Yoga helps me to become more aware of what is real and what is really nonsense. It is this awareness that causes me to question the worry, to question the inadequacy, to question the chattering mind instead of letting it reign supreme. After practicing yoga for over 15 years, I still don't have all the answers. But, I have learned to love the questions.
Lisa Britton, founder of Practicing Wellness LLC and an attorney in the District of Columbia, teaches Yoga-for-Lawyers. She will be teaching "Yoga-for-Lawyers" an introductory yoga class that concentrates on giving lawyers tools for relaxation that can be used anywhere, even at a desk. This class is open to all levels. No experience is necessary.
A gasoline price-fixing lawsuit brought by D.C. Attorney General Irving Nathan was thrown out of court this month, ruling the District has no grounds to bring such an action. The legal complaint filed by Nathan against ExxonMobil and local gasoline distributors would have blocked anticompetitive exclusive dealing contracts by distributors (often called “jobbers”). This could have reduced gasoline prices in the District.
On what grounds did the Attorney General (AG) file suit?
The AG’s action charged violation of a local statute with limited proof requirements, the Retail Service Station Act, D.C. Code §§ 36-301.01 et seq. (the “RSSA”), which prohibits distributors from enforcing exclusive dealing contracts with gasoline retailers.
Nathan’s public statements and various court filings report in some detail the facts that support an antitrust enforcement action. In a press release announcing the suit, he said, “Under the District’s gasoline marketing law, a retail gasoline dealer is free to purchase a brand of gasoline from any supplier of the brand. Our suit seeks to end these unlawful supply restrictions, increase wholesale competition, and bring down retail prices at the pump.”
The facts outlined in Nathan’s letter are straightforward: "Vertically imposed supply restrictions, while perhaps 'benign' in a truly competitive market, have great potential to harm competition and raise consumer prices in one dominated by a single large supplier. The unusually high prices at many D.C. pumps should surprise no one. The District’s lawsuit challenging exclusive supply agreements is brought against a single, large gasoline wholesaler that supplies about 60 percent of the city’s stations, including almost all of the Exxon, Shell and Valero brand stations."
What was the opinion of the court?
The legal action against ExxonMobil was not dismissed on the merits of the case. Instead, the Court ruled that the AG lacked standing under the relevant Subchapter of the RSSA: “Until such time as the [DC] Council changes its position, the Court finds that the Attorney General has no standing to bring actions under that Subchapter of III of the RSSA, more specifically, D.C. Code § 36-303.01(a)(6) and (a)(11)."
The court’s conclusion is that while the RSSA vests authority in the Mayor (and by extension the AG) to bring actions under certain Subchapters of the RSSA, the authority does not include AG actions under Subchapter III, the Subchapter on which the Attorney General's Complaint is based. Instead, the court concluded, subchapter III permits only actions by particular affected dealers.
It should also be noted that Judge Iscoe’s opinion includes a footnote telling ExxonMobil that it could indeed be held liable under the RSSA for the alleged conduct.
What does the court’s dismissal mean for distributors?
According to the Washington Times, “the decision will allow the Capitol Petroleum Group owner Eyob “Joe” Mamo to keep in place ‘exclusive supply agreements’ that require 27 independent operators to run gas stations he owns to purchase gasoline from his distribution company.”
The reason dominant distributors can successfully use exclusive dealing requirements to keep prices high is that the exclusivity requirement locks in the retailer and prevents the retailer from shopping for a lower wholesale price. Retailers forced to pay high wholesale prices have little choice but to pass on the high price to consumers. If consumers in particular neighborhoods have limited ability to avoid the locked-in retailers, then those consumers are likely to share the experience of high prices being passed on to them.
What do the gasoline experts say?
Experts like John Townsend II of the AAA and antitrust expert David Balto have publicly pointed out that a duopoly of local gasoline distributors has used exclusive dealing contracts with gasoline retailers that keep prices artificially high.
The Washington Times also reports that AAA Mid-Atlantic calculated “the average cost for a gallon of unleaded gas in the District was $3.87 — well above the regional average of $3.64 a gallon.”
“It’s some of the most expensive gas on the East Coast,” spokesman John B. Townsend II told the Washington Times. He also indicated that “the cause was the way distributors control the prices in the city.”
How could the Attorney General and the District move forward?
The public interest would be served by a trial of the facts alleged by the attorney general. The trial would serve the interests of the consuming public as well as gasoline retailers.
The DC Council should consider vesting authority in the Mayor and AG to bring an action under the relevant Subchapter III. This would require D.C. Council to fix the statute to provide the necessary authority to Attorney General Nathan. Council Member Mary Cheh (Ward 3) has announced that she plans to introduce emergency legislation in June that would grant the city authority to sue again.
Alternatively, if the lower court decision is not reversed on appeal, Nathan could consider further court action under D.C. Code § 28-4502, the District’s antitrust statute (which is substantively identical to the federal Sherman Act).
Private plaintiffs could also sue; but, that requires plaintiffs with a David v. Goliath kind of courage, and substantial financial resources.
Opinion
What would be unfortunate for District residents is to leave this question unresolved: Does anticompetitive conduct by distributors who dominate the market pushing gasoline prices up in DC?
There is good reason to believe that if the court reached the antitrust merits, the District would prevail, and certainly enough reason to so believe for a trial on the merits to be appropriate.
The AG Nathan’s action relied on a relatively narrow local statute, with limited proof requirements, that prohibits exclusive dealing. But the much broader antitrust point, is that there is good reason to believe that a trial on the merits would lead to the conclusion that ExxonMobil and the defendant jobbers have used their market power and exclusive dealing requirements in ways that have caused artificially elevated pricing of gasoline.
The issues of anticompetitive conduct raising local gasoline prices should not be ignored, and the AG’s staff should be permitted to present relevant proofs so a factual finding can be made in a court of law.
Some may have the opinion that a judicial proceeding permitting proofs of anticompetitive conduct by the Attorney General in Court is undesirable, but such an opinion would make sense only if there were strong reason to believe that the AG’s allegations are unfounded. And, there is good reason to believe Attorney General Nathan’s allegations are correct.
More About The Authors
Don Resnikoff is a lawyer who has had DC gasoline retailers as clients.
Tracy Rezvani is a Shareholder at Rezvani Volin & Rotbert P.C. The views she expresses are her own, and are not offered on behalf of her firm.
A lawyer’s legal skill and training, together with the relationship of trust and confidence between lawyer and client, create the possibility of overreaching when the lawyer participates in a business, property, or financial transaction with a client.[4] As such, any time a lawyer wants to conduct business with a client, he or she must be very careful to meet the three-pronged mandate of Rule 1.8(a):
A lawyer shall not enter into a business transaction with a client or knowingly acquire an ownership, possessory, security or other pecuniary interest adverse to a client unless: (1) The transaction and terms on which the lawyer acquires the interest are fair and reasonable to the client[5] and are fully disclosed and transmitted in writing to the client in a manner which can be reasonably understood by the client; (2) The client is given a reasonable opportunity to seek the advice of independent counsel on the transaction; and (3) The client gives informed consent writing thereto.
As a general rule, Rule 1.8(a) does not apply to ordinary fee arrangements between client and lawyer, which are governed by Rule 1.5. However, the rule does apply when, as here, “the lawyer accepts an interest in the client’s business or other non-monetary property as payment of all or part of a fee.”[6]...
Finally, a practice tip: Always be aware of your heightened fiduciary duty when transacting business with your client—and even “Renaissance men” must comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Legal Ethics counsel Saul Jay Singer, Hope Todd, and Erika Stillabower are available for telephone inquiries at 202-737-4700, ext. 3232, 3231, and 3198, respectively, or by e-mail at [email protected].
[4] Rule 1.8, Comment [1]. [5] The “fairness” of the fee arrangement is judged at the time of the engagement, and no ethical violation would occur if subsequent events, beyond the control of the lawyer, caused the fee to appear unfair or unreasonable. See Legal Ethics Opinion 300. [6] Rule 1.8, Comment [1].
By Jennifer Ngai Lavallee, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia
Effective immediately, struggling homeowners who are sued for foreclosure in D.C. Superior Court will have the benefit of procedural enhancements designed to promote early case resolution through court-sponsored mediation offered at the outset of every case.
These new procedures were developed as the result of a collaborative effort by consumer advocates, key members of the judiciary, the D.C. government, and mortgage industry attorneys. The new procedures coincide with what appears to be a major shift in the way lenders are initiating foreclosures in the District, where, historically, mortgage foreclosures have occurred almost entirely through an out-of-court process.
The procedural enhancements also represent an acknowledgment of the benefits to homeowners and lenders alike of preventing foreclosures whenever possible.
The introduction of early mediation in judicial foreclosure cases was specifically recommended by a working group consisting of representatives from Legal Aid; AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly; the D.C. Office of the Attorney General; the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking; and law firms representing mortgage lenders—including one law firm that has filed the vast majority of judicial foreclosure cases pending in the District.
The working group was formed after consumer advocates filed briefs as amici curiae in a set of judicial foreclosure cases being heard by Judge Neal E. Kravitz in D.C. Superior Court.
In devising its recommendation, the working group addressed several key concerns of stakeholders, including the need for enhanced protections for struggling homeowners; access to legal and housing counseling resources; certainty and finality in the foreclosure process; and efficient and effective use of court, mediator, and party resources.
The working group ultimately agreed that, although judicial foreclosure cases are exempt from the Saving D.C. Homes from Foreclosure Act (providing specific mediation and related requirements for out-of-court foreclosures), D.C. Superior Court should use its equitable powers to provide early court-based mediation in all foreclosure cases filed with the court.
The addition of the early mediation component to judicial foreclosure cases provides a major practical benefit to homeowners, allowing them to talk with their lenders about the possibility of loan modifications or other alternatives to foreclosure.
Although court-sponsored mediation in civil cases is not new, scheduling mediation to occur at the outset of the case—before the case is even placed on a regular civil track—is a significant change that can result in big benefits and resource savings for homeowners, lenders, and the court. In addition, one of the most important components of the new court process for homeowners is the ability to come to court on the first court date and request mediation even when an answer to the complaint has not yet been filed.
Prior to this change in the process, whenever a homeowner missed the answer deadline, his or her court date would be cancelled and the case could then quickly proceed to judgment as an uncontested matter. The new judicial foreclosure procedures also incorporate other, complementary components.
These include a prominent court notice to homeowners (provided along with the complaint), instructing them to come to court and providing information on how to seek help from lawyers and housing counselors; a court-issued scheduling order tailored to the early mediation process; and the consolidation of judicial foreclosure cases onto a single calendar with initial hearings scheduled for the same day each week, allowing legal services attorneys and housing counselors to come to court at-the-ready to connect with homeowners in need of help.
Upward of 200 judicial foreclosure cases already have been filed in D.C. Superior Court in the past year. The filing of these cases signals the beginning of what is expected to be a large-scale shift by lenders to file judicial cases seeking foreclosure by court order. Thus, the procedural enhancements for judicial foreclosure cases are being implemented at a critical time.
The D.C. Bar Antitrust and Consumer Law Section will be hosting a program on “The Changing Legal Landscape of Foreclosures in the District of Columbia” from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. on June 13 at the D.C. Bar Conference Center, 1101 K Street NW, first floor. The program will cover the changes to the court process described above; provide updates on the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking mediations; and highlight the ways in which the new federal mortgage servicing rules impact local proceedings.
April 1st is the deadline for nonprofits to file their Biennial Report, Form BRA-25, with the D.C. Government's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
Every nonprofit is required to file a biennial report the April 1st immediately following the year the organization was incorporated and every two years thereafter. Depending on the year in which your nonprofit was formed, you may have to file the form during even-numbered or odd-numbered years. If you don't know in which category your nonprofit falls, you can go to the DCRA website (<www.dcra.dc.gov>) and check your organization's filing status.
You should also check to see if your nonprofit filed the biennial reports that were due in prior years, and whether it is in good standing with the D.C. Government.
A filing fee of $80 must accompany the BRA-25. You can file the form online by going to the DCRA website.
If a nonprofit does not file the form by April 1st, it will have to pay a late fee of $50. In addition, if a nonprofit does not file the form within five months of the April 1st due date, its corporate status will be revoked and it will no longer be authorized to do business in D.C. If that happens, the validity of the nonprofit's contracts, such as its lease, grant agreements and other agreements, could be questioned.
The good news is that a nonprofit whose corporate status has been revoked may file for reinstatement. In order to be reinstated, an organization must file all past due biennial reports with the accompanying filing and late fees, as well as Form GN-5, asking for reinstatement. There is an additional $80 fee for reinstatement.
In our fast-paced world, eating may just seem like another hurdle getting in the way of meeting our deadlines and completing our To-Do lists. We are moving so fast that when we do eat our brains and bodies do not have enough time to catch up. What happens when we don’t slow down to eat properly? Overeating, poor digestion, energy crashes, and weight gain.
Now, I know what you are asking yourself—who has the time to try so many different approaches to a mindful eating strategy? This is why you might want to try the 15 x 15 strategy. It will:
Prepare your body to eat by breaking the stress cycle.
Increase your salivary enzymes for great digestion.
Increase the feeling of fullness helping you to eat less.
Decrease bloating and intestinal distress during the workday.
With the 15 x 15 there are only two instructions before every meal or snack:
Take 15 deep, slow belly breaths before you begin eating.
Chew 15 times per bite before swallowing your food.
Without changing what you are eating this strategy alone will catapult you to better energy, health, and weight. Now try it for yourself and remember that how we eat can be even more important than what we eat!
Request a complimentary Office Wellness Assessment for your law firm here.
About Lance Breger: President of Infinity Wellness Partners a Washington, DC-based corporate wellness organization that is committed to making wellness a workday priority everyday. Lance’s firm prepares law professionals for a productive and healthy work life through fitness, nutrition, ergonomics, and mind/body training with onsite workshops, challenges, fitness classes and health coaching. You can also learn more about the organization and receive health and wellness updates on LinkedIn.
As the public becomes more and more aware of Bitcoin, the debate has intensified over who should, or can, regulate it. That question has become more urgent with the recent bankruptcy of the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which may have cost more than one million customers over $400M in Bitcoin. Mt. Gox is not a bank, so these funds were uninsured, and some customers lost their life savings.
On this question, the Bitcoin camp is divided between enthusiasts who see it as an alternative to government currency that cannot and should not be regulated by any state, and those believe Bitcoin must be regulated in some fashion to become widely accepted.
This debate, while interesting philosophically, is not all that important legally.
The belief that the U.S. government would uniformly decide whether to regulate Bitcoin is incorrect. Regulators will not be making a moral judgment about whether Bitcoin “should” be regulated. Their decision is simpler:
If a Bitcoin is deemed to be a type of already regulated product, like a security, then Bitcoin will be regulated by the appropriate regulator, and the degree of regulation depends on the type of product.
If a Bitcoin is not one of these, then any regulation will be relatively light.
The key question then, is what exactly is a “Bitcoin?”
Is a Bitcoin a type of currency? No. The U.S. regulatory consensus is that a Bitcoin is not a currency because it does not have legal tender status in the U.S. or any other country, and Bitcoin is not backed by a government.
Is a Bitcoin merely a “thing of value?” This is the current position, and one where Bitcoin is regulated relatively lightly. FinCEN has said certain Bitcoin exchanges or administrators are money transmitters under existing rules. Others, such as Bitcoin miners and investors, are not money transmitters. Money transmitters have federal registration and some anti-money laundering requirements, but they are far less regulated than banks, securities firms, or other financial institutions.
Is a Bitcoin a consumer financial product? If so, Bitcoin transactions with consumers may be subject to heavy regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which oversees about two dozen consumer financial laws. Commercial Bitcoin transactions would be largely exempt from such rules.
Is a Bitcoin a regulated commodity? If so, Bitcoin would be moderately regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), with significant restrictions on swaps, futures, and other transactions in which Bitcoin was not actually delivered for some time after the purchase, if at all. The CFTC would look for price manipulations and may require transactions to take place on exchanges.
Is a Bitcoin a security? If so, Bitcoin would become heavily regulated. Issuers would likely have to register with the SEC, parties may have public reporting obligations, and above all, transactions would be subject to insider trading and anti-fraud rules.
Deciding what a Bitcoin “is” is critical because although FinCEN has had the first official word in Bitcoin regulation, it may be “overruled” by other regulators. Bitcoin exchanges and administrators must register as Money Services Businesses (MSBs), a broad category of financial entities that includes money transmitters.
Persons regulated by the SEC or CFTC by definition cannot be MSBs and are largely exempt from CFPB regulations. So, if the SEC or CFTC decides that Bitcoin is a security or commodity, then FinCEN’s existing guidance may not apply where SEC and CFTC rules do.
The answers to these questions require a legal analysis well beyond the scope of this blog. But, players in the Bitcoin market should realize just how critical these questions are in determining what Bitcoin regulation will look like in the future, and how it dwarfs any philosophical debate.
This material does not represent legal advice as to any particular set of facts; nor does it represent any undertaking to keep recipients advised of all legal developments.
but to change the world we must first change ourselves
it is time to ReInvent
the market for legal services is undergoing serious transition, presenting both possibility and peril
we believe four pillars of innovation will save our industry { Law + Tech + Design + Delivery }™
cultivating these pillars is our goal at the ReInvent Law Laboratory™”
~ ReInvent Law’s Credo
Amid the negativity that permeates the profession today, the ReInvent Law conference earlier this month in New York City is an island of hope in a rough sea.
What is ReInvent Law? It is a movement of lawyers and others concerned about the profession who are making it simpler and often less expensive for clients to interact with lawyers and law firms. The movement includes big firm lawyers, law professors, in-house counsel, small firm lawyers, entrepreneurs and others who really want to remake what it means to provide legal services. The lawyers involved don’t just work “in” a law firm, they work “on” the law firm for the benefit of the client.
The movement is a big step away from the old ways of providing legal services. ReInvent Law strives to rebrand and repackage what it means to solve the problems of other people.
One doesn’t need to look any further than the D.C. Bar to see positive examples of the ReInvent Law movement. Mark Cohen, managing director of Clearspire (www.clearspire.com), gave an engaging presentation at ReInvent Law NYC entitled The Legal Delivery Model: A Post-Cubist Paradigm. Clearspire is an example of how legal services typically provided by BigLaw are now being provided in a new model sans brick-and-mortar.
Another example of creatively providing legal services can be seen through Nicole Bradick, director of business development at D.C.'s Potomac Law Group (www.PotomacLawGrp.com) and founder of Custom Counsel (www.customcounsel.com). She described how Potomac Law Group, launched three years ago, cut rates, expanded rapidly and now operates with over 40 lawyers in an alternative business model with low overhead.
Some say ReInvent Law flows from the predictions of Richard Susskind about the legal profession. Years ago Susskind—author and independent adviser to major international firms—was criticized by his own bar association for predicting that a time would come when a lawyer’s primary means of communication with the client would be by email. Susskind is now watching the ReInvent Law movement manifest many of his ideas about how the client would become the focus of the legal delivery process rather than the lawyer, the law firm and the billable hour. His books, The End of Lawyers? and Tomorrow’s Lawyers, are the foundation of this movement.
If you are frustrated with the old way of doing things, feel the need to start over, or believe your current business model is no longer functional; ReInvent Law wants you to help make the delivery of legal services simple, effective, affordable, and practical for your clients. This approach represents hope and positive change in a profession that has been shaken by the economies of the last decade.
Don’t you wish you had a trick for relaxing your shoulders, easing the tension, and setting your neck free from knots? Our neck and shoulders are one of the major areas that hold stress. When those areas are chronically under tension the muscles spasm and form painful knots.
Here are five steps that will help you relax your neck and shoulders:
Find a tennis ball
Press the ball on a tender spot on your neck or shoulders
Hold the spot for >30 seconds or until reduced sensation
Take diaphragmatic breaths through the nose to promote relaxation
Explore tops of both shoulders and sides of neck
Also, you can improve control by putting the ball between your body and an open wall or lay on the ball on the floor to find a trigger point.
Don’t worry—these techniques can be done in the office, at home, or on travel!
About Lance Breger: President of Infinity Wellness Partners a Washington, DC-based corporate wellness organization that is committed to making wellness a workday priority everyday. Lance’s firm prepares law professionals for a productive and healthy work life through fitness, nutrition, ergonomics, and mind/body training with onsite workshops, challenges, fitness classes and health coaching. You can also learn more about the organization and receive health and wellness updates on LinkedIn.
What did you find most rewarding in being a contributing author of the D.C. Practice Manual?
I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to serve as the editor of the Employment law chapter of the D.C. Practice Manual over the past couple of years. What I’ve found most rewarding is the opportunity to work with the multiple authors that volunteer their time and expertise annually to revising the chapter’s eleven subchapters covering a wide range of employment topics. The chapter’s broad coverage is truly unique, and it is what makes the Practice Manual so valuable to me as a practitioner in D.C. Working on the chapter as an editor has given me tremendous insight into, and appreciation for, the complexity of DC employment practice.
How many people worked on this Employment Law Chapter?
This year, we had over nine attorneys collaborating on the chapter. It’s so rewarding to work with these experts from various specialties – our authors are truly dedicated to making sure that our annual revisions reflect the most current developments in D.C. law.
Connie Bertram, of Proskauer Rose, author of the D.C. Family Medical Leave Act and the D.C. Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act subchapters, is an expert in this area of the law and annually updates with recent cases and practice tips.
The DC EJC authored major revisions to sections on Unemployment insurance and Workers’ Compensation for D.C. government employees, reflecting changes to the District’s Public Sector Workers’ Compensation Program.
What do other Employment Law authors have to say about their experience updating the D.C. Practice Manual?
The author of subchapters Employment at Will and Wage-Hour Practice, R. Scott Oswald, The Employment Law Group, P.C., explained: “The finished product is indispensable, of course. But our firm also found the process of updating the manual to be tremendously useful. The discipline of reviewing each aspect of DC employment practice — of noting the substantive effect of new rules and statutes — of gathering nuggets from fellow practitioners: It was an education for our attorneys and staff, no matter their experience level. Everyone learned something. And now our clients are benefiting, too, as we navigate the system faster and more effectively.”
The subchapter on the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act, provides up-to-date guidance on procedural and substantive aspects of the Act. Subchapter author, Jason Zuckerman, reflected: “I originally drafted the chapter on the DC Whistleblower Protection Act and I have enjoyed updating it annually. Preparing the annual update is a great way to keep abreast of new developments. Tracking decisions construing the DC WPA spurred me to advocate for reform of the DC WPA, and ultimately, many of the reforms that I advocated were adopted by the DC Council in the Whistleblower Protection Amendment Act of 2009."
Who should have the practice manual in their law library?
I would recommend the manual to D.C. employment law practitioners, both to those new to practice in the District as well as practitioners who are familiar with the law. At my firm, Alden Law Group, PLLC, we frequently use the Employment chapter as resource to aid us in quickly spotting potential issues for our clients or for quick confirmation on almost any D.C.-specific issue – from procedures before the Office of Human Rights to leave entitlements under the DC FMLA and eligibility criteria for unemployment insurance.
Because DC has so many different regulatory and administrative bodies, it is very time consuming to track down and cross-reference the statutes and rules. I’ve found invaluable to have a single resource where I can quickly find clear and concise summaries of eligibility requirements and procedures under various DC statutes and regulations.
Further, many of these laws are recently amended, so it is vital as a practitioner to keep an eye on developing case law. We’ve worked hard on this chapter so that local attorneys can have a resource at their fingertips where they can find the most current information on employment practice in the District.
About Michelle Bercovici:
She represents clients in matters relating to employment and labor in state and federal courts and before federal and local agencies. Since 2007 she has been an attorney with Alden Law Group, PLLC, devoting her practice primarily to representing federal sector employees and unions as well as private sector employees and organizations in DC and MD. Ms. Bercovici is co-chair of the DC Bar Labor and Employment Law Section Steering Committee and a 2013 graduate of the D.C. Bar Leadership Academy. Ms. Bercovici graduated from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill with a B.F.A. in Art History and earned her J.D. from the American University Washington College of Law. She is a proud resident of the District of Columbia.
As a lawyer, do you work 13 hour days? Feel run down? Are overweight? Experience memory loss? Ready to pull your hair out? If this sounds like you, then the suggestion to add proper diet, exercise, and stress relievers to your life can sound overwhelming. But, maintaining your overall health is equally as important as managing your work load.
The website HealthyLawyers.org claims that the top three killers of lawyers are heart disease, cancer and suicide. The site represents a new organization created by lawyers to assist legal professionals in achieving optimal health in mind and body through “Life Style Medicine.” This can include lifestyle interventions in diet & nutrition, exercise, stress management, smoking cessation, and a variety of other non-drug modalities. Because the top “lawyer killers” are primarily lifestyle related, the organization believes the risks can be greatly reduced.
“We help people to begin truly healthful diets, and it is absolutely wonderful to see, not only their success, but also their delight at their ability to break old habits and feel really healthy for a change,” said Dr. Neal Barnard about making an improvement in diet and nutrition. “You will find that your taste buds have a memory of about three weeks.”
Achieving work-life balance and a healthy lifestyle also include taking care of your mental health.
Even though a recent report on CNN said lawyers are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than non-lawyers, HealthyLawyers.org believes that making better dietary choices “can and does reduce anxiety, stress and can prevent and reduce many degenerative diseases.”
To learn more about preventing and reversing major health risks, join the D.C. Bar Sections on February 5, 2014 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the D.C. Bar Conference Center. Speakers include: Dr. Neal Barnard (author of Reversing Diabetes), Aurelia Flores Roch (Asst. General Counsel, IP, Leidos Inc.) and Raquel Tamez (Principal, Litigation/e-Discovery, Computer Sciences Corp.). Register Here.
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