Legal Catastrophes The Old-Fashioned Way

0:11Hello, welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer. I'm Joe Patrice from Above the Law joined by my colleague, Catherine Rubino. Hey. Hey. And we are here to talk about the big stories from the week that was in legal, but of course we begin with a little bit of small talk. Separate us from the robots. Yeah, we are not robots. And you know how I know that is we just had a long weekend, robots didn't. Yeah, although I don't know if you saw, the White House put out its official Celebrating America's Workers video in time for Labor Day. And it was a video of robots manufacturing a pen. At no point was a human shown.

0:51Well, that's a form of labor. Not really the kind that we celebrate on Labor Day, but here we are. Yeah. At some point, I can't tell if there's like, it's just like active trolling or if they're really that. See, this one though, like, okay, let me rephrase. I think there's a lot of active trolling coming out of the White House. And I think there's a lot of they're just stupid coming out of the White House. Sure, sure, sure. And this is one that hits in that middle where I'm not sure which one it is. Little column A, little column B, who's to say, really? Yeah. I mean, given the fairly bipartisan hatred of data centers, I'm feeling like this was in the stupid category.

1:29Well, sure. But I mean, here's the thing. I'm not sure the Trump administration has fully come to terms with the fact that data centers are actually hated. And I think that that's going to be a real problem come the midterms. Maybe, yeah. Which, you know, we are officially in fall, which is, you know, midterm season. Yeah. So that's something to be doing. Well, okay. This late Labor Day is really messing with me, though. It is. Yeah. First of all, I feel like fall has already happened, not just because my kids started school last week, but also because, well, the weather has been pretty chilly.

1:57I feel like I've had, like, I wore a flannel all weekend. Like, I had, like, a sweater. I had flannels. Like, I'm, like, wrapped up delightfully cozy. I'm from the Northwest in the 90s, so I don't see what's weird about wearing flannel all weekend. I don't see what's weird. I said it indicated that it was chilly. That seems like what you do all the time. Yeah. Well, in the Northwest, when you don't have a super hot summer, it is. But, you know, that is not the New York situation. We've had plenty of very hot days. And, yeah, it was pretty chilly this weekend. And I thoroughly enjoyed that. Well, all right.

2:28Okay. So. So the biggest story of the week for us was actually two stories that we covered. We got to give all credit, though, to Go Local Prov, which is a local. Local journalism is actually super important, you guys. Super important, everybody. A local Providence, Rhode Island news outlet that was the first to report on a major big law story, which is that the NCAA and sports for that matter, the NCAA represented by Holland and Knight, or they were represented by Holland and Knight in this case. They still are and some others. But what GoLocalProv found was some emails came to light where the Holland and Knight lawyers were talking to each other about how the case that was originally in Pennsylvania, This is a little pro fun.

3:20Originally in Pennsylvania, where the NCAA was successful in a new suit, similar issues was being brought in Rhode Island. And anyway, these emails show Holland and I discussing amongst themselves how to try to make things easier for a dumb, the dumb Rhode Island judge. And then they. And that is that is a quote. That is. They also. That is not editorializing. In other emails, this is a case about a football player who had some medical issues that prevented them from playing for a while for a year. They want to get a red shirt to come back and play another year. This is, you know, we're not talking about Georgia here or anything.

4:02This is Villadova. And once this but there was it was intestinal issues like an intestinal condition. Yeah. So the Hollow Knight lawyers were also referring to him as poop man. Super profesh. Yeah, in their emails. Anyway, these all come to light through local journalism because the Hollow Knight lawyers decided apparently to include the opposing counsel on their emails. Swing and a miss. Pay attention to that CC. Check your emails. I think that's an old ATL. That's a very old above the law reference. Yeah. And I don't think it's about that one's not about the CC function. I don't think I think that's about you should be reading them.

4:43But it still applies. I'm going to say it still applies. We'll allow it. We'll allow it. A couple of things I wanted to say about this story. The first of which is, you know, it is now college football season. And of all the red shirt getting extra year of eligibility, horse hockey that's going on, and shenanigans that the LSU is trying to do, what the f***ing kid have another year at Villanova? They're not winning a f***ing national champion over here. They're not even trying to. Well, now, now. Division two, division two. Or FCS, but yeah, yeah, yeah. It is possible. Still, come on. This is a kid who was really sick.

5:21He tore his ACL last season. That was his issue. Yeah, but he also had the IBS issues. This seems like a reasonable request. This is not somebody who's in the NFL who's coming back because you can make more money at an SEC school than you can in the NFL to be on their practice squad. That is not the situation. it the ncaa should perhaps focus on the way that their entire regime is about to fall apart because lane kiffin is pushing too hard and stop worrying about the poop man yeah well yeah well i wouldn't have said it that way but yeah no it is really rude and really ridiculous but that these things were even written like i can't imagine even if i was making the joke and writing it down like actually like like using your fingers to type those things out like it's really rude you know Although to the extent that they use their fingers to type them out, what we do know is apparently Holland at Night has not fully integrated Microsoft Copilot to write all their emails for them.

6:19So AI is not writing that email. Or Microsoft is a really evil AI. One or the other. Yeah, no. So this comes out that way. As you might imagine, the opposing counsel were less than impressed with the professionalism of their colleagues. Though I will say that the attorney from the other side who got it just responded with, yikes, guys, do better. And then sent it to the journalists. And oh, well, it also included, and I love this line, because if you're in this situation, I feel like having the presence of mind to type this is so huge. Feel free to let me know if you need recommendations or accommodations in Providence.

7:00which the answer is they will not be needing those because after this comes to light, the NCAA apparently has shifted in and put Foley Lardner on this case. Yeah, sometimes discretion is the better part of that. Yeah, in Providence. So, you know, there's that. Still an issue, but yeah, that is like an old school ATL story in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah. Like that's what we used to get tons of tips for. And, you know, kudos to the legal profession for not making this mistake as much as they used to. But, yeah, that's right bread and butter of what you all should be sending in to tips. Remind you, tips at above the law dot com.

7:43Where you should be letting us know when these things happen. And yet again, absolute credit to local journalism for being on top of this because you wouldn't necessarily have known if it weren't for the hard work that they were doing. All right. Well, cool. Let's take a quick break, and then we'll talk about another old-school-style ATL story. Ooh, okay. Every legal professional wants to put their clients first, but billing, payments, and case management get in the way. 8AM is the professional business platform that helps law firms get paid faster, manage cases more easily, and grow with confidence.

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9:18Let's talk about bench slaps. Ooh, okay. That is actually a word that above the law is responsible for putting it out into the world. It's in Black's Law Dictionary, if I recall. It is, and it pretty obviously means when a judge lashes out at some of the lawyers involved. In this case, it was Judge Treadwell, and he lashed out at two big law firms, both Skadden Arbs and Kirkland Ellis, who were counsel in a False Claims Act case. But the details of the case are not super important. What is important is that the judge said that they had to thrice sanction the party for withholding evidence. Two things about what just happened there, and they are not particularly relevant substantively.

10:04One, I think it's Roger Ebert had a book about like movie, hackneyed movie things. And just the way you said that reminded me of one of the ones in there was the reminding terrorist or something like that. And that it's that, that anytime you talk to a terrorist, they'll first tell you what's not important, followed immediately by what is important right now. but then the other part is you mentioned thrice which is a word that only really i for me i just remember the golden girls uh having that do you remember that one uh miami is nice so i'll say it thrice yes classic um i have thoughts about the golden girls which we won't necessarily get into here one of the one of the true delights of my cable setup now which is that i don't have cable I have YouTube TV at this point, but this is not sponsored who are not sponsoring us right now, but they are welcome to.

10:59Yeah, they occasionally I'm flipping around and there is the we're just going to show like 12 hours of Golden Girls. I'm like, done. Listen, I love the Golden Girls and I love the concept that like as you get older, you just get a house with all of your best girlfriends and you live like the man free life. And it actually sounds quite amazing. Well, not Blanche. well not that they don't have to live with them right that like you can enjoy men and then have a space that is just for women which I think is why it gets so much it really like lives rent free in the minds of a ton of particularly millennial women and I think that that's fair and true and all that stuff but here's the other thing they are mean to each other they are not living with their friends they are living with their frenemies like the things that they say to Rose are not cool yeah Rose really gets she does not get And the way that they slut shame Blanche constantly.

11:48These are not your friends. These are women you live with. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. These are not. Hey, I got a question. Yeah. Do you want to talk about law again? Okay. I mean, I introduced this. It's your fault. It's entirely my fault. Go on. Yeah. Okay. So they thrice withheld evidence. The court literally is like, I've never had to sanction one party three times. Well, they said thrice for the same bullshit, which is. you know, super special. But there's other discovery abuses as well, including an expert witness report that was supposed to be walled off from a certain consultant's testing. And the judge noticed that they were supposed to have a, quote, stout wall.

12:30But in fact, there was no wall at all. So that was not great. So they were they were sanctioned, forced to pay two million dollars, which will actually go to legal education to teach future lawyers all about legal ethics, because, you know, that kind of biting irony is part of, I think, issuing a really top tier bench slap. It is interesting. Now to go on another brief aside, it's interesting to me that in a world where legal ethics conversations for us for this last, I don't know, 18 months or so, the last 18 months or so have been so dominated by somebody did an AI thing that's stupid. And to have homegrown legal ethics problems.

13:20There's so many legal ethics problems you can have, y 'all. Yeah. Don't forget, you can always just withhold evidence. I mean, like this was like bad. Like at one point, the judge said something like, you know, when finally confronted with these discovery abuses, they were like, well, we forgot. And they're like, that that's not that's not a good enough excuse anymore, friends. This is too much. And it's not like organizations that don't have enough resources to make sure that they don't forget. You know, I do feel sometimes we're a little the judicial system is sometimes a little hard on the overworked small provider.

13:52That is not either of these institutions, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And the judge, again, really did enjoy kind of taking it to the parties talked about it was a collapse of a defense in depth collapsing to a new line of defense as each crumbled until their treat began to look like a route. So yeah, it wasn't good for those. So a couple million dollars. So each of those will be going to the Georgia law schools accredited law schools to pay for legal ethics. Yeah. So a couple million dollars. So some first year we'll have to work for six months to pay all that off because that's the thing like it's a big sanction but it's also in the grand scheme of how these institutions make money a not particularly significant one sure sure but you know millions still still gets to go in the headlines so well right uh yeah as a pr matter it is it is bad it is not a great place not a great look find oneself well all right uh okay so do we want to take another break here we do all right all right we're back and i'll just close out this week with you know amazingly another legal ethics issue this one's been brewing for a while uh i first saw it several months ago uh when the complaint uh not really complaint a adversary adversary uh you know filing yeah uh in a bankruptcy matter uh when i when i saw this first posted i read it and thought, well, that sounds all horrible, but I also didn't really want to report on it at that point because it was just a series of allegations.

15:31There wasn't a lot behind it. I wanted to know what would happen. More has progressed, and this is coming out of Missouri, which is that the former now, it seems, head of the bankruptcy practice at Lewis Rice is out and no longer on the website. The firm says he's no longer with the firm. This is very senior bankruptcy practice, and this all appears to have come up when filing is made in a bankruptcy matter that suggests that he spent this particular matter not only himself, but ordering everyone working for the firm to make sure that at all times they're serving the interests of the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt entities, which, of course, is not how bankruptcy is supposed to operate if you represent those entities.

16:27You are working for them and their interests and not the person who ran them into bankruptcy. But not only were the allegations pretty harsh, there were also a series of emails that are quoted in this process that suggests that he was saying things to staff like, make sure that you check with him, check with the founder person before we do anything. He remains our client. We have to run everything by him. All of these sorts of statements being CC'd to the person, none of which is how this works when you're not being paid by that person, but instead by the entity. And the folks who lodged these allegations claim that very little of the time that ultimately was billed by the firm were in the entity's best interest and that an overwhelming amount of the time billed were all for tasks that would strengthen the case of the founder if the founder wanted to buy the company back.

17:38Basically, they were set up in a way that would allow the entities to discharge all their debt, but then be available for all the assets to be picked up on the rebound by the founder. So the founder just kind of like skirts the bankruptcy process and gets out of all their debt and gets back to where they started, which is not at all how this is supposed to work. which I guess you know we we had a story I think I think Catherine you had a story last year that Winston and Strawn has been in again was accused of something similar in just a year ago so this is not this is not completely out of the blue uh it is a thing that unfortunately happens uh in in bankruptcy but it is not one that you want to ever see happen so it's not good uh it appears as though that the after the lewis rice made the change and this partner is no longer around it appears from the docket that the that there's been a voluntary dismissal of all this so one presumes there's been some sort of a agreement going forward on how this is going to work and that everything is fine now but it's you know i guess it goes with our theme today that you You cannot blame AI for every legal ethics problem that you have, I guess, no matter how much we all really want to.

19:04Also, I guess we got through this a little quickly here. I'll just throw in another plug. Speaking of how you can't blame AI for everything, be sure to check out my big write-up of my thoughts coming out of ILTA. I know last episode we talked a little bit about ILTA recap. I finally put into words my big ILTA, you know, roundup. And I, you know, I used the term polycule. So, you know, if you're vaguely interested in how I managed to get polyamory references into a legal tech article, you should check that out. And then otherwise. That's all there is, folks. That's all we have today for a relatively quick and easy, fast episode for you.

19:48Thanks, everybody, for listening. You should subscribe to the show, obviously, so you get new episodes when they come out. You should leave reviews, stars, right things. It all helps. I actually went in and read some of the reviews the other day. Not something I do all the time, but I happen to be on the site, and some of you said some very nice things. One person said that they couldn't stand the forced laughter. I'm not sure what that is. I can assure you that if anyone on this show is laughing, it's genuine because we're very much our own harshest critics. you should be listening to the jabot katherine's other podcast i'm also a guest on the legal tech week journalists roundtable uh there's also a bunch of shows from the legal talk network to listen to you should be reading above the law so you read these and other stories before we get to them here you should be following on social media abovelaw.com i'm nat joe patrice she's at katherine one the numeral one and i think that pretty much is everything peace

20:51Thank you.