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For those of us in California who hate sitting in traffic (does anyone enjoy that?), Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 241, which permits remote courtroom appearances until July 1, 2023. No one says that there’s been anything good that has come out of the pandemic, certainly not when more than 700,000 Americans are dead, but the pandemic has forced us to confront how to provide legal services in different ways. Courtrooms have been remote since the beginning of the pandemic more than a year and a half ago, but now, at least here in California, remote appearances have the force of law and not just emergency judicial declarations.
This is not only a boon for lawyers who don’t want to appear in public spaces — especially courtrooms, while the pandemic continues — but it’s an economic benefit for clients. No more paying for exorbitant parking at courthouses, especially in downtown LA where the cost is equivalent to ransoming your first-born child, no more heel cooling for several hours while awaiting an appearance that takes no more than five minutes, no more explaining to the client why you billed three hours for a five-minute appearance (travel and traffic to and from the courthouse, schlepping from a remote parking lot, which is all that is left these days), and so on. It’s never been a pretty picture for clients receiving those bills, but that may be a thing of the past, at least in California for a while. No more opportunities for a little creative billing, aka padding, as a couple of Biglaw associates recently learned. Suspensions for both. Not the best optics, especially if/when either or both seek future employment as lawyers.
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We all know that the billable hours requirement increases almost every year. But where is the point when associates (and even partners) say “enough is enough”? When I started practice all those dinosaur years ago, “work-life balance” was not even in the vocabulary, although billable hours were much more reasonable. And the Biglaw business model is getting some competition from the non-Biglaw firms that can poach top laterals with the phase that makes them swoon: “work-life balance.”
Positives can and do abound in remote work, which is why it’s going to be so hard to go back, if ever, to the office environment. You don’t need me to count the ways why remote work, or at least some subset of it, is here to stay.
And think of all the money that has gone down the drain when firms adopted the “open office architecture” model. That is so pre-2020.
Salaries for associates in dinosaur days (my era) were not eye-popping, to say the least. However, we didn’t carry the amount of student loan debt that is extant today, and the cost of living was certainly less, albeit we did have very high inflation, the gas crisis, and the prime rate kept climbing. I could no more imagine today’s salaries than I could have predicted the six winning numbers for Powerball.
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So, what do you think is the likelihood that the newly named State Bar of California Chief Trial Counsel, George Cardona, will do anything about the request from multiple attorneys and retired judges to investigate John Eastman? You remember him, don’t you? The former Chapman University (here in SoCal) law school professor who advised Vice President Mike Pence to ignore the rule of law and invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election? Cardona, newly appointed and subject to state Senate confirmation, has a lot to do.
Which do you think is a worse violation of the ethics rules and the state bar’s stated mandate of public protection? Which is more egregious? Stealing money from clients as Tom Girardi is alleged to have done? Or advising the vice president to disregard the rule of law as John Eastman did? Flip a coin. It will be interesting to see if the state bar does anything about disciplining Eastman. Girardi has already resigned from the bar. I doubt if Eastman would do anything similar even if disciplinary charges were to be filed against him. Is there discipline for erroneous bonehead advice other than a malpractice claim, even if it rises to the level of what Eastman advised?
Eastman wins the prize for needing refresher courses in both ethics and civics, and some con law wouldn’t hurt. He is the poster child for my belief that pedigree isn’t everything even though his law degree is from University of Chicago, and yes, he also has a Ph.D. in Government(!), the latter from Claremont Graduate School.
This was not Eastman’s first flight of fancy. Remember that Eastman is the same law professor who doubted that Kamala Harris could properly be vice president, the “birther” argument redux.
Last, but certainly not least, as one of the many millions who is immuno-compromised for various boring reasons and has received a COVID-19 booster shot, the refusals of first responders (fire, police, EMTs), health care professionals, teachers, and now an associate judge of the Court of Appeals in New York State, to be vaccinated are beyond irritating.
Should we now have a variation of the Miranda warnings to make sure everyone who encounters an unvaccinated understands the risks for COVID-19? How would that work? Would the unvaccinated person have to advise that he/she is unvaccinated, that there is the right to refuse treatment or services from the unvaccinated, and that if treatment is permitted, that permission could be used as a defense in a lawsuit against the unvaccinated? (“But your honor, the plaintiff agreed to treatment.”) Would the unvaccinated also need to include in the warning that he/she is relying on a religious or medical exemption to explain the reason(s) for not being vaccinated?
What should we call such warnings? I have some suggestions. If you have any, please share.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].