Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Withholds Executive Bonuses Just Because

So if no improper behavior was found, why deprive these poor innocent executives of their hard-earned cash?

Morning Docket: 02.02.17

* Remember when Trump recaptured the news cycle from the string of blunders and Russian scandals that rocked his first month? That seems like just yesterday.... [Washington Post] * What happens to lawyers after they publicly demean themselves appear on The Bachelor? [The Ringer] * After a massive scandal, Wells Fargo is slashing executive pay in the name of accountability. Well, by "slashing," they mean "the people who failed to pick up the fraud will still make millions," but it's the tokenistic thought that counts. [Corporate Counsel] * JP Morgan replaced 360,000 hours of annual legal work with a robot that does the work in seconds. That sounds impressive, but when you control for Biglaw hour padding the software really replaced about 20 minutes of work. [Bloomberg Markets] * Yahoo's GC resigned over their cybersecurity kerfuffle. Most Americans greet the news by wondering, "wait, Yahoo is still around?" [NY Times] * Salary increases may be nice, but it just intensifies senior skepticism over what young associates really bring to the table. [Law360] * Gibson Dunn building its Houston office on with Latham laterals. [Texas Lawyer] * Even with revenue down, Bryan Cave manages to get PPP up. [Am Law Daily]

Elizabeth Warren Concerned That DoL Has Lost Its Taste For Wells Fargo’s Flesh

There’s nothing Sen. Elizabeth Warren loves more than tearing into some corporate executive unlucky enough to have been dragged into a Senate hearing.

Wells Gave Bankers Plenty Of Time To Practice Forging Customer Signatures On Unauthorized Account Docs

Internal ethics investigations rarely work if you let everyone cheat.

If Your Definition Of ‘Fine’ Is ‘Still An Utter Sh!tstorm’ Then Yes, Wells Fargo Is Fine

At least Wells Fargo is consistent.

Of Course Wells Fargo Flunked Its Latest Living Will Test

Wells Fargo is failing tests like a hungover freshman who can’t even read.

Non-Sequiturs: 11.28.16

* The political anger against big banking in general and Wells Fargo, specifically, could hurt their forced arbitration efforts. [Cowboys On The Commons] * Warner Brothers's settlement over paying -- and not disclosing that fact -- influencers to subtly promote its video game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. [The Fashion Law] * The California Bar is considering a ban on client-attorney sex. [Law and More] * Rumor has it Steve Bannon is totally fine with suppressing black voter turnout. [Huffington Post] * Yes, the electoral college sucks, but they are still going to elect Donald Trump. [Slate]

Morning Docket: 11.28.16

* "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." President-elect Donald Trump can't keep himself away from his Twitter account thanks to the recount that's going on, and now he seems to have accidentally called into question the legitimacy of the election in its entirety. Oopsie! [New York Times] * Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has jumped on Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein's election recount bandwagon, but according to campaign general counsel Marc Elias, it's only "to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." Thus far, Wisconsin has already agreed to perform a recount. [CBS News] * Just like the president-elect who's included him on his Supreme Court shortlist, Judge Raymond M. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit seems to be incredibly blunt. The judge expects civility between parties in briefs, but is well known for his "caustic rebuke[s]" and "eviscerat[ing] [litigants] like first-day law student[s]." [Big Law Business] * Per recent TV ads, "Wells Fargo is making changes to make things right," but only if those changes don't involve public court records: Wells Fargo customers who had unauthorized accounts opened in their names have filed a class-action suit, but the bank is trying to quash their claims by forcing plaintiffs into arbitration. [CNN Money] * "If you look at other parts of the state — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio — everybody has a law school." But that doesn't mean that everybody needs to have a law school. A dearth of potential applicants be damned, because lawmakers in the Texas Rio Grande Valley are going ahead with plans to establish a public law school in the area. [Valley Star]

Ex-Wells Fargo Employee Was (Allegedly) Told: ‘Go And Shake Your Skirt To The Farm Workers So We Can Get Some Accounts’

Just another day at Wells Fargo.

Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Care About Bank People, Says Jamie Dimon

The Khaleesi of Wall Street is back!

Morning Docket: 09.30.16

* According to a labor relations suit filed in 2012, Donald Trump allegedly wanted to fire female employees of Trump National Golf Club in California, who he didn't think were pretty enough. The suit was settled without any admission of wrongdoing. [Los Angeles Times] * Biglaw mega-merger alert: Word on the street is that London-based firms CMS and Olswang will join with international firm Nabarro for a three-way merger that would create a combined entity with more than 3,000 lawyers. If the merger were to go through, the firm would have more than $1.5 billion in revenue. [LegalWeek] * According to the results of this survey, corporate counsel don't think too highly of millennials when it comes to loyalty. Almost 70 percent of baby boomers and Gen Xers thought millennial lawyers in their legal departments would leave in less than five years, potentially causing "major problem[s]" in terms of turnover rates. [WSJ Law Blog] * How many women serve as lead counsel in New York state and federal courts and in mediation and arbitration? That's what a new study being conducted by the New York State Bar Association's Commercial and Federal Litigation Section hopes to find out, because "[o]nce you have a diagnosis, you can get to a solution." [New York Law Journal] * "Something is going wrong at this bank, and you are the head of it. You should be fired." Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf may be forfeiting $41 million in pay, but lawmakers were still pretty darn upset with him when he testified before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing yesterday. [DealBook / New York Times] * Phil C. Neal, former dean of University of Chicago Law School, RIP. [UChicago News]

Morning Docket: 09.28.16

* “It would have been disastrous for the whole country.” Following Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski's screening of "The People vs. Larry Flynt," the infamous smut peddler at the center of the film received a standing ovation after speaking to an audience about what would have happened if the Supreme Court hadn't ruled in Hustler's favor in the landmark First Amendment case. [WSJ Law Blog] * Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will forfeit $41 million in bonus and stock awards in the wake of the lender's sham accounts scandal. As we mentioned previously, the bank's board was looking to Shearman & Sterling for guidance on whether it would move forward with clawback actions against executives considering the severity of the misconduct and fraud that occurred. [CNN] * Sorry, Lynn Tilton, but the Supreme Court isn't going to rescue you: the "Diva of Distressed" applied to the high court for a stay of the Securities and Exchange Commission's action against her, arguing that the agency's use of in-house judges was unconstitutional, but the Court flat-out rejected her request, without even so much as a dissent. Tilton could be barred from further work in the securities industry. [Bloomberg] * Chelsea Grayson, who currently serves as general counsel of American Apparel, is moving up in the company to take on an even bigger and better role. She will assume the position of chief executive officer next month as the company considers a sale. She's guided the company through controversies in the past, so a potential sale should be no problem for this former Loeb & Loeb partner. Congratulations! [Big Law Business] * A former investigator for the Illinois Appellate Defender's Office is receiving a major windfall after alleging that she was forced to resign for complaining about a salary cut. Alice Washington is set to receive more than $1 million dollars for her retaliation claim, but State Appellate Defender Michael Pelletier says he plans to appeal the judgment due to the fact that he "cannot in good conscience settle with this woman." [ABA Journal] * Michael Fahy, lawyer turned firefighter, RIP. [New York Daily News]

WSJ: Pissed-Off Wells Fargo Board Ready To Put Its Claws In John Stumpf’s Pockets

John Stumpf is having a sh!t sandwich for lunch again.

Morning Docket: 09.26.16

* As you may have already seen, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released another list of his potential Supreme Court nominees ahead of tonight's debate. The list includes a Republican senator who has refused to endorse Trump (and has already turned down Trump's proposal), three non-white judges, and one female judge. [WSJ Washington Wire] * Speaking of the Supreme Court, the justices may be shorthanded and trying to avoid 4-4 deadlocks on controversial cases, but they'll soon decide whether they'll liven up this term's docket by agreeing to hear a major transgender rights case involving public school bathrooms. It could be one of the biggest case of the high court's 2016-17 term. [Reuters] * "[Twelve] students is not any kind of representation of our program." Indiana Tech Law's dean says the fact that only one of the school's graduates passed the bar isn't a realistic assessment of the quality of their education, and was unwilling to confirm the school's low pass rate since five graduates were appealing their results. [Indiana Lawyer] * The Department of Education will not suspend the American Bar Association from accrediting new law schools, despite a recommendation to do so from the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. We'd like to think that the ABA has learned its lesson, but perhaps that's a bit naive of us. [ABA Journal] * In anticipation of further fallout from its fake accounts scandal, Wells Fargo has hired Shearman & Sterling to advise the bank's board as to the legal ramifications of a possible clawback of pay from Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, Chief Operating Officer Tim Sloan, and Carrie Tolstedt, the former head of community banking. [Bloomberg]

Morning Docket: 09.23.16

* Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher. In the charging documents, prosecutors said she "reacted unreasonably by escalating the situation." If convicted, she faces between up to life in prison. [AP] * Thanks to millennials in the workforce, some Biglaw firms are doing away with corner offices, since those corner offices can be intimidating to young associates. Rainmakers at a few firms were pretty pissed: "Some partners said, ‘We earn this — It’s a right of passage. It’s where we work.'" [Big Law Business] * “We should really hold the Department of Justice’s feet to the fire here. Will they pursue individuals and not just the underlings?” Many are hoping that the Department of Justice will use Wells Fargo's misconduct as its test case for getting tough on corporate executives responsible for corporate crime. [DealBook / New York Times] * ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham won a $625K MacArthur "genius grant" for his legal work performed on behalf of immigrants facing deportation, which has set "vital precedents to expand the rights of non-citizens.” He's the second immigration attorney to win the award in three years. Congratulations on this achievement! [WSJ Law Blog] * “If things slow down and I had time, I really want to go to law school." Despite the fact that she hasn't even gone to college, Kim Kardashian West wants to follow in her late father's footsteps and become a lawyer. Which law school do you think would be willing to accept the queen of reality TV? Would she be able to bring Kanye? [Daily Caller]