ABA eyes more job protections, ex-FisherBroyles partners launch new firm, ex-bankruptcy judge fights lawsuit that led to his resignation and more ➡️
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☀️ Good morning from The Legal File! Here are today's top legal stories:
🏛️ ABA eyes more job protection for some law school faculty to undercut 'caste system'
An American Bar Association proposal to strengthen job protections for untenured law faculty has garnered widespread support, with proponents saying it will help eliminate longstanding hierarchies between different types of professors.
The change under consideration by the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar would require law schools to hire full-time legal writing instructors and other untenured full-time faculty on five-year “presumptively renewable long-term contracts.”
That change would bring legal writing, bar preparation and other typically untenured faculty roles under the same hiring rules and protections as clinical legal professors, though they would still have less job security than tenured and tenure-track professors, who can only be fired for “adequate cause” or extreme “financial exigency.”
“Eliminating a caste system of hierarchy reflects an appreciation for the valuable roles all faculty play within law schools,” wrote Kathleen Elliott Vinson, the legal writing director at Suffolk University Law School.
In addition to eliminating any difference between job protections for clinical and legal writing faculty, the proposal requires law schools to give all untenured full-time faculty “reasonably similar participation” in governance matters such as voting and committees.
The ABA has received more than 30 public comments in support of the change, most from legal writing and clinical professors, with no opposition thus far.
🧳 New US law firm says it launched with 130 lawyers from FisherBroyles
Michael Pierson and Joel Ferdinand, who announced their exit from law firm FisherBroyles last month, have launched their own law firm, Pierson Ferdinand LLP, and have taken more than 130 partners from their former firm with them.
By Tuesday, 70 lawyers had already joined, with more coming from FisherBroyles in waves throughout the quarter, Pierson said in an interview.
FisherBroyles had about 300 lawyers – all partners – in the United States and London before the spin-off. The firm describes itself as a "distributed" full-service law firm where lawyers can work remotely.
FisherBroyles has said its nontraditional model allows partners to take home up to 80% of what they bill. In 2022, the firm generated more than $135 million in revenue, according to The American Lawyer.
The two funding partners said their new firm will share FisherBroyles' quasi-virtual model.
"The future of work is really going to be remote work," Pierson said.
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⚖️ Ex-bankruptcy judge moves to stop lawsuit that led to his resignation
Former bankruptcy judge David Jones has asked a federal court to toss a lawsuit that revealed his romantic relationship with bankruptcy attorney Elizabeth Freeman and ultimately led to his resignation, saying he cannot be personally sued over his rulings as a judge.
Jones, who oversaw the complex case panel in the Southern District of Texas and was the busiest bankruptcy judge in the U.S., said in October he would resign after publicly acknowledging he had been living for years with Freeman, who was a bankruptcy partner at the law firm Jackson Walker until December 2022. The firm represented many companies that filed for bankruptcy in Jones' Houston court, often acting as local counsel for larger law firms like Kirkland & Ellis.
The 5th Circuit initiated a misconduct complaint after Jones acknowledged the years-long relationship in the wake of an Oct. 4 lawsuit by a McDermott International shareholder. The court said there was probable cause to believe that Jones committed an ethical violation by failing to disclose his relationship, but ended its investigation when Jones resigned.
Jones' resignation rocked the corporate bankruptcy world, causing the reassignment of 3,500 cases and raising questions about his handling of cases in which Jackson Walker represented a bankrupt company. The U.S. Department of Justice's bankruptcy watchdog is seeking to force the law firm to give back millions of dollars in fees it earned in cases presided over by Jones.
💲 Lawyer Tom Girardi found competent to face criminal fraud trial
Disbarred California lawyer Tom Girardi is competent to face trial for allegedly stealing more than $18 million in funds belonging to the clients of his law firm, Girardi Keese, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton ruled.
Staton issued the order under seal, but the court record states that Girardi was deemed "competent to stand trial" in the criminal case.
Girardi was first accused in December 2020 of stealing millions of dollars in settlement funds from the families of the victims of the 2018 Boeing 737 MAX Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia. He was charged on Feb. 1, 2022, by prosecutors in Chicago and Los Angeles and has pleaded not guilty.
Girardi's court-appointed lawyers have said he suffers from dementia, with parts of his brain atrophying. He has allegedly suffered memory loss and is unaware he has been disbarred and has not paid his clients.
Staton held competency hearings in August and September to weigh dueling evidence from Girardi's federal defenders and experts retained by the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's Office.
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