Biden has a SCOTUS nominee; law firms in Ukraine deal with Russian invasion; and 'Golden rules' for lawyers using Twitter
Reuters Legal
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President Joe Biden plans on Friday to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson, a D.C. Circuit judge, to become the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House confirmed.
The announcement of Jackson, expected to take place at the White House, will tee up a confirmation battle in the closely divided Senate.
Of the 115 people who have ever served on the Supreme Court, only two have been Black and both of those were men.
Biden is expected to select Jackson, 51, for a lifetime job on the nation's top judicial body to succeed retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who at 83 is the court's oldest member.
Jackson, if confirmed by the Senate, would become the sixth woman ever to serve on the court, which currently has three female justices.
Here is everything you need to know about Jackson's legal career.
Twitter “is not where serious clients look for serious lawyers”
New York criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield, who has 18,900 followers on the app, said. He admitted that people have expressed interests in engaging him based on his tweets but they’re either broke or “have insane ideas about the law and want to sue the president of the United States for spying on them.”
In fact, Florida-based criminal defense attorney Ron Filipkowski, who has a whopping 287,800 followers and often tweets about his work investigating right-wing extremism, told columnist Jenna Greene that Twitter has actually been detrimental to his business:
Twitter “has in no way has benefited my practice,” “If anything, it has hurt it. Several people have posted anonymous reviews on my Google business page (who) have never been clients because they don't like something I did on Twitter.”
So then why do lawyers tweet? And how did it lead commercial litigator Akiva Cohen of Kamerman, Uncyk, Soniker & Klein, who has 25,600 followers, to land a major corporate client as a direct result of his Twitter post because he explained legal issues “in a way that lay people understand:"
"It’s a skill set that general counsel know is relevant in litigating a case.”
Greene talks to social media savvy lawyers including Hogan Lovells appellate partner Sean Marotta; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison partner Kannon Shanmugam to understand how their twitter posts affect their business and learns some "golden rules" that lawyers on Twitter can follow to stay out of trouble.
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With Russia launching the biggest assault on a European state since World War II, three of the largest foreign law firms with lawyers in Kyiv - Baker McKenzie, CMS and Dentons - said they have closed their offices for now.
At least two Ukraine-based firms - 140-lawyer Asters and Avellum, a full-service law firm with 90 employees - said they have also shuttered their offices and their employees are safe.
After Russian attacks began on Thursday, Avellum managing partner Mykola Stetsenko said the firm's lawyers working remotely are able to respond to clients' emails, "but there are not many:"
"I hope it will end soon. The Ukrainian army is strong and able to fight. We will prevail, but the world will change now."
A Baker McKenzie spokesperson said Thursday its partners are "working with clients affected to determine the options for continuing to provide legal assistance elsewhere."
Serhiy Chorny, a managing partner of Baker McKenzie's Kyiv office, told Reuters they could ensure their work would not be lost:
"We have well tested, top-of-the-market security procedures for client data and other sensitive data, including storage and back-up on servers outside of Ukraine."
Fearing a closure of banking systems in the country, Liliya Yanovska, Asters' marketing director, said the firm had made advance salary payments to all employees.
DLA Piper's U.S. co-managing partner Jackie Park has an array of clients in the real estate space, including ongoing representation of The Walt Disney Company, Capitol Records and AECOM.
But when she's not handling leasing transactions, Park mentors lawyers through DLA Piper's diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Women and Lawyers of Color Emerging Leaders programs. Reuters caught up with Park to see how she spends her free time and discovered, among other things, her secret passion for needlepointing:
"My goal is to have an entire Christmas tree decorated with my needlepoint ornaments. My daughters treasure their needlepoint Christmas stockings that I made for each of them."
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