Political speech in BigLaw? Forum

[clickclicknope]

Has anyone gotten in trouble for writing Letters to the Editor on non-legal related matters, from your private email, without any reference to your firm? Thoughts?

[RaceJudicata]

Formal trouble? Almost certainly not, unless you reveal some privileged/private information about a firm client or firm matter. But depending on the topic and your firm's relation to the topic, it might not bode well for office politics. i.e. expressing ignorant views, etc.

[clickclicknope]

Do you need to ask for permission or should you if it is a political / heated topic? Would it be safer to publish under a pseudonym?

[Anonymous User]

We had a presentation on this subject. It's not the safest thing to do, but if it's not racist/offensive nobody will care. One of the points of this kind of writing is to gain a presence and begin marketing yourself to hopefully one day bring in a few clients. If you're going for a pseudonym then you're removing the potential to do that.

[Anonymous User]

What about academic speech? I.e. Publishing in law journals

[bh369]

What about academic speech? I.e. Publishing in law journals

I'm not sure that "academic speech" means what you think it means.

Mod edit: outed for anon abuse.

[Nebby]

I can guarantee your thoughts aren't ground breaking enough to be published so this may be a non-issue.

[Anonymous User]

What about academic speech? I.e. Publishing in law journals

I'm not sure that "academic speech" means what you think it means.

Thanks for the helpful answer anon.

I'm asking about speech published in academic publications (which I mentioned). I suppose the problem I imagine is writing about your practice area, and taking a position that some current or future client doesn't like.

[bh369]

"Academic speech" doesn't refer to the protection of anything published in an academic journals, it refers to the speech of academics, in their professional capacity as academics (if it means anything). If you're discussing job protection as a BigLaw attorney, then it doesn't matter if you publish something in a law journal, it's not "academic speech", as you are not employed as an academic, and therefore are not afford the protections of the profession.

[BlackAndOrange84]

I can guarantee your thoughts aren't ground breaking enough to be published so this may be a non-issue.

Whereas law profs' thoughts are? From what I've seen, only a handful of articles are meaningful and novel. The remainder make incredibly narrow and usually predictable steps forward from existing literature. If OP has trouble getting posted it'll likely be because he isn't already a professor, doesn't have a track record of publication, or doesn't have a sufficiently prestigious resume.

Edit: And even if all those things are true, if he's able to string together enough semi-coherent sentences with footnotes to legal authorities, he'd have to be braindead to not be able to find some secondary journal somewhere that would publish him.

[Br3v]

OP, regarding political speech I wouldn't expect you to face any special problems than you would at any other job. Use you're head, and if you plan on taking a public stance you know is in contradiction to what a client or partner believes then proceed accordingly.

"Academic speech" doesn't refer to the protection of anything published in an academic journals, it refers to the speech of academics, in their professional capacity as academics (if it means anything). If you're discussing job protection as a BigLaw attorney, then it doesn't matter if you publish something in a law journal, it's not "academic speech", as you are not employed as an academic, and therefore are not afford the protections of the profession.

Bh369, you do realize that outside of a given institution's tenure protections, there is no legal significance to "academic speech" right? As in, there are typically no special protections for "academic speech" as compared to any other type of protected speech. What are you arguing against? The question referred to academic or scholarly speech, and gave no indication that such speech was being labeled as such in order to obtain increased protection, as compared to distinguishing such publications from other types of publications such as Op-Eds.

Where are you getting this absurd definition of academic speech as only pertaining to someone "employed as an academic"?

Your post is neither helpful, nor correct.

[Anonymous User]

It helps if you have good relationships with partners who share your opinion, and would be prudent to check in with them before publishing. If almost everyone doesn't care (and this will almost always be the case) and a few support you doing it then there's not much risk. Of course, the most important thing is whether your statements are offensive and why they are offensive. If you're coming out against a protected class, and that makes lawyers in that protective class uncomfortable working with you then you're putting everybody in a crappy situation legally and professionally.

[PMan99]

The general rule of thumb at law firms (and one that can be read from the subtext of posts above) is that it's OK if you're expressing liberal views but not conservative ones.

That said it's far more likely that no one would ever read or know about your comments, either in a law journal or to a newspaper, unless perhaps you explicitly flaunt your status as a lawyer at firm X.

[bh369]

Bh369, you do realize that outside of a given institution's tenure protections, there is no legal significance to "academic speech" right? As in, there are typically no special protections for "academic speech" as compared to any other type of protected speech. What are you arguing against? The question referred to academic or scholarly speech, and gave no indication that such speech was being labeled as such in order to obtain increased protection, as compared to distinguishing such publications from other types of publications such as Op-Eds.

Where are you getting this absurd definition of academic speech as only pertaining to someone "employed as an academic"?

Your post is neither helpful, nor correct.

That's what I meant by "if it means anything". My point was that I interpreted the OP's question to be asking if publication in an academic publication conferred a special kind of protection (called "academic speech") against wrongful dismissal. My point was that there is no such category of protected speech, outside of the employment protections afforded to academics viz. the tenure process. Therefore, what we might offhandedly call "academic speech protection" isn't fundamentally concerned with whether something is published in an academic journal, but instead with whether one is employed as an academic, and therefore afforded certain employment protections viz. tenure.

[AVBucks4239]

In for the classic TLS neurotic analysis.

[Anonymous User]

V-10 associate here. Most firms have policies on this, so you will need to check with your firm. Publication is often subject to firm review and if it's anything else your firm may have a policy covering it. Firms can't have associates going on record anywhere taking views that conflict with firm/client interests if there is any way those views will be linked to the firm as a whole. I get the sense that firms are pretty open to associates publishing and getting their names out, but sometimes seemingly innocent positions can be adverse to firm interests. It's always safest to check.

This isn't different than working for any other company, but given the variety of clients and interests firms work with it can be a little more complex to navigate.

[Aeon]

V-10 associate here. Most firms have policies on this, so you will need to check with your firm. Publication is often subject to firm review and if it's anything else your firm may have a policy covering it. Firms can't have associates going on record anywhere taking views that conflict with firm/client interests if there is any way those views will be linked to the firm as a whole. I get the sense that firms are pretty open to associates publishing and getting their names out, but sometimes seemingly innocent positions can be adverse to firm interests. It's always safest to check.

This isn't different than working for any other company, but given the variety of clients and interests firms work with it can be a little more complex to navigate.

Firm policies on outside publication don't really apply to personal letters to the editor on non-legal matters. Though I suppose if one were concerned, a glance at the firm's manual for associates wouldn't hurt.

I'd be concerned that if the letter were on a controversial topic, it could alienate colleagues or clients or prove embarrassing down the road, especially if a simple Internet search would bring it up. But then that's the case for any publicly expressed political view.

[jd20132013]

"Academic speech" doesn't refer to the protection of anything published in an academic journals, it refers to the speech of academics, in their professional capacity as academics (if it means anything). If you're discussing job protection as a BigLaw attorney, then it doesn't matter if you publish something in a law journal, it's not "academic speech", as you are not employed as an academic, and therefore are not afford the protections of the profession.

And he gave this absurd answer so confidently too.

[Danger Zone]

V-10 associate here. Most firms have policies on this, so you will need to check with your firm. Publication is often subject to firm review and if it's anything else your firm may have a policy covering it. Firms can't have associates going on record anywhere taking views that conflict with firm/client interests if there is any way those views will be linked to the firm as a whole. I get the sense that firms are pretty open to associates publishing and getting their names out, but sometimes seemingly innocent positions can be adverse to firm interests. It's always safest to check.

This isn't different than working for any other company, but given the variety of clients and interests firms work with it can be a little more complex to navigate.

Firm policies on outside publication don't really apply to personal letters to the editor on non-legal matters. Though I suppose if one were concerned, a glance at the firm's manual for associates wouldn't hurt.

I'd be concerned that if the letter were on a controversial topic, it could alienate colleagues or clients or prove embarrassing down the road, especially if a simple Internet search would bring it up. But then that's the case for any publicly expressed political view.

Uhm not true. My firm's policy almost certainly includes that, and how do you know what every firm's policy looks like

[A. Nony Mouse]

"Academic speech" doesn't refer to the protection of anything published in an academic journals, it refers to the speech of academics, in their professional capacity as academics (if it means anything). If you're discussing job protection as a BigLaw attorney, then it doesn't matter if you publish something in a law journal, it's not "academic speech", as you are not employed as an academic, and therefore are not afford the protections of the profession.

And he gave this absurd answer so confidently too.

What's absurd about it?

[Person1111]

I work at a Vault firm.

In general, you need to clear a conflicts check if you publish something or make a public statement under your own name. You do not get special protection if you are publishing in an academic journal. In general, the expectation is that people will submit blog posts, articles (in academic and practitioner-focused journals), interviews, TV/radio appearances, etc. to conflicts. But I don't think anyone is submitting TLS posts, Yelp! reviews, FB posts, or the like to conflicts.

[Desert Fox]

I work at a Vault firm.

In general, you need to clear a conflicts check if you publish something or make a public statement under your own name. You do not get special protection if you are publishing in an academic journal. In general, the expectation is that people will submit blog posts, articles (in academic and practitioner-focused journals), interviews, TV/radio appearances, etc. to conflicts. But I don't think anyone is submitting TLS posts, Yelp! reviews, FB posts, or the like to conflicts.

My firm doesn't have this and in retrospect, it really seems like we should.

[Desert Fox]

This week, after last months political donations hit the FEC website, my boss called me into his office. Sat me down. Said "this is about your Trump donation." I sat in fear, oh man I'm fucked, he knows.

"It's not big enough. We can't make America great one hat at a time."

[Danger Zone]

This week, after last months political donations hit the FEC website, my boss called me into his office. Sat me down. Said "this is about your Trump donation." I sat in fear, oh man I'm fucked, he knows.

"It's not big enough. We can't make America great one hat at a time."

Flame, Donald Trump doesn't accept donations because he's SELF MADE

[Br3v]

"Academic speech" doesn't refer to the protection of anything published in an academic journals, it refers to the speech of academics, in their professional capacity as academics (if it means anything). If you're discussing job protection as a BigLaw attorney, then it doesn't matter if you publish something in a law journal, it's not "academic speech", as you are not employed as an academic, and therefore are not afford the protections of the profession.

And he gave this absurd answer so confidently too.

What's absurd about it?

The part that says academic speech is only for people employed as "academics."

Also, before the quoted post, nobody suggested "academic speech" would receive "extra" protection regarding this law firm situation.