Rapper and actor O’Shea Jackson, professionally known as Ice Cube, lost his day in court (for now) on claims of false endorsement against trading platform Robinhood because he failed to plausibly allege that Robinhood’s use of his image and catchphrase implied endorsement. Robinhood had published a newsletter on its website “Robinhood Snacks” which featured an article discussing market corrections for technology stocks with an alteration of Ice Cube’s lyric and catchphrase “Check yo self before you wreck yourself”—here, “Correct yourself before you wreck yourself”—along with the below image of Ice Cube from Are We Done Yet? (2007):
In response, Ice Cube filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that Robinhood’s article falsely implied that he had endorsed Robinhood and its services. He claimed false endorsement under the Lanham Act as well as misappropriation of likeness and unfair competition under California law. Robinhood filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of standing and a motion to strike the state law claims under California’s Anti-SLAPP statute as protected speech.
As noted by the court, to establish standing a plaintiff must demonstrate an “injury in fact,” meaning the plaintiff suffered “an invasion of a legally protected interest” that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Citing Waits v. Frito-Lay, Inc., 978 F.2d 1093, 1110 (9th Cir. 1992), the court further held that “a celebrity whose endorsement of a product is implied through the imitation of a distinctive attribute of the celebrity’s identity, has standing to sue for false endorsement” under the Lanham Act.
While the court acknowledged that a celebrity could establish standing under Waits, Robinhood argued that Ice Cube failed to plausibly plead (1) his celebrity status, (2) he was deprived of compensation, and (3) use of his identity and catchphrase implied endorsement.
In ruling on the motion to dismiss, the court found that Ice Cube sufficiently pleaded celebrity status. It discredited Robinhood’s argument that Ice Cube lacked such status because he relied on his music in the 1980s and movies in the 1990s. The court questioned why Robinhood would have used Ice Cube’s image and catchphrase in the first place if he had no status as a celebrity. The court also found that Ice Cube robustly alleged he had commercialized his celebrity status and therefore adequately pleaded economic injury.
In the end, however, the court held that Ice Cube did not plausibly plead that the use of his likeness or catchphrase suggested he endorsed Robinhood’s products. Although Ice Cube cited Robinhood’s other celebrity endorsements from rappers Nas and Jay-Z, the court found those endorsements were irrelevant. It also contrasted Robinhood’s use of his likeness and catchphrase with other cases cited by Ice Cube, which all involved explicit endorsements. Furthermore, without explaining the distinction, the court noted that the article was part of a newsletter, not an “advertisement” as Ice Cube claimed, and that under such circumstances no other court had found standing. Thus, the court concluded that Ice Cube lacked standing because “he did not allege how Robinhood’s use of his identity created the misapprehension that the plaintiff sponsored, endorsed, or is affiliated with Robinhood.”
Although the court granted Robinhood’s motion to dismiss, it allowed Ice Cube to amend his complaint, which he amended and refiled on July 6, 2021. Whether Ice Cube has now plausibly pleaded endorsement remains to be seen.
The case is Jackson v. Robinhood Markets, Inc., No. 21-CV-02304-LB (N.D. Cal. June 15, 2021).
On July 19, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigations issued aPrivate Industry Notification to service providers and “entities associated with the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics that cyber actors who wish to disrupt the event could use distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, social engineering, phishing campaigns, or insider threats to block or disrupt live broadcasts of the event, steal and possibly hack and leak or hold hostage sensitive data, or impact public or private digital infrastructure supporting the Olympics.”
According to the Notification, “Malicious activity could disrupt multiple functions, including media broadcasting environments, hospitality, transit, ticketing, or security.”
The Notification points out that large events attract extra attention from cybercriminals and nation-state actors such as the attacks during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The FBI indicted Russian-based actors for intrusions during the Winter Olympics, including one that disrupted the Opening Ceremony.
The FBI encourages “service providers and other relevant partners to maintain business continuity plans to minimize essential service interruptions, as well as preemptively evaluate potential continuity and capability gaps…the FBI encourages regularly monitoring networks and employing best practices.” The Notification then provides details on what those best practices are.
Frankly, the list of best practices provided by the FBI are best practices for all companies, including those supporting the Tokyo Olympics.
In modern communication emojis have become ubiquitous. So much so that last year Vermont introduced legislation to allow emojis to be used on vanity license plates. In fact, emoji license plates have been available in Queensland, Australia since 2019.
Emojis, first introduced in 1999, are a way to communicate tone in written communication. The “smile” emoji can take what might be interpreted as harsh criticism and change it to sarcasm or a joke. Often single emoji in a message or email can communicate an idea more effectively than a paragraph of text. Because they are an integral part of today’s communications, they are also an important part of the discovery process.
There is more and more caselaw, civil and criminal, that involves emojis—from 2018 to 2019 the number of cases nearly doubled and there are no signs of that trend slowing. Despite the increase in litigation related to emojis the technology to interpret them in discovery is lagging. Anyone who’s ever collected text messages is familiar with the dreaded “�” indicating an emoji was used but, was not rendered in the discovery production process.
There are certainly situations where that missing emoji is essentially meaningless, but then there is the nightmare scenario. In this situation you have Anne sending an email to her co-worker Frank; they both work in the HR department.
The presence of the eggplant emoji dramatically changes the tone of the email from one that is fairly innocuous to one that is not. If the emoji doesn’t render, crucial evidence is lost. Further, if one side has a version with the emoji and the other doesn’t it can lead to an unfortunate “gotcha” moment.
Emojis have taken on secondary and even tertiary meanings and the meanings can change in the time it takes a Tweet to go viral. It’s crucial to understand these meanings and understand the timing of their evolution. For example, in September of 2019 the Anti-Defamation league added the “okay” symbol to its hate list as it’s become a symbol for white supremacy groups.
There is no definitive lexicon for emoji use and there are many challenges to beginning to create one. Context matters. The same emoji can be texted by the same person to different people and mean something completely different. Legal professionals need to be mindful of this. Often context will only be found in further discovery—interrogatories, depositions, etc., but only if you know what questions to ask.
Complicating things even more is the reality that e-discovery technology has not fully caught up to emoji use. In 2019 Relativity, a leader in e-discovery technology, introduced the Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF) as a unified message format that processes and renders short message data like, Slack, SMS, iMessage, Bloomberg, and Skype with their attachments. In this format you can search for specific emojis, but there are still issues. The RSMF format renders ~1,000 different emojis. At last count Slack alone has 26-million different emoji.
So, what should we do? As legal professionals we must be diligent and ensure that all the data we collect is processed properly so we can take full advantage of the tools available. We also must recognize the constantly evolving world around us so we can fully understand the necessary context and recognize when we need to dig deeper.
Crisis communications is a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. Crisis communications is aimed at raising awareness of a specific type of threat, the magnitude, outcomes, and specific behaviors to adopt to reduce the threat.
– Wikipedia
Over the last 20 years, we’ve learned five great lessons about crisis communications:
Crisis communications is very much different from “regular” public relations. Quite often, the advice we give is counter-intuitive to the traditional practice of PR.
The ubiquity and speed of the internet has changed everything. It’s more than likely your bad news is going to break on social media, not on TV or in tomorrow’s newspaper. Today, rapid, accurate communications are critical to your crisis response.
You can’t learn crisis communications (along with sister sub-specialties crisis management, risk management, risk communications and issues management) from books, blogs or from relatively minor scrapes with small problems. Proficiency in these specialties comes from having had previous careers in corporate communications, television news, traditional journalism, digital platforms and political campaigns, along with constant cross-training with other team members, combined with facing hair-on-fire situations with clients day after day. Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to proficiency rule isn’t terribly far off the mark.
More often than not, we’re not just helping people figure out what to say, but instead helping them figure out what to do. A general rule of thumb: more often than not, you’ll be punished not for what you did, but for what you did after it happened.
There must always be someone in the room willing to speak truth to power. And if it’s truly a crisis situation, you can be sure there will be attorneys present who too-often insist on saying “no comment,” focused narrowly on winning in trial, even though 97% of all cases filed in court never go to trial.
Another thing we’ve noticed, especially over the last few years, is the sheer number of PR firms now claiming to offer crisis communications services. If a PR agency is already selling marketing plans, new product launches, social media management, brand building, employee engagement, investor relations and digital marketing, it’s a simple matter to add “crisis communications” as an agency specialty without having truly experienced professionals on staff to deliver that service.
The business model for most public relations firms is similar to that of law, accounting and architecture firms. The senior people bring the work in and push it down to less-experienced (and lower-paid) junior people. (By the way, that’s not the model you want when you’re facing a make-or-break crisis.) Certainly, there are exceptions to this. The largest PR firms in the country have dedicated crisis comm units dealing with a steady stream of crisis situations, continually honing their expertise. But for most PR firms, real crisis work is usually a very small percentage of their total billable hours. That means there’s little opportunity for the team to build the expertise crisis situations require.
So, if every PR firm claims to offer crisis communications, how do you make sure the firm you’re calling isn’t overstating its abilities? One place to start is with these seven questions:
Can the PR firm share a list of clients for whom it has provided crisis communications or issues management services?
Can you get a list of case studies that describe, in some detail, what the firm did for clients facing a similar situation to yours?
Ask for the firm’s experience with crisis situations involving social media. Today, reputations built over years can be shattered in minutes on Facebook or Twitter.
Ask specifically who you’ll be working with on a day-to-day basis, their experience and examples of similar situations they’ve worked on.
Ask if the firm writes crisis communication plans and what goes into those plans. Even if you don’t need a plan right now – or don’t have time to build one – you’ll learn how deeply the firm is immersed in crisis communications.
Ask what kind of training the firm provides, who provides that training and the depth and breadth of their experience.
And, perhaps, the most important question: What percentage of the firm’s overall work would be considered “crisis” work? If the answer is 10%, 20% – even 50% – think about whether you want communications about your crisis in the hands of a firm that does something else half the time or more.
Finally, remember: you can’t talk your way out of a crisis. Your communications need to be backed by action and commitment to follow through.
When you’re choosing a firm to be your crisis communications partner, make certain to choose one that can walk the talk – a firm that’s earned its reputation for knowing its way around a specialty very few communication firms have mastered.
Research is a vital part of just about any legal profession. Whether you’re still in law school or working at your very own practice, legal research plays an essential role in helping you make informed decisions, craft compelling arguments, and enhance your working knowledge. However, there’s no denying that research can be a daunting prospect for even the most seasoned professionals.
In years past, legal research meant navigating dusty old libraries and sifting through gargantuan law books. Now, however, the advent of technology and research-focused software has revolutionized the research process. More than ever before, it is critical to have a solid grasp of the best practices of results-driven research to make the most of every tool available.
Streamline your next case by following these tips for the most effective legal research.
Identify a clear focus for your research
Just like delivering an argument in court, successful research requires careful planning and preparation ahead of time. When you start researching a new case, be sure to decide on a single goal or objective that you hope to achieve with your research. Doing so will enable you to ensure that your study yields beneficial results.
Don’t get caught up in researching every little nuance and minor detail when you’ve just started researching. Instead, keep your main goal in mind and let it guide you as you begin analyzing and annotating cases, articles, and other materials. It may be helpful to write down a one-sentence mission statement for your research to help you keep your intentions in mind.
After you’ve clarified your objective, begin committing your case to heart. Memorize all the vital information in the case, determine its jurisdiction, and develop a firm understanding of the circumstances surrounding the memo. Understanding all this core information while maintaining a core focus can set you up for success later in the research process.
Organize your research
Once you have thoroughly acquainted yourself with your case and ironed out your goals, take steps to ensure your research process is orderly and organized.
Logging your research is among the most critical things you can do to optimize your studies. By keeping track of the sources you find and your methodology for referencing them, it will be easy for you to find the sources you need when you start writing and explain your research strategy.
You have multiple options available for logging your work. While you can manually write down your thoughts on paper, you can also take advantage of a CRM or document management system to keep track of your work in one place, digitally. Regardless of the method you use, the best research logging practices typically include recording the date, keywords, process, and required follow-ups for each source you find.
Use the right search terms
If you plan to use an online database or search engines in your research, draw on the details and goals you identified in your initial analysis to develop a handful of precise search terms and key phrases. For example, let’s say you have questions about Texas copyright law. In that case, your search query might consist of a few keywords like “copyright infringement” and “Texas law.” Using specific terms in your searches will make it easier to discover the most relevant results.
Additionally, you can narrow down your queries by using Boolean search terms. For example, if your search includes the keywords “copyright infringement” and “Texas law,” then search engines will return any results that feature either“copyright infringement” or“Texas law.” However, if you only want sources that include both keywords, then use a Boolean like AND between them to tell the search engine to return results that contain the specified keywords. Using Booleans in this way can help you quickly find the sources you’re looking for without having to wade through potentially unnecessary results.
Draw from diverse sources
When you’re conducting legal research, it’s a good rule of thumb to try and draw from many different kinds of sources. Consider referencing a blend of primary sources, such as the original case and witness testimonies, as well as secondary sources like commentaries, dictionaries, and journals as you conduct your study. In the process, you’ll assemble more comprehensive information supported by a varied assortment of authorities.
Even cases that lack the outcome you desire can provide helpful insights for your purposes. For example, a case that ended in a guilty verdict can still offer valuable examples and precedents to consider as you’re building a defense closing argument.
Additionally, finding one relevant source can naturally lead you toward many others. Let’s say you find one law review that’s filled with helpful information. The chances are that this article will provide a treasure trove of references to other similarly valuable resources. Legal databases can make this process even more accessible, as many platforms have built-in functionality that can direct users to related articles, headnotes, and other sources.
It may be tempting to limit yourself to only the most recent sources for your research. However, that should not always be your tactic. Even decades-old cases can contain crucial details or set important precedents that affect your current project – provided that they haven’t been overruled or the law hasn’t changed in the meantime, of course.
Pace yourself where you can
One unfortunate reality that every lawyer must face in their career is that legal research rarely leads to the correct answer on the first try. Research can be inherently time-consuming, and it can be easy to get sucked into an endless loop of churning through databases searching for the perfect statute, article, or case.
However, the best researchers know when to stop. As you research, remember to take a step back every so often to evaluate your progress. If you find yourself encountering the same sources time and again, or if you’ve made all the headway you can realistically accomplish given your project’s timeframe, then it may be time to take a break or move onto writing.
Takeaway
There’s no denying that legal research can be an overwhelming process. However, taking steps like these to boost your efficiency and manage your time can empower you to overcome even the most challenging research-related tasks.
As the “new normal” of pandemic virtual legal proceedings appears to be waning, a question arises as to which, if any, practices initially born out of necessity, but no longer so, should continue to be utilized. One such device previously employed sparingly, but which became de rigueur during COVID, is the virtual deposition. In some but not all circumstances, virtual depositions can remain an effective tool for litigators.
The critical considerations in determining whether to continue using this mechanism will hinge on the purpose of the deposition and the stature of the particular witness. For example, if a deposition is being conducted for basic discovery purposes, i.e., understanding the broad strokes of a dispute, or determining generally what the opposing side knows or has, it might make sense to conduct it virtually. What may be obtained from such witnesses over video-link likely would not be enhanced by conducting the depositions in person. Moreover, the technical hiccups sometimes incidental to a video deposition, such as audio deficiencies and temporarily frozen screens, likely would not diminish the value of such “low-stakes” testimony.
But, if the purpose is to obtain testimony that will be presented to a trier of fact, there is no substitute for a live deposition. Like cross-examining an opponent’s witness during a trial, being in the same room to control that witness without the delay of a video feed or the interference of opposing counsel who may be present with the witness while you are not, makes a world of difference. Due to the unavailability of witnesses, cases may be won and lost during depositions. Consequently, it is important to treat these depositions as if you are eliciting trial testimony. Doing so live will give you the best chance at a successful examination.
A second important consideration is the stature of the witness. A virtual deposition would certainly be appropriate for a low ranking company employee with no ability to bind an organization, or a document custodian whose elicited testimony would likely be mechanical in nature. However, the deposition of a critical fact witness, high-ranking company official, or corporate designee most definitely should be conducted live, if possible. There simply is no substitute for looking a witness in the eyes during questioning to gauge their credibility, or obtaining a face-to-face assessment of their composure and demeanor. That type of evaluation is simply not possible over a video-link, particularly given the possibility of technical mishaps.
These considerations should not be viewed in a vacuum, of course. For more and more clients, a primary concern is legal cost containment. For those attorneys with national practices, being able to conduct the video deposition of a witness who resides on the other side of the country surely will provide significant cost savings for such a client. Similarly, a busy litigator’s life will be made easier by having the option of deposing a witness virtually, rather than committing to otherwise avoidable travel time.
Like most legal conundrums, the answer to this question is not clear-cut. But, having options like those outlined above to address the different types of witnesses and circumstances will increase the likelihood of eliciting valuable testimony.
Now we are in no way confusing the cyber-criminal enterprise DarkSide with the plucky light-side rebels from Star Wars, but it appears the United States Department of Justice seized 63.7 bitcoins, worth $2.3 million, paid to cyber-criminal enterprise DarkSide following the May 7 ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline. The attack resulted in a highly publicized, brief shutdown of the company’s pipeline infrastructure, which transports approximately 45% of the oil consumed on the U.S. East Coast, and which took days to resolve and create widespread gasoline shortages in some parts of the country. The seizure was coordinated through the DOJ’s recently created Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force, which was created to address increasing ransomware and digital extortion attacks again U.S. businesses.
The story is big news because ransoms are rarely recovered. Typically, the victim of a ransomware attack transfers the ransom to hackers, who then transfer the funds to hundreds of other wallets and the funds are essentially gone forever. Even if the payments can be tracked to accounts, what is even more rare is the ability to unlock those accounts. So the question on everyone’s mind is how did the DOJ unlock the account holding the ransom?
According to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Colonial Pipeline provided investigators with the bitcoin address of the hackers it paid on May 8. The hackers then moved the funds through at least six more addresses by the next day. On May 13, DarkSide told affiliates that its servers and other infrastructure had been seized, but did not provide any details. On May 27, the FBI seized 63.7 bitcoins traced to the Colonial ransom, when it landed at a final address. Impressive.
So how did the FBI get the private encryption key? The FBI disclosed in its application for a warrant that it had the private encryption key for that bitcoin address. The FBI has not, however, disclosed how it obtained the encryption key. There are a few possibilities. First, it is possible someone close to the attack tipped off the FBI. Second, the attackers may have been careless. The FBI noted that they had been investigating DarkSide since last year. It is possible the FBI got access to communications that may have provided clues to the private key or access to a private server holding information about the private key. Third, the FBI may have received assistance from the cryptocurrency exchange where the bitcoin had been moving from account to account. Fourth, the FBI could have hacked the key on its own. The most likely scenario is that the attackers were careless, and the FBI was able to capitalize on their carelessness to uncover the private encryption key.
The good news for the crypto community is that law enforcement was able to track down and recover much of the bitcoin. Contrary to the perception that cryptocurrency is untraceable, it appears the public blockchain made it easier in this case to track and recover the ransom than it would have been if the ransom was paid in fiat. We may never know how the FBI unlocked the private encryption key in this case, but if the DOJ is successful in recovering future ransom payments, it may shed some additional light on this case and others.
Data privacy litigators have their eye on the Supreme Court going into the end of the month as we wait for the Court’s opinion in Ramirez v. TransUnion. And when the decision is issued, CPW will be there in real time to fill you in. In the meantime, below is a refresher of the facts and issues raised in Ramirez, and why it is a must-watch decision for the end of the Supreme Court’s current term.
As readers of CPW already know, Article III limits federal court jurisdiction to actual “cases or controversies.” U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2. The Supreme Court has held that standing “is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.” This includes the following three elements, which constitute the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing”:
First, the plaintiff must have suffered an “injury in fact”—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized … and (b) actual or imminent not conjectural or hypothetical … Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of … Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.
As relevant for Ramirez, in 2016, the Supreme Court decided Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540. In Spokeo, the Court affirmed that a plaintiff cannot “allege a bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete harm, and satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III.” (emphasis added). The Supreme Court’s analysis emphasized that “[a] ‘concrete’ injury must be ‘de facto’; that is, it must actually exist.” Id. (emphasis in original).
Which brings us to Ramirez. The plaintiff alleged that he had difficulty obtaining credit, was embarrassed in front of family members, and canceled a vacation after a car dealer received a credit report indicating that his name matched a name on a government “terrorist list” of persons with whom U.S. businesses may not transact. In response, Ramirez filed a class action alleging three violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), two concerning the mode of providing consumers with a copy of their own credit file and one concerning the procedural requirements for furnishing an accurate credit report.
Ramirez sought to represent a class of thousands of individuals, the vast majority of whom (more than 75%) never had a credit report disseminated to any third party, let alone suffered a denial of credit or other injury anything like what he experienced. The trial court nonetheless let the class proceed on the theory that the absent class members all suffered an Article III injury and that the vast differences between the experiences of the named plaintiff and the class he purported to represent were immaterial. Ramirez ultimately obtained a multi-million dollar jury verdict against the credit reporting agency TransUnion for falsely flagging him and more than 8,100 other people as terrorists.
The Supreme Court granted cert for the question: “Whether either Article III or Rule 23 permits a damages class action where the vast majority of the class suffered no actual injury, let alone an injury anything like what the class representative suffered.” (emphasis added). TransUnion argued in its opening brief that Ramirez’s class definition includes individuals who suffered no injury because they never had a credit report disseminated to a third party with incorrect or misleading information. TransUnion further asserted that simply alleging an FCRA violation and claiming statutory damages does not itself confer Article III standing.
At oral argument earlier this year, several members of the Court expressed skepticism about Ramirez’s standing argument if carried to its logical conclusion. [For Kristin Bryan’s real time coverage of that oral argument, check it out here]. However, at this point it is an open-ended question as to whether the Court will rule in a way that curtails the availability of Article III standing in data privacy litigations going forward. Suffice to say, depending on how the Court rules, the case could have a major impact on litigations brought under various federal and state data privacy statutes (not only the FCRA but also the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, among others) and for data event litigations where Article III standing is a frequently litigated issue.
In honor of Juneteenth, we want to recognize a few African American attorneys who helped shape the legal space. Since the founding of our nation more than 240 years ago, African Americans have experienced, bore witness to, suffered, and ultimately confronted the systemic racial discrimination present in virtually all aspects of everyday life. Although one would hope the legal profession, based on fundamental ideas of equality and due process, would be mostly immune from such a tarnished reputation, reality failed to meet the rhetorical standard set by the ideals of the law.
Here are eight African American attorneys who pioneered the way for generations of legal scholars by challenging the preconceived bias and bigotry of an entire nation:
Macon Bolling Allen
Charlotte E. Ray
James Weldon Johnson
Charles H. Houston
Thurgood Marshall
Jane Bolin
Constance Baker Motley
Fred Gray
1. Macon Bolling Allen (1816-1894)
Considered to be both the first African American attorney to practice law in the United States and to hold a judicial position, Macon Bolling Allen broke numerous barriers. He passed the Maine bar exam in 1844, but racial prejudice in Boston kept him from making a living as a lawyer, so instead, he embraced a rigorous qualifying exam and became Justice of the Peace of Middlesex County, Massachusetts in 1848. In doing so, Allen became the first African American in the United States to hold a judicial position, despite not being considered a U.S. citizen under the Constitution at the time.
2. Charlotte E. Ray (1850-1911)
Charlotte E. Ray was the first black female lawyer in the United States. She studied at the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, D.C., and went on to teach and study law at Howard University. Upon admission to the District of Columbia bar in 1872, Ray became not only the first woman admitted to practice in the District of Columbia but also the first black woman licensed to practice law in the United States.
Unfortunately, Charlotte Ray’s career was cut short due to racial prejudice. She opened a law office in the nation’s capital but was unable to obtain enough clients to sustain her practice. She ultimately returned to New York City to teach in the public school system.
3. James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
Best known for his role in the creation of the Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson was not just an attorney; he was also an early civil rights activist and a leader of the NAACP. After founding a newspaper called The Daily American, Johnson became the first African American attorney to pass the Bar in the state of Florida. He was also a noted author; his published works include The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) and God’s Trombones (1927).
4. Charles H. Houston (1895-1950)
Charles H. Houston served as the Harvard Law Review’s first African-American editor, the vice dean of Howard University’s law school, and head of the NAACP’s legal fight against “separate but equal” schools, culminating to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
During his time at the NAACP, Houston accumulated legal precedents against the “separate but equal” doctrine, specifically in cases related to education for African Americans. Arguably his most significant victory came in 1938 when the Supreme Court ruled in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada that it was unconstitutional to give African-American students funds to attend an out-of-state law school instead of offering them admission to the only law school in the state. He was widely known as the mentor of Thurgood Marshall.
5. Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)
Thurgood Marshall was the first African American justice of the Supreme Court, serving from 1967-1991. After studying law at Howard University, Marshall went on to serve as counsel to the NAACP. In 1954, he won the seminal case of Brown v. Board of Education,which signaled the end of racial segregation in American public schools.
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Marshall to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Initially, the makeup of the court allowed Marshall to be an influential liberal voice on landmark cases including Roe v. Wade and Furman v. Georgia. However, as Republican presidents appointed eight consecutive conservative justices, the court took on a decidedly different tone, and Marshall’s later tenure was defined more by his dissents defending the liberal principles that had since been overturned.
6. Jane Bolin (1908-2007)
The first African American female judge in the United States, Jane Bolin earned her J.D. degree at the Yale Law School in 1931, where she was also the first African American woman to graduate.
After passing the New York bar exam, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed Bolin to serve as Judge of the Domestic Relations Court in 1939. During her 40 years on the bench, she achieved two significant civil rights reforms: she oversaw the assignment of probation officers in the court system without regard for race or religion, and she also championed a provision that publicly funded yet privately owned child-care agencies must accept children without regard to racial or ethnic background.
7. Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005)
Constance Motley was the first African American woman to be appointed as a federal judge. She was the first African American woman to serve as a member of the New York State Senate. Additionally, Motley was the first woman to serve as Manhattan borough president.
Motley was keenly involved in the civil rights movement, once visiting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in jail. She also sang freedom songs in churches that had been bombed and spent a night under armed guard with civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was later murdered.
Her legal contributions cannot be overlooked, as Judge Motley was a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom. Her contributions to the battle to extend civil rights for the disenfranchised is an invaluable chapter of American jurisprudence.
8. Fred Gray (1930-)
During the Montgomery bus boycott, Fred Gray played a vital role in the successful desegregation of Montgomery buses, both as legal counsel and as a strategist. When Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks were criminally charged for refusing to give up their seats to white passengers, Gray defended the women in court. He also challenged the constitutionality of Alabama laws mandating segregation on buses in Browder v. Gayle, which was affirmed in 1956 by the United States Supreme Court.
In 1970, Gray went to the Alabama State Legislature to serve as an elected representative from Tuskegee. His election made him one of the first two African American public officials to serve in the legislature since the Reconstruction era. President Jimmy Carter nominated Gray to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in 1979, but Gray was forced to withdraw his name from consideration in light of massive opposition from conservative political foes.
Conclusion
For all its specifications about the provision of equality, the American legal system must be examined for the various instances in which it has failed to follow through on those promises to its African American citizens. Since colonial times, African Americans have comprised the backbone of a country that was founded on principles of liberty from which they were expressly excluded for far too long.
This Juneteenth, we acknowledge a fraction of the African American attorneys whose trailblazing careers shaped the American legal system, gearing it towards bridging the gap between its inequitable promises of liberty and their actual application to all Americans, regardless of the color of their skin. These men and women, in their perseverance and commitment to upholding the law, have challenged biases, discrimination, and imbalance of opportunity to secure the American promises of liberty and justice–for all.
With so much of the workforce going remote this past year, there has been a huge shift in the way many people view pet ownership. In fact, the national pet adoption rate jumped more than 30% at the beginning of the pandemic, and animal rescue organizations reported an overall increase in adoptions of 30 – 50% in 2020. Not only has the spread of remote work helped match pets to homes, but we know that animals have been shown to reduce stress and provide much needed comfort and social support to many workers during the pandemic.
The shift to work-from-home has also opened our doors to our colleagues’ pets, whether meeting them on Zoom or hearing them interrupt conference calls. This has made it seem more normal to have your pet – or your colleagues’ pets – around during the work day.
With the potential for going back to the office seemingly closer, some offices are considering whether to go pet-friendly. Here are a few steps to consider before your office makes this decision:
Consider Your Workforce and your Workplace
Not every office will be the right place for pets, but it could be a perk your employees really appreciate (and could make it easier for employees to come back into the office). Consider if the office space allows for pets to stay in their own areas, out of the way of those who do not feel comfortable with animals around. Think about how easy your employees can take pets outside, or remove them from distracting other employees. Finally, take account of employee pet allergies, and determine what limitations would need to be in place.
Require Authorization
There should be a process for employees to receive authorization to bring their pet to work, and provide necessary information regarding their pet’s health and vaccine history. Any employee bringing a pet to work must agree to observe certain requirements or risk losing their pet-privileges.
Establish Guidelines
Employers need to determine what types of pets can come to work (e.g., dogs, cats, fish, etc.), and designate certain areas pet-friendly, and certain areas off-limits for animals. Strict cleaning guidelines should be in place to ensure the workplace remains clean and safe for all.
There are also legal concerns when addressing pets at work. Beyond a full pet-friendly policy, employers must remember that pets may need to be allowed as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires service animals be allowed in all areas of public access, and employers are required to engage in the interactive process with employees if a pet may be an appropriate accommodation for a disability. The ADA generally requires service animals be allowed in an employer setting, if doing so will not create an undue hardship for the business. This is not the case for emotional support animals, however, which are not necessarily trained for a specific service, but simply to provide comfort and companionship. Either way, when faced with the question, employers should consider whether a pet would be an appropriate accommodation that enables an employee to perform the essential functions of his or her job.
