Speaker 1: This is Bloombird Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: A Louisiana federal judge has made it official Title forty two.
Speaker 1: The policy allowing asylum seekers to be turned away at
Speaker 1: the border will remain in place until the legal actions
Speaker 1: play out, and that's likely to drag well into next year.
Speaker 1: The Mayor of Yuma, Arizona, Douglas Nichols, says the judge
Speaker 1: made the right decision because the federal government is not
Speaker 1: ready to handle a surge at the border. Title forty
Speaker 1: two doesn't need to go away. Um, we just need
Speaker 1: to be prepared for it. And I asked nine months
Speaker 1: ago from d HS, hey, what are we doing? What's
Speaker 1: the plan because we all know what's going away. Joining
Speaker 1: me is Leon Fresco, a partner at Hollanden Night Lenn
Speaker 1: explain why the judge said the Biden administration can't resind
Speaker 1: Title forty two. Well, the ud had a few babies
Speaker 1: for saying that the Title forty two recision could not
Speaker 1: be put in place, and basically the first and the
Speaker 1: main rationals that the judge said that the CDC needed
Speaker 1: to use the a p A Notice and comment process
Speaker 1: in order to revoke Title forty two, which is interesting
Speaker 1: because you didn't need to actually use the notice and
Speaker 1: common process to implement Title forty two. So it's a
Speaker 1: strange sort of logic that would say you would need
Speaker 1: to actually use notice and comments to resent Title forty two,
Speaker 1: But that's one sort of logic. And then secondly, the
Speaker 1: judge said that the CDCNS rationale is overbroad in that
Speaker 1: it would apply to every rule issued under Title forty two,
Speaker 1: regardless of the circumstances, and that that shouldn't be happening
Speaker 1: and it needed to be a much more carefully narrowly
Speaker 1: tailored rule in the way it is resent the Title
Speaker 1: forty two so that it would keep certain threats that
Speaker 1: are based on COVID nineteens from coming into the United States.
Speaker 1: And then it also says that an agency to responds
Speaker 1: to a dangerous and largely unknown disease may justify emergency actions.
Speaker 1: The dispense with the rulemaking process, but they haven't explained
Speaker 1: how now the princess circumstances prevented from now that things
Speaker 1: are calmer, using the required dotors and comment process to
Speaker 1: resent it rules. So basically it's mostly about notice and
Speaker 1: comments here, that is the main reason why the decision
Speaker 1: was to keep tital forty to what he placed. The
Speaker 1: White House says it's going to comply with the court's order,
Speaker 1: but it's going to appeal the decision. Does this indicate
Speaker 1: a prolonged legal battle that will most likely end up
Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court? Well, yes. And what's very interesting
Speaker 1: about what's occurred, sort of the unreported nugget for whatever
Speaker 1: reason out of all of this is that even though
Speaker 1: the Biden administration has appealed, they appear not to have
Speaker 1: asked for us say, of the District Court's ruling. And
Speaker 1: for what that means is they're not taking the fast
Speaker 1: track on a field, they're taking the slow track on appeal,
Speaker 1: which means that theoretically speaking, Title forty two could be
Speaker 1: in place until well into three, maybe the middle of
Speaker 1: or at least at the bare minimum, until a notice
Speaker 1: and comments rulemaking can take place, or perhaps the COVID
Speaker 1: National Emergency is rescinded as a whole, to which point,
Speaker 1: then if the entire COVID National Emergency is resented, perhaps
Speaker 1: it's easier to then move forward. But the Biden administration
Speaker 1: hasn't said that they are committed to removing the COVID
Speaker 1: National Emergency Declaration any time in the foreseeable future. Well,
Speaker 1: this brings me to a question I believe I've asked
Speaker 1: you before. Is the Biden administration secretly happy or relieved
Speaker 1: that this judge save Title forty two. Well, the only
Speaker 1: implications that one can draw from the fact that they're
Speaker 1: not moving for a stay of the District judge disorder
Speaker 1: is that they want Title forty two to remain in plight.
Speaker 1: And I'm surprised they're not getting more pushback from the
Speaker 1: immigration right side because the community on this side, because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, if you were really
Speaker 1: intent on eliminating Title forty two as a policy, you'd
Speaker 1: be pushing for a stay of this. But apparently there's
Speaker 1: just no desire to to boot for a stay, which
Speaker 1: means you'd go through the normal Fifth Circuit process, which
Speaker 1: could take six months to a year, and then the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court process, which could take another six months to
Speaker 1: a year. And so maybe if you expedite in those cases,
Speaker 1: and you ask for expedited briefing at the court, granted it,
Speaker 1: you could get this into early. But we are talking
Speaker 1: now about three time frame for the decision of side
Speaker 1: of forty two when it gets to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: when not if is there any indication how the justices
Speaker 1: would rule based on prior rulings. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be very interesting whether the judges think at
Speaker 1: the end of the day that this c d C
Speaker 1: declaration as to who can come across the border is
Speaker 1: reviewable by the courts. And I don't think in the
Speaker 1: end they will find that it's reviewable. But I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be a long time until they get there.
Speaker 1: And the question is will this be mooted out by
Speaker 1: the time of decision is going to happen on side
Speaker 1: of forty two? And I think that's what we don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know what the world is going to look
Speaker 1: like by the time the Supreme Court would get to
Speaker 1: a decision, and could this end up becoming moose. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that the Supreme Court is going to
Speaker 1: want to have a decision in place saying that it
Speaker 1: can overrule the Director of the CDC with regards to
Speaker 1: declarations on when do these require frictions on the border
Speaker 1: and when they don't. But you know, I've been surprised
Speaker 1: before Leon there are three things the Biden administration is
Speaker 1: doing or saying that seemed to conflict with each other. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, on Tuesday, the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro
Speaker 1: Majorchis said will be increasing the number of criminal prosecutions
Speaker 1: to meet the challenge because the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is there are more cases that warn't criminal prosecution than
Speaker 1: cases that are being brought. Yet, an ICE memo last
Speaker 1: month encouraged its prosecutors to use their discretion to focus
Speaker 1: on deporting migrants who pose a public safety or national
Speaker 1: security threat while not initiating, we're dismissing cases against those
Speaker 1: who are not. And third, a new rule breaks away
Speaker 1: from the framework governing the credible fear screening process with
Speaker 1: a lower bar for asylum seekers to eire. Those things
Speaker 1: seem to contradict his statement. What actually is happening? What
Speaker 1: are they doing? So here's the basic issue, and I'll
Speaker 1: take you through the sets to explain what is meant
Speaker 1: by all of it. Right now, if a person arrives
Speaker 1: at the border and they are a single adults and
Speaker 1: that's still to this day people talk about all these
Speaker 1: things Cubans, Ukrainians, the families, minors, but still to this
Speaker 1: day something continues to hold true that has held true
Speaker 1: for many, many years, which is that the majority of
Speaker 1: people who try to come across the suther border remains
Speaker 1: that continues to remain single adults from Mexico. So the
Speaker 1: question is, when single adults from Mexico try to cross
Speaker 1: the southern border into the United States, what Secretary Majorkis
Speaker 1: is saying is that right now they're being excluded under
Speaker 1: Title forty two for the most part and sent back
Speaker 1: to Mexico. So they're not being allowed to make their claim.
Speaker 1: But what's happening is you do that, but people continue
Speaker 1: to try crossing a second time, a third time before siding,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so that cycle is going to continue
Speaker 1: unless you actually start to prosecute of individuals. But say,
Speaker 1: if you're going to cross the border multiple time, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be jail time associated with this, which serves two purposes.
Speaker 1: One can imagine. The first purpose is well, if a
Speaker 1: person is in jail, then they can't continue crossing of
Speaker 1: their bodies in the jail. That's number one obviously, But second, conceivably,
Speaker 1: it also serves as the surrence for other people who
Speaker 1: would do this if they find out that people who
Speaker 1: have tried this recently are now in jail for six
Speaker 1: months or a year or a year and a half
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean. Technically, the penalty for illegal re
Speaker 1: entry a second time can be up to ten years
Speaker 1: in prison. So this is serious prison time you could
Speaker 1: actually spend. I don't know that judge is ever going
Speaker 1: to get some weeks been years in prison, but theoretically
Speaker 1: that's the possible presence. And so if you do that,
Speaker 1: people were getting ten years at prison, for instance, for
Speaker 1: coming over a second or a third time, then that
Speaker 1: would certainly serve this ard for people from doing that.
Speaker 1: That is a different issue than what's done as prosecutorial
Speaker 1: discretion in the removal context, which is what do you
Speaker 1: do with people already year who've been here with some
Speaker 1: amount of time already invested in the United States. But
Speaker 1: the question is what do you consider that a year,
Speaker 1: two years, three years, four years, five years, and year.
Speaker 1: Is where the Secretary is saying to the ice attorneys
Speaker 1: used prosecutorial discretion to only remove those people who've been
Speaker 1: now in the United States for a while if they
Speaker 1: are people with criminal issues or some other public faithy
Speaker 1: or dangerousness or something like that, or some violation of
Speaker 1: the inseegrity of the immigration system. That that's what those
Speaker 1: memos talk about, so that even though they're called prosecutorial discretion,
Speaker 1: what they mean is who gets tacked to be put
Speaker 1: into deportation proceedings as opposed to this first issue, as
Speaker 1: is who's getting picked to actually be thrown in jail
Speaker 1: for breaking criminal laws regarding crossing the border illegally. So
Speaker 1: that's the person of the second thing. And then the
Speaker 1: third thing has to do with if you're not just
Speaker 1: a border cross or who's trying to cross the border,
Speaker 1: but you're actually someone who's trying to seek asylum and
Speaker 1: it's actually credibly coming forward with some asylum claims that
Speaker 1: could be reasonably understood in the law that's cognizable, then
Speaker 1: what the administration is trying to do is to streamline
Speaker 1: that process to get as many narritorious cases out of
Speaker 1: the pool as possible so that the immigration courts can
Speaker 1: focus on the questionable cases and try to get those
Speaker 1: that judicated much more quickly, because now there's a four
Speaker 1: or five year backlog on those cases, and the people
Speaker 1: who are ultimately going to lose are either in America
Speaker 1: for four or five years before they lose, which is
Speaker 1: not ideal, or they never even show up the court
Speaker 1: and then we never find out if they win or lose.
Speaker 1: But that's that's also how the system is supposed to work.
Speaker 1: So the idea is, if you could identify very quickly
Speaker 1: up front, hey, this person is, for instance, someone fleeing
Speaker 1: from the Ukraine who has you know, basically already been
Speaker 1: injured by Russian soldiers and have been told we're gonna
Speaker 1: kill you if you come back, etcetera. That might be
Speaker 1: someone who's case is so simple that you can just
Speaker 1: give them asylum. That up very quickly, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to put that person in the five year two,
Speaker 1: which makes the line shorter for these more difficult cases.
Speaker 1: So that's the three questions you're talking about, how they
Speaker 1: work in tandem. So then in fact the government is
Speaker 1: lowering the standard though to significant possibility in the credible
Speaker 1: fear process, well that has always been the standard needing.
Speaker 1: What happens is if you show up to the border
Speaker 1: and you don't have a viva, you don't have any
Speaker 1: predisitions to be here, You're just showing up on your own,
Speaker 1: and the government then said why are you here, and
Speaker 1: you say I'm here because I'm afraid of going back
Speaker 1: to my country. I'm going to be persecuted. Then the
Speaker 1: government does the three to the process. The first step
Speaker 1: of the process is they say, well, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna put you in removal proceedings. So that's that's
Speaker 1: called expedited removal, meaning the government says you don't get
Speaker 1: to be here, you're out. But then there's a defense
Speaker 1: sex pedit a removal, which is, hey, don't do this
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be persecuted. So then how do you
Speaker 1: put that defense forward. You have to make your claim
Speaker 1: and you have to prove that of a credible fear
Speaker 1: of persecution. And so the question then is, well, what
Speaker 1: is the standard for determining whether one has a credible fear?
Speaker 1: And that standard is this significant possibility of removal. The
Speaker 1: Trump administration had tried significant possibility of persecution in your
Speaker 1: own country on the basis of one of the protected grounds,
Speaker 1: which is ray religion, national origin, social group, or political opinion.
Speaker 1: And so the Trump administration tried to increase that. But
Speaker 1: really this idea that that standard has been increased or
Speaker 1: decrease isn't true. It's always been this significant possibility standard,
Speaker 1: because that's what the standard was, is the regulation. But
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration I tried to do is to
Speaker 1: basically keep issuing memos repeatedly think, hey, this significant possibility
Speaker 1: standard doesn't mean this, it means this, and basically tried
Speaker 1: by sort of implo occasion to raise the standard, which
Speaker 1: did work in the sense that many more cases were
Speaker 1: denied at that front stage. But the point is, if
Speaker 1: at the front stage you get a credible fear determination,
Speaker 1: then what that means is you get a hearing that's
Speaker 1: supposed to decide whether you get to say or not.
Speaker 1: And that is a difference sagre ull do you have
Speaker 1: a well founded fear of persecution in the future in
Speaker 1: your own country on the basis of a protective ground?
Speaker 1: And so what the Biden administration is changing here is
Speaker 1: they're saying, you don't start an immigration court anymore. You
Speaker 1: start with a NAAD for serial interview, and if your
Speaker 1: case is territorious enough to win in this non adversarial interview,
Speaker 1: that we're gonna take you out of the backlog of
Speaker 1: the immigration court and you're just gonna win up front.
Speaker 1: Whereas if your case isn't strong enough to win up front,
Speaker 1: then you will go like normal to the immigration court.
Speaker 1: So that's what's changing in the current viire. Is it
Speaker 1: the case that almost all migrants who come to this
Speaker 1: country claim credible fears? Something involved ninety percent of people
Speaker 1: when they get apprehended. I think that they have a
Speaker 1: credible fear. But is it all? It's not all nine percent?
Speaker 1: Rather than rather than saying that the number is end
Speaker 1: by the way, by I of non Mexican crossers, some
Speaker 1: decent number of Mexican crossers don't end up asserting a
Speaker 1: credible fear. I haven't seen the sets on this most
Speaker 1: recent crops of Mexican crossers. But the people not from Mexico,
Speaker 1: it is over that actually claims that they are going
Speaker 1: to be persecuted in their home country because what other
Speaker 1: reasons can they give that would allow them to stay. No,
Speaker 1: there are no other reasons. Unless you come with a visa,
Speaker 1: you're going to be deported unless you complain you have
Speaker 1: a credible fear of being persecuted in your whole country.
Speaker 1: Sexis file the motion on one day asking a federal
Speaker 1: court to stop the Biden administration from implementing this latest
Speaker 1: rule at the border. So what do they want to happen.
Speaker 1: So the Biden administration is implementing this rule by the
Speaker 1: end of the month. That would then change the adjudication
Speaker 1: from an immigration court judge to an immigration asylum officer,
Speaker 1: and they could move it from an adversarial to a
Speaker 1: non adversarial process. And basically the State of Texas saying
Speaker 1: don't do that because that's going to lead to many
Speaker 1: more asylum cases getting granted, and that's gonna put a
Speaker 1: strain on the State of Texas. And the toughest part
Speaker 1: about the State of Texas and plaim is well, why
Speaker 1: is that a problem? And more asylum cases get granted
Speaker 1: as long as they actually meet the standard of asylum.
Speaker 1: I think they're current why that these asylum officers won't
Speaker 1: actually do a good job of setting and a island playing.
Speaker 1: But that seeks very strained because these asylum officers already
Speaker 1: do this every day. The only difference is their current
Speaker 1: role is to adjudicate asylum playing for people who entered legally.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Leon, that's Leon Fresco of Holland and Knight.
Speaker 1: Cryptocurrencies have been suffering through some challenging times, but one
Speaker 1: area is continuing to surge. Cryptocurrency litigation is soaring up
Speaker 1: more than fifty since the start of Joining me is
Speaker 1: Sam Skolnick of Bloomberg Law who has written about this
Speaker 1: start by telling us about the number of lawsuits over
Speaker 1: crypto Yeah. So, currently there are roughly four hundred actions,
Speaker 1: be they private lawsuits government suits, that are are current
Speaker 1: in this space. Um that number has grown consistently over
Speaker 1: the years, according to at least one guy at a
Speaker 1: firm called Morrison and Cohen and size firm in New
Speaker 1: York that keeps track of these lawsuits regarding crypto companies,
Speaker 1: about half of the four hundred, though he said that
Speaker 1: there's been a real explosion in one portion of this
Speaker 1: that has to do with class action lawsuits, other private litigation.
Speaker 1: About half of that four hundred numbers roughly two hundred.
Speaker 1: That number has grown exponentially over just the last few years,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, June, just a quick search of this litigation,
Speaker 1: of this private litigation shows some pretty big names attached
Speaker 1: to some of these suits, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: follow legal news specifically to know some of these names.
Speaker 1: For example, in January, there was a class action I
Speaker 1: think it's still awaiting certification, but a putative class action
Speaker 1: against Kim Kardashian, the celebutante, as well as former boxing
Speaker 1: champ of Floyd Mayweather Jr. And others. And what that
Speaker 1: suit alleged is that the defendants had made misleading statements
Speaker 1: in Twitter and other social media posts. Two investors of
Speaker 1: one specific cryptocurrency token called Ethereum Max. And then there
Speaker 1: have been lots of other big companies including I'm not
Speaker 1: sure from pronouncing this right, but the fancy French scarf
Speaker 1: and bag maker air Mess International. They also have been
Speaker 1: involved in litigation of a different type, where a patent
Speaker 1: trademark infringement litigation. Also, I believe in January they sued
Speaker 1: a company called Mason Rothschild in the Federal court in
Speaker 1: Manhattan basically claiming that that this other company had sold
Speaker 1: a non fungible token these are non replicable digital collectible items,
Speaker 1: and that they were doing so illegal that they were
Speaker 1: infringing one trademark from this French fashion house. The lawsuits
Speaker 1: really run the gamut. Is the litigation growing because of cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: you know, people investing in it because it's a confusing area,
Speaker 1: or because it's a tomor truous time for crypto or
Speaker 1: all three, you know, it really is all the above.
Speaker 1: June and at one common refrain that I heard to
Speaker 1: this question was much of this stems from new regulation,
Speaker 1: and for example, the SEC just within the last few
Speaker 1: months announced new regulations to try to protect crypto investors.
Speaker 1: That's going to be happening more and more as both
Speaker 1: the SEC and the CFTC Commodity Futures Trading Commission sort
Speaker 1: of squabble as to which agency has primacy over this
Speaker 1: space or whether they should share in both set up
Speaker 1: different regulatory structures and schemes. But what happens is once
Speaker 1: these new regulations come into play, then all sorts of
Speaker 1: different types of legal issues lawsuits can stem off of them.
Speaker 1: For example, companies themselves can be targeted by these agencies.
Speaker 1: So that's one formably glad, but then often there are
Speaker 1: these private suits where the parties are flipped and you
Speaker 1: have sort of startup crypto companies that are taking issue
Speaker 1: with the regulations and saying we're being unfairly targeted um,
Speaker 1: and our investors are doing just fine, and we need
Speaker 1: to have more free reign as to how we go
Speaker 1: about our business. UM. So that also comprises some of
Speaker 1: these suits and then you have private matters where one
Speaker 1: business is suing another over alleged crypto related types of violations,
Speaker 1: whether it has to do payments or using crypto coins
Speaker 1: or other related issues. The rules for crypto are they
Speaker 1: fairly clear? Are they fuzzy? They're They're fuzzy. And that's
Speaker 1: why lawyers, also especially in the regulatory and litigation portions
Speaker 1: of their law firms, are especially looking forward frankly to
Speaker 1: the next several years when a lot of these new
Speaker 1: regulations are going to be hashed out, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these firms, including some of the biggest in the
Speaker 1: country by gross revenue, on behalf of their clients, they're
Speaker 1: going to be doing things like writing letters to agencies,
Speaker 1: attending here public hearings, and really inserting themselves in the
Speaker 1: process to try to make these regulations basically as client friendly,
Speaker 1: meaning as company incorporation friendly as they can get them.
Speaker 1: I will say at the same time June, one interesting
Speaker 1: thing is that I had several attorneys who are in
Speaker 1: this space, some at prompting by me, but others sort
Speaker 1: of unbidden brought up the notion that what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do with a lot of these companies that because
Speaker 1: it's kind of like this wild West atmosphere out there,
Speaker 1: and because it's relatively unregulated space is there pushing these
Speaker 1: companies to try to be the good guys. I mean
Speaker 1: that That was an exact quote from one of these
Speaker 1: attorneys who heads up a practice at camale Gates. She said,
Speaker 1: you know, she's telling them, you want to be the
Speaker 1: good guy in this and what that means is she
Speaker 1: gave me a couple of examples pushing them to make
Speaker 1: sure or for example, on their websites they have very
Speaker 1: lengthy question and answer pages, in other words, to make
Speaker 1: it very customer or investor friendly. Also for those who
Speaker 1: have investments or who those who are some sort of
Speaker 1: subscriber service who are looking to get out, to make
Speaker 1: it easy for them to do so. A lot of companies,
Speaker 1: and frankly we all know this as consumers in this
Speaker 1: day and age the Internet and internet commerce, it's often
Speaker 1: very difficult to end these kinds of business relationships companies
Speaker 1: to make it intentionally so, but they're advising in the
Speaker 1: crypto spaces. They're saying, look, regulations are coming down the pipe.
Speaker 1: It's possible you might be targeted. Let's avoid it and
Speaker 1: let's be on the better side of it now, even
Speaker 1: if it means you make slightly less profit in the
Speaker 1: in the shorter term, it's going to be a much
Speaker 1: healthier strategy and much fairer to those enlist as clients
Speaker 1: in the longer term. How many law firms are bolstering
Speaker 1: their crypto practices, So it's a great question. I've had
Speaker 1: other asking this in the core of my reporting. It's
Speaker 1: difficult to know without without doing an account by looking
Speaker 1: at each web page from each stay of the top
Speaker 1: law firms by revenues, But I do believe that it's
Speaker 1: the majority for sure are in the space because what's
Speaker 1: happening June is more and more clients are asking their
Speaker 1: firms be they not traditional. They don't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: be like startup crypto focused companies. They could be banks,
Speaker 1: they could be other institutions that much more traditional institutions
Speaker 1: that for the first time are themselves getting questions from
Speaker 1: their own customers as to how can we incorporate crypto
Speaker 1: into it? Can we make payments for various goods or
Speaker 1: services through the use of crypto? And other not just
Speaker 1: crypto but blockchain related questions come up, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of these clients are asking their firms so more
Speaker 1: that the answer is, I don't have a solid number,
Speaker 1: but I do know that more and more law firms
Speaker 1: are getting involved, number one. And the second portion of
Speaker 1: it is is those that have already been involved are
Speaker 1: sort of trying to are bulking up their practices what
Speaker 1: they call interdisciplinary practices, where they hold like weekly or
Speaker 1: monthly calls just to try to simply get a handle
Speaker 1: of the workflow that's coming in. One lawyer told you,
Speaker 1: we have content coming out of our ears. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was kind of blunt, and I loved it. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously his story and he was a very friendly lawyer,
Speaker 1: and and and so he described a little bit about
Speaker 1: this is Joe Cutler from Prinkin's Cooey talking about how
Speaker 1: they have weekly calls and they have folks from all
Speaker 1: different types of traditional practice groups that are involved in
Speaker 1: them to try to get a handle them in types
Speaker 1: of work, to sign it out if necessary, to try
Speaker 1: to gin up new work in other types of fields
Speaker 1: at that's in question. And then I didn't get into
Speaker 1: work with him about you know, if ethics issues related
Speaker 1: issues come up on those calls specifically, But he was
Speaker 1: one of several that that pointed out that you know,
Speaker 1: a part of how to go about this and dealing
Speaker 1: crypto clients is to try to be a vuncular in
Speaker 1: the best possible sense, to give the wisest advice, especially
Speaker 1: for younger startup type companies or those that are new
Speaker 1: in this space, generally that it behooves them to act
Speaker 1: as leased, more and responsible as possible, especially when you
Speaker 1: see you know, different types of charges come down that
Speaker 1: it makes the news all the time that you've seen
Speaker 1: I've seen regarding how crypto is sometimes used to defraud
Speaker 1: people or money laundering schemes or the like. And that's why,
Speaker 1: for example, I might be a little off point with
Speaker 1: what you were just asking, but the Justice Department and
Speaker 1: the essence recently bulked up their respective units to target
Speaker 1: crypto related fraud and to try to protect investors in
Speaker 1: the space. That means more lawyers working in the private
Speaker 1: from the crypt to practices. Do they draw from other
Speaker 1: departments and do those lawyers then become part of the
Speaker 1: crypto practice for example, a tax lawyer, does that tax
Speaker 1: lawyer just then work in crypto And this goes to
Speaker 1: the notion of these firms setting up these um kind
Speaker 1: of hybrid interdisciplinary shops or practice or groups. I think
Speaker 1: they call them as supposed to dedicated practices, but you
Speaker 1: you hit it on the head um basically. So you
Speaker 1: have tax lawyers who have patent and intellectual property lawyers,
Speaker 1: and those are from very traditional, longstanding revenue generating practice
Speaker 1: groups at big law firms who stay within their fields,
Speaker 1: but who also then simultaneously become part of these crypto
Speaker 1: groups within the firms because they have lost to contribute
Speaker 1: and work is coming into them. They need to know
Speaker 1: how to play it, um, what best practices are, what
Speaker 1: the safest and best ways to go batter or etcetera.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's why when I spoke to folks
Speaker 1: that these firms like you know, Gates Link Laters, Perkins,
Speaker 1: Coolly and Poliss goes on Latham with Watkins, etcetera, that
Speaker 1: they're forming these in interdisciplinary groups that they can involve
Speaker 1: folks from almost virtually every branch of the firm, every
Speaker 1: practice within it prom is now becoming involved in your story.
Speaker 1: You talk about how it's it's a buyer's market for
Speaker 1: these lawyers at this point. Besides law firms, where are
Speaker 1: they getting offers from? I had one lawyer a joke
Speaker 1: with me. She said, you know, well, we all get
Speaker 1: calls from head hunters, don't And you know she laughed
Speaker 1: at her own job. And what that means is For example,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal came out with a good story
Speaker 1: about I don't Know three four weeks ago, which sort
Speaker 1: of detailed the specific phenomenon which I mentioned in my story.
Speaker 1: Also which has to do with the notion that some
Speaker 1: of these smaller and mid sized cryptocurrency companies and exchanges,
Speaker 1: they're trying trying to figure out, where can you find
Speaker 1: the best we don't tell, And oftentimes that means poaching folks,
Speaker 1: star players, and they don't necessarily need to be at
Speaker 1: the partner level from some outside firms. Sometimes that means
Speaker 1: from their own outside law firm, which can present a
Speaker 1: bit of a sticky ethical situation, but it happens a
Speaker 1: whole time, or they find other law firm attorneys sometimes
Speaker 1: star associates, um younger lawyers and in their thirties day
Speaker 1: or possibly even younger than that, but who are really
Speaker 1: known from developing a strong expertise in the legal side
Speaker 1: of crypto and who really want to branch out. And
Speaker 1: there's also the profit motive not to be you know,
Speaker 1: skeptical or cynical. But it's lawyers making money. Oh how
Speaker 1: could you think that? Right? And and look, many of
Speaker 1: them have very happy you know, financial should they stayed
Speaker 1: at the firm, If they make if and when they
Speaker 1: make equity partner, they make a whole lot of money.
Speaker 1: But that said, it's not of the same level oftentimes
Speaker 1: as the top general council can make, especially if these
Speaker 1: if they make the right choice in other ways, if
Speaker 1: they pick the right company to move to to to
Speaker 1: go to an in house job, become general counsel, to
Speaker 1: lead their own team. Sometimes these product companies and definitely
Speaker 1: not always others go bust some of the company, but
Speaker 1: those that really succeed over the long haul can find
Speaker 1: enough investors in support. But they eventually go public and
Speaker 1: then folks who are in them the beginning um often
Speaker 1: become you know, they kind of strike it rich. While
Speaker 1: has happened. When this happens, I mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: the old days where once you went to a corporation
Speaker 1: that was it. Now you know, you can go back
Speaker 1: and forth, You can go back to a law firm.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know, you have certain expertise that law
Speaker 1: firm partners don't have. Absolutely. Now, you touched on a
Speaker 1: great point, and it happens. I think in peach Sheet,
Speaker 1: where I am right at Washington, it's known as the
Speaker 1: revolving door, and a usually involves the sort of revolving
Speaker 1: door between private law firms and government jobs. And a
Speaker 1: lot of folks move into government, especially if they're more
Speaker 1: comfortable with the administration that's in power, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: get asked to read to join or even rejoin the
Speaker 1: government in different agency capacities legal jobs. But you're right
Speaker 1: in the in the notion that it sometimes jumps sometimes
Speaker 1: to involve folks going from private law firms to general
Speaker 1: council operations and then back to firms. I will say
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that happening as often, but I
Speaker 1: do believe it definitely is a phenomenon. Yeah, we folks
Speaker 1: trying to position themselves. Crypto is young yet, um, we'll see.
Speaker 1: But considering the recent downturning Crypto, are any law firms
Speaker 1: rethinking how many attorneys they have dedicated to this? So
Speaker 1: I appreciate the question, especially given the most recent news.
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say I started reporting my story
Speaker 1: just before this recent mass somewhat massive downturn in the
Speaker 1: crypto space days where like Bitcoin lost half its value
Speaker 1: and um lots of other cryptocurrency coins or exchanges really
Speaker 1: lost a ton of what they were worth in very
Speaker 1: speedy fashion. I started talking to folks even before that happened,
Speaker 1: but I talked to simple after and now if anything,
Speaker 1: they're doubling down. They They're strong sense is that it
Speaker 1: is becoming more and more enmeshed in the way that
Speaker 1: finances conducted, the way that goods and services are purchased,
Speaker 1: et cetera, through the use of the blockchain, and that
Speaker 1: these it behooves them to stay strong in this space. Plus,
Speaker 1: there's an historical precedent for this back and like I
Speaker 1: believe it was late two eighteen early two nineteen was
Speaker 1: when this crypto so called bubble first the first time,
Speaker 1: and that's when prices that have been going up, up up,
Speaker 1: crashed very suddenly. I talked to attorneys for a story
Speaker 1: I did, and they said the same thing that I'm
Speaker 1: hearing now, which is, no, see, this is a long
Speaker 1: term play. And if you look at the long term
Speaker 1: trajectory of these prices, they're correctly rising and you know
Speaker 1: regulators take a polly different view, and but that said, um,
Speaker 1: in terms of the firms and their long term business prospects,
Speaker 1: I think they're all in. That will be a whole
Speaker 1: another story if and when's who major firms really decided
Speaker 1: to sort of try to even quietly exit out of this,
Speaker 1: But I don't see that happening on anytime soon. Thanks Sam.
Speaker 1: That's Sam Skolnick of Bloomberg Law, and that's it for
Speaker 1: this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
Speaker 1: always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at
Speaker 1: www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law. I'm
Speaker 1: June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg