Earlier this month, Above the Law and other media outlets reported that Elon Musk allegedly pressured a law firm handling work for Tesla to fire an associate who interviewed Musk while the attorney previously worked at the SEC. The law firm apparently did not relent to this pressure, and many within the legal community applauded this decision. Although I am an Elon Musk fan myself (and am a very satisfied owner of a Tesla Model Y), I also believe that if these allegations are true, it was inappropriate for a client to pressure a law firm to fire an associate. However, this episode got me thinking about all the times in my career that I witnessed a client or a representative of a client influence employment decisions at a law firm. The legal industry should take a dim view of clients having any influence in almost all law firm employment matters whether it be firing associates, hiring attorneys, or otherwise so that employment matters can be based on merit alone.
In my experience, the main way that clients and representatives of clients try to influence law firm employment decisions is in the hiring process rather than in the firing process. Sometimes, clients will reach out to high-ranking partners at law firms if their relative or someone close to them is looking for work and see if there is a position open. In many such instances, law firms will give the job candidate preferential treatment even if their background is not up to the caliber of attorneys that usually work...
Hospitals will likely spend more to protect themselves from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ expanded powers to kick them out of government health programs, which would be ruinous f...