Author: Andrew Sullivan

The Shrinking Of Big Law, Ctd

Noam Scheiber responds to critics of his piece on the decline of corporate law firms:

Big Law boosters point to the fact that revenue at the country’s 100 biggest firms grew by 3.4 percent last year—a reasonable increase, if hardly the 8-12 percent increases of the early-to-mid-2000s. But when you unpack the number a bit, it looks even less impressive. It turns out that the bump was driven primarily by a huge fourth quarter after three middling ones. And that big fourth quarter was, in turn, the result of some idiosyncratic factors—like a rush by corporations to complete transactions before the dreaded fiscal cliff took effect on January 1, and law firms aggressively seeking payment before the end of the year (for similar reasons).

Meanwhile, other data show the problems for the legal profession continuing. Of the law students who graduated in 2008, 75 percent of found a legal job within nine months, according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). For those who graduated in 2012, the number had fallen to 64 percent, a record low. Of course, Big Law firms typically hire associates well in advance, so these numbers partly reflect the hiring environment that existed a year or more earlier. And, in fairness, NALP reports that hiring at big firms did recover a bit for the class of 2012 after a terrible 2011, even if it was still well below the 2009 level. Still, the fact that the market for lawyers was historically weak more than three years after the recession is pretty alarming. NALP refers ominously to a “new normal” in law-firm hiring.

Update from a reader:

Here’s the main problem with Scheiber’s thesis: Where the heck is all the business going to go when 90% of big law firms collapse?

I’ve been a big law associate for a number of years, and I think I would have noticed if 9 out of 10 of my colleagues had been wandering the halls with nothing to do.  So, when the firm-pocalypse comes and wipes out 180 big firms, how are the remaining 20 (which will likely be the busiest 20) absorb all of the abandoned legal work without massive expansion?  Even if they could expand like that, with only 20 law firms, how could you ever find one that wasn’t already representing your adversary or negotiating counter-party?

And it’s not like thousands of little firms will spring up to replace all the fallen giants.  Small-firms are just not capable or cost efficient enough at handling the kinds of matters that the big boys do. You can’t run a giant, months-long document review out of a five-person law firm unless you aren’t doing anything else, and if you aren’t doing anything else, how does your firm survive when the case suddenly settles and you haven’t booked anything else because your whole firm was working on that one case which could have lasted months?

The Last Frontier For Military Integration

While civilian defense employees can change their gender and keep their jobs, military personnel cannot. Tom Vanden Brook tells the story of one Army sergeant who decided to transition from female to male after returning from Iraq in 2011:

As a reservist, the sergeant has a civilian job and goes to work dressed as a man. For Army drills on weekends, the woman must emerge. “It’s kind of a double life,” the sergeant says. “In my civilian life everyone just knows he, just him. I go in with my facial hair, and I’m just a guy. When I put the uniform on, I shave. The feminine voice comes out if I can. Whatever I can muster that’s feminine. That’s when the sergeant who’s supposed to be female comes out.”

The sergeant says FTM servicemembers rely on each other for support:

“Female to male, we have a band of brothers,” the sergeant says. “There’s at least 300 of us connected. We talk quite often to each other. We serve as battle buddies in a battle that nobody knows we’re fighting.”

(Video: A news segment on Kristin Beck, the former Navy SEAL formerly known as Chris Beck. Previous Dish on Beck here.)

Will The Generals Give Up Power?

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Amid reports that the Egyptian military will be reinstating Mubarak-era security measures, Ahmed Feteha highlights concerns (WSJ) that General Sisi will become the country’s next dictator:

In the weeks since Mr. Morsi was removed from office, Gen. Sisi has been the country’s most popular figure. State-run media regularly compare “the field marshall of the people” to larger-than-life Egyptian leaders like Anwar Sadat and even Ahmose, the pharaoh who expelled the Hyksos invaders from the country 3,500 years ago.

Even after Saturday’s bloodshed, the media largely echoed the official line blaming the Muslim Brotherhood, not Gen. Sisi’s rallying cry against the Islamist group. But in throwing over Mr. Morsi, Gen. Sisi is largely responsible for alienating Islamists, who account for at least a quarter of the population. On Friday, as pro-army crowds gathered, the government added fuel to the fire by filing criminal charges against Mr. Morsi for collaborating with the Hamas militant group during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Gen. Sisi has promised that he has no desire to rule. But many find it hard to believe that he will head back to the barracks after seizing the heights of Egyptian political life. And with hundreds of thousands of supporters chanting Gen. Sisi’s name in Tahrir Square, the little-known general is increasingly looking like Egypt’s king rather than its kingmaker.

The Guardian‘s editorial board is similarly worried:

[Sisi] has begun to adopt a special tone of intimacy, that of the leader in deep discussion with his people, which suggest he sees himself in the line of descent from Nasser. …

The Egyptian army’s overweening sense of entitlement is an aspect of the country’s political pathology. An army that has seen no combat for a generation and faces no serious challenge from external enemies nevertheless absorbs massive resources, enjoys marked privileges, and arrogates to itself special political rights. Egypt should be reducing the influence of its military, not reinforcing it. But, in the immediate future, the decisions of the army, and what are probably now its rather nervous civilian allies, are critical. They must release Brotherhood leaders, find a formula for the rehabilitation of Morsi and a framework for talks that the Brotherhood can accept. Otherwise there will soon be more blood on Cairo’s pavements.

But John Beck sees signs that the military’s recent authoritarianism will soon erode popular support for Sisi:

“I think, it’s clear that the issue is the role of the military in politics. Sisi is very much at the forefront in the process of undermining the democratic process,” says Maha Azzam, an associate fellow on the Middle East and North Africa program with the Royal Institute of International Affairs. “I think as each day passes… it’s becoming less credible to stand by what is becoming clearly both a coup and a military takeover and a return of the old regime,” she added. “There’s no grey. You either stand with the military takeover… or you stand against the coup.”

More and more Egyptians may be falling into the latter camp. The Salafist Nour Party — a former ally of the Muslim Brotherhood which then supported the military’s ouster of Morsi — said in a statement on Wednesday that the call for protest “foreshadows civil war.” Other, more secular groups who welcomed Morsi’s ouster also saw Sisi’s announcement as a move designed to provoke violence and create an excuse to impose curfews and increase the military’s hold on power. “We are stuck in the middle between military and fundamental authoritarianism,” says Bassam Maher, an activist and NGO worker.

He added, that while many “revolutionary” activists are becoming increasingly suspicious of Sisi’s motives, they have been reluctant to stand against the military directly because they do not wish to be thought of as aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups, which they also oppose. Many activists describe themselves as paralyzed and conflicted about opposing the army’s recent moves.

(Photo: Opponents to deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi hold portraits of Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as they demonstrate at Itihadiya main street in Cairo on July 26, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and around the Itihadiya presidential palace in response to Sisi’s call for Egyptians to show their support for a security clampdown on ‘terrorism’. By Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images)

The Gender Divide On Drones

Women Drones

Alexis ponders it:

They’re a way of waging a war that men support far more than women. One reason might be that, as Eichenberg summarizes earlier research, “women were far more sensitive — and negative — about the prospects of civilian and military casualties in the war.”

So much of the discourse over drones has focused on the possibility and reality of civilian casualties that perhaps this has tinted the subject for women across the globe.

Another might be that men just really *like* drones and the prospect of troop-less war.

A Rule Of Thumb Drives, Ctd

A reader writes:

Regarding your post on viruses from thumb drives, I believe the Iranians would agree with you.  We infected their nuclear program computers with the  STXNET  virus using the thumb drive trick [NYT]:

The United States and Israel would have to rely on engineers, maintenance workers and others — both spies and unwitting accomplices — with physical access to the plant. “That was our holy grail,” one of the architects of the plan said. “It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn’t think much about the thumb drive in their hand.” In fact, thumb drives turned out to be critical in spreading the first variants of the computer worm; later, more sophisticated methods were developed to deliver the malicious code.

One a much different note:

Your recent thumb drive post reminded me of a hilarious incident I witnessed during grad school. I was taking a class which required students to present their work during finals week. One very serious student plugged his thumb drive into the classroom’s computer while the projector was turned on. His thumb drive’s contents were suddenly displayed for the entire class to see, and right smack in the middle was a video file named “Sorority Girls 3” or something similar.

The classroom was dead silent. I’ve never been happier.

The Puritanism Of Progressive Parents, Ctd

A reader writes:

As a progressive liberal parent, parenting in progressive liberal Seattle, I’m finding the lopsided caricature of liberal parenting presented recently on the blog to be rather unfair. In the specific case of fluoridation, it is by no means proven that fluoride is harmless –  some studies have linked fluoride to disruption of the endocrine system, leading to metabolic disorders and thyroid problems.  Could America’s obesity rates be somehow linked to its obsession with fluoridating its water?  The case against fluoridation is given here.

But in general, I would consider being against fluoridation to be a somewhat conservative stance. To me the idea of adding medicines to drinking water seems to be the nanny state operating at its finest (there is no other reason for adding fluoride to water beyond the prevention of tooth decay).  If I want to use fluoride, then it’s super simple for me to just buy a fluoridated toothpaste, giving me a degree of choice and control over what I put into my body that federally-mandated fluoridation just doesn’t give me.

On a more general note, I’m a firm believer in “you are what you eat”. I don’t think it’s an accident that my daughter is very rarely sick.

It’s because she generally gets her five fruits and vegetables a day.  But I have to be vigilant over what my eight-year-old daughter puts in her body because no one else is doing it for me.  Added sugars, salt, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated fats are routinely added to processed foods, often when you would least expect them. Why do juice boxes require added sugar? Wherever she goes – camps, after school activities, birthday parties – she is presented with an overwhelming abundance of boxed pizza, boxed mac ‘n cheese and processed sugary treats. Try finding a vegetable, or even fruit,  on any kids menu in America. And that’s before we get to the barrage of propaganda on behalf of (government subsidized) Big Ag that she’s subjected to every time she turns on the TV.

It seems to me that “conservatism” is all about preserving the status quo of Big Ag and Big Pharma, whereas it is we progressive liberals who are seeking to return to and conserve an earlier simpler world where we can all have access to nutritious food grown in proper soil by local farmers. If we occasionally seem paranoid and over-zealous – and we are sometimes – it’s because that simple goal is nowadays really difficult to achieve.

Update from a conservative reader:

It warmed my heart to see this self-described “progressive liberal” parent from Seattle rail against government-mandated fluoridation and government-subsidized Big Ag – it certainly isn’t the libertarians pushing this stuff. I only wish that more of my friends on the left would see the virtues of smaller government.

Francis’ Sunlight: Reax

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Jimmy Akin thinks the press is reading too much into the Pope’s words on homosexuality:

Disclaiming a right to “judge” others is something that goes back to Jesus. It does not mean a failure to recognize the moral character of others’ actions, however. One can form a moral appraisal that what someone else is doing is wrong (Jesus obviously does not forbid that) without having or showing malice toward them.

The statement that they should not be marginalized is similarly in keeping with the Holy See’s approach to the subject, as 1992 Vatican document On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. The statement that same-sex attraction “is not the problem,” when understood correctly, is also nothing new. “The problem,” as Pope Francis seems to here be understanding it, is going beyond merely having a sinful tendency–a temptation to which one is subject. Obviously, temptations are a problem, but if we resist temptation we do not sin. “The problem,” on this understanding, is giving into the temptation and sinning or–worse–building an ideology around the sin and trying to advocate the sin.

But this was precisely what Benedict was trying to ratchet back, by arguing in 2005 that, whatever their conduct or faith, gay men should be barred from seminaries because homosexuality itself is objectively disordered and gays’ very being is inherently against the logic of God’s creation. Benedict’s pronouncements on gays were almost a definition of marginalization: “somehow distorted, off center, and … not within the direction of creation.” Isn’t that what the ancient world said of lepers and the Jewish world say of Samaritans? Benedict’s fastidious, obsessive-compulsive need to re-make all Creation in the image of his own hermetically-sealed and completely abstract theology ended up betraying the most important message of Jesus: that the last shall be first, that everyone is invited to God’s table, and that those you call “distorted” and “off-center” are actually at the very center of a loving God’s compassion.

And this interpretation is of a piece with what he said about divorced and re-married Catholics at the same presser:

“This theme always comes up … I believe this is a time of mercy, a change of epoch. It’s a kairos moment for mercy … In terms of Communion for those who have divorced and remarried, it has to be seen within the larger pastoral context of marriage. When the council of eight cardinals meets Oct. 1-3, one of the things they’ll consider is how to move forward with the pastoral care of marriage. Also, just 15 days ago or so, I met the secretary of the Synod of Bishops, and maybe it will also focus on the pastoral care of marriage. It’s complicated.”

I think it’s bizarre to ignore a Pope when he proclaims “a change of epoch,” when he calls our time a “kairos” moment for mercy. That means a turning point, a hinge of history. Why use that language if you are merely insisting on total continuity with the past? And the issue with re-married Catholics is exactly the same as for gays: the licitness of sexual congress outside one, life-long, monogamous, non-contracepted heterosexual marriage. Kevin Clarke agrees that Francis didn’t depart from traditional church teaching but sees a welcome shift regardless:

His citation of current catechism on the treatment of gay and lesbian people was not revolutionary in any sense; what startles may be the spectacle of a pope saying anything out loud on the matter and stressing the importance of church teaching on the human dignity of gay and lesbian people.

Francis was also asked why he did not spend much time speaking about abortion or gay marriage during his trip (church teaching is already clear, he said) and about the difficulties of divorced and remarried Catholics. “I believe this is a time of mercy, a change of epoch,” the pope said.

Likewise, Francis DeBernardo of the gay-friendly New Ways Ministries thinks this language is a sign that things will get better for gay Catholics: “Even if [Francis] doesn’t drop the sin language, this is still a major step forward, and one that can pave the way for further advancements down the road.” One gay Catholic, Michael O’Loughlin, agrees:

In addition to mercy, Francis’ comments also provide hope, hope to those who live on the margins of the church. In a special way, those who live without—without money, without recognized dignity, without full embrace from institutions of power—are called to live prophetic lives. But sometimes being offered some hope from the powerful, in this case Pope Francis and the church, is needed in order to keep moving forward with the struggle. Francis’ comments, however offhand and however easily dismissed they will be by traditionalists, are worth celebrating.

Elizabeth Scalia also applauds Francis’s call to mercy and forgiveness – and tells us all to relax:

I understand some folks’ concerns that perhaps Francis is too heavy on the mercy and too light on the justice side of things — and certainly the cross itself teaches us that both must be held in balance. But this is still a pretty fresh papacy. The sense I’m getting is that Francis means to scrape some long-attached barnacles from the Barque of Peter, so we can see what the deeper hues of Justice and Mercy look like; he’s readying it to travel some rough, challenging waters…

I’ll tell the new hysterics the same thing I told the old hysterics: you’re gonna be surprised who makes it into heaven and who doesn’t, because it’s not going to line up with what you or I think is Catholicism-done-Correctly, so be sweet to everyone, mind your own soul, not theirs, and trust Jesus to sort it out.

Admitting that “I love the guy,” James Martin, a fellow Jesuit, praises Francis and claims he’s initiating real change in the Church:

Praising Francis does not mean denigrating John Paul or Benedict. Each pope brings unique gifts to the office. But Francis’s election as pope has definitely brought change to the church.

The essentials have not changed: each pope preaches the Gospel and proclaims the Risen Christ. But as we saw last week in Rio, Francis speaks in a different way: plainly, simply, with unadorned prose. Francis has a different style: more relaxed, less formal, more familiar. Francis’s appeal is different and, judging from the crowds, effective. The Pope does the same thing–preaches the Gospel and proclaims the Risen Christ–in a new way. Francis is a different person for a different time.

What Pope Francis did and said in Rio de Janeiro, how he did it and said it, and how the crowds reacted to what he did and said, show that things can change. And that God can change them. All this is an answer to despair. It is a reminder that nothing is impossible with God. So every time I see Francis, hear him speak or read one of his homilies I’m reminded of this great truth.

Martin emails the Dish to add:

The lesser-noticed change in the Pope’s revolutionary words during his in-flight interview was, at least according to the translation in the Italian-language “Vatican Insider,” the use of the word “gay,” which is traditionally not used by popes, bishops, or Vatican officials.

This is a sea change.

(Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)

The Preemptive War On Paul

The global hegemonists in the GOP – who have never fully addressed the fiscal, moral and military fiascoes that were the Afghan and Iraq wars – nonetheless can still summon the energy to carpet-bomb anyone questioning the logic behind them. Matt Welch marvels at the “Angry Birds’ multi-front attack against” Rand Paul started by Chris Christie last week and continued yesterday by former terrorist-funder, Peter King (seen above):

The openness and vehemence of this interventionist campaign against one of the GOP’s rising young stars three full years before the party’s next nominating convention is telling. Even if the current foot-soldiers in the anti-Paul war are either comic-book non-entities like Peter King and Liz Cheney or foreign-policy blank slates like Christie, the most important thing is that the candidate (and ideological tendency) making headlines and attracting support from unusual quarters get contained before the virus spreads. The defense establishment, long accustomed to getting its way in both policy and politics, is gearing up for some of that ol’ pre-emptive war.

Paul’s camp has fired back at the above comments from King: “He wants us endlessly patrolling the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan instead of ours at home.” And the shifting politics of NSA surveillance suggests that Paul is onto something. If there’s an actual debate within the Republican party about the disastrous legacy of Cheney, it can only advance sanity, and break the groupthink that has paralyzed the GOP intellectually. Of course, there should be a debate about whether the US needs to spend a huge amount of money policing the entire world, and financing the crony capitalism of the military-industrial complex, while its own infrastructure crumbles, its healthcare liabilities mount and its population ages.

Paul needs to remind Republicans that Reagan was, at heart, a peacenik whose global strategy was premised on a Soviet union that no longer exists. He got the hell out of Lebanon the minute Marines were massacred – something Cheney would declare treason if Obama did the same today. He needs to remind them that Eisenhower was the man who coined the term “military-industrial complex” and won or ended wars, rather than starting and losing them, like Cheney and Bush.

The GOP, in other words, cannot be for limited government in all things but defense and national security – where it signs a huge blank check to the defense welfare state because of paranoia and nationalism (which are not to be conflated with prudence and patriotism). Zeke Miller zooms out:

For years the Republican Party has fractured over foreign policy, but libertarians and neoconservatives, while vehemently disagreeing on substance, tried to project an air of party cohesion. Those days are over. “We ignored them and then tried to placate them,” said one hawkish Senate Republican foreign policy aide about the libertarians. “If we don’t move now [to counterattack], it may be too late in 2016.” … The long-delayed GOP foreign policy civil war is finally here.

Egypt Erupts Again, Ctd

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Read the Dish’s coverage of the bloodshed from Saturday here. More violence could be imminent:

Supporters of Egypt’s deposed president Mohamed Morsi have called for a “million-person march” against his ouster after authorities warned of “decisive” action if protesters are considered a threat. Organisers of protests against the military’s overthrow of Morsi urged demonstrators to march on security buildings on Monday night and called a march for Tuesday. In a statement, the Anti-Coup Alliance of Islamist groups urged Egyptians “to go out into the streets and squares, to regain their freedom and dignity – that are being usurped by the bloody coup – and for the rights of the martyrs assassinated by its bullets.” The protest calls, which raises the possibility of fresh confrontations, comes after at least 72 people were killed at a sit-in in support of Morsi on Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, as seen above, pro-Morsi supporters have fortified their Rabaa encampment in Nasr City near where Saturday’s massacre occurred. Elsewhere, the Egyptian military continues to arrest Islamists and attempt to justify their violent crackdown:

But in a new report, Human Rights Watch emphasizes how nothing the protesters did could have possibly justified the level of the response by security forces:

“The use of deadly fire on such a scale so soon after the interim president announced the need to impose order by force suggests a shocking willingness by the police and by certain politicians to ratchet up violence against pro-Morsy protesters,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It is almost impossible to imagine that so many killings would take place without an intention to kill, or at least a criminal disregard for people’s lives.” …

According to a doctor who was at the scene, the police began to fire teargas when the protesters were approximately 200 meters away. A skirmish ensued between the protesters and the police and men in civilian clothes, lasting for about two hours: protesters set cars on fire and threw rocks, while police fired birdshot and more teargas from their position near the bridge. The doctor told Human Rights Watch that after approximately two hours, live bullets were fired at the protesters from what appeared to be an elevated position, possibly from a nearby building. The timing was corroborated by two other witnesses. Fouad, another doctor working in the Rabaa field hospital, said, “The pattern of injuries we saw here was completely the opposite of the Republican Guard. In the Republican Guard incident [on July 8, 2013] it was mostly random live fire, it only looked like 10 percent [of those killed] were shot by snipers. This time it was like 80 percent were shot by snipers targeted from above.”