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Marily Nixon:
Okay. So let's get started. I think some more people will be joining us as we go along, and that'll be great.

Welcome everyone to this information session on the University of Pittsburgh's Online Master of Studies in Law program. I'm Marily Nixon. I direct the program. I am a professor of practice at University of Pittsburgh, where I teach primarily in the property law area and also environmental law in the online MSL program. I also created torts and property, and I actively teach the property course. So I direct the program, but I'm very deeply involved in it on a day-to-day basis. And I have two wonderful people associated with our program who are here to speak to you today along with me. The first is Jackie Belczyk, professor of practice, who teaches the American Legal Systems course, which is the first course and a very, very popular course in our series. And the other is Greg Griffith, who is one of our most successful students, who can tell you what the experience is like and give you some tips on how to do well in a program like this. Jackie, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and then Greg, that would be great.

Jackie Belczyk:
Of course. Hello. My name is Jackie Belczyk. As Marily said, I am a professor of practice at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and I have been teaching in the MSL program for about eight years at this point. I teach the introductory course in this program. It's the American Legal Systems course, and I'll be talking a little bit more about what that entails as we go through. And then that's part of my job at Pitt Law. My other job is the executive editor of JURIST, which is a legal news and research website at jurist.org that covers all kinds of legal current events.

Marily Nixon:
Thank you, Jackie. Greg, would you tell us about yourself, please?

Greg Griffith:
Sure. Thanks, Marily. My name is Greg Griffith. I am a suicide prevention program implementation specialist here at the University of Pittsburgh. I work in the School of Pharmacy. What I do is applied suicide prevention research for veterans of the Armed Forces of the US. I'm also a Navy veteran myself. I've got a kid, a small kiddo. Her name is Lolly. She's 12 going on 22. She pretty much runs my life. And I have been working in this role for three and a half years. And during that period, I went through the MSL program and graduated. So I'm excited to be here to answer questions and talk a little bit about the program.

Marily Nixon:
Great. Thank you, Greg. And I'm glad you mentioned your daughter because lots of our students have jobs, families, kids, homes, all kinds of things they're juggling. So I think you'll be a really great source of information about how to best handle that kind of a challenge. So just a couple of administrative things. First, we will be just conversing for maybe 30 minutes or so, about a half an hour. And then we would love to answer questions from the audience. And the way we'll do that is if you can put your questions in the chat, if you look down at the bottom of your screen, right in the middle of it, there's a chat button. You can drop a question in there. You could do it any time during our conversation, and we will pick them up at the end of the conversation and answer them then. But sometimes it's easier to just do it now, get it in there, and then just listen.

Marily Nixon:
So let's see. I want to say I think we're... I think that's it administratively. So here's what we're gonna cover in the program. First, I'm gonna tell you what our online Master of Study in Law program is, then we'll talk specifically about things like curriculum, what it's like to be in an online classroom, what you do with your MSL, what it's like to apply to Pitt Law, and some advice for that, and then we'll do our Q&A. First, I wanted to start by just letting you know the Online Master of Studies in Law program is a 30-credit, two-year series of courses that will give you a master's degree when you complete it. And the way it's broken down is one year of core courses, and I think Professor Belczyk will probably help us to understand a little bit more about what these core courses are. And then you choose a specialization for the other year of courses.

Marily Nixon:
So it's a two-year degree, it's online, asynchronously primarily, so that you can complete the work in your own time week by week. We ask you to keep up week by week, but we have some aspects of the program too, that give you a real connection with your classmates, your cohort going through and also with your professors. So we'll talk about that as we go on. So let's start talking about, first, just we'd like to hear from you, Professor Belczyk, what inspired you to get involved in studying master's degree students and ultimately to get involved in the online MSL program?

Jackie Belczyk:
Yeah, of course. So when I started teaching in Pitt Law's MSL program, it was a fully in-person program, and I took over the introductory course from another Pitt Law professor. She had actually been my legal writing instructor when I was a law student at Pitt Law. And then I began working at Pitt Law for JURIST and she approached me when she was getting closer to retirement to see if I would be interested in taking over teaching the introductory MSL course, and I was really excited to do that, something different and it's a lot of fun. I like working with MSL students. That's something I don't get to do every day in my job, mainly working with JD students, and I like working with MSL students because they bring such a range of backgrounds and experience to the program. So I was teaching this course in-person for a number of years, and I was really excited when we launched the online program, because that gives so many more people an opportunity to take part in this just very exciting program that I think applies across so many fields.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, thank you for that. And we'll talk in a little bit about how the study can help you in different fields, 'cause I think that's a big question people have considering going into it. But I think we'll just take a minute and I'm gonna ask you the flip side of that question, Greg, what inspired you to take on the MSL program and what has it done for you in your career and in your studies?

Greg Griffith:
Sure. Yeah. So as a full-time worker, I needed to think through what my strategy for school would be. I thought maybe about applying for law school but then I work in a field where I'm doing a lot of work in policy and so I wanted a real good understanding of the law to generally just advance my career, my skills, to give me a better understanding of legal and policy in general, that legal arena and policy around it, and how it related to my everyday work. So I sort of started looking to find programs that might help me get in that direction and found the MSL program, and just thought it would be an awesome opportunity to do exactly what I wanted to do, continue to work and go to school at the same time. So I really thought it would be the perfect fit for me to have a hybrid or online opportunity to go back to school and get that master's degree and keep doing the work I do. So that sort of was the pivot for me, the push for me was because it was the MSL and because it was online, I really thought it would be the best approach. I work a lot. I spent a lot of time on the road. And so I don't have real opportunities to sit down in class and get work done that way. So yeah, the flexibility of hybrid specifically of remote in this case was important for me.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, yeah, that's great. And how has the degree affected your career, if at all, your further studies?

Greg Griffith:
Yeah. It really has been impactful. I think a lot of us, we think we have these particular skills when we start doing things. I came into this program thinking I was a great writer, and I think I am a great writer, but what I gained from this program was a better understanding of how to write in a way that to write legally, how to understand the ways that lawyers communicate, that lawmakers communicate and how to write in very concise ways that sort of frame the message appropriately, get the point across in as few words as possible.

So that was huge, and I think that really paid off for me. Immediately after I graduated, I got a pretty quick promotion, a significant dollar amount promotion, but also a promotion in my position and frankly, I think, having graduated from this program paid a big part in that because what I did was I got the opportunity to really show off my writing skills from this program, my ability to frame conversations for policymakers and things of that nature. So yeah, that was a big deal for me, a big help. And then of course I applied for a doctoral program and I'm now in that doctoral program. I got into the program pretty quickly and have already started working my way through it, so yeah.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, that's really great to hear. Really, really happy that it's worked so well for you. And something that you said makes me want to turn back to Professor Belczyk, to Jackie. You talked about legal writing, right? And I think it's no secret that writing is a really core skill of lawyers writing and analyzing. And Jackie teaches the course that really kicks off the whole series and really starts students to understanding how we write, how we think as lawyers. So Jackie, would you mind just talking about that a little bit and maybe a little bit more about the rest of the curriculum that online MSL students still follow?

Jackie Belczyk:
Yeah, of course. So the American Legal Systems course that I teach really lays the foundation for the rest of the courses that you would be doing in the program. And we start out with the basics like covering the US legal system and what are the different levels of courts and what do we mean by state courts versus federal courts and all that stuff that maybe you learned in middle school civics and then haven't really given much thought to since then but will be important as you start to study the law. So we go over all of that and then focus on how to read cases. That's really how law school is set up. You don't just sort of read doctrinal information as you might do in other programs. Primarily you learn the law through reading court's decisions, through reading cases.

So we go over how to best approach those, how to read a case, how to pull out the main idea and the rule of law from a case. We go over how to take ideas from multiple sources like cases and statutes and synthesize that into something you can use to apply to a new set of facts. And we do a writing assignment in the course that really gives you an opportunity to use all of those skills where you are reading cases and synthesizing information, and then using that to sort of predict the outcome and a new set of facts. And through all that, I think you're really getting set up in a good position to be able to get through the rest of the program. From there, you take several other courses. There is a private law course that comes after my course, which covers topics like property, tort law and just how the law governs relationships between individuals or individuals and entities. You take a public law course after that which covers things like criminal law, constitutional law, basically how the law governs interactions between individuals and the government. And from there, it's a business law course after that and then of course, whatever specialization you're going to goes on from there.

Marily Nixon:
Great. Yeah, thank you. And so we've gone through the courses. So Greg, I'm gonna ask you a tough question. Other than Professor Belczyk's course, other than Jackie's course, what course do you remember most from your studies? Or did you get the most out of, do you think?

Greg Griffith:
I mean, I got a ton out of Jackie's courses, by the way. But the whole program for me felt impactful, but I really am especially interested in public law, but specifically statues and regulations as they sort of relate to and interplay with common law. I spend a lot of time in that arena, and so I really needed to get a good understanding of that. Like I said, the entire program helped me build out the framework for better understanding that. But if I'm really thinking through what I use most from and often go back to in the coursework, it's gonna be that.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah.

Greg Griffith:
Yeah.

Marily Nixon:
So it's interesting that you mentioned that as you start this series with Professor Belczyk's course on American Legal System, which is a lot of case law interpretation, not only, but a lot of it, and then you end it with legislation and regulation, which is I think what you're primarily talking about, Greg, and that's how do you read and interpret a statute and which is a written law, right? Not a judge made law, but a statute written by the legislature. So I'm glad to hear you say that. It's a challenging course. It's a very substantive course and I think it's valuable, so I'm glad to hear. We hoped it would be valuable when we created it. It's good to hear that you're finding that value. That's great. So I guess I wanted to move on and just talk about the online experience. Greg, maybe we'd start with you. What was it like for you? What worked best for you? What were challenges for you in the online experience?

Greg Griffith:
I mean, it was great as a working professional. Like I said before, I spend a lot of time on the road. During lockdown though, I didn't go out as much, but I'll tell you that during lockdown, being able to get all of my coursework done online was fantastic. I think it helped keep me sane frankly during lockdown to know that I had these benchmarks I had to meet, these courses I had to complete, and this work that I could just jump on my computer and get done. So that was definitely beneficial. But when I started to go back out on the road, I might be in a hotel somewhere, wherever I was.

It depends on where I was at that time, but I could log on and get my coursework done. I could read and write and just be busy. And I never felt like I was gonna lose out because I didn't get to a class. It was all there for me online. So I really liked working in a Canvas. I think the interactive sort of ability in Canvas was very beneficial to be able to talk back and forth with my professors or message them or have communication with students. And then really the thing that benefited me the most, the thing that I really, really appreciated was having office hours, being able to sit down and talk back and forth with the professor and students during the office hours. That was awesome. That was great. It really worked out for me.

Marily Nixon:
And I'm here to tell everybody that Greg Griffith was in my property class, and he came to office hours, and he had great questions. And we really had interesting conversations that went deeper and broader than maybe I expected. So I have to say it really is great for the professor when students are as engaged and then they're thinking as broadly about the subject matter. So I think that's probably part of why you were so successful, Greg, 'cause you were that engaged, and we'd love to see that. Jackie, do you want to talk a little bit about the... So we're online, we're asynchronous, we're not... But the professors aren't sort of absent, right? The professors are very much involved, and Greg has talked about a couple of things that professors do and students do to connect with each other. Could you maybe fill in some of the other things?

Jackie Belczyk:
Yeah, absolutely. I actually did an online master's degree myself that I finished in 2020 in Pitts Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. And in some of those online courses, I felt very much like I was just kind of putting my work into a vacuum every week and nothing came back to me. And so I really want to make my course not like that at all. And so I'm a real person who is directing the course. I designed the course, I created the videos, so you're watching me give short lecture videos. I chose all of the readings and assignments that you're doing, and I give regular feedback. We have a discussion board that actually feels like robust conversation between students, not just sort of that static, okay, I was required to post something on the discussion board every week, so I did, but I start to see students really connecting with each other, people with similar sort of work backgrounds who are connecting and people who come from very different spheres connecting with each other.

So every week, I look forward to reading what's on the discussion board and seeing how students are engaging with each other. We do one sort of small group project in my course to give you a chance to actually connect with your fellow students. And I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on that. Students really appreciated the opportunity to get to chat with each other and come up with something together. So yeah, we really want to make this a dynamic and interesting course experience for you. It's set up with weekly modules and you get to do it on your own time. So if you're somebody who's gonna get everything done at the beginning of each week, that's great. If you've got some time at the end of the week, you're able to do it then, but you're always gonna feel like you're part of a course and that you're getting something back out from what you've put in.

Marily Nixon:
Thank you for that. I'm curious about, you mentioned the opportunity for students to build community with one another. Greg or either one of you, what other kinds of things either did you do, Greg, or experiences you have forming a community with our students? Or Jackie, are you aware of that students do in order to support one another?

Greg Griffith:
I think just the format of Canvas itself is really great for that. I mean, it does afford the opportunity to talk back to each other based on comments that we make. Whenever we post a comment, someone can respond. We had some situations where those responses sort of generated good conversation. I have a couple of people that I went through the program with that I still communicate with because I think we sort of just developed this real interest in the areas that we were studying together. So that, and then of course, like I said before, the office hours. I mean, the office hours were students and the professor, so we got to talk to each other regularly each week. And then occasionally, depending on the professor, there was an opportunity to do more than one office hour. I think I recall that happening more than once. So it's not... We're not... We don't... It didn't feel like I was disconnected from my classmates, and I didn't feel disconnected at all from my professors because yeah, if I wanted to talk to a classmate, I could email them through Canvas or if I wanted to talk to the professor, the same thing could occur there, so good connection that way.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah. And I typically host one-on-one Zoom meetings with all of my students at least once during the semester primarily to give them some feedback on a writing assignment, but it also just gives us an opportunity to connect. And we start off my course with every student recording a short introductory video. So kind of like the experience if you were in a classroom together and everybody would go around the room and introduce themselves, we do the short introductory videos which gives people a great opportunity to just start to get to know each other a little bit and say, "Oh hey, you work in a similar field." Or "Oh, I also have three dogs and a cat." And just to find different levels of common ground.

That's great. I know that students often will find one another, as it sounds like Greg did, either they have similar interests or they're working on a particular part of the questions, whatever. And so they do... I know they get together by email. Sometimes they all come to office hours every single time. Some students don't come to office hours at all. They don't need it; they don't want to do it. But I do get a sense that students are finding ways to connect and that we try to support that. So it was great to hear that that's happening. So a sort of philosophical question I guess about sort of beyond the MSL. So how does this program... How does it... How has it been adapted? And Jackie, you've been involved with it, the initial class and the in-person MSL and we still have the in-person MSL at Pitt law, but how has this program evolved over time to meet the needs of the legal profession?

Jackie Belczyk:
I think in my course we focus even more on some of the technology, how to conduct legal research in an online environment? When I started teaching the course and it was just an in-person, and actually had the students all go upstairs to the library and take a tour of the library and learn about how they could find stuff in books. And it's still great information. And if you're ever in Pittsburgh and you want to stop in the Pitt Law library, there's all kinds of great resources there. But obviously we're not doing that in an online program. So we're talking about other ways that you can conduct online research and tools that you can use more easily in that type of environment.

Marily Nixon:
Okay, great. So I'd like to move on to applying to Pitt Law and I know that Greg has had a direct experience applying and Jackie and I get to review applications which is great. So I guess I would just throw it open to what advice do you have for someone who's considering applying to the program? Greg, you want to start?

Greg Griffith:
Sure. Yeah. I think that essay made a big difference for me. I really... Like I said, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do in the program, so I was able to really think through what I would say in my essay and just be ready for that. I think know what you're trying to do with this program, why are you taking the opportunity to do the MSL and prepare for the coursework. But yeah, just do well on the essay, write a good essay. Think about who you are, what you're trying to do. I think that's where I was with this process, really thought through that.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, I agree. That can be a really powerful part of an application because it does tell us at Pitt Law who you are, why you want to do this thing. How about you, Jackie? Do you have any thoughts to add to that?

Jackie Belczyk:
Yeah, I would kind of say the same thing. As a member of the admissions committee reviewing applications, I always scroll down to that personal statement first because I want to see well, why do you want to be involved in this program and how do you envision it sort of helping you along whatever your career trajectory is. So that's always important to me to take a look at. And of course, I'm also gonna look at your resume and transcript and everything else, but really, I think put the most stock into that personal statement.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, I think sometimes it can feel like when you apply to programs, you're writing. In our case, it's a fairly short personal statement requirement. You can write longer if you want but it's really just to give us a sense of who you are and why do you think this program is a fit for you so that we can be sure that we think it's a fit for you as well. But we really do focus on that, and it really helps us to understand people, so I just really want to underline that. Good. So I don't have further questions. Anything else that, Jackie or Greg, that you think we want to address before we throw this open to questions and answers?

Greg Griffith:
I would say... I'll add one last thing. I think as a Pitt Law School alumni, I really appreciate the benefits that I'm getting now as someone who went through the program. I do get invitations to some of the functions on campus, I get to go to see some amazing speakers in the moots court there on campus. I just think it's a good benefit to be able to say that you went through this program and now you are an alumni of Pitt Law and you have... You hear from some really famous people sometimes sending you stuff in your emails talking about things that you can do on campus and with Pitt Law. So it's good for me. I like it.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah. Our graduates walk in the law school graduation ceremony, which is pretty inspiring, I think. And we had a student, one of our online students come last weekend for graduation from out of town because it meant so much to her to be there. So she and her sister came and spent the weekend in Pittsburgh, 'cause of course a lot of our students are from other places, and I thought that was really exciting. So yeah, absolutely. The campus is yours; the law school is yours. If you are a part of our program, you are a Pitt Law student, and so all those resources are available to you. And so I think it's great when people take advantage of it.

Okay. So I think for now, I'll just close this part of the info session and we'll start doing some questions and answers. And I see we have a few in the queue. So the first is, "Is the application process the same for returning students?" This is for someone who completed the healthcare compliance graduate certificate program. So yes and no is the answer to that. It's a fairly painless application process and there are certain things we can carry over. I think we can carry over your transcripts. Maybe Jackie remembers better than I do, but is it just the transcripts? We may be able to carry over the personal statement. Do you remember more specifics than that, Jackie?

Jackie Belczyk:
No, I'm not sure what is the same or different about the process, but certainly when I see that someone has already successfully gotten through the certificate program, that's always a good sign for me that they're going to be successful in the rest of the online MSL program.

Marily Nixon:
Great. I would second that. Okay. Another question. "As a current human resources practitioner who is employee relations, do you have a high number of graduates who have completed the MSL with a specialization in human resources law? What do they share that they've leveraged from the program itself to advance their careers? Also, does the program provide network opportunities for those who work in the human resources field?" so yes, we've have had numerous graduates who've done the online MSL and human resources. The online MSL program is three years old now, or we're finishing our third year. Finishing our third year? Finishing our third year. No, we're starting our third year. We're starting our third year. It's our fourth cohort of students 'cause we start in January, and we start in August. But so we're a very new program so we don't have a ton of graduates.

We have a good number, but it's not as many as you would have if you looked at the in-person MSL over the years. But yes, we've had grads who combine those two, and what we hear from them is that it's very helpful to understand first of all how to read the law and second of all, again, it's the cases. So I think they take a lot of that, a lot of knowledge tuned to their jobs and also contracts is really valuable in particular for that group of people. So that's what we hear about most from them. Do we provide networking opportunities? We do. And in fact we have started to have programs online where we do sort of continuing legal education/getting to know people programs. So yes, we do some of those and we'll continue to be doing some of those.

Question, let's see. "Having already completed the certificate program... " Oh wait, the same person, "Would I only have to complete the core courses for the MSL?" Yes, yes, that was all you would have to do, the one-year series of MSL courses, the core courses. What else? "I was accepted and need to defer." Okay, okay, okay. So someone has a question, a specific question about financial aid and what I would like to do is connect you with someone from our staff and we will be contacting everybody after this presentation so that you'll have an opportunity to talk directly to a staff person who could help you with that specific question. "How many times a year does a new MSL class begin?" We start in January and August every year, so two cohorts a year.

Someone is, "For someone who has been a paralegal for 20 years and has an MBA, would you recommend the MSL or the certificate in corporate compliance for someone who wishes to move into a chief compliance officer position?" Well, first of all, I definitely recommend the corporate compliance certificate for your specific situation. Whether you complete the entire degree or not is really a judgment call on your part. The MSL includes the core courses, are these really foundational courses that really challenge you to think about the building block areas of law in a little bit of a deeper way. Then you might... If you're taking just a certificate, we just have more time to do it, and that is our focus. And also of course you get the degree, so if you just take a certificate, you don't get the degree. Those are the two things to think about, how much does that degree matter and how much does it mean to me to get a sort of deeper dive into these foundational concepts? And I guess I'd like to ask Greg, if you have thoughts on this. Since you complete the degree, what do you think about certificate versus degree?

Greg Griffith:
So I had not had a master's degree before, so it mattered to me that I went ahead and got the master's because my goal was in addition to having the master's to move on to a doctoral program, so that mattered. But in this case, the individual here has an MBA. I sort of concur with the idea that the certificate is really a solid graduate certificate if you're not looking to get that second masters. But the coursework is only what? A year more. Just from my perspective, I think go ahead and do the cert and the masters and have two master's degrees. I don't know. That's just the way I would think of it from my perspective.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, yeah. But you're someone who goes on and gets a PhD, Greg. I mean, you're like our pinnacle of inspiration. No, that's great, that's great. Thanks. Okay. Another question about, it's something that comes up for me about, "I've been a paralegal for 20 years." So that's great. You have a great grounding in law. "Another thing that comes up though that's similar is people will say, "Well, I'm thinking about, I really want to get a JD, so should I take this program first?" And the answer to that is, no, you should not take this program first. And we love to have as many qualified, enthusiastic students as we can, but it's not best for you. In most cases, if you really want a JD, we encourage you to get that JD. And if you have a specific... If anyone on this line is thinking about that as specific questions about their own situation, we would love to talk to you about it.

We can maybe help you figure out what makes sense. But in general, you should want the master's degree and you should want the additional knowledge that we'll give you to succeed in a sort of law adjacent kind of job. Not to ultimately then go spend three more years in law school. Okay. "Do you have any numbers on how many people found job placements or advancements for those who completed their certificate program and those who went on to do the full MSL program?"

I don't think we have numbers for that. We have anecdotal information that indicates that several of our grads every year have some kind of success in that way and Greg gave you his story. I know there are other stories that are similar to his, but to be honest, we haven't yet put in the administrative infrastructure that will allow us to canvas our graduates and keep track of them over the time, but that's something that we hope to do. Again, if that's a very specific concern for you, please talk to... When we contact you, talk to the staff person who contacts you and we'll try to maybe connect you with some people who have had success and perhaps that can help you kind of discern whether you think you would be likely to have the same kind of success. Our...

Greg Griffith:
Sorry.

Marily Nixon:
Yeah, I was gonna say our existing certificate student said, "I found employment midway through my certificate program". So that's great. Fantastic. Sorry, Greg, please.

Greg Griffith:
Sorry for interrupting. Yeah, I was just gonna say that I am... Also at this point, I think again, just sort of the added benefits of the programs. I'm in round two of interviewing for a senior level management position now. And I think, again, just the language I learned in this program and the ways in which I interact now have changed so drastically. This program really changed the way I write and the way I think quite frankly. So a lot of benefits still ongoing for me, so yeah.

Marily Nixon:
That's so great. I'm so happy. This is why we do it. Right, Jackie? This is why we do it. We love supporting students and seeing them reach higher and higher success in their lives.

Jackie Belczyk:
Yeah, absolutely.

Marily Nixon:
Okay. Someone asked, "Would this be beneficial for someone who is trying to obtain an HR position for the first time? I'm few weeks away from finishing up the certificate and I'm on the fence, whether the full MSL program will be worth the investment." So this is a great question. I think it would be best for you to speak to the director of the HR certificate who is Jay Hornack. And when you are contacted, the staff person can help you make that contact or you can just contact him directly. His email will be on the Pitt Law website. I think he'll be the best person to answer that question for you.

In general, we don't want to hold ourselves out as a program that will let someone with no experience get an entry level job. Will your resume be stronger after you get a certificate or get a master's degree? Yes, it will. Will it be strong enough to compete for jobs that are really designed for someone who's got some practical real-world experience? Maybe not. So again, we just want to be really realistic that we don't hold these programs out as really get right. We'll get you in the door to a mid-level job. But again, I really do recommend talking to Professor Hornack. Alright. Any other questions? These are really good questions. Alright. I'm gonna see. We might have one more that I have. Okay, okay. Good. That person is gonna not know who's the person to talk to. Okay. Unless there's anything else, anybody who's feeling shy, just drop your question in there.

Okay. "When is the deadline for January 2024 admission?" So not yet established, but it'll be probably November-ish of 2023. We know how people's schedules are, we know that these decisions are difficult and so we try to give you as much time as we can up to the beginning of the program. But then of course, we have to be prepared for all the students to give you good programs. So I think it'll be November-ish. We'll be announcing it for sure by October, possibly even September. Someone says, "I'm looking at healthcare compliance. I'd like to sit for this CHC credential exam. I'm on the fence about completing the certificate or the full program." Yeah. So again, this is just a question of what does the degree mean to you and how valuable is it to you to get sort of more grounding in the basic legal concepts and those foundation blocks, those building blocks of the law. And that's really a personal decision for you. If you would like to get a specific answer from a Healthcare Compliance Certificate Director, Mary Nell Cummings, I recommend that you talk to her. Cumming is C-U-M-M-I-N-G. Her email will be on the website as well. This is our oldest certificate. So she's got lots of experience with different kinds of students and what worked better different ones.

Please feel free to contact her. Again, you'll be contacted by a staff person at Pitt, and you can talk to them about getting in touch with her if you prefer to do it that way. And you can also contact any of us. I know Professor Belczyk and I are always happy to talk to people about anything, and if we're not the best contact for you, we will find the best contact for you. Okay. You're welcome. All right. Anything else? Okay. All right. I think then we will close this information session. We very much appreciate all of you participating, and we hope that we've whetted your appetite a little bit, given you a sense of what our program is about, and helped you to get an idea of whether it could be a good fit for you. We would of course love to see everyone applying to the program, and I love to see many of you in it. Again, feel free to contact myself, Marily Nixon, or Jackie Belczyk at any time. And you will be hearing from the staff person, and we hope to have a conversation with each of you and see how we might be able to help you out. All right. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you, Greg.

Greg Griffith:
Thanks for having me. Thanks everybody. Good luck.

Jackie Belczyk:
Thank you.

Jay Hornack:
Hello everybody. You have tuned into Law of Disability Discrimination and Employment. This is a webinar that is being brought to you by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Next slide, please. I'll do some introductions. First of all, my name is Jay Hornack and I am the Director of Human Resources Law Online, the certificate program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The program has been in existence now for four years. We're coming up on the completion of the fourth year of our 10-month program. You can see my email address there. I'll be talking a little bit more about my background, in another slide or two. Just another way of, introducing myself in addition to directing the Human Resources Law Online program, which means that I'm involved with applications, faculty advising, troubleshooting. I also am a faculty member. I teach the first course, the Introduction to Law in the Legal System, and concepts, legal concepts associated with hiring and firing. I also teach the fifth and final course, which is a capstone project, a paper and presentation requirement that all students have at the end of the program to complete their course of study. So that's who I am. Next slide, please.

Jean Novak:
And I'm Jean Novak. I'm an attorney at Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky in Pittsburgh. I'm the co-chair of the Employer-Employee Relations Practice. I teach wages, hours, and benefits in the certificate program, because Jay persuaded me that somebody needed to do it, and it is a big part of my practice day-to-day. I am an adjunct instructor at the university, so I do have a Pitt email, which is jnovak@pitt.edu. Can also reach me at my law firm, jnovak@smgglaw.com.

Jay Hornack:
Thanks, Jean. Next slide please. So, Jean and I both introduced ourselves. She talked about how she teaches wages and hour. I talked about how I teach hiring and firing and this capstone project. There is a course, in the program, an called Anti-Discrimination Law, including Disability Discrimination and Employment. I assure you that, both of us have experience in this area as well. And we'll talk about that in the upcoming slide. So, yes, you've tuned into the correct program. We will be discussing some substantive issues associated with the law of disability and employment.

I'll then at the conclusion of, the educational program, part of our program, talk a little bit about the University of Pittsburgh School of Law's Masters in the study of Law Program and the Certificate Program, specifically the Human Resources Law Online Program. And then at that point, if you have any substantive questions or any questions about the educational programs offered by Pitt in the human resources field, that's the time to ask them. There is a Q&A bar at the bottom that you can click onto. I think everybody's sort of familiar these days and the last three years with the way these online, educational programs work. That's the place for you to ask your question. I'll read them and then, one or both of us will do our best to answer them. So, without any further introduction, let's dive into the next slide, please.

So, this is a question that, is I guess, posed to both of us, and Jean started to answer it already. I'll, let me talk a little bit about what inspired me to join the faculty at Pitt and to teach, The Law of Disability Discrimination. That was, actually a course that I taught to JD students as well as MSL students from about 2005 to 2020 as an adjunct professor. Prior to that time, in addition to being a private attorney like Jean and having my own law firm, on the employee side of things, which included many substantive areas, not just disability discrimination, I found that that part of my practice was growing greater and greater. I had so a professional as well as a personal interest in the subject matter. I had family members who had disabilities and had a keen interest for that reason in this area of the law.

I became a board member in Pennsylvania of the Disability Law Project, which later became the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. I was recently just on their legal committee, but then I became a full board member and go to Harrisburg to attend those meetings. Learned a lot of other issues associated with persons with disabilities, specifically in education and public accommodations, not just employment. And when, the staff attorney, the chief Counsel for Disability Right Network, who was a Pitt Law graduate and who taught the course at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, stepped aside to move to Philadelphia. He asked me if I would take over the course, and that's what I started teaching for 15 years.

That overlapped by a year. The start of the Human Resources Online program, which was something I became aware of through other faculty members who were looking for somebody to run the program, Employment law, the law that I've been practicing all these years, is basically human resources law.

And so it was something that seemed like a nice fit. I was fortunate enough to be hired by Pitt to get the program started and to choose faculty such as Dean to teach the other courses. And here we are.

Jean, what inspired you to join the faculty? And don't say just me.

[laughter]

Jean Novak:
So you are very persuasive Jay, and you and I have known each other for a very long time, longer than probably either one of us wants to admit, but I taught at Ducane in the business school. I taught applied business ethics as an adjunct professor for a number of years, and I had to step back from that when my husband was terminally ill.

You were nice enough to reach out to me a year or two later and say, "I'm getting this started. How would you like to teach?" I believe you pitched wages, hours and benefits to me 'cause other people wanted the sexier topics. And I told you, a good teacher can teach anything.

I would take wages, hours and benefits. But my interest in disability law actually goes back to when the ADA was first passed. I was a law clerk at a small law firm.

Those guys had no interest in learning the law, but all of their clients were subject to it. My job was to learn the ADA from the minute it became the law. And so I've grown up with this.

This has been part of my practice literally since it was enacted, and it presents a lot of challenges. It's a really important part of the law. So I'm glad you and I are talking about it, even though this is not what I'm teaching in the program.

Jay Hornack:
I have some thoughts and response, but I think that I'm going to save them for a couple of slides in the future because, yes, we're veteran attorneys and so we remember back when there was just the Rehabilitation Act. We also remember when the ADA had this definition of disability that veered in a very different way, according to the Supreme Court, from what Congress ultimately said they meant by that. So anyway we're sort of now 15 years after those amendments and 35 years after the passage of the ADA almost. And so we have the experience of having lived through all that, and now we're dealing with different issues than what were being dealt with 20, 30 years ago.

Next slide, please? So, primary research interests that we have in this field and how they relate to the topics covered in disability discrimination. Jean, why don't you take this first? Maybe identify one or two particular aspects of disability discrimination law that are of interest to you?

Jean Novak:
So, as I joked with you earlier, I'm at a point in my career now where I can ask the young associates to do the heavy research lifting.
I just need to pick the topics. But the two things that I am particularly interested in when it comes to disability law are medical marijuana, because in Pennsylvania, medical marijuana recommendations are given only for people who have disabling conditions. I'm a charter member and former chair of the Medical Marijuana and Hemp Committee of the Allegheny County Bar Association.
We see one of our roles as educating people about medical marijuana as a way to treat disabling conditions, and at times, it is difficult to overcome some misconceptions about what medical marijuana is and is not. My other area of interest that I've been focusing on this year is artificial intelligence, particularly as it relates to the recruiting, hiring, and interviewing process. The EEOC recently recognized some difficulties in using AI as it relates to people with disabilities, in the interview process or in the recruiting process, quite frankly.

And I'm working with employers to get those employers to understand you can't simply abdicate your role in recruiting and interviewing to a machine, thinking that the machine is better and less likely to be biased than you are. The machine is only as good as the information we give it, and if we give it bad information, we're going to get bad results. So I'm very interested in how employers will be applying AI and how we can teach them to apply it appropriately, because I think the possibilities for people with disabilities in the workforce in using AI can be endless, but we have to be careful about how we use it.
How about you, Jay? What kind of things are you interested in right now?

Jay Hornack:
Well. I also have an interest in the area of medical marijuana. And when I teach the first course, I start out by talking about the American legal system and the structure and federalism and federal, state relations and laws that are passed at one level and are they binding at the other level. Can federal law preempt state law in certain areas? Can state law act in, for example, going to a higher minimum wage than the feds can? This is, I know that's your course not mine, [laughter] So in medical marijuana, there's just this interesting dichotomy between the actions of the states and it's almost, it's getting near 100% medical marijuana statewide despite Gonzales V Raich, the Supreme Court decision. And also the whole issue of the ADA and what it says about the Controlled Substances Act and whether Congress is ever gonna move marijuana from schedule 1 drug or not.

It's just a very interesting area of the law from seeing what the executive legislative judicial branches at the federal level and the states have done. I also find it interesting. The other area that I have an interest in and have spoken at a couple of continuing legal education programs in Pennsylvania about is service animals. And for those of you listening in, you may be thinking, well, sure, service animals comes up in housing comes up in travel, it comes up in the educational area, and of course it comes up in public accommodations, stadiums, auditoriums, buildings that have access to the public, does this really come up in the area of employment? And there actually are some cases which the subject of service animals as a reasonable accommodation has been proposed and there's been a dispute about it. And either by saying that it's from the employer's perspective, not a reasonable accommodation, or it's an undue hardship, or it poses a direct threat to others. And so. And then of course, what is an animal that's covered? There's been some congressional action in that area recently and what services or work the animals have to perform in order to come under the coverage of the ADA. It's a continuing area of interest of mine.

Next slide please.

An overview of legal requirements and protections related to disability discrimination law. I'll just mention a couple. I've already mentioned how the definition of disability has been tweaked if you will, by Congress and subsequently by the federal agency responsible for the regulations in this field, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, person must meet that definition, either having an actual disability, a record of that disability, or regarded as having that disability. There are certain key phrases that come up a lot when you're talking about the definition, physical mental impairment, major life activities of substantial limitation. These are all issues that in the course that we teach on disability discrimination will go to in some depth. And then also in terms of the definition of which individuals are covered, there's a question of whether they're qualified or not. Not just any person who has a disability necessarily gets coverage under the ADA, they have to be able to perform the essential functions of the job being questioned either when they're applying for or one that they are performing now with or without reasonable accommodations. There's a couple of legal requirements that come up at the very beginning of these situations at the workplace. Any others Jean?

Jean Novak:
One thing that I find I have to remind employers about on a regular basis is the interactive process. Actually having that conversation with the person who may need an accommodation. I like to remind my clients, you're not a doctor. You don't know. The fact that your aunt had migraines and could work 12 hours a day, has no bearing on what your employees can do. You need to have that conversation about what the employee is looking for and what is reasonable in the circumstance.

Jay Hornack:
And that language about interactive process is actually contained in the EEOC regulations. It's not something that was created separate from the ADA structure and that's something that I'll talk about when we get to issues and challenges that employees have in this field as well. Let's go to the next slide, please. And this may lead right into what you were talking about, Jean why don't you take this one since you do more work on behalf of employers than I do. Common challenges in addition to interactive process or maybe a little more about that when it comes to accommodations with disability?

Jean Novak:
Before you even get to the interactive process, one of the things that is often challenging, and Jay, I don't know if you've run into this as well, I'm assuming you have, job descriptions that don't make clear what the essential functions of a job are.
And we explain to employers on a regular basis, if you can remove the function without changing the nature of the job, it's not essential. But what we see are employers who have job descriptions that are two or three pages long with what I always call a savings clause, and any other thing I may ask you to do. Not really helpful, when you sit down for the interactive process and talk about what reasonable accommodations should be made and if something has to be eliminated, if you haven't identified essential functions of the job, it is very difficult to have those conversations. I like to use the example of my job. I'm an Attorney. I appear in court. Let's put aside for the time being, that I might be able to appear remotely now. Let's assume I actually have to go to the courthouse.

I've talked with HR people who believe that a lawyer has to be able to walk, stand, move about. That's not true. I know litigators who are in wheelchairs, they don't have to stand. They just have to be able to be present in court and communicate to the court effectively. So part of the process or part of the difficulty in accommodating disabilities in the workplace starts with the employer's understanding of what a job is, and how that job should actually be described, so that they can have truly fruitful interactive processes with the employee. Because if things don't work out, if the employer can't make those accommodations, then the EEOC wants to see that the employer identified essential functions and had a good faith discussion about how to change that job or offer accommodations to allow that person to perform the job. And I could go on and on about what my employers find difficult, but I think the next slide is going to be yours.

Jay Hornack:
It is because I am now going to it, next slide please. And I'll follow up on the issue of essential functions and job descriptions, talking about challenge that employees face and therefore these are issues that HR folks may face when employees come to them, either requesting accommodation or maybe they're not even coming to you with accommodations, but you suspect that there may be some health issue, either of a physical or a mental nature that is interfering with somebody's ability to work... And how does one handle that? What do you have to have actual notice, filling out the forms? Or is there a form of what lawyers like to call constructive notice? Being aware based on observations or things that are reported to you secondhand that may trigger the interactive process and from an employee standpoint.

I think one of the, for two areas that I can see coming up or have come up in cases that I've handled is yes, Jean is absolutely right, you know you were mentioning about the essential functions about a particular aspect of a job, but then there's some functions that might be considered essential regardless of whether it's white collar or blue collar, regardless of educational level. One is the ability to get along with others, and the other is showing up. How does one handle. At what point is an accommodation for somebody unreasonable if they continue to get in conflict with coworkers, arguments, not just with bosses, but other people doing their job, even if it is related to, for example, a mental impairment of some sort. Employees want the maximum amount of accommodation, but at some point there are hardships to the employer.

There's possibility of direct threat to other people that comes into play. And so that's one challenge that I think employees have when it comes to essential functions. But the other about not reporting to work and not being able to maintain steady employment that can, I think obviate the need for continuing employment. But I think the issue of not just accommodating somebody on the job, but maybe giving them time off, I find that this is one interesting area, leave of absence. There's another law that very often employees are able to invoke the family and medical leave act. If it's a large enough employer, somebody's been working at the place of employment long enough, they might be entitled to up the 12 weeks, every 12 months of unpaid leave. But some employers don't come under FMLA. Some employers may have obligations beyond those 12 weeks to provide a leave of absence. In some circumstances, the persons who aren't able to do the job.

And so that's an area of law that I see as a really a hot button issue these days for employers and employees, for attorneys on both sides. And I think that just exactly how long is long enough is a challenge employees want it to be the maximum amount possible, but I think the law is sort of trending towards at some point, unless there's a real expectation of a quick return to employment, an employer doesn't have to do anymore. Let's go to the next slide. Potential consequences of noncompliance. So why don't you start with that one Jean, since I guess you'd become aware of this as [laughter] as outside counsel. Probably once somebody has filed a charge with the EEOC but maybe even earlier, maybe you find that the case.

Jean Novak:
So one potential, obviously, one potential consequence is an EEOC charge, which may turn into a lawsuit. And one thing that employers understand is money. It is very expensive. Even if you have employment practices, liability insurance, which is just what it sounds like. Insurance company hires an employment defense attorney to present your case. Your premiums are going to go up if you lose, or your premiums are going to go up because you're still gonna have to pay for the defense. Your insurance company pays for it, but the potential consequences are damages, such as, if you terminated someone rather than engaging in the interactive process and finding a way to keep that person employed, you could owe back wages. You could also owe front wages depending on where they are in their career. If you are a repeat offender, the EEOC is more likely to be difficult with you. Often investigators are pretty good and mediators are pretty good, but if they see you frequently, that's going to be problematic for you. One thing I repeatedly tell clients is I can give you a list of the damages that a court might award, but the potential problems of failing to employ or continuing to employ people who are motivated and want to work are far more devastating in the long run than the damages.

There are a lot of people who just need the opportunity, and I know I sound more like a plaintiff's lawyer rather than a defense attorney, but it's very true that we still sometimes see people with disabilities as being less than, instead of simply being differently able and getting employers to understand that and getting employers to appreciate that employing people with disabilities can actually be good, not just for your business, but for that person. It can also be, I hate to sound crass, but it's a pretty good PR vehicle. It's been established that companies that do good in their communities conduct themselves ethically, for example, hiring people with disabilities tend to do better overall in profitability. So although it's not part of the law as a consequence, failing to recognize the benefits of employing people can be detrimental for employers where it hurts in profits. And then if it's a lawsuit, it can be detrimental in damages. How about you, Jay? When you take on a case for a plaintiff, what kind of damages are you looking for from the employer?

Jay Hornack:
Well, in disability discrimination law, as in other areas of employment discrimination, there's a few different types of legal claims that could be considered either by the EEOC or by the courts. One would be a disparate, what's called a disparate treatment case where somebody is treated differently than somebody else, either in hiring, firing, or working conditions. The other is... Another one is harassment on the job. And that can be on the basis of disability. And so the damages, the potential financial consequences can vary. If it's a failure to file a case, then it would be whatever lost wages there were or salary minus whatever work there's been in the meantime by that applicant if it's a wrongful termination, it would be those lost wages plus or minus any wages that have been earned in the meantime, it's mainly you're talking about salary and benefits associated with a job opportunity that was lost, or a job that was secured, but ultimately terminated. If it's a harassment case, then you could be talking about what would be considered to be compensatory damages, compensation for pain, suffering, aggravation, mental and physical aggravation associated with mistreatment on the job that wasn't properly handled by human resource spokes.
So those are potential damages that are available both legal and equitable to use some...

Jean Novak:
And if you win, Jay, who's gonna pay your attorney's fees?

Jay Hornack:
In... Yes, the statute does have a provision which says that if the employee is the prevailing party, then the employer would have to pay for those attorney's fees. Now, the reality of my practice in recent years, and I'm sure the reality of practice, of your practice as well, Jean, is that fewer and fewer of these cases get to a stage where you've got a judge or jury hearing a trial like on Perry Mason or name law and order. So many of these cases go into settlement mode and mediation. And there... Some of the claims that are potentially possible like attorney's fees tend to sort of say, well that's not really part of what you can get here. You sort of put it all in one big package.

And that's actually something that... A consequence that employees don't often realize. They think that I've been wronged, I want my day in court and I want it now. And I'm spending in my private practice a lot of time saying, well, no, there's... First you have to do the interactive process. But you don't have a case really if you don't do that. And then you go to the EEOC and then, and only then might you, if the things don't work out at that level, you go to court. But all along the way, everybody is trying to mediate the dispute and trying to say, well, there's some merit to your case, there's some merit to the other side. Can't we try to work this out? And from the employer standpoint, there's still costs associated with the... But there's less cost than going to trial.
From the employee standpoint sometimes, they're convinced that getting something is better than nothing at all, even if it's not a direct admission of guilt, payment of money is sometimes something they consider to be satisfactory enough. But I also think about the consequences back on the job. Well, if it's somebody who employees had a good working relationship and felt that they were treated wrong, I think one potential consequence for employers is maybe a hit to employee morale. About well, they treated...

Jean Novak:
Absolutely.

Jay Hornack:
They treated Mary Smith like this, what if I had a problem later on? I don't really feel like they really treated that situation with the kind of sensitivity and care that they should have. Alright, let's go to the next slide. How can organizations develop effective policies and procedures to prevent discrimination and promote disability inclusion? Well, I think that hiring your firm Jean would be one way to do that because you would set them straight...

Jean Novak:
Thanks Jay.

Jay Hornack:
But what kind of things might you... Well, what kind of things would be an effective policy and procedure.

Jean Novak:
Well, what we typically tell employers is you need to review your policies and procedures regularly. Make sure they're not only keeping up with the law, but with the way you are running your business with the people you see as employees or potential employees and have people trained. Train your managers, train the supervisors. Jay, you mentioned, people that might be perceived to have a disability. Sometimes employers have the wrong idea of what the term disabled means, and sometimes they do see people that are struggling and believe those people may not be able to do the job. Training is key and training should be done at all levels of the organization. Also, I found it very helpful when I was in graduate school and when I was in law school... At graduate school, there was a student at CMU who had MS.

He came and addressed student senate to talk to us about the challenges that he faced because he felt people just didn't understand. They didn't understand his disease process and they didn't understand what he needed or why at times he seemed better than at other times, what triggered his symptoms. And when I was in law school, there was a student who was in a wheelchair, same thing. Just having that conversation about the day-to-day challenges that student faced was helpful. And so promoting disability inclusion could mean making sure that people understand disabled employees aren't getting a break, they're not getting something they don't deserve. They simply are getting the opportunity to do what all of us want to do. Have a job, be productive, be happy. So in addition to reviewing your policies and procedures, and I think you're gonna talk about some ways that people can get training that can help them develop their own policies and procedures. Although I'll recommend that if you are in HR, you have your attorneys review those policies and procedures.

Jay Hornack:
Training to help educate and prevent discrimination and inclusion. When you have somebody, make sure you check in with that person, figure out what that person might need. And if you are a fellow employee, include that person. It's nothing like having somebody to eat lunch with, as my mother always says. How about you, Jay? Other than referring everybody to me.
Yeah, well, I would second what you said on the developing effective policies and procedures, and one way to do that, and to keep up with things in addition to having lawyers sort of looking at it is there are some resources out there that are available to non-attorneys as well. And let's go to that next slide, because I think that that's sort of gonna lead us in. Yes, other resources available to HR professionals to stay up to date on legal requirements related to disability, discrimination in employment. For people who are interested in the HR field or in the HR field at the present time, but are thinking about the additional schooling, I'm sure you're very aware of SHRM, they advertise nationally. You may have heard of them even if you're not in the field of Society for Human Resource Management, they've been around for a very long time.

I think they're celebrating some sort of anniversary, and it's 75 years, I think this year. I get at least two newsletters from them a day in my inbox. I find that they keep up with this area of the law, regulations, litigation. They hold their own webinars as well. They're on top of things. They do some lobbying as well on issues of the day, some related to disability discrimination. And so that's a great private resource available. And there are local chapters statewide, region-wide, and there's a Pittsburgh Human Resource Association that's also connected to SHRM. We've already, Jean and I have already mentioned the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which not only litigates and investigates, but they also issue guidances on various topics. And the one that... One of the two that you mentioned, Jean, are of interest here, of you, yours, artificial intelligence was something like their most recent pronouncement, right? It was just in the last week or so. That was a big headline in the area of law that we both practice in. So those are resources that are available. But you mentioned another one. The JAM, right?

Jean Novak:
JAN. I believe it's Job Accessibility Network, JAN, near and dear to my heart, because it's located in Morgantown and I'm, my undergrad is from WVU. But it is such an amazing resource. You can go in, type in a question or look through their library. They have suggestions on reasonable accommodations. They have suggested forms. Everything is very accessible. It's not laden with legalese. It is something that employees can access, so that they're more educated when they talk with their employers. It's something that HR professionals can have as a resource, so that you're not constantly reaching out to your attorneys. Not that I'm allergic to making money, but I want my clients to remain profitable. And I would say the same thing about SHRM, although some of its information is available only to members. One thing that I tell my clients about SHRM is for HR professionals, it's worth joining because they have a wealth of information and they present it in a way that makes it very usable by HR professionals, as opposed to some of the information that comes out of, for example, the EEOC, where it can be a little statute or regulation heavy, SHRM breaks it down into something that you as an HR professional can use immediately.

You're not busy looking up statutes and regulations. I think they're all great resources. And you can get on the mailing list for the EEOC, so that you too can get the newsletters that Jay and I get about these things on a regular basis.

Jay Hornack:
And the last resource that I would mention, plugging the University of Pittsburgh is that, we have a human resources law program here. And we, both Jean and I mentioned SHRM. I'm pleased to report that this month, SHRM granted an academic alignment certificate to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, HR program. And so it's something that rather than it being a competitor in some way, it's actually a complimentary program. And one that they have looked at our curriculum and the instruction that our graduates have received, and it meets with their seal of approval. I don't even know if you knew that or not, Jean.

[laughter]

Jean Novak:
I did not. That's great news.

Jay Hornack:
Yes, it is. So that leads me into the next slide, which is just to talk a little bit away from the substantive area of disability and discrimination which again, if you have questions, you can post them and we'll get to those in five minutes or so. If you're interested in human resources law and would like to obtain a more thorough education in the field, rather than attending a seminar here or there regardless of who's holding it, Pitt Law offers two different routes to take. One is that, you can take, have a concentration in human resources law as part of our Master of Studies in Law program, which is a two-year program. You would earn the degree in, like I said, master's would be completed in two years. The Human Resources Law portion would be one year within that program, or separately. And a shorter way to obtain some sort of a certification would be to take the Human Resources Law Certificate Program. We have currently four programs at the University of Pittsburgh. The second one listed there is Human Resources Law.

It would take 10 credits. The graduate certificate programs are completed in 10 months. And as it says down below, certificate students may choose to earn their MSL if they wanted to add it on after taking the Human Resources Law program or they could start at the beginning of their certificate courses, and then add the MSL core courses after certificate of courses. There's a person who if you're interested in the MSL program, I can direct you to in the final slide. But here's another slide that tells you a little bit about the MSL degree. You learn law relevant to your professional interest. Again, if you're interested in human resources law, that's an area of concentration. Enhance your ability to communicate with colleagues and peers regarding legal issues affecting the workplace. Get a master's degree for those who wanna learn the law, but don't wanna become lawyers. It's not the same as getting a JD, a Juris Doctor, and getting a license and having to take the bar exam. You'd build a proper network of professionals who are also investing in their future. And again, it doesn't prepare you to practice law, but does create familiarity with evolving laws and regulations that govern businesses today. That's the two-year MSL degree.

The next slide, benefits of a legal certificate. You gain a deeper understanding of the law, but you get a certificate in 10 months. But again, it doesn't prepare you to practice law, but creates that familiarity with involving laws and regulations, and it makes those connections with professionals like with an MSL. Next slide. If you specialize in human resources law in the MSL program, you get the legal and ethical tools to take on workplace challenges in a world of rapid technological, social and legal change.

Among the courses that are taught are genes, wages, hours and benefits course, and anti-discrimination course. Also, a course on working conditions, which not only talks about occupational safety and health, but also issues involved with labor management relations, also called labor law. Graduates will be eligible from the certificate program to sit for some of the industry-based human resources certification exams offered by SHRM, as well as by HRCI. Next slide, please. If you wanna apply for either the MSL or the HR law program, it requires a bachelor's degree. You have to complete an application with a statement of interest and a current resume. There's an application fee. We'll need your undergraduate and graduate transcripts from all colleges or university attended. If you're foreign student, there's a test of English proficiency, but there's no standardized tests like an LSAT or a GRE required in order to apply for these programs.

Next slide. Okay, so that's a little bit about our program, and I'll have a slide at the end for somebody associated with the application process that you can direct those questions to, if you have any questions about the application to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. But on the issue of disability discrimination, did anybody have a question or comment or a thought on anything either that, just an interest of yours generally, or something that you have a personal or professional interest in disability discrimination? There's a Q&A box down below that you can add your question to.

Okay. Well, at the beginning of the program, you saw my email address, my Pitt email address, and Jean read off her Pitt email address, if you have questions you wanna ask. And then lastly, if there's questions on admissions, Alan Gilewski is the senior admissions advisor at Pitt, and there is his email address.

Well, I hope you found this educational or whetted your appetite for learning more in this field or perhaps expanding your education into this ever-evolving field for persons with disabilities. I thank you for attending and or for listening in. Hold on, we've got a question here. Let me see. Oh, you're welcome, Linda. And so with that, I think we're going to end the recording. Have a nice rest of your day.

Jean Novak:
Thank you.

​​Max Laun:
Good afternoon and good evening. I hope people can hear me. I don’t think we have anybody because of time zone for whom it’s morning, but if you are, welcome to our webinar. We give just a minute to see if we get any additional participants, and then we will start.

[pause]

Okay, 6:01 by my watch, so let’s go ahead and get started. Welcome to today’s webinar. We’ve called it Hot Topics in Corporate Compliance. I’m going to spend the next half hour or so talking about the corporate compliance, what it is, some things that are going on in the space, and we’re going to talk a bit about the FTX scandal, which is the cryptocurrency scandal that has been in the headlines recently. I’m Max Laun, I’m the director of the Corporate Compliance Online Certificate program here at the University of Pittsburgh. I am... I don’t consider myself to be a corporate compliance professional. I am really a corporate lawyer who has spent much of my career around corporate compliance, however. I did a lot of transactions across many different continents. I got involved particularly in places like Russia and the Middle East, which have been compliance challenges for the world for as long as I’ve been practicing law. But I have worked in and around compliance. I was the chief ethics and compliance officer for about a year and a half for one of Alcoa’s spin-off companies. So I’ve had a fair amount of experience working through that.

Let me talk a little bit about our agenda for the day for the next half hour or so. We’re going to talk about some recent corporate compliance trends. We’re first going to sort of level set and make sure we all know what we’re talking about when we talk about corporate compliance. We’re going to do a little bit of a deep dive into the FTX cryptocurrency collapse from a compliance perspective. I’ve said to anybody who will listen that I could teach an entire semester-long or year-long course on FTX because there are so many pieces up to touch in the compliance base in many different compliance spaces. I will shorten that tonight and we’ll only spend 10 or 15 minutes on it. Finally, we’ll have a few slides to share at the end about Pitt Law’s Corporate Compliance Online Certificate program and our other certificate programs.

So let’s jump right in. Before we talk about corporate compliance trends, let’s make sure we all talk on the same page when we talk about what corporate compliance is. At its heart, corporate compliance is a system that ensures that a legal entity, a company, a non-profit, an institution, operates in compliance with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations. One of the things to be clear about is that you have to really dive into what is applicable to you, what is applicable to you as a business. And applicable laws, rules and regulations are those that are meant to regulate the conduct in question. There are a slew of laws out there that wouldn’t apply to me if I was operating a little mom and pop corner shop. I would not have to worry about compliance probably with any trust laws and other things like that. But laws, rules, and regulations can encompass both governmental regulations, but they can also be industry or trade standards or voluntary measures that a company has put in place. And so compliance really means that you’re complying with everything that is applicable.

How do entities comply? There are really three things that they do in order to make sure that they’re in compliance. The first is discovery. They have to understand what conduct is prohibited or allowed. They have to understand which of those laws, rules, and regulations apply to them. The second thing is system design. They design a compliance system to ensure that departures from acceptable conduct are identified and addressed. And by identified, we mean if you have something that has gone wrong, there is a mechanism to discover it, or there’s a mechanism for it to be reported. And then you, of course, have to address them. I mean, having excursions from acceptable behavior, if it’s an environmental exceedance, or if it is a bribe paid to somebody. That’s not acceptable behavior. The key is finding out how it happened and putting in place measures to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. One of the keys to this when you think about system design is you have to remember that it is all about people.

People operate the system. People communicate in the system. And so the answer really is you have to communicate, communicate, communicate. A little bit like when you do a webinar, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, I’m going to tell it to you, then I’m going to tell you what I told you. A lot of what you do in the corporate compliance world involves training, training your people, training your suppliers, training your customers, training the third parties who do work for you. And the key is really making sure that you’re communicating with them what the expectations are and what the consequences are if they fail. You have to have in place the third piece of an effective compliance system is to have feedback mechanisms. You have to make sure that the system is in fact working, that it’s capturing the conduct that is outside what is acceptable, and then you have to figure out how you can make the system better. And that’s an entire process that companies spend quite a bit of time on.

Let’s talk a little bit about why we do corporate compliance. Effectively, first and foremost, it is a license to operate, and that includes having a social license to operate, which is a common topic that you hear about in the corporate world. The idea is that in order to be an acceptable corporate citizen, you have to operate in compliance with the laws. There are incentives for doing the right thing, carrots. There are sticks, disincentives and punishments for doing the wrong thing. As lawyers, we tend to focus on the disincentives, but the incentives for doing the right thing are equally important. One of the things that you may have read about in some times are some of the huge payouts that whistleblowers have gotten from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, and from other entities for identifying bad conduct on the part of a company.

Oftentimes they will do it internally, then they will ... if they aren’t successful, they will take it to the SEC. But there have been payouts of hundreds of millions of dollars to whistleblowers. That’s incentive for the whistleblower, not necessarily an incentive for the company. Let’s talk a little bit about the other reason you do corporate compliance and that is because of your reporting obligations, because of publicity, because of your reputation. In some areas, particularly if you’re a publicly traded company, you have mandatory government reporting. You have to file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC. You have to file reports with stock exchanges. Non-profits have IRS and other state requirements. There are a number of things where you have mandatory government reporting requirements.

And you wanna make sure that what you put in and give to the government is complete and accurate. Publicity. This is a big one. Our former CEO at Alcoa, Paul O’Neill, who went on to be the Secretary of the Treasury for the US, always talked about the front page of the New York Times/Wall St. Journal/Washington Post/Financial Times test. And that test really was, “How would you feel reading about the conduct that you’d engaged in on the front page of one of these prominent papers?” And so that is something that every company has to keep in mind.

And that ties in really to the next point, which is reputation and branding. Obviously, branding is something that is important, not just for consumer products companies, it is of course, important for them, but it’s important for everybody. You want to have a reputation of being a company that does business above board ethically and in compliance with the law. The other thing that I’ll just mention is social media, which has become both a mirror and in some cases a bit of a weapon in the past several years. Conduct that in the past might have gone reported only in SEC filings and the likes is getting a lot of press and a lot of publicity on social media platforms. So you have to be aware of that. You have to monitor your social media presence, but also what people are saying about you.

Let’s talk about four basics of corporate compliance. Number one, don’t bribe. Bribery is outlawed in virtually every jurisdiction. The U.S. takes it very seriously. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. But first and foremost, don’t bribe. Secondly, don’t ignore sanctions. I mean, with the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, there are new and every week, additional sanctions that are being imposed on Russian entities, Russian individuals. So you need to be aware of the sanctions, you need to not ignore them because ignoring them can put your business in jeopardy. Third point is don’t lie, and this is really don’t lie on document. Don’t lie anyway. But in particular, don’t lie in any of the filings that you make.

And this is really good because there could be severe repercussions, both in the financial markets from the securities regulators and certainly from the IRS. And speaking of the IRS, don’t hide the money. The longstanding tail on this is that Al Capone didn’t go to jail because he had allegedly whacked over 100 people. He went to jail because he didn’t pay his taxes on various sources of illicit income. And so the IRS went after him and he went to jail. So those are really the four main catchy rules of corporate compliance. Let’s talk a little bit about what some of the trends in corporate compliance today are.

First of all, corruption or anti-corruption is really... It remains at the forefront of what companies are spending their time and energy thinking about. The biggest risk that companies have is the use of third parties to facilitate business. There is the global compliance risk benchmarking study done by White & Case Law Firm and KPMG, is one of the big four accounting firms, found that 59%, almost 60% of respondents were using third parties. And using a third party means that instead of selling something directly to a customer, you have somebody who acts as an intermediary: The sales agent, the sales representative, a distributor, somebody else, a middleman who helps you. The fact of the matter is that those third-party transactions are your biggest risk. If you look at the top 10 list of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is the U.S. statute that governs the governs bribery, if you look at the 10 list of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, cases that have been brought by the government then, and these things are almost invariably settled, all 10 of the top 10 involved bribery through third parties.

In some cases the principal knew or had reason to know that the bribery was happening, in some cases, it appears that they had a third party who went off the reservation and was doing it on their own, but nonetheless, third-party usage is something that the companies continue to focus on. They put in place systems to review the transactions, to train their third party intermediaries and to work closely with them to make sure that they’re not running afoul of U.S. law.

Cyber security is another area that respondents identified as a major focus coming up. And I think some of it has to do with all of the revelations about Russian, Chinese, Ukrainian, you name it, interference in elections. And I think that’s come to the forefront. Most big companies have at some point had either a data breach or have been hacked. If they’re fortunate, they have not had a breach that led them to having to pay ransom to a hacker. But companies are spending serious money on cyber security. Privacy and data protection are further down the list and sanctions and ESG, which I’ll talk about a little bit more in a minute. ESG is environmental, social and governance. That sort of became a watch-word, a catchphrase in corporate governance and companies have been devoting a lot of effort on ESG.

Couple of observations really on anti-corruption and on ESG. First, in the anti-corruption space, written policies and procedures about how you use third parties, when you can use them, what parameters you’re using are very common, but, but, but less than half of the major companies that responded to this survey actually train their third parties on what they can and can’t do, and only 25% of those who responded do regular performance audits over their conduct. They rely on self-certification from intermediaries. All of that is to say, those things, training your third parties, going out or having…. Doing spot testing about what they are doing, those are time-consuming and resource-intensive. But those are things that companies really do need to focus on.

Let me talk a little bit about ESG, environmental, social, and governance. This really was the hot-button issue a couple of years ago. It gets a lot of press, it continues to get a lot of press. Cybersecurity in the 2023 survey got higher prominence. But I think ESG is something that is out there and will continue to be out there. My observations are, first and foremost, 40% of companies haven’t even defined what ESG is, particularly smaller companies. And so saying, “We’re thinking about ESG,” but if you don’t tell yourselves and tell everybody what you mean by it, it doesn’t do a lot. The other thing is that the responsibility for ESG is spread. Occasionally, companies have a dedicated officer to whom it’s assigned, but more often it’s part of the general counsel’s role, part of the chief ethics and compliance officer’s role, or it’s assigned to a committee. I would sit here and tell you that if you don’t have somebody who is focused on it and really measured on it, then you have vulnerability around how you can successfully comply with ESG reporting requirements and the expectations of you.

If you have any questions while we go through this, please feel free to put them in the chat or you can save them and I’m happy to answer them at the end of the presentation. Let’s turn to FTX, which is .... and I’ll walk you through a little bit of who FTX is, what the timeline of the scandal was. So FTX was founded by a guy named Sam Bankman-Fried and he goes by his initials, SBF. He actually established a company called Alameda Research earlier, and then co-founded FTX which stands for Futures Exchange in 2019. Alameda was initially just a big cryptocurrency trader. They focused on derivatives. They were later run by Caroline Ellison, who was SBF’s sometime-girlfriend. They worked together, they were involved in a relationship for a while, and then were out of a relationship. This will become important a little bit later. The idea behind FTX was to have an accessible exchange to make crypto trading available to everyday investors. Prior to 2019, crypto was one of those things that really only the big, big companies and big, big traders had any real idea about and had any real access to.

FTX was incorporated in the Bahamas, even though the principal players at that point in time when it was started remained largely in the US. The reason they were incorporated in Bahamas was because the Bahamas are a very tax and regulatory-friendly environment, meaning they’re viewed as a bit of a tax haven, and they don’t have much in the way of a regulatory framework, particularly in this area. FTX originally got big backing from SoftBank and Sequoia Capital, who are two of the big players in the crypto area, as well as from the founder of Binance, which is another big crypto company. In July of 2021 before everything went south on revenues that we’ll see were a bit questionable, the company was valued at $18 billion, which is an incredible valuation for a company that had started up two years or so before.

I won’t play it for you, but there’s a link here on YouTube, to a Super Bowl commercial that FTX did using Larry David, who’s a comedian and essentially, Larry David in it sort of takes out, “I don’t know why I would wanna do that. I don’t know why I would wanna do that,” in response to a whole bunch of things that were seen as groundbreaking. But he was intrigued by the idea of FTX though. You can play that on your own time.

Let’s talk a little bit about what happened and I’ll give you a bit of a timeline here. Between May and July 2022, there were a series of smaller cryptocurrency companies that collapsed. They either became insolvent or fundamentally there was a run on the cryptocurrency bank. FTX doubled down on their position and acquired some of their assets out of bankruptcy. So that’s in May, June, July, of 2022. On November 2nd, 2022, Sam Alameda, which is the related company originally founded by SBF and run by SBF’s friend had financials leaked and those financials showed that there was a much closer-than-understood relationship with FTX, with Alameda having big holdings in FTX captive token, which is called FTT. The view before that was that Alameda was just another trader. The leak of those financials showed that that wasn’t the case, that FTX was propping up Alameda and Alameda was propping up FTX.

So Binance, one of the big players, then announced plans that they were going to exit FTT because of the lack of credibility of it. And the price of a token went from 22 bucks to six bucks and that put the entire FTX and Alameda system under great strain. Four days later, Alameda shut down, FTX’s assets were frozen. On November 11th, the day after that, FTX, its subsidiaries and Alameda filed for bankruptcy. FTX was allegedly hacked and $300 million in invested funds disappeared. Some of them were later found, we’ll talk about that in a minute, but in the course of fundamentally nine days, FTX went from being still a bit of a darling in this cryptocurrency space to being a bankrupt pariah. New CEO was appointed on November 11th. I’ll have an amusing quote from him in a minute. His name is John J. Ray III. He actually oversaw the Enron liquidation. He was the liquidation trustee for Enron. And so he knows what happens in the financial fraud space.

Let’s talk about some of the revelations that came out in the bankruptcy filing for FTX. The CEO, this is the Enron guy, said, “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information that’s occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.” I’ll pause there for a minute just to observe that this is by the guy who unwound Enron. He had seen everything that Jeff Skilling and all of the other people who were involved in the Enron scandal 20 years ago were involved in. And he characterized this as being the biggest failure that he’d ever seen. And that is ... I mean, from a corporate compliance standpoint, this is basic blocking and tackling. You have to have corporate controls. You have to have financial information that you can trust. You have to understand, if there is a regulatory environment, you have to have systems in place to ensure that you can comply. And so the fact that this is in the cryptocurrency space is interesting, but from a basic corporate compliance standpoint, it’s just appalling.

So the next month, in December, SBF was arrested in the Bahamas. He was extradited to the US within a week. On December 21st, Caroline Ellison, the former girlfriend, the woman who was running Alameda and another FTX co-founder plead guilty in New York to wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud. This is only six weeks after all of that. So in six weeks ... the evidence against them must have been just so overwhelming that they chose to plead guilty rather than to face the music.

[pause]

Let’s talk a little bit about some of the corporate compliance lessons. And again, recognizing that it’s still very much a work-in-progress. As I said, garden variety financial fraud still exists and it appears that a lot of what was going on here was just the kind of financial fraud that they saw in the Enron situation, and in many other situations. I have the quote from Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, which is, “Greed is good.” Not necessarily. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I am a lawyer and a capitalist, but I’m not necessarily sure I agree with that. I would make another observation, which is, if something like crypto can’t be explained to you in a minute, in an elevator speech, you should really be critical about it. I don’t purport to understand all of it. I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about it and looking at how cryptocurrency is mined, what underlies it, but I don’t think it’s ever been explained to me in a minute and I’m still waiting.

I would also say, beware offshore ownership and regulatory regimes for your investments, particularly where U.S. authorities are still trying to figure out how to regulate. In the after ... there have been Congressional hearings that have started on crypto and on FTX and they’re going to be more. Part of the issue is that crypto has really emerged over the last three to four to five years, and Congress hasn’t figured it out. I think Congress also struggles a little bit with the, “I don’t quite understand it, and if I don’t quite understand it, I’m not quite sure how to regulate it.” But there’s going to be ... I’m certain that there’s going to be regulation that comes down the line on crypto. The question is, is it going to be regulation that is well-informed, or is it going to be a knee-jerk reaction to the excesses that have appeared thus far in FTX? A lot, as I said, of FTX is just garden variety, lack of controls, financial fraud. These things could happen in a manufacturing company. They could happen in a different financial services company. And here, they just happened to happen in a cryptocurrency.

And finally, my last word of warning in the corporate compliance world and in the business world in general, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. You really need to look critically at anything that you’re investing in or considering investing in or involved in, so that you really understand what its risks are. Because risk mitigation is really what corporate compliance is all about, and you have to be able to understand the risk to be able to mitigate. Like to talk here for a minute or two. Alan, do you wanna take over? Would you like me to cover this?

Alan Gilewski:
It’s completely up to you. I could take over if you’d like.

Max Laun:
Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and I can jump in as needed?

Alan Gilewski:
Perfect. Yeah, thank you so much, Professor Laun. That was really insightful, really gave me some insight into everything that happened. You hear it in the headlines, but you’re not too sure what’s actually going on. So I really do appreciate you taking the time to explain it all to us. My name is Alan Gilewski, I am the outreach admissions advisor for the Online Master of Studies in Law and graduate certificates at Pitt Law. I’m going to talk to you a little bit more about the programs that we do offer. The Online MSL and certificate programs were designed with the working professional in mind. All courses are asynchronous, which means there is no specific day or time you must be online. Rather, your program affords you the ability to participate week by week on the day and at the times that work best for you, provided that you meet weekly deadlines. Depending on the graduate certificate you choose, upon completion, you may be eligible for industry-specific examinations and certifications. You’ll see some of the exams here as well as a few career paths you might take with our program. If you wanna add anything Professor Laun, go ahead. Perfect. Next slide then.

[pause]

Let’s take a look at the left side of the diagram for details about the MSL program. The program of study begins with the MSL core courses. The MSL core is made up of eight courses. These range in length from three to eight weeks and total of credits. Once you have completed the MSL core courses, which takes 12 months to complete, you will then choose a specialization. As you can see on the right side of the graphic, the options include healthcare compliance, human resources law, international business law and corporate compliance. All of these specializations follow the same format. There are five courses, each is eight weeks long, and each earns three credit hours, making a total of 15 credit hours for each specialization. The specializations take 10 months to complete. And the MSL core courses plus the specialization make up the 30 credit hours required for the MSL degree. So the MSL core courses and specialization can be completed in just less than two years.

Yeah, no worries. However, if you are unsure whether it’s the right time for you to pursue a master’s degree, you may want to instead apply for a graduate specialization as a standalone certificate. This is a great way to specialize in a subject matter expertise in a particular field, in a very short time. Then if you later decide you’d like to pursue the full MSL, you can apply the certificate credits towards the MSL degree. You would just need to complete the MSL core courses, then you would end up with both a master’s degree and a certificate in your specialized field. As you can see, the program is very adaptable. It allows you to select the order of programs to suit your needs as they evolve over time. So in other words, you can complete the MSL degree in two different ways, either take the core courses first, and then the certificate, or take the certificate first, then the MSL core courses.

Max Laun:
Now I will allow my finger to twitch. Sorry, Alan.

[laughter]

Alan Gilewski:
No, no worries, no worries. Now that we have reviewed the programs themselves, I’d like to talk to you a little bit more about the application process. As you can see here, we do require a bachelor’s degree, a completed application form. As part of that application form, we require a statement of interest or a personal statement, a current resume and a $38 application fee. We do require all transcripts from all colleges and all universities attended. You may submit unofficial transcripts for review, however, once admitted, official transcripts are required before you enroll. It’s all yours, Professor Laun.

Max Laun:
Thank you very much. Yeah, there are no other tests. There are no tests of English. There is a test of English proficiency if you’re an international student. There aren’t any other standardized tests that are required. If you have questions about corporate compliance or the Corporate Compliance program, please feel free to reach out to me. If you have questions about the admissions and the MSL or any of the certificate programs, you can feel free to reach out to Alan. With that, we close the formal presentation. If there are any questions or comments, I haven’t seen any in the chat yet. If there are any questions or comments, please put them in there. We’ll give it a little bit. And if there aren’t any, then we will thank you for attending our webinar and we hope we wetted your interest in corporate compliance. We hope we explained a little bit about what’s going on in the wild world of cryptocurrency and FTX. And we hope you get some more interest in the MSL program, the Corporate Compliance program, or any of the other certificate programs. Thank you very much.