​Since President Trump officially took office, there have been endless reports of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and deportations—some have been true, while others were false.
 
Keep in mind that President Obama’s 2014 policy focused on deporting unauthorized immigrants — gang members, felons and those who pose a security threat. Similar to the one the Trump administration is implementing.
 
In office for a little over a month, President Trump has stopped at nothing, when it comes to accomplishing his mission of deporting any and everyone who he believes is a “threat” to the US, even if that means one who is law-abiding. This means that immigration officials can now remove anyone with a criminal background. It also applies to anyone who had their deportation postponed under the Obama administration.

Why did it take a controversial election and an even more controversial president to raise more awareness and support for refugees? It’s almost cynical to think that an executive order got us, as Americans, to open our eyes to such an underlying cause. What is going to happen to 38,000 refugees who call America home?
 
Concern has been raised by countless groups, from politicians to professional athletes to the general public. Think of it this way, the NBA immediately inquired to the state department, about what would happen to its international athletes—Luol Deng plays for an American team, holds South Sudanese and Australian citizenship, but their biggest concern was whether he would be allowed to enter or even leave America if the Lakers play a game against Canada’s team. Clearly, South Sudan is not one of the countries subjected, but when you consider the same scenario—with someone from Yemen or Lebanon—then it would make more sense. 

​​​For decades, immigration has been a hot topic of discussion in the U.S. The buzz surrounding it seemed to die down and then come back in full steam following the 2016 Presidential election. President Trump has a very ambitious plan for Protecting America: build a wall, ramp up the deportation of millions of illegal residents, temporarily ban entry to citizens of certain predominantly Muslim nations and put a hold on accepting Syrian refugees.    
 
There is no doubt that many people come to the U.S. with hopes of finding a better life. Whether it is the opportunity for a better form of employment, education, or freedom, they venture here to chase the American dream. The dreams they held onto dwindled as they watched the recent election unfold. Their dreams may be gone and fear takes over. Fear that they may be separated from the life they spent years or even decades building.

While today should not be the only day we honor the fearless and brave men and women who protect our great country and ensure that we can go about our lives safely, it is an important day to take note how we fail them at home.

Currently, there are nearly 40,000 homeless veterans. In fact, veterans make up nearly 20% of the male homelessness population. Sadly, women veterans are the fastest growing homeless population in the US. Women veterans are four times as likely to become homeless as male counterparts! Per several sources, New York and Florida have among the highest veteran homelessness population in the country. It is estimated that there are 3,500 homeless veterans in New York City alone! In Central Florida, there are about 4,500 homeless veterans. 
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Why are so many veterans homeless you may wonder? They are often unemployed and disconnected from their families upon their return home because of mental illness and substance abuse. They are simply not given the proper support to be re-integrated in civilian life.  They don’t know how to apply for social benefit programs that are designed to help them. Lawyers are trained to provide such services and can ensure that veterans receive the benefits they deserve. Currently, there is very little legal support for them.

How can we as proud Americans live with ourselves knowing that these veterans are in dire need of support and help and they receive none?  
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Jurbid will make a stand. Starting today, Jurbid will provide the lawyers in its network incentives to provide pro bono services to veterans including free or discounted services. Additionally, all veterans will receive a 5% discount off their paid legal service.

We are here for you because you have been there for us.
 
With much respect and love.

Your Jurbid Team. 

The tech sector may be making tremendous advances connecting us in unimaginable ways, but it fails when it comes to advancing certain societal causes. Silicon Valley is a leader in so many ways, with the glaring exception of both hiring women and protecting them in workplace. Women in technical roles and leadership positions are few and far between. Worse, many of them are often the recipients of unwanted sexual advances by male colleagues, many of whom never suffer any repercussions of such behavior. In a sense, not much has changed from the Peggy Olson days from Mad Men. Women are regarded as inferior, get hired as secretaries, do not get equal pay and are sexually discriminated against in the workplace.

Currently, women make up about 51% of the US population and 59% of the US labor force. However, they only make up 29.1% of the labor force in tech companies. The number of women working in technical roles is even lower, at only 15.6%, indicating that women have little influence shaping technology.

In addition to being left out of technical roles, women also don’t steer ships of technology companies, with only one out of five women holding leadership roles in tech companies. As a result, women lack proportional influence regarding the direction and the vision of tech companies.  Upward mobility for women in the workplace is also at issue. In fact, 66% of women reported feeling excluded from key social/networking opportunities because of their gender. Isolating them reduces the probability for further networking and possible career advancements.

One of the most pressing issues, however, revolves around sexual harassment in the workplace. A recent study of women with at least ten years of experience in the tech sector revealed that 65% received unwanted sexual advances, with most coming from their immediate supervisor. Ninety percent reported witnessing sexist behavior at an out-of-office event or at a conference. The net effect is that women are excluded from networking events, except for those moments when they are on the receiving end of unwanted sexual attention by male colleagues. Unfortunately, 60% of victims who reported sexual harassment were dissatisfied with the outcome.
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Laws protecting women from unwanted sexual harassment in the workplace, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been on the books for decades. While these laws are widely known to exist, they are woefully enforced, meaning that women have to actively fight for a safe and fair workplace environment. The fight begins with reporting sexual harassment internally. If the company falls short of protecting them and the resolution is not acceptable, the fight needs to continue. It needs to be brought to a Labor and Employment lawyer, and Jurbid can help you do that.  If you experience sexual harassment at work and feel unsatisfied, post your case today.
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With Hillary Clinton now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, it will be the first time a woman will represent a major party in a US presidential election. Her accomplishment is being heralded as a milestone for women everywhere. This time around, Clinton has embraced her influence as a women, stating early on in her campaign that if she were to be elected, “finally fathers will be able to say to their daughters, You, too, can grow up to be president." The US presidency has long proved the ultimate glass ceiling for women. And though the general election is still months away, many can’t help but wonder how a Hillary Clinton presidency would impact women’s rights, particularly in the workplace. Could a female Commander in Chief level the playing field once and for all, at least culturally?

Irrespective of the outcome of the elections, as part of our mission Jurbid will address many of the inequalities and injustices women face through our blog posts. We will touch upon a range of relevant issues like the biases women face in the work place in respect to their intellectual abilities, gender discrimination in the classification of jobs, sexual harassment, and pay inequity.

While the situation for women in labor force today is much better than it was just a generation ago, up to a third of women have reported experiencing workplace discrimination.

By in large, the evolution of women in the labor force has accompanied wider political, economic, and social transitions. While there has never been a time when women have not “worked,” the visibility of their efforts have become more pronounced over successive generations. As paid employment opportunities outside the home have increased and cultural attitudes towards working mothers have progressed, women have made their mark in the workplace.

At turn of the 20th century, women made up 19% of the labor force, and were employed mostly in the industrial and agrarian sector. By the 1960s, women represented 38% of the workforce, but were still largely confined to low-paid jobs, in part due to World War II.
Women’s prospects improved significantly with the Equal Pay Act (1963), prohibiting wage discrimination on the basis of sex, and the Civil Rights Act (1964). Though women were generally still expected to be homemakers, and those who worked were regarded as doing so out of economic need rather than personal ambition, developments were made to legitimize the value women bring to the workplace.

Since the 1960s, the overall rate of women in the labor force has steadily increased, thanks in large part to the women’s liberation movement and changing societal attitudes, as well as an increasing rate of higher education. These factors alone led to the creation of many white-collar jobs and the appointment of women to positions of responsibility. It also ignited a workplace power struggle between men and women, as they competed for the same jobs for the first time.
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By 1970, women in the labor force had reached 43%, by 1990, 58%, and by 2000, 60% (the rate declined to 47% by 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession). With time has come a narrowing of the gender gap. Women’s college attendance, in particular, has succeeded in acclimating men to having female classmates, and thereby female colleagues in the workplace. However, while women may be making strides in some social settings, these advancements aren’t necessarily reflected in the workplace, as the persistent wage gap between the sexes demonstrates.
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There have been a number of articles and blogs about the “Uberization of law” over the past year. Once a business model is successful in one vertical it seems as though everyone is running to apply the model to her or his vertical. Adopting a successful model, however, does not guarantee success, especially if it doesn't fit within another industry.  At minimum, prior to adopting a model, one must understand it in its entirety before attempting to apply it to a different vertical. Secondly, one must ensure it is feasible to adopt it to another vertical. So let’s see how Uber works and how it could fit within the legal market.

Each Uber driver needs to be licensed. Similarly, each lawyer in the legal industry must be licensed. However, this is where the similarities between the two verticals begin and abruptly come to a halt. Every time Kate opens her Uber app, she is receiving a service from an Uber driver, yet Uber and not the driver contracts her fare. Uber as a company sets the prices and fare is contracted out to each of their drivers. The driver is thereby charged a percentage of the fare as well. Uber holds the total fare the consumer was charged for 30 days and then disperses the driver’s earnings at the end of the month. As a lawyer and as a consumer you may begin to see why Uberization of the legal industry is not feasible and here’s why.

1.     The legal industry is far more complicated, intricate and case specific than an industry concerned with taking Kate from destination A to B. While Uber calculates a fare based on a limited number of factors like distance and time, there are infinite variables to consider in a legal case.

2.     Lawyers are prohibited from splitting profits with non-lawyers due to Professional and Ethics rules.

3.     Each lawyer is required to hold client money in a specific way. If a third party company holds funds for 30 days like Uber does before dispersing to their drivers, they would be faced with yet another violation of the lawyer’s professional and ethic requirements. Specifically, the Uber model does not account for the requirements of holding money in escrow on behalf of the client. Money held in escrow funds is referred to IOLTA accounts that earn interest.

4.     In order to be compliant with lawyer rules, a company adopting the Uber model would itself have to be a law firm. Uberization of law, thus, falls short in accommodating the 600,000 of lawyers working as solo practitioners.

We have repeatedly heard that Jurbid is the Uber for law. We are not and we never intend to be. The Uber model is not only inappropriate in the legal services industry, at least in our view, it is also a poor fit for our vision of the future of law. Instead, Jurbid adopted a proven model that we feel addresses the need within the framework of the system.  Jurbid is a marketplace that connects consumers and lawyers. Each lawyer sets their own price and a client contracts directly with the lawyer. Jurbid is merely the facilitator.

To put it into context, if Uber were like Jurbid, each driver would set their own prices for the fare and drivers would compete with one another for Kate’s choice. We believe that our marketplace approach centralizes an unorganized and fragmented market ultimately creating transparency and competition among lawyers. There are over 1.2 million lawyers in the United States. Fifty percent them are solo practitioners. How can anyone find the right lawyer at her or his budget? Well, through Jurbid.  
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Your Jurbid Team.   
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Relationships. We all have had them. Most are bad. Some are really bad and the occasional good ones, if you are lucky. In order to minimize the risk of a bad date or relationship, we turn to our network of friends for a referral. With that, we turn to Kate.
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Kate’s cousin Mike went to High School with Steven who knows a guy in a band. Kate’s interest is sparked, a picture is shown and a date is set. What Steven didn't tell Kate but Kate finds out on the date is that the guy plays the harp. He also lives in his mom’s basement, is unemployed and is 40 years old. Kate just wasted a night of her life.

​Would you trust Steven when looking for a lawyer after being kicked out of your apartment? The answer should be a resounding "no".

Much like finding your next ex-husband or wife, technology has made everyday life easier. Successful companies like Match.com are making it easier for us to connect. What Match.com has done for dating can be used as a model for changing how we do everyday things because we all are looking for the right fit. Jurbid wants to help you find the right legal fit.

With Jurbid, you can hire your lawyer in three simple steps. You post a case on our intuitive and secure platform, receive and review lawyer proposals with the price and the exact service the lawyer will provide and then you pick your lawyer. That is it. It is that easy. No more calling around. No more guessing the price.

A referral for a date can lead to a bad date. A referral to a bad lawyer can lead to you being homeless. Don't be a Kate. Use Jurbid.

Your Jurbid Team.
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