About Aimée Groth
Former Super Lawyers associate editor Aimée Groth is currently a partner at HolacracyOne, an organizational design firm that helps companies become more agile and human-centered. A one-time technology journalist who covered Silicon Valley culture for Quartz, she also served as a senior editor at Business Insider. In 2017, Simon & Schuster published her book The Kingdom of Happiness: Inside Tony Hsieh’s Zapponian Utopia, which Kirkus Reviews called “An intriguing business/sociological chronicle with wider implications for modern corporate practices.”
Articles written by Aimée Groth
Rescuing businesses and other animals
Lindsey L. Smith on the emotional burden of bankruptcyWhen Lindsey L. Smith looks clients in the eye and explains that filing bankruptcy means their lives will immediately become an open book to the public, they usually cringe. In that moment, some decide to skip it even if bankruptcy is the only way to potentially salvage their businesses, homes and the lives they’ve built. “It’s very emotional,” says Smith, an associate at Levene, Neale, Bender, Yoo & Brill. “They’ve invested their whole lives into what they’ve done.” This is …
Prisoners of Wars
From Gitmo to Orange County, Cindy Pánuco fights for inmate rightsSix months after graduating from Loyola Law School, Cindy Pánuco found herself poring over documents in a high-security building near the Pentagon before flying to Guantanamo Bay to meet with an Afghan detainee named Obaidullah. She and her co-counsel petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus and eventually argued his case at a closed hearing. “We weren’t even able to challenge [or see] some of the evidence because it was so highly classified,” she says. Ultimately they lost the hearing, …
The Return of Lenny Sanz
Employment plaintiff attorney Leonard H. Sansanowicz learned empathy as an actor opposite (among others) Steve CarrellIn his third year of law school, Leonard H. Sansanowicz was riding the elevator in the U.S. Attorney’s Office with friends and fellow externs when an assistant U.S. attorney stepped into the elevator, took one look at him and exclaimed, “You’re my criminal!” Sansanowicz, formerly an actor with the stage name Lenny Sanz, had done a training video some years earlier for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in which he played a criminal defendant. “The assistant U.S. attorney had written the …
Brick by Brick
GCs and outside counsel weigh in on best practices to build a solid foundationEarly in her career, Kristina Maritczak witnessed malpractice unfold right before her eyes. A prestigious East Coast firm that her company hired missed crucial details—including the fact that the plaintiff and co-defendant were in a romantic relationship—and overbilled by approximately $250,000 before discovery even began. “I was not the chief legal officer at the time, and I recommended we file grievances against these lawyers for malpractice,” says Maritczak. “But my boss disagreed. …
Stand in the Place Where You Live
Tenant rights in a city of rentersLucas A. Ferrara calls it “one of the most contentious relationships known to humanity.” No, not Yankees-Red Sox. Ferrara, a Manhattan real estate attorney with Newman Ferrara and an adjunct professor at NYU law school, is talking about New Yorkers and their landlords. “We’ve got our share of lousy landlords, the ones who game the system,” Ferrara says, though he notes there are lousy tenants as well. “Over the decades the market has become quite adversarial. [But] the good …
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On workplace privacy in the Facebook ageTechnology has increasingly blurred the lines between our private and work lives. On the plus side, this means greater flexibility and autonomy. On the downside? “Employees may have an expectation of privacy at work,” says Katharine H. Parker, a labor and employment attorney with Proskauer Rose, but it’s merely an expectation. “Through company computer and Internet usage policies, most employers retain the right to review, monitor, delete and disclose information on company computer …
She Sold That Building
Crystal Lofing’s latest real estate deal involved Dodger StadiumBy the early 2000s, Crystal Lofing, with a master’s degree in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music, was in New York, playing solo recitals and studying with prominent musicians such as Ruth Laredo and Jeffrey Cohen. It was a dream come true. At the same time, it was a tough road. “There are a lot of very talented people competing for the same thing,” she says. So she weighed her options. She remembered how one of her college professors told her she had the intellectual …
Bon Appetit
Pity Jordan R. Bernstein; part of his job involves testing the best restaurants in the cityJordan R. Bernstein says it’s a misconception that 90 percent of restaurants are destined to fail. “You have to structure a deal that really allows the people with the proper skills to actually use them,” he explains. “Give the chef who has run a back-of-the-house restaurant full control of back of the house, and the general manager control of front of the house. You don’t want a financial investor trying to say what the menu should be, or what vendor you should use.” Bernstein, an …
Art and Craft
Julian André defends stolen art and due processIn 2008, Julian André, a recent University of Virginia School of Law graduate and associate at McDermott Will & Emery, joined a defense team involved in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against a handful of Broadcom Corp. officials for their alleged participation in stock-option backdating. It was a big case. So he did what any newbie lawyer would do. He left to clerk for the Hon. Harry Pregerson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. “Clerking for Judge …
Fostering Hope
Penn State’s Children’s Advocacy Clinic helps young clients with life and legal issuesDuring her years as a social worker in Virginia’s public school system, Professor Lucy Johnston-Walsh noticed that lawyers would often spend only a few minutes talking to their young clients before walking into court. “I was concerned about the legal representation the children were receiving,” says Johnston-Walsh, now founder and director of the Children’s Advocacy Clinic at The Dickinson School of Law of The Pennsylvania State University. “That’s what motivated me to get my J.D. I …
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