Author: TSA Press

Every generation has its “defining moment.” For my parents it was the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show or the assisination of John F. Kennedy. For Generation X, it was Madonna’s Like a Virgin or the fall of the Berlin Wall. For millenials, 9/11 or the election of Barack Obama. For my generation, I guess it was . . .  Oregon Trail(?). 

I’ve been watching the legal technology and innovation for seven or eight years – my defining moment being following ReInvent Law Silicon Valley via my relatively newly-created Twitter account in 2013.

At least, it was until September 4, 2019. That’s the day that law practice management leader Clio announced a whopping $250 million dollar Series D funding from TCV and JMI Equity.

The implications of this fundraising event are pretty staggering. Is Clio the legal technology sector’s first unicorn? What are we to make of Mark Britton, former Avvo CEO, joining the Clio board? Should we soon expect the launch of Clio Legal Services? How much better can the Clio Conference get with $250 million cool ones?

My point is this: $250 million is a lot of money. While we’ve seen other legal technology companies raise large sums before (see here or here), this deal represents the largest growth investment in Canadian history and probably in legal as well. With this investment, Clio is poised to dramatically reshape the legal ecosystem. 

And that reshaping will almost certainly mean that the transformation we have seen and continue to see in legal employment will only increase. In a post-Clio world, the evolution of the professional in the 21st century legal ecosystem will probably only accelerate. And with that acceleration comes a need to unpack, discuss and prepare for the future.

That’s where we come in. On November 15, 2019 Above The Law, my event co-chairs, Bill Henderson and Bernadette Bulacan, and I will host the second ever Law Jobs for Humans event in New York City. This half-day event – part symposium, part job fair – is designed to create a space where those interested in exploring a 21st century legal technology career or those who increasingly feel the need to explore how to future-proof their legal careers can meet, learn, and prepare.  

With legal renegades taken from a variety of different roles and areas in the law, Law Jobs for Humans is an attempt to capture the zeitgeist of a rapidly changing legal professional landscape.

It’s true that the defining moments for this decade of legal technology may have already past – with ReInvent Law and the Clio Series D in the rearview, they feel like they certainly may have for me – but the question about what to do remains very much in front of us. 

So, join us at Law Jobs for Humans on November 15, 2019 in New York City. We’ve put together an amazing slate of speakers surrounded by an audience that, if ticket sales are any measure, already exceeds the audience for the first version of Law Jobs for Humans in Chicago  in the spring. And speaking of ticket sales, early bird prices end this Sunday (October 27th), so make sure you grab those before the offer expires!

We won’t guarantee that Law Jobs for Humans will represent a huge cultural shift for the legal sector, but for us, the event will not be measured from the outside but by those who attend. If we can create that defining moment for just one or two people, if only one or two decide to stand up and explore the new frontier of legal employment, we’ll call it a success.

It starts out so innocuously — Pepper Hamilton sent around an invitation for an event in their Philadelphia office. It should be super easy — if you’re interested in the event and are free on that day, mark it in your calendar. If you aren’t? Just ignore it. That’s it, that’s all you have to do to avoid a Reply-All scandal. But this being Above the Law, of course that isn’t what actually happened.

You see, the event that Pepper Hamilton was advertising is a judicial diversity panel. And, the event is sponsored by a few groups at the firm: the African-American/Black Affinity Group, Asian Pacific American Affinity Network, Pepper Latina/o Caucus, Pepper Pride, South Asian Affinity Group, Veterans Group, and Women’s Initiative. Which are pretty much exactly who you’d expect to sponsor an event like this. But one partner, David Stratton, just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

Stratton forwarded the message to two other partners with a derisive comment about the affinity groups, “I never knew we had so many groups who want to be treated specially.” Which is just a shitty thing to say. Affinity groups are a wonderful opportunity for folks to network and find mentorship (which is one of the best ways to keep diverse attorneys at a firm) and ask for pretty little in exchange. But because it isn’t something Stratton is personally involved with or cares about, he writes them off with a nasty little comment he intended to send to friends (I presume) at the firm.

Then, he replied-all with an apology, but, as one of the many, many tipsters who wrote in about Stratton’s comments reveal, not everyone was even aware of his original, wildly inappropriate comments until the apology was sent.

The worst part is, no one knew he felt that way until he REPLIED ALL with an insincere APOLOGY that INCLUDED his original message. Just wow….
Two thumbs way up for diversity and inclusion at Pepper Hamilton.

You can take a look at the email chain below.

As you might imagine, the firm administration was not pleased at all about this turn of events. They quickly sent their own email from managing partner Thomas Cole, distancing themselves from Stratton’s off-color comments, and assuring everyone the matter is being properly handled behind the scenes.

We are disappointed by the inappropriate email sent earlier today by one of our attorneys regarding the Pepper Judicial Diversity Panel. The comments in the email are not reflective of Pepper Hamilton’s culture, which prioritizes diversity and inclusion as core values. We are proud of our Diversity Committee and the firm’s affinity groups to advance diverse perspectives at Pepper. We want to assure all of you that we are handling this incident appropriately, in a private manner, consistent with our values. We also want to encourage all of you to attend the Pepper Judicial Diversity Panel, which is a great event that contributes to the firm’s continuing efforts to overcome biases and ensure an inclusive environment for all attorneys and staff. If you wish to discuss this matter, I encourage you to reach out….

The firm is really trying, I get that. And as Cole’s email signature even says, the firm is Mansfield Rule Certified, meaning they’re committed to take concrete steps to meaningfully diversify the firm. But, as much as the powers-that-be may wish that this email is “not reflective of Pepper Hamilton’s culture,” they have to face the hard truth that, at least in pockets of the firm, it might be. A firm’s management can’t dictate firm culture from on high, and Biglaw is often filled with fiefdoms that are insular from the larger environment (this is why it’s common to see entire groups lateral to a new firm together, as a piece that can be plugged into a new superstructure). The work lives of associates in a group are impacted way more by the attitudes and opinions of the partners they work for than the management committee.

It would be nice, and certainly easier, to think of Stratton’s email as a singular bad act. But for a firm that seems as committed to diversity as Pepper Hamilton, it would behoove them to treat this incident not as a one-off, but as something potentially indicative of the attitudes of more than just Stratton. This should be an opportunity for the firm to have more of the difficult conversations and bias trainings that ensure the inclusive atmosphere they want is what is really happening on the ground.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Of all the intriguing statistics to come out of this week’s Clio Cloud Conference, one that may say the most about the show and the company behind it is 30 percent. That’s the percentage of attendees at this ever-growing show who aren’t even current Clio users or vendor partners. For a show based around a specific product, the idea that any more than 5 percent of the attendees would be non-users is bonkers.

In part, it’s a testament to Clio’s allure. The majority of those attendees are shopping around and took the trip to the Clio Cloud Conference to see what the product is all about. Holding this year’s show in San Diego — a short trip from a number of major legal hubs — couldn’t have hurt when it came to enticing the curious. But it wasn’t just the potential customers. Why are some of these Biglaw-centric observers-to-be hanging around a small law product show? The answer is that Clio’s influence has grown beyond just its product. The corporate speak would be “thought leadership,” but that terminology might be too sanitized for a show like this. It might be more fair to say that the show is about the philosophy of all legal technology and how its product fits into that instead of the other way around.

Not that there isn’t a lot of information available for loyal customers. From product panels to an exhibit hall packed with integration partners, the show provides no shortage of opportunities to learn more about how the Clio ecosystem can better a lawyer’s practice. The whole back area of the exhibit hall was devoted to Clio Labs, where users could interface with Clio tech folks about the ins and outs of the product. The Clio Smart Bar (not a Genius Bar because “Canadians are a bit more humble,” CEO Jack Newton quipped) allowed users to directly work with Clio support people. Newton mentioned that dedicated users are building personal relationships with the support staff by taking advantage of the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the support engineers they call. It’s not just a personal touch to support, but a way for Clio to generate valuable insight into what customers want and where their pain points are. Consider this the “Wisdom of Office Space” moment: “Well, then I gotta ask, then why can’t the customers just take the specifications directly to the software people, huh?” Empowering customers to go straight to the people building the product is huge.

But the whole structure of the Clio ecosystem lends itself to a broader view of the tech landscape and that’s why so much of the festivities speak beyond the four corners of the product. It’s a phenomenon that Mark Britton, the former Avvo chief who now sits as a Clio board member, told me gives him “conference envy” — finding a balance between catering to the hard-core, loyal user and remaining accessible and engaging to a broader audience isn’t an easy feat.

As an ecosystem, it’s not a stretch to say that Clio’s value proposition is in thought leadership. As Newton put it, lawyers aren’t so much technology laggards, but busy people. What Clio offers is the promise that it’s gone out and done the hard work of surveying the legal tech landscape and identifying quality partners and innovators. So it makes a lot of sense that the show functions with an eye toward the philosophy of legal technology writ large. It’s how you end up with a product show with keynote speakers like Glenn Greenwald and Shaka Senghor — folks who seem like outside-the-box choices until they finish their presentations and you realize they really do fit into the discussion about the intersection of law and technology. Chief Operating Officer George Psiharis explained that the speaker selection process is not formulaic, but influenced by a combination of the pressing topics of the era and an interest in bringing diversity and diversity of perspectives to the show: “We try to have fresh perspectives. Not necessarily be safe choices. It’s part of energizing the conference to see the speakers thematically tie in their work to the high-level messaging.”

Clio will return to San Diego next year, October 15-16. If you’re interested in an early bird special on passes, check it out here.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Speaking at a planning workshop for climate resilient investment in reconstruction and development in the cyclone affected regions of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, representatives from the three countries said they had not been able to attract enough financial support to rebuild lives and fast track early recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction after Cyclones Idai and Kenneth.

Of the $4bn, Mozambique, which suffered the most from the two cyclones, needs $3.2 billion for its reconstruction efforts while Malawi requires $370 million and Zimbabwe between $600 and $700 million. Mozambique was affected by the two cyclones while Zimbabwe and Malawi suffered the brunt of Idai.

“We thought we were going to raise more money when we launched our appeal,” said Nadia Adriao, representing Mozambique at the workshop. “But we did not. Nevertheless, progress is being made with what is available so far though much remains to be done.”

Malawi’s Fyaupi Mwafongo said the country has developed a 5-year plan to address effects of the 2019 floods.

“Recurrent and severe disasters in Malawi underscore the need for new thinking and approaches to recovery and resilience-building,” he said, adding the new way of working adopted during the response phase in the country emphasized increased coherence and synergy between humanitarian and development actors.

Ms. Meliqiniso Sibanda from Zimbabwe’s local government ministry said some internally displaced people in the regions affected by Cyclone Idai were still living in camps with her ministry still to review housing proposals meant for the area.

“The designs are there now but yet to reach us at head office. So we have not reviewed them to see if they are resilient enough,” she said, adding China had pledged to build roads in the area but engineers from the ministry were yet still to also review their designs before they can proceed.

Cyclone Idai and Kenneth hit Mozambique between March and April 2019, killing hundreds of people and leaving over 1.8 million homeless and without basic necessities and infrastructure. Cyclone Idai also caused significant flooding, damage and destruction of homes, resulting in numerous deaths in southern Malawi as well as in eastern Zimbabwe.

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and its partners the Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Kingdom’s Met Office, are convening the workshop for SADC to formulate actionable strategies for climate resilient reconstruction of infrastructure in the three countries post the devastating tropical Cyclone Idai and Kenneth.

The planning workshop for climate resilient investment in reconstruction and development in SADC Member States is informed by the three countries’ experiences following the two cyclones.

At the workshop, which is being held under the “building back better” approach, the countries shared first hand experiences of the impacts, lessons learnt and why they think they happened.

Participants were introduced to the types of climate information available to them as well as tools and methods for analyzing this information and its application in decision-making.

James Murombedzi, Chief of the African Climate Policy Center (ACPC) at the ECA, said the overall objective of the workshop was to initiate a series of initiatives to support the integration of climate information services and climate change considerations into resilience building in climate sensitive sectors of the economies of SADC.

A record 140 people attended the workshop Wednesday, including representatives from the three countries, other SADC countries, the SADC Climate Services Centre, Regional Economic Communities, regional and international partners, including the UN family.

A regional actionable programme document that enhances capacity and resilience in SADC member States against the impact of weather and climate risks and disasters is expected to be the main outcome of the workshop.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Post published in: Featured

EPA

Friday is a public holiday in Zimbabwe to mark a day of protest against sanctions which the government blames for the country’s economic problems.

Southern African countries have joined calls from the Zimbabwe government for the sanctions to be lifted, saying they’re damaging the region’s economy.

So why are sanctions in place and what impact are they having?

The United States and the European Union (EU) have both maintained sanctions, citing a lack of progress in democratic and human rights reforms as well as restrictions on press freedoms.

They target both specific individuals and companies.

United States financial and travel restrictions currently apply to 85 individuals, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

There are also 56 companies or organisations facing restrictions.

“We have sanctions against certain individuals and certain corporations… not against the country of Zimbabwe. There is nothing to stop US businesses from investing in Zimbabwe, from going to Zimbabwe,” says US Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs Tibor Nagy.

Washington says the economic impact is mostly on farms and companies owned by these designated individuals.

EU sanctions also target specific individuals both within the Zimbabwean government and associated with it.

Travel restrictions and a freeze on assets have been imposed, along with the sale of military hardware and equipment which might be used for internal repression.

Originally imposed during the era of former President Robert Mugabe, these sanctions were reviewed earlier this year and have been extended until February 2020.

The EU says these restrictions have no impact on the economy of the country.

REUTERSZimbabweans are facing fuel shortages

Worsening economic crisis

Zimbabwe’s economy has faced deep economic crises over the past few years with periods of hyperinflation rendering the local currency worthless.

Once again this year Zimbabwe has been reeling from high levels of inflation as well as severe shortages of fuel, power and water.

Recent economic data suggests Zimbabwe’s economy has recently been shrinking as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the average economic output per person.

Are sanctions to blame?

The government of Zimbabwe has regularly blamed the dire economic performance on sanctions, and its neighbours in the southern African region are concerned about the impact Zimbabwe’s worsening economic crisis is having on the region.

But there’s little evidence to suggest that US and EU sanctions are responsible for Zimbabwe’s troubles.

The US blame the crisis on what an official described as “catastrophic mismanagement” of the economy.

The EU also points to economic policies, a poorly carried out land reforms programme, drought and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Data from 1980 to 2015 shows no evidence sanctions had a negative effect on formal employment and poverty, says Carren Pindiriri, a lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Zimbabwe.

For its part, the Zimbabwean government argues that sanctions have cost billions of dollars.

“You can’t say sanctions are targeted when you specify 56 of the biggest companies in Zimbabwe. What is left?” Zimbabwe’s secretary for information Nick Mangwana says.

When Mr Mugabe was forced from office in 2017, two UN human rights experts supported calls for the lifting of sanctions.

They said the measures could not be said to be “limited” or “targeted”, as the people and companies affected represented the vast majority of the economy.

“Zimbabwe’s economy is heavily concentrated in particular sectors, and sanctions on only a few people or companies can have a devastating impact.”

Post published in: Featured

On Thursday, Zimbabwe was generating 688 MW of electricity, less than half its peak demand, official figures showed [File: Philimon/Reuters]

Racketeering allegations are fun to throw around. My bank didn’t just overcharge me for an appraisal after I defaulted on my mortgage—it did so in a shady, mafia-like way, possibly in the back of a barbershop or social club in south Queens. Think a competing consulting firm’s being a little lax with its conflict of interest disclosures? File a RICO claim. Hedge fund being mean to you? Tell a court it’s basically a mobster. Ex-husband screwed you out of some money 20-plus years ago? He’s not just a deadbeat bastard: His whole hedge fund is a corrupt organization! The Supreme Court says: Bring as many RICO suits as you’d like.

Imagine this: The bar exam results are supposed to be released on a specific day, and after waiting for months to see if you passed, on that day, you receive an email from the Board of Law examiners letting you know that “important information” has been posted to your account. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.

Did you pass? Did you pass?! DID YOU PASS?!?!?!?!

You try to log in to your account, but you can’t. The page is down. You try reloading the page… but nothing happens. This happens again, and again, and again, and again, and again. After hours of trying to find out if passed the bar exam, you finally get the page to load, but the login option has been completely removed.

This is exactly what happened to recent law school graduates in Texas, beginning sometime yesterday afternoon. THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM, Y’ALL.

Only some people were immediately able to see if they passed the exam, and others were forced to reload the page for hours to find out — if they were ever able to find out at all. Even Texas Supreme Court justices were scrambling on Twitter to try to assuage panicking test-takers about what was going on:

Law grads who reasonably expected to be able to find out if they passed the bar exam were incredibly pissed, as could have been expected given a screw-up like this:

* This is totally unacceptable. The servers go down, fine. But it’s a list. A list that has been prepared. Just release the list. Why put everyone through this. Tons of recent examinees will not sleep tonight, wondering if they should go back to their jobs tomorrow.

* Idk seems like this is something that should not happen. It’s actually agonizing. I’ve been refreshing the page since 4 p.m. I tried ignoring it to not put pressure on the server. But then they emailed me to say my scores are ready. Now I’m stuck refreshing again. I will not sleep till I know if I should go into the office tomorrow.

* I will never get this night back and I dont know if I will ever get over this stress. God forbid I wait this long, just refreshing a screen for now 8 hours, to fail.

While the site seems to be working this morning, some people still haven’t received an email from the Texas Board of Law Examiners letting them know that their results are in. Perhaps in an attempt to win back bar examinees, the pass list was recently publicly posted here — but good luck trying to get the page to load. It’s moving at a glacial pace, but will hopefully work… eventually.

This is completely unacceptable. The way this was handled was atrocious, and we hope that this will inspire some server upgrades. No one should ever have to go through something like this when their futures are on the line.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

The debate on sanctions imposed by the United States is once again hogging the limelight and polarising the nation. Sanctions under the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera) is an Act passed by the US Congress which imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, allegedly to provide for a transition to democracy and to promote economic recover.

The passing of the Act was a culmination of various and emerging political conditions between 1999 and 2001 in Zimbabwe which included, among others, political violence, violations of human rights and a complete disregard for global norms of governance.

Contrary to the narrative being spread by the government that the sanctions must be lifted as they are hurting ordinary people, the US government has perpetually argued that they are targeted, which means they only apply to the entities and individuals on the list of sanctions related to Zimbabwe.

Against a blitz of public relations, diplomatic engagement and lobbying by the Government of Zimbabwe, in March this year, US President Donald Trump extended the sanctions by another year arguing that “President Emmerson Mnangagwa has yet to implement the political and economic overhaul required to improve the country’s reputation with the community of nations, and with the United States.”

This has not discouraged the Zimbabwe government, who have used every opportunity to remind the world that the US must lift its sanctions on Zimbabwe. They mobilised some Sadc countries to call for the removal of sanctions at the 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York in September this year. The regional body has agreed to declare October 25 a day to campaign against the same sanctions.

Where is the conundrum? The conditions that necessitated the introduction of the sanctions have not improved with some arguing that the situation has actually deteriorated, a situation which is working against government efforts to get the sanctions lifted.

“The actions of the targeted individuals continue to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes,” noted a statement by the US government in March this year.

Another puzzle is that the US government’s argument that the sanctions are targeted is porous because they are stifling the ability of government officials on the targeted sanction list to do business with the US and its wider global network of corporates and institutions.

For that reason, the government of Zimbabwe has argued that sanctions are hurting ordinary citizens. It is both a farfetched and convoluted argument.

Nonetheless, both governments of the US and Zimbabwe — in their recriminations — concur that ordinary citizens are vulnerable and being hurt by the policies and actions of the other and not theirs hence the reluctance to yield. In fact, each of them view their actions — sanctions or their lifting — as an attempt to help Zimbabweans.

And yet on the ground, as the nearly two-decade stand-off persist, Zimbabweans’ destitution continue to deepen. A nation is caught between a hard rock and a hard surface.

Several explanations and arguments have been thrown around. While not denying that sanctions at minimum disrupt a country’s ability to progress, they are not the main reason Zimbabwe is where it is today. The country is where it is today because of obscene corruption, mismanagement and poor governance.

Take for example, the year 2006 witnessed a mineral rush to Chiadzwa in Marange district where diamond reserves in that area were thought to be one of the world’s richest deposits. Billions of dollars in diamonds were siphoned out of the country from the hugely prolific fields regarded by some experts as the world’s biggest diamond find in carats in more than a century. The Marange field was, at the time, regarded as the largest diamond producing project in the world, estimated to have produced 16,9 million carats in 2013 alone, or 13% of global rough diamond supply.

Sanctions did not impede the siphoning and trade of the Marange diamonds at all to any part of the world until early this month when the US government banned trading of diamonds from Zimbabwe. The country is expected to produce 4,1 million carats of diamonds this year, up from 2,8 million carats in 2018.

At the peak of production, the earnings from just one mine — the Marange fields — would have transformed the whole country. But no. It leaked via obscene corruption, mismanagement and poor governance. If it were not for these, that money too would have helped circumvent the effects of sanctions and the sanctions story would have been irrelevant to our lives today.

The country would have boosted its industry, collected taxes from a thriving industry, sustained basic services, paid civil servants well and ensured that unemployed youth do not spend their time demonstrating in the streets. Our leaders would be sleeping peacefully with the knowledge of a thriving economy — just like Botswana whose economy is largely sustained by diamonds.

While sanctions are not condoned, there is zero guarantee that if they are lifted, they will result in any meaningful improvement in the lives of ordinary people because the Marange situation typifies the character of the rot that has destroyed our country. The insincerity is evident in government’s approach to push the US to lift sanctions. Instead of seeking to address the issues raised by another sovereign country, the US in this case, before re-engage them, the Zimbabwe government has chosen a political route to arm-twist the minds of the US leadership to lift the sanctions.

The US is a sovereign country that enjoys the right to choose who to engage with and the fact that they have chosen not to deal with Zimbabwe should surely not be the end of the world.