Author: TSA Press

During early bonus season, Biglaw firms are usually pretty eager to fall in line to prove their financial prowess. Which firm decided to join the Milbank bonus scale earlier this week, but kept things so casual that the memo was sent from its presiding partner’s cellphone?

It’s Debevoise, and it looks like the firm has adopted the Milbank scale for its U.S. associates. On Tuesday night, associates received this message from Michael Blair:

On behalf of all of the partners, thank you for your dedication to serving clients and building the firm.

Michael

Sent from my iPhone

Bro. Debevoise’s cool factor just went up a little in our book.

Here’s the bonus scale that the firm will be using for its associates:

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012+ – $100,000

Read the full bonus memo on the next page. Bonuses at Debevoise will be “payable in the usual mammer at year end.”

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!

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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.

For someone who spends so much time bellyaching about due process, Donald Trump spends a lot of time trying to evade it.

After Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman’s on New York’s Fifth Avenue — an irony lost on no one — Trump said he never met her and accused Carroll of fabricating the story to gin up publicity for her book. On November 4, she sued the president for defamation, and then spent a week trying unsuccessfully to serve him with notice of the suit. 

Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan describes six attempts to effect process in an Ex Parte Application to allow for alternate service. On three successive days, the process server made multiple attempts to leave the papers at Trump Tower New York.

Upon arrival to Trump Tower, the process server passed through a Secret Service security checkpoint and spoke with the concierge. After making a call to a legal office, the concierge told the process server that they would not accept the papers. The process server then tried to leave the papers with the concierge himself. As the process server headed toward the exit, the concierge signaled to Secret Service agents to stop him. A Secret Service agent prevented the process server from leaving the papers at Trump Tower. The agent told him that the Secret Service “had been instructed not to allow process servers to leave papers with [the] concierge.” When the process server asked how process was to be served, the agent replied, “I am not going to do your job for you.”

After being told on the third day that “papers have to go to D.C.,” a different server was turned away twice at the White House visitors’ entrance, in circumstances that made it clear that attempting to post a bill using the regulation thumbtacks or tape “would surely be met with a swift, and potentially dangerous, response.”

Even Trump’s regular counsel at Kasowitz Benson Torres, who represent him in his other defamation suit arising out of an alleged sexual assault, refused to accept process. Apparently, the Commander in Chief is ducking service like a deadbeat dad.

On Tuesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Deborah Kaplan allowed Carroll to simply mail a copy of the lawsuit to Trump. Bloomberg reports that she can send it by U.S. mail to the White House, or Trump Tower in New York, or by email to one of the six known Trump attorneys listed in Carroll’s Application. (But not Rudy Giuliani, who would would probably just butt-text it to a reporter at 2 a.m.)

And that’s how Donald Trump finally got due process, despite his best efforts to avoid it like the plague.

Judge Rules Trump Rape Accuser Can Mail Complaint to White House [Bloomberg]
Affirmation of Roberta A. Kaplan in Support of Ex Parte Application for an Order Permitting Alternative Service [E. Jean Carroll v. Trump]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Bonus season is generally divided into three phases. In the first phase, every likely suspect tags along in seriatim, offering not a single surprise and eliciting most knowing Jeremiah Johnson nods from everyone.

In the second phase, we see firms make their swinging genitalia moves. This is where someone announces they’re giving big premiums on the scale, paying 1.5x or 2x over the prevailing scale. We all talk up the firm and marvel at their financial prowess. It’s a great run of recruiting press.

In the third phase — the most interesting phase — solid but not quite elite firms start announcing bonuses and we all rush to the tea leaves. A match? Wow, they must be doing better than we thought! Falling short? Uh oh, trouble on the horizon. Or the most common out: A match but paid out next July with a 3000-hour minimum billables requirement making you wonder if this is a “match” in anything but name only.

Well, we’re still in the first phase a mere week into bonus season so there will be no surprises that Davis Polk agreed to follow the Milbank scale precisely.

Class of 2019 – $15,000 (pro-rated)
Class of 2018 – $15,000
Class of 2017 – $25,000
Class of 2016 – $50,000
Class of 2015 – $65,000
Class of 2014 – $80,000
Class of 2013 – $90,000
Class of 2012 and senior – $100,000

All U.S. associates in good standing will be paid out on December 13.

So… Davis Polk:

Memo reproduced on the next page.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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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.

* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missed oral arguments on Wednesday because of a stomach bug. Wishing Justice Ginsburg a speedy recovery! [CNN]

* Closing arguments have started in the Roger Stone trial. From what prosecutors are saying, it seems like Roger Stone has a target as well as a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. [New York Times]

* A Manhattan lawyer found guilty of passing confidential and protected information to a client in jail now gets to spend time in jail with his client. [New York Daily News]

* A proposed new federal law hopes to extend protection from discrimination to independent contractors. [Forbes]

* The Catholic Church is challenging a New York law that gives causes of action to sexual abuse victims. Sounds like their lawyers may need to go to Confession. [New York Post]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

REUTERSPeople were eager to get hold of the new notes

The currency was scrapped a decade ago because of hyperinflation when prices were almost doubling every day.

Zimbabwe’s central bank hopes the new notes will ease a severe cash shortage as the country suffers a deepening economic crisis.

The bank has played down fears that the move will fuel further inflation.

Currently inflation is thought to be about 300%.

This figure is an estimate according to the latest data published by the International Monetary Foundation. The Zimbabwean government has stopped publishing an official figure itself.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe insists that the two- and five-Zimbabwe dollar notes will not increase overall money supply. The cash is supposed to replace money that was stored electronically.

Why didn’t Zimbabwe have its own currency?

Since the country scrapped its own currency in 2009, Zimbabweans had relied at various times on US dollars, South African rands, as well as other foreign currencies, an electronic currency called the RTGS dollar, and what are called bond notes.

REUTERSThe banks limited the number of dollars each customer could withdraw

In 2016, the government introduced the bond notes and coins, which were supposed to be equivalent to the US dollar, to make up for the dollar cash shortage.

But no-one had faith that they were equivalent in value and, on the black market, bond notes lost value against the US dollar.

Then in February this year, the government introduced the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) dollar, which was described as a new currency, but only existed electronically.

US dollars and other foreign currencies were banned in June by the central bank, citing the need to return to normality.

The government says the new notes will ease the cash shortage that has seen most people unable to withdraw their pay and savings.

But the BBC’s Shingai Nyoka in Harare says the government has a chequered past with money management and many people remain convinced that a huge cash injection in the middle of an economic crisis will stoke inflation.

Since the reintroduction of the RTGS dollar local currency in February, inflation has soared. A loaf of bread now costs seven times as much as in January.

Post published in: Business

New bank notes and coins finally hit the streets of Zimbabwe on Tuesday after a false start the day before, with depositors forming long queues at banks and ATMs.

The new notes are part of President Emerson Mnangagwa’s monetary reforms to have Zimbabwe revert to using its own currency in place of the US dollar and the rand. In June, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube banned the usage of foreign currencies for the settlement of local transactions.

On Tuesday, depositors started withdrawing the new notes, in 5 and 2 Zimbabwean dollar denominations, as well as 2 dollar bond coins, from banks and cash machines. The new currency was supposed to be available on Monday but the introduction was delayed.

“We are overwhelmed today because people want the money to avoid paying premiums for their cash on the streets. I am not sure how much we will give out today but we are prepared for a busy day,” said a bank teller at a local finance institution in Harare.

By mid-morning depositors pushed and shoved each other in long queues at most of the banks in the capital. The new notes will circulate alongside and at a value equal to the quasi-currency bond notes of similar denominations introduced in 2016.

Barnabas Mbanga, 52, told Fin24 on Tuesday he managed to withdraw 300 Zimbabwean dollars from his bank account after two hours in a queue. He will use the money to pay for transport for him and his children who commute to school every day.

“I got some money but it’s not much because of the rising prices. I hope next week the banks will still have cash,” he said.

The central bank and other government officials are hoping that the new notes will help end perennial cash shortages in Zimbabwe. Because of the cash shortages, currency dealers and traders were now selling bond notes at a premium of 50%, whereby depositors and mobile wallet holders will only get half of their balances in cash.

Despite the introduction of the new notes and the number of people queuing up to withdraw the new money, some economists are skeptical the new currency will help solve Zimbabwe’s financial crisis.

Economist Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University in the US tweeted to say Zimbabwe will need to re-dollarize. “The only change to Zimbabwe’s new currency will be the removal of the words bond note. No one is fooled, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate is 513% per year. Zimbabwe must dollarize to crush inflation and ensure growth,” he tweeted on November 7.

Another economist, Vince Musewe, said on Tuesday that nothing much had changed.  “People seem very tense and angry of what they must go through to get a few [Zimbabwe dollars]. Little fights & skirmishes about nothing in the streets cause Zimbabweans are generally stressed. Life is generally brutish, stressful and unprofitable for most,” said Musewe.

Post published in: Business

Chitando said some investors had not developed gold and platinum assets that they had held dating back to the 1960s and the mines ministry had asked some companies to justify why they should keep their claims to those assets.

“This is to prohibit the holding of mining title for speculative purposes. We will deal with that more vigorously,” Chitando told a meeting of the mining industry in Harare.

Chitando said the government had been lax in enforcing the “use it or lose it” policy but that would change as authorities pin their hopes on the sector to drive the recovery of an economy grappling with power cuts and acute shortages of U.S. dollars and fuel.

Miners have raised concerns over power cuts that have affected production and want to be allowed to keep all their foreign currency earnings because they are disadvantaged by having a proportion paid to them in Zimbabwe dollars.

But that request was shot down by central bank governor John Mangudya who told the meeting the miners could not keep all their earnings in forex because the government needed some of the money to fund crucial imports like fuel, power and medicines.

Mining companies are only allowed to keep up to 55% of their foreign exchange sales and the central bank pays them in local currency ZWL= for the balance at the official interbank rate.

Zimbabwe is home to the second largest known platinum reserves and large lithium, gold and diamond deposits, but many investors fret over whether they can take money out.

Chitando said platinum output was expected to rise to 1,023,000 ounces by 2023 from 917,000 ounces last year as the producers Anglo Platinum AMSJ.J, Impala Platinum Holdings IMPJ.J and Sibanye-Stillwater SGLJ.J ramp up output.

Zimbabwe’s platinum production now justified the setting up of base metals and precious metals refineries, Chitando said. Miners currently process their raw platinum in South Africa.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

Post published in: Business

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By Above the Law

Nov 13, 2019 at 6:46 PM

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Over the last 20 years, the largest Biglaw bonuses were in 2007. How much did first-year associates on the Cravath scale take home in bonus money that year?

Hint: While this year’s $15,000 for first-year associates is nice, it pales in comparison to the pre-recession 2007 bonuses.

See the answer on the next page.