Author: TSA Press

Representing emerging and celebrity musicians and music industry companies is likely to catapult your name into the news and turn your business into a household topic of conversation. Maybe that’s one of the many reasons why you’re so interested in pursuing a career in music law. Attorneys who practice in the field of music law have worked with some of the most celebrated — and sometimes reviled — recording artists in the country (or the world), and that’s exactly the kind of career experience you envision for yourself.

If you’re still deciding where to go to law school and you’re dreaming of someday practicing law with music’s brightest stars as your clients, perhaps it’s time to take a look at Billboard’s latest law school rankings.

Billboard’s ranking is based on the number of accomplished music attorneys that have graduated from each law school. Billboard has ranked the top 15 law schools alphabetically. We’ll provide our readers with a look at the first seven law schools here at Above the Law. Click here to see the full list.

So, which schools made the cut? You might be surprised.

BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW
Enrollment: 1,051
The best thing about my law school was: “Cardozo recognized the value of an entertainment law program early on.” – Michael Reinert, Fox Rothschild

BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL
Enrollment: 949
The best thing about my law school was: “The way they had professors teaching the courses was all geared specifically for the bar exam.” – Paul Schindler, Greenberg Traurig

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL
Enrollment: 1,268
The best thing about my law school was:  “The alumni network. I am the vp of the alumni association and co-chairing my reunion.” Wade Leak, Sony Music Entertainment

FORDHAM LAW SCHOOL
Enrollment: 1,269
The best thing about my law school was: “I was expecting law school to be brutal, and it was not easy. But it was a very nurturing and supportive place.” – Ilene Farkas, Pryor Cashman

GEORGETOWN LAW
Enrollment: 2,694
The best thing about my law school was: “I had the unique opportunity to go to a top-level law school and coach underclass lacrosse — a personal passion.” – Shawn Trell, AEG Presents

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
Enrollment: 1,990
The best thing about my law school was: “Being incredibly intellectually challenged and learning how to think in a very critical, logical and strategic way.” – Donald Passman, Gang Tyre Ramer Brown & Passman

LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL
Enrollment: 1,058
The best thing about my law school was: “Only having to take torts once. I passed torts the first time I tried.” – Zia Modabber, Katten Muchin Rosenman

While it certainly helps to go to a top-ranked law school to represent the members of the music industry elite, going to a law school in New York or California seems to be even more helpful. If you’re interested in music law, you should know that it’s a relatively tough field to get into, and it may take you quite some time to reach the peak of your career — or, you could get really lucky.

Either way, choosing the right law school is just the first step, and we wish you the best of luck. Maybe someday you’ll get to represent your favorite musician.

Revealed: Billboard’s 2019 Top Music Lawyers Led by BTS Counsel Debbie White of Loeb & Loeb [Billboard]

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.

* Just in case no one saw this one coming, LeClairRyan has filed for bankruptcy. The firm owes $15 million to two secured creditors. [American Lawyer]

* Like it or not, the next recession is coming: Some law firms will struggle more than others, and “once this party ends, its going to end very quickly and it’s going to end very severely.” [Big Law Business]

* What’s wrong with the bar exam? This is what the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ Testing Task Force is taking its sweet time trying to figure out. [Law.com]

* Law school classes come in all sizes, but you may want to think about how yours will affect the attention you’ll receive, your social life, your networking opportunities, and most importantly, your ranking. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Thank u, next? Pop star Ariana Grande has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Forever 21 after the store allegedly hired a look-alike model for a social media campaign, rather than Grande herself. [THR, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

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.

Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo is a soft-spoken legal scholar. Yet she now finds herself one of the most feared anti-corruption crusaders in Africa. Zimbabwe, a country plagued by rampant corruption for decades, has taken its war on corruption to new levels, and Justice Moyo is leading the charge.

Just over a month into her new role as chairperson of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), Justice Moyo isn’t pulling her punches, with the arrests of former Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko and the Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality, Prisca Mupfumira.

Despite being in the president’s cabinet, Mupfumira found her ministerial position mattered little as she was dragged to court on corruption charges involving $95 million from the state pension fund.

Mupfumira faces charges of “criminal abuse of duty as a public officer”.  Charges include the taking of unauthorized loans from the pension fund to buy a luxury vehicle and to fund her political campaign.

But Justice Moyo was not satisfied with merely the arrest of the minister. Her team also arrested the permanent secretary in the environment ministry, Munesu Munodawafa, as well as the former director of state residences, Douglas Tapfuma.

Under former president Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe became a hotbed of corruption. The ZACC, created during this era, was both toothless and ineffective. Staff still talk about the threatening phone calls they would receive if any powerful people were investigated. The message was clear: no high-profile cases should be opened.

But all that changed with the election of President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018, with his government making the fight against corruption a priority. When he took over at the helm, Mnangagwa declared a “zero tolerance” policy towards corruption and described the ZACC as “rotten to the core.”

The new president and his team thus decided to reform and revamp the anti-graft body in February, selecting new faces and giving it independent powers. Importantly, the new ZACC was to be bipartisan, with nine commissioners drawn from both the ruling Zanu-PF and opposition MDC, as well as from civil society.

So when the Mnangagwa government was looking for the right person to head the reformed agency, he turned to Justice Moyo, a High Court judge who clashed repeatedly with the Mugabe government. As a young prosecutor in 2004 she had even been arrested for standing up for justice. She has now been seconded to ZACC to lead an agency that is poised to serve as an example for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the continent.

From her office in Harare, Justice Moyo is overseeing more than 200 investigations of corruption. Her team of 61 investigators have been specially selected and vetted to ensure they are professional and impartial.

ZACC has five different centers across Zimbabwe to ensure that its investigations are carried out quickly across the country without bureaucratic delay.

What is key is that ZACC has the kind of political support that other agencies in Africa can only dream of. The Zimbabwean government has recently given ZACC arresting powers to prevent police leaks from tipping off powerful offenders. It is amending the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act to include Unexplained Wealth orders, which will make recoveries of ill-gotten wealth much easier. Furthermore, the government is in the process of crafting new legislation that protects whistle-blowers and witnesses in corruption cases.

These are bold steps forward for Zimbabwe that are making the rest of Africa sit up and take notice. It shows what a determined government is capable of, by creating institutions and empowering key people to clean up corruption.

And international cooperation is crucial. Recently the EU and the UK joined with President Mnangagwa to launch a nationwide campaign against corruption at all levels.  ZACC is already looking to sign MOUs with neighboring countries, first with Botswana, and then possibly with Zambia. According to Justice Moyo, corruption in southern Africa is not a national problem, it’s a regional one. With fuel smuggling, for instance, corruption often transcends national boundaries. This means that the anti-graft agencies of SADC member states must cooperate to tackle the problem.

Corruption of course is neither a uniquely Zimbabwean problem, nor an African one. However, to defeat it requires political will, bipartisan support, and judicial independence. Most importantly, it requires leadership.  Zimbabwe’s battle against corruption has just begun. But it has all the elements to succeed and serve as a template for the continent of Africa and beyond.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any institutions with which the author is associated.

A parade was staged by Yam at the SA Army College on 2 September to formally welcome Chimonyo. The week-long visit is underway to maintain strong military relations between the two armies as well as to deliberate on army-to-army issues of interest in light of the recent appointment of Chimonyo as commander of the ZNA.

“Come my brother, let us sit in a bit of a relaxed environment and let us ponder on how do we respond to the challenges of the two landward forces”, stated Yam in his introductory statement. Yam said that reasons for the visit such as this are firstly, “That the two militaries have an obligation to ensure that they constantly understand their space and interaction” and secondly is that Yam believes that military cooperation means nothing unless it leads to a space for the stabilisation of economic prosperity.

In the wake of cyclone Idai, South Africa has been assisting Zimbabwe in building Bailey bridges over flood-ravaged rivers and according to Yam, there are currently 180 SA soldiers deployed to Zimbabwe for its construction. Yam states, “It was more of an intervention for the floods”, referring to the floods that Cyclone Idai caused on 15 and 16 March 2019.

Border security is a challenge that the two armies have been addressing for a number of years. Chimonyo said that primarily the two countries are doing patrols, having meetings and are strategising. “But you need to appreciate, human beings are very difficult. As much as we do our patrols, you’ll find others escape”. The two chiefs expressed their concern over borders security issues such as illegal immigration and drug trafficking and emphasised that it is not just the border between the two countries they need to be concerned about. “These [border issues] are also coming from the Great Lakes region and Somalia, coming down south” stated Chimonyo. “Actually they are coming from all over the world right now,” added Yam, who went on to say that it is high educated, young Zimbabweans heading south of their border that the Zimbabwean government is now worried about. Chimonyo also added that with Zimbabwe being under sanctions, there is a concern of their people fleeing for South Africa.

In speaking further on mutual cooperation, Yam identified that the sanctions currently on Zimbabwe do pose limitations on the cooperation of the two countries’ land forces. However, developments between Armscor and Zimbabwe are what Yam calls an “urgency”. Yam believes there is an argument to be made for Armscor and Zimbabwe to look into certain engineering aspects as well as co-research capabilities, “which may translate into co-production, but it’s too early [to tell] at this stage.”

In speaking on military training between the two armies, Chimonyo stated that this has been going on since 1994. “That has been going on for a long time but I still believe more can be done by our two countries.”

“The numbers differ every year. It depends on budget that determines how many get sent this side and that side but it is something that must never stop,” stated Yam. Yam went onto to comment on the importance of youth within the two countries militaries being acquainted. “We have realised, as military people and particularly as us, in Zimbabwe, that if you are going to talk of government to government cooperation, you need the junior and young officers to start training together, to be on the same name sake with each other. If you do that, you are doing it for stability for the next 30 years.”

At the conclusion of the media briefing  Yam hosted on Monday, he made a point of thanking the Zimbabwean National Army for the help it gave to South African Army members in the push against insurgence groups in the DRC. “That was a major, major land mission with the possible closure of our consul there. Moving by road, Zimbabwe, Zambia, moving to DRC and back – that is when I really knew that this brotherhood works,” Yam said.

Post published in: Featured

Protesters flee teargas during clashes after police banned planned rallies over austerity and rising living costs called by the opposition in Harare, Zimbabwe, on August 16 [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

Harare, Zimbabwe – Emmerson Mnangagwawanted a clean break from his predecessor’s past.

Whereas Robert Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years, would contravene the West diplomatically, President Mnangagwa wanted to engage. And contrary to Mugabe’s strategy of barring investors, Mnangagwa said he was open for business.

At home, when he was officially sworn into office last year following a coup to remove Mugabe, he was welcomed as the leader Zimbabwe needed, and on the diplomatic front, he was the darling of Western diplomats – a pragmatic and progressive reformer.

But almost two years on from the removal of Mugabe, the landscape from both fronts is viewed differently amid an apparent crackdown on dissent and an economy that remains weak.

On August 16 this year, anti-riot police crushed a demonstration, injuring several protesters.

Earlier, in January, more than 16 people were killed when soldiers opened fire on protesters in the aftermath of a 150 percent fuel price increase.

Several others were injured.

Last year in August, soldiers shot and killed six other opposition-supporting protesters.

In this photo from August 10, 2015, Robert Mugabe, right, greets Emmerson Mnangagwa as he arrives for Zimbabwe’s Heroes Day commemorations in Harare [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

With inflation at 200 percent in June, high living costs, stagnant salaries and 90 percentunemployment, discontent against Mnangagwa’s government is rising.

“I am very unhappy with the state of affairs in the country. Life is very hard now. We want the problems solved,” said Priscah Katema, a Harare resident who does odd jobs to supplement her husband’s income.

Some observers have described Mnangagwa as being “worse” than his former mentor Mugabe, but Ibbo Mandaza, a political science academic and former government adviser, said this perspective was limited.

“The argument that Mnangagwa is worse than Mugabe is purely academic,” he told Al Jazeera. “This is because there should not be any distinction between the two. Mnangagwa was always at the centre of the security apparatus that enabled Mugabe to do all the things he did.”

After the recent anti-government protests, the European Union, which earlier threw its support behind Mnangagwa’s reforms, sent a warning.

In a joint statement, the heads of mission for France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, UK, Australia, Canada and the United States, said the “intimidation, harassment and physical attacks on human rights defenders, trade union and civil society representatives and opposition politicians – prior to, during and following the demonstration in Harare on August 16 – are cause for great concern.”

In defiance reminiscent of the Mugabe era, Nick Mangwana, information secretary and presidential spokesperson, said the EU statement undermined civilian authority and promoted anarchy.

“The government is taken aback by the intrusive and judgmental tone of the statement. The statement fails to acknowledge that the Zimbabwean High Court spoke on the issue, which rendered any action taken contrary to that judgment illegal,” he said in a statement.

What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe since President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power is a ruthless attack on human rights.

MULEYA MWANANYANDA, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

Meanwhile, rights groups including Amnesty International have called on Zimbabwe to protect its citizens, describing a “systematic and brutal crackdown”.

“What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe since President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power is a ruthless attack on human rights, with the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association increasingly restricted and criminalised,” said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Southern Africa.

Stephen Chuma, spokesman of the Opposition MDC Alliance Youth Assembly National, said the government’s actions make Zimbabwe look like a military state.

“Blocking the people’s constitutional right to demonstrate can only aid in further exposing this regime and also buttressing our position that Emmerson Mnangagwa has turned the country into a fully-fledged military state that does not respect people’s fundamental rights,” said Chuma.

By the time of publishing, Mnangagwa had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Unperturbed by the diplomatic attacks, the 76-year-old president has accelerated a clampdown on opposition leaders and perceived enemies of the state.

Buses in Harare queue to fill up before Zimbabwean fuel prices rise again [File: Chris Murzoni/Al Jazeera]

Opposition activists Blessing Kanotunga, MDC Youth chairperson, and Citizens Manifesto’s Tatenda Mombeyarara were abducted and assaulted last month in advance of protests, before being dumped back on the streets of Harare.

In the same period, MDC Youth Assembly National Vice Chairperson Cecilia Chimbiri was called in by the CID while Pride Mkono, a pro-democracy campaigner, was also detained and charged with attempting to subvert a constitutional government.

MDC national organising secretary Amos Chibaya was detained for failing to comply with a ban on demonstrations, and Leopold Munhende, a journalist with an online publication, was recently arrested in Harare.

Human rights lawyer Doug Coltart was also held and assaulted for filming the arrest of trade unionists, and spent a night in jail.

Even comedians have not been spared.

Armed and masked men forcefully entered the house of popular comic Samantha Kureya, known by her stage name “Gonyeti”, and abducted her.

She was reportedly driven to an unknown area and assaulted for her satirical jokes that poke fun at authorities.

But despite the threats, the opposition has refused to stop protesting, Chuma said.

“By closing the democratic space, the government is creating its own enemy,” he said.

Mnangagwa’s term comes to an end in 2023.

Mandaza, the political science academic, believes it is unlikely he will stand in power until then.

“The killings of the August 1, 2018, the stolen elections, the January killings this year, assaults on protesters, and abductions are indicative of regimes that have become very vulnerable and fragile,” he said. “They now rely on sheer force after they lost the social and political base.”

Over the past 20 years, there have been five editions of Black’s Law Dictionary published. Over the course of the dictionary’s first 100 years, how many editions were published?

Hint: The fourth edition was re-released in revised form… we’re not counting that.

See the answer on the next page.