What law school got top marks in the 2018 Best Law Schools for Practical Training by preLaw magazine, a National Jurist publication?
Hint: The ranking is based on a number of factors including clinics, externships, simulation courses, and interschool competitions.
See the answer on the next page.
Tendai Biti
Over the last few days the President has been preparing an alternative government for our country. To begin this process, he has made appointments and assigned duties to officials in the party, to ensure readiness.
Today the President is announcing two bold steps taken as part of the elaborate and carefully thought process of preparing to serve the people of Zimbabwe and make our country great. The President is doing this in preparation while the citizens consider the resolution of our national crisis.
In preparing the MDC’s task as a government the President understands that our problems emanate from the lack of integrity and accountability in our public work. The President emphasises that public officials are the human interface between the state and the citizens. He wants local governments, run by his party to be an exemplary interface that is accountable and of high integrity. President Chamisa has zero tolerance for corruption and any lack of efficacy in public officials.
The President has with immediate effect constituted an Integrity and Accountability Panel (IAP) which shall enforce his zero tolerance to corruption policy. He has provided this team with terms of reference are specific and definitive.
This committee shall perform its duties through a process that includes meeting with all stakeholders such as residents and organised local groups. The five member strong panel, that has been carefully verted, will be led by a very highly regarded lawyer in this country. One who has to this day served this country with integrity and commitment, Advocate Thabani Mpofu.
The President will require him to execute his duties with continued honour and hard work and has instructed him to remain uncompromising in his commitment to the highest standards.
Secondly the President has assigned duties to his Vice Presidents, as a way of ensuring better efficiency and a smoother operating political party in preparation for an all-star and high calibre government. He wants a machine that is properly oiled with all its nuts and bolts properly positioned and tightened. Our country cannot take any chances and does not have the luxury of time, and this has informed the President’s assignment of duties to the Vice Presidents.
The President has allocated these responsibilities to ensure the effective execution of his mandate to transform the MDC into a modern 21st century Party of Excellence. These assignments are put in place in order to ensure the MDC can define a new Zimbabwe and prepare to form the next government and do so very soon. The Vice Presidents shall hold these responsibilities on a rotational basis as shall be determined by the President, from time to time.
In line with the Constitution the President has designated that with immediate effect the Vice President shall resume working on the following areas.
Vice President, Honourable Lynette Karenyi, will be responsible for supervising all party activities relating to two clusters, which are:
1.Parliament, and
2.Party Building
Vice President, Professor Welshman Ncube, will be responsible for supervising all party activities relating to the following clusters:
1.Administration, and
2.International Relations and Diplomacy
Vice President, Honourable Tendai Biti, will be responsible for supervising all party activities relating to:
1.Policy and Ideology, and
2.Local Government
Dr Nkululeko Sibanda – Presidential Spokesperson
Movement For Democratic Change
Post published in: Featured
Dedicated to the 6 civilians who were killed by the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) on 1 August 2018, the report is the most comprehensive appraisal of Zimbabwe’s human rights situation produced every year by Zimbabwe’s biggest and oldest human rights coalition, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (the Forum).
In the Foreword to the report, the Chairperson of the Forum Jestina Mukoko notes that 72% of the human rights violations documented do not require money to resolve. “They only require the state to turn off its architecture of violence and torture,” she says, “Surely, this is not asking for much.”
15 Chapters of the report are dedicated to an assessment of the human rights situation along thematic areas that include elections, governance, economy, socio-economic rights, civil and political rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, sexual minorities, persons with disabilities, environmental rights, business and human rights, freedom of the media, courts and access to justice, independent commissions, and ratification of international treaties. The final chapter of the report makes a raft of recommendations for state and non-state actors.
Key among the recommendations is the call for an inclusive and comprehensive national dialogue to create a culture of respect for human rights and restore the dignity of all persons. The report recommends greater compliance with the constitution, genuine and authentic reform of repressive laws, respect and strengthening of independent commissions, reform of the security sector as well as fair and impartial application of the law.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Ms. Blessing Gorejena, the Executive Director of the Forum noted that she hoped that the report will help in escalating the conversation on the nation’s human rights priorities. In presenting the findings of the report, the Forum’s Programmes Coordinator, Dzikamai Bere said that the motivations for observance of high human rights standards should not be to please any foreign governments, but that rather for the benefit and dignity of the people of Zimbabwe.
Officially launching the report, Mr. Tabani Moyo of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) stated that the report is not about the past but the future.
“This is not just a report of the past,” said Mr. Moyo, “but a projection of what our future will look like and what work we need to put in to ensure that we build a society in which all people will enjoy their rights.”
To download the full report, use this link.
Post published in: Featured
A man displays US dollar notes after withdrawing cash from a bank in Harare, Zimbabwe, July 9, 2019. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo
The unions however stopped short of calling a strike to give the government more time to respond to their salary demands.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is grappling with triple-digit inflation, shortages of dollars, fuel and bread, and rolling power cuts that have hit mines and industry.
His government’s moves to end subsidies on fuel and electricity and a decision to re-introduce the Zimbabwe dollar have accelerated inflation and dimmed hopes of economic recovery.
The Apex Council, which groups 14 public sector unions, said it had told the government on Monday that its 230,000 members – which exclude workers from the security and health services – no longer had the capacity to go to work.
Asked if this amounted to a strike, Apex Council co-chair Thomas Muzondo said workers would report for duty only when they were able to do so.
“Here is a situation where one has no capacity to go to work. The person wants to go to work but has no capacity. It is a different scenario to a stay-away,” Muzondo told reporters.
Unions are demanding that government employees should be paid U.S. dollar-indexed salaries. They want the least-paid workers – who get 1,023 Zimbabwe dollars ($67) a month – to receive the equivalent of $475.
In shops, prices of sugar, cooking oil and maize meal are rising at least once a week in line with the weakening local currency, but salaries have fallen behind.
Some public sector doctors have been on strike since Sept. 3 to demand higher pay and have vowed not to return to work even though a court ruled their action was illegal.
The government is caught between placating restive workers and keeping the share of public wages in the national budget low, in line with commitments under an International Monetary Fund programme that ends next year.
The worst economic crisis in a decade, worsened by a drought that cut farm output, has angered citizens. Mnangagwa’s government is anxious to avoid violent protests like those in January after a sharp fuel price hike.
The crisis has echoes of the dark days under late president Robert Mugabe, when hyperinflation reached 500 billion percent and workers stopped reporting for duty as salaries and pensions became worthless.
Post published in: Business
Nancy Pelosi (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
* “This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious. We’re here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not hold a full vote to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump — yet. [POLITICO; CNN]
* Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has officially failed to comply with a congressional subpoena. According to Giuliani, despite the fact that he’s reportedly the subject of numerous federal investigations, Jon Sale is no longer repping him, saying, “At this time, I do not need a lawyer.” Good luck with that, bro. [The Hill]
* You may remember Mossack Fonseca from the Panama Papers case, but now you’ll remember the firm as the one that sued Netflix for libel and trademark infringement for portraying its attorneys as villains in the new movie “The Laundromat.” Catch the flick this Friday from your couch. [Big Law Business]
* Students from Penn Law are marching to demand that Professor Amy Wax be shown the door. “We’re hoping that today people will join our call to fire her just to create a more inclusive space at the Law School that actually rectifies the harm that is being done.” But will it work? [Daily Pennsylvanian]
* In case you missed it, jurors recommended life in prison for Sigfredo Garcia after finding him guilty of murdering Professor Dan Markel, and a judge another 30 years on top for conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutors still intend to retry Katherine Magbanua. [Tallahassee Democrat]
* Sign up here if you’d like to take part in a conversation between best-selling author John Grisham and former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara (S.D.N.Y.) tonight. I’ll be there to cover the event for Above the Law, and I hope to see you there. [TimesTalks]
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.
Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live
Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live
If you are your organization’s operations head, please participate in this year’s survey and receive exclusive access to the complete results, an unparalleled resource of insight into KPIs and reporting, eDiscovery best practices, legal spend, law department management strategy, and more.
If you are your organization’s operations head, please participate in this year’s survey and receive exclusive access to the complete results, an unparalleled resource of insight into KPIs and reporting, eDiscovery best practices, legal spend, law department management strategy, and more.
“You just billed us for what?”
Joe and Elie discuss the in-house world. Lawyers and law students often daydream about what they perceive as the cushy world of going in-house. But these lawyers face their own challenges. A recent comprehensive survey of corporate legal departments reveals confusion over privacy requirements and complaints over outside counsel costs.
(Image via Getty)
BYOD practices at companies and firms can be a huge headache for IT professionals. A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to present the counterpoint to arguments in support of so-called Bring Your Own Device policies. We were in Chicago for the PREX Conference — an event devoted to corporate legal professionals — and my friend and colleague David Cohen made the argument in favor of BYOD.
I took the position that allowing employees to connect their personal devices to company systems creates unnecessary security risks; they impact legal, compliance, and management decisions every organization has to confront, and they create a huge burden for IT professionals, with negligible cost savings. Moreover, I argued, allowing employees to connect personal devices at work encourages personal activity on company time, and it could give rise to wage and hour claims.
For those legal operations readers who were not in Chicago for PREX, I thought it may be useful to recap the three big reasons BYOD policies are problematic.
Security. Under BYOD policies, employees are accessing company information on their phones, tablets, and laptops. Some would say that Apple devices are pretty secure, while Android devices are less so. It’s easy to swap out a SIM card on an Android device.
There’s also all the WiFi and hotspot connections all over the place. Anyone who’s even marginally paying attention has heard horror stories about hacked WiFi connections. It is true that if a hacker really wants to get your data, they can. The question is: Why make it easier?
Laptops present a whole other dimension of security risk. In a virtual desktop environment, it’s better; but with VPN connections, there is data going back and forth and applications are running on the laptop. It’s just another opportunity for a hacker to intrude.
BYOD policies basically surrender control of the device to the user and experience tells us that do so more often than not results in bad outcomes.
Inconvenience. It is a logistical nightmare to manage employee devices under a BYOD policy. Some people may have two or three devices. IT professionals need to support all these devices, with different operating systems, and there are software incompatibility issues. Consequently, IT folks need to buy Mobile Device Management programs, hire additional staff, and constantly push out updates and security patches to all these different devices. If you’re a small organization, this affects scalability and impacts organization infrastructure, not to mention costs.
Legal. BYOD policies implicate storage, retention, data transfer under the GDPR, and other regulatory schemes. And there are privacy issues. What about legal holds? Legal holds, incident response, and data breach — it’s difficult to imagine three more important risks that legal operations professional face. How do you put a legal hold in place when every employee has three devices and they are geographically dispersed? In today’s interconnected world, these devices often contain the most critical evidence.
Lastly, wage and hour claims have been on the rise in part because of BYOD policies. Hourly or non-exempt staff may need to be instructed not to answer emails after hours unless you want to pay them overtime, and even that may not suffice.
In short, BYOD policies are not more secure. With company-issued devices, the company can control them and dictate the terms of their use. BYOD policies are also not more convenient. In fact, they present a logistical and management nightmare for IT folks. And lastly, the legal risks simply outweigh the benefits of having a BYOD policy.
And frankly, it is not at all clear if BYOD polices are more cost-effective because IT can bulk purchase devices and employees insist that employers pay for data plans and software licensing.
Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on Twitter @edpmadvisory.
When Laura Bonner filed her lawsuit against Point72 Capital Management, calling Steve Cohen’s shop a “testosterone-fueled ‘boys’ club’” that underpaid and objectified women, occasionally in the form of crude but prominent scrawls on a whiteboard, she noted that only one of the firm’s portfolio managers was female, and less than 3% of MDs were similarly situated. And now?
Sara Vavra, the head of global macro at Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, has left the firm after about two years, according to people familiar with the matter.
Vavra was among the most senior female executives at the firm…. Vavra’s exit comes just weeks after Tokyo-based money manager Marie Yamaguchi also left, the people said. Yamaguchi, who focused on trading Japanese stocks, joined Point72’s predecessor firm SAC Capital Advisors in 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Need you any further evidence that women receive the same treatment as men at the House of Cohen? And lest you fear that poor Ms. Bonner will be marinating in even more Axe body spray on her own, fear not: Steve has gotten her a few gal pals, at least for as long as they last.
Last month Point72 hired London-based money manager Genevieve Kahr to focus on investing in U.S. and European media and telecommunications stocks, the person said. Earlier this month, Arezu Moghadam joined as head of quantitative analytics within Point72’s Market Intelligence unit, and Yi Zhang joined as a senior quant developer at Cubist Systematic Strategies, the hedge fund’s quant business.
Point72’s Head of Global Macro Vavra Leaves Hedge Fund [Bloomberg]
— Justice Sam Alito took the unusual, for him, step of noticing that corporate interests sometimes have preferred outcomes in Supreme Court cases. If only he could have used this “excessively cynical” lens before going along with Citizens United.