Author: TSA Press

They could increase demand and that wouldn’t impact the number of people who apply or qualify [to attend]. These schools, they’re perceived as a premium item, a luxury good. You almost have a reverse psychology that if it’s not that expensive, it’s not that good. No one wants to be seen as the cheap version of these schools.

— Chris Chapman, president and CEO of AccessLex, a nonprofit that works to improve legal education, commenting on the fact that six-figure total cost of attendance figures for elite law schools are unlikely to affect their application rates.

Three law schools have surpassed the $100,000 mark for total cost of attendance for the 2019-2020 academic year: Columbia Law ($101,345), Stanford Law ($101,016), and Chicago Law ($100,080 for first-year students; $98,505 for second- and third-year students). Other T14 law schools are quickly approaching the $100,000 total cost of attendance mark, like Harvard Law ($99,200), Penn Law ($94,338), and Northwestern Law ($94,410).

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.

Ed. note: This is the first article in a two-part series about AI, its potential impact on how organizations approach security, and the accompanying considerations around implementation, efficacy, and compliance. 

Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) on track to help the world streamline and solve against tasks that are better left to a machine? One might think so, given everything we’ve seen and heard about the impact of AI on our society — from our phones telling us the best way to drive home, to chatbots on e-commerce sites answering product questions, to devices as small as a thermostat or as large as an electric vehicle removing friction from everyday life.

Now AI is entering the space of cybersecurity, promising to bring greater speed and accuracy in detecting and responding to breaches, user behavior analysis, or predicting new strains of malware. AI and machine learning technologies can help protect organizations from a continuously evolving threat landscape — but AI is not just for sophisticated attacks, AI can also help protect against classic attack scenarios.

For example, take a real-world example in which an investigations firm identifies the presence of malware running on a workstation which was traced back to a phishing email that contained a malicious Word document disguised as an invoice that was opened and executed by an organization’s controller. Once executed, the malicious document created a backdoor to the organization’s internal network.  The malware ran on the employee’s system for six months, evading multiple antivirus products and a highly trained internal security team.

In this scenario, AI could have helped detect changes to the employee’s system better and faster than its human counterparts.  Even though commercial systems are still at an early stage of functionality, and only the largest companies can afford the expertise to build or support AI systems in-house, security teams should start thinking about how to best apply AI tools when they become more readily available.

According to Rodger Sadler, Senior Counsel with the global IP Center of Excellence at Bank of Montreal (BMO Financial Group), it’s no surprise that hackers are incorporating AI into their bags of tricks.  AI algorithms enable exploits like spear-phishing on social media platforms to more effectively and efficiently target victims with messaging designed to elicit a much higher response rate than a human could hit.

State of the Technology

The reality is that machine learning technology has a long way to go, says Will Pearce, Senior Operator with Silent Break Security, a cybersecurity consulting firm. “In terms of implementation on networks, machine learning systems still suffer from the classic issues: false positives, poor software development practices, misconfigurations, and a lack of network logging,” he says. Solutions for AI-enabled security solutions are still relatively immature, but vendors are investing heavily to improving their solutions. The problem is, says Pearce, most of these new cybersecurity solutions are not yet designed to allow algorithms to make better decisions, but merely to aid decision-makers — not reaching the true potential of the technology and in some cases just being redundant.

“We already have the required knowledge to create alerts for particular events,” Pearce says.  “Teaching an algorithm to alert on the same events only adds complexity and adds yet another system for security teams to integrate and manage.” He recommends organizations begin experimenting with AI technologies to monitor malicious web traffic, weed out phishing emails, and conduct user behavior analysis on external portals such as VPNs.  “The data sets are smaller, the algorithms are simpler, and the logging is already there in most cases.”

Peter Clay, COO of Dark Cubed, a cybersecurity software platform that detects cyber threats, recommends that companies use AI-enabled tools to solve discrete and well-defined problems. “For small to mid-sized businesses, this probably means using a single AI tool, placed where it will do the most good on the endpoint.”

Both Clay and Pearce agree that having the proper infrastructure and data strategy are as vital as having the right tools.  (We will delve deeper into best practices in the second article of the series.) “Bad or incomplete data limits the utility of the AI and from a cybersecurity standpoint, despite all of the marketing hype, no single tool can make accurate decisions from simply its own data without reference to what else is happening with the state/other tools managing and protecting the data,” Clay says.

The Dark Cloud Over AI

The potential of AI technologies to simplify and improve security is clear but it’s too soon to expect that AI will be able to comprehend and properly classify nuanced existential threats. Privacy considerations are another concern.  AI tools that are invasive to users’ privacy are concerning but there are still worse scenarios that exist, such as an “intelligent” clinical system misdiagnosing a patient.

IT and security professionals should take care to closely evaluate how AI systems use and protect the data their organizations collect, especially as relates to personally identifiable information (PII). Clay points to the EU’s GDPR requirements, which identify IP addresses that are tied to user behavior as PII which must be protected.  Since security systems collect IP data in their analysis, and may combine it with other PII data sets, that increases a company’s risks of being out of compliance with GDPR or other privacy laws. “From a private perspective, creating additional repositories of PII is seldom, if ever, a good thing from the point of view of corporate counsel,” Clay says.  Adds Pearce: “The concept of ‘reidentification’ attacks in which an application can analyze anonymous information across multiple data sets to identify an individual is a concern too,” from a privacy law perspective.

IT and security departments must also be on the lookout for even more aggressive tactics by hackers skilled in AI. “In the cybersecurity space, network defenders will have the additional task of securing their algorithms and datasets against attackers who actively try to influence or break machine learning systems,” Pearce remarks.

Then there’s the alarming concept of “Deepfakes,” in which an AI tool uses PII data, such as an image or recording, to falsify identities and trick employees.  “Imagine the CEO gives a talk or is featured in marketing material,” Pearce says. “Attackers could take the recording, create a Deepfake, then use it to phish employees, and how are they supposed to know the difference?”

The Inevitable Push

The bottom line is: AI technology is powerful and complex, and companies should do plenty of research before using it to buttress or replace existing cybersecurity measures.  But organizations with sophisticated security teams also know that they must meet their enemies on the battlefield, which means that security teams will increasingly need to know more about this technology in general, due to attackers’ use of AI to breach enterprise networks.

The merits of AI don’t point to immediate procurement of AI-enabled security technology or training staff in algorithm design and machine learning software development. Instead, just like map applications or chips embedded into virtually all imaginable consumer technology that will turn regular devices into “smart” ones, machine learning technology will be built directly into applications from vendors. “I don’t think organizations will have to spend significant time or energy building skills internally to gain the benefits of machine learning, as vendors will build it right into their products,” Pearce says. Given the immaturity of commercial systems, he also recommends proceeding cautiously until the market dynamics play out: “Organizations shouldn’t be in a rush to implement this technology. Machine learning is here to stay it just needs some time. It’s okay to wait.”

Jennifer DeTrani is General Counsel and EVP of Nisos, a technology-enabled cybersecurity firm.  She co-founded a secure messaging platform, Wickr, where she served as General Counsel for five years.  You can connect with Jennifer on Wickr (dtrain), LinkedIn or by email at dtrain@nisos.com.

In the age old debate over whether or not lawyers are luddites, the firm’s IT department typically operates as the “good guys.” It’s the computer folks who see the benefits of new tech that the lawyers themselves can’t quite grasp. It’s the computer folks moving heaven and earth to get a new package in front of users. And it’s the computer folks trying to sell lawyers on adopting that shiny new tech.

But as legal technology increasingly moves to the cloud, have the IT departments become unlikely obstacles to progress?

It may be hard to imagine, but this is a theory I’ve been mulling here at the International Legal Technology Association’s annual conference. In a nutshell, IT departments have years of experience in rolling out new products to the firm and have refined their process. Take the product, spend considerable effort customizing it to meet the firm’s idiosyncrasies, only push it out when it’s perfectly crafted to meet every lawyer’s expectations, and then impose grueling training sessions to ensure adoption. After all, the firm is going to have to live with this software for the next 5-10 years!

But with cloud-based solutions, the software is constantly and seamlessly updating. A roll-out no longer requires years of planning. With tech companies finally recognizing that an intuitive user experience will always draw more adherants than reeducation camps, the best thing for everyone is to get the software in front of users as quickly as possible. The whole tech experience has changed yet the expectations of the IT professionals can still bear the scars of the upgrades of yesteryear.

To take an example, consider a document management system. An IT department looking to move to version 10 might fret over getting the upgrade just right, but consider that every day the firm doesn’t have a strong DMS, attorneys are throwing sensitive documents into something like Dropbox as a stop-gap solution. No one’s trained them on Dropbox; they do it because it’s an intuitive experience.

To give some color to this theory, I went ahead and asked iManage — since they build the quintessential document management system — how they see the rollout process. Unsurprisingly, their take was that the program needs to get in front of users; don’t even worry about formal training and just offer intense floor support as users feel their way naturally through the product. According to iManage CMO Dan Carmel, their model envisions a deployment requiring about 30 minutes on the part of the users. They’ve even moved all their training materials to two-minute videos on YouTube. Because if you’re trying to solve a problem at midnight, you’re going to go to Google before you search the firm archives for a manual!

In any event, this is the future of tech rollouts because the era of on-prem solutions is on the way out. And while IT Departments deserve all the credit in the world for bringing the legal profession to this point by championing change, it’s possible that they may be in need for some self-reflection when it comes to managing the change process in a cloud world.

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.

My father spent his entire professional life, some 30+ years, in higher education, so it should come as no surprise that he had some advice for his only child when I started at Vanderbilt four years ago this month.  Dad said that one aspect of the job I was going to like more than I anticipated was working with students, and he has been absolutely correct — he was also right about aspects that I would like less, but that is a column for another time.  When a student swings by my office, a common occurrence during OCI season in which we are currently enmeshed, it provides me an opportunity to take a break from the Excel spreadsheet in front of me and help in whatever way I can.  Whether it is celebrating a newly acquired job, providing comfort when a professional dream is seemingly out of reach, or even just telling someone to take a deep breath and relax, I get to see the gamut of student emotion while providing my own degree of insight, or at the very least being a willing sounding board.  Having been fortunate to hold a number of jobs in the legal industry that Vanderbilt students are working toward (federal clerk, Biglaw, non-profit, academia adjacent), I like to remind students that I, and my colleagues, have a pretty in-depth knowledge of the state of the overall legal market; though the best and most up-to-date insights into the current conditions at a particular employer (e.g., Skadden NYC) will not come from Career Services, but rather, from their own classmates who have worked there. I can tell you what OCI is like, but back when I was going through the process, firms were actually giving out swag.^[1]

But while I love having students come in my office to share insights they learned from their classmates, there are few things that put me more on edge than when a student walks in and says, “So, I saw on Reddit/Top-law-schools/somewhere else on the internet . . .”  This is usually followed by a piece of career advice that ranges from questionable to a fireable offense if provided by someone who actually works in a CSO.   For those not familiar, Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion website that is one of the most popular destinations on the internet.  It also has a well-deserved reputation as housing some of the most hideously racist and misogynistic online, while also serving as a model for sites like 4chan and 8chan, which are radicalizing a generation of violent white supremacist youth.  Reddit users helped drum out CEO (and former Cravath attorney) Ellen Pao, who had the audacity to *checks notes* ban forums that were absurdly racist.  This was followed by CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman quarantining certain subreddits while banning others because the overt racism therein was making it difficult for the company to attract employees.  While I went to law school rather than business school, I would think a CEO would want to crack down on rampant racism before it affected the bottom line, but that’s just me.  So, while NBA Reddit is interesting during the season, it is fair to say I am dubious of Reddit in general.  However, since it, and other sites, are seemingly a primary source of career information for students, I decided to take a look.

The primary subreddit dealing with law school is, not surprisingly, called r/LawSchool.  There’s also r/lawschooladmissions, but strangely, nothing dedicated to legal careers.  So, I took a gander at r/LawSchool to see what sort of advice was being provided and how it stacks up to what students should actually be doing.  Thankfully, the subreddit had an “OCI Megathread,” which seemed as good as anywhere to start.  I was frankly surprised that a lot of the advice/insight was accurate, laying out the various parts of the Fall Recruiting Cycle.  That being said, there were exceptions worth flagging.

(Image via Reddit)

(Image via Reddit)

In a word, no.  Now granted, this might vary a bit by region, with the South placing a greater emphasis on such niceties, but failing to send thank you notes can have negative repercussions on your job search.  If you are the one candidate who does not send a note, especially after a callback, it could very well make you stand out in a negative light.  While there is truth to the idea that decisions as to which candidates will be getting a callback and then an offer can happen relatively quickly, that only means students should employ a more rapid means of communication. Send an email thank you note and then, if you want, follow it with something handwritten.  There is no need to break out the calligraphy set, but something handwritten never hurts.  Later on in the thread, some posters feared that making a mistake in a thank you note could negatively impact one’s candidacy.  That could very well be true, but you know how best to avoid that mark against you?  Don’t make the mistake in the first place.

(Image via Reddit)

This discussion of whether or not “bad” grades will come up in an OCI interview manages to be incorrect in multiple different directions at once.  First, yes, grades that strongly deviated from the rest of your transcript are probably going to come up in an interview, be it a screener or a callback.  If an attorney is looking at a transcript and sees that someone booked all of their 1L classes, except for Torts where they got a C, it is human nature to ask, “So, what happened there?”  However, just because that question is asked does not mean that you have already been dinged by the firm.  Curiosity is sometimes just that.  Unless the class(es) in which one underachieved were in the areas where you would be practicing law in this particular job, your strong academic performance throughout the rest of your transcript can carry the day and get you an offer.

(Image via Reddit)

(Image via Giphy)

So no, not all legal jobs are the same.  I can understand that to a lay person all Biglaw firms can come off as a bunch of glass tower offices named for a handful of white males who have been dead for probably the better part of a century, if not longer.  But a law student is not supposed to be a lay person.  There are significant differences between Wachtell and Cravath or Covington and Williams & Connolly or Sidley and Kirkland.  And that’s just looking at various Biglaw firms.  The differences between working a massive all-purpose law firm as opposed to a 10-person insurance law boutique are about as stark as imaginable.  And then there are all the non-firm opportunities that exist ranging from solo practice to policy jobs in which having a law degree is valuable, but there is no actual practice of law.

(Image via Reddit)

I understand this advice on some level, especially the desire to distinguish yourself from your classmates and add some personality to your application, but typically, employers do not ask for cover letters for a reason.  For firms that are visiting dozens upon dozens of schools during the Fall Recruiting Cycle, interviewing hundreds if not thousands of students, there are already a lot of materials to both review and keep straight.  Adding yet another piece of paper on top of that pile provides something else that has to be reviewed and could get lost.  Plus, a failure to heed instructions, i.e., do not provide a cover letter, is going to be a mark against you in the eyes of some firms.

(Image via Reddit)

What?  Listen, I know that Reddit is home to r/The_Donald, but our largest occupant of the White House since (including?) William Howard Taft does not button his coat due to his corpulent nature.  Have your coat buttoned at least while standing.  If that feels constricting, then the issue is probably the size of your coat.

(Image via Reddit)

While it is true that my paycheck comes from Vanderbilt, my loyalties lie with our law students, not the institution as a whole.  I try my best not to push someone in a career direction they obviously do not want to go.  Now, do I talk up Biglaw to a lot of students?  Absolutely.  Why?  Because the vast majority of Vanderbilt students come to law school wanting to go into private practice at a large firm for a litany of reasons: the type of cases/clients found in Biglaw, the post-firm opportunities afforded to those in Biglaw, the prestige, and yes, the money.  I also sing the praises of clerkships at every opportunity, but that is because I can speak from personal experience and say students will learn more during a year of clerking than they would anywhere else.  But believe me, the goal of myself and my colleagues, both here at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, is to get students on the career path that will best fulfill them as an attorney.

So, while there can be some legal career information on the internet that is accurate, students are better off talking through their questions and concerns with their CSO than folks on Reddit.  Besides, if you want the single best part of the Reddit experience, just follow @redditships.

^[1] Seriously, you all in Biglaw need to step up your swag game. In 2006, I got an iPod during a CALLBACK DINNER. Granted, it was an iPod shuffle and that iteration probably held like a dozen songs, but still, I didn’t even have an offer yet, let alone had agreed to work with the firm in question. Law firm profits are at record levels — it is not as if a keychain flashlight is the best you can do.

Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Robyn Smith to our pages.

Years ago, an older male attorney advised me — kindly, I suppose — to stop bringing cookies into the office or I would never be taken seriously as a civil litigator.  It was the best advice he had for me, but we both knew there was no chance I would take it.  At that point in my life, I had a little girl at home who baked with me every week on Wednesday night, and the cookies I brought were her leftovers.  His point, though, was that the cookies drew attention to my gender, my family role, and my pronounced disadvantages that came from each.  I was a mother.  I would never be a great litigator.

But last year, pregnant with my second child, I tried three cases to jury verdicts over the course of my second and third trimesters.  As a lawyer, I was okay in those trials.  As a mother, though, I won about three million dollars in judgments for my clients.

I represent workers in cases involving discrimination, retaliation, wage abuse, and medical leave interference.  In 2018, my pregnancy changed the way I try cases forever.

Before this pregnancy, my trial mode was pretty typical for a litigator.  I ate very little, slept even less, and locked in on the facts of my case — to the exclusion of all of life’s other details.  You can’t do that when you’re pregnant.  So, for the three week-long trials in 2018, I ate plenty of food and slept at least seven hours a night.  But more importantly, I cared for the people I represented as a mother would. With the support of my trial teams, I let that basic principal guide my heart and my head.

The first trial of my pregnancy took place at the beginning of my second trimester.  I had made it past the fatigue and nausea of that first third of my pregnancy, and I was focused.  My client was a disabled worker who had been berated and bullied by a boss, then fired for reporting the harassment.  I had been called in to co-counsel the case when one of the previous attorneys had a personal emergency.  I’d known the client for about a month when the trial began.  Maybe it was the hormones, but by the first day of trial, I had become her surrogate mother.

Cross-examining her harasser, I was confronting my own child’s schoolyard bully.  Cross-examining the owner of the company, I was indicting the school principal who had turned a blind eye to the bad behavior, but then punished my child when she protested her own mistreatment.  More than once, at counsel table, I noticed my hand resting on my client’s forearm, reassuring her subconsciously.  Every night, when I prayed for my baby’s health, I prayed that my client would also grow confident and strong.

Getting up to address the jury for closing arguments, I felt my eyes fill up with tears.  Not now, damn it, I thought to myself.  It seemed like those days, everything made me cry.  The day before, it had been a quick glimpse at a stray dog on my drive home.  This time, it was the adrenaline that comes from standing in front of a jury to ask a bunch of strangers to determine that your disabled client had been victimized.

I quelled the surge and opened my mouth to argue my client’s case.  What came out was not quite the sermon I had practiced.  What came out was my mother’s voice.  For the next 40 minutes, I channeled my maternal outrage and love to ask a jury to vindicate my client.  I urged the jury to correct a great wrong.  I promised the jury that my client was determined to stand tall and move forward, no matter what.  And for a moment, the jury and the courtroom fell away as I locked eyes with my client and told her, as I would tell my own daughter, that she was a star.  It wasn’t until the jury’s unanimous verdict came back, awarding my client several hundred thousand dollars (a veritable fortune in a Kentucky courtroom) that I mused that my mom really had always known what she was talking about.

The last trial of my pregnancy took place in the sweltering summer, when I was eight months pregnant.  I scurried around the courtroom on swollen ankles and flat shoes, and all I wanted to eat was fruit and anti-heartburn tablets.

My client was a black woman who had been fired after complaining of race discrimination in her city job.  The city’s agents spent the week of trial describing her as “hostile,” “combative,” and “angry.”  By the time I took the floor to close our case, I was determined to set the record straight.  As I pointed out the subtle stains of racism in the city’s evidence, testimony, and argument, I felt my youngest child kicking along supportively.  I thought instantly of my oldest child, and I considered the horror of ever seeing her dehumanized and demeaned.  I implored the jury to see my client as a person, despite the city’s use of dog-whistle coding to portray her as a creature.  Again, I felt the threat of tears.  As I blinked them down, I looked at our jury and saw them nodding, glaring at the city’s representative, and writing down the numbers that they would later write on the verdict forms.

There’s no trick to it.  You have to speak from your heart and occupy an authentic space as an advocate.  In my case, that space is defined by my motherhood, because that informs every conviction, every desire, and every sense of purpose that I can truly express to 12 strangers.  I’ll never be a legendary litigator, as those things go.  I’m just a mother who doesn’t turn that part of myself off, ever. I could be any mother — and for all you know, I am the mother that you’re going to face next Monday at your hearing, or who is defending your next deposition, or who is reviewing your unreasonable written demand.  You are free to pay attention only to the baby bump, or the sensible shoes, or the plate of cookies.  I’ve never let them be disadvantages, and I have no plans to start now.

Earlier: Mothers At Law: Achieving Meaningful Success In The Legal Profession

Robyn Smith is a partner at Bishop Friend Smith & Beilman in Louisville, Kentucky, where she and her partners are building a practice model centered around universal human dignity and empowerment. The daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, Robyn represents workers in their matters involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, workplace endangerment, opportunity and pay deprivation, and whistleblowing. In 2018, Robyn tried three employment cases in Kentucky, all to plaintiffs’ verdicts. She also persuaded the Kentucky Supreme Court to deliver a unanimous opinion embracing the rights of workers to recover against employers who wrongfully interfere in their unemployment benefits applications. The Kentucky Trial Court Review named Robyn runner-up for Plaintiffs’ Trial Lawyer of the Year. Throughout these professional adventures in 2018, Robyn prepared for the arrival of her youngest child (who was not, after all, born in the courthouse). Some of Robyn’s favorite people started off as her clients, and she enjoys few things more than helping them celebrate their personal triumphs over adversity.

Following the 2018 general elections and the violence that marked its aftermath, the Mnangagwa regime once again resorted to coercion in the face of the protests in January 2019. The protests were in response to the deepening economic crisis in the country, and part of the opposition strategy to contest the legitimacy of the government.

The response of the state to the protests was swift and brutal. Seventeen people were killed and 954 jailed nationwide. In May the state turned its attention to civic leaders, arresting seven for “subverting” a constitutional government. The repressive state response was felt once again on 16 and 19 August, when the main opposition Movement for Democratic Chance (MDC) and civic activists were once again prevented from marching against the rapid deterioration of Zimbabwe’s economy.

These coercive acts represent a continuation of the violence and brutality of the Mugabe era.

At the same time Mnangagwa has pursued his objective of global re-engagement and selective national dialogue. This is in line with the narrative that has characterised the post-coup regime.

In tracking the dialogue strategy of the Mnangagwa government, it is apparent that it was no accident that key elements of it were set in motion in the same period as the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a new staff monitored programme.

The purported objective is to move the Zimbabwe Government towards an economic stabilisation programme. This would result in a more balanced budget, in a context in which excessive printing of money, rampant issuing of treasury bills and high inflation, were the hallmarks of Mugabe’s economic policies.

The dialogue initiatives also took place in the context of renewed discussions on re-engagement with the European Union (EU) in June this year.

But, Mnangagwa’s strategy of coercion and dialogue has hit a series of hurdles. These include the continued opposition by the MDC. Another is the on-going scepticism of the international players about the regime’s so-called reformist narrative.

Dialogues

Mnangagwa has launched four dialogue initiatives.

• Political Actors: This involves about 17 political parties that participated in the 2018 elections. They all have negligible electoral support and are not represented in parliament. The purported intent is to build a national political consensus. The main opposition party, the MDC, boycotted the dialogue, dismissing it as a public relations exercise controlled by the ruling Zanu-PF.
• The Presidential Advisory Council: This was established in January to provide ideas and suggestions on key reforms and measures needed to improve the investment and business climate for economic recovery. This body is largely composed of Mnangagwa allies.
• The Matabeleland collective: This is aimed at building consensus and an effective social movement in Matabeleland to influence national and regional policy in support of healing, peace and reconciliation in this region. But it has come in for some criticisms. One is that it has been drawn into Mnangagwa’s attempt to control the narrative around the Gukurahundi massacres. These claimed an estimated 20 000 victims in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions in the early 1980’s. Another criticism is that it has exacerbated the divisions within an already weakened civic movement by regionalising what should be viewed as the national issue of the Gukurahundi state violence.
• The Tripartite National Forum. This was launched in June, 20 years after it was first suggested by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. The functions of this body set out in an Act of Parliament, include the requirement to consult and negotiate over social and economic issues and submit recommendations to Cabinet; negotiate a social contract; and generate and promote a shared national socio-economic vision.

The establishment of the forum could provide a good platform for debate and consensus. But there are dangers. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions warned of the long history of the lack of “broad based consultation on past development programmes”. It insists that

reforms must never be deemed as tantamount to erosion of workers’ rights.

The strategy

In assessing the central objectives of the various strands of Mnangagwa’s dialogue strategy, three factors stand out.

The first is that the Political Actors Dialogue, the Presidential Advisory Council and the Matabeleland Collective were developed to control the pace and narrative around the process of partnership with those players considered “reliable”. Major opposition and civic forces that continued to question the legitimacy of the Mnangagwa boycotted these processes.

Secondly, the formal establishment of the long awaited Tripartite National Forum may serve the purpose of locking the MDC’s major political ally, the Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions, into a legally constructed economic consensus. The major parameters of this will likely be determined by the macro-economic stabalisation framework of the IMF programme.

When brought together, all these processes place increased pressure on the political opposition to move towards an acceptance of the legitimacy of the Mnangagwa regime, and into a new political consensus dominated by the ruling Zanu-PF’s political and military forces, thus earning them the seal of approval by major international forces.

The MDC has responded with a combined strategy of denying Mnangagwa legitimacy, protests as well as calls for continued global and regional pressure. The MDC believes that the continued decline of the economy will eventually end the dominance of the Mnangagwa regime.

As part of its 2018 election campaign, the MDC made it clear it would accept no other result than a victory for itself and Chamisa. That message has persisted and is a central part of the de-legitimation discourse of the opposition and many civic organisations. The MDC has regularly threatened protests since 2018.

What next

The MDCs strategies have not resulted in any significant progress. The hope that the economic crisis and attempts at mass protests to force Zanu-PF into a dialogue are, for the moment, likely to be met with growing repression. Moreover, the deepening economic crisis is likely to further thwart attempts to mobilise on a mass basis.

The EU, for its part, is still keen on finding a more substantive basis for increased re-engagement with Mnangagwa and will keep the door open. Regarding the US, given the toxic politics of the Trump administration at a global level, and the ongoing strictures of the US on the Zimbabwe government have contributed once again to a closing of ranks around a fellow liberation movement in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Mnangagwa’s recent appointment as Chair of the SADC Troika on Politics, Peace and Security in Tanzania will only further cement this solidarity.

There is clearly a strong need for a national dialogue between the major political players in Zimbabwean politics. But there is little sign that this will proceed. Moreover, the current position of regional players means that there is unlikely to be any sustained regional pressure for such talks in the near future.

Post published in: Featured

Harvey Weinstein would like his sexual assault trial moved to Albany. Or Long Island. Or maybe to the moon. Anywhere but New York City, where the accused sexual predator is sure he can’t possibly get a fair hearing in the “circus-like atmosphere [that] has been created by government officials and political activists who view this matter more as a political, cultural, and social event than a criminal trial.”

One can almost make out the spittle flecks on the Motion for Venue Change filed by Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala as he inveighs against “MeToo” and “Times Up” (scare quotes original), “the so-called women’s march,” and “the rallying cry ‘believe all women,’ a position that is antithetical to due process.” Abandon hope all ye men who enter here, into this Amazonian hell of bra burners, where the defendant nonetheless spent enough time to be credibly accused of harassment and assault by multiple women.

Aidala bizarrely claims his client, who boasts a long history of supporting Democratic political candidates, is entitled to a trial somewhere in Red State America because, “Polls show this activism disproportionately impacts the opinions of democrats [sic], the largest demographic group in New York City.”

Citing programs on Hulu and Netflix, upcoming books on harassment that will be on prominent display in every Barnes and Noble in America, and the protests against his former lawyer Ron Sullivan at Harvard (which we assume is still in Massachusetts), Aidala argues that Weinstein can’t possibly get a fair hearing in New York City. The only solution is to move the trial upstate, forcing Court TV to cancel its planned coverage when the on-air talent refuses to spend the night at some crappy motel outside Albany.

Has a venue change ever been granted due to celebrity intimidation? After what Marisa Tomei did to Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny,” isn’t her very presence a form of witness intimidation? Clearly, the court has an obligation to make it really inconvenient for “the celebrities and the activists [to] take advantage of the location in downtown Manhattan to show support for the complainants.” It’s the only way to achieve legal transparency.

It is safe to say that New York City is the least likely place on earth where Mr. Weinstein could receive a fair trial, where jurors could hear evidence, deliberate, and render a verdict in an atmosphere free of intimidation from pressure to deliver a result that the politicians, the activists, the celebrities, and the media demand.

It’s not entirely clear why Harvey Weinstein thinks that he’s any more popular 120 miles north on I-87. Is there some mythical upstate paradise where the air is clear and the internet is all dial-up and no one ever heard of sexual harassment?

Insisting that the trial has to be moved out of the city “to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the alleged victims of sexual assault in this case” is a nice touch from the guy who hired Israeli intelligence company Black Cube to spy on his accusers.

#LotsaLuck, buddy.

People v. Weinstein [Affirmation]
Harvey Weinstein Wants Rape Trial Moved Out Of NYC; Desires Venue “Free Of Intimidation” & Media Spotlight [Deadline]

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

The federal government has charged a pharmaceutical company that makes women’s health drugs with violating disclosure rules.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that it had charged Boca Raton, Florida-based TherapeuticsMD with violating regulations that govern sharing of nonpublic information. In particular, the SEC alleged, the company selectively shared material information with sell-side analysts without also making it public.

The allegations in the order concern the dyspareunia drug Imvexxy (estradiol vaginal inserts), which previously went under the development name TX-004HR and was approved last May, and interactions between the company and sell-side research analysts that took place in June and July 2017.

The SEC noted that the company had consented to its order without admitting or denying the findings and was ordered to cease and desist from future violations of the rule in question, Regulation FD, as well as agreeing to pay a $200,000 penalty.

Shares of the company fell 6 percent on the Nasdaq Tuesday following the SEC’s announcement.

“We are pleased to have resolved the matter,” TherapeuticsMD vice president for investor relations Nichol Ochsner wrote in an email, adding that the company has revised policies and procedures related to public disclosure of information and enhanced relevant training. “With the settlement behind us, we look forward to continuing our mission of advancing the health of women and championing awareness of their healthcare issues.”

The SEC noted that at the time of the alleged information disclosure, the company did not have policies or procedures regarding Regulation FD compliance.

According to the agency, the day after a June 14, 2017 meeting with the Food and Drug Administration concerning a complete response letter it had received for its application for Imvexxy, the company allegedly informed at least six sell-side analysts that the meeting was “very positive and productive.” On June 16, 2017, shares of the company rose 19.4 percent, prompting an inquiry by the New York Stock Exchange about whether disclosure of material information might be affecting the price.

A month later, on July 17, TherapeuticsMD issued a press release stating that it had submitted additional information to the FDA, but did not have a clear path forward regarding its approval application for Imvexxy, and its shares fell 16 percent in pre-market trading. But the SEC alleges that in a call and emails to sell-side analysts after the press release was issued, the company again selectively shared undisclosed details about the June meeting and information it submitted to the FDA. The analysts then published research notes containing the details, and the company’s shares rebounded, closing down only 6.6 percent.

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