Zimbabwe lawmaker to spend more time in detention after court appearance – The Zimbabwean

Armed prison guards patrol outside the court where Job Sikhala, opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) deputy chairman and lawmaker was expected to appear, in Harare, Zimbabwe, July 10, 2019. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Job Sikhala is accused of advocating the overthrow of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and was not asked to plead when he appeared before a magistrate in rural Bikita, hundreds of km (miles) south of the capital.

Lawyer Alec Muchadehama said Sikhala complained to the court that he had been taken to Bikita despite undertakings by prosecutors that his trial would be held in Harare.

The lawmaker and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) deputy chairman was, however, told to come back to court on July 24 and will remain in prison custody unless he is granted bail. The bail hearing is on Monday.

“We have applied for bail at the High Court today. He (Sikhala) had many complains against the conduct of the police, who put a hood on his head so he could not see where they were taking him. They also denied him his medication,” Muchadehama said.

The charges against Sikhala emanate from a video circulating on social media, in which the politicians appears to be seen and heard telling supporters at a weekend rally: “We are going to take the fight to the doorsteps of Emmerson Mnangagwa, we are going to overthrow him before 2023, that is not a joke.”

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the video. Sikhala, through his lawyer, has denied the charge.

More than a dozen government opponents have this year faced similar charges, with critics saying this shows that under Mnangagwa, the government is reverting to harsh Robert Mugabe-era security laws to muzzle the opposition.

Mugabe, who ruled the country for 37 years, was removed after an army coup in November 2017. But Mnangagwa’s promise to break with his predecessor’s past policies and tactics and usher in economic prosperity is yet to be realized.

The MDC, which maintains that Mnangagwa rigged last year’s presidential vote, routinely says it will use all constitutional means to remove the president, without giving more specifics.

In Harare, MDC leader Nelson Chamisa repeated his party’s demand for political talks with the ruling party but only if there was international mediation with a view to guaranteed “free and fair” elections in future.

Zimbabwe, Mozambique in power deal that could close Kariba hydro plant
Present-Day Rural Mutoko

Post published in: Featured

The War On Law Firms

Lawyers, especially more established ones, enjoy referring to the vocation of law not as a mere business, but as a profession. Anyone can own a business, but having a profession requires something special. “Profession” carries connotations of grandeur, learning, following a higher duty to society as a whole. In contrast, “business” is just the gauche act of making money. Businesses are run by Gordon Gekko; Atticus Finch was a member of a profession.

It’s fun to pretend to be a Philosopher-King or -Queen, dispensing wisdom and authority from on high while ignoring the petty economics. Philosophers don’t need to get their hands dirty with math. They have people for that. So long as the Philosopher carefully listens and gives wise counsel, the kingdom will prosper, the peasants will rejoice, and the offices will remain wood-paneled, because that is the way of things.

Ask Ozymandias how that worked out for him.

The world is changing, and the grand profession of law is changing with it. We’re in the early stages of a war for our life, and it’s not the lofty sages that will shape the future of our industry. It’s the scrappy businesspeople who are willing to get their hands dirty, crunch numbers, and make bold choices.

A War On All Fronts

The battle for market share is being fought by more combatants than you might realize. Alternative legal service providers are stealing commoditized market share, and in some instances even traditional bespoke legal work. The Big Four accounting firms are expanding the scope of their consultation services, and boxing law firms out in the process. Legal-oriented startups run by non-lawyers are trying to disrupt the basic fabric of the industry. In-house legal departments in search of efficiency (or internal budget allocations) are keeping more work in house than ever before. The monopoly we enjoyed for decades is being consistently eroded, and when you start with a monopoly, you have nowhere to go but down.

The way this erosion has played out in the Biglaw market has been fascinating, but troubling. The market as a whole for law firm services has been sluggish, seemingly missing out on the past ten years of economic recovery. But it hasn’t been sluggish all over. The top 1 percent of firms are growing massively, and solos and boutiques are chugging along fine. It’s the middle market that’s feeling the squeeze. Midsized firms are struggling to keep their market share. As the overall pie continues to shrink, that segment of the market will be fighting harder amongst itself for fewer dollars. And if and when the next recession hits, a bloodbath will likely ensue.

The scariest part about all of this is how few lawyers even realize this battle is going on. It’s been such a slow boil for the past decade that it’s been easy to miss. We all felt the crunch when the Great Recession set in, shifted hard into a low-expectation mindset while we rode out the downturn, and never really shifted back out. Ten years of moderate growth has been greeted, year over year, as good news. But compared to the overall economy, the legal market has barely bounced back at all. Slow growth has been the norm for so long, many have started to think their firm’s performance has been acceptable, maybe even healthy, when in fact it’s tenuous at best.

Markets change, and industries die. Magazines used to be big business. They set the cultural conversation. When was the last time you bought a magazine outside of an airport? Thanks to some intrepid Wikipedia editors, you can pull up a list of magazines that have died as their industry contracted. You can also find virtual graveyards for the big box department stores and retailers that have crumbled under the weight of competing with the internet.

Mismanagement and bad fortune surely took down their share of the victims listed above, but if you look at the dates these companies folded, an overwhelming number have come in the last 20 years. A tsunami was incoming for the industry as a whole, and only a lucky few made it to high ground in time.

Law firms that don’t recognize the fundamental problems facing our industry run the same risk. Too many firms are coasting on inertia and are unprepared for a shock to their system. Even outwardly thriving firms like Sedgwick can turn out to be brittle and vulnerable when a bad turn comes. Any firm that isn’t actively planning for the downturn may be just a few years from closing its doors.

To survive this war, firms need to be disciplined and realistic. They need to embrace financial planning, educate themselves in complex analytics, push partners for creativity and efficiency, and work hard on accurately understanding, allocating, and cutting their costs. They need to emphasize diversity in hiring and promotion to maximize the skill sets and communities at their disposal. They need to get scrappy, clever, and clear-eyed. They need to run themselves like a business, not a Victorian intellectual salon.

Gordon Gekko Need Not Apply

To be clear, I’m not advocating for the return of Gordon Gekko, nor am I advocating we abandon the higher goals we traditionally aspire to. The legal industry is under siege, but we should not jettison our better selves entirely in the name of staying alive and making money. We can and should run ourselves smarter, while at the same time remaining humane, caring, and reflective. For all the unearned bluster we sometimes ascribe it, it still means something to have a profession. We owe ourselves, and the society that has given us so much, to remember that.

The notion that we are a profession and not a business will do us no favors in the next decade. Neither will the idea that we must cut throats, pillage, and plunder to survive. To make it through the coming reckoning, we need to balance the scales between the professional and the business sides of our industry. We need to find the productive middle ground between Atticus Finch and Saul Goodman. Above all we have to survive, both body and soul.

The first step to surviving a war is knowing that you’re in one. Now it’s time to decide what kind of soldiers we choose to be. Choose wisely.


James Goodnow

James Goodnow is an attorneycommentator, and Above the Law columnist. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and is the managing partner of NLJ 250 firm Fennemore Craig. He is the co-author of Motivating Millennials, which hit number one on Amazon in the business management new release category. As a practitioner, he and his colleagues created a tech-based plaintiffs’ practice and business model. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.

Morning Docket: 07.12.19

* Conviction sends Bitcoin boss from blockchain to chain gang. [Law360]

* Remember Popkin & Stern? Probably not since it collapsed in 1991. Its wild bankruptcy tale is finally coming to an end after art fights and marriage proposals. [Stltoday]

* Drug smugglers are now suing their lawyers for saying they knew Alex Acosta but failed to get an “Epstein deal.” This “Rule of Law” thing is not going well, folks. [Miami Herald]

* Effort to quash the House subpoena of Trump’s accountants heads to the DC Circuit today where new judge Neomi Rao will have an early opportunity to cook up some kooky ramblings to justify a purely political decision. [National Law Journal]

* Andrew Cuomo steps up to disenfranchise voters to shield his political stooges. [Sunnyside Post]

* Municipality hacks keep striking and it’s a real problem for everyone’s privacy. [Legaltech News]

* R. Kelly arrested on new charges. [Huffington Post]

Zimbabwe to revamp investment markets after treasury bill auction – The Zimbabwean

INTERNATIONAL – Zimbabwe is seeking to revamp its investment markets after it held its first treasury bills auction on Tuesday to revamp capital markets.Unchained treasury bills issuance under former leader Robert Mugabe worsened the country’s economic plight as they were used to fund the government’s expenditures.

Permanent secretary for treasury George Guvamatanga said yesterday that the treasury bills and bond markets were now being re-shaped.

Guvamatanga said that the first auction in years was held on Tuesday.

The highest bid rate was 47percent against 13percent stacked against a weighted average of 16.5percent to 19percent.

“We will be coming to the market with an Infrastructure Bond soon to be supported by a ring-fenced structure utilising Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (Zinara) cashflows to support road construction,” added Guvamatanga.

Investment analyst Steve Charangwa said there would be no withholding tax or any taxes on payoffs on the infrastructure bond be levied.

He said that a government guarantee would appeal to foreign fund managers.

“Issue size matters for liquidity and please get Zinara to also make the market for its bonds,” he explained.

Brokerage and investment advisory firm IH Securities said that the “Zimbabwe government had successfully relaunched the bills auction, despite testing the market in a period where the treasury has no need for the money”.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has been touting a budget surplus of nearly ZWL500million (R19.6m) as signalling the government’s success in effectively managing fiscal spaces.

“The government is no longer running huge fiscal deficits.

“Inflation or other challenges on the exchange rate are caused by the creation of money,” Guvamatanga said.

Twitter Is Back — See Also

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Cloud-based practice management software can help meet the growing expectations of clients, staff, and an increasingly competitive legal marketplace. Download the guide here to learn how.

Cloud-based practice management software can help meet the growing expectations of clients, staff, and an increasingly competitive legal marketplace. Download the guide here to learn how.

Annual ‘Fastcase 50’ Named, Honoring Law’s Innovators and Visionaries | LawSites

Annually since 2011, legal research company Fastcase has named the Fastcase 50, an award that honors “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders.” Today, Fastcase named its 2019 honorees, a list that includes practicing lawyers, legal academics, law librarians, corporate counsel, journalists, company executives, bar leaders, and government officials.

[Full disclosure: I was included on the inaugural 2011 list.]

“The Fastcase 50 is one of our team’s favorite events every year, and our ninth class is one of our strongest,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters in a statement announcing this year’s 50 honorees. “These honorees are journalists, lawyers, information professionals, pioneers, and entrepreneurs who inspire us. We’re happy to share the light of their work as a beacon for all of us.”

Full information on this year’s winners can be found at www.fastcase.com/fastcase50. They are:

  • Anette Aav, Director, IT Law Programme, University of Tartu.
  • Charlotte Alexander, Director, Legal Analytics Lab; Associate Professor, Georgia State University.
  • Jason Barnwell, Assistant General Counsel, Microsoft.
  • Raymond Bayley, CEO and Co-Founder, Novus Law LLC.
  • Kim Bennett, Founder, K Bennett Law.
  • Jess Birken, Founder, Birken Law Office.
  • Michael Bommarito, CEO and Co-Founder, LexPredict; Adjunct Professor of Law, Michigan State University; Head of Research, ReInventLaw Laboratory.
  • Brenda Castello, Executive Director and CFO, New Mexico Compilation Commission.
  • Jack Cushman, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society; Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School.
  • Michael Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice (retired).
  • Marlene Gebauer, Global Director of Strategic Legal Insights, Greenberg Traurig LLP.
  • Anusia Gillespie, U.S. Director of Innovation, Eversheds Sutherland.
  • Gillian Hadfield, Professor of Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law; Author, Rules For a Flat World.
  • Brad Heath, D.C. Justice and Investigations Editor, USA Today.
  • Seamus Hughes, Program on Extremism Deputy Director, George Washington University.
  • Darla Jackson, Research and Electronic Resources Librarian, The University of Oklahoma College of Law.
  • Sukesh Kamra, National Director, Knowledge Management, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada.
  • Catherine Krow, Founder and CEO, Digitory Legal.
  • Marie Kulbeth, COO and General Counsel, SixFifty.
  • Christian Lang, Head of Strategy, Reynen Court; Founder, NY Legal Tech Meetup.
  • Marc Lauritsen, Founder and President, Capstone Practice Systems.
  • James Lee, Co-Founder and CEO, LegalMation; Founding Partner, LTL Attorneys LLP.
  • Erin Levine, Founder and CEO, Hello Divorce.
  • Tiffany Li, Resident Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School.
  • Jason Lockhart, Partner, McAngus Goudelock & Courie (MGC).
  • Mike Maschke, CEO, Sensi Enterprises, Inc..
  • Tony Mauro, Supreme Court Correspondent, ALM’s Supreme Court Brief.
  • Dorna Moini, Founder and CEO, Documate.
  • Cat Moon, Director of Innovation Design and Adjunct Professor, Vanderbilt Law School.
  • Ian Nelson, Co-Founder, Hotshot Legal.
  • Craig Newton, Co-Director, Cornell Legal Information Institute.
  • Jonah Paransky, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions.
  • Keith Porcaro, Co-Founder, Digital Public; Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center.
  • Seth Price, Founder, BluShark Digital; Founding Partner, Price Benowitz LLP.
  • Jayne Reardon, Executive Director, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism.
  • Erika Rickard, Senior Officer, Civil Legal System Modernization, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
  • Heather Rosing, President, California Lawyers Association; CFO and Shareholder, Klinedinst PC.
  • Jim Shelar, Former Chief Law Librarian, Arnold & Porter (In Memoriam).
  • Janine Sickmeyer, CEO and Founder, NextChapter.
  • George Simons, Co-Founder, Lawble; Founder, SoloSuit; Co-Organizer, Global Legal Hackathon.
  • Scott Sipe, Associate Publisher, Carolina Academic Press.
  • Ed Sohn, Managing Director, EY.
  • Alyza Tarmohamed, Senior Director, LegalVIEW Bill Analyzer, Wolters Kluwer.
  • Jason Tashea, Legal Affairs Journalist, ABA Journal; Founder and Director, Justice Codes; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law.
  • Roberta Tepper, Lawyer Assistance Programs Director, State Bar of Arizona.
  • Renee Thompson, Mediator, Upchurch Watson White & Max; Executive Committee Member and Incoming Chair of the Board Technology Committee, The Florida Bar.
  • Shawn Tuma, Partner, Spencer Fane.
  • Anand Upadhye, Attorney and Vice President of Business Development, Casetext.
  • Susan Williams, Reporter of Decisions, Arkansas Supreme Court.
  • Miguel Willis, Founder, Access To Justice Fellows; Presidential Innovation Fellow, Law School Admission Council.

Fastcase says it will be celebrating the recipients during the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting this week in Washington, D.C.

Congratulations to all.

See, Biglaw Can Care About Renewable Energy!

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Cloud-based practice management software can help meet the growing expectations of clients, staff, and an increasingly competitive legal marketplace. Download the guide here to learn how.

Cloud-based practice management software can help meet the growing expectations of clients, staff, and an increasingly competitive legal marketplace. Download the guide here to learn how.

Make Money Mondays: Make It Mobile

A recent study  from Pew Internet  found that 37 percent of U.S. adults mostly use a smartphone to access the Internet. That share has nearly doubled since 2013, when only 19 percent of Americans identified their phone as their primary advice for going online.  So why has the number of phone-internet connection increased? Forty-five percent of survey respondents said that they haven’t even bothered with broadband at home because they can do anything  they want with the smart phone.  In fact, 80 percent of non-broadband users say they have no interest in getting   a high speed connection at home.

So what does this mean for lawyers? For starters, your website must be mobile-optimized. That goes without saying. But all of the steps in your intake system must also function on a smartphone so clients can review and sign an engagement agreement from their phones. Client portals should also function on a mobile phone or app so that clients have access to their entire case file in the palm of their hands.

Many people using the phone to access the Internet are also in a hurry. If your site doesn’t work seamlessly, they will easily hop elsewhere. So be sure that you when you set up your website online and put all your systems in place that they’ll work on a mobile device.

Top 5 Copyright Stories In The First Half Of 2019

The first half of 2019 has had an exciting number of interesting copyright stories, particularly with SCOTUS involvement in a number of cases. Here’s a look back at some of the most significant copyright stories in first six months of this year.

SCOTUS Clarifies When Registration Occurs for Purposes of Initiating Copyright Litigation

In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, SCOTUS unanimously held that copyright litigation may not begin until after the Copyright Office has acted upon a registration application. At issue in the case was a determination of what counts as registration for purposes of initiating litigation: the filing date, or the actual grant of a registration certificate by the Copyright Office. During oral arguments, the justices addressed many of the practical implications of permitting litigation to proceed prior to Copyright Office registration, questioning what would happen if the Copyright Office later determined that the particular work-at-issue was not eligible for copyright protection. The Court unanimously agreed that merely filing for registration is insufficient for litigation purposes.

SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Two Copyright Cases in October 2019 Term

At the end of the 2018-2019 term, SCOTUS agreed to hear two cases with potentially significant impacts for copyright in the upcoming term. The first case, Allen v. Cooper, involves a question of whether states can invoke sovereign immunity in copyright infringement cases or whether sovereign immunity was properly abrogated by the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA). While the Court has never determined whether CRCA was a valid exercise of Congressional authority, in 1999, SCOTUS issued a pair rulings in the patent and trademark context (known as the Florida Prepaid cases) finding that the Plant Variety Protection Remedy Clarification Act and Trademark Remedy Clarification Act did not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity. Since then, courts have almost uniformly applied Florida Prepaid to the copyright context and allowing states to continue asserting sovereign immunity in copyright infringement cases.

The second case, Georgia v. Public.Resources.Org involves a question of whether annotated state laws are in the public domain or whether they may be copyrighted. The Eleventh Circuit issued a narrow ruling applicable to the specific facts of the case that because the annotations of the Georgia State Code were done at the direction of the state and intertwined with the law itself, copyright protection did not apply and the annotated code is in the public domain. While it was unsurprising to see the state of Georgia appeal the ruling, what is curious about this particular petition for writ of certiorari is that the winner in the Eleventh Circuit, Public.Resources.Org, supported the petition.  It’s quite unusual to see a winning party support review by SCOTUS.

Published Works Enter Public Domain in United States for First Time in 20 Years

Due to the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998, a 20-year moratorium was placed on published works entering the public domain in the United States. January 1, 2019, saw a number of significant cultural works enter the public domain, such as Charli Chaplin’s film The Pilgrim, Cecil B. DeMille’s film The Ten Commandments, Kahlil Gibran’s book The Prophet, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links, e.e. cumming’s Tulips and Chimneys, Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and 2, and several compositions by the likes of Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, and John Phillip Sousa. These, and other works, are now free for all to use, without seeking permission from the rightholder. Assuming we don’t see another copyright term extension in the United States, each year we can look forward to New Year’s Day as Public Domain Day, in which we will welcome the available of new works to the public domain.

EU Adopts Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market

After years of discussion and consultation, the EU passed its Digital Single Market Directive, significantly altering the copyright landscape. Two articles in particular garnered a lot of attention. One concerns a “link tax” which would allow publishers to charge platforms to display a brief snippet and link to the story. Such a practice could exponentially increase costs and ultimately be impractical. The other extremely controversial provision involves automated filtering, placing a burden on platforms to monitor user uploads and prevent infringing content from being uploaded to the platform. Automated filtering is notoriously problematic and algorithms are ill-equipped to understand free speech or limitations and exceptions. Now at the implementation stage in individual EU countries, looking at exactly how the directive plays out in implementing legislation is something to watch.

Will SCOTUS Hear Case Involving Copyrightability/Fair Use of Software Interface?

I’ve written about the long-running saga involving litigation between Oracle and Google before (and DisCo Project has a great timeline and comprehensive coverage of the case), and many are closely watching to see whether SCOTUS will accept Google’s petition for cert in the case involving two critical questions: whether copyright protection extends to application programming interface (APIs) and, if it does, whether Google’s use of the Java interface was fair use. While the jury in the case found in favor of Google, the Federal Circuit twice reversed. The Federal Circuit’s decisions were significant, altering both the common understanding of copyrightability of API and also imposing a novelty standard in the fair use calculus that has not previously existed. Should SCOTUS accept cert, expect this to be the most closely watched copyright case for the term given the immense impacts the ruling will have on technology, computers, and software.


Krista L. Cox is a policy attorney who has spent her career working for non-profit organizations and associations. She has expertise in copyright, patent, and intellectual property enforcement law, as well as international trade. She currently works for a non-profit member association advocating for balanced copyright. You can reach her at kristay@gmail.com.

Deutsche Bank Is Done Watching Goldman Sachs Hog The Spotlight On The 1MDB Scandal

What’s the German compound word for “Get off my lawn!”?