Author: TSA Press

The legal sector continues to be one of the least diverse professions in the country. While more than 30 percent of law students are minorities, just over 16 percent of lawyers and about 9 percent of partners are attorneys of color. In fact, the number of minority equity partners has only increased from 7.1 percent to 8.6 percent since 2014. Racial diversity in law firms seems to have effectively flatlined, leaving minority lawyers at a disadvantage.

Thankfully, corporate clients have demanded more diversity in the legal teams that staff their matters, which has in turn driven elite law firms to recruit more minority attorneys and increase their inclusion efforts. At some of the very best law firms, minority attorneys are mentored, sponsored, and pushed to build networks that will allow them to receive an invitation to the partnership ranks.

In order to recognize the Biglaw firms that take special efforts to maintain diversity among their ranks, Law360 (sub. req.) has created a list of the top law firms for minority attorneys. These firms were first grouped by headcount, and then ranked according to the percentage of minority attorneys at the nonpartner and partner level.

In the biggest of Biglaw category (600+ attorneys), the top five firms are:

1. Wilson Sonsini: 20.4 percent minority equity partners
2. Morrison & Foerster: 17.3 percent
2. Paul Hastings: 13.8 percent
4. Sheppard Mullin: 11.8 percent
5. Cleary Gottlieb: 13.1 percent

For Biglaw firms with slightly smaller headcount (300-599 attorneys), the best for minority lawyers are:

1. Fragomen: 23.5 percent minority equity partners
2. Fenwick & West: 13.8 percent
3. Fish & Richardson: 10.0 percent
4. Shearman & Sterling: 13.2 percent
5. Crowell & Moring: 8.7 percent

For the smallest Biglaw firms (150-299 attorneys), these are best for lawyers of color:

1. Knobbe Martens: 18 percent minority equity partners
2. Procopio Cory: 12.8 percent
3. Shutts & Bowen: 18.2 percent
4. Best Best & Krieger: 23.2 percent
5. Atkinson Andelson: 32.1 percent
5. Munger Tolles: 19.0 percent

Check out Law360 for rankings of the smallest law firms (20 to 149 attorneys).

Strategies for ensuring minority lawyers have a good shot at making partner differ from firm to firm, and include formal mentorship programs, business marketing workshops, and integration into the firm’s community at large. These measures have been met with success, but there is still a difficult road ahead.

While these firms should be applauded for their efforts to increase racial diversity, there is still much more work to be done. Congratulations to all the firms listed!

The Best Firms For Minority Attorneys (2019) [Law 360 (sub. req.)]

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.

If it wasn’t clear already, Biglaw firms should now know they need to offer some pretty good parental policies in order to stay competitive with their peer firms. We are seeing more and more firms offering their attorneys generous paid leave, and the programs are increasingly gender neutral and offered without a primary caregiver stipulation.

The latest firm increasing their parental leave is Kelley Drye & Warren. The firm has made their new policy, which was effective July 1, gender neutral and it features the ability for new parents to ease back into their work schedule for a two month “ramp up” period with no reduction in salary.

The details of the new policy from Kelley Drye’s announcement:

The policy, now gender neutral, allows for child care leave of up to 8 weeks; childbirth and recovery leave of up to 20 weeks; and a “ramp up” period of two months for any lawyer returning from parental leave, with no salary reduction. There is no requirement that a parent be the primary caregiver to take parental leave.

As the firm’s managing partner, Lew Rose, noted the new policy is designed to support the firm’s attorneys as they attempt to balance their career with parenthood:

“These changes to our parental leave policy were designed to show our commitment to our attorneys, in response to the commitment they show to this firm,” said Lew Rose, firm managing partner. “It is hard work to be a lawyer, but being a new parent is harder. Working parents should have the flexibility to balance both their families and their careers, and our hope is that this updated leave policy achieves that goal.”

Kudos to Kelley Drye on their new policy. Firms stepping up their family friend policies is something we’ll continue to pay attention to — particularly as we head into recruiting season.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The SEALS, an elite naval military group, are said to be among the tightest-knit units in the military.  These “band of brothers” are taught that when things go wrong, they are not only supposed to keep it in the family (the Navy), but to keep it in the immediate family (the SEALs).

“The willingness of an institution to turn a blind eye is common,” Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain and military lawyer who now teaches law at Fordham University, recently told the New York Times.

That’s why when a group of junior Navy SEALs witnessed their highly decorated platoon chief commit murder and, instead of keeping it secret, decided to report it to higher-ups, the story grabbed headlines.

According to the seven reporting commandos, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher stabbed a 15-year-old boy in the neck after he had been taken into custody. The killing was unprovoked, unexpected, and improper.  It was not the first bad act the platoon had witnessed Gallagher commit.  While deployed in Afghanistan, soldiers reported that Gallagher shot and killed a young girl walking along the river on the other side of a surveillance post, and at another time shot and killed an old man.

Deciding enough was enough, the group reported the misdeeds to a commander.  But instead of being congratulated for coming forward, they were told in no uncertain terms to stop talking.  An ongoing investigation could cost them their careers and worse.  No higher-up wanted to give a black eye to the most highly regarded unit in the Navy or one of its star members.

The complaint went nowhere, until the SEALs threatened to go to even higher military brass and the media.  At that point, an investigation started, although it was already so long after the events in question there were no forensics, no weapons, no bodies.

Gallagher, however, had posted a photo of himself holding the dead boy by the hair with the caption, “Good story behind this.  Got him with my hunting knife.”  That, in addition to the eyewitness testimony, was enough to get Gallagher arrested in August 2018, and held in military detention for four months.  Ultimately, he was released awaiting trial, due in part to a request made by President Donald Trump.

That trial, held in a military trial tribunal in San Diego, concluded last week.  And in spite of the strong evidence against him and his own admissions, which were categorized by his attorneys as just tall tales, Gallagher was acquitted of murder charges.

A surprise witness testified that it was he who ultimately killed the boy by plugging his trachea after he realized the boy wouldn’t survive.  An act of kindness, he said. The same witness had never reported this during the investigation phase of the case.

Gallagher was found guilty only of the minor offense of taking a photo with the corpse.  Kudos to his defense team, who suggested that the seven soldiers were petulant millennials unused to the tough ways of the military and angry at being picked on by Gallagher.

As a result of the low-level conviction, Gallagher only saw his rand lowered a step and a fine of approximately $5,000.  He’ll lose no military benefits or the ability to work as a defense consultant when he retires from the military, expected to happen later this year or next.

According to former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, “The acquittal of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher was a great victory for Justice. There must be an investigation of the overzealous and unethical behavior of the prosecutors.”  I wonder if he would have said the same thing when he was head prosecutor of the Southern District of New York in the 1980s.

It must have taken a lot of guts for the young SEALs to have reported their superior’s crime knowing the backlash it would bring. Many must now be wondering if making similar complaints in the future will be worth it.  What are the parameters of proper military conduct if the line between right and wrong is so unclear and if evidence as strong as in the Gallagher case resulted in an acquittal?

The military plays things close to the vest, as it did here.  The Gallagher investigation was delayed.  He had powerful allies, like Donald Trump and Fox News.  But the truth of the matter is, the murder of a prisoner of war (no matter how young) is just not as blameworthy as the murder of a U.S. citizen.

Back in 1970, young army officer William L. Calley, Jr. was charged with murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, Vietnam.  He was convicted but his punishment was only 3 ½ years in prison, first set to be served at Fort Leavenworth, but later commuted by President Richard Nixon to house arrest.

Conditions soldiers face in war, or elite units like the SEALs in being deployed in foreign countries, are tough — emotionally, physically, and psychologically. But that’s why the laws are in place, so that even groups like the SEALs, known to bend the rules, have some limits.

Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

Jeffrey Epstein was ostensibly a hedge fund manager who molested underaged girls and allegedly ran a human trafficking operation for the rich and powerful. A few years back, he pleaded guilty to a watered down version of his crimes and served 13 months in the Palm Beach County Jail. Or at least some of the 13 months… he was allowed to leave and go to his office for 12 hours a day. Epstein even got a non-prosecution agreement that stifled evidence of the wide-ranging nature of his activity.

With his arrest at the behest of the SDNY USAO, Epstein may finally face some measure of justice. There aren’t any statutes of limitations to deal with when it comes to child exploitation, and the way the original plea went down may itself be cause for charges.

The accused always deserve a robust defense, and while lawyers have to be cognizant of their competing obligations or protect their credibility with clients, generally speaking lawyers shouldn’t be knocked for zealously representing clients within the bounds of the law. Yet what the Epstein case reveals is the sickening quasi-law created by the outsized and largely unchecked power of prosecutors. A world where the rich and powerful and their professional mouthpieces spend less time arguing the finer points of law and fact, and more time negotiating how “we can all just get along” with pedigreed perpetrators. If this case goes forward, every single one of these lawyers should face scrutiny — if not legal repercussions — for their role in enabling Epstein all these years.

What’s really amazing is how the Venn diagram of “lawyers who enabled a sexual predator” and “lawyers we routinely blast here at Above the Law” is a perfect circle.

Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta: At least someone else is getting prosecuted over this and the odds are it’s Trump’s Secretary of Labor. The case belongs to the Public Corruption Unit instead of the folks who routinely prosecute child exploitation. The last time I remember a sex case inexplicably ending up in the hands of PCU, NY Governor Eliot Spitzer got tangled up in a prostitution bust. So some government official is getting tagged in this matter and since Acosta has already been flagged for potential criminal conduct in the way he handled Epstien’s original plea, he’s the best bet.

As the local U.S. Attorney in the first attempt to bring Epstein to justice, Acosta conspired with Epstein’s legal team to keep the case out of the public eye, sealing records right and left and not even allowing the victims any input into the deal. A deal that, as a reminder, just gave the guy a half-day county lockup for a year. A judge has already deemed the agreement founded upon material omissions from Acosta’s office.

One might think having a cabinet secretary tied to a child predator would be a tremendous black eye for Trump personally, but the White House has some other problems in this case. Like the way Donald Trump himself shows up in Epstein’s “Little Black Book” or how his public takes on Epstein amount to this:

Alan Dershowitz: Dersh served as one of the high-end counsel who secured the sweetheart deal from Acosta. Again, there’s nothing wrong with zealously representing the accused, if you really consider leaning on a weak-willed social climber of a prosecutor to give your client a slap on the wrist “representing” in the way our ethical rules conceive of that term.

Of course, Dershowitz also has his own ongoing issues stemming from the Epstein matter, having been accused by some of Epstein’s victims as a willing participant who had sex with underaged girls. Dershowitz vigorously denies these claims and recently demanded that the women accusing him sue him for defamation so he can have the whole matter settled in a court of law. Since then, he’s been working very hard to keep this whole matter from being settled in a court of law.

Even if Dershowitz is entirely cleared of any direct involvement in the scheme — and we’ll be watching that case closely — Epstein’s arrest should be an occasion for everyone to revisit how unsavory this deal was and how it should taint everyone involved.

Cy Vance: In a shock to no one, Manhattan’s bumbling, star-f**ker DA is also knee deep in this travesty. Vance, who routinely squelches criminal probes into the rich and powerful — like when his own people told him they had an open-and-shut case against the Trump children or when he let Harvey Weinstein go for years after the NYPD got Weinstein on tape seemingly admitting to crimes — oversaw Epstein’s sex offender status in New York. For a jurisdiction so committed to its stock portfolio-based brand of law and order that it stuffs Riker’s to capacity and holds kids in there awaiting trial for years, when it came to a guy accused of pimping almost 100 underaged girls, Vance wanted people to know this rich guy couldn’t possibly be a threat.

In typical Vance fashion, his office is shoving the individual prosecutor under the bus and proclaiming Vance was merely asleep at the switch, but a lot of folks aren’t buying it.

Some law enforcement sources don’t believe Vance had no clue that his office had a sex-offender case involving a Manhattan mogul with close ties to Democrats.

“This is very unusual,” one said. “There is no way Vance didn’t know. The question is why — and who asked for the favor.”

Ken Starr: The man who wasted millions of government resources on tracking down an affair and then turned Baylor into a disgraceful safe haven for rapists was also on Epstein’s dream team of attorneys securing that plea deal.

Ironically, Bill Clinton is among those accused of having taken multiple trips on Epstein’s private plane known as the “Lolita Express,” presumably not because of a deep Nabokov appreciation. Who knows if Clinton was really involved in illegal activity or just using the plane during its “off-underaged-brothel-hours,” but it’s astounding that once there’s an actual allegation of criminality against Clinton, Starr is the one involved in keeping it under wraps.

Bill Barr: This brings us to the current Attorney General, who will presumably try to scuttle the SDNY investigation if it starts to creep anywhere near Acosta or Trump. He is, after all, the head of the Justice Department and has that power, but it would involve a wild reversal on one of the few commitments he made during his confirmation hearings. Back then, Barr declared that he would recuse himself from decisions that directly implicated his former firm, Kirkland & Ellis.

You’ve probably already guessed this, but do you know which Biglaw firm did the heavy lifting for Dershowitz and Starr in their efforts to get Acosta to bail out Epstein? That’s right! Kirkland & Ellis partner Jay Lefkowitz. Lefkowitz was old buddies with Acosta, so he seemed like the perfect person to lean on his friend to get a favorable deal.

Everywhere you turn, there’s another lawyer ensnared by Epstein — both the established criminal behavior and the allegations he’s facing now. Attorneys making a mockery of the criminal justice system by turning it into a country club locker room, prosecutors going along with this farce to keep themselves in good stead with a rich and politically connected abuser, and potentially another run at obstruction from the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

No matter where this case goes from here, there are a lot of lawyers who deserve heaps of scorn.

He gave a sexual predator a sweet deal. Alex Acosta is not fit to be attorney general. [Miami Herald]

Earlier: After Publicly Demanding His Accusers Sue Him, Dershowitz Is Arguing That His Accusers Have No Basis To Sue Him
Ken Starr’s Defense Of His Baylor Tenure Is… Not Compelling
Cy Vance And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month
Ivanka And Don Jr. Avoided Indictment The Old-Fashioned Way: By Being Rich

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.

Once upon a time, we had regularly scheduled meetings on a topic.  The meetings were worthwhile; we shared information that needed to be shared.  But we had one senior person who was tough at those meetings, cross-examining people who dared to speak and telling participants that they were just wrong about stuff.  The meetings became uncomfortable.

At law firms, those meetings (and people) are not uncommon.  You either tolerate the meetings or leave the firm; that’s life.

But, at corporations, people have a choice.  A relatively junior person had been scheduling the meetings.  Suddenly, the meetings were no longer being scheduled.  I’m not sure anyone noticed, other than me.

“Why did you stop scheduling the meetings?” I asked.

“They were too unpleasant.”

“But didn’t you think they served a purpose?”

“Sure.  So does going to a proctologist every once in a while.  But I don’t go out of my way to schedule unnecessary appointments.”

Which got me to thinking.

Both about the colorful metaphors used by my colleagues and the utility of being nice at meetings.

As a senior person at a corporation, you’re not scheduling all of the meetings.  There are some meetings from which you could benefit; you would like those meetings to be scheduled and for you to be invited.  If you make yourself unpleasant, those meetings and invitations may stop, and you may not even notice that it happened.

So be nice.

Listen to what others have to say.

Solicit the opinions of others.

When you disagree with those opinions, disagree respectfully.

Understand that when a senior person criticizes someone else, the criticism is likely to be taken very seriously.  Frequently, the more important you are, the more softly you should speak.

I understand that you don’t suffer fools gladly; I know that your time is valuable; I know that you attend more meetings than you care to.

If meetings truly aren’t necessary, then cancel them.  Or don’t attend.

If someone consistently wastes time at meetings, then perhaps that person should be told (privately) to be conscious of people’s time when senior executives are attending meetings.  Or perhaps a problem is insoluble, and the person should no longer be invited to the meetings.

But you shouldn’t be the cause of meetings being canceled.

If meetings are necessary, then you should encourage people to schedule them, to speak, and to offer their opinions.

If you don’t encourage people, then you can’t complain when you’re blindsided by events that you otherwise would have known about.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES SERIES 26/2019

[8th July 2019]

Open Committee Meeting Monday 8th July

The only committee meeting open to the public this week is the meeting scheduled for this morning mentioned below.

Members of the public may attend the meeting – but as observers only, not as participants, i.e. they may observe and listen but not speak. If attending, please use the entrance to Parliament on Kwame Nkrumah Ave between 2nd and 3rd Streets. Please note that IDs must be produced.

The details given in this bulletin are based on the latest information from Parliament. But, as there are sometimes last-minute changes to the meetings schedule, persons wishing to attend should avoid disappointment by checking with the committee clerk that the meeting concerned is still on and open to the public. Parliament’s telephone numbers are Harare 2700181 and 2252940/1.

Reminder: Members of the public, including Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, can at any time send written submissions to Parliamentary committees by email addressed to [email protected] or by letter posted to the Clerk of Parliament, P.O. Box 298, Causeway, Harare or delivered at Parliament’s Kwame Nkrumah Avenue entrance in Harare.

Monday 8th July at 10.00 am

Public Accounts Committee

Oral evidence from the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement on the Ministry’s accounts for the financial year 2017.

Venue: Committee Room No. 4.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Featured

ZVISHAVANE, ZIMBABWE — For Sophia Takuva, mining is in the blood.

Her grandparents, her father and her brothers and sisters are all gold miners. Now, Takuva, 31, oversees daily operations at both her grandmother’s and her father’s mines. It’s a job she’s had for the past four years. On top of that, she’s secretary of the Zvishavane Women Miners Association.

But she hasn’t been able to open a mine of her own.

A year ago, Takuva applied for a license to do that, but she hasn’t received one yet. She knows of women who have waited for more than three years, she says. And although she can’t prove it, she believes that applications are held up much longer for women than they are for men.

Women make up 30% of Zimbabwe’s estimated 40.5 million miners, according to a 2018 report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an independent think tank headquartered in Canada. But the obstacles they face in the industry are considerable.

So in 2018, Takuva and her peers set up the Zvishavane Women Miners Association to help women take on those challenges.

The association comprises dozens of women from different parts of Zvishavane and Mberengwa, a small, active mining town 32 kilometers (19.8 miles) away. A small proportion are registered small-scale miners who mine gold or chrome. The rest are artisanal miners – lone workers who often mine illegally or without adequate machinery – who hope to get into established small-scale mining.

The women meet once a month, assisting each other with issues such as getting a license, reporting their earnings and pegging out potential plots. In between meetings, they workshop issues on WhatsApp.

“We learn from each other every day,” says Beauty Hove, a gold and chrome miner who owns a grocery shop on the side. “I cannot compare myself to men, because our circumstances are different, but when you hear about the success of a fellow female miner, you are motivated and inspired, and you know that you can also get there.”

Artisanal gold mining was illegal in Zimbabwe from 2006 until 2013, though that didn’t prevent individual miners from selling to the black market during that time.

In 2014, the government opened up its gold-buying facility, Fidelity Printers and Refiners, to small-scale and artisanal miners, in addition to the large companies that had previously dominated the sector.

Two years later, Fidelity Printers and Refiners set up a specific loan facility to support the production of gold by small-scale miners – the Gold Development Initiative Fund. The government set aside $20 million of the $150 million fund specifically for women miners, including provisions for training at the Zimbabwe School of Mines. The government has since said it is working on incorporating other minerals like platinum and chrome into the loan fund.

Mukasiri Sibanda of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) says allocating part of the fund to women is a step in the right direction, but isn’t sufficient to address the problem.

“What is the rationale of setting aside $20 million from $150 million in a bid to support gender equity?” he says. “Does this not mean that the remaining facility is for men?”

Distribution of the fund has been poor – a spokesperson for Fidelity Printers and Refiners told GPJ that only 10% of the $20 million has been given out so far.

In addition, Takuva says the process of applying for a mining license in Zimbabwe isn’t inclusive. To get one, an applicant must first get a prospecting license, which costs $200. This license is supplied instantly so that the recipient can search for an area to mine.

Once a site is identified, the miner then must get an agent or approved prospector from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to peg out a mining plot for a fee of $350. From there, a certificate is issued. That costs another $200.

Finally, the Environmental Management Agency helps the miner conduct an impact management plan.

I cannot compare myself to men, because our circumstances are different, but when you hear about the success of a fellow female miner, you are motivated.Beauty Hove, a member of the Zvishavane Women Miners Association

Takuva says most people need to take out loans to cover these fees. But to get a loan, they must put up property as a security. That’s not realistic for many women.

“Collateral has always been an issue and remains an issue particularly for married women, who often do not have properties in their names but that of their husbands,” says Apolonia Munzverengi, the Minister of State for Mashonaland East Province.

Or, as in Takuva’s case, they’re single and don’t own property at all.

“Women who have support from their spouses can take their chances,” says Nomalanga Dube, Provincial Chair of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation. But those who don’t have that support often just give up, Dube says.

Even if they do get a license, many miners often don’t make enough to live comfortably.

“Imagine you are given a loan of $15,000. You need a compressor, pump, generator, explosives, diesel and security personnel,” Takuva says.

That money might get a miner started, but it’s not enough to pay workers and other expenses and still make loan payments, she adds.

There are often disputes over who has a license to manage a plot of land, which are allocated manually. Women usually lose out to men in such disputes, says Takuva.

As part of her role at the Zvishavane Women Miners Association, Takuva says she recently had to intervene in a case where a man with a prospecting license moved onto a mine owned by a woman. Without any proper proof of her sole ownership, however, the woman had to agree that they would mine the land together.

Sibanda, the officer at ZELA, says a computerized system would help avoid such situations. The latest national budget allocated $1.8 million for the computerization of the title system. Sibanda says ZELA has vowed to monitor this process.

For all the positive rhetoric about women’s empowerment Takuva hears from industry leaders at seminars and conferences, she says the reality for her peers is vastly different. Amid all the talk of land plots, machinery and earnings at the Zvishavane Women’s Miners Association, there is always an unspoken problem that haunts the discussions in the group – that of sexual abuse and exploitation.

“It’s real,” Takuva says. “Many women we know have experienced it. It’s just one of those things that is difficult to talk about.”

She says women are harassed and abused at all stages of the mining process – by men who involved in the licensing process, by strangers in the bush during prospecting, by men who want to muscle in on their mines and by police who request sexual favors to look the other way over mining violations.

“When you get to the ground, you realize that it’s not as simple as they make it sound – we are yet to feel the empowerment from our leaders,” she says. “Being a woman in this male-dominated industry is not for the faint-hearted.”