Zimbabwe has an elephant population of around 84,000 which is nearly double what it can cope with, according to the officials. (AFP/MARTIN BUREAU)
HARARE: Zimbabwe has demanded the right to sell its stockpile of ivory to raise money for conservation, wildlife authorities said on Tuesday (Jun 11), joining other southern African nations in calling for the global ban on the trade in tusks to be relaxed.
Wildlife authorities in the cash-strapped nation estimate the country’s decades-old hoard of ivory is worth around US$300 million, which they say would help plug funding gaps for game reserves.
The proposal has put it on a collision course with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits the sale of ivory to curb poaching.
Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia have cited the growing number of elephants in some regions in their bid to have the restrictions relaxed.
Spokesman for Zimbabwe’s wildlife authority Tinashe Farawo told AFP that the nations had submitted a joint proposal to CITES and warned: “If we are not allowed to trade we will not take part in CITES discussions on elephants.”
“Our decision to sell ivory is not an emotional one. It is a scientific one backed by facts. At independence in 1980 we had 40,000 elephants and the number has more than doubled and yet the land is not expanding,” Farawo said.
Zimbabwe has an elephant population of around 84,000 which is nearly double what it can cope with, according to the parks and wildlife authority.
But over the past decade, the population of elephants across Africa has fallen by about 111,000 to 415,000, largely due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In May Zimbabwe sold 100 elephants to China and Dubai in an effort to raise cash. The deal was worth US$2.7 million over six years according to wildlife authorities.
Farawo called on critics of the ivory sale proposal to “give us money to run our operations,” instead of lambasting it.
Wildlife authorities said if approved, it would help them fund operations, buy radios and vehicles for patrols to curb poaching.
“CITES was meant to regulate trade in endangered species but if there is no trade then CITES is not serving its purpose,” Farawo said.
Last month Botswana, which has the largest elephant population in Africa, sparked controversy by lifting its five-year ban on elephant hunting citing “high levels of human-elephant conflict”.
“In the end, what matters most is that the model start her career off when she is physically and mentally best suited for success.”
Models at Saint Laurent’s Fall 2018 show. Photo: Imaxtree
In March, luxury conglomerate Kering announced that, starting with the Fall 2020 season, its brands, which include Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, would no longer employ models under the age of 18.
“As a global luxury group, we are conscious of the influence exerted on younger generations, in particular by the images produced by our houses,” Kering’s chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault said in a statement. “We believe that we have a responsibility to put forward the best possible practices in the luxury sector and we hope to create a movement that will encourage others to follow suit.”
The move saw Kering join Condé Nast and the CFDA, who initiated similar policies, though the latter’s was less concrete; in an August 2018 letter to designers, the organization said it was “encourag[ing]” designers “to consider only working with models aged 18 and over,” though it didn’t prohibit them. Still, the announcement, like Condé Nast’s and Kering’s, was met almost exclusively with applause — together they signified an evolving effort by the industry to protect the young women it preys upon.
But fashion has a long history of employing underage models: Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell were discovered at 14 and 15, respectively; Kendall Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber all made their modeling debuts well before they were 18. Could an industry that’s spent decades capitalizing on underage models in terms of both exposure and revenue — a Grazia Australia article suggests Gerber will be more successful than mom Cindy Crawford, thanks in part to her starting her career at such a young age — be ripe for change?
As some of the world’s largest and most influential players refuse to hire models under the age of 18, top modeling agencies are being forced to reevaluate how they operate. Building a model’s brand and portfolio doesn’t just require landing major jobs — it starts with scouting and requires a customized and comprehensive development process, two practices that agencies may be forced to reconsider.
Kaia Gerber making her runway debut at 16 the Spring 2018 Calvin Klein show. Photo: Imaxtree
“When the CFDA, Kering and Condé Nast get behind an initiative, it trickles down to those who scout the models, which means the models now being offered to us are, with rare exceptions, already 18 or older,” says Kevin Fitzpatrick, executive director of Silent Models. “The mother agents — the ones who originally find models at, for instance, the local shopping mall — know to encourage the girls to stay in school longer. Conversations with parents are now more about ‘hey, let’s have your son or daughter finish up high school, get their diploma and then we can send them abroad.'”
While the traditional development process typically involves “learning how to take pictures, learning how to work with photographers and learning how to show up on time,” according to Wilhelmina‘s CEO Bill Wackermann, he notes that, now more than ever, it also includes having an open dialogue and a strong relationship with the model’s parents.
“Under the age of 18, you’re still developing as an individual and a young adult,” Waackermann tells Fashionista. “We work very closely with mother agents, but also the parents themselves. This is a business. It’s great for the Kaia Gerbers of the world who have unlimited funding for that type of lifestyle, but most models don’t. Do you want your 16-year-old living in an apartment in New York City or Paris with other young people? Those are the decisions we really have to think through with the parents, and that’s why we really advocate for staying home and coming to us when you’re 18, when you’re ready to make this a career.”
Though Wilhelmina will sign girls ages 15 or 16, Wackermann says the company sits down with parents to discuss whether the timing is really right for their child. “Modeling is a job,” he says, “and unless they are so adamant about working immediately, we tell them to stay in school, to come here in the summer and we’ll take test photos and work on development then. We’ve always believed that when someone turns 18 they are in a much better place to understand the responsibilities of the job and the level of professionalism that’s expected from them.”
While these discussions aren’t necessarily new, they have certainly become more prevalent (Wackermann says it’s because “New York has really limited the models walking to over 18”). And though most agencies admit the development process hasn’t been greatly impacted by these policies, it has, in many instances, been prolonged. (It’s not surprising, considering Chris Gay, co-CEO of Elite World, which owns Elite, The Society, Women, Supreme and Women 360, told Business of Fashion last month: “The longer we can delay [a model’s entry into the full runway circuit], we found it creates a healthier environment and long-term career.”)
Fitzpatrick says that “while the basics [of the development process] remain the same — start the model off with a few clean, simple test shoots, teach her how to walk the runway, book her an ‘exclusive’ for Fashion Week, follow that up with some cool editorials and top it off by booking her for the seasonal campaign of a major brand” — other parts are becoming more robust. It’s not just to protect the models, which is, of course, of utmost concern, but to ensure that they are mentally prepared to begin working in the first place, which is one of the primary focuses of Kering’s policy. As Marie-Claire Daveu, the company’s chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs, said in a statement: “In our view, the physiological and psychological maturity of models aged over 18 seems more appropriate to the rhythm and demands that are involved in this profession.”
And Fitzpatrick agrees. “In reality, most young Americans start their first job in their late teens or early twenties, certainly after completing high school,” he says. “By that standard, models starting their careers at age 18 or soon after puts them more or less in line with their peers in other industries. We think models should, at a minimum, complete high school before starting their modeling career.”
While IMG, which represents both Hadids, still signs models under the age of 18, they have also put a heavy focus on “training and selective exposure to set the stage for a long-lasting career,” says David Cunningham, the company’s senior vice president. “Younger models are integrated into our development board, which offers training programs like IMG Model Prep [which includes education on physical and mental health, casting, photography, business, and more], as well as opportunities to gain practical experience in age-appropriate settings.” Cunningham notes that a strong development program helps “prepare talent for full-time careers in modeling” and allows them to “enter the industry with the confidence and professional know-how that ensures their long-term success.”
Elite World, too, is still working with under-18 models; Gay tells Fashionista that “historically, models have always been scouted at different ages, and both scouting and development have always been highly individualized processes. Still, he notes that “the new 18+ guidelines, which our company advocates for, have been encouraging, because it removes the pressure of models having to choose between their education and career.” He adds: “It allows them to experience this business and develop their craft, without the pressure of embarking on a full global show circuit.”
Models backstage at Givenchy’s Fall 2019 show. Photo: Imaxtree
That pressure of the global show circuit, however, still exists. While New York has the Child Model Act, which requires companies to follow specific guidelines in order to employ models under 18, in Europe, “there’s more fluidity; girls are still walking [runways] at 16,” Wackermann says. Plus, luxury conglomerate LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Celine and Givenchy, among others, told Fortune last month that they “firmly disagree” with Kering’s policy — a move that continues to promote a certain fantasy to young girls while ignoring the realities of both traveling and working abroad.
“For many models, having to travel to foreign countries, being away from the comforts of home and lacking the daily guidance and support of their family, can be very emotionally taxing,” says Fitzpatrick. “The temptations of city life in New York, Paris and London can overwhelm just about anyone — particularly someone under the age of 18. That’s another reason why we support these rules.”
As a result, agencies like Ford, DNA and The Society have committed to no longer submitting models under 18 to brands for runway shows. Fitzpatrick, however, says Silent is taking a stand by not signing any models underage, period.
“Our rule is to only sign models that have reached the age of 18,” he says, noting if a model is slightly younger they are “happy to meet and track her progress and work alongside her parents until they are of age.” Only then will the agency officially sign her.
“It takes real leadership for these things to take place,” he says. “In the end, what matters most is that the model start her career off when she is physically and mentally best suited for success, and we think that’s at age 18 or over.”
Many so-called trial lawyers and litigators spend much of their time alone, behind a desk. That time is essential, which is why at our firm, we heavily discourage use of social media and phones during the day because it’s so distracting. You need uninterrupted thinking time, a lot of it.
But that’s absolutely not all you need. You need to get experience in being an advocate. You have to fight. Experience can be hard to come by, especially for a young lawyer, but take it any chance you get it.
I was in court a short while ago where the court attorney was spending her morning resolving the discovery disputes before her. While waiting for their case to be called, co-counsel in an unrelated case were having trouble even getting their adversary to hear their arguments. But the co-counsel stayed tough, kept pushing their much more senior adversary, and the cantankerous adversary counsel yielded, if only a little bit.
However, the issue didn’t even get addressed by the court as another lawyer didn’t show, and the argument was adjourned. That can be frustrating. But this is the business — adjournments when you don’t want them.
More to my point, the two relatively junior co-counsel had the opportunity to fight. Their adversary may have been difficult as a person, but more importantly she was difficult as a lawyer. She wasn’t yielding easily. She pushed and pushed. That’s exactly the kind of adversary you want to have to teach you to be tough and to push yourself.
I don’t know the details of the discovery dispute and I might have groaned (as I’ve seen many a court attorney or magistrate judge or arbitrator do) given that all this lawyer time (and legal fees) were being devoted to such a dispute. It’s beyond the scope of this short piece how our discovery process is utterly broken and doesn’t advance justice as it should.
However, for younger lawyers it creates a great opportunity to train. Serve your client, yes, but take advantage of those disputes to learn how to fight. Don’t just complain about your adversary, beat her, and learn from her (those cantankerous types can be quite effective). Don’t lower yourself to the base means of a lawyer you don’t want to be. But do learn from that lawyer.
This is only one example of what may seem like an unpleasant or not fun situation that can teach you. For example, there is nothing for lawyer or any age like being yelled at, unfairly, by a judge that will teach you how to grow and be tough.
John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Mainspring Legal’s team of expert contributors. David Lat, founder and former managing editor of Above the Law, recently joined Lateral Link as a managing director in the New York office.
In my new role as a legal recruiter, I spend much of my time speaking with Biglaw associates and partners about their career goals and aspirations. And I have quickly come to this conclusion: everyone wants to go in-house. So I’m delighted to present a great in-house position to the Above the Law audience.
An emerging growth company in the specialty pharma/life sciences/biotech space has exclusively retained Lateral Link to conduct a search for a Deputy General Counsel, to be located in the company’s headquarters in northern New Jersey. Interested candidates should submit their résumés to me via email: dlat@laterallink.com, subject line “In-House Opportunity.”
Reporting to the General Counsel (“GC”), the Deputy General Counsel will work closely with the GC, Chief Compliance Officer, business clients, and outside counsel on a wide range of corporate matters, including public company securities filings, corporate governance, M&A, and commercial contracts. The Deputy General Counsel will also support the General Counsel on existing business development initiatives. This is the first Deputy General Counsel role at this company, and it provides a unique opportunity for a lawyer to engage in the company’s strategic and business development efforts.
Requirements:
J.D. with excellent academic credentials.
5+ years of experience with a major Am Law 200 law firm or corporate legal department.
Expertise in securities law, especially public company reporting requirements and SEC filings.
Experience with general corporate matters, including board resolutions and minutes and corporate authorization.
Experience drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a wide variety of commercial contracts (e.g., supply agreements, master services agreements, consulting agreements).
Desirable but not required: experience in the life-sciences industry, healthcare regulatory/compliance, M&A, litigation, intellectual property.
Willingness to roll up sleeves and be involved in all legal aspects of a growing company; candidate must be a self-starter and have an entrepreneurial spirit and cooperative attitude, sound and practical business judgment, intellectual creativity, and problem-solving skills. As a core member of the legal team, candidate should have the highest level of integrity and ethics.
Active membership in at least one state bar.
Compensation: Competitive base salary, bonus, stock options, ESPP plan, and benefits, commensurate with experience.
Travel: Minimal travel required.
Relos: Case by case (this search is national, although local candidates are preferred).
Bar: Active membership in at least one state bar.
Seniority Level: Senior director-level or VP-level position, commensurate with experience and ability.
If you satisfy the requirements listed above and would like to learn more about this job — or if you’d like to explore your career options more generally, including opportunities at other law firms — please submit your résumé to me via email: dlat@laterallink.com, subject line “In-House Opportunity.”
Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.
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 Cristina Hendrick Stroh to our pages.
We all know that misconceptions and stereotypes run rampant in the world of the working mom. Someone commented to me the other day about how “lucky I was to have a career.” That is laughable. Any working mom knows luck has little to do with it.
Let’s face it. There are conscious and unconscious biases everywhere, one of which being that moms are less dedicated to their careers than — or don’t work as hard as — their childless counterparts. While we know that’s not true and there are employers that are making strides in the right direction, it is still a real issue for a lot of women. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to limit the number of family pictures in your office to one. My strategy for combating this misconception is two-fold: results and relationships.
Results speak for themselves. If you always come through, your clients will have less reason to suspect that your children do or will have an adverse effect on your attention to their matters. Be efficient and be responsive. Get the job done even if it means answering a few emails after the kids are in bed.
Moms have to get lots of things done on tight timelines all the time. That skill might even make you better at getting the job done than someone without kids. If you have something that needs to be done, give it to the mom with 18,000 other things on her to-do list. She’ll handle it. I find that the more I have on my plate, the more efficient I become. I got my best grades in undergrad the semester that I took 18 hours and worked. Of course there’s a limit to this, and at some point, even Superwoman needs to evaluate her workload and set some boundaries.
Learn to effectively delegate what you can so that you can still deliver timely results for the client. This has been an area where I struggle, but it is a crucial aspect of workload management. It creates learning and career development opportunities for younger attorneys and paralegals, and it frees up space in your day for the next project on your list. Or for soccer practice.
Relationships are the other key to avoiding the misconception that work is not high on your priority list. Relationships with clients and colleagues are extremely important. It’s like any professional relationship — you need to keep it professional, but if you know each other personally, it makes everything a little easier.
These days, it is perfectly acceptable in a group setting to ignore the people around you and work on your phone, but that sometimes leads to missed opportunities. When you are sitting around waiting for a meeting or conference call to start, instead of playing on your phone or responding to emails, actively engage the people around you. Ask about their families, their plans for the weekend or an upcoming holiday. Be genuine and be interested.
You don’t need to be their best friend, but if they like and respect you personally, it will be easier for them to give you the benefit of the doubt professionally. And let’s be honest, most people like talking about themselves. So it should be pretty easy to strike up a conversation instead of scrolling through Instagram. Obviously, the longer you work with someone the easier this becomes, but it’s a good habit to develop. You might even make some new friends.
I have two young children who are less than two years apart, and I’m consistently told how highly my clients regard me. When I need to reschedule a meeting because I have to go pick up a sick kid or I have to be out of the office to attend a school assembly, I can tell my clients that without the fear that they will feel like I am blowing them off. My work speaks for itself, as does the giant bulletin board of family pictures in my office. Both are priorities in my life. Being a working parent is difficult, especially in these days when clients and opposing counsel often expect you to be connected 24/7. But if you deliver consistently and foster strong working relationships, it can go a long way toward making it easier to manage it all.
Cristina Hendrick Stroh serves as Senior Real Estate Counsel for J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. in Plano, Texas, where she has practiced since 2007. She concentrates on all aspects of acquisition, financing, leasing and disposition as well as ongoing operations matters in a 20-state territory including California and the Pacific Northwest. Cristina received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the Penney legal department, Cristina practiced real estate law with Schlanger, Silver, Barg & Paine, LLP in Houston, Texas. In 2015, Cristina was awarded the America Bar Association’s Excellence in Writing Award for authoring the Best Practical Use Article published in its Probate & Property Magazine. She currently lives in McKinney, Texas with her husband, two children, and two dogs.
A few years ago, representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce rolled up on Above the Law’s offices to chat with me about their work. It was a perfectly lovely meeting even though they were mostly bemoaning “trial lawyers” who they said were lobbying legislators to allow driverless cars to be regulated exclusively through post facto litigation.
“Balderdash!” I said. “That’s inefficient and dangerous.” They giddily agreed. “So I assume you’re backing a robust federal regulatory regime instead.”
This prompted awkward silence for a few beats. Government regulation is, after all, what the group spends the other half of its time fighting. Pushed to face the logical conclusion of shutting down one avenue of consumer protection, they cringed a bit at the realization that there’s really only one option left.
And that’s the whole problem. When the zero-sum nature of the competing pillars of the right-wing legal project gets exposed, there really isn’t a unifying logic to playing both sides of it other than “whatever lets a business incur harm on others without oversight.” But that doesn’t play as well on television as the faux aphorisms about “greedy trial lawyers” and “business-crushing regulation.” Tort reform isn’t much of a core philosophical truth, it’s mostly a catchphrase.
A jury has awarded $33.2 million in punitive damages to Gibson’s Bakery, whose owners claimed Ohio’s Oberlin College and an administrator hurt their business and libeled them during a dispute over a shoplifting episode that triggered protests and allegations of racial bias.
The Chronicle-Telegram reported the same jury awarded Gibson’s business and family members more than $11 million in actual or compensatory damages, bringing the total award to more than $44 million.
The facts, as they seem to be coalescing, is that the white bakery staff confronted a black patron who they said was shoplifting and this incident triggered protests. Assuming the bakery is, in fact, right, then… well they still probably don’t have a claim against the students. That seems very much a statement of opinion, but whatever. Let’s pretend there is a claim against the students. Is it a $44 million claim? For a bakery in a town of 8,000 people? Absolutely not.
This isn’t even like the class actions that tort reformers routinely complain about where the whole point of the oversized award is to compensate a large class of not necessarily known victims and award lawyers taking a public interest risk of self-financing a litigation on behalf of those victims. This is a discrete incident. The damages are easily calculable and hardly $11 million.
And to go after the school?!? I’m old enough to remember when conservatives passionately argued that private schools, like Oberlin, should have the right to be segregated. Now private schools can get sued for making… business decisions on where they choose to buy cakes? Even taking the most tenuous “tortious interference” logic — which is really out there — to get the school into this case, it still couldn’t remotely add up to this award.
Meanwhile, the National Review, a bastion of conservative thought that has repeatedly trumpeted tort reform for years, called it a “Blueprint for Fighting Back.” Presumably the “fight” is against people who complain about “racism” and “sexism” and the like. Others derpheads joined in.
Although IRS reports show the university is worth around $1 billion, Oberlin College still claimed poverty to avoid paying $11.2 million in damages for defamation of a local bakery wrongly accused of racism. https://t.co/fCRA2sGEvU
The $33 million settlement against Oberlin College is a great place to start. If they are to be activist factories and not institutes of learning, let them pay the cost.
The last Tweet’s point is that the school was really asking for it when it suggested that a big award would hurt students… a group that the town almost assuredly loathes despite their economy largely revolving around the school. Cutting off noses to spite faces and all that rot.
Walter Olson of the CATO Institute deserves a lot of credit here since he appears to be the only prominent legal conservative willing to stand up for the principles he’s espoused his whole career:
He also shared a long Twitter thread that succinctly goes through how much of a non-case the bakery actually had:
I fear Olson may be learning what a lot of us already sussed out. There’s not really an appetite out there for his ideas on “tort reform.” There’s just an appetite for trolling “social justice warriors” and he’s only managed to intersect with those people throughout his career in an alliance of convenience. When the chips are really down, they’re ready to torch his passion project in an instant.
This is an embarrassment to the justice system even for those of us with a forgiving view of the appropriate extent of tort damages. For anyone who’s ever called for tort reform, it should be a disgrace.
But that would require internal logical consistency… something in short supply these days.
Pride month is in full swing, so it only makes sense to focus on some progress being made in Biglaw firms. We’ve been hearing that some prominent Biglaw firms are making a genuine effort to be inclusive to trans/genderqueer/nonbinary folks. As a tipster reports:
[The firm] offers She/Her, He/Him and They/Them pronoun options for students and attorneys to add to their nametags, if they’d like to do so, out on the nametag table at every event….Many students and attorneys [] have been wearing the ribbon in solidarity and to make those in the LGBTQ+ community feel more comfortable wearing one should they choose or need to.
The firm in question began using the ribbons during the last recruiting cycle, and now we understand the practice is set to spread to other Biglaw firms, just in time for recruiting season to begin. Hopefully, this soon becomes the standard in the industry. (We’ve reached out to the firm(s) involved but have yet to hear back. If your firm is doing something similar, please email and let us know.)
This serves as an important reminder that pronouns matter. And while this Biglaw firm may not include all gender-neutral pronouns in common usage (for example ze/zir), it breaks down the assumption that you should know someone’s pronouns just by looking at them.
It’s a remarkably simple move, but one that goes pretty far in setting the tone of inclusion.
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).
If we’re being honest, the Hatch Act is annoying. It’s an 80-year-old law that prohibits federal employees from electioneering on the government’s time that has way more to do with appearances than reality. We know that political appointees are partisan. We know they spend most of their waking hours advancing their partisan agendas. The distinction between whether they’re doing it “at work” or not is a legal fiction, especially in the modern era where “at work” can easily encompass “all the time.”
Presidential propaganda officer, Kellyanne Conway, has been flagrantly violating the Hatch Act. It’s so bad that the Office of Special Counsel (not to be confused with Robert Mueller’s now-defunct position) has taken the unprecedented step of telling President Donald Trump to remove Conway.
He won’t, of course. Trump just publicly said he won’t fire his “loyal” advisor. Conway’s shameless electioneering is what he pays her to do. And Conway won’t care, because she knows the only thing her boss cares about is loyalty, not following the law. And Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, won’t care, because George’s attempts to re-make his slavish support for the Federalist Society assault on the nation’s judiciary as “Never Trump” principled disagreement only involves saying mean things on Twitter while looking the other way as his wife gaslights America.
Most likely the American people won’t care, because Kellyanne’s Hatch Act violations are not even the most flagrant violation of the rule of law the Trump administration has contemplated THIS WEEK. Trump has spent most of the week soliciting foreign help to influence the 2020 election, then pretending he’s not doing just that.
But before Conway’s Hatch Act violations are retired to the dustbin of “illegal stuff the Trump administration does on the reg,” I want to point out that this kind of open violation of a petty law like the Hatch Act vitiates the rule of law even more than some of Trump’s more egregious illicit activities.
Everybody violates the law sometimes. Everybody can think of that one time they drove over the speed limit or ingested an illicit substance or left dog poop on the street (though, the latter of you people should be shot). We have an impression that we, as humans, violate laws all the time, and since we expect Trump to act no better than a hormonal 15-year-old, sometimes his more petty violations feel like mere technicalities as opposed to serious problems.
But, most people, most of the time, follow the law, for no reason other than it happens to be the law. We don’t run red lights even when nobody is around, we don’t piss in the elevator, we don’t maliciously defame our enemies, we don’t solicit prostitution, we don’t leave the restaurant without paying our bill, we don’t cosh random black people in London. We follow laws we don’t even agree with. We follow laws that cost us time, money, and effort. We live in a free country and yet we follow totally stupid and unenforceable laws all the time. Why? It’s a tenuous thing. We follow the law because we imagine other people are also following the law and we perceive it’s in our societal self-interest for them to do so. We follow the law because we want other people to follow the law, and we don’t want to be the ones to ruin it for everybody.
The Hatch Act is one of those background laws. It’s not particularly important. People don’t really know why it’s there. It’s just a thing. It’s just a rule. People follow it because it’s a rule. For most people, that’s enough.
But not for Trump. And not for the people willing to work for him. And not for the Republicans enabling Trump. Trump and his administration have no moral or ethical center. They have no desire to be moral or ethical. NO RULE is accorded any deference just because it’s a rule. NO RULE is viewed through any other lens than how it helps Trump. Rules that help Trump should be strictly followed and enforced, rules that don’t help Trump should be entirely ignored.
It’s the definition of lawlessness. If everybody acted like Trump, it would be actual anarchy. But Trump and Conway count on people not acting like they do, so they can still have a society to pillage.
The problem that Trump and Conway don’t care about and moderate Democrats don’t perceive, is that once you have a guy like Trump who doesn’t respect any of the laws and receives no punishment for it, there’s no going back. There’s no going back to people slavishly following rules, just because they are rules, once we know that other people don’t follow the rules and face no consequences. If the laws no longer protects us from the bad behavior of others, then there’s no reason for anybody else to follow them.
Think about it this way: The Hatch Act is dead now. NOBODY has to follow it anymore. Not anybody else in the Trump administration, not anybody in future administrations. Kellyanne Conway has taken the Hatch Act from us, for whatever it was worth, for her own selfish reasons. There is no “return to normalcy” where the Hatch Act is still a thing. There’s no reason for one party to follow the Hatch Act when the other party has proven that it won’t when it is in power. That would just be STUPID. As I said, the Hatch Act was an annoying anachronism anyway, why should my guys be hamstrung by it when the other guys are not?
The most dangerous thing about acting outside of the law is that you no longer have the law to protect you. We’re in the endgame now.
Since the passage of the First Step Act in December, I’ve been speaking with people coming home from prison and learning about the challenges they are facing. While I have been able to offer support to some of the individuals I have met, the obstacles to success are an everyday struggle for thousands and more needs to be done. I’m honored to be a part of the announcement that the administration and the private sector are stepping up to create opportunities for these men and women to succeed once home. Proud to partner on this initiative with Lyft, a company with a history of taking bold action to do what’s right for our community. Thank you for providing ride share credits to formally incarcerated people when they come home.
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.
It’s been too long since we checked in on the Law School Memes for Edgy T14s group to see what they’ve been cooking up as far as law school memes. As usual, we’re not disclosing the names of the meme creators just in case they want to have jobs someday, but if a brave soul does want credit, we’re happy to provide it. Just let us know.
We begin by reminiscing about product liability in Torts. That lesson where you came to the unfortunate realization that every warning label stems from some poor bastard doing something unholy with a product. Well, here’s a picture that we desperately hope isn’t real, but does encapsulate the Torts experience perfectly. The tagline is: “Safety Disclaimer challenge. What is the most ridiculous manufacturer liability warning label you have encountered?”
Linda Fairstein is facing public blowback from the whole “wrongfully convicted people” thing and she’s decided to double down on her scientifically confirmed errors.
Tagline: Siri, what is fighting the hypo.
I’m not a whiz with the whole Photoshop thing, but with Ava DuVernay directing a New Gods adaptation, I desperately want someone to convert this into an editorial by Darkseid or Granny Goodness.
Honestly, when I read this one to the assembled Above the Law staff, we couldn’t stop laughing for several minutes. Which is probably bad since someone died.
Tagline: “when you leave class feeling great about the cold call and then your friends tell you what the professor was actually asking.”
I don’t understand live-action remakes of old animated films. Given the way we bent over IP law for Disney in the 90s, there’s not even a copyright reason to do them. Anyway… welcome to a whole new world:
My only complaint with this next one is that you didn’t even need the Meso panel. The woman could have just stared for a beat and it would’ve been perfect.
This needs no introduction. Tagline: “Meeting attorneys who insist on calling themselves doctors.”
While we’re on the Marvel theme:
This image will now haunt your Property law studies forever.
We talked about wellness and pizza last week, but this is a concern I’d never considered in all those years of snagging free food from meetings.
Game of Thrones is gone, but let this be its parting shot to Law School Memedom.
Cristina Hendrick Stroh serves as Senior Real Estate Counsel for J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. in Plano, Texas, where she has practiced since 2007. She concentrates on all aspects of acquisition, financing, leasing and disposition as well as ongoing operations matters in a 20-state territory including California and the Pacific Northwest. Cristina received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the Penney legal department, Cristina practiced real estate law with Schlanger, Silver, Barg & Paine, LLP in Houston, Texas. In 2015, Cristina was awarded the America Bar Association’s Excellence in Writing Award for authoring the Best Practical Use Article published in its Probate & Property Magazine. She currently lives in McKinney, Texas with her husband, two children, and two dogs.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of 
