Author: TSA Press

Last month, amid news that thanks to smaller law school class sizes, the overall employment picture is looking brighter (even if artificially), we wondered if law school tuition cuts and freezes would be making a comeback. After all, law graduates are still being burdened by incredibly heavy debt loads.

The University of Hawaii William R. Richardson School Law recently decided to freeze its tuition until 2023. Has anyone followed suit? You betcha! Today, we have news that the University of South Carolina School of Law has slashed its tuition “significantly.” But just how significantly are we talking?

According to The State, a 17.3 percent tuition cut has been made for in-state students to compete with other state universities. Tuition for in-state students at South Carolina Law will be $5,100 cheaper next year — down to $24,508 from $29,608 — thanks to an infusion of cash from the state legislature.

Under [House budget committee chairman Murrell] Smith’s direction, S.C. lawmakers increased the state’s spending on the University of South Carolina by about $8 million this year, with an understanding that USC leaders would direct $1.9 million of it specifically to lower tuition at the law school where a number of state lawmakers got their degrees.

The new money brings USC’s in-state tuition in line with UNC, but still not as low as Georgia. Wilcox said he is most excited for current students who recently were notified their tuition bill would drop next year.

Smith, a 1993 USC Law graduate himself, paid less than $2,000 a semester to attend the school. “I literally could (work as a law) clerk during the school year and summer and pay my law school tuition,” he said. “I know those days are gone, but … we’re not doing our young people any favors by leaving them with enormous debt.”

Dean Robert Wilcox had this to say about the law school’s tuition cuts: “It’s probably the best news that a couple hundred law students have received in some time.”

Congratulations to all of the in-state students at South Carolina Law who will benefit from their cheaper tuition, and condolences to the school’s out-of-state students, who will still be getting hosed with a $54,502 cost of attendance.

Will other law schools step up to decrease or freeze tuition in an effort to assist their graduates with their future loan payments? We certainly hope so, but in the meantime, time is ticking and interest on current students’ loans is already piling up. The time to make a decision is now. Help your future graduates as much as you can.

In an era of rising college costs, USC’s law school is slashing tuition significantly [The State]

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.

As the 2019 ATL Law School Rankings that came out late last month quipped, “[m]ost people attend law school to obtain jobs as lawyers.”  Whether that statement (and the ATL rankings rubric more generally) wrongly downplays other important things law schools and law students do, there is no doubt that job placement is (increasingly) important to schools and to current and prospective attendees.  With that in mind, and given that early fall marks the start of a very important interview season for many (though not all) law students, in this month’s and next month’s First Monday Musings columns, I — joined by two subject-matter experts (Joshua Vincent, a partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson who has been leading efforts to develop legal talent there for many years, and Greg Miarecki, my very effective and accomplished Dean of Career Services at Illinois and a former partner at Winston & Strawn) — offer advice on how to get the most out of the interview process and increase your chances of getting the job you want.

Although each of the three of us has practice experience in a large law firm, the advice we offer here applies to any kind of job in the legal profession, whether it be in Biglaw, small to mid-sized firms, public interest organizations, the government sector, or in-house legal departments.  This month we will offer some basic principles to focus on before an interview begins in earnest; in next month’s installment, we will offer guidance for how to succeed during the interview itself and afterward.

First things first:  It’s (most) important to understand what interviewers are looking for the most.  While the objectives of a particular employer might vary from those of another employer around the margins, every employer wants three basic things:

1. Someone who wants this job: Employers really want to find someone who wants to work for their particular firms or organizations.  They don’t want someone who is “settling” for them.  Why?  Because new lawyers generally cost time and money to train.  Statistics show that most new attorneys are not particularly cost effective for their employers (whether in the private, public, or non-profit sectors) in the first year.  If you leave after a year (or even two), an employer’s investment in you has not yet generated any significant return.  So an employer, for the most part, wants to find people who want to be with it long-term and who see it as a “dream destination” rather than a stop along the way.
2. Someone who can help its organization progress: This is the classic reason employers seek to hire; they want people who can add value to what they already do, and help them do it better (or differently, if difference is an improvement).  If you can provide employers with specifics on the value you can add to their particular organizations, you will be ahead of the game.
3. Someone who will fit in well with the organization and its culture: This too is a most basic interview criterion.  Does the interviewer like you?  Would the interviewer (and others at the organization) want to spend time with you?

With this basic framework laid out, here’s more detail on how to prepare for your interview:

Avoid interviewing with firms and other organizations that you are not interested in. Do not apply to jobs that you do not expect will satisfy you. Employers are generally able to tell when you are not sincerely interested in working for them. Doing interviews for “the experience” is a waste of your time and the employers’ time.

Do research on each employer. An employer will favor candidates who know a great deal about its work and its clients. What kinds of legal matters does the employer handle? Use the internet to learn about specific cases, deals, regulations, legal issues, etc., with which the employer has historically — and recently — been involved. Carefully review the employer’s website; a sophisticated employer will expect you to be familiar with this material. Talk to people who currently work at the employer, or have worked there in the past. Alumni and students (who have just completed summer associate programs or externships) from your law school are excellent resources. Targeted email outreach to a few attorneys or former summer associates is usually best. Avoid “blanket” emails to large groups of attorneys who work for that employer.

Do research on your particular interviewers. Generally, employers will give you in advance a list of the particular people who will conduct your interviews. If you do not receive such a list, politely ask for one, explaining that you would like to be as prepared as possible.  Review any available online material regarding the folks you will meet, and be ready to ask them specific questions about their practices and experiences. Helpful research includes running a Westlaw or Lexis search to identify specific cases in which your interviewers may have been involved. Lawyers love to talk about their cases and will be greatly impressed if you can ask intelligent questions about published decisions in cases they handled.

Develop a list of non-generic reasons why you want this job. Be specific, with respect to both the employer and you. Identify the practice areas, types of work, employer objectives, types of clients and cases, the size of employer, the location, the culture, etc., that excite you, and explain why. Rely on information gathered during your research. Avoid generalities, such as “the firm has a great reputation” or “I understand the office has a collegial culture.”

Develop a list of benefits the employer would enjoy if they hired you. Again, be specific. Tailor what you bring to the table that relates directly to the particular employer. Discuss strengths and skills, connections to relevant persons or institutions, unique experiences or attributes, and the like. Provide examples. Don’t simply say, “I am a hard worker.” Provide an illustration of how your diligence and conscientiousness benefitted a previous employer or organization at which you worked.

Practice. Mock interviews are tremendously important to improving your chances of doing well in the actual interview.  Do a dry-run interview with a friend, a counselor, a professor, or an attorney, giving them as much information as you can about the particular employer so that they can think from that employer’s perspective.  Practice-interview sessions specific to each employer or class of employers will give you valuable feedback you can use to hone your skills.

As you get ready to begin a live interview, start by going back and reminding yourself of the three basic things employers care most about that are we mentioned above. Then consider the following pre-game tips:

Dress Like a Professional.  Suits are generally acceptable, unless you are directed otherwise by the employer.  When in doubt about a fashion question, remember that the legal profession is generally relatively conservative.

Arrive on time. Late interviewees rarely get the job.  Being late signals lack of interest and organizational ability.  Make sure you know exactly where the interview will take place (the room or floor, not just the building) and how long it will take to get there — accounting for direction snafus, weather, cabs, traffic, check-in procedures, elevators, etc.

Bring relevant materials. Bring copies of all materials pertinent to your candidacy (including extra résumés, writing samples, transcripts, and anything else requested by the employer), but do not provide them unless specifically asked to.

Greet everyone with a smile and a firm handshake, and be confident and enthusiastic about the position. Project happiness and optimism. Sound excited about the prospect of working for this employer. Make the interviewers feel as though they are offering a tremendous opportunity for the successful candidate.

In Part Two, next month, we will delve more deeply into underappreciated things to do (and things to avoid) during the meat of the interview session and then after it concludes.  Stay tuned.

Vikram Amar is the Dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he also serves the Iwan Foundation Professor of Law. His primary fields of teaching and study are constitutional law, federal courts, and civil and criminal procedure. A fuller bio and CV can be found at https://www.law.illinois.edu/faculty/profile/VikramAmar, and he can be reached at amar@illinois.edu.

‘Nation embraces Zim dollar . . . Country has returned to normalcy, President says’. This was a headline in the Chronicle. Sadly there is an element of truth in this. What we face is indeed ‘normalcy’ under Zanu PF.

MDC Vice President Tendai Biti was finance minister during the four years of the abnormal Government of National Unity when the economy was turned around. He says: ‘Zimbabwe is in crisis. But to expect the ruling ZANU PF government to resolve this is improbable at best. It is, more likely, impossible.

‘Today nearly four out of every five Zimbabweans just about survives in absolute poverty. On average, Zimbabweans are poorer now than they were at independence in 1980. Informal employment is at 95%, which is why the civil service has more than doubled over the last ten years to 600,000 employees – this is the only place the government can create jobs.

‘Whole communities today live on less than 35 cents per person per day. In practice, this pays for a small dollop of maize, four leaves of vegetables, and a cap of cooking fat. We have a term for this, Tsaona, which means living by “accident”. But the crisis Zimbabwe faces is no accident. This is a man-made calamity. Over the last 39 years of independence, ZANU PF has presided over the disintegration of the productive sector of the economy. Driven by sheer incompetence, greed, and the need for regime survival, the party has completely destroyed a once thriving economy.’

Biti said industries closed and infrastructure was not maintained. ‘Thirdly, the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy was ripped out when the farming sector was politically redistributed through ill-planned and badly-executed land reform exercises, aimed not at the empowerment of citizens but the enrichment of elites. Fourthly, to paper over these deep problems and continue to make profits for the elites, monetary policy became a tool for further enrichment, resulting in Zimbabwe’s inflation reaching 500 billion percent.

‘In today’s Zimbabwe, the elites prosper, in spite of the misery, and because of mal-governance. They use their preferential access to dollars to arbitrage against other local, artificial digital currencies. Furthermore, they have created cartels that are able to entirely control the import and distribution of fuel coming into the country. Meanwhile, the military and other favoured clients are offered mining concessions that are then parcelled out opaquely to friends, local and foreign. Finally, the government’s agricultural scheme, appropriately named “command agriculture”, amounts to a $4 billion private piggy bank used to finance everything from private vehicles to dowries. ZANU PF cannot realistically be expected to reform a system that it not only profits from but on which its rule depends.’

Biti said the MDC is ready to play a part in Zimbabwe’s recovery and those interested in the plight of the Zimbabwean people should urge the government to the negotiating table. He said: ‘A failure to do so will be measured in a loss of hope and a grave humanitarian crisis which can only be met by increased state repression.’ (See: https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zanu-pf-needs-the-opposition-to-fix-the-zimbabwes-crisis/).

Other points

• President Mnangagwa says he is to appoint a commission of inquiry to examine allegations by Zanu PF’s youth wing of of corruption by senior party members, including ministers. The Vigil expects the usual cover up.
• The government has refused to uphold the rule of law in the case of the illegal seizure by police twelve years ago of a farm in the Bubi district of Matabeleland North in spite of a court order. The deadlock has blocked an initiative supported by the local community to develop a conservancy aimed at encouraging tourism.
• Things are getting so bad that the lucky few who have jobs are opting to stay overnight at their work places to save the cost of going home. The Vigil has seen a letter to the board chair of the POSB Bank in Harare about the situation (see: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157228543753704&set=a.10150307778113704&type=3&theater).
• After the Vigil activists attended a fundraising dinner for our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe. See the pictures on Flickr.
• Thanks to those who came early to help set up the front table today and put up the banners: Gertrude Mudede, Tsitsi Nyirongo, Hazvinei Saili, Ephraim Tapa and Bridget Zhakata. Thanks to Tsitsi and Bridget for looking after the front table, to Hazvinei, Beaulah Gore, Marvellous Chinguwa and Bianca Mpawaenda for handing out flyers, to Mary, Fungisai Mupandira and Getrude for drumming, to Isabell Gwatidzo for selling raffle tickets for ROHR fundraising and to Bianca for photos.
• For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/. Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website. 

FOR THE RECORD: 24 signed the register. 

EVENTS AND NOTICES:

• ROHR general members’ meeting. Saturday 6^th July from 11.30 am. Venue: Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, Belvedere Road SE1 8XX. Contact: Ephraim Tapa 07940793090, Patricia Masamba 07708116625.
• ROHR sponsored walk. Saturday 27^th July. Contact: Esther Munyira 07492058109, Sipho Ndlovu 07400566013, Patricia Masamba and Farai Muroiwa 07365431776. More information as plans progress.
• The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organization based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organization on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/. Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way represents us.
• The Vigil’s book ‘Zimbabwe Emergency’ is based on our weekly diaries. It records how events in Zimbabwe have unfolded as seen by the diaspora in the UK. It chronicles the economic disintegration, violence, growing oppression and political manoeuvring – and the tragic human cost involved. It is available at the Vigil. All proceeds go to the Vigil and our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’s work in Zimbabwe. The book is also available from Amazon.

• Facebook pages:

Post published in: Featured

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Peter Kansile says he was born in prison. His mother was incarcerated while she was pregnant with him, he says, because she killed his father and brother.

Kansile lived in children’s homes when he was young, then on the street from age 10. It was around that time, he says, that he began to break the law.

“I committed several crimes for which I was imprisoned several times,” he says.

Now 32, Kansile has been released for what he hopes will be the final time. He had served eight years of a 27-and-a-half-year sentence for stealing livestock when he was released in March 2018 under an amnesty granted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, which freed those jailed for a number of crimes, including stock theft.

Today, he says he’s committed to making his living legally, and survives by trading clothes across the border with South Africa. “I am a changed person, and I believe in God,” he says.

Mnangagwa’s 2018 amnesty saw 3,000 people released from Zimbabwean prisons. The move has divided communities between those celebrating their newfound freedom and those who want offenders to serve their full sentences.

Yemurai is one of the latter group. She says that because of the amnesty, she now often runs into the man who raped and infected her 7-year-old daughter with HIV.

“I see him almost every day,” Yemurai says, who asked that only her first name be published to protect her daughter’s privacy.

Yemurai wants early releases to be stopped and for perpetrators to serve their full terms.

“These amnesties do not take into consideration the people that got offended or hurt, such as my family,” she says.

The right of a Zimbabwean president to issue pardons at their discretion is enshrined in the country’s constitution. The measure is designed to ease congestion in the prison system. Beneficiaries traditionally include women (excluding those imposed with the death penalty), juveniles, the terminally ill and prisoners who have served more than a quarter of their sentence. There are no formal criteria for release under an amnesty.

I am a changed person and, I believe in God. Peter Kansile, 32, who was incarcerated for stealing livestock, but recently released under a presidential amnesty

A dozen mass amnesties have occurred since 1980, said Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Banda of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service in a written statement to Global Press Journal.

“Amnesties have been helpful to correctional service in the sense that, apart from decongesting our institutions, it helps us ascertain how much society is prepared to accept offenders back into society,” she wrote.

In the past, amnesties have generally not included people imprisoned for sexual offenses, murder, livestock theft, carjacking, armed robbery or treason. But the 2018 amnesty was different. Those convicted of livestock theft, like Kansile, were released, as well as those incarcerated for rape and other violent crimes.

Pedzisai Ruhanya, a political analyst at the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute, says that by releasing such prisoners, as well as those imprisoned for political crimes, Mnangagwa was sending a message of tolerance in the months before the elections of July 2018.

Ruhanya says the release of Yvonne Musarurwa, a prominent activist for Zimbabwe’s main opposition party who was accused of killing a policeman, was a key part of that strategy.

For many, it’s the lack of clarity over how and why offenders are released that causes problems. Right now, prisoners are released based on the nature of their original crime or their behavior in prison, not on whether they have reformed.

Sekai Mandiyanike of Prison Fellowship Zimbabwe, an organization that supports people in prison, former prisoners and their families, says she is in favor of amnesties, but that the criteria for release need to be more consistent.

Mandiyanike says clemency should be reserved for those who have changed their ways.

“There should be assessment on individual basis [to] determine whether people have repented,” she says.

Leonard Wood, 38, says he was tried and sentenced for stealing livestock in 2012. His wife was also imprisoned after being found guilty of the same crime. Wood says the conditions in prison were dire.

“Life in prison was hard if you didn’t have anyone like a relative to help you with basics,” he says.

Wood says his mother came to the prison often to bring him essential items like toothpaste and soap. But he says the food was still inadequate for most prisoners.

“We would get a small portion of sadza with about eight beans in water soup to eat,” Wood says. Sadza, a cornmeal-based dish, is a staple food in Zimbabwe.

“Some suffered from malnutrition because of the poor quality of food,” he adds.

Wood’s wife got out early under an amnesty granted by former president Robert Mugabe in 2014, he says. But he had to serve four more years before being released under the amnesty granted by Mnangagwa.

As difficult as conditions were in prison, Wood says life outside isn’t easy, either. He’d planned to set up a chicken farm, but Zimbabwe’s crippled economy, in which most people struggle to find work that pays enough to cover basic expenses, made that dream impossible.

“So far, I have nothing to do, because of the prevailing economic situation,” he says.

Linda Mujuru, GPJ, translated some interviews from Shona to English.

Zimbabwean Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube this week gazetted the banning of the South African rand, US dollar and other foreign currencies for local transactions.

“Basically one head of cauliflower costs US$1 and I have to work with a price around that at the prevailing exchange rate for the Zim dollar. Yesterday I sold some stock and at the weekend I will also sell some more using the same strategy so that I am not affected by the changes on the market,” he said.

Others with sufficient room to adopt a wait and see attitude have delayed projects such as construction of residential houses until the pricing regime stabilises. It is a strategy viewed as a shot in the dark by others as they feel that there is no certainty to how the situation will pan out.

It seems though that investors and traders on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE)will not enjoy such room to manoeuvre. The local equities market had become a haven for investors running away from highly volatile money markets.

As of Wednesday, the Zimbabwean exchange market started falling and dual-listed companies such as Old Mutual have been the most affected, losing as much as 17 per cent on Wednesday.

This was after the government imposed a “vesting period of 90 days on disposal of dual listed securities or shares purchased by investors” on the ZSE.

Analysts at IH Securities said in a note that “the confusion in currency policy direction has left the economy in limbo” as the economy was previously “heavily” subsidized. “There as has been an apparent de-dollarisation in some sectors of the economy,” added the analysts.

Consumer companies such as KFC Zimbabwe and Simbisa Brands, which runs Steers and Nando’s outlets, reverted back to Zim dollar pricing. Supermarkets such as Pick n Pay and OK Zimbabwe were also no-longer accepting foreign currencies, with confusion and scepticism building among consumers over high pricing.

Denford Mutashu, president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers said pricing distortions in the market were emanating from the parallel market exchange rates.

He said: “The interbank exchange rate market has to be fully operationalised and liberalised to ensure that companies that import raw materials are guaranteed access to the funds they need.”

Zimbabwe’s currency markets are meanwhile in a tail-spin, with the interbank market exchange rate for the Zim dollar against US dollar losing ground from around 1:6.3 at the beginning of the week to a high of 1:8.6 at some financial institutions such as First Capital Bank, formerly Barclays Zimbabwe.

This is in contrast to parallel market rates that have fallen from a high of 1:12 at the weekend to 1:7 by Thursday. This has left the market confused but is likely to play to the advantage of the government which has battled price increases fuelled by the parallel market rate surge which has left official inflation at 97.7 percent for May

“There is no float (mobile banking and electronic bank funds) and the bond notes (Zimdollar) is in short supply such that we have been turning away clients with higher amounts of forex who are looking for local funds,” said a currency trader. “People are saying the banks are now paying more, but I don’t think that will continue for a long time,” she added.

Ed. note: A version of this post was originally published on November 27, 2012. We republish it today as a public service to anyone considering posting this ludicrous “legal” notice on Facebook.

By now, we’re sure you’ve seen the ridiculous copyright and privacy notices that have been popping up on Facebook status updates left and right — and if you haven’t, then perhaps your friends are simply more intelligent than the masses who’ve been fooled into believing they can override the social media giant’s terms of use.

We’ll put this simply to avoid further confusion: stringing together nonsensical bits of pseudo-legalese cannot save you from succumbing to the rules and regulations of the Facebook gods. On the other hand, stringing together nonsensical bits of pseudo-legalese is sometimes what law blogging is all about, so we’ll help our readers debunk the myths of privacy and intellectual property rights on Facebook.

Aww, you thought Facebook couldn’t use all the things you posted on the site because of your privacy settings? Well, isn’t that just precious.

Here’s the copyright and privacy notice that’s been making the rounds on Facebook (a similar one was circulated in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018):

Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photo Don’t forget Deadline tomorrow !!! Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from tomorrow. Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste.Wondered why Facebook was so boring!
This is good to know: It’s ridiculous to have lots of friends and only 25 are allowed to see my post.
I ignored this post earlier, but It WORKS!! I have a whole new news feed. I’m seeing posts from people I haven’t seen in years.
Here’s how to bypass the system FB now has in place that limits posts on your news feed.
Their new algorithm chooses the same few people – about 25 – who will read your posts. Therefore,
Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and “copy” will pop up. Click “copy”. Then go your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. “Paste” will pop up and click paste.
This will bypass the system.

Thank God you cited the Uniform Commercial Code and the Rome Statute, or else you would’ve been totally screwed… except for the fact that you kind of already are. (By the way, the Rome Statute? Seriously? From where we’re sitting, the only crime against humanity here is that you’ve taken the time to post this gibberish on Facebook.)

One thing that Facebook freely admits is that once you’ve agreed to their terms and conditions — which you already did, by signing up to use the site — you’ve granted the company a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings).” That being the case, you may want to delete those incriminating pictures (even though they’ll still be available on the site’s archives and backups, so good luck with that, everyone).

For those who think they can turn it around on Facebook by updating their status, here’s some guidance from Snopes, which has debunked this hoax repeatedly:

Facebook users cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their accounts nor can they unilaterally alter or contradict any new privacy or copyright terms instituted by Facebook simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls.

If only contractual agreements could be voided by posting something akin to “LOL no” on Facebook, perhaps we’d have a more peaceful world (or a much more confusing one); but whatever, no one really cares about legal mumbo-jumbo — except for lawyers — until they think they have something to stomp their feet about online.

So why are people’s panties in such a bunch? When this nonsense first popped up online in 2012, it was because Facebook changed its privacy policy. For the details, we turned to Kashmir Hill, ATL editor emerita and goddess of all things privacy-related:

Facebook is adding a clause to the data use policy that allows it to share “information with affiliates,” i.e., other companies that Facebook owns. Bloomberg calls the move Google-like, pointing out that it will allow Facebook “to build unified profiles of its users that include people’s personal data from its social network and from Instagram.” I think it’s less like Google mashing up everything it knows about a person in one basket and more like a typical corporate clause. But it does mean that Facebook and Instagram info may now exist on the same server and won’t be kept separate, meaning the social networking can now see everything it knows about you through a Walden filter.

For additional information, you can read more at the Not-So Private Parts on Forbes. In January 2015, ABC News got a quote from a Facebook spokesperson on this topic:

“We have noticed some statements that suggest otherwise and we wanted to take a moment to remind you of the facts — when you post things like photos to Facebook, we do not own them,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in a statement, according to ABC News. “Under our terms (https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms), you grant Facebook permission to use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings.”

That’s about it when it comes to your new and improved privacy and intellectual property rights on Facebook. Next time you post, you’ll be allowing Facebook to share your stats with other affiliated platforms. Build yourself a bridge and get over it.

As for that whole thing about Facebook changing its algorithm to limit the updates from friends you’ll see, that’s fake news too, and per Forbes, it started in response to Facebook’s decision in late 2017 to show users more posts from friends and fewer posts from “media companies, influencers, and other public sources.” Copying and pasting this spam for all your friends to see won’t “bypass the system,” and more importantly, it will do absolutely nothing to improve the variety of posts you’ll see.

Here’s a proposition for you: delete the things you’d prefer Facebook not to see. Here’s another one: don’t pretend you’re a lawyer and spread completely meaningless information to all of your Facebook friends. Here’s the most novel suggestion of all: if you don’t like the changes (which have been in place for years), don’t use Facebook.

We hope you realize that this copyright and privacy notice means the same thing it did when it was posted for the past seven years: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You can’t change the terms of a legal agreement with a Facebook status update. Stop it.

Facebook Privacy Notice [Snopes]
Facebook privacy hoax making the rounds, again [CBS News]
Facebook Copyright Hoax Goes Viral Again [ABC News]
It’s A Hoax. Facebook Is Not Limiting Your News Feed To 26 People [Forbes]
What You Actually Need To Know About The Changes Facebook Is Making To Its Privacy Policy [The Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]

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.

When your client’s on the hook to pay for sewage overflow dumping nine feet of effluent into someone’s basement, it’s probably time to settle. But if settlement isn’t in the cards, it’s an opportunity to let those creative juices flow. Sometimes that will produce a true gem of an argument.

Sometimes it will produce more effluent.

The Finney Law Firm blog tells us the story of one of the weirdest expert cross-examinations ever:

This trial was an MSD claim relating to the MSD’s administrative claims process for basements subject to sanitary sewer backups. This case was an extreme instance in which our client experienced more than 9′ of effluent that came into his basement on a regular basis, and MSD simply refused to stand behind its obligations under a consent decree arising from prior litigation with the US EPA.

That sounds… awful. But it also sounds like a case that shouldn’t have to go to trial. If effluent is ending up in this basement then it needs to be repaired.

That’s when Tim Sullivan of Taft, Stettinius & Hollister representing the defendant opted for this line of questioning of the plaintiff’s expert witness:

Q. And if we had no rain, if climate change really turns out to be as dire as some people tell us, you would agree this property would have no problem in the future?

A. If there was no rain?

Q. Right, or not enough rain to cause any surcharge from any part of the Sewer District system.

A. Yeah, I would think the property would be — certainly you could take another look at living there and going there if you have no risk of backups, any kind of backup.

“Everyone knows it rains in Cincinnati, what my case presupposes is… maybe it won’t?” What kind of Eli Cash nonsense is that? As the Finney blog continues:

I must admit it was a creative question: “What if it never rains again?” Brilliant! And we already had our lineup of witnesses named. Who could testify with requisite expertise that, in fact, Cincinnati would experience a rain event in the future?

We ultimately settled the case. But after 30 years of doing this I once again learned the hard lesson that lawyers can argue over absolutely anything.

It’s arguments like these that remind us of one of our favorite lawyers, Pepper Hamilton L&E associate Rogers Stevens who once wrote (or at least helped write): And I don’t understand why sleep all day/And I start to complain that there’s no rain.

Perhaps that’s a new slogan for the firm. “Do you suffer from narcolepsy? Do you live in a sun-scorched hellscape amid roving bands of cannibalistic scavengers? Taft, Stettinius & Hollister can help.”

THE BEST EXPERT WITNESS CROSS EXAMINATION QUESTION EVER! [Finney Law Firm Blog]

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.

When indicted for murder, if it’s clear the person charged committed the crime, there are really only a few defenses.  None of them are easy.

One is self-defense, but this can only be used if the defendant used a force equal to the force employed against him and if he had no safe way to escape.

Then there’s the insanity defense where a person experiencing a psychotic break kills someone who he believes, for example, to be an alien.  If the defense is accepted by a jury, the defendant does not go free; instead, he’ll be committed to a psychiatric institution until deemed no longer dangerous — a fate more uncertain then getting a fixed jail term.

The next set of defenses can reduce a case of murder to manslaughter.  Where a defendant never intended to kill anyone, but the victim inadvertently dies, manslaughter can be charged — for example, in a bar-fight case where an intoxicated patron hits someone over the head with a bottle intending to stun him but instead killing him.

There’s also the defense of “extreme emotional disturbance” (EED).  This defense is invoked when a particular event triggers a person’s anger to such an extent that he can no longer control his actions.  According to the jury instructions, “the defendant must have had an emotional disturbance so extreme as to result in and become manifest as a profound loss of self-control.”  These so called “crimes of passion” if believed by a jury, reduce the charge of murder to manslaughter and greatly lower the sentencing numbers.

Examples of an EED defense include situations where a wife, beaten by her husband for years, snaps one night and suffocates him.

EED defenses are not spelled out by statute. A defense attorney can, if backed by psychiatric findings and experts, proffer any explanation supporting why a client suffered a “profound loss of self-control” as long as a jury finds that loss of control to be reasonable from the defendant’s viewpoint.

Recently, the New York legislature banned a particular flavor of EED defense — the “gay panic” defense — and while I understand the rationale behind this move, I’m always disturbed to see any defense fall by the wayside no matter how politically incorrect the defense might be.

The new law affirmatively prohibits a defendant’s EED defense if based on “the discovery, knowledge or disclosure of the victim’s sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression or sex assigned at birth.”

For example, if an extreme emotional response leading to murder is provoked when a man discovers a person he believed to be female has male genitalia, he can no longer make out an EED defense.

No matter how much I personally agree that having an emotional disturbance due to a person’s sexual orientation is inappropriate, old-fashioned, and not a good excuse for losing control, we, unfortunately, live in a world where this still happens.

Even if the state didn’t legislate the defense out of existence, a jury would in all likelihood reject it anyway as unreasonable.  EED defenses come up only very rarely.  They even more rarely succeed.  That’s because jurors don’t like giving defendants a benefit for losing control and killing someone, no matter the cause.  It’s the exceptional case where the defendant is so sympathetic, that the defense has even a smidgen of a chance of prevailing.  Maybe in a case where a teen had been repeatedly sexually abused by her stepdad then turns around and kills him to protect her younger sister, a jury might find the murder mitigated by her circumstances. But even then, she’s likely to get a hefty jail sentence from the judge for manslaughter.

In this day and age, especially in New York City, any proffered “gay panic” defense (even if it still existed) would likely be rejected whole cloth as out of touch with reality.  It didn’t need to be legislated out of existence.

We now get to Paul Manafort.  Manafort pleaded guilty to financial fraud charges in federal court and has begun serving a 7.5-year prison sentence.  But, in spite of the jail time, critics still fear he might receive a pardon from his former employer, President Donald Trump.

Last week, he was arraigned in New York State criminal court on largely the same charges.  If convicted, no Trump pardon could save him from whatever sentence he’ll receive.  The law that permits prosecution in both state and federal jurisdictions for the same crime was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and hailed by progressives as a way to make sure Manafort gets his just deserts.

Yet, although the ends-justifying-the-means rationale may be applauded in Manafort’s case, there are thousands of other defendants who suffer unfairly because of this end-run around double-jeopardy prohibitions.

I’ve represented young men who pleaded guilty to small-time, one-bag drug sales in state court for offers of probation.  They call them “paper felonies,” and never expect the convictions to come back to bite them.  However, often these same convictions are used in subsequent federal prosecutions as pieces of the jigsaw to prove larger-scale narcotics trafficking.  This is neither fair, nor necessary.

Lauding changes of the law or interpretations of what already exists to favor a particular agenda — like banning  “gay panic” EED defense or permitting dual prosecution in state and federal court for the same crimes — may be satisfying in the short run, but in the long run will come back to haunt us.

The state and federal governments are powerful entities. They’ve got every resource at their command.  Eliminating defenses or sidestepping double-jeopardy protections because we like the outcome in certain cases will ultimately undermine the rights of all defendants and chip away our system of due process.

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