Category: News Feeds

HARARE, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa late Monday night filled the cabinet slots that fell vacant because of ministers’ death due to coronavirus last month.

The Zimbabwean leader appointed Fredrick Shava, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, as minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, replacing Sibusiso Moyo, who died of coronavirus last month.

Felix Tapiwa Mhona, a parliamentarian from Chikomba Central district in the country’s East Province Mashonaland, has been appointed transport minister, replacing late Joel Biggie Matiza with the novel coronavirus last month.

Nokhuthula Matsikenyeri, a legislator from Zimbabwe’s Chimanimani west district in Manicaland Province, has been appointed minister of state for the province, replacing Ellen Gwaradzimba. She also succumbed to coronavirus last month.

Meanwhile, Kindness Paradza, a legislator from Makonde district in western Mashonaland Province, was appointed deputy information minister, replacing Energy Mutodi, who was fired last year for unspecified reasons.

Michael Madiro, a parliamentarian from Mutare North in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, deputy minister for Home Ministry, has been appointed deputy transport minister. Also, Ruth Mavhunga, a legislator from Beitbridge West in Matabeleland South Province, has been appointed deputy home minister.

The announcements were made by Misheck Sibanda, chief secretary to the president and cabinet.

A landlocked country in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe is grappling with rising cases of infections. According to the Health Ministry, the government has so far recorded 34,658 cases, including 1,339 deaths.

Twins have a very special bond, and some of them can’t help themselves but to go through all of life’s journeys together. Take Justin and Asher Griffin, of New Jersey, for example. Their father was Black and their mother was white, and as mixed-race children, they said they had a hard time fitting in. But from high school to college to law school to Biglaw, they were inseparable, following in each other’s footsteps — sometimes at the same time, sometimes separated by a few years.

The Griffins both attended Princeton at the same time, but diverged before law school because Justin had been recruited by the Cleveland Indians to play minor league baseball. He gave himself two years to get into the major leagues, but later joined his brother Asher at Stanford Law. Justin started working as an associate for Quinn Emanuel after graduation in 2004, but Asher turned down his offer even though he’d interned there as a 1L. Instead, he moved to Texas to join Baker Botts.

Asher later left Baker Botts for litigation boutique Scott Douglas & McConnico, where he became partner in 2008. Justin remained at Quinn Emanuel, where he made partner in 2013. It wasn’t until 2020 that the brothers would finally have the opportunity to be reunited in law practice.

Thanks to the firm’s success with remote work during the pandemic, two partners moved to Austin to work, and Justin quickly tried to bring his brother on board. In January, the firm announced it would be opening an office there, and Asher would be one of its founding members.

The American Lawyer has some details on the rarity of the Griffins’ situation:

It is rare for anybody, but especially a Black attorney, to reach the ranks of Big Law partnership. Less than 2% of Am Law 200 partners are Black. For twin brothers to do so—and at the same firm, within the Am Law 50—is perhaps one-of-a-kind.

“We can’t wait to be in a hearing together,” said Justin.

Congratulations to the Griffin brothers. Finally, Biglaw’s got Quinns — errr… twins!

Brothers in Law: Twins Reunite as Quinn Emanuel Partners [American Lawyer]

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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.

Counsel who have not been through the process of raising litigation funding often have questions about the risks of disclosing confidential information about their client’s case. The process of obtaining litigation funding necessarily involves sharing information about the facts, legal theories, damages and defenses of a claim, often coupled with discussions about the claimholder or counsel’s views on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Cases are more likely to get funded when a robust dialogue is established on these topics. Nonetheless, counsel should be aware of where the boundaries lie, and how to protect their clients from inadvertent waivers and fulfill their professional responsibility obligations.

Our goal in this article is to provide insight into how information sharing with funders has been viewed by the courts and works in practice. Experienced funders like Lake Whillans are highly attuned to the case law pertaining to privilege waivers. As described below, we help counsel establish appropriate safeguards that enable us to conduct due diligence on potential investments without unduly jeopardizing privilege.

Guideposts

Before proceeding further, counsel should consider what case law or rules will govern their conduct, and act accordingly. For example, in the context of arbitration, certain institutions have included rules that provide that communications with funders will not cause waiver. Several state jurisdictions, including for example Delaware and Illinois, have addressed privilege issues thoroughly in case law.

Absent specific guidelines, we recommend certain best practices based on existing rules and case law. First, the claimholder’s counsel should discuss the matter with the client and obtain informed consent to the sharing of information. Second, counsel should consider whether any protective order or confidentiality agreement bears upon the claimholder’s ability to share information, taking care to avoid violating any confidentiality obligation. Funders are regularly asked to acknowledge the terms of an applicable protective order. In some cases, the protective order may not permit sharing certain levels of information with the funder, and it’s important to communicate with the funder about those limitations.

Third, counsel should ensure that a nondisclosure agreement is in place between the claimholder and potential funder before any confidential information is shared. Nondisclosure agreements are a routine precursor to due diligence in litigation finance, and any reputable funder will have a standard form for this purpose. The agreement will generally prohibit the funder from disclosing to third parties confidential information received from the claimholder or its counsel and may also include terms expressly acknowledging the common interest shared by the claimholder and funder.

Avoiding waiver of privileges

Generally, sharing factual information (e.g., contracts, other documents, communications) with the funder will not pose any waiver issues. This is the material most likely to be disclosed during discovery, and important to a funder’s evaluation.

When determining which potentially privileged materials to share with a potential funder, counsel must be mindful of both attorney-client privilege and attorney work product privilege. The general rule is that material covered solely by the attorney-client privilege should not be shared, but material also covered by the attorney work product can be shared without waiving that protection. (Click here to review a summary of relevant court decisions supporting this conclusion).

One example illustrating this distinction is that in a contract dispute, a claimholder should not provide a funder with the advice the client received from its counsel during the contract’s negotiation that is privileged but isn’t protected as work product. In contrast, memos that are prepared by counsel in anticipation of litigation analyzing the adversary’s breaches and the strengths and weaknesses of the claims arising from the breach would be covered both by the attorney-client privilege and work product protection.

Although there is a strong argument that the common legal interest exception to waiver of attorney-client privilege should apply when information is provided to a prospective funder, the law governing this area is unsettled, and several cases have held that the exception does not apply. To avoid the risk of waiver, Lake Whillans makes clear to claimholders that they should not share with us any documents protected only by attorney-client privilege. A funder can generally conduct all necessary due diligence without receiving this material. In our example, the advice the client received about the contract during the negotiation process is unlikely to affect the outcome of claims about a subsequent breach of that agreement because the contract would be interpreted on its own terms and attorney-client advice that was not shared with third parties would normally not be disclosed in the litigation.

By contrast, the attorney work product privilege is generally not waived when information is shared with a funder. Where such information has been shared pursuant to a non-disclosure agreement, courts have found no waiver of the attorney work product privilege. The rationale is that the claimholder and funder have a common incentive to protect attorney work product from disclosure to the adversary and thus disclosure to the funder (particularly when an NDA is in place) is unlikely to substantially increase the risk that an adversary will receive the information, (the basic test which must be satisfied for work product waiver to occur). Thus, counsel can share with a prospective funder its mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal research or theories, i.e., the quintessential work product that is a key factor in a funders’ analysis, without waiving the protection that applies to this material.

On Inauguration Day, January 21, 2021, Pennsylvania attorney Kenelm L. Shirk III, 71, was arrested at a gas station en route to Washington, D.C., by state police. According to police documents, Shirk was found with an AR-15 rifle, two handguns, a large amount of ammunition, rope, and gloves. He’s been charged in federal court for terroristic threats to murder members of the United States Senate.

The search for Shirk reportedly happened when his wife sought his involuntary commitment, indicating he’d threatened to kill both her and elected officials. According to ABA Journal, after he was arrested, Shirk was brought to a hospital for an evaluation where he allegedly included murdering the government officials on his to-do list:

Police took Shirk to a hospital for a mental health evaluation after his arrest. At the hospital, Shirk allegedly made a statement to the effect that he would kill his wife, “but not today.” He allegedly told one nurse that he planned to drop off a present for his granddaughter at his son’s house, and he had to leave early so he could reach the homes of government officials before they left for work. He also allegedly said he would shoot the officials in their front yards.

A nurse also reported finding miniature crosses on Shirk, “almost as if [he] intended to leave them at his crime scene.”

At the time of his arrest, Shirk was the solicitor for the Akron borough in Lancaster, PA.

Shirk’s lawyer, Jay Abom, maintains his client never intended any violence: “Despite appearances and accusations, he never intended to hurt or kill anyone.”

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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).

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took the political establishment by storm when she used a progressive agenda and good-old-fashioned grassroots campaigning to unseat Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018. Since that victory, she’s used her liberal ideology and the power of social media to shape the national conversation. She doesn’t *need* to do anything but keep doing what she’s doing to add to her accolades. But she just might be looking to build her resume…

The other day AOC used the Ask Me A Question sticker on Instagram, and one of her followers wanted to know about future educational plans for the congresswoman. Though she’s doing a pretty amazing job without the benefit of a JD, she revealed that she’s thinking about law school. Check out a screenshot from AOC’s story below.

We’d love to have AOC join the esquire ranks! And it sure would be fun to follow along with her legal education journey.

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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).

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 Eden Davis Stephens back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Switching legal jobs in the middle of the pandemic has been quite the personal journey for me, but not the one I would have anticipated. The new job was everything I wanted and needed careerwise, but became its own distraction from thoughts and feelings I didn’t want to have. I have created an emotional turducken of pandemic angst over professional elation over life-long anxiety and depression.

There have certainly been logistical hijinks during this period. We have two attorneys working remotely alongside our 9-year-old, who is also learning from home. Not a day goes by where I don’t curse our open-floor-plan bungalow. Conference calls, depositions, and loud fourth-grade specials must be accounted for each day. I have a greater appreciation for the literal and metaphorical space a separate office provides. The only reprieve I’ve received in this coordination has been the ability to send my 4-year-old back to daycare. (Which, of course, was not done without hand-wringing over risks and drama — from her as she realized she’s the only one leaving the house, and for us with an inconvenient two-week quarantine.)

As with any over-achiever, my self-esteem is built on a foundation of praised work and checked-off lists. My validation and sense of value has primarily been through school and work. The multiple learning curves of this new position have been equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming. My prior job dealt with a narrow aspect of law and had a “conveyor belt” flow of managing hearings and decisions. I went from seven years of the same story about bedbugs and halfway-house fire escapes, to considering lengthy motions folding in the Commerce Clause. It was an intellectual leap, for sure. Trying to rewire one’s brain to this mode is difficult with unceremonious requests to help with “new” math and video uploads. My patience has been tried at the level of the Spanish Inquisition.

Herein lies the intersection of self, family, and work. When you feel your jawline tighten when your elementary-aged child asks for lunch, it is time to look within. Since both of mine arrived in this world, I have wrestled with the minutiae of meeting their basic needs. Nurturing small, helpless humans was neither natural nor pleasant for me. Child care is a continuous loop of tasks and problem-solving. The mental load of their care puts my anxiety in hyper drive. Love overrides the discomfort, but a part of my brain is always “on” to think of things related to them — encouraging development while avoiding pitfalls, making sure they do not have cereal seven meals in a row, wondering if I signed whatever form came home crumpled in their bag. When you live with people like that in your brain all day, you feel less inclined to be mentally and emotionally available at home whey they’re in front of you.

I did realize the balance is on me to create. It is the nature of toddler-hood I resent, not the toddler.  In the Before Times, I had worked out a routine to manage my mental health so I could be more present in the three allotted hours I spent with my kids each weekday. Thanks to a neighboring yoga studio, I could reset myself before kid pick-up. Sweating for an hour cleared the brain from work obligations, and I could be a better me, a better mom, and a better partner. One may argue I can still do this, but it can’t be done without having to reach down and apply yet another layer of self-initiated discipline. The actual transfer of bodies through space and time provided a great built-in and underappreciated boundary.

There’s also the pull of the familiar and what provides you comfort. As I picked up new skills and received gracious feedback from my new co-workers, I clung to the consistency of court rules and case law. It is easy to justify continuously staring at a screen for work, where you know your place.  It is not easy to figure out what I can do to safely bridge the isolation my 9-year-old faced. It is not easy to apply the changing health recommendations to our daily lives. It is also not easy to find new ways to connect when your bonding activities relied on external businesses. But what can you do, right? Pandemic!

Very recently, I realized my depression has come roaring back. I recognize I am in a very privileged state as I watch unemployment numbers rise, so I find the guilt-ridden energy to be fully functional for work. Pandemic, however, masks the fact that I don’t have the energy or zest to do much of anything else — certainly not anything that helps “keep your own cup full.” Unwashed hair and sloppy clothes used to be an indicator that I was on the down and out, but now it is an acceptable state of being as we collectively shuffle around our houses. Not wanting to go anywhere and keep to myself was also a clue, but that option is universally removed. In these restricted conditions, malaise is much harder to spot.

Awareness is key though, and a fundamental step in managing my depression. Managed mood means more opportunities to be a better version of myself for my family. Self-compassion is also important, as navigating through life at its most basic is strange and uncertain during this period of human history. I have to remind myself that sometimes just getting through a day is enough. I am grateful for the lessons of these new experiences, welcome and unwelcome. I especially appreciate any joy that has come my way over the past year as we’ve sheltered in place, isolated from others. It is as they say though, wherever you (don’t) go, there you are.

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Eden Davis Stephens is the Deputy Executive Director of the Office of Administrative Hearings within Kentucky’s Public Protection Cabinet. Her parenting wish to not have boring children was granted.  Her creative and headstrong daughters make her excited for their futures, but personally tired in the present. If you feel so led, you can Friend her on Facebook at Eden Davis Stephens or follow her on Instagram @superedentica.

I like Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats as much as anyone, but digging your key into the side of someone’s pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive isn’t actually a great plan for revenge. Particularly not when you’re a judge and supposed to be a paragon of good civic behavior.

But that’s allegedly exactly what Judge Gregory Burker, a justice of Watson Town Court in Lewis County, New York did. As reported by Law360, a complaint was filed with New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct on October 29, 2020, alleging he keyed a Watson town official’s car in an act of revenge for denying Burker health insurance. Told you, Medicare for All really is a great idea. Anyway, Burker pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and resigned his position in exchange for the Commission dropping their investigation and also promised not to seek another judicial office.

The Commission’s statement:

“Engaging in vandalism is inimical to the role of a judge and undermines public confidence in the integrity of the courts. It would be untenable to retain on the bench a judge who violates the very criminal laws he is sworn to administer upon others,” commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian said in a statement on Thursday.

Burker had served as judge since 1999, and his term was set to end in 2023.

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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 Zoom practice of law has given up possibly naked attorneys, at least a few heading to court from the pool, and some steamy sex scenes. And that’s before we’ve had cat lawyers. There are a lot of pitfalls to lawyering remotely, but if there’s been a silver lining, it’s finding out that America’s judges got talent. And senses of humor.

It’s rapidly becoming parody video week here at Above the Law. Edelson PC provided one yesterday (along with an original track) and there’s another one coming tomorrow. If you’re a law school law revue gearing up for this year’s competition, take heart that we aren’t going to judge you against these law firms and judges — we understand that they’re professionals.

Judge Andrew Ten Eyck, associate judge for the 301st (Family) District Court in Dallas County, Texas, brings us this Hamilton parody co-written with Lindsay Barbee, a family law partner at women-owned law firm Estes Thorne & Carr in Dallas. It’s not the first parody we’ve seen by Texas judges of this very song. We gushed about the performance by Jennifer Walker Elrod of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Charles Eskridge of the Southern District of Texas, how will this one stand up?

Pretty good actually! Sure the production values are lower, but that’s simply proof that state family courts don’t have access to the sweet, sweet cash that feeds the federal court system. Write your state legislators.

And no, don’t stand to object!
No pants?
Now I must object!

Priceless. Though I think the old passage that follows “For goddsakes grasp this concept” is the frustration of Zoom law completely laid bare. Congrats to Judge Ten Eyck and Barbee for this. Those law revue folks really need to step up their game.

Earlier: Federal Judges Releasing Music Video About COVID Is Officially The Last Thing You Expected From 2020

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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.

As a practicing attorney, you and your law firm are required to follow strict State Bar requirements when managing Client (IOLTA) Trust Funds. The attorney-client retainer agreement must contain language that is clear and concise about how and when trust funds are spent.

Join us at 2 p.m. ET on Feb. 25th to learn best practices to stay compliant, along with tips and tricks to boost cash flow!

In addition to providing best practices on Client Trust Fund management, the presentation will help you with things like:

• Monitoring work-in-progress and costs advanced against Client Trust Funds
• Why paying costs direct from Client Trust Funds boosts cash flow
• Tricks on sending Client Trust Fund replenishment invoices mid-month
• Why accepting electronic payments with LawPay will boost cash flow
• Tips on “what not to do with” Client Trust Funds