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Surely you’ve overheard this conversation:

Partner: “Do you have time?”

Associate: “What’s the project?”

Partner: “There’s no reason for me to waste time explaining the project if you don’t have time to do it.”

Associate: “I may be able to squeeze in something, but I just need a few details. What’s the project?”

Here’s the translation of that evasion:

Partner: “Do you have time?”

Associate: “It depends on whether the project is a good one. If you need me to argue a case in the Supreme Court, then I have time. If you need me to review documents, then I don’t have time. I’m not going to commit until I know what the project is.”

Here’s a conversation you’ll overhear in-house:

“Can you take a look at what I’ve drafted?”

“What is it? What are you planning to do with it?”

“Why does that matter? I’m just asking you to review something, if you have time.”

Here’s the translation of that evasion:

“Can you take a look at what I’ve drafted?”

“Shoot! If this really matters, and I should help, then of course I can take a look. But it’s more likely this is some silly project that will never see the light of day, and I’d be wasting my time. Not only that, if I take a couple of minutes and look at the damn thing, then this person will later say, ‘But I had Jarndyce look at the draft; Jarndyce said this was perfect.’ Then I’ll get blamed for any mistakes in the thing, even though it’s meaningless, I didn’t spend much time on it, and I didn’t want to look at it in the first place.”

Here’s something you can infer:

Under ordinary circumstances, if you’ve been working at your law firm for a couple of years or more, and you routinely don’t have enough work to do, then you’re a bad lawyer.

That’s terribly unfair! Why infer that?

Under ordinary circumstances –- if we’re not in the midst of a Great Recession, and there’s no pandemic that keeps people from taking depositions — the firm has plenty of work. If you’ve been at your firm for a couple of years, then you have a reputation; people in the firm know whether you’re good or bad. If partners at the firm thought you were good, you’d be swamped with work. There are never enough good associates. If partners are not seeking you out to do work, it’s because everyone knows that you’re no good. Thus: If the times are ordinary, and if you’ve been at the firm for a while, and if you still have no work, then you’re a bad lawyer.

I know that you’re outraged; you think you’re good!

Don’t be deceived.

Everyone thinks they’re good. Most people are wrong. If you’re working at a reasonably good law firm, then the firm is forming a relatively accurate judgment: If you’re good, you’re terribly busy. If you’re always scrambling to find work, then you’re no good. (I’m sorry about that, but someone had to tell you.)

Here’s the corollary to my rule: As a partner, when you’re looking for associate help, never call the head of another office and ask for help. The head of the office will be looking for an associate who has time to spare, to occupy that time and improve the office’s numbers. From your perspective, that’s bureaucratic nonsense. You don’t care about whether some distant office has decent numbers; you want an associate who’s worth a damn. The associates with time to spare are terrible; the good associates are frantically busy. Thus: Call a partner you trust in the relevant office and ask for the names of good associates. Call one of those good associates directly and explain that you have a great project that the associate would love to help with. (The associate, after all, doesn’t have time to review documents for you, but the associate does have time to do a Supreme Court argument for you.) That’s how you get good lawyers — and not the bad lawyers who have extra time — to work on your matters.

(Yeah, yeah: This breaks all of the firm’s rules. The firm requires you to talk to the head of the office, who will then ensure that all associates in the office are equally busy. Follow those rules — if you want to spend your time rewriting briefs and don’t care about the quality of your client’s representation.)

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

The coronavirus crisis has driven law firms of all sizes to call into question the way they do business. After working remotely for months thanks to global quarantines, law firms have learned that they can do more with less — less office space, that is — and now the largest law firm in the world is leaning into the changing times by closing some of its offices for good.

Dentons, the Biglaw behemoth with nearly 10,000 lawyers, has decided to shut down two of its UK offices, allowing all employees there to permanently work from home, with the option to travel to other “nearby” offices (i.e., at least two hours away by train) to work if they choose. The offices subject to closure are located in Watford and Aberdeen, and between the two, 66 people will now be able to work remotely.

Lisa Sewell, Dentons managing director for the U.K., Ireland and Middle East, said in a statement: “The success of remote working during lockdown has made us really stop and think about how we can learn from this new way of working to accelerate the physical and behavioral changes that form part of our strategy to build the law firm of the future.

“In that way, the lockdown has forced the behavioral shifts that are the basis of any real change of this type, so we want to use this to ensure we don’t just assume we will return to the way we used to work post lockdown. It’s an exciting shift for us, our people and for how we will be able to serve our clients in different ways in the future.”

Dentons has no plans to close its four other UK offices in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Milton Keynes, but when its London lease is up in 2025, the firm may “re-define the volume and kind of space it now needs in this new dynamic, whether that be in a new premises or through an overhaul of its current premises.”

Office closures in favor of remote work structures may become a trend in the legal profession thanks to the success that we’ve seen as the pandemic has traveled its way across the globe. Does your firm have plans to institute more work-from-home environments? Please feel free to email us and let us know.

Dentons Shutters Two UK Bases Following Up-Tick In Remote Working [Law.com International]
Dentons closes Aberdeen and Watford offices as part of remote working review [Global Legal Post]

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.

New York may be one of the states performing comparatively well when it comes to COVID right now, but it’s a state that realizes all of these successes come from not taking unnecessary risks. The state was one of the first to cancel the summer bar exam — which seemed like a bold move in March — but now appears to be the absolute bare minimum of common sense. This is the point where we remind everyone that states with surging infections right now from Virginia to Colorado are going ahead with the July exam because malfeasance loves company.

So even though New York is on the mend, with the rest of the country on track to control COVID on roughly the 12th of Never, New York’s September in-person bar exam is shaping up to be a superspreader event waiting to happen.

This morning, the New York Court of Appeals received a letter sporting over 1,500 signatures demanding a hearing to delve into the public health concerns about the upcoming bar exam:

With the exam a mere eight weeks away, examinees have begun studying in earnest. Preparing to take the bar is a full-time commitment, which often demands forty hours or more per week of study; even in non-pandemic conditions, this burden is a heavy one. It is time to revisit whether the exam, as the Court currently expects to administer it, is a reasonable and safe way to license a new class of attorneys during an ongoing, unprecedented health crisis.

The pandemic will not pause for bar study. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have climbed precipitously throughout the country, indicating a nationwide failure to contain the pandemic. At the time of writing, the number of new cases nationally has increased by 68% in the past fourteen days. The United States has reached over 3 million reported cases and at least 132,000 deaths. It is likely that reported cases will continue to rise through the September exam date. An exam like New York’s, to which examinees typically travel from all over the nation, calls for a sober analysis of its potential risks.

In addition to the bleak numbers, the signatories also raise concerns over leaving the Board of Law Examiners handling the situation:

As many of us prepare to take the exam, the lack of transparency and clarity about the BOLE’s plans is a source of frustration and anxiety. Though the BOLE faces understandable and significant challenges in adapting to the current situation, it is unclear to law school graduates whether the board is aware of the myriad ways in which the pandemic affects our ability to study and sit for the bar exam. For instance, the BOLE initially directed graduates to sign up for exams in other jurisdictions, and many graduates followed this advice. However, graduates who registered in states that have moved their exams online are now left with no clear pathway to New York licensure. Further, graduates are unsure whether the BOLE has adequately considered suitable alternatives to the bar exam in response to these extraordinary circumstances.

This isn’t really a knock on the BOLE either. Without guidance from the Court of Appeals, they’re somewhat constrained in what they can do about this.

As the letter points out, Oregon, Utah, and California have all granted hearings to air impact statements and in some of those states, officials even stayed awake the whole time.

New York already has legislative proposals under consideration to allow the state to adopt diploma privilege. A hearing would be a proper precursor to making that a reality.

A full copy of the letter is available on the next page.

Earlier: New York Legislature Gets Involved In Push For Diploma Privilege
Law School Graduates Push For Diploma Privilege As A Matter Of Racial Justice

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.

Texas State Bar President Larry McDougal apparently misunderstood the role of a president. After all, presidents are supposed to provide leadership through crises, extend empathy, and foster productive dialogue. Who would believe a president who just posts racist memes on the Internet? Crazy, right?

Over the weekend, McDougal’s posts prompted a response from the State Bar of Texas and Texas Young Lawyers Association.

Online comments made by Larry McDougal regarding #BlackLivesMatter do not reflect the values of the State Bar of Texas and we denounce them in the strongest terms. As leaders of the 105,000-member State Bar of Texas and the 26,000-member Texas Young Lawyers Association, we are united against racism and dedicated to the bar’s mission of advancing diversity and inclusion in the administration of justice and the practice of law…. The State Bar of Texas and our legal profession are larger than any one person, but we believe each person can be a vehicle of change and we hope for positive change throughout the remainder of this bar year.

It’s encouraging to see that there are adults in the room in Texas.

What kinds of posts are they talking about? Well, back in 2015, McDougal referred to Black Lives Matter as a terrorist group. Oof. And that wasn’t the only time he found a way to post troubling thoughts on the Internet. There are a number of posts on Facebook to McDougal’s personal page, the “official” bar page known as “Texas Lawyers,” and “Texas Attorneys,” the unofficial page created because of the “censorship” on Texas Lawyers. Tipsters say that many of the posts have been deleted, but here’s a taste from Texas Attorneys:

Delightful. And it’s racially sensitive by featuring a black cop brutalizing a white protester. There’s no way that could be decontextualizing whataboutism concocted to shield a naked endorsement of the lawless suppression of supporters of social justice! Nope.

This is an old post and not a direct response to the acts of brutality we’ve witnessed over recent weeks. There are two responses to a situation like this and they’re both apologies — apologies to the people McDougal jokingly thought should be robbed of the protection of the law or apologies for McDougal’s antics. Unfortunately, history shows there will be a long line of folks eager to do the latter.

But thankfully, McDougal isn’t one of them. An apology alone may not be enough in light of everything out there, but when given an opening to make excuses, McDougal owned up to what he’d said and explained that he doesn’t feel that way anymore:

More important that anything else in that apology was his commitment to listen. It may not seem like much, but the worldview that buys a crazy conspiracy theory about BLM being a terrorist group or that thinks it’s all fun and games to joke about brutality comes from a sheltered place. Just listening does wonders.

Maybe, in the end, McDougal will leave office a better president than he came in.

Joint statement of State Bar of Texas and Texas Young Lawyers Association leaders regarding comments by Larry McDougal [Texas Bar 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.

After months of trying to read the future of Boies Schiller based on the lawyers who’ve decided to depart the firm, we now get a look at what Boies Schiller will become based on who they’re adding. This morning, the firm announced that it’s adding Lawrence Brandman, the former head of bankruptcy at Lehman Brothers Holdings, and Neil Pigott, a senior UK bankruptcy lawyer, as partners.

This tracks the idea that BSF is trending toward gathering expertise to address the big ticket issues of the moment. The global economy is in shambles, and while that’s driven a lot of firms to stockpile bankruptcy talent, these hires are unique.

Brandman was the guy at Lehman Brothers Holdings responsible for resolving the disputes that evolved from the unwinding of its derivatives book after the financial crisis. If a firm is looking to bring in practical experience in dealing with truly cataclysmic restructurings, it’s hard to imagine a person bringing more practical expertise in dealing with a financial apocalypse to the table. Before his time at Lehman Brothers, Brandman spent nine years as Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and worked at CSFB before that.

Pigott, meanwhile, is a former counsel at BSF who decamped to serve as Executive Director in distressed special situations for Nomura International PLC. Pigott also has worked as an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley for nine years.

From the press release:

“Boies Schiller’s reputation in special situations and finance litigation is second-to-none, and respected across the market. I am thrilled to be joining their peerless team at this incredibly significant time,” Pigott said. “As a litigator with a transactional and investor background my experience will combine well with the team’s well known ability to find novel and creative approaches to provide value to clients,” he said.

Boies Schiller has lost a lot of lawyers over the last few months. With the firm losing the bulk of its California presence and then losing its highest profile Washington team to Paul Weiss, most commentary about Boies Schiller kicks off with a lament about how the firm must be “blindsided” by everything. That angle never seemed to make much sense to me.

A lot of people wonder if I’m just being doggedly contrarian. Perhaps. But it’s also that BSF told us that the firm would be changing a lot and, frankly, I’d harbored some questions for a while about the long-term sustainability of the BSF confederacy. Was it aiming to establish itself as another large Biglaw player? That didn’t jive with some parts of the firm’s outlook. Was it aiming to offer more high-stakes services in select practice areas? That didn’t jive with the other parts of the firm. The idea that BSF was going to change in big ways and that the faces of BSF 1.0 wouldn’t necessarily be the faces of BSF 2.0 just didn’t surprise me. And some of those departures would, by necessity, be people we’d all consider huge parts of the firm as we’d come to know it. No one is blessed with the crystal ball required to know if this specific strategy ultimately ends up best for the firm, but the point is that any serious strategic rethink of the firm was going to involve changes and so big departures don’t shock me. And I certainly don’t need to come up with theories about Harvey Weinstein to explain why people are moving around.

Indeed, as the firm adds to its bankruptcy practice, word comes that it will see the departure of Bob Cooper from the DC commercial litigation team. This is going to be par for the course with BSF for the next several months. Let’s just wait to see where everyone is when the dust settles.

Earlier: Everyone Seems To Be Overreacting To These Boies Schiller Departures
Paul Weiss Bolsters Technology Practice Bringing On Dunn And Isaacson

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.

* The mayor of Bridgeport, CT, is suing Delta Airlines for being bitten by a dog during a flight. This sounds like a law school civil procedure hypothetical. [USA Today]

* A Utah prosecutor’s office was damaged by protesters after police officers were cleared in a contested shooting. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* Robert De Niro’s lawyer claimed in a proceeding involving De Niro’s ex-wife that COVID-19 has caused the actor to experience financial issues. Guess De Niro can always use Cameo to pick up some extra scratch… [Newser]

* Follow-up steps are being taken after the Supreme Court ruled last week on the availability of President Trump’s financial records. [NBC News]

* Ghislaine Maxwell’s siblings are willing to endorse her $5 million bond, according to Maxwell’s lawyers. And I have trouble just getting gas money from my four brothers… [Washington Post]

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

On these late winter mornings, you don’t have to listen hard to hear Zimbabwe’s clock ticking towards an immense crisis. Civil servants at ground level: teachers, nurses, security personnel, clerical and office workers are barely surviving, earning a basic salary now worth the equivalent of less than one US dollar a day. As I write the official exchange rate is ZWL$65.8 to US$1; the black market rate is ZWL$110 to US$1. Johns Hopkins Economist Steve Hanke estimates our annual inflation to now be over one thousand percent, 1,191% to be precise.

This week Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima said government has only paid 202,000 vulnerable people out of the one million targeted for assistance: people who’ve been unable to earn a living for months during Covid lockdown. The 202,000 are getting a ‘cushioning allowance’ of Z$180 a month (US$2.76), enough for two loaves of bread a month. Imagine surviving on less than 10 US cents a day.

Nurses are on strike because they can’t survive on their salaries which are equivalent of less than one US dollar a day. They’ve been appealing for their wages to be paid in US dollars, as they were eighteen months ago, but the government aren’t listening. The ZNA (Zimbabwe Nurses Association) said: “We have lost our earnings already through slave wages and so we have nothing more to lose.” Over a dozen have been arrested for striking and the images of nurses handcuffed together and singing are burned into our minds this week. These are the frontline fighters responsible for helping people infected with Covid 19. Striking nurses living in hospital accommodation at Harare hospital have now been sent eviction letters meanwhile our Minister of Health is out on Z$50,000 bail after being arrested over a US$560 million Covid 19 procurement scam. The Minister of Health didn’t even spend a single night in jail; he has now been removed from his position for “conduct inappropriate for a government minister.” In the middle of Zimbabwe’s growing Covid 19 pandemic, we now have no Minister of Health and there are ten other senior positions currently vacant in the country’s health service.  It’s hard to fathom the inequity between a 560 million US dollar scam by the Minister of Health and a nurse on the ward surviving on less than one US dollar a day.

A  report in NewsDay newspaper this week said Police were earning a basic salary equivalent to US$27 a month and some were collapsing at work due to hunger. “Most police officers face eviction and are failing to buy food and meet basic expenses while we watch our bosses drive top-of-the-range vehicles, stay in plush houses and get benefits that include fuel, airtime and accommodation,” the police officer said. (NewsDay) Police are due to get a COVID-19 allowance of US$75 this month and an extra Z$1,500 but it’s a far, far cry from the breadbasket which is around $20,000. Imagine surviving on 87 US cents a day?

And then there’s the “mess” underway with the Grade 7 school examinations. Called to write their Grade 7 exams before mainstream schools have re-opened, the PTUZ (Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe) said teachers had boycotted returning to work to invigilate the exams over their poor working conditions and salaries. The PTUZ President, Takavafira Zhou said schools in rural areas were hiring villagers and parents to supervise and invigilate the exams in a number of areas.  Zhou was quoted in the press as saying: “It was a mess, and it is terrible.” Zhou said some headmasters had: “told pupils to pay US$1 every day they are writing so that the schools can have money to pay the hired invigilators.”

Coming to the end of such a sad letter about a country in crisis for so long, I look for something beautiful to share with you and there it is, just outside the window. The Shikra is sitting in the bird bath. I’ve just learned that Shikra is the other name for the beautiful little banded Goshawk. Its soft grey feathers, yellow legs and startling red eyes are both beautiful and intimidating. This is the raptor of immense patience, sitting unmoving for half an hour or more in one place: perched on a tap, in the bird bath, on a branch, waiting, watching. The Shikra whose name is apparently derived from the Hindi word shikara which means hunter, always makes me think of us Zimbabweans; ever patient, watching and waiting, but it also makes me think of our leaders: always ready to pounce.

Until next time, thanks for your love and passion for our country, for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe, now in its 20^th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting, love cathy 10^th July 2020. Copyright © Cathy Buckle.  http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
For information on my books about Zimbabwe go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/ CathyBuckle2018 . For archives of Letters From Zimbabwe, to see pictures that accompany these articles and to subscribe/unsubscribe or to contact me please visit my website http://cathybuckle.co.zw/

Post published in: Featured

This report covers two days, Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 July 2020 which marked days 101 and 102 of the national lockdown declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and has been in place since 30 March 2020 respectively. By Thursday 9 July 2020, confirmed COVID-19 cases had increased to nine hundred and twenty-six (926) after Zimbabwe reported its all-time high number of positive cases after ninety-eight (98) people tested positive for COVID-19. Forty-seven (47) of the new cases were local transmissions, whilst the others were returnees from South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana. The previous highest daily increase was reported on 4 July 2020 when seventy-three (73) people tested positive for COVID-19.

The number of cumulative tests done stood at eighty-two thousand and seventy-seven (82 077). Of these, eighty-one thousand one hundred and ninety-two (81 192) were negative. The number of recoveries increased to three hundred and six (306) and the death toll increased to twelve (12).

2.0       Methodology
Information contained in this report is derived from the following Forum Members:

• Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP)
• Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
• Counselling Services Unit (CSU)
• Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)
• Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)

3.0       General updates  
Confirmed reports indicate that eighteen (18) health personnel working in the same ward at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) have tested positive for COVID-19 after allegedly attending to an infected patient. The exact number of health workers who came into contact with the infected patient is still to be ascertained. This comes after sixty-eight (68) health workers at the hospital were forced to self-isolate at home after a 79-year old woman who tested positive died at the referral facility. In June, fourteen (14) nurses at Mpilo Central Hospital also tested positive for COVID-19 after coming into contact with patients who were infected with COVID-19.

The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Schools Ambassador Cain Mathema has directed schools not to allow their premises to be used for church services or any other functions as they prepare for the re-opening of schools on 28 July 2020.  Minister Mathem issued a press statement dated 8 July 2020 in which he advises that the government is focused on ensuring a safe and secure reopening that meets the World Health Organisation guidelines. All schools will need to be disinfected before opening.

7.0       Conclusion

The Forum is concerned about the growing number of confirmed COVID-19 cases especially the local transmissions. This comes at the backdrop of the continuous absconding from quarantine centres by returnees and the relaxation of regulations including inter-city travel. The Forum bemoans the continuous harassment of journalists in their line of duty. The Forum calls upon the government and law enforcement officers to protest journalists as they discharge their duties. The spread of COVID-19 to health professionals as reported points to the lack of proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs). The Forum calls upon the government and the Ministry of Health and Child Care to provide adequate equipment and sundries to frontline medical practitioners.

Post published in: Featured