Category: News Feeds

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, the focus unsurprisingly has been on the exigent and obvious.  No matter which industry you’re in, this pandemic threatens not only your life but your financial health.  Though much has been written about industries in peril, far less has been written about industries—like law—that are poised to enjoy a Renaissance.

During times of crisis, experts reflexively draw comparisons between seemingly similar events. Legal industry pundits are busily comparing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial ruin created by the Great Recession of 2008.  Such comparisons are, at best, shaky.  Those pessimistic pundits are conflating both events and forecasting only doom and gloom. We think they’re wrong.

COVID-19 Pandemic Economics vs The Great Recession – A Flawed Comparison

We’ll leave to actual economists a more thorough discussion of the two economic crises, but there are significant differences.

• First, the Great Recession of 2008 can be traced to sustained periods of unsound economic practices that coalesced into a systemic unraveling of a precarious U.S. economy. The economic turmoil battering the world today is directly tied to an abrupt, discrete cause: COVID-19. Nearly every component of the global economy has morphed from functioning in the ordinary course to a complete lock-down almost overnight.

• Second, the pain of what we call “Pandemic Economics” is nearly universal. Unlike the 2008 Great Recession, which hit the financial, building and construction materials, and real estate industries disproportionately hard, no industry segment has been left unscathed by today’s crisis—nor has any nation or region been spared.

The 2008 Great Recession and COVID-19 economic crisis bear little in common when it comes to speed, scope, and severity. Against this backdrop, we’re left scratching our heads as to why the legal industry pundits are pulling out the post-2008 playbook and relying on outmoded strategies.

COVID-19 Offers the Legal Industry a “DO OVER”

History has shown that catastrophe also creates opportunity for those savvy enough to innovate. The legal industry, which was tone deaf to market demands after the 2008 crisis and failed to proactively innovate, is getting a rare second chance.  In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, there are things that the legal industry can do not just to survive, but to adapt, evolve, and thrive.

Until the dust settles, most would agree that the near-term demand for legal services will be only in “essential” areas, such as healthcare, employment, bankruptcy, and criminal law. The dust will eventually settle, though. Then there will be an UNPRECEDENTED level of demand for legal services. Unlike the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, where the legal industry was unable to drive any aspects of a recovery, the U.S. legal industry can be a critical force in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Legal industry professionals will pore over mounds of insurance policies, contracts, and other documents to assess the legal rights of the afflicted, to be followed by years of lawsuits.  These lawsuits will be complex and multi-jurisdictional (or multi-national) and, quite literally, without precedent. Demand will skyrocket, giving the entire legal industry a serendipitous “do-over” to re-imagine new ways to deliver legal services.

Below are a few key takeaways on how to best position legal professionals and their organizations for success as the world re-engages:

1. Embrace “Surge” Lawyering. The business model around associates (mostly junior associates) has been broken for years. Does it really make sense to hire classes of associates out of law school, train them, pay them outsized fixed salaries, and then mercilessly cut these associates (and their related fixed salary cost) during downturns to avoid cutting into partner profits? This makes little sense from a business perspective and even less from a human development perspective. We don’t offer a magic bullet, but we do encourage out-of-the-box thinking around personnel who could be affected by an economic downturn. Today’s newly minted lawyers understand and embrace the gig economy. Perhaps, it’s time to take a page out of Uber’s playbook and consider “surge” staffing—to use and allocate “flex” legal professionals in a given area based on client demand and to share them across practice groups, moving them from one practice area to another within the firm, maybe back and forth between a firm and its clients, or perhaps even between law firms under a strategic alliance. Creative staffing can reduce fixed costs, provide staffing flexibility, treat junior legal professionals humanely, and allow savings to be passed onto clients.

2. Promote “Tele-lawyering.” The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that working from home is a viable way for many industries to conduct business. Tele-working requires self-discipline, good technology, flexibility, and patience, but it’s kept large segments of our economy afloat. As we emerge from lock-down mode, some form of “tele-lawyering” should continue. A new generation of legal industry leaders could forego unneeded physical office locations, which often come with a tony address, fancy artwork, posh furniture, and a high price-per-square-foot price tag. More “tele-lawyering” means reduced fixed real estate costs, driving savings for cost-conscious clients. In fact, other tele-working measures can become permanent as well, such as increased use of telephonic and video conferencing for court hearings and other in-person meetings requiring travel or downtime. Save in-person interactions for instances when in-person delivers greater benefits.

3. Really innovate—don’t just talk about it.  Smart growth investors study trends and invest in innovative companies that address those trends. Think about the transition from “retail-to-e-commerce” businesses or “on-premises software-to-cloud” solutions. Over the next decade, many in the legal industry will do well just from anticipated demand. The real legal industry winners, who outperform the market, will invest in innovative talent, cutting-edge technology, and smart data analytics solutions.

People retain lawyers in good times and really pay them in bad times. As we move into an uncharted future, the legal industry is entering a Renaissance period where it can truly lead the recovery from the COVID-19 financial crisis.

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Nancy B. Rapoport is the Garman Turner Gordon Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and an Affiliate Professor of Business Law and Ethics in the Lee Business School at UNLV. Her specialties are bankruptcy ethics, ethics in governance, law firm behavior, and the depiction of lawyers in popular culture.

After practicing law for nearly 20 years, Joe Tiano founded Legal Decoder because he saw that clients and law firms lacked the analytic tools and data to effectively price and manage the cost of legal services delivered by outside counsel. He set out to build an intelligent, data driven technology company that would revolutionize the way that legal services are priced and economically evaluated.

Even those who are on record as caustically skeptical about the prospects for bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies find themselves intrigued by the technology underlying them. While bitcoins themselves are a worthless joke that will come to a bad end, everyone on Wall Street thinks the blockchain has a bright future.

“This blockchain thing is real,” Jamie Dimon, elsewhere seen calling bitcoin “a fraud” that “will eventually blow up” and “worse than tulip bulbs” and those trading it “stupid,” says. “I’m enthusiastic about the blockchain technology,” says Vanguard global chief economist Joe Davis, in pretty much the same breath in which he says cryptos will probably go to zero.

“CGGC will develop the project and assist with the fund raising,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of Rio Energy Ltd said last week. The power plant at Sengwa will be constructed in four phases of about 700 megawatts each, bringing total capacity to 2,800 megawatts.

“We have coal reserves to support a 10,000 megawatt plant at Sengwa,” Dengu said.

A 250 kilometer (155-mile) pipeline will carry water from Lake Kariba to Sengwa. The pipeline, and a 420 kilovolt-ampere power line, will be built by PowerChina, said Dengu. The first phase of the project will cost about $1.2 billion, he added.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has given a formal expression of interest in the project and is negotiating with Sinosure, also known as the China Export and Credit Insurance Corp, to cover country risk insurance costs, Dengu told Bloomberg.

Zimbabwe generates and imports about 1,300 megawatts of electricity, short of its 2,200 megawatt demand. Daily power outages have hampered industrial capacity for almost two decades.

A two-year drought blighted the country’s Kariba thermal power plant by draining the reservoir, while aging equipment at its main Hwange thermal plant causes incessant breakdowns and outages that see many consumers receiving only eight hours of power a day.

RioZim was spun off from Rio Tinto Plc in 2004. London-based Rio initially retained a stake in diamond mines and Sengwa before selling those to RioZim in 2015.

Post published in: Business

* New lawyers in Texas are now being allowed to take their attorney oaths through Zoom and other teleconferencing apps. Hopefully they aren’t shirtless and in bed when they are sworn in. [Houston Chronicle]

* Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is the latest high-profile figure to be released from prison early because of COVID-19. [NBC News]

* The SEC has scored a slam dunk against an attorney who allegedly defrauded NBA star Charles Barkley of millions of dollars. [Bloomberg Law]

* A New Jersey petting zoo operator has been charged with animal cruelty for allegedly abusing dozens of pigs. Wonder if he calls himself “Pig King,” although the name doesn’t have a ring to it. [New Jersey Herald]

* Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has sued the New York State Board of Elections for canceling New York’s Democratic presidential primary. [Politico]

* The Supreme Court narrowly held that Georgia could not place its entire state code behind a paywall. Along similar lines, hopefully the Supreme Court will soon find that PACER fees should be eliminated. [New York Times]

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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.

 Newspaper headline posters display the main headlines for the Zimbabwean daily newspapers. (Photo: EPA-EFE/AARON UFUMELI)

In her latest frontline report, Maverick Citizen’s Thandekile Moyo continues a series of articles that look at life in Zimbabwe under the Covid-19 lockdown; what’s changed, what’s not, and what will never change – for as long as corrupt and complicit regime continues to use the power and resources of the state to keep itself in power.

On 14 April ZBC News online, the official Twitter page of Zimbabwe’s only TV station, posted a video of President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying that he was aware of a false statement on social media saying he would be extending lockdown until 3 May. He said he would ask the Central Intelligence Office (CIO) to investigate it and that if the person responsible was caught they should get “at least 20 years imprisonment” for “spreading falsehoods”.

“An example needs to be made,” the President said.

The CIO operates under the Office of the President. Many of Zimbabwe’s abductions, extrajudicial murders and enforced disappearances are said to be committed by the CIO. The head (minister) of State Security which oversees the CIO, Owen Mudha Ncube, was recently added to the US sanctions list for Human Rights violations. Emmerson Mnangagwa himself was the minister responsible for the CIO during the Gukurahundi genocide that left 20,000 civilians dead in Matebeleland.

Hearing the president take the trouble to publicly threaten whoever wrote the statement with CIOs was unsettling. We all feared the worst – not just for whoever the president was threatening but also for ourselves.

Passengers wait for their bus in Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 April 2020. (Photo: EPA-EFE/AARON UFUMELI)

However, on Sunday 21 April, what was meant to be the last day of the lockdown, the president announced that he was extending it until 3 May 2020, just as the allegedly fake statement had said. This gave rise to several questions and suspicions. Had the statement truly been fake or was the president a victim of a leak from his office? Many  wondered what the alleged falsehood mongerer would be charged with if found, now that the president had announced exactly what the statement had said he had decided.

“Was this fake news after all and, will the fake news charge stick?” people asked.

On 20 April the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) tweeted that they had arrested Lovemore Zvokusekwa for “Publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state as defined in section 31 (a) (i) of the Criminal law (Codification and reform) act Chapter 9:23”.

As the president had stated in the video this crime attracts 20 years in jail and because the president had vowed to make an example of this case, there was an outcry from the public. Some questioned the word “circulating” in the charge.

Did Zvokusekwa produce the letter or had he just circulated it as hundreds of other Zimbabweans had when the letter fell into their inboxes and on their timelines?

Were they going to find and arrest everyone who had forwarded the letter?

Some argued that the law Zvokusekwa was being charged with had long since been ruled to be unconstitutional by the constitutional court in the case of Chimakure vs the Attorney General, rendering the arrest and charge an illegality and an abuse of Zvekusekwa’s rights. Some simply asked – was it fake news that the lockdown had been extended when the president had in fact extended it?

All these questions did not stop the state from dragging Zvekusekwa before a magistrate on 20 April and remanding him in custody until 13 May – a total of 23 days.

Something to be laughed at

The case of Zvokusekwa, whose surname in Shona ironically means “something to be laughed at”, illustrates a dangerous trend seen elsewhere. Covid-19 has provided an excuse to authoritarians to ramp up the stifling of dissent. The destination of choice has been attacks of freedom of expression and the media.

In Zimbabwe, starting with the case of the late Zororo Makamba, the first person to test positive in the country, the government has been accused of manipulating information on the true status of infections and its response to it. The digital or social media space has been the go-to alternative for a country hungry for information. It has also been a revolutionary space for government criticism, exposure of corruption and other excesses and demands for accountability. That, it seems, is the space the government has its eyes on.

But it faces a dilemma.

The government itself needs the digital media space for its own propaganda. The national broadcaster, ZBC, maintains a Twitter handle which it actively uses to churn out propaganda. On the page they post stories about everything the president does as well as stories highlighting the “generosity” and “benevolence” of the president and the first lady.

For years the Zimbabwean government has used twin devilish and draconian pieces of legislation to stifle political activity and dissent and public criticism: the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).

The former, in requiring police permission for public gatherings, has been used to stop opposition from holding its rallies, while the latter has been used to intimidate and prevent journalists from doing their work. When he tried to show potential Western investors that he and his government were different from the late former president Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa promised to repeal the two laws. Replacement drafts have been tabled but are no different. Meanwhile, Posa was used in August 2019 to stop opposition protests.

Code for repression

It is now clear that while all attention has been focused on Posa and AIPPA, the real devil is in the Criminal Code used to arrest Zvokusekwa which is equally draconian but carries far more severe penalties.

The obvious glee by the president in announcing to a nervous nation his eagerness to set his dreaded CIO on a citizen and then send that citizen to jail for spreading falsehoods demonstrates the importance of this piece of legislation in the repression toolbox of the regime. The government’s intention to use the Criminal Code to turn up its autocratic volume during the lockdown was exposed by the Permanent Secretary of Information hours before the publication of the regulations establishing the lockdown, when he threatened that people would soon see themselves in jail for spreading falsehoods.

The Covid-19 statutory instrument did not disappoint, importing verbatim the entire provisions of the code related to criminalising the publication of falsehoods. What seemed lost to the government, which does not seem to respect its own laws, let alone its own courts, is that this entire provision of the Criminal Code was struck down by the constitutional court in the Chimakure case six years ago. The Minister of Justice cited in the case at the time was none other than Emmerson Mnangagwa, now president. Nothing demonstrates the levels of lawlessness and lack of accountability more than this. This is clearly a government that does not consider itself bound by anything or accountable to anyone.

War on digital democracy

A man (L) walks past a blind man wearing a face mask begs for alms on a street pavement in Harare, Zimbabwe, 28 March 2020. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has announced a 21 day lockdown starting 30 March 2020 in an effort to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic that has so far claimed one life in the country.(Photo: EPA-EFE/AARON UFUMELI)

It is clear that digital or social media will continue to be a new battleground for repression in Zimbabwe.

In the wake of Covid-19, the disastrous policy failures in the government’s response have been accompanied by allegations of shocking levels of procurement-related grand corruption and abuse of Covid-19 aid. Last week it was reported that a company run by (the president’s son) Collins Mnangagwa’s business partner, Delish Nguwaya, was awarded a $60-million contract to deliver pharmaceuticals related to Covid-19. The story was broken in digital media.

The Minister of Finance announced a programme to provide livelihood support via cash transfers to vulnerable households. The contract to disburse this money was awarded to a telecoms company closely linked to the political elite.

To make matters worse, the process to determine who is eligible for the government funding remains clouded in mystery. The only explanation the Minister of Finance gave was that they used a “complex algorithm” to select beneficiaries. With such opaque explanations and poor accountability, it is clear that even this money is likely to have been looted. In Covid-19 the government has found a new golden goose for its voraciously corrupt appetite.

In all this, the digital and social media space stands fast in ensuring that these scandals come to light, that the president is called to answer for his videos threatening citizens, the Minister of Health is asked to explain his policies and reports on Covid-19 and the Minister of Finance is asked to justify how government money is spent.

The power of digital and social media to counter state propaganda was also witnessed last week when the secretary of information posted this tweet:

“We received 65 Zimbabweans from the UK. Available place of quarantine is Belvedere Teachers College. They are refusing this accommodation demanding hotels. Govt can’t afford. Why come from a Covid-19 hotspot during a lockdown & demand posh facilities at stretched public cost?”

The returnees managed to expose the government lying by posting videos from the college where they were quarantined showing that the reason why they were asking to be moved to a better place was that there was no running water and more than 20 people were sharing just two toilets. The plan to deceive the public about why the returnees were rejecting the quarantine facility backfired terribly. The videos, by default, also served to expose the dire conditions under which students at the teachers’ college have been living in for years.

With a crumbling and discredited state media enterprise, the government needs the digital space. It will continue to need it for its propaganda, for PR exercises for the president and first lady and for Covid-19. But, with its tendency to capture and monopolise everything, it has yet to find a formula to control the digital media space beyond unconstitutionally switching off the internet. It has also yet to find a legal way to stop Zimbabweans from sharing information that exposes its failures besides provisions of the Criminal Code – struck down by the constitutional court but brazenly used to detain a civilian for almost one month.

In all this, it remains clear that if ever the falsehoods law was constitutional and anyone needed to be jailed, it would be the government and its litany of propagandists. It also highlights that in crying only for Posa and AIPPA to be repealed, citizens have ignored a greater danger – the devil is in the Criminal Code.

It is unacceptable that the president of Zimbabwe, who himself has never spent a single day in custody for any of his crimes – from genocide to looting minerals in the DRC and running down Zanu-PF companies as alleged by Mugabe’s administration before the coup – can arrest and threaten a man with 20 years in prison for circulating fake news that turned out to be true. DM/MC

Thandekile Moyo is a writer and human rights defender from Zimbabwe. For the past four years, she has been using print, digital and social media (Twitter: @mamoxn) to expose human rights abuses, bad governance and corruption. Moyo holds an Honours degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.

In an application filed on Sunday 26 April 2020 by Dr Tarisai Mutangi and Moses Nkomo of Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights, the informal traders and residents together with some residents associations,
protested that the widespread demolition of tuckshops, vending stalls and other property belonging to or
used by small and medium enterprises and informal traders by local and central government personnel
was unlawful and should be stopped immediately.

The informal traders, residents and residential associations represented by Chitungwiza Residents
Trust and Kushinga Epworth Residents Association, which have some members, who are individual
owners and users of tuckshops and vending stalls, want the High Court to interdict local authorities and
central government from demolishing any tuckshops and vending stalls.

Local and central government authorities have been demolishing informal traders’ market stalls and
tuckshops across the country after Moyo issued Circular Minute 3 of 2020 addressed to leaders of local
authorities advising them of a recent Cabinet resolution and instructing them to “take advantage of the
national lockdown to clean up and renovate small and medium enterprises and informal traders’
workspaces” and implored them “to make every effort to comply with the resolution”.

In purported compliance with Moyo’s circular, local authorities and their associations by way of random
verbal announcement, supposedly notified owners and users of tuckshops and vending stalls to pull down
their tuckshops and vending stalls or face demolition and immediately commenced destruction of
properties.

The informal traders and residents argued that Moyo’s circular is unlawful as it was not issued in terms
of any provision of the law and that there is no law which requires local authorities to execute Cabinet
resolutions outside the provisions of the applicable laws.

The unlawful instruction, the residents and informal traders charged, appears to have been taken
seriously by some local authorities which commenced demolitions in an apparent compliance with Moyo’s
circular.

Informal traders and residents argued that the demolition of tuckshops and vending stalls by local
authorities amounts to compulsory deprivation of property in violation of the fundamental right to property
enshrined in section 71 of the Constitution to the extent that the affected owners and users of tuckshops
and vending stalls pay fees and levies to local authorities and had not consented to the pulling down of
their properties.

Local authorities, the informal traders and residents said, have been indiscriminately demolishing
tuckshops and vending stalls without any consultation with the affected citizens including those who have
been paying fees and levies to councils. By demanding such fees and rates, local authorities do
acknowledge the legal existence of the affected vending stalls and tuckshops and cannot suddenly deem
them illegal structures, the informal traders charged.

The informal traders and residents said local councils have not complied with section 199(3) of the Urban
Councils Act, which requires proper notice of any proposed demolition of illegal structure to be given to
the owner of such a structure, a provision which provides for an appeal against the notice to be filed with
the Administrative Court within 28 days, during which period no action may be taken on the basis of the
notice until the appeal is either determined or abandoned.

Moyo’s circular, the residents and informal traders charged, is a blatant violation of the lockdown
measures announced by government through Statutory Instrument 83 of 2020 as it necessitates the
congregation of people among them vendors and local authorities’ personnel at the vending stalls and
tuckshop sites to carry out the instructions issued by local councils thus exposing citizens to infection by
the deadly coronavirus.

Furthermore, local authority employees deployed to carry out the illegal demolitions of vending stalls and
tuckshops, the residents and informal traders argued, were doing so in their regular workplace attires
contrary to the instruction in Moyo’s circular and World Health Organisation Guidelines that they ought to
put on personal protective equipment to prevent contracting and spreading coronavirus.

Residents and informal traders noted that the workers conducting the demolitions have not been declared
as essential service employees as required by the law and that the demolition of citizens’ only source of
legitimate livelihood, especially as government is struggling to provide social support to those in need of
it due to resource constraints exacerbated by inability of people to work during the national lockdown,
does not meet the definition of essential service and can wait.

The informal traders said the state, with all its might and resources, can always clear up and renovate
workspaces without violating the fundamental rights of its citizens and moreover, Moyo’s circular did not
mandate local authorities to demolish any structures, but simply requires them to clear and renovate and
hence it is possible for them to rearrange small to medium enterprises’ workspaces without demolitions

Post published in: Featured

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily Trivia Question of the Day feature.

Which justice was responsible for the installation of a frozen yogurt machine in the Supreme Court cafeteria?

Hint: This justice must agree with The Good Place on the matter of fro-yo: “I’ve come to really like frozen yogurt. There’s something so human about taking something and ruining it a little so you can have more of it.”

See the answer on the next page.

For all the deserved guff we give PACER and its archaic nickel and diming (mostly diming), the federal system has always been much easier to navigate thanks to its orderly filing system. State courts can get messy fast. This week, we chat with Nicole Clark, the Founder and CEO of Trellis, who is taking state court documents and turning them into the sort of structured data that can easily yield intel on the wild system of state courts.