Category: News Feeds

Did you think that maybe, with reports that we are apparently at the peak of COVID-10 cases, that we should be (slowly) returning to normal soon? Well, I believed in Santa Claus until 5th grade so, who am I to judge wishful thinking?

In any event, the COVID-19 austerity measures are still going strong in Biglaw. The latest firm we have intel on is Brown Rudnick, ranked 141 is the most recent Am Law 200 rankings. We’ve heard from multiple tipsters that there were “deep cuts” and that associate furloughs have been going on there, but as a tipster noted, “these have all been stealth and there is a lot of confusion about who is out. It is being touted as merciful.” Another tipster noted that the confusion extended beyond the furloughs:

“Now this morning they announced furloughs of employees (although it’s unclear who exactly has been furloughed, I know of several associates who have been furloughed). And they are cutting pay for all attorneys by at least 10%, although exact amounts are unknown.”

Other associates have placed the amount of the salary cuts at 25 percent through August. When we reached out to the firm, they clarified that the pay reduction for associates is 7.5 percent on an annualized basis (which, I’m no math whiz, sounds a lot like a 25 percent cut for only a few months of the year). Associates also report a delay on their 2019 bonuses which were supposed to be paid (in full) in March:

Unfortunately, our bonuses are paid in March because we are on a fiscal year ending in Feb., which coincided with the lockdowns. They delayed the bonus process and will be paying 1/3 this month with the remainder some time later this year (or early next). All the associates think the remaining 2/3 won’t happen or that they will just condense it into next year’s bonus and eliminate the 2020 “fiscal” year.

Let’s hope associates see the remainder of the 2019 bonuses as soon as possible.

Partners are also seeing a cut in their draws, though the firm will not comment on specific figures for equity draws.

When reached for comment, firm Chairman and CEO Bill Baldiga had this to say:

“The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has impacted law firms like many other businesses. Brown Rudnick has taken expense management steps during these uncertain times. The firm is dedicated to its lawyers and staff and has implemented a proactive plan to provide solid financial standing for the firm that does not involve layoffs. The firm continues to operate uninterrupted for our clients, and we hope the global work disruption will be a short term impact.  We have positioned the firm’s diverse practices for future success.”

Good luck to the firm as it tries to weather the COVID-19 storm.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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).

Apparently GWU Law’s Jonathan Turley understands international cuisine about as well as he understands the Constitution. The longtime legal analyst — most famous for testifying in favor of impeaching Bill Clinton and against impeaching Donald Trump for complex and nuanced constitutional arguments steeped in his detailed understanding of what might get him media coverage at the time — has tried his hand at amateur restaurant critic!

And guess what? He sucks!

Tossing around ill-informed thoughts on food may not have the calamitous heft as when Richard Epstein play-acting at amateur epidemiology or Adrian Vermeule taking a whirl as ersatz Machiavelli, it is actually really awful when you take a few seconds to think about it.

While it’s fun to think that Jonathan Turley is culinarily cloistered by his own delightfully passive racism, that’s probably a lie. It’s highly unlikely that Turley’s never seen Indian food (and let’s be fair, Tikka Masala is already not real Indian food, but I digress). It’s even more unlikely that an attorney who fancies himself an intellectual would see something that confuses him and choose to publicly display his ignorance rather than invest 10 seconds into doing research.

No, this isn’t about food, this is about the cable news economy and performative white nationalism is the coin of the realm, my friends. Turley’s so thirsty for more screen time as the vaguely liberal-ish person who defends Donald Trump — a job he’s thoroughly lost to Alan Dershowitz, by the way — that he’s offering a song and dance about how he’s uncomfortable with all these ethnic names taking over “our” food in the hope Tucker Carlson will offer him his fix in the form of a superficial 5-minute spot that will be all but forgotten as soon as it airs.

That’s just what you’ve got to do if you want airtime these days. It’s not news, it’s an opiate. Hold the audience’s hand and tell them you’re an ostensibly smart person and you also don’t understand why Indian restaurants can’t call it “Creamy Tomato Chicken” like “normal” people talk. Say this stuff enough, and you might even get a paid deal with Fox!

And worst of all, Turley is probably going to get away with it because everyone piling on his Tweet will be dismissed as “liberal tears” and Turley will be welcomed back. He’s made the play that works for his bottom line and that’s apparently playing to the crowd that gets more lathered up by food names than public health expenditures. He’ll just be over here basking in his fame, 5 basic cable minutes at a time.

This is just a reminder that it’s perfectly fine to hate both the player and the game.

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 short answer is that there is no definitive answer yet. Universities and law schools aren’t ready to make a decision because the pandemic is so fluid and there is so much uncertainty, nor do they have to yet. But the question is being discussed on a daily basis, and we have spent a good deal of time speaking with college presidents, provosts, and deans and trying our best to get the most recent and trust-worthy epidemiological modeling and medical community input.

This podcast condenses those two perspectives — that of higher education and that of the medical community — into a prediction for the fall. Our prediction, based on speculation, and which we are going to devote continuous attention to over the next several months, is that it is likely many colleges and universities will not have on-campus classes this fall. This is particularly true for those schools that are able to take a semester or even year-long financial hit. We allude to Bill Gates’s work that states this may be the once-in-100-years pathogen we have not been prepared for, and the infection rate of the virus plays into this prediction. Certainly there is a broad continuum where you could see some colleges entirely online, some with a hybrid online/on-campus model, and potentially some that are fully open.

What about law schools, the area our firm has the most expertise in? The dynamics are a little bit different here because law schools generally don’t have, or don’t have to have, student housing. Their student bodies are considerably smaller (there are roughly 112,000 total law school students in the country vs. 22 million college students), and thus with testing improvements and availability you could see law schools having a model where all faculty and students are tested, and those who test negative can be in the classroom, which would also be webcasted or recorded for those who can’t be in the classroom for a variety of reasons.

In fact, we think some law schools will open and some will remain closed. They may start up, even independent of central university openings, or they may ride out a semester of online-only courses. Some may do the model described above — and some may open fully with a hand on the button to shutter immediately if the spike comes back from the virus.

Pictured below the podcast is the model from Dr. David Sinclair Ph.D. we have been looking at, along with much of his other work, in formulating some of these speculations As the summer progresses this will become less speculative, and we will provide updates at any juncture we learn new information.

Listen to the full podcast here:

(Graph via Dr. David Sinclair Ph.D.)

Mike Spivey is the founder of The Spivey Consulting Group and has been featured as an expert on law schools and law school admissions in many national media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, the ABA Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News & World Report, CNN/Fortune, and Law. Prior to founding Spivey Consulting, Mike was a senior level administrator at Vanderbilt, Washington University, and Colorado law schools. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram or connect with him LinkedIn. 

Greetings, dear readers. It’s David Lat, founding editor and current columnist here at Above the Law. I hope you are all weathering the current storm well.

There’s so much news to discuss within the legal world, especially in terms of how various sectors of our community — including law firms, law schools, and courts — are dealing with the coronavirus crisis, as well as its associated economic fallout. But I will invoke my privileges as “editor emeritus” and talk about … me, if that’s okay.

As some of you might have seen — in this story by Kathryn Rubino, this column by Steven Chung, or on social media (if you follow me at @DavidLat) — I have spent much of the past month or so battling coronavirus. And it has been quite the battle.

It all began around the weekend of March 7-8. I felt a bit out of sorts, intensely fatigued. But at that point in time there weren’t even 50 confirmed cases in New York City (a city with a population over 8 million), making the idea that I could have coronavirus seem far-fetched.

By the following weekend, March 14-15, my symptoms had worsened to include fever, chills, and most disturbingly of all, difficulty breathing. And the number of cases had increased, making me think that perhaps I did have COVID-19.

I went to the emergency room at NYU Langone Health on Sunday, March 15, in the hope of getting a coronavirus test, but the stories are true: it’s very difficult to get tested. I was told that due to the limited number of testing kids and CDC guidelines, I could not get tested for COVID-19.

I was given a cold/flu test that day to see if my symptoms could be a result of a common strain already out there, as opposed to the novel coronavirus. Having a negative cold/flu test is, along with having traveled to certain countries or interacted with a known carrier, another path to getting tested. My cold/flu test came back negative, meaning that my symptoms were caused by something else (cough cough, coronavirus) — but I was nevertheless told to go home and return tomorrow to be tested for COVID-19.

My symptoms worsened overnight. By the time I returned to the ER the next day, Monday, March 16, I could barely walk or even stand. I remember needing to support myself on the counter as they conducted patient intake. I was admitted to the ER, given emergency oxygen, and (finally) given a coronavirus test — which came back positive in short order.

I’m writing a longer essay about by COVID-19 experience (which I’ll post on my Twitter feed once it’s published), so I’ll offer an abbreviated version here. I spent the next 17 days in the hospital — including almost a week in the intensive care unit, hooked up to a ventilator. Early research suggests that the majority of coronavirus patients who get put on ventilators don’t survive, but I was one of the lucky ones; I made it. After getting off the ventilator, I spent another week or so in the hospital, getting supplemental oxygen and learning how to breathe again. I was discharged on April 1 — April Fools’ Day — but my COVID-19 struggle was no joke.

(For more on my coronavirus battle, see this segment from yesterday’s Today Show, when my husband and I spoke with Savannah Guthrie — my fellow lawyer turned journalist and Zach’s fellow Georgetown Law grad — about what we went through.)

So how does this relate to Above the Law? Over the past few weeks, as I have fought my very public battle with coronavirus — which I have discussed openly with both traditional media and over social media — I have been overwhelmed by an incredible amount of support. I’m guessing that thousands of people were praying for, thinking of, or otherwise pulling for me — and a sizable portion of those people have been members of the ATL community. I can’t count the number of supportive calls, texts, emails, tweets, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, and LinkedIn messages that I have received during my difficulties from ATL readers, sources, sponsors, and supporters.

At its heart, Above the Law has always been about community. And when we go through difficult experiences — such as the Great Recession, which ATL covered in great detail, and our current crisis, which ATL now chronicles — community becomes more important than ever.

My struggle has been difficult. And it’s far from over; I’m still very weak, with a lot of recovery ahead of me. I have a residual cough, my voice remains very hoarse (from the ventilator), and I get winded from walking across a room or up a flight of stairs.

But I do think, knock on wood, that the worst is behind me. And from the comfort of a couch in my parents’ house, where I’ll be spending the next few weeks of my recovery, I’d just like to say to the Above the Law community: thank you.

I don’t know that my family and I would have made it through this ordeal without your support. And I will always, always be grateful.

Earlier:

David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.

• Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP)
• Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
• Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
• Counselling Services Unit (CSU)

7.0       Court Update
The Right to Water

1. The High Court in Harare issued a provisional order, in favour of the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) ordering the City of Harare to provide safe constant and adequate water to residents during the period of lockdown and/or its extension. under case number HC2156/2020.The residents were claiming violations of their constitutional rights to water, health care, to life.Also, they argued that for them to fully comply with government COVID 19 regulations, measures must urgently be put in place for them to access water in their homes or at some points to enable them to practice personal hygiene and curb the spread of coronavirus.

   The City of Harare was ordered to present to the Court within 24 hours a maintenance schedule for all dysfunctional boreholes within the 46 wards of the City of Harare and to provide enforcement officers to protect the communal water points to ensure that people accessing water adhere to the social distancing guidelines.
   The Minister of Local Government, the Minister of Health and Child Welfare were ordered to play an oversight role over the implementation of the order.

   The High Court also ordered the Minister of Finance to ensure that the City of Harare has adequate resources to implement the order.

   1. Following this court judgment, the High Courts in Masvingo. Mutare Bulawayo and Harare have also been seized with similar applications from residents in Masvingo, Mutare, Hwange and Chitungwiza respectively.  The residents are represented by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.  Again today, the High Court granted to order requested by the Chitungwiza Residents Trust against the Chitungwiza Municipality, the Minister of Local Government, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance under Case No. HC2158/2020

   These are welcome and landmark judgments, which positively confirm the rights to water health and food for citizens as provided for in the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013.   The Forum urges the responsible tiers of government to respect the rule of law and implement these court orders urgently to provide safe, clean and adequate water, not only in this period of the COVID 19 lockdown but also beyond the lockdown.

    8.0 Conclusion
   The Forum continues to call upon the citizens of Zimbabwe:

   • to take heed of the importance of social distancing as a measure to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

   The Forum also calls on the government:

   • To, in the wake of the judgments from the High Court, immediately provide all the necessary and adequate resources to ensure that the citizens of Zimbabwe can exercise their rights to water, food and health care to effectively deal with the threat of COVID-19.
   • To publicly denounce the excessive use of force and beatings by the police, and insist on methods of law enforcement that conform to the Constitution and international law.
   • To properly equip and resource law enforcement officers with proper protective clothing so that they can effectively implement the national lockdown.
   • To avail resources to support  the vulnerable households with access to safe, clean and portable water and food.
   • To ensure the protection  of arrested persons by taking note of prescribed social distance measures during transportation and detention.

Post published in: Featured

People leave a vegetable wholesaler after buying their fresh produce under the watch of a joint military and police patrol in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe – Off the open-air market in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, armed soldiers and police controlled a modest queue of vegetable traders, scuttling people away as soon as they make their purchase.

On a normal day, the marketplace would be a bustling hive of activity. But on Monday, as Zimbabwe entered its second week of a 21-day lockdown aimed at mitigating the spread of the new coronavirus, activity was sharply reduced.

Standing near a neglected mass of open-air empty stalls covered in black sheeting is Mary Gumbo. The 69-year-old usually sells tomatoes here, but now she has to bundle her wares for resale in her neighbourhood. She complains the tight security and transport controls have reduced her earnings.

“I had to get off the bus and walk to get into town because I didn’t have a letter to explain why I was coming to the market. I’ve bought a crate to resell at home, but I need to quickly search for a box and get out of here before the police come back and take my things,” Gumbo said.

“They’ve already told me to leave,” she added, before trying to negotiate with a two-wheeled cart driver to reduce the fare to carry her goods.

But with no loitering allowed, Gumbo did not have much time.

Police arrest a man for loitering at the market in Bulawayo [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

According to police records, nearly 2,000 people were arrested during the first week for defying lockdown laws across Zimbabwe. Scores of people have been rounded up and crammed into police trucks to be held at Bulawayo’s central police station.

Since President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday appealed to the security services to “ensure [the] pathway of food supply” and for agricultural trade to continue “undisturbed”, trading controls have slightly eased.

However, the increased security measures to ensure the public comply with lockdown laws risks stoking tensions between the police and an urban populace already buckling under the weight of Zimbabwe’s complex and long-standing economic problems.

And some struggling vendors like 38-year-old Precious Mutasa who survive on their day-to-day earnings, it is uncertain whether Zimbabweans can maintain the lockdown for another two weeks with limited financial means, prolonged water rationing and food shortages.

Police round-up people for being unable to explain why they don’t have written permits to be in the city centre during Zimbabwe’s COVID-19 lockdown [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

Meanwhile, human rights groups say they fear police are abusing their mandate to make people stay at home as they scale up operations across the country.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), an NGO, said they have received individual complaints alleging police harassment, while videos circulating on social media show security forces in various cities assaulting civilians and disposing of fresh food produce.

Roselyn Hanzi, executive director of ZLHR, said the NGO has issued a letter to the police expressing concern about their conduct during the 21-day lockdown.

“The constitution is very clear that some rights must be limited during this time that the government is undertaking an emergency public health measure,” she told Al Jazeera.

“However, some rights are not limited no matter the circumstance, police cannot subject people to cruel and degrading treatment or torture and they must respect the right to life.”

Paul Nyathi, assistant police commissioner, denied that the police are in breach of human rights laws and urged the public to cooperate with law enforcement officers.

“We are saying people should just comply, there is no need for people to play with their health. There is no need for the people to disregard measures that have been put by the government so that the nation will be able to contain COVID-19,” Nyathi said, referring to the highly infectious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Businesspeople and government officials look at a sample bed for Ekusileni Hospital, an unused private medical facility in Bulawayo that is set to be turned into a COVID-19 testing and treatment centre [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

While municipal workers continue to clean up Zimbabwe’s empty cities and the first steps towards mass disinfection of public areas and busses take place in the capital, Harare, questions still loom over the country’s preparedness for a full-blown COVID-19 outbreak.

So far, Zimbabwe has registered nine cases and one death. Some medics complain of the lack of preparedness and accuse the government of underplaying the numbers of those infected, a charge the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare strongly denies.

However, Health Minister Obadiah Moyo has said the discovery of faulty test kits has slowed down the testing process.

“We received some kits which we are not using because we found that they were defective. We are therefore waiting to receive definitive testing kits because some of the rapid results testing kits we have give defective results,” he told the Daily News.

Currently, the blood samples of those showing symptoms associated with COVID-19 are sent to Harare.

In the event of a confirmed case requiring hospitalisation anywhere outside of the capital, a patient will have to be transferred there for treatment, according to July Moyo, the minister of local government and public works.

Hospitals in other cities identified as potential treatment centres are still being equipped and undergoing major renovations.

Freelance journalist Panashe Makufa “was beaten up by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police” in Harare’s Kuwadzana township “while undertaking his professional duties,” the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe office said.

Makufa told the media rights watchdog he was taking pictures Sunday of police as they dispersed people to enforce a stay-at-home order.

“Four police officers ordered Makufa to get into their truck where he was assaulted by two officers and forced to delete his pictures before he was dropped off,” MISA said in a statement.

‘No formal report’

Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said they had received no formal report about the incident.

“We don’t condone the assault of people going about the legitimate work but we have had incidents of people who commit offences and then say they were arrested while performing their duties,” he told AFP.

“We are appealing to the journalist Makufa to come and make a formal report if indeed such an incident happened,” he said.

Makufa’s assault came after the arrest last week of two other journalists in separate incidents.

Police briefly detained freelance reporter Kudzanai Musengi in the central city of Gweru accusing him of working with an expired accreditation card, according to MISA.

In another case, the police arrested Voice of America (VOA) correspondent Nunurai Jena and charged him with disorderly conduct after he took pictures of police at a roadblock, the media watchdog said.

He appeared before a magistrate’s court and was released on bail.

Zimbabwe began a three-week total lockdown a week ago.

The southern African country says it has so far recorded nine Covid-19 cases, including one fatality.

Post published in: Featured