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After his arrest for alleged membership in a wide-ranging global insider-trading ring, Goldman Sachs VP Bryan Cohen said there was a perfectly innocent explanation for the $24,000 in cash he’d hidden in a sunglasses case in his apartment, the reason having something to do with Frenchness and cultural hoarding or whatever. And maybe there is a perfectly innocent explanation for it, and maybe that’s it, but Cohen does have one confession to make: There’s no innocent explanation for the aforementioned, no-longer-merely-alleged membership in said insider-trading ring.

With the 2010s wrapping up, Joe and Kathryn focus on all the law firms we’ve lost over the last decade. Industry pressures, bad strategies, and fraud allegations managed to put several former mainstays to rest over the last 10 years. What lessons can we take from the demise of these once-proud firms? Where is this whole profession heading? Will this next recession finish off what 2009 started?

Protecting a company from nation-state actors was likely not an elective for many attorneys now practicing in the field. And lawyers are generally trained to trust subject matter experts so even if cybersecurity had been part of the curriculum, there would still be a sense of overwhelming deference to our counterparts in the security world. But in today’s digital world where cyber threats don’t limit themselves to just one stakeholder, there’s an undeniable need for lawyers to be part of the collaborative drumbeat of cyber vigilance within any organization.

So when the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — a federal agency that was established two years ago to serve as “the Nation’s risk advisor” under the Department of Homeland Security — disseminated guidance this week on how companies should be thinking about the increased risk of nation-state actors attacking U.S. companies in light of heightened conflicts with Iran, lawyers took note.

That a U.S. corporation could face cyber consequences from the United States’ killing of top Revolutionary Guards commander, Major General Qassim Suleimani, is the new normal for corporate counsel given the declaration by the government of Iran and its supreme leader of Iran’s intent to strike back at the U.S.

The threat of cyber attacks against the U.S., its companies, and its critical infrastructure is imminent. Iran has long been an active source of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks which were quelled since 2015 when former President Barack Obama signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Tehran.

A year ago, CISA came out with its user-friendly Cyber Essentials guidance in line with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework, propagated by the Department of Commerce, to help small businesses understand the importance of cybersecurity. That guidance is a jumping off point for cyber readiness within organizations, broken down into six “Essential Elements of a Culture of Cyber Readiness” where organizations “living the culture” demonstrate best practices within those elements. The guidance concludes with list of steps that small businesses can take immediately to increase organizational preparedness against cyber risks. These include backing up data, implementing multifactor authentication, enabling automatic updates, patching, and having experts on standby for help.

Years later, as general counsel of a technology-enabled cyber services and investigations firm, I no longer have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines of debates about what it means to properly protect the organization from security threats. But, quite frankly, none of us lawyers do. Ask any board member — cyber risk is no longer just a problem for the IT department.

Actively Defending Against Cyber Threats

Proactively addressing a company’s security posture means adopting an approach that proactively identifies and solves against known and unknown threats using best-in-class tools and experts. That stance -– call it “Active Defense” — includes advanced threat hunting and attack methodologies, the use of deception technologies to confuse attackers, and elite intelligence collection and analysis techniques. Within companies, there is a growing sense that internal teams can learn from external teams of experts who bring in varied backgrounds and see things differently, as an outsider. The purpose of these so-called purple teams, where an internal blue team is paired with an external red team to identify and shut down weaknesses within an organization’s security stance (whether physical or virtual), is to strengthen the organization against outside threats. Beyond the color spectrum, this recognition of the ever-growing risk presented by sophisticated malicious actors operating unchecked against the private sector is mirrored by the ever-growing opportunities for threat actors who can access advanced exploits more readily than ever before.

The calculation of the proper level of threat protection is specific to the organization. Assume that if you’re a company doing business with the U.S. government or part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, you’re going to need to lodge a stronger defense. Recommendations for shoring up on cyber from CISA include:

• More frequent backups of data and storing backups offline, including backups of information critical to company operations
• Creating and rehearsing an incident response plan
• Implementing multi-factor authentication
• Minimizing account privileges
• Regularly scanning networks and systems
• Automatically patching vulnerabilities
• Monitoring network traffic
• Whitelisting applications so that only approved programs are allowed to run on the network
• Temporarily increasing the frequency of password changes on your system
• Increasing the logging functions on your system to better monitor activity
• Training staff on cybersecurity best practices
• Conducting a cybersecurity risk analysis of the organization

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Jennifer DeTrani is General Counsel and EVP of Nisos, a technology-enabled cybersecurity firm. She co-founded a secure messaging platform, Wickr, where she served as General Counsel for five years. You can connect with Jennifer on Wickr (dtrain), LinkedIn or by email at dtrain@nisos.com.

In what I am choosing to see as a sign of good things to come, Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced yesterday she is cancer free. Thank goodness.

In an interview with CNN published Wednesday, the Notorious one said, “I’m cancer free. That’s good.” Over the summer, the justice shared her worrying diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, which required a three-week course of radiation therapy. In a statement following the treatment , the Supreme Court said the “tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body.” But it’s really nice to hear RBG confirm the positive news all these months later.

This most recent bout of cancer was Justice Ginsburg’s fourth. In 1999 she was treated for colorectal cancer, she had an earlier diagnosis pancreatic cancer in 2009, and she was treated for malignant nodules in her lungs in 2019.  Let’s hope, that like a cat, she has a few more lives left.

2020 is already off to a great start.

In my previous column I reviewed a children’s book written by a lawyer explaining what lawyer moms do at work. So I figured it made perfect sense to follow up with a post about a book written by women lawyers for women lawyers. The book is aptly titled “50 Lessons for Women Lawyers From Women Lawyers.” It was published last year and is edited by Nora Riva Bergman, a lawyer who is a certified practice advisor for lawyers.

The timing couldn’t be better for a book like this. Women have been graduating from law school at rates similar to their male colleagues for more than a decade now, but according to a report issued by the ABA last year, “The 2019 Profile of the Legal Profession,” the percentage of women lawyers who are actively practicing law has remained stagnant for the past three years.

By way of comparison, the number of actively practicing women lawyers in 2009 was 31%. That percentage has only increased slightly since, with the ratio of men to women lawyers at nearly 2:1 in 2019; 64% of lawyers were men, while only 36% are women.

For that reason, whenever I learn that a young woman in my family is interested in becoming a lawyer, I jump onto my soapbox and provide a host of unsolicited advice about practicing law as a woman. I can’t help myself; I want to fully prepare her for the realities of law practice. And, I want her to understand that her vision of what her career path as a lawyer will look like and her definition of success will undoubtedly change over time — and that’s okay.

Or, as I explain in Lesson 6 in this book:

You define success, no one else. It is so important for young attorneys — especially women — to acknowledge and embrace this concept … [Y]ou need to define success for yourself and understand that your concept of success must be flexible, since both time and your frame of reference tend to alter your vision of success as well. If you buy into someone else’s concept of “success,” you are bound to be miserable.

Of course, that advice is offered from my particular perspective based on my experience as a woman attorney; not all women lawyers — or lawyers in general — would necessarily agree with me. But that’s the great thing about this book: it offers 50 different lessons from 50 different women lawyers, all of whom have had diverse career paths that inform their unique perspectives.

For example, in Lesson 2, Heidi Alexander, the deputy director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, provides her take on the value of being flexible and embracing change as you navigate your career path:

Oftentimes, as attorneys, we are forced to put up a facade. We do it to appear confident and serve as the most effective advocate for our clients. This makes it even more difficult for us to let go and embrace change. Sometimes removing that facade … can produce remarkable results … I encourage you to stop and “smell the flowers.” It may lead you to new experiences and opportunities, and even satisfaction in your life and career.

In Lesson 10, Maria-Vittoria “Giugi” Carminati, a women’s advocate, intersectional activist, and blogger offers this astute and succinct piece of advice that all lawyers should follow: “Other lawyers will take as much as they can from you if you let them. Don’t let them; it’s not worth it.”

Anne Kevlin, managing partner for a national insurance defense law firm, tackles gaslighting in the workplace in Lesson 25. She explains why it’s important to be able to recognize it and selectively ignore the message sent by a colleague who uses that manipulative tactic in the workplace:

Especially for women, confidence can be elusive. By focusing on what others think of us, rather than our own sense of right and wrong, good and bad, and what works for the paths we choose for ourselves, we lose our own view of what we bring to the table. Women should instead focus on the successes and achievements we have accomplished in our careers, and the lessons we have learned when things didn’t go according to plan. Trusted superiors, peers, mentors, or friends and family members who do not work with us, may be the best judge of what is fair criticism and what is inappropriate gaslighting.

Mistakes and how to handle them are the focus of Lesson 32. Paula Litt, a partner in the Chicago office of Honigman LLP, explains that, “Mistakes happen, even to the best. Understand them, deal with them, learn from them. And move on.” According to Litt, this is advice that all lawyers should take to heart, but women lawyers in particular need to master this lesson, since we’re seen as “interlopers in a man’s world … [and] cannot allow our mistakes and how we handle them to feed the narrative.”

Last, but not least, in Lesson 48, Jeanine Williams, a chief assistant attorney for the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, implores women lawyers to learn to say no. Otherwise you end up agreeing to partake in activities that interfere with your life goals. So she suggests that you take time to prioritize your goals, and then start declining to participate in anything that diverts you from your goals:

If you need to start small, do so. Say “no” when someone tries to sell something to you. Work your way up to saying “no” to small favors. Then, it’s time to take it up to the big asks. You’re not saying “no” to the person, you’re saying “no” to the question. More importantly, you’re saying “yes” to something you value more.

And that’s just a taste of the insightful and useful advice that you’ll find in this book. There’s lots more where that came from. So what are you waiting for? Grab a copy for yourself today or give a copy to the woman lawyer (or future lawyer) in your life. You  won’t regret it.

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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and Director of Business and Community Relations at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

* Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced yesterday in a new interview that she is cancer free. [USA Today]

* Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers have asked the judge overseeing his criminal case to recuse himself over comments the judge made about Weinstein texting in court. [NBC News]

* Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, has announced his post-Justice Department plans. [Washington Post]

* Jennifer Lopez’s Hustlers character is suing the movie’s production company for defamation and other causes of action. [Hollywood Reporter]

* An attorney has been arrested for allegedly obstructing justice for the benefit of his son. [Daily Herald]

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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.

Zimbabwe’s economy is likely to shrink by 13% in 2020, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has predicted, as the southern African country faces a third consecutive year of drought.

Agriculture is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy but poor rains in the past two years, as well as forecasts of another drought in 2020, have left the country with little hope of economic revival this year.

The prediction will further compound Zimbabwe’s woes. The country is facing severe cash, fuel, medicine and power shortages.

The UK-based EIU, which analyses financial markets and country risk profiles, said Zimbabwe will be among its worst performers in 2020. The southern African state will be second last and Venezuela, whose economy is expected to contract by 20, 5%, at the bottom.

Last week, the World Food Programme (WFP) listed Zimbabwe among the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that will dominate global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020.

As a result of 2019’s drought Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped government will spend more money importing food this year, piling greater misery on its battered  economy.

The WFP listed Zimbabwe among the 15 global hotspots that face hunger in 2020, while the country has also been grouped among three other crisis-ridden nations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Escalating hunger needs in Sub-Saharan Africa dominate a World Food Programme analysis of global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020 with millions of people requiring life-saving food assistance in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region in the coming months,” WFP executive director David Beasley said last week.

Beasley said the effects of Zimbabwe’s drought will be exacerbated by the ailing economy, which faced its worst meltdown in a decade last year.

“The WFP report notes that amid an imploding economy, the situation in Zimbabwe is increasingly precarious as the country enters the peak of its ‘lean season’ when food is at its most scarce and the number of hungry people has reached its highest point in a decade. The WFP is planning assistance for more than 4-million people in Zimbabwe as concerns grow that the impact of a regional drought could drag yet more countries down in the first months of the year,” he said.

The bodies of the two rangers were taken to the capital, Harare, for examinations, said Tinashe Farawo, spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority on Tuesday.

In an earlier tweet, Farawo said one of the park rangers “had multiple stab wounds and had hands tied behind the back.”

The two rangers had arrested four Zambian men for poaching and on Dec. 31 were transporting them by boat to Kariba town to be charged and jailed. But the four suspects overpowered the rangers and threw them into Lake Kariba, said Farawo. The rangers’ bodies were discovered after a week-long search.

Authorities are searching for the suspected poachers, he said.

The rangers had caught the poachers in Matusadona National Park, home to lions, leopards, elephants and hyena on the shores of Lake Kariba, one of the world’s largest man-made lakes. The park is popular with tourists who go on walking safaris and boating on the lake.

The rangers had detained the poachers overnight before attempting to take them by boat to Kariba town.

Although the parks agency has recorded “a significant decrease” in poaching in the wildlife rich southern African country, cases of armed contact between poachers and rangers have been on the rise in the Kariba area, where Zimbabwe borders Zambia to the north, said Farawo. The two countries share the lake as well as the magnificent Victoria Falls along the Zambezi River.

Post published in: Featured