Category: News Feeds

Amid a growing economic disaster, Zimbabweans face steep hikes in cellphone rates and fuel prices this week.

The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) on Tuesday announced a 12% increase in the price of petrol from Z$14.97 to Z$16.75 (R15.57 using Tuesday’s exchange rate of Z$1: R0.932), while that of diesel increased from Z$15.64 to Z$17.47 (R16.24).

According to the statement issued by ZERA, the fuel price increase was driven by the weakening of the Zimbabwean dollar against the US dollar, which is used to pay for fuel imports.

The exchange rate used stood at Z$15.57 per US$1, weakening from an exchange rate of Z$13 per US$1.

Meanwhile, the telecoms regulator, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), approved a 95% increase in mobile tariffs across the board.

The increase comes after the regulator approved a further increase of 182% as recently as August 2019.

Justifying the increase, Potraz said the current tariff threshold set in August 2019 has been rendered “unsustainable as the operating environment has further deteriorated due to inflationary pressures”.

“Accordingly, the Authority has found it necessary to review tariff thresholds for telecommunication services by up to 95.39% based on the Telecommunication Price Index (TPI) that was computed in consultation with all operators.

“In view of the foregoing, and guided by the Act, all public switched and mobile operators may adjust their tariffs in line with the above thresholds for approval by the Authority,” reads Protraz’s statement.

The latest adjustment will see on-net calls per minute cost 96 cents (Zimbabwean dollars) or 89.28 South African cents, up from 48 cents (Z$) or 44.64 cents (SA).

The new price and tariff increases come at a time when the country’s statistics agency (Zimstat) said the total consumption poverty line for an average of five persons per household stood at $2 192.00 (R2 038) in September 2019.

The poverty datum line represents the cost of a given standard of living that must be attained if a person is deemed not to be poor.

The lowest paid government worker in Zimbabwe earns $1030 (about R958).

Post published in: Business

Listen, it takes a lot to be the most self-important of all the lawyers. After all, we are a group that thinks pretty highly of ourselves. But sometimes an attorney makes a move that launches them into the stratosphere of lawyers with noteworthy egos. Like this email signature.

I know what you’re thinking. An email signature hardly seems like the venue for such a move, but trust— you haven’t seen an email signature like this before. Lane Jefferies of the Anastopoulo Law Firm in Charleston, South Carolina is getting dragged on Fits News for his pretentious email signature. The post script has extensive instructions — in two parts — detailing the “proper” way to get a hold of the lawyer who is apparently too damn busy to just read his emails like the rest of us proles. And he’s gaining quite the reputation over it, though it may not be the one he was hoping for:

Specifically, Jefferies is becoming something of a legend for having “the most unprofessional, insufferable, self-important, insolent, asshole electronic signature I have seen in my twenty years as a member of the bar,” one attorney told us.

So, what exactly does he say? Well hold on, it’s a doozy:

(1) Call my cell any day between 4:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. If I am not already on the phone with another opposing counsel, I will answer and spend up to five minutes on the phone with you. At the end of our five-minute talk, I may instruct my staff to schedule a longer meeting with you if you satisfy the criteria set forth in #2 below. Please note that I spend just five minutes on each call, so if I don’t answer when you call, wait a few minutes and try again. My cell is XXX-XXXX. Call only between 4:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. as I spend the rest of my day focused solely on achieving my clients’ goals.

But wait! There’s more! You have to check out condition #2 that his email signature sets out:

“Begin by providing my office with a specific agenda of items you would like to discuss,” he wrote. “Be sure to identify the tangible outcomes to be achieved as to each item, and persuasively describe how these outcomes, if achieved, would promote the greatest recovery for my client in the least amount of time and for the least expense.”
….

“If your email persuades my staff that using my time to meet with you is legally required or is likely to be a worthy investment from the perspective of my client, then they will schedule a meeting (probably a meeting by phone initially),” the message continued.

….

“On the other hand, if you do not persuade my staff that scheduling a meeting is consistent with my promise to my clients not to try to do 1000 things at once that won’t contribute much, if anything, to the results we are trying to achieve, then no meeting will be scheduled (though you remain free to call any afternoon as described in #1 above),” the message continued. “Fair warning: generalized requests to ‘discuss the case’ or ‘talk about the status’ or the like will be considered conclusive evidence of a request to waste time, and no meeting will be scheduled.”

Jefferies concluded his missive by noting that his staff has “instituted the above procedure in order to accommodate your desire to speak with me by phone in a manner that does not interfere with my ethical obligation to to (sic) devote my time and attention to the pursuit of justice for my clients as quickly and economically as possible.”

Let’s be real here — this isn’t about his “pursuit of justice” it’s about feeling self-important and forcing your adversaries to jump through hoops to get your attention. (Also, side, note… 5 minutes?? Not even a full .1? This guy couldn’t make it more obvious he’s a plaintiffs’ lawyer if he tried.) It’s a naked power move, and it’s horse hockey. I’ve got news for Jefferies, you aren’t more important than other lawyers. Stop acting like you are.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

One of my favorite quotes from the late, great, Christopher Hitchens comes from his proactive, and edifying book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything: “Nothing optional—from homosexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.” Of course, Hitchens was directing this comment at hypercritical evangelicals who rant against homosexuality or adultery, but, as it so often later turns out were privately engaging in homosexual acts, or were adulterer’s themselves the whole time. However, Hitchens’s notion is also applicable to MAGA world’s claimed aversion to socialism.

Take, for example, former President George W. Bush’s $700 billion financial bailout of the big banks. To be sure, the United States government has long been, from the very beginning in fact, in the partial ownership of banks game. However, such policies of government ownership of private business (even if private executives within the corporation are still calling the shots) are supposed to be everything modern Republicans hated, until they weren’t. When Barack Obama became president, a claimed hatred of socialist policies within the National Republican Party “suddenly” came back. Indeed, during the Obama years, denouncing socialism quickly turned into something more akin to fanaticism.

The current president latched onto that fanaticism with glee during his campaign. In fact, this president has made his claimed opposition to socialism a key distinguishing feature between him and the liberals (otherwise known as American citizens) he and his supporters hate so much. Yet, when you examine this president’s record, what you find is that he is arguably the most socialist president of the modern era. And by “socialist,” I simply mean a politician who values raising taxes, increasing government spending (including billions upon billions of socialist “handouts” to favored industries), all while possessing an aversion to private property rights based on some vague appeal to the greater good.

Let us begin by examining this president’s record on taxes. I have engaged with many MAGA folks in the last few years (some of whom are in my immediate family), and they constantly tout the president’s tax bill as his greatest achievement. First, I would submit the president played no part in the tax bill other than signing it; the bill itself reflects Paul Ryan’s efforts more than anyone else’s. Furthermore, even if I conceded the contested notion that most Americans received a tax break from the bill (I personally had to pay more), it is simply undeniable that when taken together, the president’s tariffs are negating the tax breaks. In fact, the tariffs are amounting to the largest tax increase of the post-World War II era. In other words, like other Democratic Socialists, this president views massive tax increases as good policy.

In response to the economic destruction reaped by said tax increases, the president’s solution comes right out of the socialist handbook: Government handouts to favored industry to the tune of $28 billion. Such handouts by this president more than double the 2009 auto bailout tea partiers hated so much, but suddenly do not care about now. Say whatever you want about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or AOC and their proposed plans for free college, free healthcare, etc. — they remain principally no different from this president’s $28 billion socialist handout.

Finally, let us examine the most notable principle of a socialist, in my opinion at least: A disregard for private property rights. Because when it comes this issue, this president stands alone. In fact, if this president had his way, the government would immediately seize an absurd amount of private land. The justification for such a land seize is again, directly out of the socialist playbook, in the form of vague appeals to public safety and the general public good. Appeals that — it is worth emphasizing — can be conclusively proven to be false. Moreover, this administration has reinstituted the grotesque asset forfeiture policy of adoption, in order to circumvent state laws and seize private property without ever having to prove a crime has been committed. I suspect it will surprise few to learn that asset forfeiture disproportionality targets minorities for abuse. Which brings me to the reason of why MAGA supports all of this stuff.

The reason MAGA supports the socialist policies of this president was identified by Radley Balko almost a year ago in his piece discussing why Jefferson Beauregard Sessions put up with so much insult and abuse, yet never wavered in his support for this president. For all his many faults, this president remains committed to the agenda of his supporters like Sessions who want nothing more than to increase “discrimination, constitutional neglect, and nationalism.” In other words, no matter how far down the path of socialism this president goes, as long as he demonstrates a continual hatred and fear of immigrants, supports policies that disproportionately negatively impact minorities and the LGBTQ community, and supports theocracy, you won’t ever see MAGA world complaining.

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Tyler Broker’s work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Albany Law Review, and is forthcoming in the University of Memphis Law Review. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter to discuss his column.

“We were at the balcony of the ZCTU offices when the police started manhandling the [ZCTU] President [Peter Mutasa]. I thought it would be a good idea for us all to either sit down or follow the president to the police vehicle.

“That was when one of the police officers dragged me outside and began hitting me with a baton all over my body. He then bundled me into the police vehicle, together with President Mutasa and others,” he says, narrating his ordeal to Equal Times. “They beat us all the way to the police station, where we spent the night before appearing in court the following day,” he adds.

Chirowamari and six others arrested on that day were charged with bigotry (words or deeds that can result in a crime against public order) although the charges were later withdrawn.

And just last month, the acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, Dr Peter Magombeyi, made international headlines after he was abducted from his home in Harare by suspected state security agents for organising a strike by government doctors to demand better salaries.

Magombeyi was discovered four days later after being dumped in the bush 40 kilometres west of Harare. Allegedly tortured and poisoned by his captors, he underwent medical treatment in South Africa.

Worsening climate of fear

The stories of Chirowamari and Magombeyi are shared by hundreds of other trade unionists, opposition politicians and human rights activists whose right to freely assemble and associate is being trampled on by the Zanu-PF government, currently headed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

While Zimbabwe has ratified a number of international laws, including the International Labour Organization’s Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (No. 98) and the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87), the country lags dangerously behind in terms of implementation.

The repression of trade unionists has been a permanent scar on Zimbabwe’s political landscape since the early 1990s, but ever since President Mnangagwa took over from the late President Robert Mugabe in 2017, many say the climate of fear has worsened.

According to the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, at least 18 people have been killed in demonstrations since Mnangagwa took power. Meanwhile hundreds of trade unionists and campaigners continue to be harassed, arrested, raped and abducted for peacefully gathering to express their frustration at living in a country with the second highest inflation rate in the world after Venezuela (161.8 per cent according to the IMF, although some economists have talked about an inflation rate of 570 per cent). Zimbabwe is also a country where unemployment levels and the cost of living continue to soar beyond all reasonable proportions, even by the minute, and where those who have jobs are rarely paid enough to survive – if they are paid at all.

ZCTU leaders President Peter Mutasa and Secretary General Japhet Moyo are currently on trial for “attempting to overthrow a constitutionally elected government or alternatively inciting violence” as a result of organising a six-day work ‘stay away’ in January 2019 against inflation, rising fuel costs and shortages of daily food essentials. Mutasa, Moyo, other members of the ZCTU leadership and their families have faced harassment and death threats in recent weeks. The court case has been postponed until 20 November and Moyo and Mutasa are facing a 20-year jail term if convicted. Twenty other trade unionists in the eastern border town of Mutare are also on trial (for bigotry) for engaging in a demonstration.

In February this year, Kwasi Adu Amankwah, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) regional body ITUC-Africa was detained for several hours while visiting Zimbabwe on a solidarity mission with the ZCTU.

“A toxic environment”

In September, thanks in part to lobbying from the international trade union movement, the Zimbabwe government invited the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, to assess the situation in the country – the first such visit to Zimbabwe by an expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

During his 10-day mission, Voule met with the ZCTU leadership, opposition political party leaders, community and civil society leaders, chiefs, the judiciary, the UN’s country team and a number of government ministers (though, notably, not the Minister of Labour, Sekai Nzenza).

Although a final report from the Togolese human rights expert will be presented at the Human Rights Council meeting in June 2020, he told members of the press at the end of mission: “Due to the current economic situation the country is facing, mass striking appears to be taking place regularly in the country. However, reactions by the authorities do not appear to be in line with their constitution and international commitments.”

Voule said he had heard “extremely disturbing reports of excessive, disproportionate and lethal use of force against protesters, through the use of tear gas, batons and live ammunition” and how trade union leaders had spoken of the “toxic environment of constant retaliation and fear” currently facing labour activists.

Although the draconian Public Order and Security Act of 2002 – which gives police the power to restrict marches, demonstrations and protests actions – will soon be replaced by the Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill, Voule said the latter still falls short of protecting the rights of citizens to peacefully assemble as it continues to “give law enforcement agencies broad regulatory discretion and powers”.

During his visit, Voule went to Hwange in north-west Zimbabwe to meet with the female relatives of workers at the Hwange Colliery who have not been paid in full since 2013. Until last year, the women had been peacefully camping on the mine premises in protest over US$4.6 million in unpaid salaries on behalf of their husbands, fathers and brothers, who were unable to strike for fear of dismissal. The company took the women to court on civil and criminal charges for trespassing, and some of the protesters received death threats. Voule described the Hwange case as demonstrating the “the role that non-state actors also play in creating an environment of fear” in Zimbabwe.

Government “desperate for re-engagement”

Voule also expressed concern at the slow pace in which much-needed labour law reforms are taking place. Zimbabwe’s unions urgently want public sector workers to enjoy the same rights to collectively bargain and strike as workers in the private sector. Amongst other measures, unions are also calling for an end to the casualisation of labour, an end to the late and non-payment of wages, the introduction of minimum redundancy packages and end to the victimisation of workers’ representatives.

The special rapporteur called on the government to create an enabling environment for civil society, protect the rights of citizens to organise and assemble, and withdraw all criminal charges against trade unionists. But Moyo tells Equal Times that he sceptical that Zanu-PF are prepared to make the radical changes necessary to improve the situation for Zimbabwe’s people.

“We still do not believe that the government is honest in its dealings with the United Nations. They are just desperate for [international economic] re-engagement with Zimbabwe but they have not displayed any real willingness to reform,” says Moyo. “The government does not need the special rapporteur to motivate reforms; it needs the political will to do things differently.”

Mnangagwa has been trying to restore ties with the United States and the European Union since he came to power in November 2017, and although his ‘open for business’ mantra was meant to attract foreign capital to the country, investors have largely stayed away. Meanwhile, the government is unable to borrow from international lenders due to an outstanding external debt of US$9 billion.

On Voule’s recommendation for the government to the drop charges against trade union leaders, Moyo says that the International Labour Conference had made a similar demand in June but that in response, unions have faced nothing but escalating violence and threats against their families. ‘The government has failed to protect its citizens and has become an accomplice to rogue elements that are freely tormenting those perceived to oppose the government policies,” says Moyo.

Post published in: Featured

Less than two months ago, Paul Singer let AT&T know all of the ways he thought it sucked: It sucked in the boardroom, where it really should have the CEO and chairman roles separated, and also a few Eliott Management representatives. It sucked in terms of strategy, and should both stop buying giant things, and un-buy several of the giant things it had already bought, like DirecTV, for instance. And, thanks in part to those things and other smaller areas of suckage, it sucked in the market, where it was trading for roughly half what it should be.

Zimbabwe’s government is banking on a platinum-mining boom to help revive its collapsing economy. The world’s biggest platinum companies say it isn’t going to happen.

Since Emmerson Mnangagwa took over as leader of the country following a coup in late 2017, platinum projects valued at more than $8 billion have been announced by Cypriot and Russian investors. Still, two decades of political and economic instability and a government with a track record of seizing privately owned assets makes many in the industry skeptical about the new ventures.

“The sort of things being thrown around are all smoke and mirrors,” said Neal Froneman, chief executive officer of Sibanye Gold Ltd., the world’s largest platinum producer, which part owns a mine in Zimbabwe. “It’s not easy to raise capital for all those projects and you have a huge amount of regulatory uncertainty.”

In addition to a history of changing ownership rules, miners are likely to be deterred by Zimbabwe’s failing currency regime that’s caused hyperinflation, chronic shortages of fuel and power and U.S. sanctions on government officials and companies. The southern African nation is facing the first contraction in gross domestic product since 2008.

While record prices for sister metal palladium are buoying the market, the longer-term outlook for platinum remains uncertain, making it difficult to justify expensive capital investments, said Nico Muller, CEO of Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. The new investors face “insurmountable hurdles,” he said.

Implats, which produces most of its platinum in South Africa, owns the biggest mine in Zimbabwe and has previously had concessions seized and given to other investors.

Still, Zimbabwe has the world’s third-biggest deposits of platinum-group metals after South Africa and Russia and the shallow depth of its deposits makes mining cheaper and easier than in neighboring South Africa, the site of the biggest deposits. The government has ambitious mining plans.

The country’s mines ministry earlier this month forecast platinum-group metals output at 2.79 million ounces in 2024, almost triple the 979,000 ounces currently produced by Implats, Sibanye and Anglo American Platinum Ltd.

Almost half that target production will come from a $4.2 billion mine being built by Cyprus’s Karo Mining Holdings Ltd. Karo is 26.8% owned by Tharisa Plc, a publicly traded South African platinum and chrome miner run by the Pouroulis family. Tharisa has the right to acquire the rest of the Zimbabwe project.

A second $4 billion project is being developed by Great Dyke Investments, a venture between Russia’s Vi Holding and Zimbabwean investors. Great Dyke has appointed African Export-Import Bank to raise $500 million to fund the first phase of a mine that will produce 290,000 ounces of platinum-group metals by 2023.

For more on Zimbabwe’s platinum plans click here

The project, which was until recently part owned by companies linked to the Zimbabwean military, expects to start construction on a processing plant in April, said Great Dyke CEO Alex Ivanov. The venture is also in negotiations with potential equity partners, he said.

The new investors haven’t raised concerns about Zimbabwe’s risk, said Mazai Moyo, secretary for the ministry of mines.

Still, to ensure a mining renaissance, the government will need to convince big producers to start spending, said Charles Laurie, head of country risk at Bath, England-based Verisk Maplecroft. That will require substantial revisions to the nation’s mining code, he said.

“If the Zimbabwe government is serious about attracting credible, well capitalized, A-list mining investors, it needs to do much more than give mining regulations a facelift,” Laurie said. “Investors want speed to capitalize on the very substantial opportunities, but they also need stability and clarity.”

For the moment, Implats and Sibanye remain to be convinced about Zimbabwe, with both diversifying their investments through acquisitions in North America. Sibanye bought Stillwater Mining Co. for $2.2 billion three years ago, while Implats earlier this month agreed to pay $758 million for North American Palladium Ltd., in its first move out of southern Africa.

“Maybe when the sanctions are lifted, and there is a real commitment from government in terms of rules of investing there, it might be a great place to do business,” Froneman said.

There’s no torture, there’s nothing like that, but under hypnosis if you make someone believe there’s something really scary going on, that’s just in their own mind and not reality. If you’re good enough and you’re able to get inside somebody’s noggin like the way that I can, I can make folks believe whatever I want them to believe.

I’m like the most strait-laced guy you could think of, but here I run this crazy haunted house. And people twist it around in their little minds. It really is a magic act, what I do. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.

— Russ McKamey, owner and operator of the McKamey Manor in Summertown, Tennessee, commenting on an online petition calling for the extreme haunted house to be shut down because “[i]t’s literally just a kidnapping and torture house” and “[s]ome people have had to seek professional psychiatric help and medical care for extensive injuries.” McKamey says people begin their tour of the house, which can last up to 10 hours, with the chance to earn $20,000 and lose $500 every time they fail an activity. In the 30 years McKamey has been running the haunted manor, no one has completed a tour. McKamey says he films each tour, and has been sued numerous times over what people thought happened to them, but didn’t actually occur.

In order to be selected as a participant, you must first go through an extreme screening process, which includes a physical exam, a background check, a phone screen, a drug test, the creation of a safe word, the viewing of a two-hour video, and the signing of a 40-page waiver. An older version of McKamey Manor’s insane, legally questionable waiver (which consistently uses the word “libel” for “liable”) has been leaked online. Flip to the next page to see it.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

If the Supreme Court followed the basic rules of ethics applicable to every other court, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh would have to recuse themselves from the Bostock, Altitude Express, and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes cases — the ones which seek to reinterpret Title VII to allow for bigotry against the LGBTQ community. Alito and Kavanaugh took some sort of meeting and even posed for a picture with the leader of a virulent anti-LGBT group, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Here’s the photo:

It’s really bad enough that conservative justices are so willing to give public aid and comfort to right-wing groups like the Federalist Society. Brett Kavanaugh, who has been credibly accused of attempted rape, has promised to take revenge on his enemies, so you can’t really claim the justice’s partisan hackery is surprising. But this meeting with the NOM is is outrageous. NOM has filed an amicus brief with the Court in the Bostock/Altitude/Funeral Homes cases. The Court has heard arguments and the justices are ostensibly working on their opinions in those cases RIGHT NOW. Taking meeting and a picture with people who have a case and argument pending in front of you would be unacceptable for any other court in the land.

But the Supreme Court operates under no ethics rules. John Roberts occasionally makes noises about issuing some, but he hasn’t. And I suspect the reason is that any reasonable rules would proscribe the behavior of his colleagues like Kavanaugh, Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Thomas, along with his wife Ginni, spend so much time promoting right-wing causes and groups that nearly any code of “ethics” would force Thomas to recuse himself from half of the Court’s docket.

And so NOM gets to have its little photo op and meeting with Alito and Kavanaugh who are mulling over the future of Title VII right now. You don’t have to wonder what NOM might have wanted to talk about. Again, they have a BRIEF BEFORE THE COURT right now:

Because anti-discrimination laws necessarily infringe on individual liberty, on freedom of association, on freedom of contract, and even, as these cases demonstrate, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and privacy rights, the basic policy determination to expand such laws to new contexts and new classifications is a power our Constitution assigns to the Congress, not to unelected and largely unaccountable bureaucrats and not even to the courts.

For those playing along at home: NOM is not simply interested in “marriage” as its name suggests. No, they’re injecting themselves into a debate about LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace and, more than that, their brief is a screed against anti-discrimination laws, full stop.

If this doesn’t seem biased to you, ask yourself this question: Can I get a meeting and a photo op with Sam Alito? Can Lambda Legal? I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with Kavanaugh because I’d be afraid he’d scream at me and shove his penis in my face, but I’d love to take five minutes to talk to Alito about why he shouldn’t be a homophobic prick and instead honor the precedent set in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. I might not influence him, but I’d like the access to try.

This photo is direct evidence that Alito and Kavanaugh are not impartial. I could find you 100 photos of Clarence Thomas doing the same thing. It is a flagrant violation of judicial norms and ethics. It only happens because Republicans no longer care about norms or ethics. They have the votes to win and they are winning and the Chief Justice is happy to let them win.

The Supreme Court is a broken institution and it won’t be fixed until enough people understand how broken it is and are willing to act.

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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Five Good Habits Attorneys Should Start Building

There’s no shortage of bad habits out there, and attorneys aren’t immune from them. Work-life balance issues come to mind, for example. But the hours you work and the demands placed upon you aren’t always within your control. Some things just take a lot of effort, and being a competent, competitive lawyer is one of them.

But among the things you can control is the ability to develop a few good habits. This article details:

• How to make use of existing legal knowledge
• Ways to keep up with constantly changing law
• How technology can up your legal research skills, and more!

Download the article now so you can start to make room for changes in your work process. Your future self just might thank you.

By submitting your email, you are opting in to receive Above the Law  and Thomson Reuters Sponsored Messages.

Judge Leon is all out of treats this Halloween. At 2:00 this afternoon, lawyers for the president and the House of Representatives are due in Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s courtroom to argue whether White House Counsel Don McGahn can be compelled to testify to the Judiciary Committee. At 3 p.m., these same parties were scheduled to appear before Judge Leon for an emergency status conference in former Deputy National Security Advisor Charles Kupperman’s suit for a declaratory judgment as to whether he has to testify to House impeachment investigators about Trump’s infamous phone call with the Ukrainian president, a call which Kupperman listened to in real time.

Would Judge Leon agree to postpone the hearing so everyone could race to the train and get home to their little Power Rangers and Princesses before the witching hour?

Hahahaha, NOPE. Noting that there are so, so many lawyers entered on this case, Judge Leon agreed to move the hearing … to 4 p.m. today (click to enlarge):

BOOOOOOOO. And sorry, kids.

Unlike the McGahn case, this suit was brought by Kupperman himself, who asks for judicial advice as to whether he must comply with a congressional subpoena, or may refuse to answer under the doctrine of “absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony” that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone conjured up out of whole cloth.

At first blush, Judge Leon might seem a lucky draw for the government. He’s a a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who struck down D.C.’s handgun carry permit, upheld the seizure of a 100-acre butterfly preserve in Texas for Trump’s border wall, and allowed the Trump administration to greenlight the sale of “junk” catastrophic healthcare plans. On the other hand, Judge Leon served as House counsel in multiple, high-profile oversight investigations, including Iran-Contra, October Surprise, and Whitewater, and he teaches a course at Georgetown Law on Congressional Investigations. (Womp womp.)

Even if His Honor decides that he’s in the business of issuing opinion letters — and that’s a big if, since the House hasn’t sued to enforce its subpoena yet — he may decide that the whole issue is moot after the House votes to formalize its impeachment process today. Pat Cipollone’s primal scream of immunity was noticeably short on legal reasoning, save for the assertion that there’s no “real” impeachment without a vote in the full House, a box which should be checked within a few hours. Absent that argument, which forms the basis of Kupperman’s suit, there really isn’t much there there.

Let’s be honest, there never was any there there in the first place, as Judge Beryl Howell, also of the U.S. District Court of D.C., ruled last week in her order to the DOJ to release the Mueller grand jury materials to House impeachment investigators, saying, “[N]o governing law requires this test — not the Constitution, not House Rules, and not Rule 6(e), and so imposing this test would be an impermissible intrusion on the House’s constitutional authority[.]”

Judge Leon’s decision may have wide-ranging consequences for witnesses subpoenaed by Congress. Most immediately, Kupperman’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, also represents former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Bolton has said he won’t testify without a subpoena, but hasn’t yet ruled out showing up to collect one of those “friendly” subpoenas Adam Schiff is handing out like mini-Twix bars to witnesses who got a nastygram from the White House Counsel’s Office threatening certain annihilation if they talked.

So, watch this space to see if the judge tips his hand today. You know John Bolton will be paying close attention.

And have fun out there with your kids. Tonight, the WITCH HUNT is REAL.

Complaint, KUPPERMAN v. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE U.S.A. et al, No. 1:19-cv-03224 (D.D.C. Oct 25, 2019) [via Court Listener]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.