Category: News Feeds

I’ve been a huge fan of CBD ever since I started feeling overwhelmed, which came with starting law school and having a fourth baby. It was a combination of feeling like I’m not going to have time for myself and thinking this is going to be too overwhelming and not really believing in myself that I can do it or surrounding myself with the people who can help.

I would like to study more. I know that sounds crazy, but when you study the law the way that I do, you have to also work. The ultimate goal in doing it this way is that you can work with the law firm. I work with cut50, which does a lot of justice reform work, and I basically intern with them while someone is there teaching me so hopefully, I can ultimately get a job at the firm. I want to [push] myself to study hard. I just wish there were more hours in a day, where I can study more and read more.

— Kim Kardashian West, explaining how she handles feeling overwhelmed and what she wants to be able to push herself to do more of, during a recent interview with Poosh. She continued, saying, “I started taking CBD, and it really changed things for me. It calms me down automatically. Once the baby came and school started, I realized I can handle this and it’s not as bad as I thought.”

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.

As this ongoing political maelstrom continues to swirl and even pick up pace, discussions of changes to the federal judiciary have become less central to the daily news digest. That said, the federal courts still may be the central locus where much of Trump’s political drama plays out. The other day, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for instance, ruled that Trump could not block a subpoena for his tax returns. One of Trump’s appointees, Judge Neomi Rao, dissented from the court’s decision.

The impact of Trump’s nominees will be felt long after he leaves office. With life tenure on the courts, Trump’s federal court appointees will sit on the courts for decades to come, making decisions that affect the nation’s entire population.  Irrespective of Trump’s future political trajectory, he has already seen 150 of his judicial nominees confirmed to either federal district, appeals, or to the Supreme Court (data on these judges was primarily derived through the FJC’s Biographical Directory of Federal Judges).

While all judicial nominations carry great importance, the ones that may have the largest effect on influencing the trajectory of the courts occur when a president appoints a judge to fill a seat previously held by a judge appointed by a president from the opposing party. This potentially allows the president to shift the median views held by judges on that court. Over one-third of Trump’s 150 appointees across the three court levels have filled seats from judges previously appointed by Democratic presidents.

This leads to the question of the extent of the changes Trump made to the federal judiciary. The answer is quite substantial and can be better ascertained on a circuit-by-circuit basis. The following chart features aggregate numbers from appeals and district court judicial appointments by each overall appeals circuit in the federal court system (courts with current majority Republican appointees have red bars and courts with current majority Democratic appointees have blue bars).

(Click to enlarge)

Trump’s appointees constitute over 20 percent of eight appeals courts including the Supreme Court. His largest percentage increase across a circuit and its districts courts was to the Eleventh Circuit, which now include over 31 percent Trump judges. He made the second greatest impact to the Fifth Circuit and its district courts, appointing nearly 26 percent of the judges on these courts. With 27 appointments, he also made the most substantial absolute contribution to the Fifth Circuit. By contrast, Trump only added three judges to the First Circuit and four to the Second Circuit.

With over a year left in his presidential term, Trump should reach nearly 200 total federal judicial appointments. With many of these judges tipping the balance of the courts in favor of Republican-nominated judges, the transition in the types of the decisions these courts make are already noticeable. These changes will become even more apparent as time goes on. While there is no guarantee that any one of these judges will espouse hard line conservative principles, the sheer number of appointments to such a diverse range of federal courts does set an expectation that the courts will likely never be the same as they were before Trump achieved the office of president.

Continue reading over at Empirical SCOTUS…

In order to adapt to heightened client expectations, today’s innovative legal departments are exploring self-service technologies in order to provide efficient service at a lower cost and without compromising on quality. To that end, check out our free webinar, Why Self-Service Is Critical To The Future Of Legal Departments, brought to you in partnership with our friends at Everlaw and moderated by legal technology maven Bob Ambrogi.  The webinar will take place at 1 p.m. EST on October 24th and is designed for in-house counsel and corporate legal departments of all sizes. Among the areas to be explored:

• NDAs
• Compliance
• Transactional: Pre- and Post-Execution 
• Tools to provide non-legal executives, HR, and sales personnel with answers to common and routine legal questions

Our webinar will examine use cases, opportunities, and best practices for enabling legal self-service in an enterprise environment.  Which aspects of legal practice lend themselves to a self-service model? What are the challenges inherent in setting up new processes? Drawing on deep subject matter expertise and concrete real-world examples, our program will start you on the path toward automated processes that are predictable, fast, secure, free, and errorless. 

Register Here Today! 

This is the third article in the Legal Pillars Of Wellness series. If you’re just joining us, over the course of the next few months, this series will explore each of the following legal pillars of wellness (listed below) and will specifically focus on issues, ideas, and suggestions related to law students, bar exam takers, and lawyers. All previous articles in the series are linked below. I hope you’ll follow along with us.

Legal Pillars of Wellness

1. Mental & Emotional Wellness;
2. Environmental Wellness;
3. Physical Wellness;
4. Financial Wellness;
5. Spiritual Wellness;
6. Intellectual Wellness;
7. Occupational Wellness; and 
8. Social Wellness.

Pillar #3: Physical Wellness

For the purpose of the legal pillars of wellness, we’ll define physical wellness as having a healthy quality of life with a focus on physical fitness, medical wellness, nutrition, sleep hygiene, and reducing or eliminating harmful vices. 

I need to preface this article with an important caveat. One of my personal mottos in life is that “I only run if someone is chasing me… with scissors.” To say that I am a physical fitness or nutrition expert would be a bald-faced lie. I have, however, been on a journey over the last few years to feel less like shit and improve my physical wellness.

A few years ago, I lived a completely sedentary lifestyle and ate a lot of garbage. I gained a ton of weight and had countless aches and pains. My back and hips constantly hurt, and I basically had a non-stop migraine for three years straight. 

I felt awful physically, and it was starting to impact my mental and emotional wellness as well. And, I really, REALLY did not want to deal with it. I knew that it was going to be hard work and involve lifestyle changes that I did not want to make. 

I honestly can’t remember what finally got me to start making changes. But, I remember reading somewhere that you have to “choose your hard.” And the way I saw it, yes, it was going to be hard to make major lifestyle changes, but it was already hard feeling exhausted, achy, and uncomfortable all the time. In late 2016, I embarked on my own physical wellness journey. While it has rarely been easy, I truly believe it has had a tremendous impact on my overall wellness. 

So, it is with this background and context that I share some suggestions for improving your physical wellness.

Physical Fitness

Movement is so important to your physical well-being and overall wellness. But maybe you get overwhelmed thinking physical fitness means that you have to become this super healthy, gym-crazed person who works out every day. In fact, it is this exact mindset that prevented me from working on my physical fitness for a long time. Once I finally decided that I needed to start moving more, I started small. I forced myself to get out for a walk for 15 minutes a day and worked my way up to 30 minutes. Once that felt comfortable for me, I started adding in some at-home stretching and yoga. When I was ready (about six months into my journey) to actually start working out, I first tried at-home workouts. This didn’t work for me because I genuinely do not enjoy working out and could not hold myself accountable to this plan. But, this might be a good option for a more disciplined person.

Eventually, I joined a gym with my friend, and I try to go three to four times a week. Sometimes I go zero times. Even if I only go once, I try to start each week with a fresh slate and just do the best I can to get some movement in. Another option for you outdoorsy types is to pick up an active hobby such as hiking, rock climbing, skiing, or rollerblading (is that still a thing?). I think the important message here is that you don’t have to go all in and start some intense workout regimen. You can start where you are and build up to where you want to be. 

Medical Wellness

Most law students and lawyers are busy folks, so just the thought of scheduling annual physicals and wellness check-ups can seem, quite frankly, annoying and logistically difficult. But, you should do it anyway. Engaging in good preventative medical care, however frustrating, helps with early detection of diseases and allows you to keep your health and wellness a priority. So, don’t wait for a medical issue to get completely out of hand or rely on the WebMD symptom checker to diagnose yourself (I see you, I am you); take the time to get proper medical care. 

Nutrition 

I regularly talk to my bar exam students about the importance of paying attention to their nutrition during bar prep. I very eloquently tell them, “If you eat like shit, you’ll feel like shit.” Much like physical fitness, many people see nutrition as an all or nothing endeavor. We feel like if we aren’t eating a raw, vegan, gluten-free, paleo, keto diet, we might as well just eat a Big Mac followed by a chocolate shake. But, you and I know that isn’t true. 

This, again, isn’t about perfection or an all-or-nothing approach, but about making mostly good choices to fuel your body with. This isn’t about finding one perfect diet or way of living or even about losing weight. It is about experimenting with which foods work for you and don’t work for you and eating accordingly.

On a similar note, we are all super dehydrated. We don’t drink enough freaking water. I certainly don’t (thanks, mom). And it is terrible for us. Dehydration can make you feel tired and dizzy and give you a headache. As busy legal professionals, do we really need ONE more thing depleting our energy? I’m a work in progress on this one, but I find that I drink more water when I keep my water bottle filled with cold water and carry it with me at all times. 

Sleep Hygiene

Most people do not get enough sleep and don’t realize quite how damaging that is to our overall health. A lack of sleep impairs your cognitive functioning. Specifically, it decreases attention, concentration, reasoning, and problem-solving. What could possibly go wrong for a lawyer or law student having these problems? Further, not getting enough sleep also puts you at health risks for, among other things, heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. Sleep deprivation is also linked to depression and impaired judgment. 

Also, once you accumulate a sleep debt, you will carry it with you until you get caught up. For example, if you get one hour of sleep less than you need every night for a week, you’ll have a seven-hour sleep debt and will need to sleep one hour extra each night for a week to catch up. The further in sleep debt you get, the harder it is to recover. 

In order to ensure you are getting enough sleep, you should try to go to sleep and wake at roughly the same time each day, limit screen time before bed, and institute an evening “wind-down” routine to get you ready for sleep. 

Cut Back on Vices

The legal profession unquestionably has a drug and alcohol addiction problem. While the reason for the reliance on these things is likely more related to mental and emotional wellness issues, they greatly impact physical well-being. Consider what vices you may be engaging in, even recreationally, such as drinking too much, smoking, using drugs, or engaging in unprotected sex, and seek strategies to reduce or eliminate them from your life. 

A quick note on making your physical wellness plan work

If you, like I, are not an active person by nature and face deep resistance about improving your physical wellness, I highly recommend you find an accountability partner. My physical wellness journey is far from perfect, but I’ve managed to make consistent progress through the help of my accountability partner. Find someone who you can share your goals with, check-in with, and get support from. It makes all the difference. 

Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.

Transnet said it had not been informed that Zimbabwe’s deal with the South African company and its joint venture partner had been canceled.

A joint venture between Transnet and Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG), a consortium of Zimbabwean investors living abroad, won the bid to recapitalize the financially struggling NRZ with $400 million in August 2017.

Nick Mangwana, permanent secretary at Zimbabwe’s information ministry, in a statement announcing the cancellation said the government would hold a new tender for the recapitalization and that Transnet and DIDG could participate.

The consortium had missed several deadlines to provide proof of funding, he said.

Mangwana also said differences had emerged between the consortium partners, which led to DIDG presenting a funding structure that excluded Transnet.

“(The) government indulged the consortium by working with them outside the framework agreement. Regardless, they failed to present a common position,” Mangwana said in his statement.

“The exclusion of Transnet had a legal impact on the tender which had been awarded to them as a consortium. In light of the foregoing, (the) government took a position to issue a new tender.”

DIDG chairperson Donovan Chimhanda told Reuters that the group had not been informed of the government’s decision.

Transnet also said it had not received any correspondence from the Zimbabwean government on the cancellation of the tender.

“Transnet believes that the project to revive the National Railways of Zimbabwe is technically viable despite the difficult economic environment in that country,” the company said in a statement.

“Transnet was unable to finalize the transaction through its governance processes as it could not conclude partner due diligence.”

NRZ was one of the biggest employers in Zimbabwe, but its fortunes waned after an economic crisis between 2000-2008 that nearly halved the southern Africa country’s economy.

Post published in: Business

Yikes. Things in the London office of Jones Day do not seem okay. Indeed, there’s a lot of discontentment of allegations of sexual harassment flying about. It all started when American Lawyer affiliate Legal Week repeatedly heard complaints about the firm’s London office in the wake of the #MeToo movement. They then decided to launch a six-month long investigation that consisted of in-depth interviews with 10 firm alumni that once worked in the London office, who vary in terms of gender and seniority. The stories they tell paint an unsettling picture of life at Jones Day’s London office.

Multiple interviewees described a pattern of senior male attorneys having relationships with junior women that usually resulted in the woman leaving the firm:

One woman, who spent several years as an associate at the firm, says: “There was an endemic culture of sexual inappropriateness among partners and associates and trainees—people felt they could behave inappropriately and get away with it.”
One former partner and one former staff member recall a number of relationships that took place between several senior men and junior women at the firm during the last decade, where the women involved in those relationships left the firm.

“It was the same pattern—partner has an affair with an associate or trainee and it is the woman who left,” the former female associate adds.

The firm alums also talked about inappropriate comments and behavior at work events:

Another former female associate recalled a work dinner she attended a number of years ago where male lawyers at the firm boasted about sexual exploits, including infidelity, and “making amateur porn films”.

She said she felt “deeply uncomfortable and upset” by the scenario, adding that a nearby male partner did nothing to prevent the discussion.

Another described being objectified at a drinks event:

“I was talking to a female associate and a very senior partner there came up and said: ‘I’ve come to talk to the hot blondes in the room.’ He then asked us to guess his age—this was in a room full of people, in the early evening,” she said.

She said that after that incident she chose to never attend another drinks event at the firm.

One alumnus also said her work was unfairly targeted by a male partner and that even other male attorneys noticed the way she was treated. She ultimately credits these partner interactions with being the reason she left Jones Day:

“It’s the reason I left the firm,” she said adding she felt “destroyed” by the experience.

She said the partner frequently spoke to her aggressively, and occasionally male associates would comment on the difference in how she was addressed compared with them. She described one occasion in which the partner was “tearing me to pieces” near to open-plan offices, where “everyone could hear.”

When she decided to speak up about how she felt, she claimed it affected her prospects at the firm.

“I went from receiving excellent feedback, to being told I lacked confidence and was questioned about whether I even wanted to be a lawyer,” she said.

Here in the States, Jones Day is currently facing a purported class-action gender discrimination lawsuit alleging a “fraternity culture” at the firm and unequal pay behind the firm’s notorious “black box” compensation system with named plaintiffs across multiple offices.

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).

Speaking during a community meeting held by the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) in Rugare on Wednesday, Matione said the government had failed to honour its obligation in terms of water provision.

He bemoaned that the situation in Harare was getting worse while the government was busy playing politics.

“I would like to put the record straight and tell you that it is the government that is responsible for the construction of water sources such as dams. In light of the water challenges in Harare, it is the government that must honour its obligation and construct other water sources as a way of saving the situation,” said Matione.

He said that the government’s failure to construct the Kunzvi dam, which would have eased Harare’s water woes was a matter of concern.

“Lake Chivero has been overwhelmed by demand and we should not be given excuses of low water levels because even if the lake is filled to capacity, we will still continue to experience water challenges.

“We are supplying water to Harare Chitungwiza, Norton and Morton Jaffray water treatment plant has a capacity of 800 mega liters per day yet we require 1 200 mega liters per day. So Lake Chivero is already overwhelmed hence the need for the government to construct more water sources, said Matione.

CHRA has made calls for the government to declare the water situation in Harare a disaster in order to pave way for humanitarian assistance. The residents’ association is also on record saying that it was irresponsible for the government to play politics and shift blame while residents continue to sit on a health time bomb.

Councilor Matione reiterated CHRA’s position that the government should source funding from the donor community as a way of dealing with Harare’s water crisis.

“In light of the impending disaster, it is mandatory for the government to declare the water situation a disaster so that we get the required assistance. If we had the powers we would have declared the situation a disaster to pave way for assistance.,” said Matione.

Harare City Council official, Mercy Makuvatsine emphasized that the solution to Harare’s water woes lies in constructing more water sources and highlighted that in the face of limited resources, the government ought to declare a disaster.

CHRA Programmes Officer, Answer Tafadzwa Moyana rallied residents to support CHRA’s efforts in petitioning the government to declare the water situation in Harare a disaster.

Post published in: Featured

The term was used to boast about the agricultural output of
Zimbabwe and its ability to not only feed its people but to have enough to
export as well. As the years went by however, the breadbasket soon became a
begging basket. Today, the World Food Program (WFP) says that 63% of
Zimbabweans live below the poverty datum line with 27% of children having
stunted growth because of unbalanced diets. The WFP also says that up-to
5.5million people will be food insecure in Zimbabwe by January 2020.

Theme and Statistics

This year’s theme for World Food Day is “Healthy Diets for a #ZeroHunger
World”. This theme promotes Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 which seeks
to end world hunger and malnutrition by the year 2030. This year, the goal
is to make countries rethink how they grow food, how they share food and how
they consume food. The theme seeks to raise awareness on how a large
population of the world suffers from hunger and malnutrition. The theme
calls for promotion in sustainable agriculture, supporting small-scale
farmers, access to land as well as technology to improve production.

At present, Zimbabwe is ranked 109th out of 117 countries on the Global
Hunger Index citing that the hunger situation in Zimbabwe is serious. One in
four children under the age of five are said to be vitamin A deficient by
UNICEF while 60% of women are said to be anaemic in the country. According
to FAO, unhealthy diets are one of the leading risks for deaths from non
communicable diseases including heart attacks, diabetes and certain cancers.
Food security and adequate nutrition are important factors in our day to day
lives that cannot be ignored.

Constitutional Obligation

Section 15 of the Zimbabwean Constitution obliges the state to promote the
growing and storage of adequate food, to secure the establishment of
adequate food reserves and encourage and promote proper nutrition. The
government is to take heed of this mandate and is to be remembered that the
constitution is after all, the supreme law of the land. Exercising section
15 is not an option – it is a must.

Following this mandate and keeping in line with the requirements of the
theme, the Zimbabwean government is reminded that investment in agriculture
is crucial. At present, the lead program in agriculture is Command
Agriculture. As the government carries out this program and land audits it
is reminded that land distribution is to be free and fair, without prejudice
and without favour. The government is reminded that rural women make the
bulk of small scale farmers that feed at least 67% of the Zimbabwean
population and as such rural women should not be forgotten when being
granted land and being given incentives. As the theme mandates States to
guarantee access to food, the Zimbabwean government is encouraged to address
the food price crisis and take measures for food to be affordable and
accessible to all.

Time to Rethink

Zimbabwe must rethink the farming methods that are currently in use. Time
and again the rains have proven to be an unreliable source of irrigation –
the time to re-strategise has come. With the ever changing climate, Zimbabwe
needs to adapt and change present outdated methods and technologies to be
able to meet the hunger and nutritional requirements of its people. Adapting
new methods is one way of tackling the crisis we are in but transparency in
initiatives and incentives is also another area we need to focus on and
improve in order to reduce malnutrition and hunger overall. Ministries are
encouraged to cooperate with Parliamentary Portfolio Committees in order to
make sure Command Agriculture works for us and not against us.

With as much arable land as Zimbabwe has, hunger and malnutrition do not
have to be part of the Zimbabwean narrative. It is time to steer the
narrative from a begging basket back to being the breadbasket.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take
legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Agriculture

Back in April, the insurance giant rolled out a voluntary retrenchment scheme as a way of managing costs in “response to the deteriorating economic environment.” Few employees accepted.

The response to the voluntary retrenchment scheme was below expectations, said chief executive officer Jonas Mushosho in a memo to employees on Tuesday. Mushosho said it was imperative that the company reduce its costs of doing business due to relentless economic challenges in Zimbabwe.

Given the high the high inflation rate and the need to control total operating costs, it is important for the business to reduce costs, said Mushosho.

“Management is, therefore, tabling an offer for a voluntary staff retrenchment scheme on an improved package,” the memo said.

He said management would endeavour to conclude the current round of retrenchments timeously in order to preserve the value of the package.

Zimbabwe is officially experiencing hyperinflation, it was announced last week. The country is also facing regular fuel price hikes, data price hikes, and its worst drought in almost four decades.

Post published in: Business