Category: News Feeds

Back in 2016, I wrote about rediscovering one of my favorite voices, ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser, and how his move from radio to podcasting offered lessons for lawyers hoping to strike out on their own. In particular, I focused on what prospective Biglaw refugees could learn from the 71-year-old Kornheiser’s focus on delivering a quality product to his listeners via a new medium.

Years later, I am still listening to the podcast, enjoying the rotating cast of characters discussing sports, culture, and the news of the day. All delivered alongside Tony’s detailed descriptions of his various physical ailments, as well as his general frustration navigating 2019 as a technophobic, cash-paying, intolerant of stupidity, one-percenter who is not afraid to mix it up with a home-invading flying squirrel or aggressive deer when the hour calls. Throw in humorous critiques of the ad copy submitted by the advertisers who keep the lights on and some user-submitted original music and jingles — it all adds up to an hour well-spent each day. (Even if my high schoolers protested vociferously when the podcast’s name was reflected on our car’s radio display screen while driving carpool at 7 a.m. This was a major embarrassment, even though I was listening to the show on my earphones. Which in and of themselves are embarrassing, since they are not Airpods. Can’t win.)

Carpool faux pas aside, one of the recurring surprise guests on Tony’s podcast is his friend and legal luminary, Bill Isaacson, who is only one of the leading antitrust lawyers in the entire country, as well as the Vice Chair of Boies Schiller, where he was one of the original lawyers to join the then-startup firm, leaving a Biglaw partnership to do so. As I have had a long-held interest in the intersection of IP and antitrust, fueled recently by a spate of interesting cases raising antitrust issues in the context of standard-essential patents, I reached out to Bill in the hopes that he would agree to a written interview for this audience. As gracious as he is celebrated, he agreed, and I am pleased to share Bill’s insights on a range of topics, including preparing for a career as a trial lawyer and the value of taking ownership over your legal career.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to the answers below and in next week’s second installment, but have otherwise presented Bill’s answers as he provided them.

1) You went to college on a debate scholarship and are now a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Looking back, do you think you were destined for trial work or was it your experiences in law school and beyond that led to a career in the courtroom?

I spent my high school years (at Marquette High School in Milwaukee) focused on debate, which did end up paying my way through college (at the University of Redlands in California).  Many debaters I knew then marched into law school. Law firms are riddled with ex-debaters, and I do not know many debaters that became doctors. I believe the reason for that is not so much the oral advocacy we learned, it is more the time we spent on research and structuring of complicated materials into arguments and presentations.  Because of debate, for example, I was researching in the law library in high school. Debate taught me more about how to prepare for trial than it did about how to communicate at trial. I eventually decided that “arguing” like in a debate was not always the best method of communication in court, and that my goal in court should be to have a (persuasive) conversation with a judge or jury. 

GK: Bill makes a strong argument for exposing more students, particularly at a younger age to debate. As someone who teaches a high-school elective class on IP, I understand the importance of working with students on their writing skills. At the same time, giving them a taste of “getting on their feet” — while also developing their research skills so they are prepared to speak coherently and persuasively — is an important ingredient. And Bill’s points on the importance of developing research skills and learning to speak to your audience should resonate with any IP lawyer who gets (or hopes) to speak in a courtroom.

2) What is the biggest lesson you learned from taking the leap as a newly minted Biglaw partner to join Boies Schiller as one of the founding lawyers and how would you turn that experience into advice for other lawyers contemplating a similar move?

We just passed 22 years since the founding of the firm.  One part of the experience of practicing law in a law firm is that you are part of business.  It is a unique opportunity to help build a business with your colleagues (whether it is a new firm, a department, a practice area, etc.) in the environment and with the clients that you want. I recommend grabbing that opportunity if you get it.  Joining this firm at the beginning was the best professional decision I ever made. And I would have no regrets if it had turned out less successfully than it did.

GK: Speaking from personal experience, all I can say is that I agree with Bill wholeheartedly on the immense personal satisfaction that comes with helping to build a business. Especially with people you want to build it with, doing the work that you want to do, for the clients you want to work on behalf of. As weighty as the challenges are, the rewards are just so much sweeter for them.

3) For the past few years, you have often been mentioned as a spectator, and sometimes speaker, on Tony Kornheiser’s popular podcast. How important is it for lawyers to maintain friendships with people outside of the profession, whether or not they are famous?

We all need friends in our lives who make us laugh.  Although Tony’s television show PTI is more famous, I met Tony through his radio show.  I ended up through my brother (who is a Broadway producer) arranging good seats for Tony at Broadway plays and going to the theatre with him and the podcast regulars. The tickets for Tony became a running joke on his show and we became friends.  Tony’s audience often arranges for him all sorts of benefits (and well as sending him junk) and he provides laughter to his listeners in his podcast (“La Cheeserie!” to any other of the podcast listeners.). All in all, it is a healthy relationship. 

GK: For my thoughts on Tony, go back and re-read the intro paragraphs to this column. La Cheeserie to all. 

Next week, we will conclude our interview with Bill, focusing on some of his famous successes in the IP and antitrust arenas.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

As a trusts and estates practitioner, I advise all individuals who have reached the age of majority to execute a last will and testament. No matter the size of one’s wealth or the nature of one’s family composition, a last will and testament is needed to keep affairs in order in the event of death. Not surprisingly, individuals are often compelled to write last wills when they have experienced something significant in their lives. The birth of children, the death of a relative, a divorce, or personal illness are all common impetuses for executing a last will and testament.

I am always pleased when an individual engages my services to write a last will and testament without any inciting reason, in other words, they do it because it is the responsible thing for an adult to do. I admire this kind of diligence and sense of responsibility as if the testatrix understands that even the smallest bank account requires some direction in its post-mortem disbursement and estates of all sizes require instructions.

As such, I have been fascinated by recent news reports from the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. For more than three months, citizens of Hong Kong have demonstrated against the government as they argue for the preservation of individual rights and freedoms. The protests have often resulted in violence. The risk of injury and death are palpable.

News reports reveal that some protesters have executed last wills and testaments as they expect to die as a result of the protests. Many of the protesters are students, in their twenties. The majority of the protestors represent the youth of Hong Kong. They do not have enough money to live in the expensive city, and while educated, they fear for their future. The protests are demonstrations in support of their future and their freedom. Despite their lack of wealth, many have chosen to write last wills and testaments as their final revelations, directing the administration of their estates and leaving messages for their families.

A driving issue among the protesters is the high cost of living in Hong Kong and the decrease in available jobs and wages, despite higher education. Property prices are also surging, making the purchase of a residence unattainable for many. Additionally, Hong Kong was established as a city for businesses. As such, its legislative council which determines how public money is used is dominated by business groups. Businesses, and not individuals, often get the advantages.

The plight of the Hong Kong citizens is an impetus for the contemplation of one’s own mortality. News outlets have reported that as a result of the protests, violence, and bleak opportunities, many are accepting of the fact that they may die. This realization, coupled with the education and preparedness of the protesters, is the basis for the preparation of their last wills and testaments. It is also demonstrative of the fact that one does not need to be wealthy, or even monetarily comfortable, to write a last will.

The protesters in Hong Kong demonstrate that when in the path of death, one needs to plan. Regardless of whether one has children, a spouse, an education, or money, upon death, there will always be an affair to reconcile. These actions also serve as a reminder that the last wills are often used as a final note to family and friends, revealing not only one’s wishes for the distribution of assets and property, but recognition of family and friends. Herein lies the immense power of a last will and testament, that is to implore upon one’s survivors the testator’s final thoughts and convictions. Certainly in the case of the Hong Kong protestors, much like wartime soldiers and terminal illness patients, the formality and structure of a last will and testament allow for their memory and direction to be forever preserved.

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Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com. 

Kamala Harris is in a bit of a sticky situation.

The presidential hopeful has publicly come out in opposition to mandatory arbitration agreements. Indeed, she joined Senator Richard Blumenthal urging JPMorgan Chase to eliminate forced arbitration, saying at the time:

“One of the fundamental principles of our democracy is that everyone should get their day in court. Forced arbitration deprives Americans of that basic right.”

And that’s a great, liberal stance to take! Unfortunately for the senator, DLA Piper feels very, very differently. See DLA is where Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, is a partner. And the firm’s stance on mandatory arbitration has been in the news lately — a partner at DLA, Vanina Guerrero, alleges the co-managing partner of the firm’s Silicon Valley office, Louis Lehot, repeatedly sexually assaulted her, beginning shortly after she began working for the firm in 2018. Last week Guerrero penned an open letter asking the firm to release her from their forced arbitration agreement so she’d be free to pursue her claims in open court. The firm has yet to respond to Guerrero’s request to be let out of the mandatory arbitration agreement, saying only that they are aware of the allegations against Lehot and are investigating.

Indeed, DLA Piper has defended their use of mandatory arbitration before. When law school student activists organized a #DumpDLA campaign over their arbitration stance, the firm put out a fluffy statement defending arbitration conflating the benefits some people get from arbitration as an option and ignoring the harms of forcing all their employees to use that as their exclusive mechanism for dispute resolution. Their stance didn’t waiver amidst protests against mandatory arbitration outside of their office.

All of which sets the stage for the latest move. Guerrero’s attorney, Jeanne Christensen partner at Wigdor, wrote an open letter to Harris asking her to condemn the use of mandatory arbitration agreements at DLA Piper:

I am sure you would agree that silencing women through forced arbitration must end. No female employee, including a new partner, would knowingly agree to waive her right to our court system for claims involving sexual assault, battery or rape. Given your profile as a candidate for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, you are in a unique position to condemn the actions of DLA Piper and make clear that mandatory arbitration must stop. We, therefore, urge you to publicly support the notion that all women who work at DLA Piper deserve to hear allegations about unlawful sexual conduct by male employees.

And, you have to give it to Christensen, this is a smart play. Legally, they don’t have a way into court unless DLA waives the arbitration agreement. So turning up the pressure on the firm is really their best bet, and using a high profile partner and his higher profile spouse to do so keeps the conversation about sexual assault and mandatory arbitration going and gives it the widest possible audience.

Now some have argued it isn’t fair to hold Harris responsible for the actions of her husband and his firm. But Harris willingly waded into the mandatory arbitration waters when JP Morgan Chase was doing it. Why wouldn’t it be okay to now ask Harris if her stance on mandatory arbitration is universal or if it stops when her family gets some tangential benefit from the agreement. And here’s the thing, she can (and, hopefully, will) condemn DLA — no one has to agree with their spouse 100 percent of the time and with their spouse’s law firm even less of the time. But asking Harris this question to better get a sense of the contours of her position on mandatory arbitration agreements is more than a fair question for someone who wants to be president.

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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).

Attorneys know there is usually more work than time in most days. That’s just how it is when you are staffed to provide legal services, but not marketing, office administration, accounting, or any of the other responsibilities that larger law firms can delegate to dedicated personnel. This is more than just an inconvenient fact of life. It’s a potential fatal flaw, because administrative duties pull attorneys away from profitable work, thus dragging down a firm’s efficiency and putting its overall viability at risk.

“Efficiency” can be defined as the time it takes to complete a given task. In a law firm context, it pertains to the time and effort needed to carry a matter from intake to paid invoice. Obviously, the more efficient this process, the better a firm’s bottom line. And yet, an overwhelming majority of firms have ignored streamlining this area of their operations.

In the 2019 State of U.S. Small Law Firms Report from the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, 72 percent of the 300 respondents said spending too much time on administrative tasks was at least a “moderate” challenge. That’s up two percent from the previous year. While it’s a small uptick, it shows that firms failed to make headway on this challenge. Not only that, it is becoming more of a problem.

That point is underscored by how small law firms define “success.” Seventy-six percent say it’s based on overall profits. By clogging a lawyer’s day with non-billable work, inefficiency corrodes profits, and dilutes the most important measure of success for many firms.

If any further proof is needed, consider these three areas where a lack of efficiency creates serious structural problems:

Client dissatisfaction: In the era of on-demand entertainment and restaurant-to-door delivery service, is it any wonder clients want results immediately? That may not be possible, of course, but it’s still true that a lawyer who is not able to operate efficiently cannot attend to client matters quickly. The less time a lawyer has to spend on non-client work, the more quickly any given billable task can be handled.

Lower-quality work product: Quality legal work demands focus, and that’s hard to do when you’re dealing with issues other than practicing law. The attorney who focuses primarily on his clients’ matters produces a much higher quality finished product that leads to happier, more loyal customers.

Attorney burnout: Burnout is a tremendous issue for the legal profession. For lawyers at small firms, a major cause is trying to do everything alone. When “everything” includes too much non-billable work, lawyers become exhausted performing tasks that don’t bring in any money. That is inefficiency at its worst.

In the end, no small law firm attorney needs another thing on his or her plate. Efficiency is worthy of special consideration, however. Because, in its absence, the prospect of ultimate failure increases.

Download the white paper to learn more.

While Gideon Gono, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, claimed hyperinflation in Zimbabwe peaked at 2.2 million percent, Bloomberg estimates it was closer to 500 billion percent

Imagine clean tap water running just once a week, or half the population struggling to rustle up a single meal every day. This, according to Eddie Cross, an MP for Bulawayo South and founding member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, is the reality of a “period of harsh austerity” in Zimbabwe that “has [drastically] reduced living standards”.

These tough conditions show little sign of letting up, with the country sinking deeper into an economic crisis that has drawn comparisons to 2008, when GDP growth in Zimbabwe fell to -17.7 percent (see Fig 1) and the currency was devalued to such an extent that a wheelbarrow full of notes wouldn’t even buy a loaf of bread.

In the aftermath of the 2008 hyperinflationary crisis, the country’s leaders were able to agree on a power-sharing arrangement that allowed Zimbabwe to emerge with some semblance of hope. This time round, with the nation’s ruling party refusing to relinquish control or acknowledge the depths of the crisis, no solutions – international or domestic – are forthcoming. Rather, the country seems doomed to sink deeper into a financial depression that will have devastating consequences for its citizens and could take decades to recover from.

Rocky Rhodes
In its short history as a unified country, Zimbabwe has seen its fair share of economic hardship. The area of land that makes up modern-day Zimbabwe had been home to various tribal communities for centuries before it was demarcated in its current form in the 1890s by imperialist Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company. The new state, which was named Southern Rhodesia in honour of its coloniser, remained under the control of the UK until 1965, when it declared itself independent. The following 15 years would be defined by a brutal civil war, which pitted the white colonialist minority government against black guerrilla forces led by, among others, future Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe seems doomed to sink deeper into a financial depression that will have devastating consequences for its citizens

Peace was achieved in the early 1980s, facilitating Zimbabwe’s emergence as an economic star. The country’s GDP grew by an average 5.2 percent during that decade, thanks to an extensive programme of public spending – notably on education and healthcare facilities. In 1992, a study by the World Bank found that more than 500 health centres had been built across the country in the preceding 12 years, while enrolment in secondary schools had increased by 902 percent between 1980 and 1990. For all intents and purposes, the country was well on its way to becoming mythologised as a great African success story.

Mugabe’s administration, however, made a series of poor decisions that impeded the country’s economic ascendance. The first was the manner in which the early 1980s investment drive was carried out. As a fledgling independent nation, Zimbabwe did not have the necessary productivity to support such high spending, so while the new societal infrastructure improved the quality of life for Zimbabwe’s citizens, it also meant the country racked up a significant budget deficit, leaving it extremely short on emergency funds.

The government’s second misstep came in 1998, when it chose to weigh in on the conflict in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Not only did the cost of this intervention drain what little remained of Zimbabwe’s bank reserves, it also alienated the country from the international community – in 1999, both the World Bank and the IMF suspended their aid provision due to an unwillingness to fund Zimbabwe’s military spending in the DRC. Three years later, the country was suspended from the Commonwealth and subjected to sanctions by both the US and EU amid allegations of political corruption. This isolation decimated Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, which accounted for around 12.6 percent of GDP at the time.

“Zimbabwe was an agrarian industrial country, with emphasis on the word ‘industrial’,” Stephen Chan, a professor of international relations at SOAS University of London, told World Finance. “It was regarded as extremely hi-tech, growing food for modern international markets.” The application of sanctions, however, severely dampened exports. The industry was further crippled by a drought in 2003, which destroyed the meagre subsistence agriculture that remained and left 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s citizens living below the bread line.

Sick notes
Over the following five years, the country descended deeper into economic crisis. Inflation reached 1,000 percent in 2006 – leading the World Bank to declare Zimbabwe the fastest-shrinking economy outside of a war zone – and the government’s attempts to stop prices from skyrocketing were ineffectual, to say the least. While Gideon Gono, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, claimed hyperinflation peaked at 2.2 million percent in July 2008, Bloomberg estimates it was closer to 500 billion percent – a figure that Chan described as “metaphysical”. He added: “You couldn’t offer beggars anything in the street, because they’d just throw it away. It was meaningless. You’d have entire alleyways just full of worthless notes.”

Chan’s vivid image symbolises a wider truth: currency has always been at the heart of Zimbabwe’s economic troubles. In the 1980s and 1990s, as the country remained in relative infancy, one of the most vital tasks for Mugabe’s administration was to ensure the Zimbabwean dollar retained its value in order to support macroeconomic stability. It failed dismally for two reasons: first, it showed an inability to create and maintain national industries that would offer underlying productive value, and second, it proved itself too willing to devalue the currency, which, in turn, caused a greater international PR problem.

The destructive impact of the government’s failure was borne out most clearly in the hyperinflation crisis, but the repercussions continue to this day. In 2009, then finance minister Tendai Biti, who was part of an emergency government of national unity, implemented a recovery plan centred on the adoption of the US dollar as legal tender. While this succeeded in curbing hyperinflation at the time, it has subsequently caused significant issues when it comes to obtaining foreign currency – particularly given the rest of the world’s reluctance to lend to Zimbabwe, which stems from the country’s failure to prove that it has learned its fiscal lesson. “What has come home to roost very recently is that [Zimbabwe] really has no way of sourcing any more dollars,” Chan told World Finance. “No one will lend to [it] anymore, because there never really was a viable repayment plan.”

The government has not been entirely oblivious to these shortages and has, over the past few years, attempted to introduce various currency policies, each with little success. In 2016, bond notes and coins that would purportedly mirror the value of the US dollar were introduced, but they rapidly lost value when citizens realised they had no inherent worth and were not widely accepted as payment. In June 2019, the government – now led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa following the ousting of Mugabe in a military coup in 2017 – went a step further and attempted to introduce an entirely new currency. The RTGS dollar – the first iteration of Zimbabwe’s sovereign currency since 2008 – prevents citizens from using foreign currencies such as the US dollar and pound sterling as legal tender.

In August 2019, Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo claimed that introducing the new currency had stabilised the economy, but with the government refusing to publish inflation data until February 2020, it’s difficult to know whether there’s much truth in his statement. Chan is unconvinced: “There was no real choice because of the lack of US dollars, but there’s no productive value [in the new currency] to pay for imports, so wholesalers are just going to charge more and more money for things.” In other words, the government’s reluctance to reveal inflation information smacks of a cover-up – it does not want to reveal to the world exactly how much of a failure its initiative was with regards to curbing inflation.

Trouble ahead
Anecdotal evidence emerging from Zimbabwe does little to suggest the government has averted an economic crisis. As of June, fuel prices had been hiked to such an extent that the average daily commute costs as much as $20, while 18-hour blackouts have become commonplace in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. According to the World Food Programme, an estimated two million people are facing drought-induced starvation, while the same number have no access to clean water.

The current scarcities pose an immediate threat to life for some of Zimbabwe’s citizens, but there are also deeper and more wide-reaching disasters on the horizon, particularly with regards to shortages in HIV and AIDS medication. According to the UN, the country has one of the highest prevalences of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, with an estimated 12.7 percent of the population living with the disease in 2018. This figure has fallen dramatically from its peak in the early 2000s – thanks, in part, to increased awareness of transition methods and behavioural changes such as the use of condoms. Access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) has also improved as a result of a government programme that started to be rolled out in 2003.

According to the UN, 84 percent of those living with HIV in Zimbabwe were able to access ART in 2018. Within this group, 70 percent were provided with medication by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a multinational organisation that provides grants to nations where HIV is prevalent. In order to unlock these grants, however, governments must contribute a certain percentage of the cost; in Zimbabwe’s case, its leaders must pay $24.2m between 2018 and 2021 to gain access to the full $483m grant.

As a result of the financial troubles currently afflicting the country, the Zimbabwean Government was unable to contribute the $6m sum required in July to unlock the Global Fund’s latest instalment. Consequently, access to ART for HIV patients has been severely restricted, with some being issued a two weeks’ supply at a time rather than the requisite three months, and others being given expired drugs.

“You’ve got the makings of a second stage of the pandemic [of the 1980s],” Chan said. If HIV sufferers cannot gain access to the life-saving medication needed to control their symptoms, cases of AIDS are likely to surge. Infection rates may also rise, as sufferers will not be visiting clinics to collect medication and, as a result, will not be offered condoms at the same time.

In 2016, bond notes and coins that would purportedly mirror the value of the US dollar were introduced, but they rapidly lost value when citizens realised they had no inherent worth and were not widely accepted as payment

Mine for the taking
Of course, not all of Zimbabwe’s citizens are suffering. “There’s an oligarchic class made up of elite governmental and military figures – or those related to such people – who have insulated themselves by some recourse to corrupt means,” Chan explained. Members of this class, which established itself during Mugabe’s reign and has gone unchallenged by Mnangagwa, reportedly enriched themselves through a combination of bribery, overvalued government contracts and the illegal seizure and sale of illegitimate property.

“Transparency International estimates that $100bn has disappeared from the Zimbabwean economy [as a result of corruption],” Cross told World Finance. “The military has been a major beneficiary and has fought to protect its privileged position [under Mnangagwa].” What’s more, this corruption is not the sort that offers a silver lining in the form of job creation or productive value. “Corrupt monies circulated within can be beneficial, even if not always traceable,” Chan said. “But when it’s taken out of the system – or spent on non-productive luxuries, as is largely the case in Zimbabwe – no good is done.”

The diamond market has proven a particularly popular breeding ground for corruption, with a 2008 cable (leaked in 2010) from the US Embassy in Zimbabwe calling the sector “one of the dirtiest” in a “country filled with corrupt schemes”. In 2006, Zimbabwe became a diamond hotbed overnight following the excavation of the Marange diamond fields, which were regarded at the time as the richest natural source of the gems to be discovered for more than a century.

It was hoped initially that the government would utilise the funds derived from mining to reduce the country’s budget deficit; in practice, though, profits have been concentrated in the hands of a select few political and military officials. According to the 2008 cable, these include Gono and former vice president Joice Mujuru, both of whom were accused of skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in illegitimate profits from gem sales. Both Gono and Mujuru denied these allegations.

The Marange diamond fields were also reported to be the site of a torture camp run by the Zimbabwe National Army, the existence of which was revealed in 2011 by the BBC’s Panorama series. Victims told the broadcaster they had been subjected to beatings, sexual assault and dog maulings at the hands of the soldiers there, none of whom are known to have faced repercussions for their actions.

With the government paralysed by a crisis of its own creation, Zimbabwe’s citizens have been left to weather the storm alone

Military impunity remains a significant issue in Zimbabwe today. Not only does this reinforce the existence of corruption, it also creates a culture of fear and violence, robbing citizens of their right to peaceful protest. In January 2019, when trade unions led a work stoppage following a 150 percent hike in fuel prices, security forces shot dead 17 people and raped at least 17 women, according to Human Rights Watch.

No way out
Given the endemic nature of corruption, the dire economic situation and looming public health crisis, the outlook for Zimbabwe is bleak. The most pressing challenge remains the restoration of some kind of economic stability, but with other countries unwilling to offer budgetary support loans and national industry at a standstill, the government will be hard-pressed to drum up any sort of funding soon. Even if it did stumble upon some miraculous money tree, the notes growing on its branches would either be entirely worthless or not accepted as legal tender in accordance with current monetary policy. What’s more, given the level of corruption at the uppermost levels of government, it’s highly unlikely that any new funds would be directed to the sectors suffering critical shortages. Instead, they would find themselves lining the pockets of the well connected.

With the government paralysed by a crisis of its own creation, Zimbabwe’s citizens have been left to weather the storm alone – a nigh impossible task given the absolute lack of basic societal infrastructure. Even the informal economy, which has historically proven extremely resilient in Zimbabwe, is floundering. Last year, in a bid to maintain some sort of viable currency regime, a number of small operators began establishing a grassroots virtual economy, using mobile cash to pay for goods and services. However, this was quickly quashed by the country’s conservative-leaning finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, who introduced a two percent tax on transactions that priced out low-earning citizens.

In a functioning democratic society, the clear response to such an abject failure in economic policy would be to vote out the politicians responsible. In Zimbabwe, though, this is not an option given the monopoly held by Mnangagwa’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Even if there were to be an election, the likelihood of the results being manipulated is extremely high. What’s more, ZANU-PF’s main opposition, the MDC, is by no means squeaky clean, having experienced its own corruption scandals in recent years. “If you’re looking at democratic solutions for the future, then Zimbabwe is currently between a rock and a hard place,” Chan told World Finance.

The one glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel is Zimbabwe’s negotiations with the IMF regarding a bailout programme, which remain at an early stage. However, the IMF is highly unlikely to green-light any loans until Zimbabwe pays off its debts to other lenders, such as the World Bank. Even if loan agreements can be reached, the country will pay a high price for financial assistance. “Terrible austerities have to come and the poorest people will be hit the hardest,” Chan said. This would likely lead to further civil unrest, again culminating in military violence.

As it currently stands, Zimbabwe is a ticking time bomb. With domestic options exhausted, international intervention is crucial to supporting and sustaining the lives of its citizens. If the country is allowed to collapse entirely, the implications will stretch well beyond Zimbabwean borders, leaving the rest of the world to pick up the humanitarian and economic pieces for decades to come.

Hopes that Zimbabwe’s economy would quickly rebound under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over after the late Robert Mugabe was deposed in a coup in November 2017, have faded fast as citizens grapple with soaring inflation which has eroded earnings and savings.

The national treasury said in a pre-budget planning document that Zimbabwe’s economic problems were being compounded by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and electricity.

“The economy is, therefore, projected to underperform by as much as -3% to -6% in 2019,” the document said, adding that the economy was expected to grow 4.6% next year.

Zimbabwe’s economy is grappling with its worst crisis in a decade, with triple-digit inflation, rolling power cuts and shortages of U.S. dollars, medicines and fuel which have revived memories of the 2008 hyperinflation under Mugabe.

The treasury said the month-on-month inflation rate was projected to fall to around 10% by December this year before easing to 2.3% at the end of 2020.

The government had kept spending in check, the treasury said, and is expecting a budget deficit of up to 4% of GDP this year.

Post published in: Business

Dentons, a global behemoth just coming off major expansions in South Korea and Africa, set its sights on America, launching Operation Golden Spike and picking up two new firms and coverage in a even more markets.

Bingham Greenebaum brings 176 lawyers in Indianapolis (and a couple of smaller Indiana cities), Cincinnati, and Louisville and Lexington. Cohen & Grigsby is adding 140-plus in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Naples, Florida.

The expansion brings another 300 attorneys under the Dentons umbrella which would sound like a lot to any firm other than Dentons, where 300 lawyers is a rounding error. Not that Dentons intends to stop at 300 new lawyers. American Lawyer reports that Dentons is talking to two more firms this week and another four by Thanksgiving.

Most interesting about this expansion is its unique character. It’s not so much a merger as it is a completely new animal. The tie-up involves the a “dual partnership,” allowing the firms to carry on while their partners also become Dentons partners. The theory is that betting on firms that are already successful doing what they’re doing is better than trying to recast a winning culture. But how do people get paid?

The economics are based on the premise that half of a firm’s profit, or margin, derives from originating the work. When different firms under the Dentons U.S. umbrella share work, in a process that will be guided by the leaders of the firm’s national practice groups, the firm that brought in the client will earn half the margin, while the firm handling the matter will earn the other half.

When all is said and done, Dentons aims to have 1,100 attorneys in the U.S.

“Clients are seeking seamless service and one-stop shopping,” said Dentons global CEO Elliott Portnoy. “They simply can’t get that today in all of the markets that matter to their business in the U.S.”

Once again, the leadership at Dentons seems to understand the business model of a lot of prolific businesses and while they may object to being compared to Applebees or Starbucks, in reality they’re following the precise business philosophy that made those institutions into massive successes. The secret to any company with multiple outposts is providing a marker of familiar quality in a new landscape. When a Dentons client in New York needs an attorney anywhere from Lexington to London, they now know who to call to get the same service they’re accustomed to.

We talk a lot about client loyalty is on the decline, but don’t really dig into why. Clients may not see the value proposition in blindly sticking with the firms that used to handle all their business but that’s not necessarily an indication that the client wants to be juggling multiple firms, just that they’re no longer asking hard questions about what firm is offering them the best fit. Dentons seems to understand that offering truly global coverage for markets large and small offers clients something that others don’t… and a new avenue to locking up a client’s whole range of business.

Dentons Combines With Two US Firms in One Go, Launching New American Strategy [American Lawyer]

Earlier: Biglaw Chair Slams The Traditional Law Firm Model
Massive Law Firm To Become Even More Massiver
Ever-Growing Dentons Has Expansion Down To A Science

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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.

Last week, a couple of remarkable events happened in a Texas courtroom. First, despite being allowed to invoke the castle doctrine, a jury convicted former police officer Amber Guyger of murder for wrongly entering the apartment of Botham Jean and shooting him as he ate a bowl of ice cream on his couch. Even in such cases where the officer is clearly in the wrong, convictions are rare to come by. Possibly even more remarkable was that during Guyger’s sentencing, the brother of the victim, Brandt Jean, not only forgave his brother’s killer but also embraced her. Brandt’s act of forgiveness has received wide praise, however, the 10-year sentence imposed by the judge on Guyger for a murder conviction received immediate widespread condemnation.

It might seem hard to argue with the critics of the judge who imposed Guyger’s sentence. After all, if the circumstances had been reversed it is difficult to see any judge physically embracing a cop killer with such reckless disregard for life the way this judge embraced Guyger. This judge even gave Guyger her personal bible. Such personal favor towards certain convicted murderers by a court is nevertheless a reflection of the amount of personal discretion state and federal judges possess in sentencing. One could claim that such deference is a good thing, but the stats demonstrate the exact opposite is true and that personal bias dominates the process.

The level of deference to judges even allows for outcomes in sentencing that juries expressly rejected. For example, five years ago the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in Jones v. United States, a case where despite being acquitted by the jury, a judge nevertheless sentenced a defendant for the more serious crime.  The sentencing practice in the Jones case, where judges exercise discretion to increase sentences based on conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted by a jury is called “acquitted conduct” and if it sounds unbelievable to you, it’s because it should be. Encouragingly, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the lead sponsors of the landmark First Step Act, have introduced the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2019 that would end “acquitted conduct” sentencing. However, just like the First Step Act, I expect this legislation to be opposed by the same lying, disingenuous, tough-on-crime voices.

Although the tough-on-crime position has dominated our criminal justice system for centuries, it is remarkable that it has enjoyed so much influence despite the fact that it does not match the wishes of survivors/victims of violent crime. Recently, Michelle Alexander addressed the discrepancy between the often-harsh system of sentencing and the more lenient wishes of victims who prefer intervention and rehabilitation rather than prison. The reason that victims often reject long prison sentences when given the option is simple, per the Alexander piece:

This is not because survivors, as a group, are especially merciful. To the contrary, they’re pragmatic. They know the criminal justice system will almost certainly fail to deliver what they want and need most to overcome their pain and trauma. More than 95 percent of cases end in plea bargains negotiated by lawyers behind the scenes. Given the system’s design, survivors know the system cannot be trusted to validate their suffering, give them answers or even a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Nor can it be trusted to keep them or others safe.

In fact, many victims find that incarceration actually makes them feel less safe. They worry that others will be angry with them for reporting the crime and retaliate, or fear what will happen when the person eventually returns home. Many believe, for good reason, that incarceration will likely make the person worse, not better — a frightening prospect when they’re likely to encounter the person again when they’re back in the neighborhood.

Of course, Alexander agrees that “[s]ome people do need to be separated in order to keep others safe.” However, Alexander demonstrates that not only does our system of locking people up on such a massive scale make us less safe, it also fails to take accountability seriously:

Our criminal injustice system lets people off the hook, as they aren’t obligated to answer the victims’ questions, listen to them, honor their pain, express genuine remorse, or do what they can to repair the harm they’ve done. They’re not required to take steps to heal themselves or address their own trauma, so they’re less likely to harm others in the future. The only thing prison requires is that people stay in their cages and somehow endure the isolation and violence of captivity. Prison deprives everyone concerned — victims and those who have caused harm, as well as impacted families and communities — the opportunity to heal, honor their own humanity, and to break cycles of violence that have destroyed far too many lives.

In other words, a key element of what sentencing should be about, accountability, is entirely missing from our system. It therefore seems clear that in order to create a safer, more accountable society, we have to rely less on personally distributed “mercy” from being locked in a cage and exposed to more violence and instead focus on more pragmatic solutions victims regularly prefer.

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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.

What does the future hold for the legal profession? Nobody knows for sure, of course — but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thinking about it. To the contrary, lawyers who want to succeed today should be thinking about what law and legal practice will look like tomorrow. And law schools, the institutions responsible for training the lawyers of the future, must be thinking about what the legal landscape will look like — and how they can best prepare their students for it.

It’s promising news, then, that more than 30 law schools have launched innovation centers. We have been covering this emerging (and encouraging) trend here at Above the Law for quite some time, and we expect (and hope) it will continue.

The latest entrant into the field has an especially impressive approach — and we’d expect nothing less from one of the nation’s top law schools (according to both Above the Law and U.S. News). It takes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to innovation, not narrowly focused on legal tech (wonderful as legal tech might be), and it boasts involvement from some of the most innovative individuals in the entire legal profession.

Today, the University of Pennsylvania Law School announced the launch of its new Future of the Profession Initiative. As explained in Penn Law’s press release, “The Initiative will ‘Teach, Lead, and Transform,’ by examining new ways law schools can adopt a holistic vision for the formation of lawyers – both during law school and throughout their careers.”

What does the Initiative include? It’s an ambitious offering. Just at launch — expect it to grow and expand in the years ahead — the Initiative will feature a “Five-Year-Out Academy,” to support the career development of Penn Law graduates entering a pivotal stage of their careers; a Dean’s Innovation Prize competition, to reward and encourage exceptional ideas for innovating in legal service delivery; a “Future of the Profession” symposium, to bring together thought leaders from the legal sector and other industries; an entrepreneurs-in-residence program; and the launch of a podcast featuring conversations about change.

What prompted the launch of the Initiative? As Dean Ted Ruger explained, “Change in the legal field is accelerating as technology evolves, new entrants join the industry, the practice of law becomes more globalized, regulatory frameworks governing lawyers shift, and attorneys approach their careers differently. As a result, law school applicants, students, and graduates are thinking in new ways about how they imagine their careers, underscoring the need for a solution that promotes innovation, thought leadership, and enhanced interdisciplinary education and engagement.”

The Initiative’s mission therefore includes, but is not limited to, legal tech. It will look at legal tech, and innovation in law more generally, with an eye towards advancing such crucial goals as bridging the justice gap and promoting lawyer well-being (which Penn Law, to its credit, already integrates into its Professional Responsibility curriculum).

To be sure, many other law school innovation centers take a similar approach. As Dan Linna, current Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern Law and former Director of LegalRnD at Michigan State, explained to me last year in ATL’s Law2020 podcast, the potential for legal tech to address the justice gulf is vast.

So what makes Penn Law’s initiative stand out? To my mind, what generally fuels success in both law and tech: the talent.

The Initiative will be led by Jennifer Leonard, Penn Law’s new Chief Innovation Officer — how many law schools have CIOs? (answer: not enough) — and the first Executive Director of the Future of the Profession Initiative. Leonard has a background that seems tailor-made for her new role.

As a 2004 graduate of Penn Law who has been a faculty member and administrator at the school since 2013, Leonard knows the institution well and is intimately familiar with all of its existing work in the innovation space. Prior to returning to Penn Law, she clerked for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, worked as a litigation associate at Montgomery McCracken, and served as Chief of Staff in the City of Philadelphia’s Law Department — experience in government and private practice that gives her a firsthand understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing lawyers today.

I interviewed Jen Leonard yesterday about the Initiative, and she couldn’t be more excited: “It’s fun, it’s collaborative, it’s new, and I can’t think of something I’d rather be doing than this.”

Leonard has been thinking about innovation in law and education for years now — certainly since she returned to Penn Law in 2013, but even before then, dating back to her time in practice. So when Dean Ruger asked her to lead a task force in innovation and entrepreneurship in the spring of 2018, she jumped at the opportunity, and the Initiative grew out of the task force’s work.

Leonard will be supported by a Board of Advisors that’s a veritable Murderers’ Row of legal leaders and innovators: Legal Services Corporation President Jim Sandman L’76, Dechert partner and former Philadelphia City Solicitor Sozi Tulante, ProBono Net’s Claudia Johnson L’97, LawVision CEO Susan R. Lambreth L’83, EY Managing Director Joe Borstein L’05, Hunton Andrews Kurth CFO Madhav Srinivasan WG ’89, Burford Capital Managing Director David Perla L’94, and award-winning legal innovator Aaron Katzel L’97.

All are Penn alumni themselves except for Sozi Tulante — a Harvard Law grad, and a longtime Lecturer in Law at Penn — and many of them should be familiar to Above the Law readers. Joe Borstein and David Perla are longtime contributors to ATL, and almost all of the others have been mentioned in these pages for their pioneering work in the innovation space.

I spoke yesterday about the Initiative with Joe Borstein, whom I’ve known for years — before his time as an ATL columnist and going all the way back to his days at Pangea3, when he and David Perla were revolutionizing ediscovery and legal managed services — and he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Penn is the ultimate interdisciplinary school, with a world-class law school, business school, medical school, programs in economics and psychology — and when it comes to integrating innovation across disciplines, there’s no one equal to Penn,” he said. He described himself and his fellow board members as “like kids in a candy store, excited to have the backing of an institution like Penn as we use innovation to improve the practice and profession of law.”

Congratulations to Penn Law on the launch of the Future of the Profession Initiative. Predicting the future is notoriously difficult, but I’m willing to bet that the Initiative will be a smashing success.

Penn Law Announces New ‘Future of the Profession Initiative’ Focused on Legal Education Innovation, Profession-Wide Thought Leadership
[Penn Law (press release)]

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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.

* The guy currently parading as the unconfirmed Homeland Security chief got shouted off stage at Georgetown Law. Prepare for the media consternation that students would treat a guy who daily condones illegal detentions with such rudeness. [New York Times]

* Bitcoin’s not a sound investment? Wha?!? [Law360]

* Companies back LGBTQ rights in amicus brief in a bid to demonstrate that this really isn’t a pro-business Court. [National Law Journal]

* The legal industry is in flux, and some big investors are looking to get in on it. [Forbes]

* Minority partners often relegated to non-equity tier. [American Lawyer]

* Barnes & Noble doesn’t have to produce documents about its own CEO’s ouster. [Corporate Counsel]

* Prime Minister’s camp calls out head of Supreme Court for using “injudicious” language when she used a quote from… the Prime Minister. [Legal Cheek]