Category: News Feeds

When meeting our law firm clients, or prospective clients, I’m often asked which team or practice group would benefit most from HighQ. My answer is always the same — all of them! HighQ is an intelligent collaboration and client engagement platform, with the relevant word here being platform.

Although lawyers might not want to admit it (they’re a fiercely competitive bunch), the fundamental anatomy of most legal matters looks the same — even though the precise process, type of law, and even the jurisdiction may differ.

The HighQ platform delivers core features and solutions that are applicable across all teams and practice groups, so no matter the type of legal work, HighQ has the essential tools needed to optimize the management, collaboration and delivery for that matter.

1. Team collaboration

Law is a team sport. Yes, there are some big personalities, but all legal matters involve a team of people with differing roles and responsibilities working towards a common goal.

Team collaboration is both internal (between paralegals, legal project managers, lawyers, support staff and so on) and external (with other key project stakeholders such as clients, banks, accountants, surveyors, foreign counsel, expert witnesses and so on). All of these project participants will benefit from effective communication and collaboration tools, enabling them to break down silos and improve transparency and knowledge sharing.

Thankfully for our clients, HighQ is the engine room of collaboration; it allows matter teams to share files, work together on documents, send private messages, post updates in a blog, manage team tasks, share project calendars, and connect using social collaboration tools. Unfortunately, legal project teams still rely on email for matter collaboration, which is often a problem as information needs to be consolidated in one place to make it accessible by the entire project team. HighQ solves this issue by providing a central workspace for distributed teams to work.

Efficient collaboration also requires teams to connect regardless of their location and time zone. All you need is a web browser to access the HighQ platform, and it’s also accessible on mobile devices, so team members can access files, information and collaborate on the go from anywhere in the world. Easy!

2. Document management

There’s no escaping that all legal matters involve documents and files of some kind — engagement letters, KYC documents, contracts, advice notes, exhibits, pleadings, witness statements, reports…the list goes on. As do the document management use cases — data rooms, M&A documents lists, conditions precedent trackers, e-bundles and more. However, how often is there a central online workspace where the whole project team can access and manage key documents, as well as collaborate on those documents? Not very often.

Unfortunately, document management, sharing and collaboration across project teams is still done via email in conjunction with Microsoft Word or Excel indexes. Finding the latest version of a document involves searching through an email chain. Yes, some team members will save them to a document management system, but where is the “project DMS” for all team members to use?

This is where HighQ comes into its own. Our platform allows teams to not only centrally store and securely manage matter documents with indexing, version control, custom file metadata and DMS integrations, but also collaborate around those documents with annotations, comments and tasks. Creating and editing documents in either Microsoft Office or Office Online and saving them to HighQ is also easy — there’s even simultaneous editing for collaborative document drafting.

Document access and permissions can be set right down to the file level, and the HighQ platform has full digital rights management and activity reporting so you can control and monitor who does what in the platform. If that wasn’t enough, HighQ integrates with DocuSign and Adobe Sign for electronic document execution, as well as comparison tools for document redlines.

HighQ also has an Outlook integration and a dedicated HighQ Drive desktop and mobile app, which let you work with documents online or offline without having to directly access the HighQ platform. So, whatever you might want to do with a document during a legal matter, HighQ has it covered.

3. Knowledge management

Law can be immensely complex, and a lawyer’s job is to help their client navigate this complexity in order to obtain the best possible outcome. The most successful law firms are therefore those with the best map and guidebook, in the shape of legal experience and know-how.

However, law firms aren’t always good at capturing know-how, so they tend to have a shifting body of knowledge that depends on the makeup of their lawyers at any point in time. The challenge for law firms is to capture and centralize their collective intelligence so that the quality of their know-how develops and improves over time. A firm that masters this process, and makes quality knowledge available to all its lawyers at the point they need it, will enable better decision-making and improved outcomes for its clients.

HighQ provides several ways for firms to unlock and capture legal knowledge and share it with other lawyers who need it. This might involve storing and managing precedent documents through the Files module, collaborating with colleagues on know-how topics within the Wiki, or sharing current awareness through the Blog.

The social collaboration tools within the HighQ platform also mean that it can be used to share knowledge and opinions in real time, as well as crowdsource knowledge and guidance. For example, just post a question to your colleagues to tap into their knowledge and collaboratively identify the best course of action. HighQ can become the hive mind of your law firm!

4. Legal process

All legal matters, except for perhaps the most unique and exceptional, have a standard process and workflow. Whether it’s a contract negotiation, litigation, stock market listing, competition clearance or property financing, they all involve a series of standard steps and actions. Sure, each process will have its own intricacies and complexities, but the foundational process of a specific matter type will be consistent.

Establishing and following a standard process is essential for law firms—it ensures quality and consistency of delivery and helps to mitigate the risk of error (something firms are keen to avoid at all costs).

However, an automated approach to legal process carries even more benefit — it helps reduce manual intervention in the process, frees up lawyer time to focus on higher value tasks, enables downstream allocation of work, and speeds cycle times. It also produces data and metrics that allow law firms to identify opportunities for process reengineering and improvement.

The HighQ platform contains tools that enable standard legal processes to be systematized. With the iSheets module, you can create process checklists to help walk project teams through a project framework. These checklists can be made “smart” through the use of conditional logic. Notifications can be built into the checklists so that team members are regularly notified about process status and risk.

However, workflow is more than tracking progress through checklists, which is why we are working hard on process automation capabilities. Our workflow engine will enable users to create a fully automated legal process by identifying a series of triggers and actions — if this, then that. For example, if a user uploads a file to Folder X, then the system creates a new task in List Y and adds an event to category Z. This functionality means that process automation can be “baked” into a HighQ site, enabling the automation itself to be seamless and discreet. This is going to be a game changer for efficient legal process delivery!

5. Project and matter management

Legal project management (LPM) is not a new discipline, but it remains a fairly nebulous concept for many lawyers. Several law firms now have LPM functions or methodologies. However, despite clients crying out for greater efficiency, consistency and transparency in legal projects, many firms haven’t found a way to institutionalize a best practice approach to the management and delivery of legal matters.

Whenever I talk to our law firm and corporate clients about LPM, one thing is clear — they all believe technology has a big role to play in helping to drive adoption of project management techniques in legal. When I was a lawyer, I was involved in a project to create a LPM methodology for transactional work. What was interesting was that when we distilled it down, LPM was actually quite straightforward.

It’s about efficient engagement, planning, delivery and closure of projects. The tools involved are also fairly simple — project plans, timelines, workstream and milestone trackers, task lists, status updates, integration checklists and so on. It’s all about establishing a plan, and then delivering against that plan whilst at the same time providing full transparency for the client.

LPM is a core focus for HighQ. Our platform is built for agile project management so that legal matters can delivered on time and on budget. A core element of LPM is transparency, and HighQ provides the online workspace to consolidate project content in one place and make it accessible to everyone (lawyers, clients and other advisers).

Our Tasks module helps keep team activity organized and aligned. You can assign tasks and track due dates and statuses so that everyone has a clear overview of project progress. The new timeline view of tasks allows you to view activity across days, weeks and months, giving project teams a view of the complete project schedule. Our Events module can also be used to track key milestones and meetings, as well as manage team availability.

The iSheets module is perfect for systematizing traditional Microsoft Excel project trackers, including budget, WIP and billing information, project portfolios, key issues lists and workstream reports, as well as project-specific trackers such as due diligence issues for M&A, negotiation points for commercial contracting and witness evidence for litigation. Another key component of LPM is simple transparent reporting, and this can be achieved by using our dashboard builder. Take data from both the iSheets and Tasks modules and visualize it in graphs and charts in the Home module.

With all of this awesome functionality, there’s no doubt that HighQ enables a smarter way to manage matters, and is the go-to platform for efficient legal project management.

6. Legal service delivery

Lawyers help their clients mitigate and manage risk as well as achieve value, and they do this in many different ways, for example, negotiating and drafting contracts and agreements, documenting arguments and defenses, providing advocacy, performing due diligence, sharing legal know-how and current awareness, reviewing information and advising on the best course of action, and so on.

The HighQ platform supports and optimizes the delivery of legal services in several different ways. Taking a literal approach, the HighQ platform enables secure file sharing for the delivery of legal documents to clients, with tools to enable online collaboration around, and execution of, that document.

However, HighQ offers further scope for transformation. Our document automation functionality in iSheets can help lawyers easily generate agreements and reports. But it’s not limited to lawyers; more forward-thinking law firms are opening up the platform and document automation directly to their clients—creating legal self-service portals for document generation as well as advice and access to legal playbooks.

These portals can be developed into full client relationship portals that contain client engagement documents, matter management reporting, financial information, know-how and e-learning, event diaries, regulatory and compliance trackers, lawyer directories and help-desks.

Last but not least, our new AI Hub allows lawyers to leverage AI tools, including our new HighQ AI service, directly in the platform. This helps lawyers with the heavy lifting of contract categorization, review and analysis. It also cuts down the chargeable hours, delivering work to clients more efficiently and cost-effectively.

When you sift through the mystique of law, you quickly realize that there is a clear and consistent framework for legal service delivery across all legal matters. With clients expecting more efficiency, transparency and value from their lawyers, it’s time for law firms to reengineer their legal service delivery into a real competitive advantage. The starting point is to health check the anatomy of your legal matters, diagnose the source of the pain and discomfort, and then seek treatment.

In any event, the prescription is clear — one dose of the HighQ platform to transform and optimize your legal service delivery. Your firm will be fighting fit in no time!

Rob is an experienced legal technology and innovation leader specialising in the design and creation of digital solutions to empower corporate legal teams and transform the delivery of legal services. As a former M&A and private equity lawyer for some of the UK’s leading law firms, Rob is passionate about the use of technology to create smarter legal service delivery methods as well as innovative new legal products.

Rob leads the corporate legal solutions team at HighQ. Before joining HighQ in 2017 he was group innovation manager for Pinsent Masons as part of their award-winning SmartDelivery team. Rob is an active member of the LegalTech community, regularly contributing for organisations and publications such as ACC, CLOC, The Lawyer, Bloomberg, Corporate Counsel and Law360.

It appears that Donald Trump really wants a centrally planned economy, where the government directs companies what to buy, what to sell, and what to build. Like the one China has. Sure, that’s, you know, “socialism,” but Republicans are craven hypocrites who support Trump for his bigoted ideology and deep misogyny. Economic theories were always just a mask for these guys, and Trump’s continued Republican support despite his unhinged economic ravings proves the point.

But can Trump have a centrally planned economy? Last week, Trump tweeted: “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” that drew predictable derision from literate non-Republicans. Later in the week, Trump tweeted something about the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which sent lawyers (including me) scrambling to figure out how he derived authoritarian central economic planning from a provision of American Law.

It’s always a risk to apply normal standards of judicial interpretation to the Republican Supreme Court, but let’s try to break this down.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is a 1977 law designed to give the President broad powers to direct economic levers against our foreign enemies in times of crisis. It’s important to understand that the IEEPA was written to constrain the President’s use of these powers to “emergencies.” Previously, the President’s powers to control the private economy were regulated by the Trading With The Enemies Act of 1917 (TWEA). That thing gave the President broad powers in times of war, but had been interpreted to be applicable in peace time, as well. The “Cuban Embargo” is enforced mainly through the Trading with the Enemy Act, for instance.

Obviously, we’re not at “war” with Cuba, we just don’t like them. By the late 70’s it became clear that the TWEA was being used by Presidents because they didn’t like this or that regime, as opposed to only during the case of open, violent hostilities. The IEEPA was meant to constrain that use of economic authoritarianism to “emergencies” instead of mere disagreement, while still giving the President leverage to punish enemies who we were nonetheless “at peace” with.

If an emergency exists, the IEEPA gives the President extraordinary economic powers.

(1) At the times and to the extent specified in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—
(A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit—
(i) any transactions in foreign exchange,
(ii) transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, to the extent that such transfers or payments involve any interest of any foreign country or a national thereof,
(iii) the importing or exporting of currency or securities,
by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;
(B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;

In one of his most famous opinions, Dames & Moore v. Regan, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist upheld this incredible grant of power. The IEEPA is expansive and it allows the President nearly limitless control over the economy, should an emergency be declared.

The question is not whether the President can “hereby order” private American companies to stop doing business in China. He almost certainly can. The issue is whether the President can will an international economic emergency into existence based only on his say so.

We’ve asked that question before. Trump’s purported “use” of the National Emergencies Act to build his Wall presents the same problem. No emergency exists, but if Trump says one does, is that enough? Here, the IEEPA specifies:

The authorities granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose.

Again, the IEEPA was written to STOP Presidents from using draconian economic powers to punish enemies by Presidential whim. China existing is not “unusual” or “extraordinary.” Trump picking a fight with China is unusually and extraordinarily stupid, but that’s not what this law means when it contemplates an international emergency. The Rehnquist opinion authorizing such use of economic powers was written in the context of the Iran hostage crisis. The IEEPA is used, frequently, to ban companies and non-profits from doing business with suspected state-sponsors of terrorism. Trump trying to get China to do what Trump wants is not an “emergency” by any reasonable reading of this statute.

Will it matter to Roberts? This is a guy who allowed Trump’s Muslim ban. This is a Court which might in fact allow Trump to steal money not authorized by Congress to build his bigoted metaphor across the Southern Border, under the guise of a “national emergency.” If you trust this Supreme Court to have more fealty to the law than to Trump, you simply haven’t been paying attention.

I don’t want to sound like George Will, but this is all Congress’s fault. Congress has, for decades and decades, been ceding its power to the executive branch, because it does not want to make difficult, politically charged decisions about international hot spots. You see it here, you see it with the National Emergencies Act, you see it with the Patriot Act. Congress, at an institutional level, would rather let the President do what he wants, then bitch and moan about it later when it’s politically convenient, instead of using its Article I powers to STOP the President during a politically charged moment.

Congress should not give these “emergency” powers to the President, without clearly defining “emergency,” without automatic sunset provisions, and without the escape hatch of a legislative veto via simple majority. To that last point, we should also amend the Constitution to overrule the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in INS v. Chadha, so that the legislative veto is once again a thing.

If we learn one thing from the Trump Era… well, that one thing should be “electing a racist con-man because he promises to be racist has consequences.” And then we should learn that Republicans can never be trusted because their entire political philosophy is a mere dog-whistle for the racism of their base. But if we learn THREE things from the Trump Era, let the third thing be to stop writing laws that require “good faith” on the part of the President of the United States. We are a weak and stupid people. Now that Trump has opened the Pandora’s Box on these powers, he will not be the last to use them.

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.

They say that the third time is the charm — I don’t know how applicable that phrase may be in most circumstances, but in this case, it may be right on point. I previously wrote on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) opinion in Mission Products Holdings v. Tempnology here and here. I recently had the great pleasure of being invited to participate on a panel at the American College of Bankruptcy 10^th Circuit Educational Program in Santa Fe, NM to give my intellectual property perspectives on the Mission Products Holdings ruling. Specifically, I spoke along with Bob Keach, outside counsel for Mission Products Holdings (as well as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and Past-President of the American Bankruptcy Institute) and the Hon. Robert H. Jacobvitz, Chief Judge of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Mexico, all moderated by Paul Fish (also a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy). Needless to say, this was an exceptional group of bankruptcy lawyers and I am honored to have been a part of this panel to speak “IP” on this topic. More importantly, I left with some final takeaways from the Mission Products Holdings case that are worth some additional thought.

My previous writings go through the background of Mission Products Holdings, so I won’t rehash them here. That said, a quick summary won’t hurt: As a direct result of the 4th Circuit’s ruling in Lubrizol Enterprises, Inc. v. Richmond Metal Finishers, Inc. (4th Cir. 1985), Congress enacted Section 365(n) of the Bankruptcy Code to clarify that, “the rights of an intellectual property licensee to use the licensed property cannot be unilaterally cut off as a result of the rejection of the license pursuant to section 365 in the event of the licensor’s bankruptcy.” This has the effect of permitting a licensee to elect to retain the rights under the license agreement as existed prior to the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings for the remainder of the license term after a rejection of the license agreement by the trustee/debtor-in-possession. See 11. U.S.C. Section 365(n)(1)(B). The problem: Trademarks are not listed as “intellectual property” under the Bankruptcy Code, due to the unique issues presented by the nature of trademarks themselves, such as the requirement of the trademark owner to maintain quality control over goods/services under the trademark provided by a licensee. Failure to maintain such quality control can result in a “naked license” because the product or service would no longer represent the level of quality expected of such product or service under such trademark(s). The effect: invalidation of the license and, in the worst cases, loss of trademark rights (and any attendant trademark registrations). Therefore, permitting a licensee to continue use post-rejection would foreseeably require the licensor to continue its quality control obligations on a license it rejected.

Thankfully, this issue was granted certiorari and clarified by SCOTUS. Addressing a plain reading of Section 365(g), a SCOTUS majority led by Justice Kagan held that “a debtor’s rejection of an executory contract in bankruptcy has the same effect as a breach outside bankruptcy…[and] cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.” As a result, the SCOTUS majority held “that construction of Section 365 means that the debtor-licensor’s rejection cannot revoke the trademark license.” By all accounts, this plain meaning approach to Section 365 (along with an excellent analysis) confirmed that Section 365(n) supplements (rather than supplants) Section 365(g). As a result, trademark licensees have some clarity where the licensor enters bankruptcy and the debtor-in-possession or trustee chooses to reject the license. As a panel, we all agreed that such a direct approach to statutory construction was refreshing and that SCOTUS got this one right. That said, open issues (beyond those I previously addressed) definitely remain that should be considered carefully by counsel. Here are a few of the most prominent ones we discussed with respect to trademarks:

1. Trademarks Are Not Part of Section 365(n), But.… By interpreting Section 365(g), the justices did not incorporate trademarks into Section 365(n). Justice Sotomayor’s concurring opinion, however, noted that the decision does not mean “every trademark licensee has the unfettered right to continue using licensed marks post rejection”. Why? Because such rights may be limited by “applicable non-bankruptcy law”. For example, Section 365(n) requires continued royalty payments by the licensee in the event the licensee opts to continue use post-rejection, but without any deduction for damages. This may or may not apply in an individual case depending upon the application of applicable non-bankruptcy law.

2. No Clarity for Exclusivity. Where trademark licenses confer exclusivity to the licensee, Section 365(n) permits the licensee to maintain such exclusivity post-rejection (within a given territory or field of use). As aforementioned, however, trademarks are not a part of Section 365(n). As rejection is to be treated as a breach under Section 365(g), does this mean that the licensee cannot maintain such exclusivity post-rejection? From my perspective, “applicable non-bankruptcy law” may be instructive here, but the issue is unresolved.

3. Equitable Remedies Post-Rejection Remain Unresolved. The Mission Products Holdings case is helpful, but it did not address the handling of equitable remedies following a debtor’s rejection of the license, such as specific performance, rights of first refusal, confidentiality and covenants not to compete. Although one may look to “applicable non-bankruptcy law” for guidance, it should be noted that Section 101(5) of the Bankruptcy Code states that a “claim” includes certain equitable remedies “for breach of performance if such breach gives rise to a right to payment, whether or not such right to an equitable remedy is reduced to judgment, fixed, contingent, matured, unmatured, disputed, undisputed, secured, or unsecured.”  Not all equitable rights are dischargeable in bankruptcy — what if the “claim” does not give rise to a right of payment? Good question, with no simple answer.

These are just some of the issues discussed, and I am sure that some (or all) of them will eventually be addressed through the courts. In the meantime, trademark holders and licensees will approach negotiations with a keener eye towards quality control and termination provisions. Further, purchasers (such as, for example, brand aggregators) would be wise to perform extra due diligence when reviewing company portfolios to ensure that any trademark licenses will not create impediments to value and intended monetization. Without question, the Mission Products Holdings case has left an indelible mark upon the law involving trademark licenses post-rejection — just make sure it doesn’t leave a big mark on the trademark assets of your company (or client) as well.

Tom Kulik is an Intellectual Property & Information Technology Partner at the Dallas-based law firm of Scheef & Stone, LLP. In private practice for over 20 years, Tom is a sought-after technology lawyer who uses his industry experience as a former computer systems engineer to creatively counsel and help his clients navigate the complexities of law and technology in their business. News outlets reach out to Tom for his insight, and he has been quoted by national media organizations. Get in touch with Tom on Twitter (@LegalIntangibls) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/technologylawyer), or contact him directly at tom.kulik@solidcounsel.com.

* 3M is asking Biglaw to care for attorney mental health in its new procurement process. The fourth “M” is for “Mindfulness.” [Corporate Counsel]

* In today’s installment of “intellectual property law is broken,” publishers are suing over audiobooks that offer captions. [New York Law Journal]

* A guy who legally changed his name to Atticus Finch when he was 8 is now in law school. If you think you hated Go Set A Watchman… [Texas Lawyer]

* Second Circuit doing all sorts of fact-finding because adhering to the record and precedent is out of fashion apparently. [Law360]

* Anti-gay blogger Judge John Bush calling out Kim Davis for “antihomosexual bias” is peak 2019. [National Law Journal]

* Famous football players who became lawyers. [Law.com]

* Convict seeks sheriff job. [HuffPo]

You start at the firm.

And you gripe: “I can’t believe it! I left a brief on the partner’s desk. The partner circled a couple of typo’s in red and returned the thing to me! The partner said, ‘This isn’t up to our quality of work.’ What a jerk! They’re just typo’s; I would have fixed them before the brief went out the door. I can’t believe I have to work with these people.”

You stay at the firm.

And you gripe: “I worked all weekend. I left the brief on the partner’s desk bright and early Monday morning. The partner didn’t even look at the thing before getting on a plane and leaving for three days. Why did I have to ruin my weekend if the partner wasn’t going to review the draft until Thursday? I can’t believe I have to work with these people.”

You stay at the firm.

And you gripe: “The junior lawyers at this firm are terrible! I got handed a draft brief that was barely literate. Now I’m here at midnight rewriting the damn thing so that we can send it to the client tomorrow. Why can’t we hire anyone who’s worth a damn? I can’t believe I have to work with these people.”

You stay at the firm.

And you gripe: “I can’t believe I’m working all night. I just needed to add one more associate to the case and we would have been staffed intelligently. But the client said no, so I’m forced to do all the grunt work myself. Ridiculous! I can’t believe I have to work with these people.”

You stay at the firm.

And you gripe: “I’d been pursuing BigCo for three years. I finally landed BigCo as a client! I expected everyone to congratulate me. Instead, Jarndyce came out of the woodwork, said that he’d had a cup of coffee with BigCo’s CEO last year, and stole the origination credit! This is ridiculous. Even when you do exactly what you’re supposed to, you don’t get credit. I can’t believe I have to work with these people.”

Which suggests a few things.

First, lawyers are exceptionally good at griping. Lawyers are fierce and independent and cynical, and that means they always find fault with life.

Second, your gripes will evolve over time. Just when you think that you’re an associate and things couldn’t get any worse, you become a junior partner, and things get worse. Just when you think life couldn’t be worse than your fate as a junior partner, you become a senior partner, and things get worse. The stresses are different, but they never vanish. Don’t think that you’re special because you have something to complain about. Everyone has things to complain about; the complaints just change with the years.

Third, this is the rule: Law firms aren’t perfect. They never have been; they never will be.

This is the corollary: No place is perfect. Deal with it.

Finally: Ultimately, you’ve lived a professional life that has been intellectually challenging. There’s been a lot of variety. There have been moments of triumph and moments of despair. You’ve met a cast of characters that has been fascinating. You’ve been able to buy everything that you needed and damn near everything that you wanted. You put your kids through college, and you paid the mortgage.

If you’re playing the game correctly, work fuels your life, but it isn’t your life.

Tolerate your employment, or change it. But don’t come here looking for sympathy. Gripe only if it makes you feel better.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

The socio-economic conditions of many Zimbabweans have also declined over the past 12 months. The weak economy has seen fuel prices skyrocket and high inflation push the prices of basic commodities such as bread through the roof as well as eroding people’s salaries.

“What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe since President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power is a ruthless attack on human rights, with the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association increasingly restricted and criminalized,” said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Southern Africa.

“The authorities have shown blatant contempt for basic freedoms and they have demonstrated that there is no space for dissent in the so-called “new dispensation”. Time and again they have resorted to the same brutal tactics that were used by President Mnangagwa’s predecessor Robert Mugabe to clampdown on human rights.”

Crackdown on protests

Just last week, baton-wielding police mounted a vicious assault on peaceful protesters who gathered in Harare in anticipation of the “16 August” national protests against deteriorating socio-economic conditions in the country. Scores of people were left injured following the crackdown. On Thursday 15 August before the march, Zimbabwean police announced they were banning the protests through a press statement, saying the demonstrations would turn violent. After the aborted protest, about 128 activists were arrested and placed on remand. Other protests that were planned to take place in four other cities around the country were also banned and some activists arrested.

At the start of the year, Amnesty International documented at least 15 killings by police when nationwide protests erupted on 14 January, sparked by the announcement of fuel price hikes. The state carried out mass arrests which saw hundreds of people being arrested on charges including public violence. By the end of April, close to 400 people were convicted by the courts, with most of them through hastily conducted trials.

During the protests, the police used lethal and excessive force such as tear gas, batons, water cannons and live ammunition. They also launched a house-to-house hunt to track down and silence the organizers of the protest and other prominent civil society leaders and activists. Some of those arrested – including Evan Mawarire, a well-known local cleric and activist, and trade union leader Peter Mutasa – still face trumped-up treason charges in connection with the protests. The state has charged an unprecedented number of 22 people with subverting a constitutional government in relation to the protests.

The pursuit of those perceived to be linked to protest movements continued throughout the year. In May, seven human rights defenders were arrested at Robert Mugabe International Airport as they returned from a capacity-building workshop on non-violent protest tactics in the Maldives. The activists, Stabile Dewah, George Makoni, Tatenda Mombeyarara, Gamuchirai Mukura, Nyasha Mpahlo, Farirai Gumbonzvanda and Rita Nyamupinga were accused of “plotting to overthrow President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government”. They are yet to face trial.

Abductions and torture of human rights activists to silence them from freely expressing themselves continue. On 21 August, comedian Samantha Kureya was abducted by masked men from her house and tortured after publishing a skit on police brutality.

“In his first year in office, President Mnangagwa’s government has demonstrated little observance of human rights and adherence to the rule of law, continuing the trend that we saw under Robert Mugabe,” said Muleya Mwananyanda.

“As he enters his second year in office, the president has the opportunity to start on a fresh slate by immediately taking steps to ensure that his government ends the escalating attacks on human rights and impunity for human rights violations. We urge him to build a Zimbabwe that has a culture of respect for the human rights of everyone.”

Background

President Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn into office on 26 August 2018 following the election on 30 July 2018 that saw his ZANU-PF party claiming victory. The vote combined presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.

Post published in: Featured

In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, vendors are seen on their mobile phones while selling cash in Harare, Zimbabwe. With inflation soaring and cash in short supply, many Zimbabweans transfer funds using their mobile phones and pay a premium to get currency. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/zimbabwes-hope-is-devoured-by-the-crocodile-329b2sp7w

A friend of mine went to the supermarket near her home in Harare at the weekend and bought six cartons of milk, a bunch of bananas and bones for her dog. Then she braced herself for the six-hour queue at the petrol pumps and went to fill up the family saloon. By the time she arrived home, this simple excursion had cost her close to the typical monthly salary of a mid-level civil servant in Zimbabwe. “And you know what,” she added. “I’m so embarrassed since I know most of the cashiers can’t afford to shop at their store.”

Once again, this beautiful but blighted nation is in crisis. One doctor told me there were no drugs in her hospital. There is no water most of the time, the electricity cuts off 18 hours a day and many families are going hungry. A western businessman, fighting to keep his company afloat when there is no power to run his plant, no fuel to transport goods and no cash to pay staff, said one in 12 of his employees had fled the country in recent weeks. “Good luck to them,” he said ruefully. “This is the worst it has been here for more than a decade.”

How quickly that burst of optimism after the overthrow of Robert Mugabe two years ago has turned to despair. When security chiefs engineered a coup, they promised things would change after 37 years of repression, rampant corruption and gross economic ineptitude that led to the second-worst hyperinflation in history. His hands may have been stained in blood as Mugabe’s former enforcer but Emmerson Mnangagwa, the new president, declared Zimbabwe was “open for business” after taking power.

Never mind his nickname, the Crocodile, nor the shooting of citizens when an election result was delayed amid claims of fraud and voter intimidation. Mnangagwa wooed gullible foreign politicians, wore the scarf in national colours adopted by pro-democracy activists, hired public relations people to polish his image and turned up at Davos to hobnob with the global elite.

“I am working toward building a new Zimbabwe: a country with a thriving and open economy, jobs for its youth, opportunities for investors, and democracy and equal rights for all,” he claimed as he pledged reform and promised freedoms.

But while the 95-year-old Mugabe lies sick in a Singaporean hospital, darkness has again descended on the country he helped free from British colonial rule in 1980. Rival factions in the ruling Zanu (PF) party bicker like balding men over a comb, among them allies of “Gucci” Grace, the loathed former first lady once accused of trying to poison the ruthless Mnangagwa with ice cream from her stolen dairy farm. Inflation is rocketing again, estimated to be running at 500 per cent annually, while critics are charged with sedition, activists tortured and demonstrations over a deteriorating economy are met with brutal force by baton-wielding security goons.

One United Nations agency says that within months almost half the 17 million population might struggle to eat a single meal a day in a country once called Africa’s breadbasket. The government blames drought. But the big issue is, yet again, blundering by a despotic regime focused more on plundering wealth than helping its people, symbolised by its dismal efforts to shore up the crashing new Zimdollar currency with foreign currency banned two months ago. “It is not like before when there was no food in the shops,” one Harare resident said. “Now there is plenty of food but no money to buy it. It feels surreal, more uncertain than ever.”

Many Zimbabweans are dismayed by the speed of this latest decline. But despite joyful celebrations over the November 2017 coup that ousted “the old man”, there should be no surprise over the failure to deliver a better future when the same old Zanu (PF) faces are seen in charge of their country.

Britain has joined the European Union and United States in speaking out against the human rights abuses. To our shame, however, few outsiders were more complicit in cheering on the coup and promoting Mnangagwa’s cause than British officials in their desperation to regain influence.

Three years ago our diplomats backed an attempt to bail out Mugabe’s government, to the fury of Washington, with one key player confirming to me their involvement in a misguided effort to impose monetary stability. Opposition figures believe Britain went on to back Mnangagwa actively and assist his cosmetic makeover into a reformer.

After the new president’s first 150 days in office, Boris Johnson as foreign secretary praised Zimbabwe’s “impressive progress”. One local source said a British diplomat apologised this year for their supportive stance after 17 people were killed, 16 raped and 900 arrested during a crackdown on fuel price protests.

Mnangagwa, who is 76, was linked to the worst excesses of the Mugabe era, with a history of crushing dissent despite his sudden pose as a democrat. Yet once again, Britain fell for the arrogant delusion that autocrats are a safer bet than democracy in turbulent places — just as in so many other African and Middle Eastern nations, from Egypt and Saudi Arabia through to Rwanda and Uganda. Now we see the legacy of such stupidity as Zimbabwe disintegrates, its people suffer more distress and the Crocodile devours any lingering hopes of change.

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