Category: News Feeds

Score one for the good guys. Yesterday, Judge Kevin Enright of San Diego County’s Superior Court issued a preliminary decision ordering the owners of the website GirlsDoPorn.com to pay the 23 unnamed plaintiffs $9.5 million in compensatory damages and $3.3 million in punitive damages for deceptive and unfair business practices, using shell entities to hide corporate ownership and assets, fraudulently obtaining contracts, misappropriation of likeness, and fraudulent transfer.

The case was filed in 2016 by Jane Does 1-22, who were girls and women ages 18 to 23 who responded to an online job posting for adult modeling. Jane Doe “A” was added in October, because unbelievably the Defendants continued to run their scheme enticing young women to shoot pornographic videos under false pretenses, even after the case was filed. They do appear to have stopped after federal sex trafficking and child pornography charges were filed though.

The Defendants convinced hundreds of women to shoot pornographic scenes in a scheme that would be comically evil if it weren’t so tragic.

They assured the women that the footage would never be posted online, vaguely alluding to a “private collector,” perhaps in Australia. In fact the videos were posted almost immediately to the Defendants’ own subscription sites, with additional clips posted on free portals like PornHub.com.

The Defendants supplied “reference models” who told the women that it would be a safe, fun experience. In fact, many of the “references” had not themselves shot videos. And when the women were flown to San Diego, they found themselves alone in a room with several strange men who wouldn’t give them their plane tickets home if they didn’t go through with the video. Multiple defendants testified that the defendants blocked the doors with furniture to prevent them leaving.

The Defendants assured the women that no one they knew would ever find out. In fact, the Court found that “Defendants deliberately profited from the videos being leaked to Plaintiffs’ personal circles and communities.” According to The Daily Beast, which has covered this story extensively, the Defendants tried to make the videos go viral by sharing them within the woman’s social media networks, resulting in harassment and humiliation. Worse, the women were immediately doxxed by trollsites devoted to the purpose, with the active participation of the Defendants, who, according to the Court, “encouraged and facilitated this outing process and even participated directly.”

The Defendants were verbally promised that they would receive between $2,500 and $5,000 for a thirty minute shoot, after which the footage would be processed onto DVDs for private sale overseas. Moments before the shooting, which often ran several times as long, the women were coerced into quickly signing contracts which buried references to online distribution under several pages of dense legalese.

The Plaintiffs read a “script” at the beginning of the shoot attesting that, “I {real name} am doing this scene for BLL Media of my own free will and I am of sound mind and body. I am not under the influence of drugs or any mind altering substances.” In fact, the Defendants routinely gave the women alcohol and/or marijuana before shooting, even though many of the Plaintiffs were under 21.

The Defendants hid their assets in a series of shell companies in Vanuatu, deliberately transferring them to obscure actual ownership and deny Plaintiffs recovery. As Judge Enright put it, “The Court is not persuaded by Defendants’ claim that these transfers were effectuated to fix ‘mistakes’ in the ‘corporate structure’ and that ‘this is how it was supposed to be all along.’”

The Defendants names are Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe, Andre Garcia, Valorie Moser, and Teddy Gyi. Pratt, the owner of the company, is currently on the lam in his native New Zealand, which does have an extradition treaty for child sex charges, Moser and Gyi are out on bond, and Wolfe and Garcia are currently guests of the federal government, where we fervently hope they will remain for the rest of their natural lives.

“They’re so relieved, thanking us many times over—just overjoyed with the result. We’re going to do everything we can to get their images down and to get these guys to stop practicing the way they were,” Plaintiffs’ attorney John O’Brien told The Daily Beast. Small mercies, in a scary world.

Women Win $13 Million in GirlsDoPorn Fraud Suit [Courthouse News]
Amateur Porn Company Girls Do Porn Hit With $12.8M in Damages for Exploiting Young Women [Daily Beast]
Jane Does 1-22 v. GirlsDoPorn.com [via Courthouse News]

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

As we enter the roaring twenties, we look back on how the landscape of Biglaw has changed over the last ten years – from the height of the recession in 2010 to the recent bullish market. Here are some of the significant trends in from the last decade.

1) No Longer Swiping Left On Law.

Undergraduate students are once again taking the LSAT after the test taking rate dropped to a near nadir in 2015. Though there have been rumblings of a recession – which we have yet to realize – we predict this trend will continue into the new decade if firm expansion and growth continues, providing more landing spots for incoming attorneys.

2) California Dreaming.

Firms extended their reach across the U.S., as the second wave of manifest destiny also…manifested itself. Gone are the days where a California office was seen as a luxury, a sentiment mirrored by 41 Am Law 200 firms that opened offices in Los Angeles in the last decade and another 27 and 25 firms opened office in San Francisco and Palo Alto, respectively. Texas saw firms pour in, especially towards the second half of the decade. We predict smaller markets will continue to burgeon as firms look to take advantage of the relative cost-savings compared to the expensive New York, Los Angeles and D.C. markets, and the propagation of sophisticated clients to what was previously thought of as tertiary markets continues as technology erases physical barriers.

3) Feed Me Seymour.

Lewis Brisbois rounded out the decade as the most popular lateral destination of any Am Law 200 firm, lateralling in 1,914 attorneys, or to put it in more topical terms, the same number of people who went to see Cats during its opening weekend. Their overall headcount grew a healthy 150%. Unsurprisingly, lateral movement correlated strongly with firm size, but some firms take a page from the Lakers and rely much more on lateral movement than entry level hiring.

4) Growth Is Good.

Polsinelli has “glowed up” over the last decade, increasing their headcount a whopping 2200%. In an increasingly competitive landscape, firms are bifurcating largely into two groups – the firms seeking high margin work with a lean staffing model, and a lower margin model that offsets smaller margins with higher volume. What we’ve seen over the last decade is the chasm between these two groups has risen and the middle ground that used to be well populated has become increasingly sparse. We predict as time goes on, this trend will only continue.

5)  PPP For Me.

PPP rose 33% over the course of the decade, and partner compensation rose in tandem. Associate salaries also rose to record highs, but these gains are offset by inflation and rising costs of living. Barring another recession, we predict this trend will continue into the next decade, though the pace of growth may slow.

6) To Everything, Merge, Merge, Merge.

Ten years ago, Sonneschein Nath Rosenthal and Denton Wilde Sapte combined into what would become SNR Denton, a healthy firm with a little over 1,000 attorneys. Ten years later, Dentons is a powerhouse with over 10,000 attorneys after consummating an additional 10 more mergers or acquisitions with firms with over 100 attorneys, the largest of which saw them bring on Dacheng’s 3,000+ attorneys in China. With offices spanning 78 countries, there may soon be a day where there are more countries that have a Denton’s office than those that don’t.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.

The legal profession in general, and Biglaw specifically, has a problem with diversity. Hell, there’s an entire podcast dedicated to the issue (yes, I’m the host of the podcast and you should definitely listen). And while most firms acknowledge the need for change, and some are actually trying to make improvements, there’s still a lot to be done. Just ask the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Sharpton, along with Reverend Dale Dennis, used the occasion of the appointment of Tamika Montgomery-Reeves to the Delaware Supreme Court (the first person of color to be appointed to the state’s high court) to tee off on the problem of diversity in the legal profession. They did so by sending a pointed letter to Biglaw giant Skadden Arps calling them out for their lack of diversity, particularly in their Delaware office (you can read the full letter below):

While Skadden claims that “diversity and inclusion are fundamental to [its] success as a global law firm,” its presence in Wilmington tells a different story.

According to Skadden Arps’ own reporting on law firm diversity, of the 72 lawyers in the firm’s Wilmington office, exactly one Summer Associate is Black, while 9 of 10 partners are white. And of 49 full associates in the same office, just six are racial minorities.

Clearly, this is a systemic issue. One that has plagued the legal industry for decades, but one that must change. How can we achieve an equitable justice system if people of color aren’t afforded the opportunity to work at the most prestigious law firms? How can we expect the judges in our courts to reflect the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the communities they represent if they do not gain the experience needed to rise to those positions?

While the letter takes issue with the legal industry as a whole, Reverend Sharpton told Above the law why targeting Skadden specifically is so important:

“If we’re going to fix the institutional and systemic neglect of people of color in Delaware’s court system, it’s critical we look at where its justices come from. Take a look at judges like Chancery Court Chancellor Andrew Bouchard, or even retired Delaware Supreme Court Justice Leo Strine, where did they come from? Skadden Arps. One firm, Skadden Arps, has an especially significant impact on an entire state’s justice system. Therefore, Skadden Arps needs to lead the effort to more completely diversify the ranks of law firm partners and judges in this state.”

Sharpton and Dennis also wrote that they are commissioning a study of diversity in Delaware to better understand the contours of the problem:

To remedy these issues, we must first understand how deep they are. That is why we are commissioning a study on the state of diversity in Delaware’s legal industry. The study will give the people of Delaware, the 18th most diverse state in the country, the opportunity to understand how their diverse perspectives are represented in one of the state’s most prominent and lucrative industries.

We reached out to Skadden for comment, but have not as yet heard back.

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).

About one year ago I joined my current firm. I came to the firm not knowing how I would adjust after working for the government for more than three years. Now that the year is over, I thought I would note some of the lessons I’ve learned.

First, I think the best thing you can do when you start a new job is to trust and rely on your colleagues. Too many lawyers feel that they know it all. But we all need help when we begin a new position. Certain jobs have a certain way of doing things, and there is no way you’ll know how to do everything. Whether it is conforming to particular billing procedures or how your firm writes internal emails, you will need to ask questions. I believe that you should feel comfortable asking as many questions as possible because the sooner you learn how to do things correctly, the sooner you will be able to be more productive.

Second, if I could redo my first year at my job, I would own my cases more. Showing up at firm and getting handed a book of cases is difficult. But over time, as you become used to the clients and the case fact patterns, you should take an active role in running your cases. It’s easy to rely on your supervisors to make the big (and small) decisions for you. But then you aren’t really growing as a lawyer. I think that making all the decisions on your cases will help grow your confidence and will increase your standing among your colleagues. Too often I felt that I had to ask my supervisors what they thought or what they would do. I now know that if I do make a mistake, they will be there to counsel and correct me. But you are not going to learn to be a better lawyer without making some mistakes along the way.

Third, it’s particularly important to appreciate and utilize your support system at your job. When I started a year ago, I preferred to do everything myself. I didn’t use the paralegals and other support staff at the firm because I was afraid a mistake would be made. But, I quickly learned that you need to trust your support staff. There is way too much to do during the day to do everything yourself. As the year went on, I began to rely on the support staff more and realized how talented and dedicated they are. To that end, you should always convey how you appreciate the work that the support staff does by thanking them regularly and treating them with the respect they deserve.

Fourth, don’t be afraid to challenge the norms at your job. Now that I have been at my firm for a year, I have decided that I should have the confidence to challenge the way things are done if I think they are not being done correctly or efficiently. If you simply accept how things are done and don’t challenge the norms, neither you nor the firm will grow and adapt. The confidence to challenge the norms will come over time, but when you feel ready, you should be able to go to a supervisor and convey your ideas.

Fifth, I believe that after a year at a new position you should make a plan for your growth as a lawyer and at your job. Don’t rest on your laurels! Lawyers need to keep learning and growing as their careers progress. Also, you should plan for how you are going to progress at your current firm or position. No one wants to be a junior associate as an entire career. Start planning how to maximize your potential at your current job.

Finally, it’s very important to recharge your batteries. Whether it’s an early night after a busy week or taking a full vacation, you need time for yourself. No one can go nonstop. If you do, your work will suffer. An overtired lawyer is not a productive lawyer.

After a year at a new job, you should always evaluate how you are doing and go over the lessons you have learned. It’s good to reflect on yourself and your job. Hopefully, this article will help you do so.

Peter S. Garnett is an attorney at Balestriere Fariello who represents clients in trials, arbitrations, and appeals. He focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation and contract disputes from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach Peter at peter.s.garnett@balestrierefariello.com.

It’s not surprising that there’s an organization like the Romance Writers of America. What’s surprising is that they have an ethics committee. While the Supreme Court continues to operate without any defining code of conduct, goddamned romance authors have an oversight board.

Heidi Bond became the former Ninth Circuit clerk to publicly outline sexual harassment claims against former Judge Alex Kozinski, claims that brought other women forward and ultimately resulted in Kozinski’s resignation. One of the low-key tragedies of Bond’s role in the Kozinski’s fall is that she only had the professional freedom to speak out because she had left the profession already. So many other former clerks who spoke out later had understandable career concerns about crossing one of the stars of the federal bench. But Bond, who had launched a literary career under the pen name “Courtney Milan” could and did get the ball rolling.

Now Bond is embroiled in a dispute with the Romance Writers of America where an ethics complaint accuses her of being the harasser… specifically a cyber “bully.” While the RWA vacillates over whether or not to expel Milan, who once chaired the ethics committee, the whole affair is blowing the lid off a seriously fucked up industry about writing about fucking.

From The Guardian:

The fact that Milan was then serving as the chair of RWA’s ethics committee was “akin to putting a neo-Nazi in charge of a UN human rights committee”, Tisdale wrote in her complaint, alleging that Milan had “continually and repeatedly” launched “disgusting attacks” against other authors and RWA members.

That’s some throbbing hyperbole. What would possibly make Bond a neo-Nazi?

“She is accusing me of being a racist simply because I am white,” Tisdale wrote.

There are not enough eyerolls in the world for this one.

Bond is in hot, bubbling water barely covering her supple Tweeting thumbs because she pointed out that the romance novel industry is replete with racist stereotypes. As a half Chinese woman, Bond took to social media to label another author’s book a “fucking racist mess” for its depiction of Asian women with “slanted almond eyes” and faces that were “almost yellow.” Defenders of the novel argue that had Bond read more of the book she would have “themes and plot points that establish precisely the opposite of what she claims” which undoubtedly means the heroine — who has blue eyes in the book? — grows beyond these Orientalist stereotypes, which as an arc, is also kind of racist. Normally one would assume that the Asian woman would have a better handle on what might constitute a negative Asian stereotype than a bunch of white women, but that’s apparently not a given within the RWA.

HelenKay Dimon, a past RWA president, previously told The Guardian that she regularly received letters from white RWA members expressing concern that “now nobody wants books by white Christian women”.

There is “a group of people who are white and who are privileged, who have always had 90% of everything available, and now all of a sudden, they have 80%. Instead of saying: ‘Ooh, look, I have 80%,’ they say: ‘Oh, I lost 10! Who do I blame for losing 10?’” Dimon said.

The RWA originally ruled that Milan “would be suspended from the group for a year, and barred for life from holding a leadership position.” After an outcry that led to multiple board members of color resigning, the group has rescinded its decision “pending a legal opinion.”

Look, discrimination — both structural and overt — is still rampant throughout the legal profession, but it might well be a diversity utopia compared to the romance novel industry. Bond is like a discrimination fire jumper parachuting from one awful hellscape of a profession into another. Get this woman some kind of medal.

A romance novelist spoke out about racism. An uproar ensued [The Guardian]
The Wrong Kind Of Racy [The Economist]

Earlier: Judge Kozinski Accused Of Sexual Misconduct

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.

Mary Chiwenga’s lawyer Slyvester Hashiti speaks on her client bail applications – VIDEO

CALEDONIA Mining defied difficult operating conditions in Zimbabwe to unveil a 9% lift to its quarterly dividend – an increase it said was motivated by an increase in production and the stronger dollar gold price.

Steve Curtis, CEO of Caledonia, said the improvement in the dividend was also a reflection of the firm’s increased confidence in its business. “As we approach the end of the five-year investment programme at Blanket Mine, we anticipate the rate of capital expenditure will begin to reduce from the middle of 2020, which gives us greater flexibility to consider deploying some of our cash reserves on an increased dividend,” he said.

“As we reported in mid-November 2019 when we published the results for the third quarter of 2019, our financial performance has improved due to increased production and the continued higher gold price. This improvement has continued through the final quarter of 2019,” Curtis said.

Trading couldn’t be more difficult in Zimbabwe with power supply from the national grid under constant threat whilst foreign exchange restrictions imposed by Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration has hampered the expansion of Blanket. Just over a year ago, Caledonia was saying the expansion programme was under threat.

By November, however, Caledonia said it was benefiting from a revised electricity tariff which allowed for the funding of imported electricity provided it is used exclusively to supply participating mining companies.

The increased dividend – equal to 7.5 US cents per share – is 9.1% better than the 6.875 cents paid quarterly previously.

Curtis said the central shaft of Blanket, to be commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2020, which would take production to 80,000 ounces a year of gold by the firm’s 2022 financial year. Production for the nine months ended September came in at 38,306 oz.

Curtis said the firm’s board would review future dividend distributions “as appropriate” whilst considering the balance between delivering returns to shareholders and pursuing new growth opportunities in Zimbabwe.

Caledonia said in March that it was considering investing in new opportunities in Zimbabwe once it had completed the Blanket expansion. “If you believe things will be better in five years’ time, you have to get in now,” Mark Learmonth, Caledonia’s CFO, told Reuters.

“We’re not talking about a big, producing mine,” he said. “We’re talking about advanced exploration or brownfield, but with good prospectivity. We plan to redeploy some of the surplus cash to be generated by the Blanket Mine,” he said.

Post published in: Business

▶️ The electricity system is broken: at one time we had no power for over forty-eight hours.

▶️ The water system is broken: in some parts of the city, they have had no water for over five years and have to buy their water every day. Getting a decent shower each morning was a battle which I didn’t always win!

▶️ The roads are broken: the potholes are unacceptable!

▶️ The fuel provision is broken: people are spending days and nights in mile-long queues that snake around blocks and blocks!

▶️ The people themselves are broken: law and order have deteriorated to unacceptable levels. It’s not uncommon to have a traffic jam with only a handful of cars at an intersection! Everybody wants to go at the same time and will force their way into the middle of the intersection without any consideration of other road users! Add to this unworking traffic lights and you have total chaos that takes hours to untangle! I take my hat off to the vendors on some major intersections who though unpaid, volunteer to direct traffic enabling smooth flow.

At one point, I came across tree branches on the road that was obstructing the flow of traffic badly. I immediately stopped to remove them only to realise there was a guy on top of the tree with an axe helping himself to some firewood from a municipal tree by the side of the road! I was SO mad I ordered him down with a threat of arrest! He didn’t know who I was so he complied! People are now a law unto themselves.

▶️ The wage system is broken: the local currency went from 1:1 (to the greenback) to 1:20+ with no wage adjustment. By and large, supermarket prices have remained stable in US$ terms but totally out of reach for the common man on the street who earns in the local currency.

▶️ The health sector is broken: the mortality rate has spiked as a result of avoidable deaths and yet no one seems to care! Doctors have been on strike for more than 100 days! There’s a silent genocide going on.

▶️ The government itself appears clueless by its apparent inaction in the face of one crisis after another, the inability to resolve the doctors’ strike being a case in point.

Yah! This is a broken nation!

As I boarded the plane to leave, my heart was heavy. CRY MY BELOVED COUNTRY! What shall I do for you? Where is the remedy for your healing to be found?

Post published in: Featured

This followed the brutal murder of a security official by a group of machete-wielding artisanal gold miners at the weekend. The official was guarding the premises of a gold mine owned by a senior member of Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party.

Zimbabwe’s government decriminalised artisanal gold mining three years ago in an effort to create jobs. The latest statistics from the government’s gold-buying entity Fidelity Printers and Refiners show that small-scale miners produced more than 50% of the country’s gold with the government giving full support to the informal operations through loans and authorisations, said BusinessLive.

However, the move has resulted in an outpouring of violence with hundreds killed in 2019 alone as a result.

“The ZHRC unreservedly condemns the callous and unwarranted attack by the unruly and greedy, machete-wielding mob,” the commission said in a statement. “The law, of course, must take its full course in barbaric instances of this nature.

“The commission condemns all similar, past and present, barbaric and intentional murders with the contempt they deserve and exhort law enforcement agencies to ensure the law takes its full course in such instances,” it said.

In November, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) NGO said 105 people had been killed in the mining town of Kadoma in the three months from August to October of 2019, while hundreds of others were severely injured in machete attacks.

A few weeks ago, justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi directed police “… to shoot to kill the marauding gangs”. However, police have largely failed to stop or control the mob violence. Police officers have also been accused of colluding with the gangs after receiving bribes, said BusinessLive.

Post published in: Business

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment methodology, overturning a case brought forward by a New Mexico-based insurance cooperative.

New Mexico Health Connections (NMHC) originally filed suit in 2018, saying the risk adjustment methodology penalized small insurers. District Judge James Browning ruled in NMHC’s favor, saying the Department of Human Services’ approach to risk adjustment was “arbitrary and capricious.”

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10^th Circuit unanimously overturned that decision on Tuesday, saying HHS justified its methodology for risk adjustment in making the program “budget neutral.”

The risk adjustment methodology is used for health plans that operate on the federal exchanges. Intended to discourage insurers from passing on patients with pre-existing conditions, it redistributes funds from plans with healthier members to those with sicker enrollees.

The Department of Health and Human Services redistributes the funds based on the statewide average premium. New Mexico Health Connections and other insurance cooperatives have challenged the methodology.

“Rather than create competition, they are crushing the small, innovative new entrants like NMHC,” the complaint stated.

NMHC would have paid more than $5 million in risk adjustment charges in 2018, the majority of which the co-op said would go to large insurers, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico.  In the complaint, NMHC called the payments an “upside-down his upside-down system of reverse Robin Hood.”

NMHC can bring the case before the 10^th Circuit Court again or appeal to the Supreme Court. The case is New Mexico Health Connections v U.S. Department of Health & Human Services et al.

Photo credit: artisteer, Getty Images