Category: News Feeds

As recently explained by our firm’s managing partner, John Balestriere, complaining serves no benefit to the client and takes focus away from our jobs as lawyers: winning. While my colleagues and I do our best to uphold a strict no complaining policy, we get as frustrated and angry as anyone else when things do not go our way.

Give Yourself Time to Process

More often than not, the hours immediately after a bad event are the worst time to analyze what happened. Everyone processes defeat and failure differently, but none of us are clear minded right after getting bad news or going through a bad experience. Personally, I internalize everything. I feel defeated, demotivated, and tend to blame everything on myself as though I am the sole cause of my own demise. Others process with anger, they want to yell, complain, and blame everyone and everything under the sun except for themselves for what went wrong. More often than not, there are a combination of factors that lead to a loss. Understanding and analyzing these factors with a cool and logical mind can prevent these events from recurring, or worse yet, becoming a norm.

The Post-Mortem Examination

Whether it be a failure to foresee an argument from an opposing counsel in court, a seemingly unnecessary or avoidable all-nighter, or a decision from a judge that just went the wrong way, we must evaluate bad events and learn from them. Ideally, we should channel the energy we feel when we are angry or frustrated in our jobs into productive lessons, rather than dwell upon them or hide our feelings thus leaving them to fester. To wit, after something goes particularly sideways, my colleagues and I take a page out of the medical field’s playbook and perform a post-mortem examination to evaluate the best way to prevent such events from repeating in the future.

While stewing over a loss is unproductive, planning for your next victory is vital. Our post-mortem conversations focus on future facing plans and what safeguards we can institute to prevent issues from arising on our next venture. Often times these discussions center on hypotheticals and can feel a bit like Monday morning quarterbacking. The key to keeping this practice productive is a level of removal from the subject matter.

Discuss in Terms of General Issues, Not Specific Concerns

When conducting our post-mortem examinations, we do not focus on specific arguments or issues that related to the bad event, but instead speak in more general terms. We often discuss faults in logistics — who was supposed to do what and what went wrong (without allocating blame); issues with internal procedures — what interim deadlines should we have in place to prevent falling behind; and potential future pitfalls — why didn’t we see this coming, how do we prevent these blind spots in the future. While we are using the scope of a single situation to analyze our practices, the purpose is not to point fingers, but rather to extrapolate what we can learn from the bad occurrence to benefit future analogous situations.

Failure Does Not Mean You Did Something Wrong

While post-mortem examinations have yielded a plethora of insightful tips and directed future functional procedures for our Firm, sometimes a bad event is a result of factors outside our control. I recall a discussion with a friend recently who bragged incessantly about how well he argued a summary judgment motion. A few months later, he received a losing decision and was devastated. A few of us reviewed the transcript from the argument and underlying papers. We unanimously agreed that it was not his fault. He argued persuasively, the facts appeared to be in his favor, and we could not point to an error that he made (sure things can always be better, but he legitimately did a great job). Nevertheless, the decision did not go his way. Sometimes we lose and it is not our fault, but if we can identify points of weakness or procedural missteps that led to a bad event, it is our duty to ourselves and our clients to address them.

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Andrew C. Bershtein is an attorney at Balestriere Fariello who represents clients in in all stages of litigation, arbitration, and mediation. He focuses practice on complex commercial litigation, contract disputes, and real estate law. You can reach Andrew at andrew.c.bershtein@balestrierefariello.com.

The dream of many lawyers is to own their own plane and never worry about a deposition running late ever again. Federal prosecutors believe 33-year-old New York attorney Manish Patel used his personal Learjet for more creative purposes than getting out of town without having to share an armrest with boorish retirees.

They claim he used the plane to smuggle drugs.

Manish Patel, an attorney licensed in New York and New Jersey, is named in a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday morning in federal court and is due to make his initial appearance in court Thursday afternoon.

Patel, who already is in custody on charges filed earlier by El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, is accused in court documents of flying marijuana and cannabis oil into California and other locales since at least August 2018, using a $345,000 Learjet he purchased mostly with cash.

Nothing’s ever fishy when someone buys a plane in cash. As the passage above notes, Patel was already in trouble with local authorities after they raided an office he’d rented earlier this year:

The owner of this building said on May 1, new tenants began leasing this 4,000 square foot suite, saying they were starting a new fabrication business.

Just weeks later, a business owner next door says he saw police activity at the new business. The building’s owner says neighboring tenants began complaining about a foul smell coming from inside the building and contacted the sheriff’s department.

That patchouli oil will get you every time.

Feds say East Coast lawyer used his Learjet to ship pot, hash oil across the country [Sacramento Bee]
New York Attorney Accused Of Running Drug Operation In El Dorado County [CBS13]

“There was a time America wouldn’t let us ball / Those times are now back, just now called Afro-tech / Generational wealth, that’s the key / My parents ain’t have shit, so that shift started with me.” — Jay Z

It seems like just yesterday we were compiling commencement address speeches. Now the first day of the fall semester quickly approaches us. A time to say goodbye to your old summer crews once again, and welcome the new 1Ls at your various law schools.

Last year’s 1Ls gave us plenty of reasons to be excited about law school. While those who just sat for last month’s bar exam may not be such Polyannas during this purgatory period for results. As my colleague Staci Zaretsky has written: Bar Exam Suicides Are Disturbingly Common Among Recent Law School Graduates.

Regardless of where you are in your law career journey, the state of your mental health should be actively cultivated and tended to daily. After all, the goal shouldn’t be to merely survive your legal career journey but to thrive in your pursuit of it. When life serves you lemonades, be like Beyoncé.

In a punishing profession, too many of us are paying the ultimate price. A few years ago, we wrote about Eilene Zimmerman, a Biglaw widow who is featured in the New York Times article, “The Lawyer, the Addict — A high-power Silicon Valley attorney dies. His ex-wife investigates, and finds a web of drug abuse in his profession,”

Just late last year, we covered Joanna Litt, an attorney and wife of Sidley Austin partner Gabe MacConaill, who penned an opinion piece for Law.com titled, ‘Big Law Killed My Husband’: An Open Letter From a Sidley Partner’s Widow.

In Litt’s feature, I had the opportunity to speak with several experts on happiness, human nature, and mental health. Most notably, I had the chance to catch up with one of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin.

Through her research and scholarship, Rubin has emerged as one of the most interesting commentators on habits and happiness. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and winner of the Edgar M. Cullen Prize, Rubin started her career in law. She clerked for Judge Pierre Leval and was clerking for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she realized she really wanted to be a writer. Of everything she’s ever written, she says, her one-minute video, The Years Are Short, resonates most with people.

One excerpt from last year’s article specifically comes to mind:

Renwei Chung: Why do you think our profession is so prone to mental health issues?

Gretchen Rubin: There are many reasons, but I wonder if this is part of it: Many people who go to law school don’t necessarily want to become lawyers. I count myself in this group. I thought, “I’m good at research and writing, I can always change my mind later, it’s great preparation, it will keep my options open.”

In fact, law school prepares you very well to be a lawyer, and many people end up going into the legal profession even though they didn’t really intend to do so. Money and security play their part as well. In many other professions, it’s much less likely to be a default decision, so there’s a better fit between skill, interest, and expectations.

As you embark on this law school journey, remember it’s going to be a mental marathon. The rollercoaster of emotions you’ll feel in law school will be unlike any other experience you’ve ever had.

To help deal with the impending existential crises of your legal education, here are Amal Clooney’s four bits of wisdom for law students and young lawyers. Here are other law school tips from some notable legal figures. And if the first semester happens to sucker punch you in the face, then sip some wine and rebound like Greg Popovich.

Please remember, with experiences like law school, it is easy to become one-track-minded and singularly focused. But it is important to regularly recognize people who have helped you achieve your personal success. And don’t ever become too busy to return your parents’ phone calls. They deserve to hear from you more often. In fact, call them right now and thank them for everything they’ve done for you.

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Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

A lawsuit has been filed against a former partner at noted Biglaw firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The case, filed by Transperfect Global Inc., involves a dispute over the legal fees racked up by Robert B. Pincus, who was a partner at Skadden at the time of the representation.

In 2015 Pincus was appointed the tiebreaking director of Transperfect after a Delaware court ruled co-founders Liz Elting and Phil Shawe were not capable of running it together (their business relationship soured after their romantic one fizzled). As a result, the company was forced into a modified auction where Shawe bought Elting out.

Now Transperfect is disputing the legal bills in the matter, which ranged from $58,000 to $90,000 a month. As reported by Big Law Business, the redacted filing complains over the tasks that were done, that the fee request was granted without Transpect having an opportunity to review it, and that they don’t have access to the particulars of the legal work done:

Those bills contained misrepresentations, including a request covering time spent as a witness that’s “not properly chargeable to the custodianship,” Transperfect says.

The judge “unwittingly” granted Pincus’s fee requests without realizing Transperfect hadn’t seen them, the suit says.

Because those reports were filed under seal, Transperfect doesn’t have specific information about what work was done, who did it, how long it took, or what the hourly rate was, the Aug. 12 complaint claims. Absent that information, the company can’t “assess the reasonableness of the amount of fees,” it says.

Neither Skadden nor Pincus have commented on the ongoing litigation.

Read the redacted complaint below.

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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).

“The scenes in Harare today demonstrate just how far the authorities will go to repress dissent. Baton-wielding police unleashed a brutal assault on protesters, who had gathered to protest the socio-economic conditions which are causing suffering to so many in Zimbabwe.

“The Zimbabwean authorities should know that the world is watching. The authorities must end the escalating crackdown on dissent and respect, protect, and fulfil the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. There must be full accountability for these attacks, which left scores of people injured and shows the government’s contempt for human rights.

“We are calling on the authorities to launch a prompt, impartial and effective investigation into today’s attacks. They must also allow opposition protests to go ahead, and stop using violence as a tool of harassment and intimidation and to silence critical voices. The repression of peaceful dissent will not solve the economic problems which brought protestors to the streets in the first place.”

Background

Zimbabwean police on Thursday announced the ban of today’s protests through a press statement, saying that “demonstrations will turn out to be violent”. Earlier today, the High Court dismissed an application by the opposition Movement for Democratic to overturn that ban

Post published in: Featured

Rudland was shot outside the Norwood offices of the Fair-trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Gold Leaf is a member of FITA.

Security camera footage of the incident shows Rudland pulling up to the gates of the premises. Seconds later, a white VW Golf is seen driving up behind him as a shooter opens fire on Rudland’s Porsche. Four seconds later the Golf speeds away.

Rudland was rushed to hospital, where he was treated in intensive care.

On Wednesday, FITA chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni told News24 that the organisation and its members were shocked by the attack.

“At this stage, police are investigating. This is something we take seriously,” said Mnguni.

FITA, in a statement released on Friday, said it was passing on any information it received to “law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating this matter”.

It said it was concerned that similar incidents had not been investigated with “vigour” by the authorities in the past.

Post published in: Business

I am writing this letter to you from Zimbabwe on Friday 16^th August 2019 with a very heavy heart. Despite a year of rhetoric from President Mnangagwa that this was a ‘New Dispensation’ and that we were ‘Open For Business’, events of today showed us, and the world, that absolutely nothing has changed.

Yet again the streets of Harare were filled with unarmed, running, screaming people chased by riot police using their baton sticks (truncheons) again and again. People who fell down were repeatedly beaten on the tarmac, their images filmed for the world to see. People sitting on the streets were beaten. The MDC described it as “extreme brutality against citizens.” There were no cars being stoned, no tyres being burned, no shops being looted and no signs of any violence, making the reaction of the police simply incomprehensible.

In the past week eighteen civic and political activists and MDC officials have been abducted and tortured ahead of the planned march. Yet again we have heard stories we prayed we would never ever have to hear again after the end of Robert Mugabe: accounts of armed men coming at night, people abducted, taken in unmarked vehicles, beaten on the soles of their feet, dumped on roadsides.

My heart was breaking watching the scenes from Harare today because it was on these exact streets that I marched with hundreds of thousands of others in November 2017, wearing my flag with such pride, Zimbabwean to the depths of my soul, caught up in a tidal wave of euphoria and joy at the end days of Robert Mugabe. How can Zimbabwe have gone so far backwards again and so fast?

For a moment, if we had dared to hope that police, who have been suffering the same hell as the rest of us, would not raise their baton sticks against unarmed citizens marching in Harare today, we had not been paying attention. Speaking at Monday’s Heroes Day events, President Mnangagwa said: “Government is finalizing special remuneration packages for the men and women in uniform, the military salary concept, and other incentives to cushion them from hardships that have affected the country’s workers.”

For the past 54 weeks (since the 30^th July 2018 elections) we have been living in a state of continual, daily deterioration marked by anxiety, fear, and chronic economic hardship. We have seen all our US dollars in banks, savings accounts and pension funds unashamedly converted by our government into Zimbabwe Bond dollars which have lost 98% of their real US dollar value in the past 20 weeks. We can’t afford medical treatments and medicines anymore; fuel prices have gone up seven times this year and food prices quadrupled. As a nation we have been decimated by our own government: employers, employees, self employed and unemployed citizens, civil servants, pensioners: none have been spared.

This week the World Food Programme said 2.3 million people in rural Zimbabwe need emergency food aid now and this number will increase to 5.5 million in the coming weeks. The government estimates another 2.2 million people in urban areas also require food aid, bringing the total to 7.7 million, over half of our total population. The WFP said “We are talking about people who truly are marching towards starvation if we are not here to help them.”

Today in Harare, people already marching towards starvation, also marched towards baton sticks; we feel their pain and our hearts are with them. Until next time, thanks for reading this letter from Zimbabwe, now in its 19^th year, and my books about life in our beautiful Zimbabwe, love cathy 16 August 2019.

Post published in: Featured

As baby boomers continue to push past 65, firms are faced with the dilemma succinctly posed by Paul McCartney, “Will they still need [them], will they still feed [them], when [they’re] 64?” Partners are invaluable contributors to law firms. Their experience and business generation are the pillars that support the behemoth of Biglaw, but concerns about mandatory retirement center around two key questions: how do we safeguard ourselves against the inevitable decline of acuity, and how do we ensure that junior partners don’t pile up on the ladder to business succession if partners postpone retirement?

For the former, a plethora of research has shown that cognitive decline is slowed by mental stimulation, which law provides in spades. Pegging the retirement age to a national standard assumes uniform decline which may not be the case. That being said, the higher incidences of alcohol abuse and inadequate sleep among attorneys likely diminishes some of these gains.

For the latter, later retirements mean a logjam at the top of the business succession chain. Though the baby boomer generation opened up the ranks for a lot more partner positions, Biglaw could face a lost generation of partners who are being crowded out of clients by the late-retiring baby boomers.

Firms risk potentially alienating their junior attorneys by catering to the tried and proven. The long-term impact of such policies could be disastrous, which is why many firms are turning to succession plans to keep all parties happy.

Roughly half of Am Law 200 firms have some mandatory retirement policy. Not all stipulate retirement at 65 — most range roughly from 63-68, with different protocols as to how to deal with retiring attorneys. Some firms will transition partners into counsel positions where they can practice while transferring their clients and work to younger partners with longer runways, and others broach the topic of the impending retirement a year or two in advance to ease the partner’s transition out of the law firm.

Not all policies are made equal. Some firms advertise a mandatory retirement age but are willing to skirt it for rainmakers or make other “special exceptions.” That being said, many firms openly embrace lateral partners beyond the mandatory retirement age.

The drop-off in practicing attorneys from age 65 to age 70 is precipitous, especially compared to the U.S. overall population. One slightly confounding variable is the fact that 91.4 percent of partners over the age of 65 are male, who represent a lower percentage of the 65+ population.

Major Am Law 200 firms vary in their commitment to enforce mandatory retirement ages. Some firms take a strict approach to mandatory retirement, like Bradley Arant and Knobbe Martens, who have almost no attorneys over 65 years of age. On the other hand, Holland & Knight, Greenberg Traurig, Duane Morris, and K&L Gates tend to eschew the mandatory retirement requirement.

Promoting partners and associates to create a path to leadership positions, or rewarding them with lucrative client relationships, are efficient ways to seamlessly transfer responsibility to younger lawyers. At the same time, moving client relationships to younger partners also puts the firm at risk. Unless the firm feels the partner is loyal, or at least loyal enough, the firm may not want to transition the relationships too early in a partner’s career.

While the distribution of aging lawyers is trending upwards, firms may have to rethink their insistence on mandatory retirement and succession planning. Relying on a firm mandatory retirement deadline hurts both the lawyer and the firm, especially if there is no succession plan in place. Firms are wiser to ease the severity of the rule and instead impose a soft transition period on a case-by-case basis during which the lawyer could operate in a mentoring capacity to facilitate a smoother transfer of responsibility and relationships.

Executing a proper plan easily solves the dilemmas brought about by mandatory retirement. While identifying an aging leadership problem is helpful, creating and executing an actual plan is a necessity. If your firm needs to benchmark their leadership, or wishes to learn practices to cope with mandatory retirement, my colleagues at Lateral Link are happy to share their suggestions and help you craft a game plan based on their real experience with and knowledge of the Am Law 200 law firm market.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Andrew Wood graduated from UCLA, and has worked for Lateral Link for six years, as a data analyst and product director, generating market intelligence for the company, among other things. He is in avid mountaineer in his spare time.

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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.

Baloney. That’s not true. If you’re screwing him—let’s be frank now, because I should not be wasting judicial resources on this kind of malarkey. If you have been screwing him for these years, there’s no question that you know where she works. That’s how affairs work.

— Middlesex (NJ) County Assignment Judge Alberto Rivas, in comments made from the bench while overseeing a dispute between a husband, wife, and the husband’s girlfriend when the girlfriend stated she didn’t know where the wife was employed. In this case, the girlfriend sought the return of pictures depicting her in various stages of undress that were allegedly in the wife’s possession. Rivas also told the girlfriend, “I will give you a piece of advice … The only person you should be sending naked pictures to are (sic) Hugh Hefner. He will pay you $100,000 for the use of them.”

Rivas later apologized after an ethics complaint was brought against him, saying, “I regret the comments I made during the proceeding. I felt the court was being manipulated, but I let my feelings about the case influence my language, tone and demeanor, all of which were inappropriate.”

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

Last Friday, I went on All-In with Chris Hayes to discuss billionaire Stephen Ross decision’s to hold a fundraiser for racist President Donald Trump. On air, I said, “I have no problem shining the light back on the donors who fund this kind of racialized hate. I mean, I go further. I want pitchforks and torches outside this man’s house in the Hamptons. I’ve been to the Hamptons, it’s very nice. There’s no reason it has to be. There’s no reason he should be able to have a nice little party. There’s no reason why people shouldn’t be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood.”

I stand by that, but I borked the structure a little. In my head, I wanted to go: “shine a light” –> “peacefully understood” –> “torches” –> “f**k the Hamptons.” The “torches” were supposed to parallel the “light” and the Hamptons bit was supposed to be the punchline. Same thoughts, same words, different order. These people who support Trump are racist assholes and I wanted to make the point that disagreeing with them peacefully doesn’t require disagreeing with them “nicely.” But structurally, the way it read in my mind versus the way it came out on air is the difference between getting screamed at by white people versus getting screamed at by white people with guns. The way I phrased it allowed the alt-right to take the first part and ignore the second part, with predictable results.

Of course, I’m not in the business of actually caring about these people, so on Sunday on Joy Reid, I said this:

You don’t communicate it to them — you beat them. Beat them. They are not a majority of this country. The majority of white people in this country are not a majority of the country. And all the people who are not fooled by this need to come together, go to the polls, go to the protests, do whatever you have to do. You do not negotiate with these people — you destroy them.

Yep, that’s just accurate. Words, sentiment, and structure all check out there. That came out exactly right.

Again, that drew predictable responses, including this fabulous devolution of headlines which brilliantly shows what white wing media is all about in this country:

• Fox went with: “MSNBC guest tells people not to ‘negotiate’ with Trump supporters: ‘You destroy them’” — which, okay, fine. Fox gonna Fox.
• Washington Examiner went with: “‘You destroy them’: MSNBC guest offers advice on dealing with white Trump supporters” — which, I mean, leaves out some context but whatever.
• Some rando site went with: “MSNBC Yakker: Destroy White People” — OH COME ON!

With headlines like that, my inbox exploded. People see the trolls and idiots on Twitter and Facebook. But those people are still somewhat aware that their comments are public. They are restrained, if you can believe it. The people who email me, well, they tend to think that their BS gets to remain private.

I’m not about to doxx anybody. Most of their email addresses are fake anyway, and even if they aren’t, a man’s gotta have a code. But I want you to see some of these people. They kind of explain WHY I do not believe Trump voters can be negotiated with. And also, you know, here are some LEADS in case I turn up dead. [WARNING: these emails contain strong language which I’m not going to bleep out.]

[Marge]

ACCORDING TO THESE —— YOU ARE A RADICAL TROUBLE-MAKING NIGGER.
SELF-RIGHTEOUS HYPOCRITICAL ASS-HOLE AND INGRATE.
YOU HATE WHITEY— MAKES YOU A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT.
NO SUCH THING AS A PEACEFUL PROTEST WHEN CARRYING TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS.
YOU THINK ALL TRUMP SUPPORTING WHITE PEOPLE SHOULD BE DESTROYED.
WHAT ABOUT TRUMP SUPPORTING NEGROES?
HARD TO BELIEVE YOU ATTENDED HARVARD.
BUT, THEN AGAIN.. SO DID BARRY & MOOCHY OBAMMY.
THEY WERE MADE TO TURN IN THEIR LICENSES TO PRACTICE LAW.. BECAUSE THEY WERE (ARE) CORRUPT AS HELL.
IF IT WERE NOT FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, THEY NOR YOURSELF WOULD HAVE EVER ATTENDED HARVARD.
*YOU PEOPLE* MAKE A MOCKERY OF EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH.
WHITE PEOPLE BUILT THIS NATION AND YOU NIGS DESTROY IT.
ITS A FACT—- ANYTHING YOU CANNOT TEAR UP OR STEAL, YOU BACK UP AND SHIT ON.
I’M NOT REFERRING TO ALL BLACK PEOPLE—- JUST THE NIGGERS.
ALL NIGGERS ARE BLACK— NOT ALL BLACK FOLKS ARE NIGGERS.
YOU’RE A NIGGER.

She goes on like this for another page, like she’s going through her notes from the HMS Beagle, trying to explain the difference between a Galapagos n***** and good black people.

[Jerry]

Fox showed your nigger ass today and being you want to call ALL WHITES Racist we may as well start really being one . When your Nigger Daddy Obummer was in office we let him do his job ,but 4 some nigger afro punk that u are u think the World is racist id we vote Trump . All u did was make me and my family friends and 1,000,000 millions of other deplorables make sure we get out and vote . 68 million racists didn’t vote Trump in ,69 million did ! In 2020 your fat ass nigger afro punk faggitt face with the girls name will find out just how racist we can be .

Ahh, the classic, “I’m not racist but you made me racist you dumb n*****” routine. I’ve got about 10 versions of this story this week. But I like this one because it also gets the math wrong.

[Mike]

You ASSHOLES are so fucking stupid how about all illegal things Clinton and nigger boy Obama did TRUMP is making America great again FUCK YOU CUNTS

At some point Mike realized he didn’t say anything specific to me, so he emailed again:

Eli — He is one stupid nigger

I mean, I usually get all my insults out in one email, so who is the dumbass now?

[UCONN]

I hate kikes and niggers and i will do everything i can at all times to vote ha ha for them being killed. Pig and nigga can both be wiped dead off the planet, nigger

Sometimes people can’t decide if I’m black or Jewish, but this man made sure to cover all his bases. What’s troubling is that this guy emailed me with a Uconn.edu address. I checked it, and it’s fake, so I can’t do anything. But, code aside, when there are people like this on campus I feel I have a duty to report it to the proper campus authorities.

I’ll end with “Patty”…

Mr. Mystal has stated that Trump supporters should be destroyed? Are you kidding me? Send to me your telephone number. Right now!

A solid 30 percent of my hate mail includes people who demand that I share my phone number or home address with them, so that they can continue to yell at me. Which is WILD, when you think about it. Like, who are these people who think I’m going to say, “You know, I should really call them up and engage them in conversation?” Who the hell do they think they’re emailing, Joe Biden? The bald HUBRIS of mediocre whiteness never ceases to amaze me.

In any event, I want people to take away two themes from this:

1. When you support white wing media and Republican elected officials, THESE are the people whose side you’ve chosen to be on. For years, for decades, Republicans have acted like their their so-called “limited government” policies could be detached from the bigotry and misogyny of their supporters. Trump has put the lie to that theory. If Trump or Fox or the Republican Party had any shred of decency, a quick look at the people who are “on their side” would make them RE-EVALUATE their entire political platform, as well as their life choices. Instead, Republicans continue to act like you can support “tax cuts” and “conservative justices,” but not “WHITE PEOPLE BUILT THIS NATION AND YOU NIGS DESTROY IT.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s never worked that way. The people who continue to support Republicans are no longer merely ignorant about the true “base” of their party, they’re willfully malicious.

2. Fox writing a story about me and then these nut jobs popping up in my inbox is not a bug, but an actual feature of their coverage. The goal of their coverage is to inspire the crazies, who will then make me uncomfortable, in hopes that me and people who believe what I believe will shut up or self-censor.

And it works, better than you might think! I haven’t written a lot this week. It’s a little hard to focus when you open your work inbox and you have to spend a morning going through “true threat analysis.” It sends you down a hole and, even when you come out clean on the other side, the journey still takes hours that could have been spent doing something productive. And I’m more used to this than most (thanks, former ATL commenters). Most of this stuff bounces right up off me, but Fox knows and Breitbart knows that not all of it will. That’s the point. It’s a “chilling effect,” not a liquid nitrogen freeze ray.

So you can see why I’m somewhat resistant to the notion that these people, these Trump supporting assholes, are the ones who need to be “won back,” in order to defeat Trump. You can see why my willingness to “negotiate” with these people is nil. You can see why I believe in fighting fire with fire instead of some kind of triangulated appeasement strategy. F**k these people. F**k ’em right in their f**king ear.

I’m going to keep saying that. I’m going to keep kicking hornet’s nests. Not because I’m immune to stings, but because these hornets need to get the hell off my lawn.

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