Category: News Feeds

A year ago I wrote a series of posts here at Above the Law on whether attending law school made sense in 2018. I recently had the occasion to revisit this issue when a junior in high school — my own daughter — asked me about law school, since it’s apparently something she’s pondering.

Truth be told, I was less than thrilled by her expression of an interest in becoming a lawyer. As someone who tracks and writes about trends in legal technology and the industry as a whole, I’m cautiously optimistic that our industry will weather the effects of rapid technological innovation, but what it will look like in 10 years is anyone’s guess. The way that legal services are being delivered is changing, as are lawyers’ roles. I’m not entirely convinced that many of the functions that lawyers have traditionally performed will still be in existence a decade from now — right about when my daughter might graduate from law school.

So, when she asked me about law school, I was conflicted. I want her to follow her passions, but I likewise want her to make decisions that are well-informed and future-facing. So I gave a lot of thought to my views on the wisdom of attending law school in 2019, and figured I’d memorialize them by putting pen to paper, so to speak.

So would I recommend attending law school in 2019? My answer is the most lawyerly one possible: it depends.

The answer I provided in 2018 in response to a young man who had emailed me asking for my opinion on the issue still stands, and my general feeling hasn’t changed in one year’s time:

I wish I had better news, but prospects for new lawyers aren’t great. There are a lot of factors changing the legal market, ranging from economic influences (which began with the economic downturn in 2008), to technological change, along with increased competition from multiple sources. All of these forces contribute to the declining legal job market and are causing increased stress and lack of job satisfaction for current lawyers. Also problematic is that recent graduates tend to emerge from law school deep in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel given the depressed market. And to make matters worse, most law schools aren’t doing a great job educating students to succeed in the face of all the changes.

That being said, if you go in with your eyes open and lay the right groundwork, you’ll have a better chance at having a satisfying legal career. The key is to have a full understanding of all the changes occurring and how they’re affecting the delivery of legal services and then to position yourself to take advantage of the changes once you graduate. Also, I would highly recommend that you read the book “Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future” by Richard Susskind from cover to cover prior to committing to law school.

That being said, there are a few new pieces of information that have colored my current opinion. First are the replies that I received when polling other lawyers in my network on their thoughts about law school and practicing law.

Do lawyers regret attending law school?

When I polled my colleagues last year to learn their thoughts on attending law school, their satisfaction with their careers, and their perspectives on the future of law, their responses were telling.

When it came to their opinions on attending law school in 2018, the vast majority of the 100+ lawyers who responded were either opposed to the idea or were on the fence. But when I asked them if they regretted attending law school, virtually all responding lawyers were happy with their decision to do so, with only 10 of 150 sharing that they regretted their choice.

So although most lawyers wouldn’t recommend that recent college graduates attend law school, they are nevertheless satisfied with their own career paths. Certainly some of their reticence about pursuing a legal career path now is colored by their understanding of the legal industry as it exists here and now, but no doubt some of that is likewise impacted by a “get off my lawn, I walked uphill both ways, and kids these days” mentality as well.

I have to admit I’m guilty of the exact same set of conflicting conclusions. I’m thoroughly satisfied with my career path — which was made possible because of my law degree and legal experience — and couldn’t be happier, so I have no regrets about attending law school. Even so, I nevertheless would not necessarily wholeheartedly recommend it to all would-be-aspiring lawyers.

There’s lots of potential for forward-thinking law graduates

The second reason I’m not entirely opposed the idea of a legal career path in today’s legal market is recently released statistics and analysis about the legal job market and law school graduates. There are signs that attending law school in 2019 might not be such a bad idea — for the right person with the right perspective.

I say this because in some ways, the legal job market is improving for recent law graduates as a result of a number of different market forces. Specifically, recent data shows that the percentage of new graduates obtaining a law-related position steadily increased since 2011, largely due to the declining number of law school graduates.

Also of import is that, as explained in this National Jurist blog post, nearly 50 percent of college students considering law school aren’t necessarily planning to practice law, but instead envision a career path in politics, government, or public services — a trend that isn’t unique to the current batch of aspiring law students:

Even before the Great Recession, it had long been the case that only a quarter of law grads went into the largest firms. Most graduates went into small firms, solo practice, government or public interest work, if they practiced law at all.

In other words, as long as aspiring law students are entering law school with their eyes wide open and are aware of the massive industry-wide disruption that is occurring due to technological advancements and make career path decisions accordingly, then law school might not be such a bad idea.

Not surprisingly, this is exactly what many of my colleagues said when I asked them to share their advice for future lawyers. The bottom line: avoid debt, gain practical experience, and choose your law school’s location wisely. And most importantly, maintain an open mind about career potentials and make choices that open up as many avenues for your personal vision of success and happiness as possible.

So would I recommend that a recent college graduate attend law school in 2019? Like I said, it depends. For the right person, with the right vision and the right plan, it might very well be the perfect path.

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

On Monday, Zimbabwe declared its interim RTGS dollar the only legal tender, ending the decade-long use of multiple currencies including the U.S. dollar.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the move was an important step to repair the economy, but it caused uncertainty among businesses and people who rely on remittances from the large Zimbabwean diaspora.

“Authorised dealers are advised the current payment arrangements for large-scale gold producers shall continue to apply and the current retention thresholds have remained the same,” a central bank notice sent late on Tuesday said.

Gold producers operating in Zimbabwe keep 55% of their sales proceeds in foreign currency, with the remainder being surrendered to the central bank. After Monday’s currency reform, half of the balance kept by the central bank will now be sold on the interbank forex market.

Gold miners and other exporters will keep their foreign currency accounts, from which they can make international payments. For local payments, they have to liquidate their forex at the interbank market rate.

Individuals can still receive remittances in their foreign currency accounts, the central bank said.

Post published in: Business

In addition, the government has cleared its 20 million RTGS dollars debt to power utility ZESA, and would soon advance another 20 million RTGS dollars which was expected to boost the firm’s power generation capacity at a time when the country is experiencing crippling power cuts due to surging demand.

Addressing a post-cabinet briefing, both Energy Minister Fortune Chasi and Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa confirmed the payments.

“Cabinet was advised by the Minister of Energy and Power Development that Treasury has now fully paid off government’s debt obligation to ZESA, which was around RTGS 20 million. A further RTGS 20 million is due to be advanced to ZESA by Treasury, in order to boost power generation by the utility. This, together with the payment of 10 million U.S. dollars to Eskom, should help alleviate the current power supply situation,” Mutsvangwa said.

Chasi said government will monitor the money it has paid to ZESA to ensure that it is not abused but used for power generation.

He said Zimbabwe was negotiating with HCB of Mozambique for a possible power supply deal after the presidents of the two countries met recently.

Zimbabwe owes HCB of Mozambique 37 million U.S. dollars for power imports.

Post published in: Business

A gigawatt is a measure of power. There are one billion watts in one gigawatt. Technically speaking, it’s what they call in the sciences, “a shitload of power.” It’s enough that when you tell a wild-eyed scientist that it takes 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to send you back home to 1985, he will run around wildly bemoaning the fact that only a bolt of lightning can feasibly generate that kind of power.

Hold your horses though. While in the movies a bolt of lighting might be the only way to generate gigawatts of power, in real life, there are many other ways, including horses. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, one gigawatt is roughly equivalent to the power generated by 1.3 million horses. So, in Back to the Future Part III, Doc and Marty were actually onto something when they first tried to pull the DeLorean up to 88 MPH. I know, I know, powering the flux capacitor and getting the time machine up to speed are two separate problems, I just think it’s fun to realize that they only needed  about 1,572,994 more horses if they had wanted to supplant Mr. Fusion.

Believe it or not, today we have even more sophisticated ways of generating our gigawatts than predestined lightning strikes or millions of pounds of horseflesh. It only takes 431 spinning utility-scale wind turbines, for instance, to generate a gigawatt of electricity, based on the average 2.32-megawatt size of utility-scale wind turbines installed in 2017. Or, you could generate this kind of juice with about 3.125 million standard-sized 320-watt solar panels (that sounds like a lot of solar panels, but keep in mind that it’s much cheaper to produce a couple solar panels than a good workhorse).

It’s these renewables that corporate America, and to a lesser extent corporate Europe, corporate Africa, and the corporate Middle East, are increasingly focused on through the use of complex contracts called virtual power-purchase agreements. Companies are increasingly under investor pressure to turn to greener technologies, and virtual power-purchase agreements are seen as a means to finance green power projects that otherwise might not happen.

How these agreements work is that a customer, typically a business of some sort, signs a virtual power-purchase agreement with a renewable energy generator for power generated from clean sources at a fixed rate, for a fixed term. The “agreement” may actually be a series of agreements facilitated by middlemen called “offtakers,” which are usually big energy trading companies. The offtaker guarantees the renewable energy developer a fixed price for the electricity it produces, paying a refund if the price dips below a predetermined rate. In turn, the offtaker enters into a corresponding agreement with the corporate customer to fix its energy costs at a set price. If the actual costs of the power exceed what was agreed to in the virtual power-purchase agreement, the offtaker will refund the difference to the customer. The customer gets to fix its power costs and boost its green energy credentials by underwriting specific green energy projects, and the energy developer is protected against an unexpected drop in electricity prices. It’s similar to insurance.

A virtual power-purchase agreement should be distinguished from a physical power purchase agreement. The latter allows the customer to actually physically consume the power being produced from a green energy project, whereas the former allows for “virtual” consumption — the actual electrons flowing out of a wind turbine or solar panel enter the wholesale market, but the customer essentially gets credit for them. The advantage of the virtual agreements is that the customers and renewable energy projects do not have to be in the same electrical grid region, which makes green power offsets more available to businesses that are located in comparatively dark, windless places.

Although virtual power-purchase agreements can be credited for only a small portion of green energy projects overall, they are becoming more influential every year. In 2017, European, Middle Eastern, and African companies inked power-purchase agreements for clean energy projects with a total capacity of just 1.1 gigawatts — not even enough for a lousy one-way trip with the flux capacitor. But last year, that more than doubled, to 2.3 gigawatts. U.S. companies did even better in 2018, with 8.5 gigawatts in new green power-purchase agreements, almost a threefold increase from their 2017 total, led by tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. Some companies you really wouldn’t expect — like Anheuser-Busch, and even Shell and ExxonMobil — are dipping their toes into the renewable energy market. Sometimes, it seems, even corporations do the right thing.

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.