Law Firm Partner Drops Rap Video About Class Actions

Edelson PC Partner Ari Scharg

Who ever said that lawyers weren’t creative people? Oh, that’s right, everybody.

But maybe we’re all just overlooking the talent in our midst because we’re too busy billing hours and fielding client calls. The folks at Edelson PC have decided to lean into their creative talent and launched Edelson Creative, a platform to “produce and host creative content generated by the firm and its artistic partners.” No one has ever accused Edelson of not being creative — they hired an actor to screw with their summer class in what remains one of the great legal industry trolls of all time — now they’ve got a dedicated home for their work.

And they’ve kicked it off with a rap video that’s… super impressive.

The song was written and performed by Edelson partner Ari Scharg, with intake specialist Ayssette Muñoz providing additional vocals.

The song is called “Non-Compliant” which is also the name of Edelson’s new podcast, promising “an unconventional approach to exploring current and emerging issues relating to the law, sports, politics, and art.” The first episode features Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick explaining why class actions are actually the most conservative solution to police the marketplace.

The lyrics for those who can’t watch right now are:

Ari:

Lawyers act like kings till we run up on they thrones
Caught em sleepin on they phones, snatch they rings up watch em fold
Watch em as they shiver when the freeze out never stop
Cooked our own beat cause none fresh enough to cop

They say we’re non-compliant but to be completely honest
Our defiance is a science and we’re here to start a riot
Effectuate change through our brain wave compartments
One holds the focus, one that holds explosives
One just got a note in it that says this firm the dopest
One asks [beep] what his legacy’s best hope is

Edelson PC man we might be
Like the new young Nick
Meets the new Rafey
Meets the new Big Prof
Meets the Kid Sydney
Meets Ben like Rich
Meets Ben like T
Meets me, on the street when I see [beep]
Meets Jay Beast, ain’t nobody setting 3’s like he, Blat

Aya:

Don’t tell us what to do
And don’t tell us what to say
The only way we work with you
Is get the fuck out of our way

You don’t own us
Don’t try to change us in any way
You don’t own us
You’re one small move of a bigger play

Ari:

History repeats itself and this how it goes
Plaintiff lawyers hurt the class more than they clients know
When lawyers do their deals with fees the only goal
Ted Frank investigate then lawyers get exposed

While the Chamber spends on tort reform and spreads propaganda round
These credit monitoring deals are driving values down
After this we’ll prolly stand down and never flex again
Tell [beep] and [beep] that they might finally get a win

I’m just playin
I hope this hurts cause this is true shit
Wonder if my counterparts tell their fam the truth of it
Do their friends know they get paid to surreptitiously
Close hospitals in minority communities?

Well my fam do, and this is true
Instead of cops and robbers my kids play us and you
Maybe your excuse is that you have too much ambition
But now your dignity is on a milk box missing
Shox!!

Aya:

We’re young and we love to be young
We’re free and we love to be free
To live our life the way we want
To say and do whatever we please

You don’t own us
Don’t try to change us in any way
You don’t own us
You’re one small move of a bigger play

Earlier: This Firm Hired An Actor To Play The World’s Worst Summer Associate


HeadshotJoe 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.

Taste For Black Edge No Obstacle To Buying The Mets

Morning Docket: 12.13.19

(Paskova/Getty Images)

* President Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen is asking for a sentence reduction. Guess President Trump’s former fixer is not enjoying his time in “Club Fed.” [CNBC]

* The alleged Boston Marathon bomber’s lawyer has argued that the jury pool was tainted and that the bomber’s death sentence conviction should be thrown out. [NBC News]

* The Supreme Court has been urged to review a constitutional challenge to the high tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Hopefully, the justices will look into the New Jersey turnpike next. [Penn Live]

* A defeated governor is accused of handing out an insane number of pardons on his way out the door, even catching some of the pardoned prisoners completely by surprise. [Washington Post]

* Boies Schiller Flexner LLP has begun succession planning so that the firm can continue long past David Boies’ tenure. [Wall Street Journal]

* A Florida politician is accused of stealing nearly $50,000 from a law firm, and buying items from a sex toy store, among other purchases. Maybe he’ll argue that this was a business expense… [CBS Miami]


Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Zimbabwe Vice President Urges Mnangagwa Govt to Appropriate Land for Youth – The Zimbabwean

13.12.2019 12:39

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kembo Mohadi says the Zimbabwean government should set aside land for young people who are not beneficiaries of the country’s land redistribution exercise, which resulted in the forced removal of thousands of white commercial farmers from their prime land in 2000.

Vice President Kembo Mohadi says the Zimbabwean government should set aside land for young people who are not beneficiaries of the country’s land redistribution exercise, which resulted in the forced removal of thousands of white commercial farmers from their prime land in 2000.Addressing members of the Zanu PF Youth League and businesspeople involved in seed production at the ruling party’s headquarters in Harare on Wednesday, Mohadi said youth need land in order to secure Zimbabwe’s future.

“To government, to our ministries especially the Ministry of Lands … The youth that are here I’m told are missing from those that have got the land and those that can’t use their land adequately … You (have to) appropriate some land or give these youth some land from which they can do their farming. Yes, we have got established farmers that are into farming but we would want the young generation to be given what they want and let them use it because the future is theirs and this country belongs to them.”

Some observers claim that the land reform program devastated the agriculture sector following the violence invasion of white-owned farms by supporters of the late former president Robert Mugabe, who was toppled in defacto military coup in 2017.

Mugabe claimed that the land seizures were a necessary redress of colonial imbalances as most of the fertile land by 2000 was in the hands of few white farmers.

Zimbabwe deepens power cuts to 24 hours on loss of Eskom imports

Post published in: News

Zimbabwe deepens power cuts to 24 hours on loss of Eskom imports – The Zimbabwean

The power utility has a non-binding agreement to import as much as 400 megawatts of power from South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which is unable to meet local demand and has implemented rolling blackouts, now in their sixth day in SA.

 

“Load-shedding is thus being implemented over and above the advertised schedule,” Zesa said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

 

Zimbabwe has been experiencing daily outages of as much as 18 hours daily owing to a drought that has slashed its hydropower supply. The situation is exacerbated by frequent breakdowns at its main thermal power station, Hwange.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, the energy crisis eased as state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. scrambled to repair broken plants and supplemented supply using gas turbines and pumped-storage facilities.

 

Load shedding, should be limited to 2,000 megawatts on Wednesday — down from a peak of 6,000 megawatts on Monday — and are expected to end next week, Eskom said in an emailed statement. The outages temporarily interrupted production at several mines, disrupted mobile-phone services and weighed on the rand.

“As the generating plant continues to perform at low levels of reliability, any unexpected shift, such as an increase in unplanned breakdowns, could result in a change in the load-shedding stage at short notice,” Eskom said. “We continue to ask customers to reduce demand.”

Economics improve for Zimbabwe lithium project – The Zimbabwean

The project’s estimated mine life has increased to 15.5 years from 12 years, during which it is expected to produce 173,000 t/yr of spodumene concentrate, 122,000 t/yr of petalite concentrate and 173,000 lbs/yr of tantalite concentrate grading 25pc tantalite pentoxide.

Capital expenditure for the project has been reduced by 2pc to $162mn, while the pre-tax net present value has risen by 39pc to $710mn. The project’s payback period has been reduced by 12 months to 18 months.

Prospect, which has an offtake agreement in place with China’s Sinomine Resources for some of Arcadia’s output, is aiming to become Africa’s first lithium producer.

Unlike many lithium operations, it has three potential product streams targeted at the electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage markets, the glass and ceramic markets and other industrial applications.

Life of mine operating costs vary from $268/t for spodumene concentrate to $458/t for ultra-low iron petalite concentrate.

With a mineral resource of 72.7mn t and an ore reserve of 37.4mn t grading 1.22pc lithium oxide and 121 parts per million tantalum pentoxide, Arcadia has a globally significant hard rock lithium-tantalum deposit.

The project is fully permitted and has been granted special development status by the Zimbabwe government and has a power supply agreement in place in a country ravaged by unstable electricity supply.

Prospect estimates that the project’s implementation phase will take 18 months once funding has been finalised, with a further five months for commissioning. This is in line with the company’s expectation that the world will start experiencing lithium supply deficits from 2021 as the EV and energy storage markets gain momentum.

Eskom slams claims that Zimbabwe had been connecting power illegally

Post published in: Featured

Eskom slams claims that Zimbabwe had been connecting power illegally – The Zimbabwean

This comes after an article was published on satire website Ihlaya News, reporting that the struggling state owned entity had “just discovered that Zimbabwe had been connecting electricity illegally for years.”

“To set the record straight, Eskom has neither recorded shortfalls in its international power reconciliation nor investigated the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA). Energy consumption is accounted through a comprehensive reconciliation process and is independently audited on a regular basis,” said Eskom in a statement released on Thursday.

Reports of the illegal connections surfaced as loadshedding in South Africa continues.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who cut short a trip to Egypt to deal with the crisis, said on Wednesday Eskom will work to stabilise the power grid by the end of March.

In addition to heavy rain, he also blamed suspected sabotage at power stations, which contributed 2 000 megawatts (MW) of lost capacity during the past week’s outages and said that needed to be investigated.

This Lawyer Is Having A Bad Week — See Also

Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey – Webinar

Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey – Webinar

The 2019 LDO Survey reveals how law departments are leveraging legal operations, including insights on: Artificial Intelligence ,Technology, Effectiveness, Legal Project Management, and more.
Join us on December 11th at 1pm ET to learn more!

The 2019 LDO Survey reveals how law departments are leveraging legal operations, including insights on: Artificial Intelligence ,Technology, Effectiveness, Legal Project Management, and more.
Join us on December 11th at 1pm ET to learn more!

The Most Stylish Lawyer Of 2019

According to Google’s annual Year in Search report, who is the only lawyer that made the list of top trending searches for celebrity style in 2019?

Hint: Non-lawyers that made the list are: Billie Eilish, Audrey Hepburn, Ariana Grande, Kylie Jenner, Shia LaBeouf and Cam Newton.

See the answer on the next page.

LawNext Episode 57: Jeroen Plink, CEO, Clifford Chance Applied Solutions | LawSites

Jeroen Plink was named in 2018 as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, a subsidiary of the international law firm Clifford Chance that designs and develops software to address clients’ business challenges. He is responsible for product development and go-to-market strategy for all its products, including CC Dr@ft, a legal document automation platform.

Plink is a legal technology veteran who, in 2007, moved to the United States to set up Practical Law Company US. Within five years, he successfully grew the business from two employees to 250, and had 80% of the AmLaw 200 and thousands of in-house departments as customers. In 2013, Practical Law Company was acquired by Thomson Reuters.

After leaving Practical Law, Plink focused on providing strategic guidance as a board member and senior advisor to legal tech startups. He is currently on the board of the legal research startup Casetext and he has also served on the boards of Compliance.ai, a regulatory data and predictive analytics company, and Kira Inc., which uses AI to analyze and review complex documents.

Plink started his career at Clifford Chance’s Amsterdam office in 1996 as a private equity associate. He left the firm in 2000 to cofound a company that developed software for due diligence in the M&A transactions. In 2002, he sold that company to Practical Law Company, where he led application development in London before launching its U.S. operation.

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