We invite you to participate in an important teleconference co-sponsored by NASABA regarding providing aid during natural disasters such as the current flooding in Pakistan.
Delivery of Foreign Aid:
Lessons for Disaster Relief in Pakistan
A FREE, non-CLE teleconference (with an optional onsite component)
presented by the
Asia-Pacific Committee
of the ABA Section on International Law
September 1, 2010
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT/ 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. BST/6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. CET
The devastating floods in Pakistan have displaced more than 14 million people and killed at least 1,600. In a memorandum the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned that its capacity and that of other UN and international agencies to respond to the crisis created by the flooding was being “tested to the limits.” The situation in Pakistan highlights a critical issue in the international development sector: how can the U.S. and other members of the international community distribute disaster relief effectively and efficiently and still ensure accountability?
In view of the pending re-write of the United States Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as well as related measures by the other countries and multilateral agencies, this program will highlight the challenges faced in disaster relief in Pakistan for flood victims in the context of such measures. The speakers will also assess the role of disaster relief efforts in building trust and meaningful partnership between the U.S. and its allies, and the impact of such efforts on development, security, and stability in the region.
The program will also discuss governance problems faced by Pakistan that impede implementation of aid and development programs, such as lack of effective local governments and lack of coordination among different branches of government and dysfunctional private/public partnerships. The panel will also address lessons that can be learned from other recent natural disasters elsewhere in the world, such as the earthquake in Haiti. The final 30 minutes of the program will feature a question and answer session with the panelists.
Individuals in the Washington Metro Area are cordially invited to join a few of the panelists and other participants during the teleconference at the Washington DC offices of Winston & Strawn. Space onsite is limited, so please register today
Program Chairs:
Moderator – Sania Khan – Vice Chair, SIL Asia-Pacific Committee
Mohammad A. Syed – King & Ballow, Nashville, TN
Speakers:
Mark Ward – Acting Director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Relief, Washington DC
Shandana Khan – CEO, Rural Support Program Network, Islamabad, Pakistan
Jason P. Matechak – General Counsel, International Relief and Development, Washington DC
His Excellency Abdullah Hussain Haroon – Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations
Lt. Col. John Ricou Heaton, Defense Security Cooperation Agency., U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC
Co-Sponsors:
Council on International Affairs, New York City Bar
Lawyers Without Borders
North American South Asian Bar Association
SIL India Committee
SIL International Anti-Corruption Committee
SIL International Procurement Committee
SIL Middle East Committee
SIL NGO & Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee
SIL UN and International Institutions Coordinating Committee
Obama Administration Urges Supreme Court to Prohibit Nuisance Claims Arising from Greenhouse Gas Emissions
What’s the NASABA connection to this seemingly straight up admin/enviro/justiciability story?
Well, besides your correspondent’s area of practice, the brief was submitted by acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, the keynote speaker at the 2006 NASABA Convention in Atlanta. And this case has great bearing on the Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil Corp. case currently pending in the 5th Circuit and brought by Stephen Susman, a renowned litigator who was a panelist on Greenhouse Gas litigation at the 2007 NASABA Convention in San Francisco.
We look forward to seeing you at the 2011 NASABA Convention in Los Angeles, where, as always, you will have the opportunity to hear top lawyers will discuss important topics of the day and network with other South Asian attorneys.
NASABA recently sent a letter to Mr. Michael Pompeo, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 4th District of Kansas, demanding that he take concrete action against those in his campaign responsible for approvingly linking to a racist blog post about his opponent, Mr. Raj Goyle, a South Asian American and an attorney. While Mr. Pompeo has apologized for the incident, he stated that the blog post was linked to without malicious intent. NASABA believes that Mr. Pompeo’s position defies belief and that Mr. Pompeo should remove those responsible from his campaign. NASABA also calls on the Kansas and national Republican Parties to denounce the injection of racism into the campaign by Mr. Pompeo’s organization.
About NASABA: The North American South Asian Bar Association (“NASABA”) is the principal voice for the South Asian legal community and a resource for the South Asian community at large. NASABA chapters serve local communities in the United States and Canada, and their members are leaders practicing in large and small law firms, government agencies, corporate legal departments, academia, and public interest groups. With over 6,000 members in 27 chapters NASABA provides a powerful support network for South Asians in the legal community as well as a deep expert pool for the media and events. Contact: NASABA Vice President of Public Relations, Chintan K. Amin at publicrelations@nasaba.com or at +1.404.218.7580. Visit http://www.nasaba.com/, follow us on Twitter (@na_sa_ba), connect with us on LinkedIn (Search: NASABA) and find us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/nationalsouthasianbarassociation).August 19, 2010
Mr. Michael Pompeo
Pompeo for Congress
434 N. Ohio
Wichita, KS 67214RE: Your Campaign’s Recent Tweet about Raj Goyle
Dear Mr. Pompeo:
I am President of the North American South Asian Bar Association (“NASABA”), one of the six national affinity bar associations in the United States. NASABA serves as the umbrella organization for twenty-seven regional South Asian bar associations throughout the United States and Canada. As I am sure you are well aware, the rapidly growing South Asian legal community in the United States, which includes over 6,000 attorneys and law students, has made significant contributions in public service, private practice, and academia.
We recently learned that your campaign’s official Twitter feed recommended a hateful and bigoted blog post to your Twitter followers as a “good read.” The blog entry compared your opponent, Mr. Raj Goyle, to “evil muslim communist USURPER comrad [sic], barrack hussein obama” and suggested that Mr. Goyle “is just another ‘turban topper’ we don’t need in congress or any political office that deals with the U.S. Constitution, Christianity and the United States of America!!!” We appreciate your direct apology to Mr. Goyle and believe it is a good start on the road back to a civil campaign focused on the issues, which is the ideal of our Republic.
However, this is simply not enough. The fact that you believe that your campaign staffer posted the link “inadvertently” and had “no malice in his actions” is simply disingenuous and amounts to nothing short of condoning such racist campaign tactics. Indeed it is difficult to imagine how one might tweet a particular blog post “inadvertently,” especially from an official campaign Twitter account. It is equally hard to believe that your staffer would recommend such a racist and slur-laced tirade to your campaign supporters without malicious intent, let alone referring your supporters to a blog post so disrespectful of your opponent, Mr. Goyle, and South Asian Americans in general. As you know, two of the rising stars of your own party, Governor. Bobby Jindal and State Rep. Nimrata “Nikki” Haley, share the same ethnic background as Mr. Goyle. I doubt you would tolerate such racist comments made to members of your own party that have absolutely nothing to do with the relevant political issues.
Bigotry has no place in American politics and NASABA condemns this act in no uncertain terms. We call on you to complete your remedial action and take public disciplinary action against the staff member responsible for the tweet. We also call on the Republican National Committee and the Kansas Republican Party to denounce your staffer’s disgraceful actions.
If there is anything that NASABA can do to aid you in this process, please do not hesitate to call upon us. As your campaign progresses, we hope you and Mr. Goyle can concentrate on the issues that face Kansans and our country in general. I appreciate your kind attention and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
/s/
Annapoorni R. Sankaran
President
North American South Asian Bar Associationcc: Ms. Amanda Adkins, Chairwoman, The Republican Party of Kansas
Mr. Michael Steele, Chairman, Republican National Committee
Barristers at Madras High Court (Ben Piven)
The Economist recently surveyed the landscape facing global law firms in a number of countries around the world. Some countries, like China and Brazil, appear to be wide open to foreign firms, while others, like South Korea, are steadily opening up. In stark contrast, India recently raised the drawbridge in the face of the army of foreign lawyers amassing on its shores.
The Bombay High Court late last December ruled that the practice of law in India by foreign firms is illegal. In that case, brought by top tier international firms such as White & Case, the court ruled that “foreign law firms can function in India only if all the advocates in their offices are enrolled with the bar councils of Indian states or with the Delhi-based Bar Council of India….” One commentator blamed India’s closed legal market not only on protectionism, but also a lack of modernization generally:
Cyril Shroff, managing partner at Amarchand Mangaldas, India’s biggest law firm, says a more liberal regime, both internally and externally, is inevitable—but he would oppose opening the field to foreigners unless life was also made easier for locals. “The real question is how we can modernise the Indian legal market.” Ms Hook says her society agrees with the idea of India undertaking “holistic” reform, domestic as well as external.
The Economist noted that there is one developed country that still strictly limits the practice of law, Canada. There, foreign lawyers must pas provincial as well as national bar exams. “Between 1999 and 2009, the Federation of Law Societies received 4,515 applications from foreign advocates and issued only 1,708 certificates. Of the 1,027 English lawyers assessed, only 375 got the desired bit of paper.”
What do you think? Should India follow other BRIC countries and liberalize its legal market? Or does it harm native Indian attorneys and the Indian legal system?
Update: Mark Ross, former partner at the UK firm Underwoods solicitors and currently with Lawscribe, a leading LPO firm, comments on liberalization of the Indian legal market:
I recently returned from the North American South Asian Bar Association (NASABA) conference. Out of all the sessions I attended over the course of the three day event by far and away the most thought provoking and certainly the one that sparked the most intense and combative question and answer session focused on the pros and cons of the opening up of the Indian legal services sector to foreign law firms.
…
At first glance the pressure mounting on the Indian government to open up the market to foreign law firms appears to be increasingly exponentially. To the untrained eye the liberalization of the market is imminent. It is clear to me that this is a somewhat naïve viewpoint and that there will need to be some substantial “in-house” changes before foreign law firms are allowed to formally set up shop in India.
The major reason why there are regulatory barriers in place is because of the perceived inability of the domestic Indian firms to compete with the major foreign firms that would enter the market once liberalized. The consensus among those reluctant to open up the market is that the best talent will be swallowed up by foreign firms. This will then have disastrous consequences on domestic firms who simply do not have the financial muscle to compete.
Insourcing?
We’ve discussed outsourcing before in this space, but now outsourcing firms have found that outsourcing to locations in North America can pay off. NPR’s excellent (in this blogger’s opinion) Planet Money blog links to an article in the Financial Times today that reports on a trend to shift call center jobs, classic outsourcing fodder, to the U.S.
Call centre workers are becoming as cheap to hire in the US as they are in India, according to the head of the country’s largest business process outsourcing company. High unemployment levels have driven down wages for some low-skilled outsourcing services in some parts of the US, particularly among the Hispanic population.
Now, outsourcing and offshoring firms are finding value in American employees, especially their flexibility. The FT quotes Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Genpact, a leading BPO firm, as stating that “We need to be very aware [of what’s available] as people [in the US] are open to working at home and working at lower salaries than they were used to. We can hire some seasoned executives with experience in the US for less money.”
And outsourcing has now become truly globalized, rather than bilateral. According to the FT, more than half of Wipro’s employees will be non-Indian by 2012. Many of those will be in countries other than the US.
NASABA Names 2011 Convention Co-Chairs
NASABA has appointed the two Convention Co-chairs for its Convention, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles. Mona Patel, a past president of SABA Southern California and former NASABA Board member, will serve as one Convention Co-chair and Mani Walia, President of SABA Houston, will serve as the other Convention Co-chair. Along with Guarav Mohindra, NASABA’s VP of Annual Convention and SABA Southern California Co-president, we have a very strong and enthusiastic team leading Convention planning.
Please be on the lookout for future convention announcements.
Aid Pakistani Flood Victims
A view of heavy flooding caused by monsoon rains in Punjab Province, near the city of Multan, Pakistan. (UN Photo/Evan Schneider.)
Recent flooding in Pakistan has left 1,500 dead but many more without homes or access to food or clean water. The situation is getting desperate, as the U.N. has called for additional relief supplies.
Please consider donating to efforts to aid these victims.
International Rescue Committee
Please note that NASABA does not endorse and has not audited or appraised any of the foregoing organizations.
Raj Goyle, who has spoken at the last two NASABA Conventions about public service and public office, is running for Congress in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District. Raj, who grew up in Wichita, Kansas and returned home after college and law school to teach at Wichita State and to begin a family, looks to all the world as an All-American husband and father, a success story. He currently represents the 87th District in the Kansas House of Representatives.
On August 11, Raj’s opponent in the Congressional race, Mike Pompeo, approvingly linked to a blog post calling Raj a ‘turban topper’ in an official campaign tweet. The Pompeo campaign has since apologized, though states that the staffer who tweeted the link had “no malice in his actions.”
NASABA will have an official statement on this soon, but we wanted to get the word out now.
NASABA invites its members to participate in a groundbreaking study on diversity and business development among law firm attorneys.
Dr. Harry Keshet of Keshet Consulting and Dr. Angela Meyers of Exponent are preparing a study of the effects of characteristics such as practice specialty, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation on business development efforts. They will also study the role of law firm investment and support on these efforts. The researchers will provide a special report focused on Asian American attorneys to NASABA when the study is completed.
Please participate in the study by following this link.
Two Sentenced in Federal Hate Crime Prosecution
One of the goals of NASABA is to work with the South Asian-American community at large to secure our rights as Americans. One way we do that is to ensure that civil rights laws are properly enforced. We applaud SABA Northern California for their work in helping bring about the prosecution of a California couple who brutally attacked an Indian-American couple on the basis of their national origin.
On July 14, 2007, San Franciscans Vishal Wadhwa and his wife Sunita Sohrabji were brutally attacked by a Fairfield, California couple yelling racial epithets along the shore of Lake Tahoe. Mr. Wadhwa spent time in the hospital after suffering facial fractures requiring surgery.
After a modest prosecution in by local authorities, SABA-NC and other South Asian groups sought federal prosecution under hate crime statutes. U.S. Attorney for the E.D. Cal., Benjamin B. Wagner, took up the case and brought a federal action against the attackers in U.S. District Court. On June 29, 2010, Judge John A. Mendez sentenced the couple to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Upon learning of the sentences, U.S. Attorney Wagner said, “Bias motivated violence has no place in our society. Vigorously enforcing federal hate crime laws is among the highest priorities of the U.S. Department of Justice. We will protect the rights of all persons in this richly diverse community to avail themselves of public facilities without fear of hate mongers and racists.”
