Legal

If that title doesn’t put you off immediately, then this post is for you. ;) Jon has been planning to share more in depth about some of the things he does, at the request of a few people who have asked, so here you go! And the rest of you might find it interesting, or you might delete it immediately, or maybe you’ll have new empathy for the herculean task he has taken on as a missionary. Either way, get some popcorn (it’s long but good!), and now I’m turning the keyboard over to him and then I’ve added some cool pictures of our visit to Runnymede (the location of the signing of the Magna Carta) at the end…

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Here we are at the Area Office with a few of the amazing people we get to work with.

We have been on our Mission in England for 4 months now. Quite a few people have asked to know what things I do as a Legal Support Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Some of the people who are curious are attorney friends and former co-workers and they will come to know how VERY different the legal issues I am concerned with are from what I did in my 34 years of practice as an attorney in California.

FYI, I am providing this to some friends and family who are not members of our faith so I am including some foundational information that might be helpful. If you are a member of the Church you can skim quickly past this first paragraph. From an organizational standpoint, the Church has more than 17 million members worldwide and more than 35,000 local congregations called Wards or Branches. All of the women and men who lead, teach, serve, and minister in the adult men and women’s groups, as well as the youth and children’s groups in these congregations are unpaid, lay servants. But the Church also has more than 30,000 paid employees in more than 20 departments which support the work of the Church. The Church is divided into 23 geographical Areas around the world. I serve in the Europe North Area which covers the following countries: UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), Ireland, Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Norway), Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and the Baltics (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). There are also two countries which are in our area, one which is in southern Europe, Portugal, and the other Cape Verde, which is an island nation off the coast of West Africa. 

Each Area has a presidency consisting of a President and two counselors who preside for 3-5 years.  The Area office has employee representatives of most of the Church departments.  The Office of General Counsel (OGC) has an Area Legal Counsel (ALC) in each Area office. It consists of one paid attorney who supervises the legal work of the Church for the countries in that Area.  The ALC is supported by 2-3 Associate Area Legal Counsel (AALC) who are unpaid, volunteer Service Missionaries who are retired attorneys like me.  In my office there are two other AALC’s that I work with.  We work under the direction of our ALC to retain local attorneys in the countries we are responsible for who perform the legal research and actually represent the Church where needed.  Our role as AALC is to coordinate their work, analyse their opinions, and provide advice to the Church department managers to see that all legal issues and needs are resolved according to the laws of the countries where the Church is located.  We also report back to to the OGC at Church Headquarters, as needed. In the Europe North Area each AALC has 4-6 countries that we are responsible for and I have been assigned the Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.  I also have Cape Verde, where they speak Portuguese. 

My colleagues and I attend regularly scheduled weekly OGC legal meetings with representatives of major departments. For example, we meet weekly with the Real Estate Managers to go over legal aspects of purchases and leases of Church meetinghouses, and Mission Homes (where the Mission Leaders live).  There are some properties that the Church owns and become surplus so we end up selling them. There are also Temples where the OGC is involved in land acquisition, construction contract approvals, and some consultation during construction.  There are currently three Temples within the Area that are under construction, or have been announced: Oslo, Norway, Birmingham, England and Edinburgh, Scotland.  

We also meet with the Finance Department regularly because there are always issues coming up regarding taxes, reimbursements, etc. The Baltic countries and Portugal each seek to levy taxes wherever they can and so there are always such issues that we have to get researched and have policies put in place.  For example, the Church spends millions of dollars funding Humanitarian projects but Estonia and Latvia try to tax them wherever they can.  Portugal says it’s okay for the Church to be tax free for Sunday worship but we hold so many meetings during the week for the teenagers, children, women’s groups, and community use that they believe those meeting should be taxed.  We are dealing with that now.  There are lots of compliance issues we have to deal with from a Church corporation aspect. Annual Director meetings, audits,  filings, and tax returns for the things that require taxation, creating Powers of Attorney for people making financial and other transactions, and other minutiae  – plus more small print than my aging eyes dare try to read!

A great deal of time is also spent dealing with Visa and Temporary Residence Permits (TRP) for religious use to allow our missionaries to enter and stay in countries. Most of the Schengen countries in Europe allow our missionaries to come in on a Visa and do not require TRP’s.  However, my three Baltic countries and Cape Verde require TRP’s which typically last 90 days.  There is one mission that covers the 3 Baltic countries.  Missionaries who serve there get called to serve in one of the countries and so they spend their entire mission in that one country and learn that nation’s language (e.g., Latvian).  However, there are large numbers of Ethnic Russians in these countries so the Church also calls a certain number of Russian-speaking missionaries to the “Baltic Mission” but they get transferred around the 3 countries throughout their missions.  It is very difficult to get the TRP application process coordinated between the various countries to keep them legal.    

Finally, we meet weekly with the Employment/HR Managers who have a smorgasboard of legal issues to juggle regarding employment contracts, overtime, work-from-home issues, pensions, health insurance, discipline & grievance procedures and anything else you can think of in HR.  Keep in mind that we are dealing with more than a dozen countries, each with sometimes vastly different laws, from the sophisticated UK and Scandinavian countries to former Soviet bloc Baltic nations, to developing African nations like Cape Verde.  We rely almost exclusively on the input of our local counsel in the actions we take.  None of them are members of our faith but they do their best to provide top quality, objective legal opinions and I must say I have been very impressed with their legal skills.  It has been interesting to see how our lawyer cousins across the Atlantic perform and they do not disappoint.  Three out of the four of the lead lawyers that I deal with for the four countries I currently handle are female and they are extremely bright and capable.  One is the former First Lady of Cape Verde!  Very interesting indeed.  

I have honestly never worked harder as an attorney than I am doing now after retirement!  Maybe I worked almost as hard the first few years out of law school as an associate, yes, those days were pretty busy.  But I can tell you my work days now are even busier.  During our 2 day OGC Orientation they warned us we would feel like we were “drinking from a firehose” and maybe now it is down to a full-force garden hose.  It is on-the-job-training, simple as that.  I worked as a litigator so I had no experience doing any of the things I have been handling.  The lawyers reading this e-mail will get a chuckle out of this – the last time I studied or gave any real thought to easements and adverse possession were studying for the CA State Bar and before that during my first year of law school. I never handled any of these matters in my 34 years of law practice but am currently handling two matters in Latvia with Church properties that have easement issues and an adverse possession matter in Cape Verde where even though the Church paid for the property, 20 years later we have to go through an adverse possession hearing to get title due to facts that would require another page or two. Suffice to say that there are just tons of esoteric legal issues that come up in running a world-wide organization like our Church. 

A few months ago, Heidi and I were blessed to visit the three Baltic countries with my ALC John and his wife, Carol.  John is an amazing Oxford-educated attorney who practiced in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  He was an eminent construction attorney who also mediated high-end construction litigation matters around the world.  He and I met with the attorneys who handle the Church’s legal matters in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and also met with many faithful leaders of the Church, employees, and rank and file members who were pioneers of the Church following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  It was inspiring to us to meet them. 

I will close by letting you know that the work I am doing is unlike any other form of “missionary work” that I expected to be doing. It certainly is “work!”  However, the service I am providing in legal matters is, indeed missionary work. The Savior called His apostles to go into all the world to preach the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people.  In those times they walked everywhere in sandals and did not need a passport or visa to enter a new land.  The Church was small and didn’t have a need for employees so no need for employment laws and HR.  There were few formal laws in place that religious organizations needed to comply with. Whoever thought “data privacy” laws would be an issue that permeates our society such that it strictly regulates how local church congregations can organize and list its members? Thus, in the modern, technology-driven world we live in, administering the temporal aspects of an international church requires a legal organizational framework to permit the Lord’s work to go forth in every nation.  How else can we invite everyone to follow the invitation of our Savior Jesus Christ and his invitation to “Come, follow Me.” When we interviewed with the Church’s General Counsel prior to our mission call, I came to understand that there was a great need for my legal training and experience to help the temporal, organizational order of the Church to go forth and help others to Follow Him. I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve my Savior Jesus Christ in this very small way.  

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Back to Heidi…

I will just add my final thought that Jon is doing great work, he’s doing better than he thinks he is, and I’m amazed at his devotion and dedication to do something so challenging at this stage of our lives!

If you have any more specific questions about what he’s doing, feel free to reach out and I’m sure he’ll be happy to share more details!

P.S. - A few weeks ago, after a Heathrow airport drop-off, we visited Runnymede which is the location of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and considered the birthplace of democracy and the rule of law. Perfect place for a lawyer! There are numerous displays/memorials set among a beautiful meadow (=mede) along the River Thames.

Our favorite was the John F. Kennedy Memorial, on which the ground beneath and around the memorial was given to the United States. So we were sort of in America for a few minutes! :)

This is called “The Jurors”:

Part of the sign reads: “Each of the twelve bronze chairs is covered with images and symbols relating to past and ongoing struggles for freedom, rule of law and equal rights.” This display commemorates the beginning of the jury system with the Magna Carta.

This is the American Bar Association Memorial:

This is a display representing “freedom”:

And finally there was this very cool display at the end of the meadow. It sort of looked like a big water tank. And so it’s appropriately named “Writ in Water”:

The inscription reflected in the water is from Clause 39 of the Magna Carta: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, our outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

If you’ve made it this far, well, you are truly a good friend and/or you really love the law! :) Kudos to you! As a reward for wading through all the legal stuff, here are just a few more pictures of the loveliness surrounding this area:

Until next time…love to you all!