September 06, 2010
Huxley.
Many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country. The craving for ethyl alcohol and the opiates has been stronger, in these millions, than the love of God, of home, of children; even of life.... Why should such multitudes of men and women be so ready to sacrifice themselves for a cause so utterly hopeless and in ways so painful and so profoundly humiliating?
--Aldous Huxley, "Drugs That Shape Men's Minds", The Saturday Evening Post, October 18, 1958
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Do Yanks deserve a Labor Day in 2010?
Scots are Useful Celts who are good with money. AWB are Boomer Scots with an attitude. Bonnie Bramlett, a Druid Goddess, named them.
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September 05, 2010
Got balls?
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"Friend me?"
Whoa. Life sure got smallish, wimpy and squeaky fast.
"Nice guy/lady--just don't get in a foxhole with him/her". We hope that no one has ever said or thought this about you--but it's likely that they already have. We live in a world where about 98% of the time wimpiness and lack of courage are rationalized, stylized, and sold to us as "smart" or "prudent" and even as a "right".
Americans, too, of course. For all our bluster, many of us get weaker, more insubstantial, and more irrelevant every day. We don't meet and talk. We rarely look anyone in the eye. Instead, we type and text, day in and day out: skittish mini-critters running on shiny little treadmills in cages set behind screens and tubes.
Squeak-squeak.
Indeed, Technology has insulated--rather than "unleashed"--many of us. Is this all there is? Dang! Busy but dazed and confused? Whoa. Life sure got small and squeaky fast.
Squeak-squeak, you losers.
"Are we not Men?" Historically, all humans (not just Yanks in de-evolution stages) have routinely sidestepped truth, our real beliefs, and initial urges of loyalty to others. We mean loyalty as automatic and instinctual. Bordering on tribal, almost a pang, and often directed blindly, this "sticking" is the Mere Base Rent you pay for just being here, forming relationships, and taking up space on the planet. It's not "extra credit" or "gravy". You don't get points.
Loyalty can be to true friends based on history--or to virtual strangers out of a sense of justice and quick detection of bs. It is the support and allegiance owing to anyone who we know in a flash, and in our deepest and best selves, deserve our immediate aid and good offices because of fairness, past ties, a promise or an understanding.
It is always situational. You either get it--or you don't.
"Are we not Men?" Welcome to the House of Pain, Mr. Prendick.
Well, hey, at least everyone's doing it--and been doing it for all of recorded history. No shame at all, right? You made average. You're "living small"--but at least you're a true generic. A big relief.
And if you're really and truly in the other 2%, congratulations! But here are two key questions:
1. Do you really know who (a) at work and (b) in your life will "stick" when you need their support?
2. Do you even have to ask them for help--or do they lie in the weeds when you need them the most?
Our advice. Once a week, use your common sense, your passion, or ideally both together, to support someone who deserves it then and there. But do it whether or not it's convenient, or in your interest, to support him or her. (If you can't think of or identify many day-to-day examples of this--at work, in the community, or in the streets--we feel sorry for you. No need for you to ever to read this blog again. You won't get it--not one word.)
You'll not only get scads back. You'll start to learn who you really are.
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Getting value from labor: Let's take a break from "being supportive".
Shall we? We need a backlash for quality. Like: "Hey Justin, your work is bad. We've told you why before. You're a loser. Clean out your desk and get out." Because:
When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
--Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911). Dramatist, librettist, illustrator.
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September 04, 2010
There is no God: End times outrage pits Earl against Nantucket.
Sailors and watchers are resting now,
Some on this sandy lea,
And some with the sea-grass round them twined,
Are asleep in the wandering sea.--from "The House-Top Walk", by Charles L. Thompson
Union Street's Quaker Uncle Billy readies for Earl.
Earl's got jail-house tats, bad genes, and your sister's deb pics.
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Were you born in 1941?
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UPDATE: Wild men always rule.
And Wild Women. They love Value. And Quality. And Stepping Up. Wild Men and Women are people who listen only to the little voice in their head. They get things done. They build things.
They don't care what you think. Uncertainty and turbulence--in the economy, stock markets, governments, the weather, you name it--only get their juices flowing.
1. Ben Franklin
2. Ted Turner
3. Dr. Johnson
4. Dr. Thompson
5. Theodore Roosevelt (yes, he was wild)
6. Andrew Jackson
7. Ayn Rand
8. Ana Marie Cox
9. Boudica
10. Dustin Hoffman
11. Winston Churchill
12. Benjamin Disraeli
13. Arianna Huffington
14. Bucky Fuller
15. Jerry Lee Lewis
This is Ted. He's never cared what you think.
16. Bill Buckley
17. Bill Clinton
18. Steve Jobs
19. Captain Harry (Charleston SC fishing/hunting guide)
20. Welsh and Irish guys when they're sober
21. Nick Nolte
22. Ernie from Glen Burnie (DC lawyer, alias of WAC? childhood friend)
23. Christopher Columbus
24. Jann Wenner
25. Sean Penn
26. Ken Wilbur
27. Plato
28. Catherine the Great
29. Val Kilmer
30. Harry Dean Stanton
31. Scott Greenfield
32. Julius Caesar
33. Pete Seeger
34. John Lennon
35. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
36. Peter Sheridan
37. Christopher Hitchens
38. Craig Young, Bush Pilot
39. Warren Beatty
40. The waitress at Kelly's who poured beer on me. Twice.
41. John the Baptist.
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Granted, sometimes Wild Men go too far. Last December's Hogmanay in Edinburgh got way out of hand.
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September 02, 2010
Working for Clients: It's Not About You, Justin.
"Job and His Friends" by Vladimir Borovikovsky, 1810s. We're not conventionally religious but we do admire Job. Some days lawyering you will just have to suck it up. You suffer.
There are bad days. A parent is sick. A child gets stitches. You are coming down with the flu. You learn your girlfriend is cheating on you. In fact both of your girlfriends are cheating on you (and not even with each other).
Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect. Practicing law is getting it right, saying it right and winning--all with a gun to your head. Being "accurate, thorough and timely" are qualities most of us had in the 6th grade, right? Back when everyone told us we were geniuses and destined for great things?
Well, school's out--now it's about real rights, real duties, real money and personal freedom. That's a weight, and it should be.
Suddenly facts are everything--and the actual law less important than you ever imagined. In time you learn to research, think and put things together better and faster. You develop instincts.
You learn there is really no boilerplate and no "cookie-cutter" work. You learn there are no "right answers"--but several approaches and solutions to any problem. You are being asked to pick one. But at first, and maybe for a few years, being accurate, thorough and on time is not easy to do.
"I Have Clients?!" One day, you start to visualize your clients as real companies and real people with real problems. These are your clients--not your parents or professors--and they are all different. You "feel their pain", and it's now yours, too.
Mistakes. If you work with the right mentors and senior people, they will allow you to make mistakes. You need freedom to make mistakes. You'll be reminded, however, not to let those mistakes out of the office. It's a balancing act, a hard one.
Really bad days lately? So sorry. But your problem, Justin. You are expected to be "professional"--no, that is not about being polite and courtly with other lawyers--and put clients first on your worst damn day. And it's going to happen.
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Depositions: Getting Documents with F.R.E. 612.
"So, Ms. Bloor, just before coming in here today, what did you read, or even just skim?" Often the best documents--and certainly often the most interesting ones--are documents that are not produced before or during a deposition, like handwritten records that even opposing counsel doesn't know about. F.R.E. 612 provides that if a witness uses a writing "to refresh memory", either while or before testifying, the adverse party is "entitled to have the writing produced at the hearing, to inspect it, to cross-examine the witness" on the document. Even great lawyers overlook that F.R.E. 612 applies to depositions as well as to trials. Federal decisions have applied the rule to depositions based upon Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(c). So ask the deponent if he or she looked at documents before the deposition other than those being produced at or in advance of the deposition. If the answer is "yes", request that they be produced. You can have them produced during or after the deposition.
(Some of that stuff's got to be tawdry...can't wait to see it.)
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Dizzy on Bad Books.
Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
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The Works: Legal London. Literary Law Students. Love. Labor.
A few days early this year, we send you the complete text of a circa-1595 comedy by Shakespeare, here, on one page, to read after the weenie roast this weekend at Uncle Bob's. You could read it aloud--or even better act it out.
First performed before Queen Elizabeth at her Court in 1597 (as "Loues Labors Loſt"), it was likely written for performance before culturally-literate law students and barristers-in-training--who would appreciate its sophistication and wit--at the Inns of Court in still-over-percolating Legal London. And, most certainly, it was performed at Gray's Inn, where Elizabeth was the "patron".
Interestingly, the play begins with a vow by several men to forswear pleasures of the flesh and the company of fast women during a three-year period of study and reflection. And to "train our intellects to vain delight".
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September 01, 2010
The Book: International Arbitration and Mediation: A Practical Guide.
"Today's business world is about risk." So begins a much-awaited book and resource by two lawyers--one in-house and the other from a law firm--who live and breathe international dispute resolution. GE's Michael McIlwrath and Shearman & Sterling's John Savage prepared International Arbitration and Mediation: A Practical Guide for counsel who regularly advise and guide businesses when they negotiate international deals. Kluwer Law International, May 2010, 528 pages (hardcover).
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Best prof-loved corporate law sites.
They may in effect send 25-year-old teacups and teletubbies to your shop each Fall--but some law profs do have fine taste in resources for working stiffs who must labor in the streets and trenches. Read the takes on better corporate blogs of J.W. Verret (George Mason) at Truth on the Market and of the still-famous Professor Bainbridge (UCLA). We would not add to the combined list. Well done. Pass+ to both. You need not call your mothers.
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Law as Secular Heaven.
Law is the ultimate backstage pass. It's the new priesthood.
--John Milton/Satan (Al Pacino), in L’Associé du Diable (1997)
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Llewellyn: "Get your back into it..."
Karl Nickerson Llewellyn
You expect me to tell you that you should be earnest about your work, and get your back into it for dear old Siwash, and that he who lets work slide will stumble by the way.
Our guess is that he was not a fan of "going through the motions". We can safely assume he would have never twittered (or at least not have disclosed that activity to sane and serious clients; it might have made them and him nervous). And that he would have been deeply saddened by the current professional trend of doing all things in a way to "please the professional"--rather than to advance the interests of the entity served: Client, Patient, Buyer, Customer.
The above of course is from the opening chapter of the The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study (1931), which sprung from a series of introductory lectures Karl Llewellyn (1893–1962) gave to first-year law students during the 1929-30 academic year, when he was appointed the first Betts Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia. The book's title is from a poem "The Bramble Bush" by Robert Penn Warren, excerpted here:
There was a man in our town
and he was wondrous wise:
he jumped into a bramble bush
and scratched out both his eyes--and when he found that he was blind,
with all his might and maine,
He jumped into another one,
and scratched them in again.
(from past WAC? JDH/HBO posts)
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August 31, 2010
Rule Seven: Know the Client
One of our most clicked-on posts is here. Excerpt: "Take time out to learn the stock price, industry, day-to-day culture, players and overall goals of your client. Visit its offices and plants. Do it free of charge."
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Redux: To American law schools: A little help, please?
Law Schools: Weenie factories? Or where one first learns to think and to add value?
The tone and atmosphere of an excellent law firm that quickly resolves problems and gets things done? Often it will be more like Rahm Emanuel, John Wayne or Colonel Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now" commanding brainstorming, hard-ass and fully-engaged troops.
It it will be less like Mr. Rogers or Alan Alda whispering kind and nurturing things to the latest crop of Teletubbies and making sure they are okay.
We are desperate--and burning daylight and money here. Marc Randazza is a San Diego-based First Amendment specialist who writes The Legal Satyricon. Like the undersigned, he is hard-working, works out of several offices, and is obviously having fun. Randazza is irreverent, "not prissy", passionate, mega-competent, and not concerned about what people think. Hear his April 2 NPR interview on SLAPP suits. Or read about abolition of limitations periods in clergy child abuse cases in "If you’re still Catholic...". He and his other writers don't cower behind "anonymity" when they write. Randazza's his own man, and a stand-up guy.
In short, an American. And none of this would be that unusual except that Marc is an American lawyer. And let's face it. Being eccentric, wild and/or "edgy" in American Lawyerland is not a tough mark to hit.
Just wear a bow-tie, tasseled loafers and a trench coat. But maybe, say, in public, and wear them all on once, and on a weekday. Ah, live dangerously, lawyer friends. All over the world, we could go nuts--and "get it on" like big dogs.
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At Duke: "So maybe Dr. Potti meant he was a Dusty Roads Scholar?"
Hey, it could happen. From the acclaimed 105-year-old muckraker, lie-catcher, and star-hatcher, Duke's daily The Chronicle :
Resume Reveals Inconsistencies
By Tulia Rushton
For almost a year, accusations have slowly mounted against Duke cancer researcher Dr. Anil Potti. First, questions were raised about his scientific discoveries. Then, a cancer research newsletter pointed out problems with his resume, drawing new scrutiny to his work.
Now, a Duke investigation led by Provost Peter Lange has found “issues of substantial concern” in Potti’s resume and biographical sketches, and both internal and external investigations into Potti’s research are being planned, according to a Duke News release issued Friday. [more]
Flowers Building
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August 30, 2010
Writing well: Revision.
Half my life is an act of revision.
--John Irving (1942-)
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R. D. Lewis: Getting cross-border smarts.
So what happens when Americans do business with the English? English trading with Germans? Or Germans with Japanese? Why do the Spanish and Finns view the concept of a written contract so differently?
Buy it, read it, refer to it and link to the blog. When Cultures Collide (Nicholas Brealey 3d edition), by Richard D. Lewis, is our favorite book on doing business internationally. We've been gushing over it for years at WAC? and Hull McGuire. Practical, expert, non-touchy-feely advice by a man who studied and consulted on international business before it was cool. First published in 1996. Well-written, often very funny. We've bought about 10 copies over the years. If there is ever a movie version, we'll stand in line to get tickets.
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August 29, 2010
Breaking: Sarah Silverman swives Babybel cheese on stage.
It's Sunday 7:24 PM ET in America. My older and more culturally conservative Sarah Silverman-loving co-writer is on a plane and will not check his laptop for 9 hours. At 4:00 AM this comes down.
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Reds in Paris.
Visit Richard Nahem's Eye Prefer Paris where last week he featured photos by his Yank friend Virginia Jones in "Paris Rouge". In capturing both American and French everyday scenes and subjects, Virginia insists on red in almost every photograph--and she does that with taste, strategy and near-perfect pitch. Below: "Manteau Rouge-Montmartre".
Virginia Jones
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NYT Photo of the Decade
Of comrades Paulson, Bernanke & Geithner taken in late 2008. It gets better all the time.
Matthew Cavanaugh/European Pressphoto Agency (October 2008)
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August 28, 2010
Heidelberger Schloss
In 1620
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Oh New York City you talk a lot.
Jacob Riis (1849–1914) was a Danish American reformer, journalist and photographer. He is still famous for his photos of New York City's slums and their uneasy mix of new Americans--especially those taken in Hell's Kitchen and around Five Points. Below in the 1890s is Mulberry "Bend" (then sometimes "Lane") in lower Manhattan and within the Five Points. It's now Mulberry Street, which runs through Chinatown and Little Italy.
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August 27, 2010
Making plays: Point guard Bernanke on 1.6% "crawl" in Q2
Getting "unconventional" is fine with us, Ben. Have at it. AP: "Fed Consider Another Large Purchase of Securities". In part:
JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that the Fed will consider making another large-scale purchase of securities if the slowing U.S. economy were to deteriorate significantly and signs of deflation were to flare.
The Fed chief offered his most extensive thoughts yet on how to pull the U.S. economy out of a deepening slump. His remarks came 90 minutes after the government said the economy slowed sharply in the second quarter to a 1.6 percent pace.
"I believe that additional purchases of longer-term securities should the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] choose to undertake them, would be effective in further easing financial conditions." he said.
The other two options he laid out are:
--Providing more information in the Fed's post-meeting policy statements about how long Fed policymakers would continue to keep rates at record lows. For more than a year, the Fed has been pledging to hold rates at ultra-low levels for an "extended period."
--Cutting to zero the interest the Fed pays for banks to keep money parked at the Fed. That rate is now 0.25 percent.
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Is lawyering "a life on the sidelines"?
Vanity Fair, 1869
I am dying for action, and rust like a Damascus sabre in the sheath of a poltroon.
Is just being a good lawyer always "enough"? Consider what the young, precocious, mega-talented, persistent and world class pain-in-the-ass Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) thought--years before becoming Prime Minster of England--as he abandoned his legal career before it really started, in favor of writing and politics. According to one biographer, he exclaimed:
The Bar: pooh! law and bad tricks till we are forty, and then, with the most brilliant success, the prospect of gout and a coronet. Besides, to succeed as an advocate, I must be a great lawyer, and to be a great lawyer, I must give up my chance of being a great man.
A. Maurois, Disraeli (Random House 1928) (including opening quote in post). Sidelined? Hobbled? Self-discarded in the great race of life? Maybe it's true. Hard-driving lawyer friends (both in-house and in law firms) do articulate a feeling of being "sidelined"--yet they are very proud of what they do as lawyers.
They may think: Why merely advise--when you could lead, create boldly, and command? And do that every day? Lots of lawyers are Type-As. Yes, some of us who advise great companies really end up as officers, CEOs, and COOs? Sure, many more of us run for office.
But should more and more of us throw our golfing hat in the ring of "other life", the fields of commerce, and bigger (or at least different) ponds? Does law school and "the profession" make many of us so risk-averse, passive and routinely academic in our approach to life that it knocks the will and energy to lead out of us?
Or were we just that way from the beginning?
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Doing Rome
(from past posts)
The comparisons between Rome and the U.S.--they are certainly not new--are both exciting and instructive.
-What About Clients? (2008)When in Rome, do as many Romans as you possibly can.
-Hugh Grant (2004)
Rome. I don't like working here--charitably put, work-life balance is totally out of balance in some regions of Italy--but I love being in Rome. You can walk in this city. You can frolic in it. You can play all day long in and around the The Forum and Palatine Hill, where antiquities are still being found. There's a guy with a shop at the Piazza Navona--2000 years ago the Piazza was a Roman circus (i.e., track) you can still see if you try--who sells me these unique old prints, beautifully framed, that I bought for my father in Cincinnati. I go to that shop on every trip. The Tiber River is still gorgeous and, like the Seine in Paris, steeped in history, and a bit melancholy and mysterious. Lots happened here--maybe too much--and it's as if the river can remember it all.
Pannini (1743): Ruins, Chiostre, Statue of Marc-Aurèle
And the West's strongest ideas and institutions, including what became English law, were conceived or preserved by Rome. The comparisons between Rome and the U.S.--they are certainly not new--are both exciting and instructive. The Romans were competent if grandiose empire builders who borrowed their best ideas and forms from a previously dominant Greece, while America's cultural debt is chiefly to western Europe. Like Rome, America tended to overextend itself in all spheres. Like Rome, America was globally aggressive. (Other peoples resented it.) You get the idea.
But you can't see, experience and "do" Rome on one trip--same thing with New York, London or Paris--and you shouldn't try. Our advice: do several trips, and "live in it" each and every visit, taking small bites. And spend your trip with anyone but those from the same nation and culture as your own. If you go there with Americans, break out of that bubble. Politely say goodbye--and disappear into the streets on your own.
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Big Legs: Roman Law.
Roman law not only survived among the Roman population, it was revived and extended to peoples of Northern Europe, and it was then spread by modern colonization to lands beyond the seas of which the Romans had never even dreamed, to Quebec and Louisiana, to Spanish America and the Cape of Good Hope. Not so many years ago an appeal from South Africa to the British Privy Council turned upon an interpretation of a passage in the Digest of Justinian.
C. H. Haskins, Ch. VII, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (World 1972 ed.)
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August 26, 2010
Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy died on August 25th last year; the following is our post on the day after:
Nearly everyone I am close to lives in a time zone ahead of mine. Except my friend Ellen who called me about 11:15 PT last night and told me. Even with a fifteen months' "heads up" about Ted Kennedy having brain cancer, I was stunned that Kennedy--the only one of Joe Kennedy Sr.'s four boys to not die violently and young--had died. So this did hit me. My first vote for a Republican presidential candidate ever last November--John McCain--was not the sea change in my ideas, instincts or emotions I had thought. I don't expect anyone under 45 or so to understand. Below is exactly what we wrote last year, on May 22, 2008, in this post, the day after it was disclosed that Kennedy was ill:
To be Irish is to know that, in the end, the world will break your heart.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Call me a cultural stereotype. A boomer. A limousine liberal. I don't care. Ted Kennedy being diagnosed with malignant cancer of the brain floored me. I don't even know why. Long ago, Duke University, which changed my life in a number of ways, awarded me my first paid desk job to work for Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson. With some help from my father, I rented an overpriced and horrible little apartment across the street from the hospital on Washington Circle where I had been born 21 years earlier, and excitedly entered the world I'd been seeing on television since I was in my early teens growing up in the Midwest. That first sunny Monday morning in May, I walked all the way to work, zig-zagging down Pennsylvania Avenue, and then up Constitution Avenue, well over two miles total, just to take it all in.
But I walked in a hurry.
Edward Moore Kennedy (1932-2009)
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Writing Well: Scripts.
Hollywood is the one place in the world where you can die of encouragement.
--Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
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One Possible Deliverance
It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened...to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defences and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things gave up my heart.
--Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf.
Hesse in 1926 by Gret Widmann
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Rule One
Life's short. The profession is demanding enough.
Represent Only Clients You 'Like'. From our irritating but dead-on accurate and wise 12 Rules of Client Service. We know you and yours can't or won't follow any of them--i.e., you're a lawyer, think you are "special", and believe you're entitled to a standard that would embarrass a drunken bellhop--but you can at least try.
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August 25, 2010
The Economist on Rod Blagojevich: "Can I get a witness?"
See "The Never-Ending Swansong". Excerpt:
The verdict was the latest anticlimax in what has been a disappointing summer for rubberneckers. After declaring his eagerness to testify, Mr Blagojevich did not take the stand. His lawyers subpoenaed several leading Democrats, including Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett.
In the end, though, the defence produced a grand total of no witnesses. Conspiracy theories abound, but the most realistic explanation is that the lawyers concluded that further testimony would only help the prosecutors.
Not exactly Jefferson, Stevenson, Lugar. It's Chicago, Jake.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers.
Here.
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August 24, 2010
Hesse jokes with the Immortals.
Eternity is a mere moment--just long enough for a joke.
--Hermann Hesse's version of Goethe, dead, possessed of a superior perspective, and speaking to Harry Haller, in Steppenwolf (1927).
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August 23, 2010
Seattle, August, fish-tossing, the usual.
Ten years ago, the fun surrounding Pike Place Market fish-tossing spawned a popular business workplace book.
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Rule Five: "Over-Communicate"
"Over-Communicate: Bombard, Copy and Confirm." From our often-disturbing but dead-on accurate and way-righteous 12 Rules of Client Service, here's Rule Five. Not everyone agrees with this one. But it works anyway. We know. If you work hard at consistently informing clients of everything as things happens--it's harder to do this with balance and people-savvy than it sounds--you can't lose. In short, provide a real-time experience. Chances are, however, that your firm does not have the moxie, the right employees, and the discipline to make it work. (Sorry, but getting it right for three days in a row on one project doesn't count.) Again, we know. But do try to prove us wrong. With our thanks to a lawyer's lawyer and client service thinker-doer named Jay Foonberg.
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August 22, 2010
Revelation's Unknown Writer: A Loon for the Ages.
Looking into the void. John of Patmos writes the Book of Revelation in this Hieronymus Bosch painting (1505). The lapsed Anglicans and Belfast Protestants who write WAC? are not conventionally religious--but we think the Bible is interesting. We think that whoever wrote Revelation (no one really knows) was a compelling king-hell Loon.
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August 21, 2010
Working abroad: Expect "hiccups".
Working and lawyering abroad isn't about being cool and wearing an ascot. Even if you've done it a few times, there are problems and surprises mixed in with erratic sleep and jet lag. It tries you and gets to you. You need to be organized and diligent. And flexible. Three summers ago our friend Janet Moore of International Lawyer Coach was working in Ireland and Holland. See her post "Working Abroad is Reminding Me to Be Patient".
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International Arbitration: New York's Debevoise steps up.
And does the sane thing. Clients have had good reason over the years to disbelieve promises by law firms to restore arbitration to its original goals of faster-cheaper-better. Almost none of them were kept. Litigation is a money-maker, and larger firms, boutiques and other Western law shops with higher-end corporate clients have too much riding on the fees. But some observers think that New York City-based Debevoise & Plimpton, with 650 lawyers in US, Europe and Asia, still may have done the right, sane and smart thing by developing and announcing its "Debevoise Protocol to Promote Efficiency in International Arbitration" (April 2010). Do see, by GE's Mike McIlwrath, an in-house oil and gas litigation lawyer based in Florence, Italy, this article: "Faster, Cheaper: Global Initiatives to Promote Efficiency in International Arbitration", reprinted from 76 Arbitration 568–570 (2010). Debevosie will be a hero to clients worldwide, and keep its own clients forever, if it delivers and keeps up the leadership. The April 2010 Debevoise Protocol is reproduced in McIlwrath's piece and can also be found on Debevoise's website.
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August 20, 2010
Thinking warriors.
There has been no illustrious captain who did not possess taste and a feeling for the heritage of the human mind. At the root of Alexander's victories one will always find Aristotle. --Charles de Gaulle, Army of the Future (1934)
Finish it. Finish your education. --What About Clients?
Alexander the Great was out there. He was well-educated, persistent, confident, smart--and a brilliant commander and politician. A warrior's warrior. Alexander was also wild and self-destructive. His men, who loved him, sometimes mutinied.
Alexander worried his fellow Macedonians back home, as he bullied and charmed his way through the then-known world. Many texts say that his off-the-charts political and personal excesses greatly also worried his teacher, Aristotle, the measured and cautious academic. Alexander was, in fact, a student of Aristotle at his school in Mieza.
Aristotle's mentor, of course, was Plato, who was himself mystical, poetic, and aristocratic. Plato was more like Alexander in background and personality--perhaps a better teacher-student match for the young Alexander.
But Plato died when Alexander was 8, and when Aristotle was only 37....
Hey, don't stop reading. Lawyers, students, politicians and business leaders--and especially trial lawyers--should know about these guys.
And their ideas.
We should know something about all of them. Know about ancient and not-so-ancient peoples who have passed on, as well as the events and ideas they gave us.
But most of us don't know. And we are less effective for it.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (0)
August 19, 2010
American Moxie
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The Fed: U.S. industrial production up 1% in July
Construction, retail sales and hiring may still be sluggish. But things could be worse, and there are some promising numbers. See the Federal Reserve's August 17 release.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (0)
Know the Customers.
Learn the stock price, industry, day-to-day culture, players and long-term goals of the client. Visit offices and plants. Do it free of charge. Learn and keep learning about it. Devise a system to keep abreast.
Rule 7: Know the Client is from our world-famous if nettlesome--we're right about this stuff, so just get over it, and do it--12 Rules. "Client service", by the way, is not about being "nice" to clients. Think of it as (1) a weaving of substance and relationship, (2) a dance, (3) the most difficult discipline you'll master and (4) a hard-acquired "habit"--one over time that is doggedly yet happily repeated. Without it, no one cares you wrote the BNA article, or Matthew Bender tome, on promissory estoppel against the government. Just doesn't matter.
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August 18, 2010
Rule 8: Client Costs.
Ask an associate lawyer or paralegal what a "profit" is. You will get two kinds of answers. Both answers are "correct" but neither of the answers helps anyone in your firm think like the client.
Think Like the Client--Help Control Costs is Rule Eight. It's from our self-righteous and opinionated but accurate, and soulful, 12 Rules.
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J.P. Morgan (1837-1913) was cheap, rich, opinionated,
and controversial. But he knew want clients wanted.
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The Deal in Oran.
Our citizens work hard. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, "doing business".
--Narrator describing Oran in opening pages of The Plague (1947), by Albert Camus
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August 17, 2010
Intelligent Litigation: Two Ways of the Trial Notebook
For business trials, see for starters the outlines for Trial Notebooks, either One or Two, at Evan Schaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice. We like the latter, but you should mix and match--and use your great unused brain. Both sides of it. And be advised. As Tom Hanks, Hunter Thompson, or someone, once said: "There is no boilerplate in baseball". Each client, each problem to solve, each transaction, and each trial is unique, and Different From The Other. Do away with knee-jerk lawyer "form-think'. It's bad for clients--not to mention uninspired, un-American, and boring.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (0)
Writing Well: Legal-speak needs to go.
Behold the image of the self-important "I'm-special" lawyer, rocking back and forth in his chair, and talking to himself like a mental patient.
It's silly and no one's impressed anymore. Oh, Lawyer-Speak and Legalese. Of the lamer lawyer-centric institutions, only "Professionalism" and "Work-Life Balance" are more embarrassing, abused and irrelevant, and more likely to undermine clients, than the way in which many lawyers continue to speak and write.
At least those two prissy battle cries originally had a point.
But Legalese never had a point.
A few years ago, another law firm sent us a draft of a simple housekeeping agreement. It was a 3-page confidentiality agreement used during talks for an acquisition.
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We responded by submitting our own draft because, among other things, the draft we had received (presumably a "model" they had around their office) contained this language:
"Effective on even date herewith, the parties hereto hereby agree to...".
Whoa. How about just one date at the top or bottom of the Agreement and then say "The parties agree..."? And if the whole thing is an "Agreement", with language showing that the parties intend to be bound, maybe you don't even need that?
Either would save trees, ink and space, and would get the idea of contract across, and out of the way. And either would help diminish the image of the self-important "I'm-special" lawyer rocking back and forth in his chair, and talking to himself like a mental patient.
(from past JDH WAC? posts)
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August 16, 2010
Witnesses: The problem of demeanor in international disputes.
In international arbitration and mediation, first-language barriers can be the least of your client's difficulties.
How does a mediator or arbitrator arrive at a true--and fair--consensus on the meaning of ordinary verbal and non-verbal conduct by a witness? What is the significance of the "delayed answer" to a question? In one culture, delay means hesitancy and evasiveness (e.g., to most Westerners). In another, delay may denote careful consideration of the question--and a sign of respect to the questioner.
In 2009, GE's in-house counsel Mike McIlwrath interviewed Australian mediator Joanna Kalowski, who works out of both Australia and Paris. Kalowski discusses how she became a mediator and lessons that come directly from her work. She has also trained mediators in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Italy, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Their 25-minute discussion, "Public Consensus Across Cultures" (IDN No. 61), taped on February 13, 2009, is part of McIlwrath's highly regarded interview series on International Dispute Negotiation sponsored by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, or CPR Institute.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (1)
August 15, 2010
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
"Portrait of Chess Player"
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Churchill in Paris
A photo from Paris-based Clear Blue Sky.
Winston Churchill in front of the Petit Palais, Av. Winston-Churchill, 8th Arrondissement.
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August 14, 2010
Human Gargoyles, 1908
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August 13, 2010
Dillingham
Once the salmon capital of the world (fish farms ended that), Dillingham, Alaska is a stop-over for sports fishermen, wildlife lovers, bear studiers, bush pilots, extreme camper-hikers, "square pegs" and fed-up spouses in the lower forty-eight who went out one day for a pack of Marlboros and never came back. A point of endings and beginnings, it is also the entrance to a remote, roadless and eerily beautiful part of the world. The town itself (pop. 2,500) is on Nushagak Bay, an inlet of Bristol Bay, in the Bering Sea. Dillingham was named in 1904 after U.S. Senator Paul Dillingham, who had toured Alaska extensively as part of his committee work in Congress.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (0)
August 12, 2010
Seattle's August.
The weather here in August is hard for Midwesterners and Easterners to believe. It's one of the few U.S. cities with decent and often perfect weather in the maddening month of August, the cruelest month elsewhere, and named in 8 BC after Augustus, or Octavian, the Roman emperor, as a tribute to his pluck and wonderfully grandiose empire-building. August is not otherwise an austere or fun month for many Americans--ask someone in sticky Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati or DC--unless you're headed to Maine, or maybe to the fells of the Lake District in England. But Seattle waits for it all year long, and then gloats a little.
Pike Place Market, 1911
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (2)
August 11, 2010
The Recession (or New Normal): Don't compete on price. Ever.
No matter how your firm bills--hourly, "value", flat, hybrid, blending, or whatever--don't lower the price for your firm's services, especially for new clients or to attract work. Don't lower rates, don't change anything. If a client comes to your firm for price alone, it will leave your firm for price alone. Special recession fun mental health tip: if a new client comes your way and demands a "discount", it is likely both unsophisticated and a spectacular pain in the ass. Refer it to that firm down the street you just never liked.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (3)
Writing Well: Concise. Spare. Considered.
He who can properly summarize many ideas in a brief statement is a wise man.
--Euripides (480-406 B.C.)
The Bacchae kill Pentheus, a king of Thebes.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (0)
Eric O'Neill: More home-grown threats in the American 'hood.
Above: Adnan Shukrijumah, possibly the new head of global operations for Al Qaeda. Hear the ensuing Fox News interview last week with lawyer, ex-FBI agent and real life spycatcher Eric O'Neill of The Georgetown Group. Did you ever wonder about that one guy in your Computer Club back in high school?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk). Permalink | Comments (0)
August 10, 2010
Real heroes: Romain Rolland
There is no joy except in creation. There are no living beings but those who create. All the rest are shadows, hovering over the earth, strangers to life. All the joys of life are the joys of creation: love, genius, action...
--Romain Rolland (1866-1944), Nobel Prize winner, in "Lightning Strikes Christophe".
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Depositions: Leading questions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 30.
Trial lawyer-writer Evan Schaeffer is always worth reading. See Rule 30 and then read "When Are Leading Questions Permitted During Federal Court Depositions?" at his Trial Practice Tips.
Schaeffer is right to remind us: the starting point for lawyers who notice depositions is a direct exam--and therefore no leading questions. However, he notes--and it's our point here--that most witnesses in depositions, especially for discovery, are adverse, or "hostile". So lead them. Use shorter, more "loaded" questions. And then savor the brutality, if you must.
Know what you're doing, and why.
Modern firms deploy and pay teams of clueless generic dweebs before botching Rule 30(b)(6) depositions.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (0)
August 09, 2010
Redux: Sarah Silverman for Congress in 2012.
We live by a script for slaves and robots. "Are we not Men"?
The idea of Bedford, New Hampshire's Sarah Kate Silverman temporarily chucking writing and performing mega-edgy comedy, and holding elected office for a few years, does appeal to us. Greatly. And why not? She's smart, energetic, outspoken, attractive, photogenic and barely 40.
She's not PC, either--and America sure could use that. And use it right now. Everyone is so offended by Everything, and so smug and morally superior on all subjects, that the inevitable has happened: one can think straight.
So try to picture a couple of years from now a new mainstream and new public but more serious Sarah: Rep. Sarah Silverman(?-NH). She could fix PC culture quickly, and just by being herself, provided of course that her language and persona(s) stay the same. No one could profess any longer to be shocked and offended by anything anymore.
Traditionally, of course, and with infrequent but near-heroic past exceptions in Great Britain (Churchill, often Disraeli), the U.S. Senate (Jim Abourezk of South Dakota) and the House (the late Bob Eckhardt of the 8th district in Texas), politicians don't tell you what they really think unless it's convenient. For centuries, the West has given pols a pass on candor. We get it. Not a problem.
Sarah Kate Silverman is a Total Betty, too.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (1)
Best viable new U.S. culture war doctrine: Universal Affront.
I look to the day when Everyone is at last Offended by Everything and we all can live in unity, agreement and harmony.
--George M. Wallace, Renaissance Man and Lawyer, Pasadena, California
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August 08, 2010
Salzburg: Mozart, Huns and Lawyers.
You dream in American--but you still live in the world. Far beyond a museum piece, and being a favorite on the tourist's list of "cute small Alpine cities" in Europe, Salzburg, Austria is best appreciated by digging deeply, and with a reverence. Celts settled it, and they mined salt. The salt commerce never stopped--and in later centuries barges floated tons and tons of it on the Salzach River to points all over Europe. By the 8th century, salt barges were subject to a toll. Rome claimed Salzburg around 15 BC. Charlemagne ate and slept here. It was capital of the Austro-Hungarian territory between 1866 and 1918. And apart from Mozart, art, salt, ancient Celtic culture, St Peter's (above) and restaurants carved into cliffs, this staid Austrian city is home to the International Business Law Consortium, an active group of over 85 first-rate law and accounting firms in strategic cities all over the world, and founded in 1996.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (0)
August 07, 2010
Proust: To those that make us grow.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
-- Marcel Proust, 1871–1922, French novelist and critic.
Posted by JD Hull. Permalink | Comments (0)
Living in America: Grit and Guts.
"Everyone's working overtime," James Brown sang proudly. Still true? Are each of us Yank working stiffs stepping up to the Recession and looking it in the eye? Working and thinking better and harder? Seeing cutbacks, problems and heartache as opportunities when we can? Well, WAC/P is not so sure these days. It's good that by mid-2009 work-life balance and most other looter regimes finally died quick deaths. But surely the Children of the Greatest Generation--we Boomers--can do even better. Let's get off our own smug post-WWII prosperity asses shall we? Let's stop complaining for one hour about our beloved if completely useless and "wimpified" kids, Gen-Y and the Slackiosie. We Boomers. "Tough and passionate", still? Are we? Or are we becoming tired old lightweights, pansies and Canadians?
Godfather of Soul: The hardest-working poor kid ever.
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