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July 31, 2006
Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 9: Proper Pro Se Appeals.
We don't know anything about the case. We have made no investigation. And we have made no secret of our preference for federal judges over the alternatives to them in the American judiciary system. Don't get us wrong. But this man, this Appellant, is in any event an artist. See this July 12, 2006 Notice of Appeal.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2006
Blawg Review #68: Blachman is Everywhere--More Power to Him.
Jeremy Blachman is out early with Blawg Review #68. His new, much-discussed and apparently funny-as-hell book Anonymous Lawyer makes me happy, and I haven't even read it yet. Here's an overachiever who's about to get rich and famous satirizing a class of overachievers--lawyers--who in real life are 10 times worse than the jokes about them. A happy thought. The ultimate. We stand in awe and envy. From what we've heard about the book, AL will do more to spotlight anti-client attitudes, lawyer-centric behavior and bad client service than WAC? will ever do. Thanks, Sir Jeremy. Fondly, J. Daniel Hull.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2006
SRO: "Stealing and Keeping BigLaw Clients".
That's a predatory title for a "how-to" marketing seminar. But while discussing that very course title with an influential blogger/thinker I spoke with on the phone this week (refreshing, because I wrongly never make time to do that), he said to me in effect: well, Dan, why not?
Certainly, two relatively recent developments in law practice--first, boutique firms formed by elite lawyers voluntarily leaving large firms and, second, reasonably-priced technological advances which made smaller firms more nimble and powerful--have changed legal markets. The large law firm (300+), an institution I am quite fond of in its saner incarnations, will always have its role. However, high-end clients are no longer forced to hire large firms to obtain top drawer lawyers, results and service. The contrary notion is a myth--a proven ruse.
GCs are now smarter and bolder. Smaller firms can and do land and serve top clients. At top rates, too. It's about service, not price. No point not getting rich just because you start a new, smaller and more client-centric firm. Keep your high rate; savor your lower overhead, if you can achieve one. You deserve it.
So a serious course on getting (okay, stealing) and keeping high-end clients (Fortune 500 companies and large Asian and European companies) might actually fly. But...I'm wrong a lot. Would that catch on? Are we ready? Any presenters out there? Hundreds might attend--but who would teach? Who can I get to speak? Who has experienced it, has credibility, is not afraid of the subject, can articulate it?
A new model is already here. Let's talk about it, and make it work. It's about time--and, hey folks, the time is right.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2006
Tune In.
Is the name of a really swishy bar in my old DC neighborhood but it's also what we at WAC? would like everyone to do this Saturday for an hour. Meet Howard and Robin with MBAs. Listen to mega-successful entrepreneurs The Baby (Neil Senturia) and The Babysitter (Barbara Bry) on San Diego's CA$H 1700 AM on Saturdays from 1-2 p.m Pacific time or on the CA$H web site. Or go to I'm There for You Baby and hear podcasts of the first 4 shows. Customer service ideas is a staple. Regular segments include: Billionaire Update, Trump Watch ("when is enough enough?"), the ongoing saga of the U.S. patent system, Crooks of the Week, and "I wish I had thought of that idea" Idea.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2006
Emerging Markets: Vietnam as the Next China.
Is Vietnam the "next Asian miracle"? Asia Business Law has a great post inspired by Dan Harris's earlier and equally fine piece comparing Vietnam to China at his China Law Blog.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2006
Keith Richards Watch: Pardons, Coconut Trees.
He'll be pardoned by Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for a 1975 reckless driving offense. And Richards is "begging" a Pirates of the Caribbean III director to fall Fiji-like out of a coconut tree in the movie but director Gore Verbinski is worried. He thinks Richards should not even climb up pirate ship steps--which might be best accomplished with a stunt double. According to Virgin.net news, Verbinski said: "For a guy who falls out of coconut trees, those steps could be a problem."
Posted by JD Hull at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2006
Sane American Employer Sought By 157 Mega-Productive Lawyers.
WAC? does not, generally speaking, love either American lawyers or the U.S. federal estate (or "death") tax. Neither institution encourages productivity, is efficient, has high standards or is "customer-service" oriented. However, as to lawyers, there are always exceptions. And everyone loves productive lawyering. According to a New York Times article by David Cay Johnston, in what may be the Bush Administration's "back-door" play to emasculate enforcement and collection of the death tax in lieu of an outright repeal, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is cutting 157 out of its 345 estate tax lawyers in the next 2 months.
Forget for a moment about how you feel about the death tax and consider this amazing fact. The NYT article says that "for each hour they [IRS estate tax lawyers] work, they find an average of $2,200 of taxes owed to the government" (emphasis ours). WAC?'s advice is (1) show the article to associate lawyers to inspire new efficiency techniques and (2) if you do tax work at your shop, find out who these 157 people are--and hire them.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
Coming of Age: Legal Blogs as a "Vast Amicus Brief".
See this particularly insightful and--if you think about it, exciting--Howard Bashman special to Law.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
Blawg Review #67 - Rules of reason and much more.
David Fischer and his colleagues at Antitrust Review have covered last week's better posts in Blawg Review #67. There's a nice balance here of everything from Denise Howell, Alison Margolin's wonderful YouTube performance and golfers on drugs to Ted Stevens, Presidential cursing and even BAR/BRI, which may owe quite a few of us money under the antitrust laws.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:48 AM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2006
Real Americans Read Blogs.
Fifty-seven million of us, at any rate. From Kevin O'Keefe's respected site Real Lawyers Have Blogs, here's "39% of Americans reading blogs" based on a BusinessWeek online article commenting on a Pew Foundation study. As Kevin notes, "[t]hat ain't chopped liver for something 99% of folks never heard of a couple years ago."
Posted by JD Hull at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
Whoa.
An unusual, interesting and inspiring post by Blawg Review has made me re-think my career, fall in love, get inexplicably hungry. It's a post about the fearless young criminal LA defense attorney Allison Margolin. And in her video do we get a few quick glimpses of the 1936 anti-drug film turned-cult classic Reefer Madness?
Posted by JD Hull at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 3: "Declarations" as Substitutes for Affidavits.
In 1976 Congress passed a barely-noticed housekeeping addition to Title 28, the part of the U.S. Code that deals with federal courts. Among other things, 28 USC section 1746 allows a federal court affiant or witness to prepare and execute a "declaration" rather than an affidavit--and do that without appearing before a notary. Under section 1746, a "declaration" has the same force and effect of a "regular" notarized affidavit.
Many lawyers who practice in federal courts don't know about the existence of section 1746. I wouldn't have known about it either--a DOJ lawyer clued me in about it years ago. But an un-notarized declaration with the simple oath required by section 1746 can be used any time you need an affidavit, e.g., an affidavit supporting (or opposing) a summary judgment motion. A useful and convenient rule, which makes you feel like part of a special cult when you use it. Federal judges understand and accept it. It saves witnesses and lawyers the time, cost and aggravation of getting client statements notarized. Notaries, however, don't talk about the provision much.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
"Name's Brad, I'm a Lawyer--Buy You a Drink?"
Most of this week I'm in Pittsburgh, City of Bridges, and for reasons I could never quite fathom a town of remarkably litigious steel-driving women and men. Here the news has been that a local male lawyer sued the "Don't Date Him Girl" site. I remembered that a couple of weeks ago Craig Williams of May It Please The Court covered and entitled it nicely. His post was "Craziness On The Internet, And Other Things You Probably Didn't Want To Know". It's a fine write-up. And whatever happened here, all this is: (1) crazy, (2) interesting, (3) forward-thinking, (4) inspiring, (5) funny (sort of), and (6) truly frightening for roues, cads and recovering cads of both sexes.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Looking Southward: The Netherland Antilles
Surrounded much of the time by corporate tax people, I'm on the lookout for tax blawgs in US and abroad. And here's an active one that has interested me for a while. Karel's Legal Blog is published by Karel Frielink, a corporate tax and transactional lawyer in the Netherland Antilles, previously known as the West Indies, in the Caribbean. I haven't met Karel in person yet--but I'd like to. Educated in Amsterdam, Karel (a guy, by the way) is also an experienced litigator with the firm of Spigthoff Attorneys & Tax Advisers in Curacao, the main island in the Antilles. Karel's most recent post is old and new corporate tax regimes in the Antilles. His blog is in Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and English.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
A Short But Happy Carnival of Client Service.
There is no shortage of posts these days about the truly cross-cultural challenges of better client service. We start with better client service thinking. Allison Shields at Legal Ease Blog had "Why Lawyers Are Bad at Client Service" and "Are You Really Losing Clients?", inspired by the Michelle Golden post "Lost Clients? 'Reasons' are Symptoms, Not Cause" ....and lawyer-consultant-Chief Thinking Officer Matt Homan at the [non] billable hour is not only full of ideas and good writing but as usual reaches for ideas from other sources in "May I Help You With Anything Else?", "Top Things They Never Taught Me" and "When Creativity Takes a Holiday".
Posted by JD Hull at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2006
More International Weblogs Coming In Blawg Review #66
Blawg Review's global expansion of the digital conversation continues. And in a big way. The first non-US host of Blawg Review ever, David Jacobson, an Australian commercial lawyer and consultant, will be hosting Blawg Review #66, which springs forth on Monday, July 17. David will be posting from his site at External Insights in Brisbane, one of Australia's three biggest cities, in the southeast corner of the state of Queensland. Brisbane itself hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games, a multi-sport gathering held every four years.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2006
Once Again: Jim Calloway On Client Expectations.
From Jim Calloway's well-regarded Law Practice Tips Blog, here is the June 20 post "What Creates Client Satisfaction? Meeting Expectations". Two excerpts:
Readers of this blog are seeking law practice tips. Well, here's a huge one. Schedule a meeting with your staff and discuss how you help your new clients have realistic expectations. With the guidance of the forms noted above, draft handouts that will be given out to every new client in your two largest areas of practice. Implement the policy and set a review date for six months from now.
Equally important [to predictions about client projects made by lawyers to their clients] are client expectations about how the attorney-client relationship will be managed. Modern technology allows us to be available to clients around the clock.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
On Blawg Review #65: "International Edition"
Here are five nice follow-ups on Blawg Review #65 which echo the "hey, let's all get un-insular" point we at WAC? were trying to make: "The Future of Law is International" by Asia Business Law, "There's a Whole World Out There" by Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise, a clever piece of writing by Robert Ambrogi at Legal Blog Watch, "Blawg Review Salutes International Lawyers and the World Cup" by Boston's Diane Levin, and finally this one by Edge International principal Rob Millard at his fine and consistently interesting The Adventure of Strategy blog. Rob Millard is from and currently lives in South Africa, and we listed his The Adventure of Strategy blog is listed in the South Africa section of the WAC? directory to your left. Rob works, however, everywhere, and we're told he spends increasing amounts of time in North America.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2006
Born Lucky.
On July 12, 1986, around 1:30 AM EST, I had my last drink. By that, I mean my last Heineken, Jameson, wine, hooch or inebriant of any kind. Where this happened was a wonderfully depraved Irish bar my friends (cocky young litgators and news people, mainly) and I loved. It was midway between and my house on Capitol Hill and my job on Eye Street. Like all DC bars, it had fire-breathing trial lawyers, deal lawyers, politicians, journalists, students, professors, diplomats, and a novelist or two. But this was no "fern bar". It was whispered that the IRA raised money and ran guns through the place. It was common to see people in suits asleep on the floor. The waiters and waitresses had brogues from places like Tralee and Cork. The day bartenders were belligerent, and often drunk by noon. My kind of saloon. Perfect venue for the last drink: amazingly grace-less bar.
But there is nothing remarkable about why I quit. I had a great job, and was headed toward a partnership. My childhood had been lucky and fun. I could not have asked for more loving parents, siblings and friends. Nothing to drink about. I just liked it way too much. Born different, I guess. It isolated me, even with people around. That isolation, and knowing that drinking had somehow separated me from the rest of the universe, was enough. Sure, it's hard to quit. You may experience for the first time "exclusion"--even if it's self-imposed. You're in a minority. You feel left out. Yet lots of people, including adventuresome fire-breathing trial lawyers with one dash of the wrong DNA, do finally give up booze so they can tap into and use the gifts they have, and grow. Born different, maybe. Born lucky, too.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2006
Keith Richards Watch
MILAN, Italy - Along with age-old issues like how did the Universe begin, what is reality and is the refrigerator light always on, the question why Keith Richards is still alive is both a mystery and inspiration. This blog does not cover science or pharmacology. And Keith's not about Clients, Rule 37, the Clean Air Act or the global economy. But if you were born in the 1940s, 50s or 60s, he is somehow always important--baseline, yardstick, loudly ticking grandfather clock. If he's alive, then you must be, too. We find him okay after his April Fiji Tree Tumble and ready to play both music and Johnny Depp's dad in Pirates of the Caribbean III in "Richards Says He's Recovered From Fall" at MSNBC.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2006
Tom Kane's Top Ten Client Getters and Keepers.
American client-centric blogs seem to be on a big roll. At his The Legal Marketing Blog, Tom Kane reprises his Top Ten Marketing Tips, with a link to each tip if you go to his post. These tips make way too much sense. Tom gets that doing a great job for clients and marketing work together--that, in fact, they are really part of the same thing. He starts with the existing client, the asset you already have, and builds on it. Note how (1) getting, (2) keeping and (3) servicing good clients are part of same seamless exercise:
10 – Be Active In Organizations
9 – Networking With Super-Connectors
8 – Take A Reporter To Lunch
7 – Write Articles of Interest
6 – Talk It Up With More Speaks
5 – Communicate Often
4 – Offer To Make Proposal
3 – Seek Client Feedback Often
2 – Entertain Your Client
1 – Visit Your Clients
Posted by JD Hull at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2006
Allison Shields: Real Client Service - Can You Teach It?
Here's a fine post on a favorite subject from one the best client-centric blogs out there. Lawyer-consultant Allison Shields at LegalEase wonders "Can Excellent Client Service Be Taught?" And the answer is yes. Notice especially the idea of developing in all staff and employees a "hospitality mentality"--Allison took this idea from a recent Inc. Magazine article--and where that mentality really starts.
Posted by JD Hull at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2006
Patriotism, Liberty and Learning.
Happy Birthday, America.
Yesterday my British friend Justin Patten at Human Law posted Britain falls out of love with America - Is this the death of the special relationship? I spent a good chunk of early 2003 through late 2004 in England, Wales, France, Germany and eastern Europe. I paid dues explaining and often defending the US decision to invade Iraq to European friends and business people who deeply cared about America and its role in the world. They thought America had gone nuts. I reminded them America's geographic isolation from the rest of the world, past successes, free-for-all mentality and unfortunate histories of violence and land acquisition were part of the reason. But Europeans seem to understand our history, traditions and culture much better than we understand theirs. Now, they are just as concerned and appalled as three years ago. The point is no longer Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or Wherever. It's the fear that America has become so isolated, ignorant and dismissive of non-American cultures that we are now permanently out-to-lunch. It's no longer about US tourist run-ins with feisty French hotel clerks over room sizes or with London cabbies over fares to Heathrow. It's serious.
Americans are the new Romans. Looked-up to but feared. To be fair, ancient Rome made studied efforts to understand the new terrains and cultures in their path. We don't, and we don't care. We never have. Remember the JFK saying? "Liberty without learning is always in peril." Well, here's a better quote, from a dead-serious Hunter Thompson in 1972 during a different war: "This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it--that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms about killing anyone who tries to make us uncomfortable." You don't have to be a liberal, conservative, libertarian or even a-political American these days to find something true in those words. Everyone should be concerned. Our British, French, German and other friends abroad still love us. They just want us to snap out of it. They want Americans to understand and embrace the non-American world.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2006
Blawg Review #64
Blawg Review, which weekly samples the best of the previous week's legal weblog posts, is out. This week's Blawg Review #64 is published by Howard Bashman at his mega-popular, pioneering and always busy How Appealing, focusing on life after trial. It's right here.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2006
Can Real Client $ervice Make You a Billionaire?
Sure it can. If you live in or can somehow access the San Diego market on Sirius, tune into "I'm There For You, Baby" on CASH 1700 AM on Saturdays from 1-2 p.m., PST, with Neil "the Baby" Senturia and Barbara Bry. I've posted about my successful, serial overachieving friends Neil and Barbara before, here and here. The hour-long "Baby" radio show is about personal, professional and business excellence. The first show was yesterday, and Neil led it off with an hilarious but instructive segment on client service--how hard it is and why it's important--about how his now ex-fitness club lost several thousand Senturia-Bry dollars a year by making Neil and his family jump through stupid hoops to secure an extra membership card valued at $25.00.
Three great interviews by Neil (imagine if Howard Stern were an Ivy-educated B school prof) followed, including one with Alan Webber, the former Harvard Business Review editor who co-founded Fast Company Magazine. "Baby" will also have these regular segments: the Billionaire Update, Trump Watch ("When is enough enough?"), "the ongoing saga of the U.S. patent system", Crooks of the Week, and "I wish I had thought of that idea". CASH 1700 AM, owned by XEPE, features business talk. Most of its programming is carried by Connecticut-based radio network Business Talk Radio Network, but on weeknights from 7 p.m.-5 a.m, it airs CNN Headline News radio.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)