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December 21, 2007

U.S. House committee issues subpoena in tape investigation.

Congress has shut down for the year but the House Intelligence Committee is still busy. Yesterday it issued a subpoena to Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA official who headed the agency's National Clandestine Service and allegedly directed that interrogation videotapes of two suspected terrorists be destroyed. Bloomberg: "House Panel Subpoenas Ex-CIA Official in Tape Probe". The NYT mentions that former Bill Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett will represent Rodriguez.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

A Texas trial lawyer in Paris

See "I'm Back" at Mark Bennett's Defending People: The Art and Science of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering. Like us, Mark has noticed that the "French do exceedingly well" the following:

* Food and drink.
* Subterranean transport.
* Historic preservation.
* Clothing.

And we could happily add to that list. But we concur that what the French and WAC?'s favorite European cousins "do less well" for business travelers is "Technology".

While the hotel at which we stayed in the 7th Arrondissement provided, in theory, a high-speed internet connection, that mostly-theoretical connection didn't work well enough to stay online for long enough to do more than just check email...[more]

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

Business litigation as a lose-lose proposition.

Litigators and trial lawyers are like nuclear warheads; everyone has to have them. But once you start using them, things get expensive, disrupted and screwed up, even when you're winning every battle.

Litigators know this better than anyone. Hull McGuire does commercial litigation, lots of it, and we love doing it. But even in the best of cases, no one ever "wins". Like war itself, commercial litigation is a last resort, and an inefficient way to resolve virtually any dispute.

Holden Oliver, November 7, 2007

Posted by JD Hull at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

Redux: Revolutionary marketing idea for holiday season.

One of our Brit friends found this re-occurring post and link below simplistic, shallow, anti-intellectual and apparently just "too American". And so we are obliged to pound it in until the British White cows come home. The advice here, of course, is all those things but--like other ideas and moving parts of American life--it actually works.

So once again, from the notebooks of the ridiculously simple but wise WAC? purple monkey pundit:

Do first-rate work for existing clients.

That's it. Nothing more.

See "When you work, you are marketing".

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)