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September 30, 2008
THE List of Global Arbitration Centers.
Courtesy of the excellent and always-understated China Law Blog, and particularly of Los Angeles lawyer Constance Kim, here's a gem your clients and you can use now: THE List of International Arbitration Centers. We'd change only one thing: it: put the ICC's International Court of Arbitration under "International" rather than under "France". And see CLB's "How To Handle Bad Product From Your China Supplier".
Posted by JD Hull at 01:16 PM | Comments (1)
The World's Markets: Grim.
The headline and Andrew Clark's reporting in London's The Guardian are representative:
Panic Grips World's Markets; Shock as American Rescue Plan Rejected.
NEW YORK--The US government's $700bn bail-out of the banking industry collapsed yesterday as Congress defied the White House by voting down the plan, sending Wall Street stocks plummeting and spreading shockwaves through the global economy. [more]
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2008
Citigroup buys Wachovia's banking units.
For $2.2 billion. Another Black September sideshow and detail--but a fair one for Wachovia shareholders. See New York Times.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
LinkedIn and Xing as "Facebook for Suits."
This week's The Economist: there are now 35 million members between LinkedIn and Xing. WAC? and some HMPC lawyers were early joiners. Our reasons were not compelling. They were: "Well, why not?"; as courtesy to those who asked us to link to them; it didn't take much time to join; and no public profile was required. We're still impressed with the overall set-up--but we still don't quite get it. Like most firms that solve problems for money, we already have a network of fine business lawyers, consultants, mover-shakers, influential people and other aggressive humans and their shops to help large and publicly-traded clients in Europe, the Americas and Asia; we'd like to use these kind of sites to supplement it. So:
1. What do we do now?
2. How do "facebooks for suits" help clients?
3. What about quality control?
"Justin, thanks for the recommendation on LinkedIn. Do I know you?"
(Photo: Warner Bros.)
Posted by JD Hull at 03:09 PM | Comments (4)
All IP, All Week: Blawg Review #179
See Blawg Review #179 at Securing Innovation. One of the better BRs this year. Query: Did the U.S. Constitution's framers regard patents as “property” or a "monopoly privilege"? WAC? thinks it was both.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2008
Is Obama too wimpy to be President of the United States?
For over two decades, I've worked for and raised money for both national Republican and Democratic officeholders and candidates. And I've always voted "D" for president. But after watching the first 2008 debate Friday night, I am not so sure. Right now, I'd feel far more comfortable in the years 2009-2013 with Michelle Obama, Jimmy Carter, Mr. Rogers or maybe the late Tom Mix as my Decider in war, foreign affairs, the economy or even human rights than I would with Obama. Is Obama just another All-Resume, No-Action post-boomer talker? No, I don't love John McCain. But can Obama even utter the word "horseshit" under his breath without choking to death? See Salon. Can he get angry without seeming embarrassed about it? BO is a bright guy--and so what? Can he think and decide? And get things done?
All hat, no cattle? Can Obama Please Mix It Up More?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Ease-of-Use Awards for Services?
In 2004, services sold alone or as support features to the sale of goods and products accounted for over 65% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the US, 50% of the United Kingdom's GDP and 90% of Hong Kong's.
What if the services sector competed for clients on the basis of "ease-of-use"?
Develop and apply ease-of-use concepts to pure services? Our clients' services? Our services? Law. Accounting. Consulting. Advertising. And anything where a service or product-service mix is part of what you pay for. In other words, pretty much everything--and the direction global markets now march, in good and bad times.
Ease-of-use for services. Sure, and why not?
Consider for a moment just products. In 2006, The Folgers Coffee Company was awarded an Ease-of-Use Commendation by the Arthritis Foundation for its AromaSeal™ Canister. If you're a Folgers® drinker, you notice that Folgers® added an easy-to-peel tin freshness seal (no need for a can-opener), a new "snap-tight" lid and even a grip on its plastic red can.
The great companies many of us represent do spend money and expertise on making their goods, equipment and products usable. Think about your car, your luggage, your TV remote (well, strike that one), your watch and even grips on household tools. Think about Apple, Dell and Microsoft. Each year they think through your experience with their products and try to make it better. Continuous improvement models for "things."
Folgers® did it for coffee cans. IBM and CISCO have ease-of-use programs for the products they sell.
Develop and apply ease-of-use concepts to pure services? Our clients' services? Our services? Sure, why not? It's probably coming anyway, even while it will be infinitely harder to do for services than for products. WAC? has noted before that even corporate clients that sell goods see themselves as selling solutions and not products. In 2004, services sold alone or as support features to the sale of goods and products accounted for over 65% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the US, 50% of the United Kingdom's GDP and 90% of Hong Kong's. Even products sold by IBM and CISCO, now chiefly service companies, are part of a services-products mix in which the services component is the main event.
Law firms, of course, have always sold services. And we are a small but powerful engine in the growth of the services sector. We strategize with and guide big clients every day. While that's all going on--day in and day out--what is it like for the client to work with you and yours? Are clients experiencing a team--or hearing and seeing isolated acts by talented but soul-less techies? Do you make reports and communications short, easy and to the point? Who gets copied openly so clients don't have to guess about who knows what? Is it fun (yeah, we just said "fun") to work with your firm? How are your logistics for client meetings, travel and lodging? Do you make life easier? Or harder? Are you accessible 24/7? In short, aside from the technical aspects of your service (i.e., the client "is safe"), do your clients "feel safe"?
What if law firms--or any other service provider for that matter--"thought through," applied and constantly improved the delivery of our services and how clients really experience them?
And then competed on it...?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2008
FDIC seizes, and starts selling, Washington Mutual.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sells most of WaMu to JPMorgan Chase & Co. See Bloomberg, WSJ, New York Times. Meanwhile, on our pages WAC?'s Holden Oliver cruelly savors, and celebrates, the brutality of the return of the work ethic.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:29 PM | Comments (1)
Simple Justice for Clients and Customers?
Did you have the stones to fire this man?
When a young person has no clue what to do with his life after clutching that liberal arts sheepskin in his sweaty hand, he goes to law school. This isn't exactly the best reason to chose a career in the law. It tends to produce lawyers who lack much interest in doing the job...
If we were to stop worrying so much about the young lawyer, and worry a little more about the client who is subsidizing the young lawyer's education, would that be wrong?
--Scott Greenfield, "Simple Justice"
The Value Movement gets a boost? Hopefully, there's this silver lining in the Down Economy: a renewal of the notion that workplaces exist to serve and give value to Customers and Clients, and the companies organized to help them. Not to serve and cater to Employees. As we see it--and most states have traditionally seen it--it's a privilege to work. Not a right. And it's a special honor to learn and practice the law.
1. Another radical idea: Employees--no, not just associate lawyers, but all employees--should treat Employers themselves as valued customers and clients. How an Employee treats you--the Employer--gives you a preview of how he/she will treat your best client.
2. If they can't or won't, those employees should just leave. They are of course free to start their own "businesses" which cater to the needs and desires of their employees, and make a go of it. We suggest relocation to Europe, Mexico or maybe the former Soviet bloc nation Borat came from.
3. Is it okay now to start talking about how Employees should conform to Employer requirements--and not the reverse? Too soon?
4. Are you, the Employer, hiring and retaining Looters and Watchers--or Producers and Doers?
5. Are you off your knees yet, Employer?
6. By the way, what has your Employee done for you, the Employer, lately?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2008
America, world markets, and presidential politics.
The president's address last night of 9:00 PM ET is here. An embarrassed Congress is expected to finalize its $700 billion attempted "rescue" of the American economy this week. And even Friday's presidential candidate debate in Mississippi may be postponed (hopefully for the right reasons). At a time when the image of the U.S. has been declining abroad steadily in nearly every respect, WAC? hopes that the two presidential candidates quickly step up--senators McCain and Obama are now both their parties' newly annointed leaders, and new world leaders--and put not just America, but the world's economic markets, ahead of their historic election contest in 40 days. This week, and more than ever, the governments and businesses of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa watch us. True, they all gloat a little--but they worry a lot more. They are our colleagues and business partners.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
America: Work-Life Balance Now Officially A "Dumb-Ass Issue."
"Now more than ever..."
I have met many hot worm lawyers and I suspect there may be whole firms composed primarily of hot worms. These lawyers thrive on conditions that might prove injurious or even fatal to other lawyers.
--Stephanie West Allen, Hero of The Over-Achieving, The Energetic, and Similarly Oppressed Workers.
In our down economy, please, remember your humanity: Free The Driven. See past posts and related links. And, brother, can you spare some hot worms? If so, send them over. Please.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (3)
September 24, 2008
Jim Hassett: More on the down economy--and what to do.
Like Tom Kane, Boston's Jim Hassett can tell you how to think about marketing and client retention in good or bad times. If you are not reading these two gentlemen these days--especially if you do higher-end work in a large or boutique firm--you are flat-out stone nuts (as in "Holden, get the net"). And then we will worry about you. See, e.g., Jim's "The Down Economy, Part 6: How Bad Is It?", and Parts 1-5, and his posts on "How To Improve Relationships With Large Clients".
Jim Hassett
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
U.S. Justice Department investigates 26 large lenders.
The Associated Press reports that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings, AIG and Countrywide Financial (recently bought by Bank of America) are five of them. Failed IndyMac Bancorp is also being probed for possible fraud.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
"Pay Tuition, Then Pay For Experience?"
The Value Movement. As we were saying, we don't have all the answers. Maybe shortening law school to 3 or 4 semesters is one piece of the puzzle. We revisit the issue because growth and productivity by young lawyers who really want to be at their law firms and not just go through the motions is important for both junior lawyers and firms. So here's one small bite-sized thought at a time, lest some readers again become adrift from their moorings, get unhinged and blow tubes. Here's a reaction from The Legal Beat blog of Law.line, a CLE site:
Should recent law graduates have to pay law firms for the experience they receive?...
At first glance for any prospective law student, or current law student, this idea seems ludicrous. However, it is a notion that the United Kingdom has been practicing for a hundred and fifty years. Additionally, this is similar to the education structure we have in the United States for doctors. Some argue that if this concept was implemented, only those with a strong passion for law would seek to go to law school.
(Emphasis ours).
Currently, everyone is losing.
Clients are the biggest losers--if not victims. Clients in effect subsidize firms that retain high-priced but unhappy/unproductive associates who are not even likely to stay in their firms, and often serve to pad bills. The best clients do not need to pay high rates to cover "training overhead" for the very marginal (if any) value added by 1st/2nd year timekeepers. We can do better for clients.
If you are a Law Firm of any size: If you haven't heard, the markets worldwide are flirting with a recession. So why don't you guys get off your knees and keep/hire just the lawyers who really want to be there? You can't just wait until your clients complain; and your clients will complain, in any economy, once they realize increased value in young talent at law firms is possible, and that the current "talent sweepstakes" and associate system does not work for anyone. Forget for a moment "what the market will bear". You still have duties to your firm and to your clients to make hiring and retaining associates more efficient, and a better investment.
To Associates: If you hate what you're doing, plan to do something different as soon as you can. You still have options. You can get out of debt another way, and keep your sanity and self-respect. You obviously have the talent to accomplish that.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (5)
September 23, 2008
Get used to it: lawyers aren't royalty.
It's not about the lawyers anymore. No one cares you're a lawyer. Not impressive. A big so-what. In America, they made it easy to become a lawyer. Some day, everyone, including your waitress in Richmond, Kentucky, will be a lawyer. So get a head start on those you can. Distinguish yourself by serving clients. And get higher standards.
See Rule 9: Be There For Clients--24/7 from our Mr. Rogers-like but deadly serious 12 Rules.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Client service in a bad economy.
See Axel Meierhoefer's June post "What’s the best customer service during a recession?" at his Leadership and Talent Development for Smart People.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Bubba, and once again, you busy?
WANTED STILL: Of counsel for growing, innovative Pennsylvania-based boutique business law firm with branches in California and DC. You must have at least 8 years of highest level federal Exec. Branch experience, world-wide connections, Yale Law degree, one year at Oxford, own money and people skills. Crowd-pleaser. Must be able to sell anything to anyone. And be originally from Hope, Arkansas.
State government experience in American South preferred but not required. Also preferred: participation in Renaissance weekends (writer is member). We also look for some fund-raising, and United Nations experience. Plus: past participation in Boys Nation or Boys State; writer is also alumni, and knows there's nothing flitty about them.
Sir, you don’t need to re-locate. We are desperate for can-do uber-Boomer who "comes to play". Happy to set up the office for you. Wherever you want. NYC, Harlem, Chappaqua all okay. Or DC. You decide. You can work out of your house. Or limo. Whatever.
NOTE: No previous private law practice experience necessary. Not a problem–-no problem at all. Excellent benefits package, if you need it, sir. Call collect.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
New Senate bill targets global IP theft.
See Patent Baristas, by Cincinnati-based Stephen Albainy-Jenei, on the International IP Protection and Enforcement Act of 2008 (S. 3464).
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2008
American Crime: 316 years of getting it right?
Today is the autumnal equinox. And September 22, 1692 was the date the last people were hanged for witchcraft in North America. Whatever happened to Ordeal by Water, an old civil procedure mentioned in the first 20 pages of the casebook, anyway? "The accused, tied hand and foot, was cast into cold water, and if he/she did not sink, the accused was deemed innocent."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
Sounds 50% good to us.
It's no secret that most--maybe over 90%--of the employee suits filed against business clients are legally meritless; and to WAC? they seem to get lamer every year. But employment-related cases are still very expensive to defend, even if handled efficiently, and thrown out at a Rule 12 or Rule 56 stage.
Legal Blog Watch reports that only 15% of plaintiffs win in employment-related cases in American federal courts. Good news--but at what price glory?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2008
Charon QC...on a roll.
And having way more fun than you, Skippy.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2008
Muslim Arbitration Tribunal sets up 5 Sharia courts in UK.
New world, new England. See "Sharia Courts in the UK", by Temple Law prof Jaya Ramji-Nogales, at IntLawGrrls. Excerpt: "The Sharia courts have been classified as arbitration tribunals under the same provision of the 1996 Arbitration Act used by Jewish Beth Din courts, which have resolved civil cases in Britain for over 100 years."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
Camelot in France: The First Odd Couple.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, First Lady of France, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Vanity Fair's September 2008 cover story is "Paris Match". At the Élysée Palace, writer Maureen Orth "encounters a pair of romantic predators who appear to have met their matches."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2008
3 years ago a WAC: GCs gone angry--fear, loathing, questions.
Have some law firms learned anything since? See "Fear and Loathing at the CLE Seminar? Getting an Earful from GCs" (Dec. 21, 2005).
American in-house lawyer still looking for new law firms. (Art: R. Steadman)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2008
The federal bailout of AIG: loan or purchase?
And was the $85 billion loan to AIG legal? See Eric Posner ("I suspect the deal is a loan in form but a purchase in substance") at The Volkoh Conspiracy, Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch, David Zaring at The Conglomerate and Marty Lederman at Balkanization.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
France: Dites-le en anglais, s'il vous plait?
You will? Really? Okay, good--but don't go nuts. In "Franglais Resurgent" London-based The Economist reports that the French may be giving in to the "corrupting influence of English."
Illustration: Peter Schrank
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
ADR: Geoff Sharp in New Zealand
Apart from his international ADR practice, teachings, and writings, Geoff is also a founding, vigilant and highly-respected member of WAC?'s Weenie Watch. Geoff's questions include: Are Mediators Corrupting Civil Justice? "[S]urely other ADR practitioners are moved to comment on what Harvard's Prof. [Peter] Murray had to say about the integrity of our field?" See the related links.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Trademarks: Dan Harris in Seattle and China
"Trademark Protection In The Global Marketplace" is at China Law Blog. His firm is the Seattle-based Harris & Moure.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
"Deliver Legal Work That Changes the Way Clients Think About Lawyers"
If your clients are Fortune 500 stand-outs, and the GCs love you and your firm, is that because your service delivery is so good--or because other lawyers they've used are so bad?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2008
CPR, and The Politics of Disputes: "The Mediator's Handbook"
On September 5, General Electric's Mike McIlwrath interviewed Jenny Beer, co-author of The Mediator's Handbook, in his weekly radio show at The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR). The book, now a standard for the practice of mediation, was first published in 1982. See at CPR's site "Mediator's Handbook After 25 Years, with Jenny Beer". The podcast is here.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Business and Net Royalty Hosts Blawg Review
Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends
We're not easily star-struck.
Cruel, ruthless and demanding--eccentrics who think that employees are paid to work and add value, rather than to just talk, be wankers, leave work at 5:45 PM and feel good about themselves--WAC? writers are different. Hardened. Tough. And not easily impressed. And we don't even like small businesses (except ours), small minds, small towns (under 5 million SMSA) or small parking places. We've grown up around, worked with, drank with and/or even "dated"--if you call trophy sport-swiving "dating" (and we do)--a few public figures, politicians, artists and celebrities. We are not usually fazed.
But like Parker Posey, who WAC? met last year in the Newark airport and still has a huge thing for, Anita Campbell, of the widely-read and respected Small Business Trends, is also different, and authentic. Even glamorous. Somehow we feel like the flustered men or women who met Sharon Stone or George Clooney in the early days, before anyone knew Stone and Clooney were just more fun bozos on a boomer bus.
Seriously, folks (and just kidding, Sharon, George), Anita's site does have five (5) qualities you almost never see in Anything: Popular, Interesting, Well-Written, To-the-Point, Useful.
See Blawg Review this week and Anita's Back to Business Blawg Review #177. WAC? is not worthy. We be flustered.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
In a down economy.
In July, Tom Kane, at his well-regarded Legal Marketing Blog, focused on marketing during "bad times". Once again:
Now, More Than Ever, Talk With Your Clients
Down Economy: Rainmakers Need Not Worry
Best Practices for the Down Economy
We add: (1) Stick to clients you have. (2) Make sure all employees buy into Client Service with the fervor of evangelists. (3) Consider today terminating uninspired or "looter" employees who add no value, starting with, first, the "Unwilling", and second, the "Unable" (in good times and bad times, it's either You or Them, and eventually they will do you in). (4) Hire lawyer-consultant Tom Kane, straight-up and fair.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
"I believe in Wasilla."
You think America is getting even more dumbed down? Well, decide for yourself. Meet Todd, the First Dude, or Sarah Palin's "package", in Salon. Excerpt:
According to local politicos and observers, he lurks around the capitol if he doesn't have anything better to do, which, since he works seasonal jobs in oil and fishing, is fairly often.
And then see this:
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Coming soon: "Why Johnny Can't Work".
Or "The New Employee as Houseplant". Dan Hull just got back to the States--and now suddenly goes back to Europe for a few days. But he plans to finish the above when he returns. ("I may have figured out why these people can't accomplish anything; so alert the Media..."). Whatever, Dan.
In the meantime, see at Scott Greenfield's "The Lawprofs Respond: The Slackoiesie are Differently Abled" at Simple Justice and Jeffrey Harrison's "Creating Disabilities" at MoneyLaw. Greenfield, a hero to boomers, is on a roll. Query: can "high self-esteem" exist along side marginal abilities/low self-respect? And isn't this in the DSM IV somewhere?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:23 AM | Comments (2)
Booze Piano
"My name is ___, and it's been three months since I tickled the ivories in a blackout."
From GeekLawyer, and a sensitive aftermath of LawBlog 2008.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2008
"LawBlog 2008 A Smash In London"
You think Lehman Bros. Holdings is big news? One source said of last night's solicitor-barrister-IP-bloggers' meet-up in London: "Like the Hells Angels Memorial Day Picnic in 1968". Several "institutionalisations" reported. Read Scott Greenfield at WAC?'s new NYC global affairs desk for this special report at Simple Drinking.
Welsh lawyers headed for LawBlog yesterday morning.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2008
158-year-old Lehman Bros. will file for Chapter 11.
Broker-dealer subsidiaries up for sale. Rueters. MarketWatch. The Scotsman (UK). Wall Street Journal.
Munch time.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (6)
LawBlog 2008: Tonight, London, The Harp, 6:00 PM.
Finally, the big day. The 2nd annual Brit blogger/IP summit and Extreme Word-Slurring WankFest is at 48 Chandos Place at 6 PM. See GeekLawyer's post. Midnight Antler Dance: Ms. Ruthie as Grand Wazoo; newly-married GL as Lizard King. Special guest: Albion's Hunter Thompson, Charon QC. Most Yanks welcome, mostly.
"...saw Lon Chaney walkin' with the Queen..."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (4)
September 13, 2008
The lawyer thing: GCs, do you really need Big, Clumsy & Mediocre in 50 cities Worldwide?
If you are a savvy General Counsel, is there any reason to keep engaging your US or UK-based law firm that expanded in the past few years all over the globe like a spastic hamburger franchise?
One of our most clicked-on posts is here. It's a bit dated, about 3 IBLC meetings behind--our Fall gathering and work sessions, with law firms of 5 to 250 lawyers in size, were in Zürich just last week--but you'll get the idea. The IBLC has 100 law firms in strategic cities worldwide.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2008
Anne Reed on Juries: City v. Country.
See Anne Reed's "The City Jury And The Country Jury" at her always fine Deliberations:
Tom Wolfe, NYC, state court juror
Our firm faces this issue generally in some current civil proceedings; for years, we have noticed the irony (for us, anyway) that federal court juries are often more rural and less educated (not always but often) than juries in state courts.* Medium-size cities like San Diego, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh have that pattern: the more rural federal court jury may very well be less well-educated than the state, county or city jury.
Our experience is that city dwellers in America in both court systems selected from the master jury list may be less likely to show up for duty in the first place. An exception: historically, Washington, D.C. lawyers who live in the District have shown up for jury duty with admirable regularity in both the D.C. District and Superior Court, located downtown and at the foot of Capitol (a/k/a Jenkins) Hill.
George "Goober" Lindsey, Mayberry, federal court juror
*WAC? and Hull McGuire love humans and therefore love all jurors (except for The-Morally-Certain and, of course, some Duke grads and most engineers). But most state courts are flat-out "musts-to-avoid"--and "VBFs" (Very Bad Forums) for good business clients. If, however, you and your business client are before an unknown or "strange" state court--and especially in state systems where judges are popularly elected--do get a jury.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 02:24 PM | Comments (1)
Redux: Budgeting litigation with the client.
[E]veryone can provide a budget. Everyone can live with a budget. The real questions are whether lawyers will agree to do so and whether clients will walk with their wallets when lawyers don't.
See Pat Lamb's short but fine piece on budgeting litigation costs with a client [August 21], a subject WAC? is always re-thinking but infrequently getting right. "The Lie of Litigation Budgeting" is at his respected In Search of Perfect Client Service--the site which inspired the launch of WAC? three years ago. Pat, one the few litigators we've known with a natural gift for law firm economics, started the Valorem firm in Chicago earlier this year.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 04:17 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
Blawg Review sobers up, gets literate.
Ed. of Blawg Review, last known photo, Cambodia, circa 1968.
We've been traveling and saving clients, Kent maids in distress, and The World. We are behind on our Blawg Reviews--but we always catch up with the best thing that's happened to law blogs and the mainly idle people who love to read them. Each week at Blawg Review, a new host, eager to please and guided by the above Ed., works all weekend like a rat in heat to write a compelling thematic review of the past week's best articles. BR appears on Monday morning.
This week, Blawg Review, hosted by Hanna Hasl-Kelchner of legalliteracy.com, honors International Literacy Day, which was Monday, the 8th, and a beacon to 98.5% of the insurance defense bar, various "McLaw" tribes, and other law cattle in the USA. See Hanna's #176. Last week, Jamie Spencer of Austin DWI Lawyer hosted #175 with posts including the WB-Bollywood fight over Harry Potter, and Jordan Furlong's fine piece on law as automated and dumbed down in "The Rise of Good Enough". More McLaw. Cerebral types can read about the IRS' refusal to recognize Antarctica as a foreign country, so that U.S. salaries earned there are domestic, and therefore taxable. That's mighty cold, Kevin Underhill. Dang.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2008
Two Ways of the Trial Notebook
A quick one from the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, where there are Old Ones and Young Ones in their dark Monday suits. Men of all ages with shaved heads who look like Moby. Tall trilingual Nordic women, many beautiful, with serious faces and laptops. They prepare for battle this week in the mostly-down markets of The West.
Ah, grasshopper, it's trial time. For business trials, and non-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 brain. Both sides of it.
And be advised. As Tom Hanks, or someone, once said: "There is no boilerplate in baseball". Each client, each problem to solve, each transaction, and each trial: each is wonderfully unique, and Different From The Other, whether your firm does "cookie-cutter" work or not.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
Recap: "Should associates pay their law firms in the first 2 to 3 years?"
Two first years relax after a day of thinking, researching, writing, cite-checking and proofreading, as more senior lawyers stay late to re-do their work, and then write off time, lest they commit major interstate mail and wire fraud when bills are sent out.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:27 AM | Comments (4)
September 07, 2008
Don't popularly elect judges. It's bad.
Even if all elected judges were honest, judicial elections naturally erode public confidence because they imply that judges have "constituents" (i.e., the entities and lawyers who contribute to their campaigns) and that justice is political, and may be purchased. It doesn't pass anyone's smell test. In a country with the best law schools in the world and with legions of truly talented lawyers, who believe that lawyering is a privilege and art, we can do better than that. --A blogger in 2005
There aren't many absolutes out there, but here's one: Judges should not be elected public officials. It's medieval. It's beneath all the U.S. states. It's bad for clients and good lawyers. And it just smells bad. See at Law.com "Recusal Fight Highlights Judicial Election Concerns" and our April 28 piece "The Elected Judiciary". We can do better.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2008
Kent to Zürich--and Zürich answers.
I took two days off in Kent with London lawyers, and near Albion's white cliffs, in part to recover from my Monday Mayfair meeting with GeekLawyer: a gentleman, IP scholar, barrister and genuine werewolf. And today is Zürich, first established as a Roman customs post, and now a truly global city. I'm here with lawyers from firms in 35 countries or so to talk about the main event: Clients.
Clients. Remember them?
1. What are law firm partners and associates doing for clients these days, anyway?
2. Are law firms days structured economically, and in talent and human resources, to solve client problems--or just add to them?
3. Are we delivering services using models that are fair to clients?
4. Are we charging for training when we shouldn't be?
5. Are the even best clients getting shortchanged on real value when they don't need to be?
6. Is current corporate lawyering really client-oriented and customer-focused--or just a big-ass ruse?
7. And, for fun, perhaps for the Irish and Welsh members: why is Keith Richards still alive, anyway?
(But we're serious, when we think through delivering value to clients. The only Rule: we can be irreverent about anything else.)
Posted by JD Hull at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2008
Rule Two: The Client Is The Main Event
The second in our series The 12 Rules of Client Service. Rule Two is here from November, 2005.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
Man of Kent, or a Kentish Man?
As with London, and with the County of Suffolk to the north, from where my mother's family came to Massachusetts via Ipswich 373 years ago, I am completely and hopelessly in love with Kent, mainly the "eastern" part. The County of Kent is the southeastern doorway to the British Isles--it has even more history, legend and myth than London. Lots, and maybe even too much, has happened here during the past 2500 years...
Eventually, in 51 BC, Julius Caesar called it Cantium, as home of the Cantiaci. Augustine founded what became the Anglican Church here in about 600 AD. And of course Thomas Becket, Chaucer's "holy blissful martyr", was killed here (Canterbury) in 1170. I stay with lawyer friends in a tiny and ancient rural village I've visited before--during a visit not long ago, I helped Jane and Michael destroy and begin to re-build their home's 300+ year old fireplace. They live near Canterbury, in what is traditionally East Kent; therefore, I'm among the "Men of Kent" and "Maids of Kent".
Posted by JD Hull at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2008
The GOP's other Storm: Sarah Palin
Sin in Alaska. John McCain has got Big Ones picking her. And she's a robo-babe. Bravo. But often-conservative WAC? thinks her 17-year-old kid Bristol's pregnancy underscores the danger of (1) not checking closely enough your VP choice (always difficult, we realize: "So, Sarah, any serious mescaline users at the Palin house? Juicers? Flings with Druid-worship?") and, (2) more importantly, the dangerous certitudes of the often-jackass American Christian right. See Los Angeles Times.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2008
An old London labour: law student as critic, lover.
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At Bayswater Road, near Westbourne Gate, not far from Notting Hill, it's not American Labor Day. Brits are working. Me, too. We send you the complete text of a circa-1595 comedy by Shakespeare, here, on one page, to read after the weenie roast. 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 or Legal London. Interestingly, it 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".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:55 PM | Comments (2)