« February 10, 2008 | Main | February 12, 2008 »
February 11, 2008
U.S. Democrats: Horserace!
Pardon my dripping schoolboy excitement. But even the most dreamy, idealistic American kid growing up in the 1960s--was there any better and more interesting time to grow up?--could not have imagined a "run-off" between two candidates like HRC and Obama. You need to stand back and look at this one, the 2008 election: the most spirited, surprising and genuinely defining (just who are Americans anyway?) U.S. election in WAC?'s lifetime. Still 8 months away from November. After Saturday's primaries and caucuses--in which Obama wins big in Nebraska, Louisiana, Washington state--HRC has 1,084 delegates to 1,057 for Obama. 2,025 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. See The Washington Post.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
Mardi Gras: we got sober and we missed it.
Forget about the economy, the 2008 elections, lack of cultural literacy and anything else that ails you. Dr. John and his satchel of gris-gris remedies can help. So can Ray Ward.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
"Do we really need a memo on that?"*
Go the mirror and practice saying that to yourself and to your GC.
Save money, time and relationships. Answer the question. Cut to the chase. Take a stand. Aside from necessary opinion letters, do not offer to write or write a cover-everyone's-ass and/or comprehensive "all-legal-theories-and-strategies" memorandum unless your in-house lawyer really wants it. And then try to talk her or him out of it. Part of your job as outside counsel is to guide and make the GC be and look good by saving money and time. Also: if you are in litigation, test out your brilliant ideas and research in a draft brief or another instrument or document the client can actually use later on. Skip the 10-, 20- and 35-page memo. Try to make memos you do write short, and reflect the group's cumulative thinking on that issue or project. Quit re-inventing. Make clients trust you.
*The actual question is borrowed, stolen or paraphrased from some other lawyer--likely a law firm management "great" like Patrick McKenna, Jim Durham or Patrick Lamb (I can't remember which)--and my firm loves it. So do pleasantly-surprised clients. We have had it in practice so long that it became "ours." Mea culpa for not disclosing the first time I posted it today.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
Clients "want an attorney who blogs"?
We picked up this post from this week's fine Blawg Review #146: "Why Every Client Should Want an Attorney Who Blawgs" at Ohio Practical Business Law Counsel. This is well-written and well worth your time. However, we continue to think that most clients worth having--and certainly busy in-house counsel--have no time to read blogs, think about blogs or to blog themselves. And real clients want their real lawyers working their asses off solving problems--not blogging. Blogger-professionals need to get over themselves. A client's knowledge that you are blogging regularly is about as helpful--or harmful--as knowing that you go to the track a couple of times a week with your drunken philandering stoner high school friend Ernie from Glen Burnie. Colorful and interesting--but so what? And with the wrong client, it could even hurt. Moreover, blogging still has a geeky connotation with the over-45 crowd who control much of the work law firms get. Clients could care less if you blog and might even resent it. Still, read Teri Rasmussen's post for a counter-intuitive counter-view. We of course may be wrong--but we are not about to trumpet the fact to our best clients that "hey, we be blogging". They don't care--and we should not expect them to care.
Work first. Blog later. And keep it to yourself.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:35 PM | Comments (7)