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October 31, 2008
Tax Policy and 2008 Presidential Elections
Consider this Guide by the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget before you vote on November 4. Tip of the derby to TaxProf Blog, based in the Queen City.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The Great Consumer Society stops buying.
In London's The Economist, here's an article we missed last week; it's in the we're-watching-you genre that that publication does best: Left on the Shelf. "The unthinkable has happened. American consumers are losing their urge to shop."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
This Week: All Europe Watches Yanks.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2008
The Big Dog shills for Senator Obama.
See The Nation and about 350 other articles. I'm not voting for Obama, but Bill Clinton, who also campaigned for Al Franken in Minnesota last night, is on the tube as I write, campaigning for Obama in Florida. Can Wild Bill "market" or what? (At a meeting of 50 GCs: "Hull McGuire's your friend--they aren't like the others--and if you love me, like I know you do, you'll love them, and you'll crank up their rates just...") Dang. Maybe I'll reconsider my vote for McCain. No, if I just lie down for a while, the feeling is sure to go away. Shucks, WJC could make all male Texans dress in drag for a week.
Even the controlled Sen. Obama gets a little weird around Wild Bill.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
Jim Hassett: "Don't stop."
At his Legal Business Development, see Down Economy, Part 8: What To Do If Your Revenue Goes Down, and What Clients Want, According To Ram Charan.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2008
Update: Special Report from The Desert.
As I was saying, earlier this week I was in The California Desert--stalked by Death, Destruction and a monthly Smith Barney report nasty enough to put Pollyanna on Lithium for a year--and waiting for a vision to deliver us all. What I received was so pedestrian and simple that the rapture almost killed me. This Guy, a gardener with the Two Bunch Palms resort, and named Raphael, comes up to me and says:
1. Focus on existing clients, and on their current projects.
2. Stay friendly with GCs, client reps, influential people and "referrers" that you already know.
3. "Network" for brand new clients and contacts later, Dork. Now is not the time.
4. Finally, Work-Life Balance? Dude, that's so 2006. Think of it all as "work-life mix." Keeping life and work separate misses the point. Live smart and work smart. But be ready for anything. Life and Work both come at you when they are ready, and on their terms, not yours.
Go in peace. Dork.
(Left to right:) Raphael and WAC? in The Desert.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
Blawg Review #183: California gets serious.
If you work back Back East, some partners actually want you to shy away from Ninth Circuit or California cases in your research. California, America's chief social and cultural laboratory, often gets dissed for being cutting edge about, well, everything--and in the law, "good" change is supposed to come slowly. A "hard law" blog called The UCL Practitioner hosts this week's Blawg Review. No. 183 does an exemplary, serious, studious and way-Back East job of covering last week's best law posts, with a special and sensitive spotlight on California bloggers.
However, one Kevin Underhill post featured reports that a Scranton, Pennsylvania woman who swore in her own bathroom (at a fixture there) using the "F-word" last year was cleared by the City of Scranton, with some help from the ACLU. WAC?'s warning: Pennsylvania men and women swear wonderfully, and it's a birthright. Californians cannot, and never could, swear worth a good golly darn--and certainly shouldn't try the "F-word" anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances, including at home, without expecting to pull a hamstring, or at least harshing their mellows.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2008
Larry Bodine: He has news can you use.
You may not like the news, but start here anyway at Bodine's LawMarketing Portal: "ACC/Serengeti Survey: The Economic Picture for Law Firms Gets Worse". Lots of ideas you can use, too, at LMP.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2008
The Election 2008: Going Rogue in America.
Is America a fun country or what? Consumer spending down for 3rd straight month, the government buys a few banks, WAC? retreats to mud baths in the California desert, Obama keeps up the Kennedy-lite, McCain gets angry, Palin goes rogue. E.g., The Australian.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2008
What about inspiration in The Desert?
WAC?'s been working hard in Steel City this week, but now needs either The Desert or The City of Lights for a new idea or two. Paris, a 2000-year-old center of Western civilization many Americans know to be in western Europe, is our favorite city. For many more centuries, however, mankind has also picked its opposite, The Desert, as a place of definitions, and new beginnings. So we chose that for the next few days--for the quiet and the solitude, and due to the fact it's all we can afford. We'll ready ourselves for the new order of things monetary and commercial: The New Scheme. We'll prepare.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2008
Once again, GCs weigh in on law firms.
Via the vigilant and all-powerful Ed. of Blawg Review, see by John Wallbillich at Wired GC "Managing Outside Counsel Survey", with links to an interesting ACC survey. "40% of outside counsel report terminating a law firm relationship", a number which does not shock us, and actually is lower than we would have thought. Incidentally, Blawg Review this week is hosted by tech-savvy and future U.S. IP Czar David Gulbransen at Preaching to the Perverted. All life is a test.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2008
You're kidding. Our client is a "Waishang Duzi Qiye"?
"One of the other partners suspected it was a "Youxian Zeren Gongsi" form of business. Guess she was wrong. Asian, right? China, maybe? And, Justin, what is that strange German symbol-thing I keep seeing in the due diligence--GmbH, that's it--and what does that mean? Your Professor Bloor at dear old Siwash didn't cover these in Corporations, I guess. How about S.A.? Oy? Hevra Pratit? Cyfyngedig? What about those, smart guy?"
Increasingly, and obviously, U.S. lawyers are helping clients do business with foreign companies and in foreign jurisdictions, guiding them as they set up shops and entities abroad, and representing non-U.S. companies in the U.S. If you are starting to do that, and need to take a first step, visit the International Directory of Corporate Symbols and Terms. It was first published in 2002 by member firms of the Salzburg, Austria-based International Business Law Consortium. A prescient American law prof, writer and businessman, Dennis Campbell, is the IBLC's founder and director. Campbell also founded, in 1976, the well-known Center for International Legal Studies, also headquartered in Salzburg.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The Bush Years: Never too early for revisionist history.
"It is often said that journalists take the first cut at history." See "W. as History" by USC's Mary D. Dudziak at the always-excellent Legal History Blog. If you're in a very good mood today, you might also read Dan Hull's February 3 op-ed piece, "One of us", in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about the meaning of George W. Bush. Dan argues that W. is, after all, simply the "American" president the world's been expecting for the last 200 years.
A.C.H.C. de Tocqueville, who may have predicted W.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
How to "give face" in Hong Kong.
The Economist: Do No Wrong in Hong Kong. "When receiving a business card, make a show of examining it, then put it into your card case or place it on the table. It is rude to stuff it straight in a pocket." And more. Is a clock a good client gift? As they do in Mainland China, do Hong Kong women retain their maiden names?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2008
Trading Places: Christopher Buckley, WAC?
These arresting days of late 2008 may be some of America's best.
Unless we learn, in the next 18 days, that in fact John McCain spearheaded a white slavery operation in Southeast Asia during the six years he was supposed to have been a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, I will vote for McCain to be my next president. My vote will be cast with many reservations and--for the first time in my life--for a Republican presidential candidate.
Try not to demonize me--or any one else who is trying hard to get it right this election year. Barack Obama, as talented as he is, struck me again and again as the new Jimmy Carter: smart, good and yes a great man--and likely an ineffective leader once in office. Carter, at least, was not untested. In Obama's case, I listened but couldn't buy the Kennedy-lite "change now" noises from a gifted young guy who has never managed anything except for his brilliant and historical
Chris Buckley: Vote pairing with Dan Hull?
campaign. Sure, other nations, particularly EU countries, will like Obama. His U.S. Supreme Court appointments would be more to my liking. But I'd prefer Obama's tough but soulful wife, Michelle, as my next president. I seek leaders who are a bit more engaged, and can get angry. Obama is currently not one of them. In six years, Obama will be well shy of 60, and he can start running for president again then.
By then, Obama can get his mojo working, if he has one. Or his wife can run.
Sarah Palin is a Ditz, you say? How can I do this? Answer: we've had at least 3 ditz presidents in my lifetime. Ronald Reagan was the first, and on intellect he makes Palin seem like Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, just in a really cute dress. Look, Palin's not my cup of tea, but she's one of the most talented politicians you'll ever see anywhere. Don't oversimplify or underestimate her. She's going to be around a long time. Make room for her, don't demonize her. Palin's no cartoon. Besides, if you really think she's not "smart enough", she's lots of fun to just watch.
More interestingly and importantly, however, a major conservative has crossed over to the "dark side", albeit a different one than I just did. Christopher Buckley is William F. Buckley's son, a small government conservative and fine, established novelist and journalist in his own right. Two days ago he announced his support for Barack Obama. He offered his resignation from his position on his dad's The National Review--which accepted it. See WSJ. Buckley the Younger's offending piece and reasons for supporting Obama are found in The Daily Beast, in "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama".
If you are a Republican, or a libertarian, please don't demonize Buckley, either. Buckley is refusing to be defined by personal ties, traditional conservative doctrine, and life-long identification with The Right. He sees Obama as a fresh and superior thinker, and a temperate problem-solver: a kind of a new age Philosopher-King. I think Buckley is wrong--but it just doesn't matter. I'd love to have dinner with Chris Buckley. If that happens, we promise in advance not to demonize or oversimplify anyone, except perhaps in jest.
Which brings me to the point, a happy one.
Get used to it: Palin's going places.
The mean-spirited and, I think, often mindless Reagan Revolution, which arrived in DC like an angry sandstorm in January 1981, is officially over. During those 28 years, no one helped the national dialogue along that much. True, Republicans made things personal, moral and cast in absolutes. But my mostly Democrat and limousine liberal friends were also busy making sure that the First Amendment became a joke and a nightmare; you couldn't safely use words like chairman, stewardess, girl, secretary, "Chinese wall" or Indian, or tell the receptionist she looked great, without having Geraldo, Nancy Grace and National Public Radio live in your front yard for a few days. Some of us wanted to evolve at our own unenlightened pace.
You also had to be nice to, accommodate and otherwise be careful with mediocre and arguably lazy people in the workplace. No energy, drive, gospel or values about work itself became the norm. "Adequate": that was the new "excellent".
But I think these political and economic events of these arresting days--late 2008--will do some very good things: (1) dismantle cookie-cutter definitions of what Rs and Ds stand for, and (2) modify notions of what government (thanks for buying all my banks, guys)--and markets--can and can't do. Americans may finally talk and solve problems without freeze-dried ideologies, party "identification", routine character assassination, and pop mantras being the main events and passions in their conversations--and the very source of their "ideas". Our politicians, "idea" tanks, mass media and U.S. television news--e.g., Fox and MSNBC--in particular have been doing just that.
Special note: Television news is supposed to give you information, not tell you what to think, or how to vote.
If you need a template to worship (i.e., organized religion), okay, fine. Faith is the hardest--not to mention often the most dangerous--activity for humans. But religion, and spirituality, is something we can do alone. We engage in politics, however, with one another; you can't do it fully in private, and you participate on the basis of reliable information presented fairly. When we start taking cues from the best-sounding available scripts by media-on-a-mission on how to vote, and how to govern ourselves, we are in really trouble.
A suggestion. American media would do well to get back in its box and, to the extent humanly possible, report facts and stop giving cues. U.S. journalists, including broadcast people, are some of the best educated, most traveled and admirably pedigreed citizens in the world. Hey, you folks know better. You do have some responsibilities to your less-polished viewers and readers.
It's going to happen anyway. People will start to think for themselves--and stop relying on the media, forced-PC cultures in all camps, party lines and platforms to instruct them on how they must think and feel. We need a New Conversation, free of certitude, either moral or intellectual, and worthy of the subtleties and complexities of the world we face.
Dinner, anyone?
Posted by JD Hull at 05:33 AM | Comments (1)
October 16, 2008
Law firm directories as lame and musts-to-avoid.
Read Larry Bodine's "Only 3% of Legal Work is Influenced by Directories". And see our August post "Martindale-Hubbell: Should we all 'just say no'?". Note: after "just say no" was written, Hull McGuire promptly re-upped with M-H anyway. Our hypocrisies have no bounds.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
A new era of credit market Mega-Litigation?
According to Lord Falconer, the UK's former Lord Chancellor (the current one is Jack Straw), a kind of "mega-litigation" born of the global credit crisis is coming to a forum near you. Last month in London, following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing, Falconer said before the Legal Week Litigation Forum: “There is going to be litigation on a scale that we have not seen before.” Resist the urge to salivate but do see Justin Patten's Human Mediation.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2008
You want to keep what you have?
1. Represent only clients you "like".
2. The client is the main event.
3. Make sure everyone in your firm knows the client is the main event.
4. Deliver legal work that changes the way clients think about lawyers.
5. Over-communicate: bombard, copy and confirm.
6. When you work, you are marketing.
7. Know the client.
8. Think like the client--help control costs.
9. Be there for clients--24/7.
10. Be accurate, thorough and timely--but not perfect.
11. Treat each co-worker like he or she is your best client.
12. Have fun.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2008
We'll take it.
AP: "World stock markets soar after last week's rout". IHT: Wall Street, too. So a massive flood of government money is a good thing? Well, I'll be. Good morning, American workers. Comrade Paulson speaking.
Update: For now, governments' buying banks and brokerages pays off. Today closed with a record surge of 936 points on Dow Jones industrial average and S&P index gain of over 11%. Paris and Frankfurt markets also do well. See NYT. Cautious and practical free trader WAC? may seek post in new U.S. Department of Correct Thoughts and Lifestyles, as its first Secretary. But will settle for Undersecretary, Sector B.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking of ADR
Boston's Diane Levin, obviously put here on earth to make up for some of the rest of us, hosts Blawg Review this week at The Mediation Channel. Our take on mediation for commercial disputes: it's rarely a waste of money, especially if you are about to go to trial. Spend the money. Get a reality check. Think of it as a mock trial.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:41 PM | Comments (2)
European Schadenfreude.
For a week or so, anyway. London's The Economist, America's tough but appreciative new Mom, ran this gem on October 1, which begins:
One by one, European leaders have lined up to hail the triumph of welfare over Wall Street. “The idea that markets are always right was a mad idea,” declared the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. America’s laissez-faire ideology, as practised during the subprime crisis, “was as simplistic as it was dangerous,” chipped in Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister.
And then Europe had a really bad week last week.
Photo: "Statue Garnier" by M. Daniel Schteingart
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2008
What your clients will do--and your firm needs to do.
Judgment Day. No, American capitalism is not dead. It's just morphing. Again. We're not headed for barter systems. Yanks are still the leader; compared to the U.S., the next most competitive economies on the planet are like Maynard G. Krebs, or maybe Borat, on downers and cough syrup. But while things shake out, corporate clients all over the world are going to change. Firms that advise, fight, solve problems and engineer for them must change, too. So start now. Get lean, get mobile, get agile.
Now.
In six months.
(T2 Photo: Tri-Star Pictures)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Recession: The next big things for your clients are...
A. Austerity. Your clients will try to: (1) Do only The Urgent. That means respond to/defend regulatory enforcement action, renegotiate loans, litigation, etc. (2) Do The Urgent only In-House.
B. The Status Quo. That's the Latin short for "the state existing before the war". Clients will not change outside counsel as frequently. Not as many new engagements. So hold on to what you have.
C. Real Value. When your firm is called upon to work for a client, that client will want Real Value. Real Value does not necessarily mean lowering your rates or doing flat-fee arrangements. It will be determined, as always, by the gut-level reaction General Counsel has in that first 30 seconds when he or she reads your invoice. So what RV did your firm add?
Posted by JD Hull at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2008
The Value Movement: "The Value Challenge".
It's a client thing, it's a GC thing.
Pat Lamb of Chicago's Valorem gave us this piece last week. WAC? adds that the call-to-arms for giving value to higher-end clients is not just about this blog's recently-increased focus on making expensive employees productive faster. It is a top-to-bottom affair, and all good clients deserve it--whether they ask for it or not. Billing, quality of product, efficiency, real ($) value-added by associates and paralegals, real customer service, keeping the Client First, communications, speed.
Our advice: Forget about what sophisticated corporate clients will tolerate, or are "used to". Give them something they need, and that will increase your value to them. In good economies or bad, surprise great clients, keep their business and attract more.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2008
So what do we do now?
Service Firms, and The Way-Down Global Economy. Some advice, often with related links, from people who think about it all the time (so you don't have to). You can hire them, too:
Ed Poll: "Three Lenses for Law Firm Recession Survival" (9/16/08)
Jim Hassett: "The First Thing Lawyers Should Do In A Recession" (1/30/08)
Dennis Kennedy: "Planning for Legal Technology in a Recession" (1/22/08)
Tom Kane: "Time to Get Closer to Clients" (9/25/08)
The prescient Larry Bodine: "Get Ready for the Coming Recession" (8/26/07)
Bruce MacEwen: "Costs & Revenues: Health Check Time" (9/5/08)
Dan Hull: "In Praise Of Structure: Get A Standard" (7/23/08) and "Rule 4" (12/12/05)
Jennifer E. King: "Marketing Your Firm’s Legal Services During an Economic Decline"
Posted by JD Hull at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2008
"Women good, men bad."
Ah, the utter tragedy, and injustice, of Nature, of biology--and of the girl and boy thing. Where will it all end? "Where Are All the Female Law Bloggers?" has been getting lots of press--but we can't figure out why. The best, brightest and strongest bloggers--and writers, speakers, corporate lawyers, business owners, actors, humans, etc.--we know are "females" and regularly trounce us "dudes" in most endeavors in work and life. And there's a lot of these creatures. The author of the piece, obviously talented and well-meaning but trying to set the women's movement back about 40 years, is invited to impress us all in the future with a better choice of topics.
UPDATE: Some serious and comprehensive coverage by our betters and friends: Simple Justice, Legal Blog Watch, Diane Levin (all with links to dames who blog).
Ms. Gish is one of many "females" in the WAC? Pantheon. Gish is said to avoid whiners and weenies.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (6)
So far, U.S. bailout not helping in Asia and Europe.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)
It's official: Blawg Review, and legal blogging, have arrived.
Today I'm in hard-working heavily-German southwestern Ohio, where it's always German-American day. And this morning from Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate--the area thousands of west Germans (including a few Hohl families) left for America in the 17th and 18th centuries, and where more than a few global law firms have business clients--Andis Kaulins at Law Pundit gives us his Blawg Review #180 , a truly international and immediately useful tour of this morning's odd world. Bravo, sir.
Since we began in 2005, WAC? has wanted insular North American and European businesses and their advisors to compare notes. Mr Kaulins' Blawg Review #180 is a good place to start. Please do not miss the list of German transatlantic organizations at the conclusion of #180. Clearly, the now-global Blawg Review has arrived.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)
Client Service Worldwide: And the winner is...
The Client Choice Awards 2008, sponsored by the International Law Office, picked London-based Allen & Overy as the top client service firm internationally. Jones Day won in the U.S. More winners in nearly 50 jurisdictions are here. See also Legal Blog Watch.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:28 PM | Comments (1)
October 03, 2008
Government by Gaels?
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
The charm. The love of words. War-like energies. Child-like joy and optimism mixed with bouts of sadness. And, of course, the burning, even tortuous, God-given right to serve as General-Manager-of-the-Universe, at least while on earth. By now, surrounded as I am by lawyers with big Irish genes, I know it when it when I hear it. For example, Joe Biden is as Irish as Irish-American pols come. But according to Newsweek writer Carl Sullivan, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Barack O'Bama each have strong ancestries in Ireland. Well, all four sure can talk. But WAC? sees nothing "Irish" in the talented but deliberate, mild, unconfrontational Senator Obama. It will be up to Joe.
Daniel O'Connell, Irish lawyer-politician, fighter, charmer, Muse.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2008
"Slick Answers to Lazy Interrogatories."
Color me silly, but I love and respect written discovery during the pretrial process in American federal courts. Years ago, a fed-up U.S. district court judge, throwing up his hands during arguments by lawyers on a motion to compel discovery responses, referred to answers to interrogatories as "slick lawyer answers to lazy lawyer questions". I feel his pain.
Years ago a new second year associate who worked at our firm (after one year at another firm) complained that we were putting "too much thought" into a set of interrogatories under Rule 33, Fed. R. Civ. P. Our new hire patiently explained to me that interrogatories and other written discovery were in fact "simply a way for lawyers to bill time so they could make money, and nothing more." He was adamant about it, too. Nice guy, and I liked him--I always try to take his cab when I'm in Pittsburgh.
But complex and hard-fought civil cases really do turn about 90 per cent on the quality of the discovery questions and requests, including deposition questions, and the responses to them. And well-thought out and strategically-timed written discovery is the best way there is to prepare great depositions--and get ready for trial.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:45 PM | Comments (2)
Lawyers, Voting and Voters' Rights
Politics are always important. If you are a lawyer and don't believe that, please (a) sue your law school, (b) find another blog to read, and (c) consider new employment selling home improvements, shoes, PEZ dispensers or insurance. Re: the 2008 elections and the Fifteenth Amendment, which turned 138-years-old this year, see at GlobalTort this fine collection of resources.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2008
D.C. Circuit vacates air monitoring rule.
Sierra Club v. Environmental Protection Agency, 536 F.3d 673 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
We forgot to note that, in mid-August, the D.C. Circuit invalidated a two-year-old EPA federal Clean Air Act regulation barring states from requiring increased air pollution monitoring in permits issued under Title V of the Act. Under Title V, states with program approval--which EPA gives and takes away--issue permits to power plants and factories on their own, rather than directly through EPA. In a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit, which by statute reviews most challenges to EPA rulemaking, concluded that states may require power plants, oil refineries and other stationary sources of pollution to include in their permits stronger monitoring requirements than those imposed by EPA. Environmental groups, of course, like the decision, but energy companies and other industries do not. By far the best summary for corporate clients and GCs we've seen is one given by Dustin Till of the Seattle-based environmental boutique, Marten Law Group. See also Law.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)