« February 2009 | Main | April 2009 »
March 30, 2009
Wagoner fails Obama test, resigns from General Motors.
It's a big story--and an unusual one. Over 4,000 articles, including this one at WSJ. But no publication is more entitled to report it than The Chronicle, Duke University's 105-year-old student daily.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)
Redux: Lawyering and Overstatement.
Going with Fergus. Here's something you can use, starting today. If you're spectacularly Irish--you guys know who you are--you should also take notes. Then take a year off work just to practice. See at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog "The Only Writing Tip That Really Matters", which quotes William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White's The Elements of Style:
When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.
Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland, housing the Stone of Eloquence.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2009
Saturday's Charon QC: Meet the Prime Minister
Charon After Dark: An interview with Gordon Brown? "Few people get a chance to interview an unelected serving Prime Minister and I am no different." And why not, sir? The real one we urge you to do may even be as good as this.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:56 PM | Comments (1)
March 27, 2009
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
"Reinventing" the Latin American Law Firm--Part II of II
By Fernando E. Rivadeneyra, Puebla, Mexico
Editor's Note: This is Part II of an article by our friend and colleague Fernando Rivadeneyra, a partner at Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo, a corporate law firm with a global reach based in Puebla, Mexico, located about 100 kilometers southeast of Mexico City. Part I began on March 23 and details specific changes Rivadeneyra and his partners made to their respected Mexican law firm.
Part II: How Do We Implement These Fundamental Changes in Mexico?
Since 2006, our firm has employed two external consultants. One consultant has been instrumental in giving each lawyer--or group of lawyers--in the firm a large hand to play in the growth of one specific law practice area. Our other consultant has developed a concrete career development program and training program, which sets achievable goals for each lawyer's career progression.
Next, in early 2008, our firm hired an experienced marketer in-house to develop a Client Relations Department within our firm. The goal of the new Department is two-fold:
1. To maintain an excellent working relationship with our existing clients and to encourage their loyalty to our firm, and
2. To promote our firm's expertise to a wide audience of potential clients, both in Mexico and abroad.
In order for other Latin America firms to improve their management systems, they must also invest in outside help, make some internal hires, and make adjustments similar to those made by our firm. In addition, firms must be aware of management trends at other leading firms in the international legal community and, when appropriate, emulate and borrow from them.
Problems inherent in transforming an established work culture
The principal obstacle we have encountered has been the lawyers’ natural resistance to change; at times, they are opposed to new elements being added to their job descriptions. However, if other firms in the region plan to reorganize themselves in a similar way, a heightened level of "buy-in" and support will be needed from everyone: senior partners, department leaders, and all lawyers and staff.
The results of re-organization
Latin American law firms are at the beginning of a long-term project in terms of introducing new modes of management; the results won’t always be easy to measure.
Within Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo, we have already realized notable short-term gains, such as a greater cooperation between lawyers and a more relaxed working environment. We have also achieved a broader presence and name recognition--and a far more extensive (and more international) client list.
We have also learned a great deal from observing how other successful firms are organizing themselves, and are open to discussing any of the issues discussed above in more depth with other firms both in, and outside of, Mexico and Latin America.
About the Author: Fernando Rivadeneyra is a Founding Partner at Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo. He specializes in: Mergers & Acquisitions, Private International Law, Corporate Law and Foreign Investments. He is a member of the International Bar Association, the Mexican-American Law Institute, and Export Support Group, and is Vice-President of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce – Puebla Chapter.
Rivadeneyra has written articles for several publications, and frequently speaks before legal conferences. This article was written in collaboration with Jodie Paula Cohen, who is in charge of Client Relations at Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo. For further information, please contact: frivadeneyra@rtydc.com or jcohen@rtydc.com or visit: www.rtydc.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:00 PM | Comments (2)
March 25, 2009
Does this mean we're not invited to Eastern Europe's 67th annual Chronic Bad Mood Festival held in Prague this summer?
Deposed Czech leader kicks out the jams; U.S. on fiscal Highway to Hell. Finally, at least, we meet a European--and an EU leader to boot--who speaks American English. AP via MSNBC. Usually, it's hard to get anyone but the French to tell you what they really think:
STRASBOURG, France--The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama’s plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as “the road to hell” that EU governments must avoid.
The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy.
It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand. [more]
Hey Mirek, how's that Czech Republic economy going for you?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2009
"Reinventing" the Latin American Law Firm--Part I of II
By Fernando E. Rivadeneyra, Puebla, Mexico
Editor's Note: Fernando Rivadeneyra is much more than a talented and highly-regarded business lawyer who works literally all over the world. He is also a colleague and a close friend. My partner Julie McGuire and I have met with Fernando and other members of his firm, Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo, countless times over the past ten years in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. We have worked together on client projects. Like our firm, Rivadeneyra, Treviño is an active member of the International Business Law Consortium, a working alliance of law and accounting firms based in Salzburg, Austria.
A founding partner of Rivadeneyra, Treviño, Fernando works in mergers and acquisitions, corporate structuring, foreign investments, and private international law. He is a member of the International Bar Association, the Mexican-American Law Institute, and its Export Support Group, and is Vice-President of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce--Puebla Chapter.
His article--on fundamental changes in Latin American law firms--will be run in two parts. Part I, below, discusses changes Puebla-based Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo has made in the last three years. Part II, which WAC? will run later this week, focuses on implementing those changes. Jodie Paula Cohen, head of Client Relations at Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo assisted in the preparation of this article.
"Reinventing" the Latin American Law Firm
Three years ago, the founding partners of my firm, Rivadeneyra, Treviño & de Campo, based in Puebla, Mexico, took a hard look at the fast-changing global legal terrain. We decided to radically change the structure and management of our firm. The objective: to better position ourselves within the increasingly globalized legal markets. That goal had already been admirably achieved by many overseas law firms, and the in-house legal departments worldwide.
However, reorganizing law firms in Latin America poses different challenges, and requires fundamental and difficult changes in the way firms are organized in this region. Latin American law firms have certain traditions--including some very old ones--which we needed to address. This article, hopefully, will be useful to other law firms who assist clients in Mexico, and in-house legal counsel of companies that operate here. It will highlight the advances which are being made in the region, the obstacles, and what can be expected in the future.
Turning lawyers into pro-active business people
In Latin America, lawyers historically have not been active in marketing and selling their services. Our firm’s lawyers are now encouraged--indeed expected--to support our focus on both national in Mexico and overseas expansion. By explicitly linking their compensation to the number and quality of new clients they bring to the firm, and by training them in marketing and sales techniques, we hope to overturn a long-embraced tradition of "not selling"--and make our lawyers highly "engaged" and pro-active business people.
When recruiting new lawyers and paralegals, we search for specific talents, cultural attributes and experience which can help make the firm a true player in the global marketplace. For example, Latin American firms are currently experiencing a shortage of bilingual lawyers with capabilities for cross-border deals. Our firm has actively recruited both lawyers and staff with significant multilingual skills.
Training and development to become global players
So we began a "training course" for lawyers at the start of 2009. Aiming to bring our lawyers’ skills and professional attitudes in line with those of the international legal community, the course includes:
--Etiquette in Business Negotiations: Cross-border cultural skills will enhance our lawyers’ sensibilities to cultures in other parts of the world--and facilitate business relations with overseas clients and firms.
--Cultural Diversity: This is a relatively new concept for Latin American law firms, but one which we expect will be of vital importance going forward.
--English Language Fluency: As suggested above, fluency in English will continue to be a priority for Latin American law firms--to increase their access to overseas clients, and enable them to participate in global markets.
We are also working with our employees with three overall professional development goals in mind.
First, we want each employee to become aware of and focus on his or her unique role within the firm. Second, we encourage our employees to view their work product and delivery of services critically. And third, we expect our employees to continuously improve not only their substantive legal skills but also their client service skills.
This "team" approach is relatively new to many Latin American firms--and we believe it will both encourage positive attitudes amongst employees, and significantly enhance their day-to-day dealings with clients.
A new concept in employee salaries
The salaries which we pay to our employees are an important acknowledgment of their efforts to help the firm achieve its business objectives; and we ‘pay’ this salary in three ways:
1. The ‘economic salary’ is, of course, money; it fulfills our employees’ physical needs--for food, a home, clothes, etc.
2. The ‘psychological salary’ fulfills our employees’ desire for recognition and appreciation. Competition for excellent lawyers is as fierce in Latin America as anywhere in the world. One simple way we promote "good feeling" at our firm about the lawyers’ professional life--and encourage loyalty to the firm as well--is to regularly highlight and praise their successes and useful contributions.
3. The 'spiritual salary’ we 'pay' gives employees a sense that their work is meaningful and worthwhile. Pro bono work contributes to this, as will similar schemes which we plan to implement this year.
Part II, later this week: "How Do We Implement These Fundamental Changes in Mexico?"
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (3)
March 22, 2009
Kent
As with London, and with the County of Suffolk to the north, from where my mother's family came to Massachusetts via Ipswich 374 years ago, I am completely and hopelessly in love with Kent, mainly the eastern ("Men of Kent") 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.
St. John the Baptist, The Street, Barham, Kent
Posted by JD Hull at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2009
A Cambridge degree. An Oxford education.
More Celtic and Brit quirk. For all you godless, dancing and (according to National Geographic yesterday) flesh-eating druids out there in America and western Europe, March 21 is the traditional date of the vernal equinox (this year it fell yesterday, the 20th). Spring and re-birth begins. Time to do the Antler Dance, hit Stonehenge, make oaths, worship Oak trees, fight naked, eat, that kind of thing. But it's also the date on which Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cambridge-educated scholar, clergyman and Reformation leader, was burned at the stake at Oxford in 1556 after Catholic Queen Mary came to power.
Reviews on Cranmer, part-politician and part-preacher, are mixed. On the 21st, and after already being sentenced to death, he "withdrew" previous "recantations" of his anti-papal positions that might have saved his life. He was a devout Anglican, after all. He had wavered, except on that final day. Forget about doctrine, and Europe's holy wars, silly and sad in retrospect. Not the point. In the end, Cranmer had serious sand.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2009
Marketing and Client Service: Your staff must "buy into" them.
Now more than ever. We've repeatedly said about Client Service (or "ease-of-use") and your employees: "Buy into it or leave". Your firm can be cool-hip-irreverent about everything else. But not Client Service. Same for Marketing--which in service professions you are always doing anyway as you work. See Tom Kane and WAC's "Rule 3: Ensure Everyone Knows That The Client Is The Main Event". Make CS and marketing details part of your evaluation criteria for all employees, and all working shareholders.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2009
Talk about an employer's market.
"Hi. I am nobody from nowhere--and I am about to eat your lunch." ALM's Legal Blog Watch: "Lawyers Can't Even Find Work for Free". Which raises the question: would you strut your stuff for free (1) to showcase yourself, (2) to get experience or (3) to keep sharp? If your answer is "no", we predict that you are about to meet--and be upstaged by--some of the most ambitious people with JDs on the planet. Of all ages and pedigrees. Right now, Blaise, our waitress friend from night school, is figuring out a way to eat your lunch.
A bad economy for Teacups and Weenies.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)
A moving tribute to the Human Spirit.
And to drunkenness, madness, small animals, the secret Ree-Lax Parlor in DC's West End, "dooce"-bags, Kelly's Irish Times Saloon, Ruthie, and far more deplorable pleasures of the flesh. Enough to curl Freud's hair. To make a blind man see. To send a Good Man straight to Hell laughing about it. Some really sick stuff--especially if you're from Elkhart, Indiana. Slick, too. It's rendered under a cheap, transparent pretext and gloss of Art, Literature and The Classics. Long. Larry Flynt and Madonna were each too freaked out and flustered to get through the whole thing.
Well-written, though. Very.
In short, Blawg Review this week does not disappoint. It is the real Barrister-Prince of Darkness in rare form--even for him. But there are far more unsettling things in this world than a London Lawyer messing with you: reading the books of Mormon or Revelation for the first or twentieth time, an hour in any Target store, or watching American lawyers employed by insurance companies (their real clients, as they see it) argue discovery motions on Fridays in courts all over and knowing they will get paid for it.
So in perspective, but still out of its head, GeekLawyer's Blawg Review #203 is wonderfully eccentric, even revolting, but it hits home, and (gulp) it's dang funny, if you have any sense of the English: XXX-rated, in campy vile taste, and arguably pregnant with a new industry of actions for defamation, slander per se and false light privacy that will pump new life into any lulls currently experienced by First Amendment lawyers in New York, DC and LA.
Just kidding. In your button-down lawyer world today, you may behold offensive movies, "bad" pictures, "bad" language, the F-word all over the place, by golly. If you are appalled, don't read it all, dog. Bonus Badness: it will set back trans-Atlantic relationships about 50 years.
Southern Brits: a quirky but sick race. We've tried to tell you.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:14 PM | Comments (2)
LexThink March 29-30: Head Heartland, Young Man.
The next LexThink is Sunday and Monday, March 29-30, 2009 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Even the payment terms are innovative. If we can, we will send someone from Hull McGuire PC. Will all depend of course on actual length of this year's St. Patrick's Day recovery period--generally a fortnight (about 13.5 days average) so we'll be cutting it close.
Do visit LexThink: Innovate for details. Designed by Matt Homann, our friend, adviser and entrepreneur-lawyer-international consultant--his recent travel schedule makes WAC?'s seem provincial, pedestrian, pint-sized, paltry--who was looking freshly at things before that was cool. Go see Matt in Missouri this month. Catch him in the Heartland before he heads back to Europe.
Matthew Homann in repose.
(photo by E.T.Attorney)
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2009
U.S. Const. Amend. I: GeekLawyer Test on 3.16.09
Heads up for Yanks of the Weenie persuasion. See Blawg Review #666.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:54 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2009
Demand evaporates. Then what?
Department of Dues, Blues and Hatin' Life. You saw it coming--but now what do you do, dear? For more than clues, see Jim Hassett's "The Down Economy (Part 9): What To Do When Demand Disappears". Part Nine? The guy's on a roll, uncanny, an animal. Read Hassett.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2009
$46.8 billion: Basel-based Roche acquires rest of SF's Genentech.
The Roche press release on the "friendly" agreement is here. See AP's "Roche to take over Genentech":
GENEVA (March 12)--Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche agreed to pay $46.8 billion to buy the 44 percent of biotech pioneer Genentech that it doesn’t already own, ending a long corporate struggle with its U.S.-based cancer drug partner. [more]
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Redux: The Big Six lawyer sites--plus Real Lawyers have what?
The only six (6) legal websites you really need. During The Recession. After the Recession. And to take the edge off any "down economy". From a February 9, 2009 WAC? post: "Watching Legal Blog Watch, Blawg Review, and four more". Consider the Big Six list in stone. Consider, too, our lesser pantheon of sites by working stiffs.
All ye know on earth, and all ye need to know (J. Keats, 1819).
What men or gods are these? ...What mad pursuit?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2009
Is Gen-X Moxie starting to bloom?
Reinvent this, you Boomer running dog lackeys, you Gen-Y teacups. Eve Tahminciogluan, an MSNBC contributor, notes that Gen-X (defined liberally as those born between 1961 and 1981) is "getting hit with a double whammy". First, the dot-com bubble bursts--and now this, The Recession. But the article trumpets the degree of Gen-X Moxie, self-reliance and true grit:
This generation never had any illusions that an employer would take care of them for life, says Neil Howe, economist, demographer and co-author of “Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069.”
“Generation X never expected any security,” he says, adding that the mentality of the company man or woman was dead by the time these individuals entered the workforce.
They are also a resilient lot, he adds... In contrast to the younger Generation Y group with their overprotective parents and baby boomers still pining the loss of the gold watch days, Gen Xers never “trusted that the world or anyone was going to take care of them," he says.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
Revisiting "leverage".
Stop working for a moment. Yes, we said that. More accurately: stop for a few moments. The one non-billable thing you should read and digest this week: "The Great De-Leveraging" at Adam Smith Esq. (Bruce MacEwen). It's long--but read it anyway. Here is just one excerpt in this "must-read" tome:
Non-equity lawyers don't have to beat their brains out. So they don't. Their deal—again, a perfectly rational one, to them—is that, premised on good behavior, they have a job essentially for life at, say, $350,000 to $450,000/year, adjusted for inflation.
If you think that's not an attractive deal, I suggest you immediately take the elevator down to the street and ask the first ten people you encounter if they'd like such a job.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The Return of Legal Sanity
We are not worthy. Not an overstatement. New York's wise and inspirational Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity is back--and we noticed this happily. I admire him--despite the fact that reading him for me is always daunting, even threatening. Arnie Herz is a lawyer who makes way too much sense; he knows and acts on things we all know and should act on but work too hard to avoid even admitting. When tradition-and-Western-logic-bound lawyers grow up, or become sane, which ever happens first, I hope we become like Arnie. See "Life and Business Lessons on Resilience from a Young Point Guard".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:46 PM | Comments (1)
March 09, 2009
Gen-Y Rerun: WAC? and Charon QC talk frankly in July of 2008.
What? You're kidding. Lawyers are not special? Hear the "pre-Recession" July 8, 2008 Charon QC interview, "Podcast 66: Dan Hull, US Attorney, author of WAC?, on client service and other matters". Their February 13, 2009 follow-up discussion is here.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
RESPA: “It’s my closing--and I’ll close how I want to.”
Hopkins v. Horizon Management (U.S. 4th Cir. December 3, 2008). In the five states subsumed by the U.S. Fourth Circuit--Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas--a bank can exercise control over the sale of its properties by having the same title company perform all of the bank's real estate closings without violating Section 9 of federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, 12 U.S.C. 2608, 2601-2617. A contract for sale that forces a buyer to use a particular title company is enforceable so long as the bank foots the bill for the owner’s title insurance. Although Hopkins is an unpublished opinion, this interpretation of RESPA's Section 9 will likely stick for these five states; it can also be expected to be followed in other states and circuits.
Note: Arlington, Virginia-based Robert E. Bodine recently became of counsel to Hull McGuire.
Posted by at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
Blog post title of the month--so far.
And legislation of the year--hands down. It's "Drop the Barbie and Step Away" at Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice. It concerns:
A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §47-25-1, relating to banning the sale of “Barbie” dolls and other dolls that influence girls to be beautiful.
WAC? has taken a stand against the pain inflicted by Barbie dolls in America, too--especially in several Midwestern towns we frequent, where men and women alike are getting big enough to have their own zip codes. There's no point in rubbing it in.
We suggest "old" Barbie: a lot more PC. And what about an "ample" Barbie? Hey, it could happen.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 05:40 AM | Comments (1)
Clients and Customers: After they've seen Paris.
In the words of the old song, "How ya' gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've see Paree?" How do you satisfy them with Paris--once they've see Paris? How do you satisfy a client with "great", once you've already delivered it?
You must get better to avoid falling behind.
--Harry Beckwith, The Invisible Touch (Warner Books 2000)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2009
Save the country. Save yourself.
Save the country. Save the children. Up in heaven, Laura Nyro is watching. I saw Nyro on my 18th birthday. She thought you could be angry and happy at the same time; I feel that every day. Laura got really angry at you if you had "no gospel, no guts, no brain". Because you are missing life, work, relationships, ideas, growth,the separate magics of the West and the East, old verities--and joy.
Be inspired--or hang it up. If you're "blocked", head to your Lake District. Wait for a sign. Get your sign. Say thanks to Whoever.
Then come out of your woods swinging and angry: like a bad-ass preacher of the Church of the Final Thunder.
Like Laura Nyro.
Laura Nyro (1947-1997) wanted you to have fury in your soul.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2009
Upcoming Blawg Reviews: Global, urbane, a smidgen profane.
No-Wank Zone. It's all good. As a phrase, it's only exceeded in lameness by using "party" as a verb or "interface" in a meeting. But "all good" may apply here. In the next two months, some of the very best legal webzines and blogs are on deck to host Blawg Review, starting with UK barrister Carl Gardner and his Head of Legal on Monday, March 9. Next up: profane GeekLawyer (March 16) and urbane Above The Law (March 23). Below London's Charon QC speaks with GeekLawyer:
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
Notes From the Breadline (continued)
Among the things that I do care about is insurance, or, specifically, making sure that I have some.
--RST, March 4, 2009
Re: Keep on Keepin' On. The Notes. "Roxanna St. Thomas" keeps writing them and Above The Law is savvy enough to never miss printing them. See "I Have My Freedom, but I Don't Have Much Time". Past Roxanna Notes are collected here.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
Growing in a recession.
Michelle Golden at Golden Practices: "Operating and Growing in a Down Economy". Missouri-based Golden consults for, and writes about, all professional service firms. And see Holden Oliver's world famous collection at "Optional: Panic, Pessimism & Self-Pity".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2009
Optional: Panic, Pessimism & Self-Pity
The other "E", in his studio, goofing on us.
Redux: So, tell me again, what do we do now?
Bad stock performances lately. More road rage, as even mellow car-centric Californians lose their tempers. And dog kicking, we hear, is way up in the Midwest, where until now "Appropriate" had served as Mantra, Law and Religion since early 1900s. There are also reports that, in the last 3 or 4 days, people in Boston and NYC are one (1) degree meaner than usual, i.e., bordering on criminally insane. Even the resourceful, lyrical, way-smart "E", domicile unknown, exists in a celestial malaise.
So again we summon the Masters of Professional Service Firms for guidance in the The Way-Down Global Economy. Some advice, with great related links, from people who think about this stuff all the time (so you don't have to). They were thinking about it all along. 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)
Bruce MacEwen: "Costs & Revenues: Health Check Time" (9/5/08)
The prescient Larry Bodine: "Get Ready for the Coming Recession" (8/26/07)
Jennifer E. King: "Marketing Your Firm’s Legal Services During an Economic Decline" (2008 LexisNexis white paper)
And finally, Chicago trial-lawyer, thinker and value architect Patrick J. Lamb: Read Anything Pat writes these days.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
The China instability hype.
Dan Harris at China Law Blog explains Why China Will Remain Stable. "I am getting so tired of the media litany that an economic downturn in China essentially guarantees political instability."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Massey Coal due process-recusal case argued.
Fourteenth Amendment--Due Process Clause--Popularly Elected Judges--$3 Million Campaign Contributions--Overturned $50 Million Verdicts--That Recusal Thing. Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company, Inc. (08-22) was argued before the Supreme Court yesterday. We're on pins, needles and West Virgina wheedles. Via Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS Blog the transcript is here.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2009
Pretrial stage management: The Art of Creep Control.
See Anne Reed's "Looks Can Kill" and our past post "To jurors, do your trial associates and paralegals seem like creeps?*"
Let's face it. Lots of people in law firms, and some of their witnesses at trial, look like stone "creeps". Many of us in the profession are not attractive to begin with--and some of us seem shifty just reading names out of a phone book. A lot of younger lawyers--young males especially, for reasons which are hard to know--seem like hateful, vindictive, sneaky and rat-faced twerps and cretins every second you look at them. They can't help it. Worse, they don't know even know it. No one will tell them (I will, and have, though.)
Juries pick up on and see all of this. Over the period of a two or three week trial, they will miss nothing about anyone at his or her worst. So (a) don't be a creep, (b) don't bring creeps with you, and (c) if you must have creeps as witnesses or help, dress them up and instruct them on how to "un-creep" themselves.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
March 02, 2009
Red City, Morroco
At Maryam's playful My Marrakesh, a frequent muse. Sanctuary for suits, acquirers and men never home by 6:15. Hafeza, sorry, it's so late, but please can we finally dance?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)