What About Paris?™

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September 30, 2009

An American deadline in Paris?

Law is no longer local--and neither is the apparatus for doing it.

The court. A colleague. A crisp clerk named Zoe at the hotel. Face-to-face beats all other modes of getting points across. And you can't pick a jury over the phone in the SDNY from Cardiff, Brussels or Prague. But in most U.S. courts you can file documents electronically from anywhere. Three issues: (1) staying organized, (2) managing jet-lag, and (3) the quality of the tech infrastructure once you get there--real challenges for clients and lawyers who know that travel is rarely that smooth, pretty or glamorous. "No. 'Eze impossible, Mr. Hool, you must wait for our technician Mr. Pare who comes back in the morning. Yes? Try new business center. And no--no page 3 of fax for you. Have very nice evening. Goodbye for now. Yes? Of course my pleasure." For fun, see Ile St Louis: U.S. litigation conducted from Left Bank.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

Gare d'Orsay

Taken of the former famous train station, now a famous museum, on January 9, 2008 by Eric at ParisDailyPhoto. Called Photo of the Year in 2008 by The Paris Blog.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2009

Great targeted clients aren't that into you. Show you're good at what you do. And get a plan.

Fred, where'd you buy those dandy two-toned golf shoes? May mosey on down to BassPro this weekend and get a pair myself. Having lunch at the Boom Boom Club, playing golf in Scotland, attending services at the Church of the Final Thunder, religiously following Ball State sports, or even spending three idyllic weeks a year in Tuscany with your most prized targeted client or GC and his wife/mistress means zilch unless (1) you are really good at what you do, (2) you can show that meaningfully, (3) and you have a plan to move the ball toward landing business.

Don't get me wrong; that GC you seek likes and even trusts you.

But so what? Landing the business of great companies takes more than being in the same clubs and running in the same circles. Are you and yours really that good at what you do? Can you distinguish your firm from other firms? Why should the in-house hire you?

"Advances". One more thing. Please understand that the client not only needs a reason based on merit; once you "qualify", he/she must have your firm "present to mind". On the subject of moving the ball once you start getting noticed, read Jim Hassett's "How to increase results by planning sales advances" at his Legal Business Development. In his live presentations and tapes, Jim talks convincingly on the need to "plan advances" while prospecting for new business--and how to do it. We don't tout biz development consultants that much. We made an exception a long time ago with Hassett.

Barney Fife knew the Art of the Hassett Advance. (Paramount)

Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2009

Writing Well: Sources.

The effects of a vigorous genius working upon large materials.

--Samuel Johnson, commenting on the life work of John Dryden (1631-1700), English poet, critic and playwright.

From The Indian Emperour

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

Generation Weenie

Being "just a copy" is outlawed. I just left Los Angeles, where it's tough to offend anyone about anything. Like NYC, LA is not for everyone. No one cares what you think in either city. It's wonderful. My take: both LA and NYC these days make even Chicago seem like an effeminate Alan Alda-land. PC and unoriginal thought are frowned upon in America's two most important cities. LA and NYC tend to look down on Weenies. If you live somewhere else, try not to be a Weenie.

Frankly, I've been running into a lot of Weenies these days--from cultural liberals who keep surrounding themselves with no one but like-minded people, to religious educated white collars too afraid or too lazy to think anymore on their own, to "professionals" who always reserve the right to do third-rate work. They have this in common: they are highly emotional about keeping to their low aspirations and narrow views of the world.

They've stopped growing--and they are very happy with that, thank you very much. These people have children. It's worrisome.

If you are not sure if you are a Weenie, do see Generation Weenie, for humans "who tend to be insulted, outraged, offended, or traumatized". According to the definition section, you may be one if you: (1) utilize the words offended, outraged, insulted, or traumatized whenever possible, (2) believe nothing is your fault, and you are a victim of circumstance, (3) wear a dorky little ribbon in a half figure eight pattern to signify your solidarity, and (4) sue everybody because you have been wronged.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:10 AM | Comments (2)

September 27, 2009

Real Winter

John Dawson Winter III, b. Beaumont, Texas (1944- ). Note to U.S. generic weenies ("no guts, no gospel") born after 1965: Johnny Winter is a straight-up Boomer Hero. No secret that listening to him could make you tougher. Make you ready to compete. Make you work harder. Make you stop whining. Make you stop settling for mediocre.

Real Winter makes a blind man see.

"...put some bleachers out in the sun/And have it out on Highway 61".

Posted by JD Hull at 12:28 AM | Comments (1)

September 26, 2009

Los Angeles

"Hollywood is the one place in the world where you can die of encouragement." --Dorothy Parker

"I read part of it all of the way through." -Samuel Goldwyn

Posted by JD Hull at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

Books

Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2009

Talk to the China Hand: "China Trademarks--Do You Feel Lucky?"

Read it again. Listen to Dan Harris, no punk, never law cattle, and hands down the most feisty China hand on the planet, at China Law Blog, "Part II: Do You Feel Lucky? Do You?". Seattle-based Harris is a transplanted Hoosier with Moxie--even though he inexplicably sidestepped one-on-one hoops challenges from the undersigned in August 2008, when he was in Seattle. (Speculation: WAC? is older but taller, quicker, meaner, has better jump shot, and shoots with either hand.) But outside of basketball, Dan's the Greater China business king. Talk to the old China hand in a post from last year we love.

"Well, do you, punk?" (Warner Bros.)

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

Posted by JD Hull at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2009

Pittsburgh: Lord, Take Me Downtown.

I'm just looking for a way to get into work. The irony of the third G-20 summit? Despite the worldwide plug Pittsburgh is getting, the summit short-term is bad for business in Pittsburgh. For a couple of days, anyway. This proud and enduring old steel town built modern America and much of the world. It has a bustling downtown area built on a narrow concrete peninsula, with fine corporate lawyers, tech start-up employees, bankers and Fortune 500 execs housed in gorgeous buildings, often older gilded age stock built at the turn of the last century. It also has a local economy that peaked circa 1946.

And Pittsburghers? Well, they all want back in the game. Based on the past two decades of admirable re-thinking and reinvention, they will likely get there. Although both geographically and culturally isolated, Western Pennsylvania remains a storied region of characters and character. These are tough and determined people. But right this minute the City is effectively shut down for business. Due to security concerns, today and tomorrow, you can't get down to, ahem, the US Steel Tower to contribute to the restoration of our faltering global economy. Are at least the bars in Southside open?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2009

Wanted: One Huntin' Dog.

Buy Boomer. Nothing beats having a Boomer in your office when it's time to get things done. We're loyal, irreverent, and fun. You get energy, hustle, charm, and a nearly overwhelming sense of cultural identity. Hardworking. Generation Moxie. Do-or-die. You want something done? Done right? Then Buy Boomer. Consider going straight to the top, for the best, and work from there:

HELP WANTED: Of counsel for growing and energetic Pittsburgh-based boutique business law firm with publicly-traded clients to die for. Candidate 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 preferred but not required. Same for participation in Renaissance weekends, and fund-raising. United Nations experience also a big plus. You don’t need to re-locate. Happy to set up the office for you. Wherever you want. Harlem or Chappaqua, New York are okay. Or DC. You decide. You can work out of your house. Whatever. NOTE: No previous private law practice experience necessary. Not a problem–no problem at all. Excellent benefits package.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)

Reviewing E-mail: Are you lawyering or typing?

E-mailing "just because" is Bad Craziness--and you might start seeing those bats. Or worse. (Art: R. Steadman)

I remember when I first got e-mail, back in the mid-1990s. I would rush home with great anticipation and dial in my 4800-baud modem and I would have four messages from four very good friends. Now I get up in the morning and go to my computer and have sixty-four messages, and the anticipation I once felt has been replaced by dread.

--Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, in Afterword to 2002 edition, 274 (Little, Brown & Co.)

The truth: most U.S. lawyers just can't write. When they write, they "talk to themselves" like mental patients do rocking back and forth. Except they're muttering "I'm special I'm special I'm special". And typing it themselves? Even more problems.

--What About Clients? in past posts

And is either one of them working for you? E-mail is an overhyped, misused tool. And so are you and I if either of us use it without thinking. I receive about 120-150 non-spam e-mails a day. I write about one third that many, most as replies. Usually short ones. They are often soulless, and easy to misunderstand, even when I try to be precise. Unless I am scheduling when and where to meet someone, I am not sure that I see the point of it anymore.

The e-mails I get back are often worse than the ones I write.

The truth: most U.S. lawyers can't write. When we write, we "talk to ourselvess"--like mental patients do rocking back and forth. Typing it themselves makes all that more of a problem.

My rule, lately: If I spend more than two hours total a day facing a computer screen, I think of that day as a Failure. My job is to think, brainstorm, plan, organize, write, persuade and solve problems. If I spend more than a total of two hours being my own (and third) administrative assistant--and that includes both productive "thinking" and email-returning "non-thinking" typing--I am just another new Insular Robot Worker-Human.

Forget about being One with the Cosmos; I am barely One with the Zip Code, the Suburb, or the Office Building. Even in my office, with people around, I am an Electronic Island With Cool Toys. Alone. Cut off. Isolated. In reality, and ironically, I am not communicative at all. Ah, good morning fellow dumb-downed robots.

You have a good idea? About the firm, or solving a problem for a client? If you e-mail me about it, you have become insane. Whether you are down the hall, or 2000 miles away, you have lost it. Okay, e-mail me once. Yes, writing helps put your thoughts in order. Sure, get my attention. Then call me. Or meet with me. We can make your idea better while we are talking--and do that quicker. Get the juices flowing.

Voices and "bodies in the room" are perhaps 100 times faster and better at defining and solving a problem. At least. Add a third human--you will get more. Humans are damn fine machines when plugged into one another.

But, and I repeat: if you e-mail me about a truly great idea, and expect to develop the idea efficiently in an e-mail discourse, you are truly insane. Get the net.

Back to Gladwell, in the second opening quote. As it's been eight years since he wrote the above, and he is even more famous, Gladwell surely gets more than 100 each day. It's a mantra now that communications technologies save time and money, including bucks on brick and mortar rents for business. It's all true, exciting, Yankee innovative-cool and--a word film actor William Hurt uncannily slips into so many of his lines over the years--forever "evolving."

See Me, Feel Me, Call Me. But some of us don't even talk as much to people we see every day at work. We do e-mail. What happened to voices, vibes, faces, bodies, winks, hand gestures, touching another's hand or shoulder impulsively, stares, grins, frowns, hand-written thank you notes, human electricity, NOT-typing, non-virtual joking, yelling, ragging and flirting, occasional confrontation, intimacy and the "god-in-the-room" magic that starts with two breathing humans in one 3-D place? Or at least on the phone?

Folks, the electronic toys we have were supposed to be helping tools--not be the main event. Do we appreciate the way e-mail, search engines and social media (yes, including blogging) often degrade and dumb down the complexity of hard problems in this world? Has all this made us smarter and better? Or are we just lemmings, cattle and sheep--lulled into thinking we must be doing good work if these new tools are so amazing? Is Google--how many impulses, instincts, synapses does the otherwise useful Google Dude have?--more inspiring and useful than the wonderfully fast and storied brain of that lawyer next door?

Has "tech" permitted a large cross-section of previously functional humans to hide from--and never learn and benefit from--the complexity of life and work?

And from each other?

Posted by JD Hull at 04:48 PM | Comments (2)

September 22, 2009

Today in Calais: French police lose it a little.

Stranger and more violent things have happened on the shore facing Kent over the past 2200 years. But illegal immigration is increasingly a big issue in Europe. Relations between official France and the UK have suffered. See the AP story:

CALAIS, France--French police cleared out then bulldozed a squalid, sprawling forest camp near the northern city of Calais on Tuesday, detaining hundreds of illegal migrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain.

French Immigration Minister Eric Besson, who visited the site known as "the jungle," called it a "base camp for human traffickers" and said he would return the rule of law to the northern French coast.

"The law of the jungle cannot last eternally," Besson said. "A state of law must be re-established in Calais." [more]

Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Good question: Why ARE Americans still electing judges?

Are Yanks just dog nuts? Elected judiciary schemes are bad for good business clients and good business lawyers. So can we resinstate a few witchcraft laws? Bring back debtors prisons? Well, why not? And our favorite: Ordeal by Water. We'd like that back, too.

Do see "Choose Judges on Merits", a site by our favorite tortured voice in the wilderness, Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. Not sure what they're paying you guys--but it's not enough. How many years now?

Let's see. Good Crops. Motherhood. The Flag. Healthy Babies. Baby Gets New Shoes. Daddy's Rich. Mama's Good Looking. Barbara Sings "People". A Good Economy. No Elected Judges Ever. Sweetness. Light.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:33 AM | Comments (0)

Real heros: Milan Fashion Week

This month, it may trump American towns as a venue for a meeting.

Posted by Brooke Powell at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2009

Bruges, West Flanders

Been there twice--mainly passing through--but anyone can get a good idea of the look, feel and rhythm of this medieval city in Belgium's West Flanders province just by seeing the movie "In Bruges". Much of it is shot in the Market Square area of Bruges. The film is about two Irish hit men--nice guys for the most part, by lawyer standards--with Ralph Fiennes as their wonderfully foul-mouthed, mean and manic crime boss who rose up from London's storied East End. Imagine a yarn about the Kray twins joined by a younger tortured brother--except that all three are funnier, smarter and often tripped up by guilt.

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

Redux: Martindale-Hubbell: Should we all just say no?

Note: The following is from an August 5, 2008 post. Any new takes on this?

Is a Martindale-Hubbell listing worth it anymore?

We're not unhappy with the M-H ratings process; generally speaking, if done responsibly and without in effect requiring the "purchase" of the rating, a credible if imperfect ratings process for the global legal community makes lots of sense. And M-H accomplished that decades ago.* But, in view of other and newer ways for law firms to have visibility and credibility, the price of listings at M-H is now officially a rip-off. Lots of fine lawyers seem to be complaining about it, at least in private, both in the U.S. and non-U.S. It's not that Martindale hasn't tried. See, for example, at Law.com the piece "Martindale-Hubbell Gets a Makeover" (mentioning Avvo, LawLink and Legal OnRamp, as new alternatives for marketing, networking and lawyer ratings).

*Martindale-Hubbell is no joke. It has a fine, time-honored and even classy reputation, and a history of good work and real utility in the profession. Our firm, Hull McGuire, has actively and earnestly participated in the M-H ratings processes for years; we are happy with the ratings our lawyers received. But, in good times or bad times, the current cost to list firm attorneys for any size firm, with or without multiple offices, is prohibitive and should be resisted on principle given other alternatives. It just isn't worth it. We predict that lawyers will bolt in droves in the next 2 years.

Our humble take: as other ways to locate lawyers emerged, M-H never saw the light fast enough, and didn't successfully change or expand its other services to preempt a backlash. It continued to charge big listing fees that everyone complained about for years. More recently (say, the last 3 years), M-H expenses managed to stay in law firm budgets--but exceeded just about everyone's irritation levels. M-H listings now makes no business sense to anyone sane. Only the embarrassingly lame, gimmicky "Super Lawyer" concept could make Martindale look good these days.

Start the revolution?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)

For all you Druids out there.

And sailors, too. Time to get your "learn" on. Tommorow is the Fall or Autumnal Equinox. Cultures and religions worldwide--and even the U.S. Navy--like to get weird this time of year. Also know as Mabon, Foghar, Alban Elfed, Harvest Home, Second Harvest, Fruit Harvest (esp. SF), and Wine Harvest (Boston). What's Mabon, anyway?

Brit Druids getting down.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

Two years ago at WAC?: "How much time will the Deacon give us for discovery?"

Will someone please send one of the law clerks to the Church of the Final Thunder down the street and Shepardize a passage from the Book of Amos? Chapter 3, Verse 4, Jackson 5. This minute--or I'll sack the lot of you.

No comment needed. Our blog and firm have writers of several different faiths and spiritual persuasions--including one lapsed Episcopal-Belfast Protestant with a taste for religious art. But this news item blew us away two years ago. Click on the two links. Do see "Rule 38". We did not make this up:

Bible-based ADR? This one is from David Lat at wonderfully secular Above The Law. WAC? may either begin drinking or attending services again. Maybe both at once. Rule 38 of the Institute for Christian Conciliation is: "Legal or Scriptural Briefs. The arbitrators may request or consider briefs or position papers that set forth the parties' understandings of the legal, factual, or scriptural issues."

Posted by JD Hull at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2009

Ile St. Louis

Courtyard week in Paris was the last one in August. See Richard Nahem's I Prefer Paris. Richard finally leaves the Marais to enter close-by Ile St. Louis, my adopted neighborhood, and famous for its quality of being a small town at the center of Paris. Yank tourists think Ile St. Louis is about an ice cream shop at its edge near Notre Dame. Not. You can slurp all you want when you're back in Elkhart. You are in Paris, this is your life, and life's short. Please walk around, okay?

Posted by JD Hull at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2009

Real heros: Tom Wolfe

Cuff links, stick pin.
When I step out
I'm gonna do you in.

--Gibbons, Hill and Beard (ZZ Top)

Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr., Prince of New Journalism, and A Man in Full (1931- ). "Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man."

Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

L'Enfant: Build it up on Jenkins Hill.

Law is the ultimate backstage pass. It's the new priesthood.

--John Milton/Satan (Al Pacino), in L’Associé du Diable (1997)

Never merely a technician, a good Washington, D.C. lawyer is a thinker, doer, creator, planner, problem-solver, consiligere and true trusted adviser. And no lover of routine. His or her firm is not just a shop--but a laboratory for new ideas. Not for law cattle practicing cookie-cutter law. You won't meet better lawyers. Or people.

"Aggressive", generally, is a good thing here. "Professionalism" means putting clients first--not wimpy cocktail party civility that is "all about the lawyers" and local bar association.

Lawyers are everywhere here; it's not enough just to be one. No one cares you're lawyer. They ask themselves--and the bolder ones will even ask you directly--this question: how good a lawyer are you really? Pecking order is complex, nuanced and important. Talented and feisty folks choose to move to Washington; they are not "stuck" here, or here by default. The city brims over with energy and personality. A rich library of people with moxie and talent.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:18 PM | Comments (2)

September 16, 2009

Writing: What Drives You?

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.

--W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

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

Does client service mean "being nice" to clients?

Get off your knees. Quit bottom-feeding. Stick with sophisticated users of legal services.

The answer to the question is no. "Being nice" to clients is not the goal or point of client service.

We didn't launch What About Clients? in August 2005 because yours truly is loved by all, and wanted to show you the utility of charm, niceness, or Mr. Rogers-like skills, with those we pitch or represent.

We started it because even the better and higher-end lawyers have remained "lawyer-centric", haven't a clue about what good clients think about, and treat even to-die-for clients like troublesome peasants.

And because, at the time, no one in the global legal or business community, other than Chicago's Patrick Lamb and the Canadian Bar Association, was talking about CS compellingly by (a) actually putting clients first, and (b) explaining just how to do that.

Marrying substantive skills to the Art of Client Service is the way to get and keep good and great clients. Not all clients.

We at WAC? believe we know what CS is: it's thinking about and acting on the obvious client service aspects presented by everything you do for those clients in your services firm (but no one else thinks about), and disciplining everyone around you in your firm to do it with you. You build a service culture from the ground up from which all else flows, right down to that last opinion letter or Rule 12(b)(6) motion your firm wrote, client by client.

Everyone around you must buy into it--or leave, and quickly. Period.

The truth: most clients are not worth the trouble of representing.

Unsophisticated clients are legion, "evil" and hold you back. A client with a real legal problem to be solved--and money in hand to cover your labors--is not enough. A "good client" to my law firm and to this blog is a business, preferably a publicly-traded one, or at least large and experienced enough to be a sophisticated user of legal services. If the would-be client does not have a General Counsel (i.e, at least one in-house counsel), that's almost always a bad sign. We are not as interested.

The prospect of a new client is always an exciting thing. I'm reminded of a piece for his ongoing "Legal Spectator" column in the Washington Lawyer that D.C. trial lawyer Jacob Stein wrote years ago, which captured it: how a new client can thrill you, playing with your imagination, and firing your curiosity. "What's this about? What can we be doing? Who here should work on it?" It is part of the pleasure and joy of lawyering.

But once we at my firm--we represent established businesses--learn that no GC will be involved, we become disappointed. We pass. We would rather spend our time expanding the work for the clients we have--or look for a new one with a solid in-house department after researching that company very carefully. GCs are of much higher quality than when I began practice in the 1980s; these days, they are smarter, more confident, better paid. They (a) give you interesting work, (b) know the value of good legal services (and how hard good lawyers work), and (c) have resources and often very fine ideas. Sticking with them for our firm has been a good rule.

Don't get the wrong idea. Any would-be client who calls your firm--even flaky ones who you don't want to even talk to--should be treated with respect and routed to someone who can help him, her or it. Don't make them think lawyers really are heartless schmucks. And remember, those callers and inquirers are clients (even if just temporarily) the moment they disclose facts about the matter. Your duty at that point is more than just one of good manners, getting them to the right lawyer, and showing some class.

But, for my firm, with exceptions (and not many) a good general rule is: no individuals, no start-ups, no small businesses. Individuals (even rich ones) and start-ups with good ideas are a pathetic pain in the ass 95% of the time. Small businesses, even if they can afford you, are even worse. Be very nice to all three--but avoid them. The Reason: These types of "clients" who come to your firm don't "get" good lawyering. They can't distinguish your firm from the generic, uninspired, cookie-cutter, go-through-the-motions but well-meaning law firm down the street. They don't "get" business generally. Even many business clients don't even "get" the business they are in, and are trying to operate.

This group--both individuals and businesses with money in hand--will only frustrate you. And the group is huge; it accounts for perhaps 95% of all clients everywhere.

I myself was one of these creatures two years ago--at least to the guys who painted my house in California. I didn't know anything about house painting, had no clue about price or quality, and didn't know how to evaluate what was proposed or done for a very long while. (By the way, they did great work, despite my interferences.) I was admittedly ignorant, suspicious, and probably a world class jerk. I asked questions, most of them rudimentary. But I likely frustrated them because I was so dumb. Your corporate law firm that you work in can shoot higher than unsophisticated "punters"--just as the house painters (who also did commercial work for contractors who knew what to look for in a good client) could get way better clients than me.

Client Service is Putting Good Clients First--and never putting up with clients who don't "get it". The biggest mistake (#1) I've made practicing law as a lawyer has been taking on projects for unsophisticated clients who really need help; my heart triumphed over my head. My second biggest mistake? Not firing the "bad" client faster. A "bad" client is a miserable, tortuous hell for you and yours. Bad for morale, bad for business, no fun to represent. Life, folks, is short--and with the right people, even a firm with 5 to 25 lawyers can do 90% of the type of work done by mega-firms (the quality of which seems to keep declining as they grow by diluting their gene-pools), and do it better.

But bad clients (i.e., most clients, even very rich ones) still call. They deserve respect--but they are stone nightmares over time, especially if you do complex corporate things at your shop. But I'll refer them to you. Have fun.

*Getting yourself out of the Yellow Pages and off similar lists is a good way to cut down on "bad" clients.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2009

Hesse jokes with the immortals.

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

--Herman Hesse's version of Goethe, dead, possessed of a superior perspective, and speaking to Harry Haller, in Steppenwolf (1927)

Hesse, 1929 (Photo: Gret Widman)

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

The Economist: Is Atlanticism striking out in Eastern Europe?

For nearly twenty years, ex-communist regions of Europe were high on America. The U.S. had been viewed as an unfailing cheerleader, and consistent source of support, throughout the Cold War. These days, however, Eastern Europe is clearly not as hopeful or as enthusiastic about that political and emotional tie. To learn why, see a piece we almost missed in last week's The Economist, "The Atlantic Alliance is Waning in Europe’s East". Excerpt:

The ascent of Barack Obama has boosted America’s image in most countries, but only modestly in places like Poland and Romania. Among policymakers in the east, the dismay is tangible. In July, 22 senior figures from the region, including Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, wrote a public letter bemoaning the decline in transatlantic ties.

One reason is that the Obama administration is rethinking a planned missile-defence system, which would have placed ten interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, in order to guard against Iranian missile attacks on America and much of Europe. That infuriated Russia, which saw the bases as a blatant push into its front yard. Changing the scheme—probably using seaborne interceptors—risks looking like a climb-down to suit Russian interests.

Bucharest, Romania

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

September 14, 2009

Lawyering: It's a constant barrage of small--but powerful--ads.

Keeping in mind--or not keeping in mind--the germ of our annoying "Rule Six"? It's the difference between achieving a robust higher-end corporate law practice and getting a job scraping barnacles off your ex-partner's new yacht.

Free ones, too. If you are working for a client, you are marketing. See "Rule Six: When You Work, You Are Marketing". Every moment your law firm "works for a client"--it sends the client something, it sends an e-mail, it talks with the client, it does virtually anything for or about that client that the client knows about or should know about--the firm transmits a small but powerful ad. The client notices then and there. From our annoying-but-correct 12 Rules.

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

Got Heart?

In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country. The craving for ethyl alcohol and the opiates has been stronger, in these millions, than the love of God, of home, of children; even of life.... Why should such multitudes of men and women be so ready to sacrifice themselves for a cause so utterly hopeless and in ways so painful and so profoundly humiliating?

--Aldous Huxley, "Drugs That Shape Men's Minds", The Saturday Evening Post, October 18, 1958

Huxley on realigning passions. Heart. Somewhere, deep inside, most humans have Heart. (Hey, if you only get passion for booze and drugs, you can transfer later it to something else...) But our company hasn't seen much Heart in the workplace these days; too many people of all ages seem to have given up on their lives and standards.

"Dumbing it down" is the New Drug.

Everyone these days in all workplaces seems to want "easy"--but things are as hard as they have ever been. There's a Recession goin' on. This is not the time to give up on, or stop demanding, quality.

Now, more than ever, many Americans are just "mailing it in".

We see it in retail clerks, employees of vendors, our own new hires, many consultants, customer and client service, and, increasingly, in the way many law firms just "practice law". In fact, the quality of corporate lawyering, in our view, is at a new and consistent low. (Yes, we're in a position to judge; every work day, we experience law firms from all over North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe.)

What's Next? "Humanizing" Antitrust Litigation? Making Cross-Examinations at Trial Politically Correct? Perhaps, in the Military, "New Age" Special Forces Training to Accomodate the Mr. Rogers Crowd? In the past 15 years or so, efforts to "humanize" education and the workplace--the great Ken Blanchard and Steve Covey and their followers are not the men for this moment, folks--have only made matters worse. Those efforts and overtures now peak at the worst possible time for the West.

In the name of the compassionate treatment of others in school and (especially) the workplace, and appealing to our "better angels" in all spheres of human activity, we have also dumbed down hard things. We have made the challenges of life and work "easier", way less complex, and less jolting, less competitive and "less violent" than they really are.

Yanks are famous for Heart, Achievement and Doing Things Right Under Pressure and in Adverse Situations. Heart. Where is it? Maybe America's detractors were right. Are we now Teletubbies? Did we Yanks lose our Fight and our Mojo?

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

September 13, 2009

One American's Kashmir

This summer WAC?'s peripatetic friend Maryam, a Morocco-based photojournalist at My Marrakesh, visited the legendarily beautiful but long-troubled Kashmir region of India, in India's northwest. She came away with some arresting photos like the one below. See them here.

Posted by JD Hull at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)

Posted by JD Hull at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2009

Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Two Windsor Castle gargolyes

Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2009

Pointe Aux Barques, Michigan

For me, it beats Big Sur and the Austrian Alps. My favorite place in the world, it is desolate in the winter and still beautiful. Not too many people live here year round: about 10, they say, and even that may be a U.S. Census error. No one around. PAB sits on the northern-most point of the Michigan Thumb, between Port Austin and Grindstone City, on Lake Huron. It was built as a resort community for St. Louis and Detroit business people in the mid-1890s.

When I was growing up and we moved about after leaving the DC area--Chicago, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Chicago again, and finally Cincinnati--we spent June and July here no matter where we lived. Had my first "businesses" here (teaching tennis and later a carwash with my brother). This was the only constant place in my childhood. I still dream about the cliffs and the lake and smallmouth bass and our four dogs and my friends. Edgar Guest, the people's poet, a kind of lyrical Will Rogers, owned a cottage on the main still-nameless road. I used to sit on his porch with my first girlfriend, with whom I am still in touch. I've been here in the winter before, when I was in law school; yet being here during any season is hard to describe.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (3)

September 10, 2009

Extreme ambitions suddenly seize Russia.

Maybe master shape-shifting first, Comrades? See Newsweek: "Medvedev's Anti-Alcohol Campaign Tries to Make Russia Sober Up". The idea is to cut the country's per capita intake of booze by 25% by 2012. Seriously, sirs, good luck with this one: a hard problem that is likely beyond cultural.

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

Disraeli on books.

Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

"Dizzy"

Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

Speaking British Well.

The Geordie geezer still chatting up random birds in Stepney? Brits talk funny--but then so do we. See The English-to-American Dictionary.

Posted by Rob Bodine at 07:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2009

Using litigation: Put out the client's lingering fires--permanently. Do that before you respond to the complaint.

Long-term, you're not hired--as outside counsel or a GC--to have a good defense, or a "good case". You are hired to have: (1) no future issue, (2) no investigation (3), no dispute and/or (4) no lawsuit.

The opportunities are endless--for both GCs and outside counsel--and you see them in every dispute filed.

Our former co-writer Holden Oliver wrote a piece in late 2006 we love called "The Art of 'Subsequent Remedial' Advice".

The Point: if you are outside counsel, or even inside counsel, and "do" litigation, you are presented with all manner of improvements and changes a good client can and should make to its operations right away.

Like now.

(The famous Black & Decker Auto Wrench)

Now, before the next order is received, before the next shipment is made, before the next employee termination, before the next disposal of that residual waste from day-to-day operations.

But how many of us--outside counsel, and even GCs in litigation management and oversight--don't say or do anything, or simply put it off, because we think it's not part of our "litigation" job?

Or we think it's a problem we'll mention to the polite transactional and tax lawyers down the hall--the ones the client has used to plan and grow for decades--when and if we get around to it? But we never do take action on it. It becomes a well-meaning "things-to-do" note made in the excitement of the beginning of a fight.

Litigation often hands you the chance to add long-term value immediately--and solve an operations problem before you finish the barest outline of the Answer or Rule 12 Motion.

Examples: Lame or muddy contract language inherited from a predecessor. Confusing or poorly drafted choice of law or ADR provisions, which always seem to get litigated preliminarily in an expensive opening sideshow that delays focus on the merits. Or waste storage or handling methods which "comply"--but just barely--and makes a state or federal agency or private citizen look a little too hard and long at your client's facility next Spring.

My favorite after terms and conditions in contract language is always this: Bad HR practices, or the repeated "un-classy" firing--a termination which is legal but brutal and inartful and will get you sued. You win handily--but fees to obtain summary judgment exceed $100,000.

How handy is that? At what price glory?

Long-term, you're not hired--as outside counsel or a GC--to have a good defense, or a "good case". You are hired to have: (1) no future issue, (2) no investigation (3), no dispute and/or (4) no lawsuit.

The opportunities are endless--for both GCs and outside counsel--and you see them in every dispute filed.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)

Litigation: Two Ways of the Trial Notebook.

Originally posted September 8, 2008 from Amsterdam:

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 a lot like Moby, in different sizes. Two guys who resemble the late Hunter Thompson, only calmer. And tall trilingual Nordic women, many beautiful, none serene today, with serious faces, clutching open cell phones and tiny red laptops.

All prepare for battle this week in the mostly-down markets of the West.

Grasshopper, when you get back to the States, it's trial time again. ADR, with its frequent moments of sanity, is over. Change gears to U.S. courts. For business trials, or non-business trials, bench or jury, see for starters the outlines for Trial Notebooks, either One or Two, at Evan Schaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice. We like the latter, but please mix and match. Utilize your barely-used 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.

(Photo: Warner Bros.)

Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

Out of Germany

The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany; in the rude institutions of those Barbarians we [received] the original principles of our present laws and manners.

--Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter IX (1782)

Posted by JD Hull at 01:59 PM | Comments (1)

September 08, 2009

Depositions: "Stop me before I coach again."

An objection must be stated concisely in a nonargumentative and nonsuggestive manner.

--from Rule 30(c)(2), Fed. R. Civ. P.

Defending lawyers who testify are very bad people. And let he or she without sin cast the first stapler. In defending in a deposition, giving speeches and coaching your witness on the record is "bad" because it may be suggestive of the answer the witness should give. At Evan Shaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice Weblog, see "Depositions: How to Stop Coaching". We could go on and on and on about this--but we'll just be quiet and let you read it. Speaks for itself. Just wanted to get that on the record.

Does this lawyer ever shut up? Must ask Madge and Verna about him at lunch.

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

Remedies: More China Mistress Sex Contract Law.

Chinese courts tend to look much more at the equities of a situation than at the literal meaning of the contract or of the written laws.

Me pay you long time. See China Law Blog and "China Sex, Mistresses, And Improper Payments, And What They Mean For Your China Business Litigation. Part II, The Contracts Do Matter Edition".

Posted by Rob Bodine at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

The 3 best damn podcast shows for business lawyers.

WAC?, and the undersigned especially, is wrong about many things. We would never have predicted that "Podcasts"--or Internet-based radio shows--would have lasted, due to competition with so many other new forms of media, both Net and not-Net. "Build it, and they will come--if they are interested enough", however, seems to be the Law of the Net.

Nor would we have necessarily expected that some of the lawyer podcast "shows" would be so consistently first-rate, and always worth our time to listen. We lawyers are notoriously late to anything novel, excellent and fun. Not so with the Art of the Podcast.

Below without question and in alphabetical order are the best three damn podcasts shows for lawyers, and especially for thinking business attorneys. Each covers or touches on more than lawyering, transactions, and courts and forums around the world; these broadcasts also take on global news, international business, the Net, new IP, and politics. Each has been around a few years, and endured through persistence, quality and continuing improvement:

1. Charon QC's Podcasts, Mike Semple Piggot, London, England.

2. CPR's International Dispute Negotiation series, Mike McIlwrath, GE, Florence, Italy.

3. Lawyer-2-Lawyer, Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi, LegalTalkNetwork, Los Angeles and Boston.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2009

Higher Labours, anyone?

Not the best Labor Day ever--as the world, the U.S., banks, companies, labor markets and even the Work Ethic itself tries to get its Mojo back.

All I can think of today is this:

One summer in the 1970s when I was a union employee at a Keebler's cookie factory in Cincinnati, a union official told me (after my third week there) that I was completing too many heavy skids of cookie boxes each shift, that it was "making the other guys look bad", and that I should do about 7 or 8 fewer skids a day.

Even as an idealistic 19-year-old at Duke, I was shocked. Unions had contributed great and needed things to America a half-century earlier. So what was happening now? No way the union guy could tell me that it was "less valuable" to the company if I did 50 rather than 43 skids a day.

Another summer job at a different kind of factory near Hamilton, Ohio a year later: same experience. It was like there was an effort to dumb all work--and all people working--down to "a sameness". And this theme: "they" (management) versus "us" (employees).

That kind of mentality is not my idea of excellence. It seems to have permeated the non-union and white-collar work force in recent years. My firm doesn't have any solutions--except to keep those employees (which we are beginning to see as educated looters) out of our "shop".

Personally, I still generally vote Democrat. But but sometimes I wonder why. Do Dems still love value? Did they ever?

Shakespeare worked hard--and well, too. Poems. Plays. He even ran theaters.

I am sure that no one sane told him to write less--or write less well:

"Hey Bill, dude, tone it down. Crank them out more slowly. Don't make Christopher Marlowe and rare Ben Jonson look bad. You want them to like you right?"

His play "Loues Labours Loſt" was likely written for early performances before culturally-literate law students and barristers-in-training at the Inns of Court in Legal London. The idea was that the students would appreciate its sophistication and wit--and its value and hard work as part of a new English Renaissance of works in plain old down-and-dirty English, which for centuries had labored in the shadow of French.

Interestingly, the play 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". Work of value.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2009

And the girl in the 100 year old dress is...?

See Maryam's My Marrakesh.

Photos: "Mr. Maryam"

Posted by JD Hull at 08:49 PM | Comments (1)

September 05, 2009

These Days Drink Moxie--And Lots of It.

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye and deny it.

--Garrison Keillor

Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Plan B for recruiting "Grunts"?

The "elite" associates you recruited: Would they fight for your clients? Would they fight for anyone? (Columbia Pictures, 1981)

Uh, "associates", rather. But maybe grunts is the "right" word. Who said their life was ever supposed to be easy? Who without a love and yen for complexity, challenge and hard things in life would ever chose private law practice? Well, many young people are; frankly, the law is "too hard" for them--way too hard--and they are failing.

Not much fight in these humans, either. Not much gospel. Remember: we're not taking about divinity, forestry or hotel management grads. People who attend law schools are signing up for war. And we're often getting Teletubbies on Thorazine.

Don't look to blame law firms or their clients. The demands of practice have not changed very much in the last 30 years. Blame the other "us": parents, and law schools. We are raising and educating Mega-Wimps. And they are miserable in any demanding job.

The Point. Are we recruiting from the "right" schools? Plan A: law review from top schools. Plan B: non-elite law school grads. (Plan C: dirt poor kids from evening divisions who think any work is a great privilege and honor--we'll get there yet, and it's probably the answer.)

Plan B. While you think about it--and we are as we are fascinated by the subject--see this month's issue of American Lawyer magazine, and a piece by Ronit Dinovitzer and Bryant Garth, "Not That Into You". Dinovitzer and Garth find that graduates of lower-tier law schools are more appreciative of their jobs at large law firms, so they start those jobs with the intent to work towards partnership. But graduates of elite law schools are less satisfied with the long hours associated with those jobs, in part because they view them as mere stepping stones towards their actual target positions. Nevertheless, large law firms cling to the policy of preference for the elite graduates. Should they?

Our thanks for the heads up to our coach, spiritual leader, and lawyer's lawyer Ray Ward. They broke the mold on you, sir.

Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2009

P&G's new chief Bob McDonald: On leadership.

The graveyards of leadership are littered with people who have ignored culture.

Bob McDonald, the new CEO of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), which ranks 10th on Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list, recently discussed his leadership philosophy on “Strategy with Passion” on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel. McDonald teaches that, to be successful, one must study and appreciate the client's culture. You can-–and should--hear the interview in this podcast. McDonald joins the discussion at 16:58. If you would like to see his leadership philosophy in print, it’s in the appendix to The Leader’s Compass, 2nd Edition.

Procter & Gamble Co.'s Bob McDonald. He just received a 40% salary raise--up to $1.4 million--when he took over as chief executive last month. Like P&G or not, the company and its home-grown management have a history of profits, stability and genuine class. Just twelve CEOs in a 173 years.

Posted by Rob Bodine at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2009

The Duke Experience

From yesterday's edition of The Chronicle, the enduring and well-regarded Duke student daily:

JUDGE OKS PRESSLER'S SLANDER SUIT

A North Carolina appeals court ruled Tuesday that former men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler can continue with a lawsuit against the University.

Pressler--who signed a settlement in 2007 with the University after he was fired following the false rape allegations in 2006--charges that John Burness, former Duke senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, made slanderous remarks about him after and in violation of the settlement, which included a clause precluding defamatory comments.

[more]

Posted by JD Hull at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Ray Ward: Real lawyers don't worship "forms".

The problem really isn’t with forms themselves. A good set of forms, properly used, can save time and serve as helpful guides.

The problems arise with what contract-drafting guru Ken Adams calls “uncritical regurgitation”—the slavish adherence to poor or obsolete forms.

--Ray Ward, New Orleans, January 29, 2009

Thinking and Writing Well. Back in January, in "The Vampires of Legal Writing", Ray Ward, our erudite friend and appellate lawyer in the Big Easy, noted that over-reliance on forms "tends to perpetuate bad legal writing." Hear, hear. WAC? thinks "forms" for agreements, exhibits, schedules, opinion letters, discovery requests, and just about anything a lawyer devises and writes, are more trouble than they're worth; a doorway to stale thinking, omissions, and mistakes.

Forms are presumptively bad. Forms, unless used the right way, will turn you into just more unhappy American Law Cattle.

If your practice is the least bit challenging, forms just get in the way. They are bad--especially if allowed to become the main event. Clients, of course, and as usual, are the big losers.

See also Ward's "How to Write for the Client": "By eliminating the legalese and communicating like a human being, a lawyer can produce client-centered writing: something primarily for the client; something the client can readily understand."

Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2009

Devil Perfectionism

Tormented GC in South East Asia: "The dweebs. The dweebs."

The downside of Type-A. Perfectionism. A great place to "be from". A wonderful instinct, if controlled. It's also a curse: of eldest children, professionals, knowledge workers, most lawyers, all spouses, your Mom, and the geek classes, or Techwazee.

The horror, the horror. Too much, and you need rehab. Worse, your senior partner will start questioning your judgment. Clients 99% of the time are not paying you to be perfect. They don't want it.

Be excellent--not perfect. See "Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect" in WAC?'s annoying-but-accurate 12 Rules.

(Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

September 01, 2009

Storytelling: Briefs, Juries, Life.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

--Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

Posted by JD Hull at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)