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January 28, 2009
The Economy: Mr. Obama goes to Capitol Hill.
In The Hill, see "Praise for Obama, Not Votes".
In the Senate, the new president was peppered with questions about the proposal [economic stimulus package], with GOP senators pressing him to reconsider the package’s $825 billion price tag and to keep the stimulus focused on the housing and financial markets. Obama was also asked to consider helping the housing market with the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
The subject that won't die: alternative fees.
And you can't ignore it. Thought leaders like Ron Baker, Pat Lamb, Tom Kane and now law firm leaders won't let the topic go way. See, for example, Kane's "Now Is The Time To Consider Alternative Fees". Because of its flexibility in the hands of client-centric lawyers, WAC? still likes the Billable Hour--even though many (if not most) lawyers abuse it out the wazoo. The problem, as we see it, is not the Timesheet, and it never was. Law is now both a trust-based profession and a business. No single system can make that built-in conflict go away. Only individual client-lawyer relationships can. We support any system that aligns as closely as possible the interests of clients and outside counsel. Hourly billing can do that. Alternative fees--value-based, hybrids, whatever you devise--can do it, too. Hey, we're still listening.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)
John Hoyer Updike (1932-2009)
That something-is-missing in the suburbs was one of his great themes, and no one did that better. Although I liked his Bech character (and alter-ego) the best, the Rabbit books made him famous. None of us growing up in the 1960s and 1970s wanted to end up like Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the reluctant small town family man who made choices in life that hardened around him quickly. Updike won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice, both for "Rabbit" books. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who for decades has done great work covering other writers, has this article in the New York Times, via the International Herald Tribune.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)