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March 30, 2010
Slackoisie Dream Killer #1
Contrary to what anyone will tell you, clients are not particularly concerned with your personal happiness, free time and relaxation.
Nor is any other kind of customer or buyer of products or services. See Scott Greenfield's "Love the One You're With" inspired by Mark Britton's "Law is a Jealous Mistress" and Britton's longer piece on communication at Law.com.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2010
ADR Risings
For lawyers, depositions are like CAT Scans. It seems you can never be faulted for doing one too many.
If we can ever get international arbitration and mediation away from litigators like me, and over to the true "resolvers", it may work as it was intended, and as many GCs still want it to work. In the meantime, do read "Changes In Legal Practice And The Use Of ADR" by Richard Webb at his Healthcare Neutral ADR. Excerpts:
Since entering the ADR field, I have wondered about the inherent conflict between the interests of the lawyer engaged on an hourly fee basis and the interests of the client in achieving the most economically efficient result.
Most lawyers operating in the traditional legal model are like most doctors practicing in a traditional, healthcare setting with fully insured patients. When a patient presents with a complaint, the doctor deploys whatever resources are at his or her disposal to diagnose and cure the problem.
Whether it is consultations with specialists, diagnostic tests and procedures, medications, surgeries or other therapies, the limits of modern medicine are the only constraint. For lawyers, depositions are like CAT Scans. It seems you can never be faulted for doing one too many.
Rich Webb of Healthcare Neutral, LLC
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2010
Goodland, Florida: 'You got a problem with that?'
Half the adult population in this tiny town is said to be "non-voting". Lots of old--but extremely fast--boats.
No pretense, not much Internet (a good thing), but no real problems, either. No money (bad thing)--but so what, Mister? People here could very well have it all. Home of the buzzard lope, Goodland is a living caricature of working people with too much personality, powerful appetites, and Flowers on Mama's Grave back in the Ozarks.
I feel like I know these people; in my case, Scots-Irish DNA is hard to beat down with just an education. However, three years ago, Holden Oliver, one of our writers, and then a snooty New England-bred law student at Stanford, refused to finish his dinner at one of the local bars here. It wasn't the food. The Mayflower crowd could never grock Goodland.
Buzzard Lope people
Anyway, about 300 souls. Half the adult population in this tiny town is said to be "non-voting" due to drug transport-related convictions. Lots of old--but extremely fast--boats. Trial lawyers like NYC's Scott Greenfield get the picture. If Scott mails me some of his cards, I will pass them out at Stan's or The Little Bar.
Goodland is also very, well, white--but more fun and certainly less sterile than Naples or Marco. This is a gritty Key West for the Gulf's gold coast.
It's fun. The most button-down clients insist on going to dinner here--just like they insist on a quick trip to Mexico for lobster in Puerto Nuevo or near Calafia when they are in San Diego.
Goodland is a fine place to write sonnets, briefs, novels, letters, settlement contracts, short stories, articles, limericks, Dear Jane letters and marginal haiku.
The people here make even most Australians seem a bit uptight and sober.
"Hey, you guys from Connecticut or something?"
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2010
The Atlantic: Health care reform passage as "a tainted victory".
Sunday's vote was "landmark", sure. So is each Hell's Angels' Labor Day Picnic. But it's not over, even procedurally, and so far it hasn't been pretty: the way the bill got passed says more about us as a divided, enraged and mean-spirited people than it does about how far we've come on health care in America. Maybe the best single take right now is Clive Crook's piece this morning for The Atlantic entitled "A Tainted Victory". Excerpts:
It is absurd that getting the Senate bill through the House should have been such a struggle.
[Scott] Brown won in Massachusetts for a reason. The Democrats had failed to make their case for this reform to the American public. They pressed the case for some sort of reform, but that was easy: the country was already there.
What the country dislikes is this particular bill, and the Democrats, intent on arguing among themselves, barely even tried to change its mind.
People struggle to understand how extending health insurance to 32 million Americans, at a cost of a trillion dollars over ten years, can be a deficit-reducing measure.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2010
"Settlement Perspectives": Why not ask the GC?
Blog posts. Even when they come from the better law and business sites, most of them--about 99 percent, frankly--aren't going to change your work, your life, or even your day. We're all busy. We search quickly and expectantly for that 1 percent. When we find one, and digest it, we hope it sticks.
Here's a gem we would like to have worked up and written ourselves: "Toward Better Client Service: A Few Questions for Outside Counsel " at John DeGroote's Settlement Perspectives. The in-house counsel/GC questions come from P.H. Glatfelter's General Counsel Thom Jackson. Whether or not you agree with the dozen questions Jackson and DeGroote outlined, or whether they precisely fit your firm's business model, these, at a minimum, serve as a very fine first draft. Bravo.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
March 16, 2010
Real Winter: He makes a blind man see.
Put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it out on Highway 61.--R. Zimmerman
John Dawson Winter III, b. Beaumont, Texas (1944- ). Note to "no guts no gospel" weenies born after 1965: Johnny Winter is a straight-up Boomer Hero. 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.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
Play Time on the Internet is over. Wanted: A few good rules.
Certainly, if he were real, Ned Beatty's character Bobby in the movie adaptation of the James Dickey novel Deliverance would be permitted to write in the blogosphere using a pseudonym. "Chattooga River Cutie", maybe. Those not in Club Ned? Real name, please. Time to man up. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
Life and Work are both supposed to be Fun and Meaningful. We can still get both. And if everyone wants to be a "junior journalist" on the World Wide Web, that's fine, too. Pretend away, Justin. Knock yourself out. But you need a few rules.
You need a few good, and intuitive, Internet rules for lawyers, non-lawyers, business people, academics, middle managers, CEOs, bloggers, commenters, students, sales people, Pulitzer winners, Fulbright scholars, store clerks, your Mom, Gen-this/Gen-that, your demented Uncle Seamus, and the 70-year-old guy across the street with strong views about Sarah Palin, Wall Street and the Cubs.
You can't, of course, legislate rules, and enforce them, for the Internet. You can, however, demand of yourself and others--in your own spheres and "virtual communities"--a bit of fair play, credibility and stepping-up:
1. Tell people who you are. Your real identity. Demand that others do the same. Virtual sandboxes are fun for everyone. Make them a separate zone(s), maybe. But anonymity should not be the norm. Exceptions, e.g.: CIA undercover operatives; Cuban, Iranian, Chinese dissidents; abused housewives; serious risk-takers, productive radicals and genuinely-deserving victims.*
2. Be accurate. You just gave us your name. So try to get it right. Work at your content. Don't waste our time--or yours--by lobbing one in there.
3. Be willing to take a hit. Again, you just gave us your name. You're without armor--we are proud of you. Now step up and take the pain, if you are challenged, criticized or even called a worthless cretin. That's the freight you pay. Respond if you want. But you have nothing to be ashamed of.
And, finally, our suggestion on anonymous "challengers". Ignore them. They are rarely worth your time or respect.
That's about all the rules you need.
*E.g., Not okay: Law students, associates or practicing senior lawyers with delusions that they were Federalist Papers authors in a previous life. Okay: Foul-mouthed mega-talented members of Lincoln's Inn with radical free-speech agendas; some residents of Utah; and certain men from Georgia or Tennessee writing about fishing, hunting or camping trips with their buds on the ill-fated weekends that have gone awry.
Anonymity: Keep The Club small.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2010
Big Moxie in Greensboro: Kyle Singler.
Want a job, Kyle? Call us. Let's talk. From The Chronicle, Duke's daily: "Singler’s dive into stands, solid shooting lead Duke to title".
Ian Soileau, Duke Chronicle
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2010
UPDATED: CPR's Interview of Richard Susskind: "The End of Lawyers?"
If you haven't read him yet, you've probably heard of Richard Susskind, of Susskind's latest book--or at least of the idea that looms in its title that might even keep you from buying and reading it. Last month, in-house lawyer Mike McIlwrath, in a two-part discussion on February 19th and February 26, interviewed Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers? - Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. Rather than angst, what emerged was a fountain of ideas and opportunities for lawyers who serve higher-end clients.
And technology--if in the hands of seasoned corporate lawyers--will be a major facilitator.
As clients and the profession continue to change before our eyes, only a few have made it a full-time job to think through the fallout and discuss solutions. Susskind is a expert in legal technology who, in the mid-1980s, studied and obtained a post-graduate degree in computers and law. In the next 25 years, he wrote, lectured, and authored two other books, as well as countless columns on law for The Times of London.
Much of his work concerns the effects technology is having on corporate law practice globally. A popular speaker these days, Susskind teaches in Glasgow and London and, since 1998, has been IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England.
"More for less" as the new regime. Susskind has long predicted IT-driven changes in the relationships between in-house departments and firms. How work will get done, and paid for, Susskind has argued, is about to change, radically and in the long term. Moreover, those changes, while threatening at first, are likely to make lawyering more enjoyable--or at least more fun for the handful of us drones who actually liked it in the first place.
Richard Susskind
McIlwrath, who interviews Susskind, is host of the International Dispute Negotiation series sponsored by the CPR Institute--short for the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. He is Senior Counsel-Litigation, GE Oil & Gas, and works out of Florence, Italy. In 2008, the IDN series earned both McIlwrath (pictured above) and New York-based CPR Institute an award for ADR excellence from CEDR, a dispute resolution group in London.
Don't miss hearing these--divided into Efficiency Strategy (IDN No. 85) and Collaboration Strategy (IDN No. 86). A main theme of this blog--how legal services can be delivered, and not just how they are paid for--runs through the two Susskind-McIlwrath discussions.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
March 12, 2010
China Business: The Rules.
If you are walking into a meeting preparing for a heated pissing contest why bother? There are no deals of the century in China, no deal has to be done today, and there are options.
--Richard Brubaker
For pros, clients, and the unwashed. Seattle's Dan Harris has located "The Rules" over at Rich Brubaker's Shanghai-based All Roads Lead To China. Our three--make that four--favorites with Harris's commentary:
3. Have lines (moral and economic) that cannot be moved. This is a great one and one that I too often have seen violated. In fact, I met with someone just the other day who told me that he had left China after building up a successful business there when he realized that what he was doing to keep it up had turned him into someone he did not want to be.
4. Understand the motivating factors of the parties sitting across the table. Stop negotiating and begin collaborating. "If you are walking into a meeting preparing for a heated pissing contest why bother? There are no deals of the century in China, no deal has to be done today, and there are options." Right on all counts.
7. If something goes wrong, look internally first. "It is not always the supplier's fault or a nationalistic regulation. When things fail it is typically no more than the byproduct of a failed process or system. Identify that, work with it, and move on." .... I cannot tell you how many times companies have come to me after having failed to abide by a Chinese law and seeking my confirmation that the Chinese law they violated was stupid. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of China's laws make sense, but whether they are sensible or not, it is sensible for you to know what they are and to follow them.
and
2. Develop a high tolerance for pain. Yup.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2010
Patrick Lamb: Get used to it, Jack.
It's time to step back and re-think things when a hardworking optimistic trial lawyer and innovator like Pat Lamb writes this: "The "good old days" are not coming back". Quoting a Hildebrandt report he links to:
We enter 2010 with little prospect of a robust recovery and with mounting evidence that the profession is entering an era in which the fundamental economics of legal practice are likely to be significantly different.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2010
Read it, brush yourself off, get to work.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2010
Canadian Bar Association: Serious about clients.
Keeping good clients, getting new ones, making new ones "stick". These are on everyone's mind these days. For all 4.5 years this blog has been up and running, the Canadian Bar Association's PracticeLink on "Client Services" has been--hands down--the best bar organization site out there on client service. CBA apparently sees CS as a way of lawyer life. "A full-time activity" is the expression used. PracticeLink is well thought-out, packed with the best resources, and far beyond the usual lawyer lip service on Client Service.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Hermann the German: Casting a Cold Eye.
"The Germanic work ethic is a hilarious myth."
Apparently, it's not just Yanks. The work ethic is suffering globally during The Recession. In "Here people work until they are 67?", Hermann, our long time Berlin-based stringer, reports a new drama across the Atlantic.
In the wake of a recent meeting between German and Greek officials on the issue of Greece's mounting debt problems, a German tabloid is telling Greeks to work harder (get “a more Germanic work ethic”). To avoid financial crisis, Greeks must rise earlier and work harder, the newspaper gently suggests, in an open letter to the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou.
Well, Hermann's not buying any of it. Nonetheless, we know that Germans on occasion are overcome by motivation and resolve.
Sacco di Roma - 455, Karl Briullov, Russian (1799–1852)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Idealawg: Can anyone fix Gen Y's quick-fix chip?
Lest we begin to hear the awful roars of manager-wielded chainsaws in the white collar workplace. Seriously, for a sober moment, like about five minutes, let's resist the burning urge to vent about the time, money and resources spent recruiting, training and keeping smart young workers and students whose idea of excellence is showing up by 9:00 AM and breathing on their own for eight hours.
First, know that it's everyone's--or no one's--fault. But it's still a mind-numbing problem, i.e., employees who can't work, and don't even know it. Many employers in the West never expected this to happen--any more than they believed they would be abducted one evening by the Crop Circle People and taken to the planet Zangor.
Second, and seriously, this time, take a look at Stephanie West Allen's post at her Idealawg entitled. "Are Gen Y kids harder to teach? Are Gen Y employees harder to manage?". She highlights one part of the puzzle being discussed by John Dunford, a prominent British educator, who has suggested that English children currently in secondary school are "harder to teach" because they are so oriented to the Internet and television that success in school "cannot come fast enough". In short, they require instant gratification.
Here are some excerpts from a speech Dunford made this past weekend that appeared in yesterday's Daily Mail (which Stephanie links to along with another article about Dunford):
Children are increasingly reluctant to put real effort into their studies because they expect success to be instant.
The attitude has apparently spread to A-level classes, where few teenagers read books other than those produced for the syllabus which tell them exactly what they need to know--and nothing more.
Research shows that young people spend an average of 1.7 hours per day online, 1.5 hours on games consoles and 2.7 hours watching TV, Dr Dunford added.
'They live in a celebrity-dominated society where success appears to come instantly and without any real effort,' he said. 'It is difficult for teachers to compete. Success in learning just doesn't come fast enough.'
Dr Dunford went on to call for reforms to exams to encourage youngsters to work independently.
'To engage the impatient young people of generation Y, something more is needed.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
March 08, 2010
The Dude finally abides.
Bravo, Mr. Bridges. A win for the real-life opposite of The Slackoisie--or The Anti-Slackoisie. See The Los Angeles Times. We are not always right at this blog--it's strikes and gutters, man. But here's a strike for huntin' dogs at the Oscars. "His Jeffness". That does sound good.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2010
Will someone please give Jeff Bridges his Oscar now?
Real heroes. For his performance in Crazy Heart--and because he has worked his ass off over the years to be excellent again and again.
A reserved and classy human and family man in real life, Bridges has been an artist's artist since his Duane Jackson days in The Last Picture Show. A rangy and compelling actor. Most critics have admired and liked him since 1971--but over the years no one could figure out why he wasn't opening movies. We'd wager that things in his world are about to change.
In Crazy Heart, Bridges plays "Bad" Blake, an eccentric but truly authentic bad-ass cowboy Alpha male who finally grows up--but at a price (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The movie tells a fine and believable story--with a happy ending sans the goofy Hollywood slam dunk. Bridge's character, like his acting career, is a study in grit, growth, and great victories in later life. At 60, Bridges is famous and respected but now may start being a serious commercial player.
The Dude's ship just came in. We may have to call him "His Jeffness".
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Posted by JD Hull at 02:28 AM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2010
The Religion of Hell's Kitchen.
Jacob Riis photo of Bandits' Roost (1890)
Above: Hell's Kitchen, NYC, before it got cute. The work, images and outcry of Riis were all famous at the time. So was this photograph. Next door to Times Square, Hell's Kitchen always seems worlds away. It keeps changing but stays famous: from Irish and German immigrant sub-city to gangland neighborhood to actors' quarter to, these days, more of a yuppie heaven.
But it's still authentic. Real estate brokers years ago came up with the new labels of Clinton and Midtown West--but it did not work. Those handles will never replace the real name. Older neighborhoods, like older people, have personalities--they are feisty as Hell. And they have spirit. If you are in Manhattan some weekend, stroll around there on a Sunday morning early.
The whole 'hood is a Religion, just like the rest of New York City.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
ChatRoulette. Chat hags. Come again?
We have questions. If 87% of players are male, could this be one of those "confused young men" things? Like a post-modern digital Village People community? And the players have names like Chadwick, Raphael, and Little Sammy? Do people somehow sit in circles? Is there a competition? Are Ritz crackers involved? Can you really get nexted if you went to Duke?
Another thing. Kash Hill, a new ChatRoulette player, is a Vision. A babe. A total Betty. What's in it for her? What's she doing with all these, well, losers? Do they have Chat Hags in Manhattan?
Look, if you must play ChatRoulette, please check in first with Kashmir Hill, and read "A weekend of ChatRoulette (Or: I play ChatRoulette so you don’t have to)" at her blog, The Not-So Private Parts. Excerpt:
I lost my ChatRoulette virginity on Friday night. After drinks at Burp Castle in the East Village and a big bowl of ginger-scallion noodles and fatty pork buns at Momofuku’s noodle bar, I came home full and not yet ready for bed. So I decided to give the site — that I had already written about — a try.
I donned red over-sized, goofy sunglasses with stars on them. Both because the site of first impressions rewards gimmicks to start conversations, and because I wanted to browse incognito. Even knowing I would be paired with anonymous strangers, I felt slightly uneasy and the glasses provided protection.
A Contributor and blogger at True/Slant,
Hill is also an Editor at Above the Law.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
A constant barrage of small but powerful ads.
It's the difference between achieving a robust corporate law practice and getting a job scraping barnacles off your ex-partner's new yacht. If you are working, you are marketing. See "Rule Six: When You Work, You Are Marketing" from our annoying-but-correct 12 Rules. Every moment your 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--it transmits a small but powerful message.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2010
London Stone -- Part II
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
And some talented.
All heiresses are beautiful.
--John Dryden (1631-1700)
Dylan Lauren (1974- ) (Rabbani & Solimene)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)