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October 31, 2011
"Turn off the lights & lie on the floor." Halloween, Druids--and Your Kids.
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Are your kids hanging out with Pagans?
Just a suggestion if you forget to buy the candy. Yes, Halloween--also called "Pooky Night" in some parts of Ireland--is really just a faint shadow of ancient seasonal celebrations of the mysteries of the cosmos: life, death, renewal, Keith Richards, Clarence Thomas. Things we see and sense but cannot explain.
In fact, the entire last week of October offers very old harvest and life-death cycle observances with Pagan, Celtic, Roman and even Christian variations. While some cultures commune a bit more seriously with the spirit world this week, U.S. kids of course love it for its costumes and candy. But for many it's just a sign of Fall. John Keats (1795-1821) was taken with the season, too:
1
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom‑friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch‑eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er‑brimmed their clammy cells.
2
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on the granary floor,
Thy hair soft‑lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or, on a half‑reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider‑press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.3
Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too—
While barréd clouds bloom the soft‑dying day,
And touch the stubble‑plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full‑grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge‑crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden‑croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.September 19, 1819
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2011
Phillips Collection in D.C. Right Now: Edgar Degas.
This month through January 8 the Phillips Collection at Dupont Circle features Degas’s Dancers at the Barre which Lily and I had the pleasure of seeing on this cold rainy afternoon in the eclectic and never-disappointing zoo and celebration of life that is Washington, D.C. Degas was student of movement, dance and dancers. He painted over 1,500 works on that theme alone. "Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint" is the first exhibition of Degas’s dancers in D.C. in 25 years.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2011
Help. Been in San Diego 2 weeks straight. Must get back to East Coast soon. Help.
Posted by JD Hull at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2011
London, 1835: Young Disraeli Disses Daniel O'Connell.
Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Parliament, 1835.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2011
Sarah Silverman for Congress: Mixed Marriages.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Kabul: The Innocent's Shining Eye.
Give us that old-time ambition. In case you never worked it out, What About Clients?/What About Paris? is merely about Quality. Values. Old Verities. It's the Enduring Stuff no one nation, religion, community, family, school, employer or profession can pretend to give you.
Maryam, a heroine in our story, is a photojournalist who lives with her family in Marrakech, Morocco. She traveled to Kabul and Herat in January of last year. She has an innocent's shining eye for everyday beauty and courage.
All photos below, and behind the links, are by Maryam and My Marrakesh.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2011
Did you ever have Neil Young's passion? For even 5 minutes?
Posted by JD Hull at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
Working for Clients & Customers: It's Not About You, Dude. Ever.
"Job and His Friends" by Vladimir Borovikovsky, 1810s. We're not conventionally religious but we do admire Job. Some days lawyering you will just have to suck it up. You suffer.
There are bad days. A parent is sick. A child gets stitches. You are coming down with the flu. You learn your girlfriend is cheating on you. In fact both of your girlfriends are cheating on you (and not even with each other).
Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect. Practicing law is getting it right, saying it right and winning--all with a gun to your head. Being "accurate, thorough and timely" are qualities most of us had in the 6th grade, right? Back when everyone told us we were geniuses and destined for great things?
Well, school's out--now it's about real rights, real duties, real money and personal freedom. That's a weight, and it should be.
Suddenly facts are everything--and the actual law less important than you ever imagined. In time you learn to research, think and put things together better and faster. You develop instincts.
You learn there is really no boilerplate and no "cookie-cutter" work. You learn there are no "right answers"--but several approaches and solutions to any problem. You are being asked to pick one. But at first, and maybe for a few years, being accurate, thorough and on time is not easy to do.
"I Have Clients?!" One day, you start to visualize your clients as real companies and real people with real problems. These are your clients--not your parents or professors--and they are all different. You "feel their pain", and it's now yours, too.
Mistakes. If you work with the right mentors and senior people, they will allow you to make mistakes. You need freedom to make mistakes. You'll be reminded, however, not to let those mistakes out of the office. It's a balancing act, a hard one.
Really bad days lately? So sorry. But your problem, Justin. You are expected to be "professional"--no, that is not about being polite and courtly with other lawyers--and put clients first on your worst damn day. And it's going to happen.
A parent is sick. You are coming down with something yourself. Your boyfriend is cheating on you. Both your girlfriends are cheating on you (and maybe with each other). Your teenage kids "hate" you. Or this morning you had to abandon that 12-year-old Honda you had in law school on the 14th Street Bridge.
And minutes before your big afternoon meeting or court appearance, a GC or co-worker calls you with the worst possible development, something unexpected and beyond your control, in a project for your favorite client.
These things will happen. And happen together. You think you're pretty tough. But you sag visibly--like an animal taking a bullet.
And in five minutes, you have to be at your very best. Again, it's not about school. It's no longer about you. You're beaten, beaten completely--and right now you have to get up and fight for someone other than yourself.
You up for this? Because, in our experience, very few of your peers are.
Bucking Up, Using Fear. And while you can't work in a state of constant worry, fear and paralysis, talking yourself into heroics, getting a little paranoid and even embracing a little fear won't hurt you, and may even help. You are being paid both (1) to be accurate, thorough, timely and (2) to just plain "not screw up".
“Thorough” means "anticipating", too. What makes you really good in a few years is being able to "see the future" and spot a ripple effect in a flash. To take a small example, if your client is in an active dispute with the government or on the brink of a full-blown litigation with a competitor, the client's and many of your own letters and e-mails aren't just letters and e-mails.
Whoa, they are potential exhibits, too. They can be used for you or against you. So they need to be written advisedly and clearly so that they advance your position and so that a judge, jury or someone 5 years from now can look at it cold and figure out what's going on. No "talking to yourself" here; think "future unintended consequences" when you think and write.
"But Not Perfect." Not talking about mistakes here. I refer to the paralysis of high standards. I know something about the second part of Rule 10--because I tended to violate it when I was younger. And I still want to.
Finally, note that Perfectionism is the Great Destroyer of Great Young Associates. Don't go there. Don't be so stiff and scared you can't even turn anything in because you want it "perfect" and you keep asking other lawyers and courts for extensions. It's not school, and it's no longer about you. Think instead about Rule 8: Think Like The Client--and Help Control Costs. Balance efficiency with "being perfect", and err on the side of holding down costs. If a client or senior lawyer in your firm wants your work to be "perfect", and for you to charge for it, believe me, they will let you know.
Finally, and I almost forgot: always use the Blue Book/Maroon Book for your citations. No one gets a pass on that one.
"Patient Job" by Gerard Seghers (1591–1651), National Gallery, Prague. Just suck it up.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (1)
October 21, 2011
Now What? With Colonel Gadhafi Gone, what about OPEC production?
See in Forbes "The Death of Gadhafi and the Future of Oil Markets". Excerpts:
Libyan oil production hit 1.559 million barrels of daily production back in 2010, according to OPEC. That was about 2% of global production and 5% of OPEC production. Civil war, though, disrupted flows to the point where in August production averaged 7 barrels a day. Over the third quarter, production averaged 151,000 barrels per day.
While it is hard to estimate the effect of Gadhafi’s death on oil markets, a look at WTI and Brent prices show a marked fall starting about 8 AM in New York, when the news initially surfaced. Markets bounced off their lows and by 2:26 PM, Brent was trading at $108.97 while WTI at $85.13.
Commodity analysts at JPMorgan note that news coming out of Libya in the last 6 weeks, practically all of it positive, suggest “the oil market is discounting a relatively rapid return of at least the first 700,000 barrels per day of production.”
Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2011
Natural Resources: Will Oklahoma "Sell Water to Save Water"?
Water, Drinking and Wastewater Systems, and the Catch-22 for Western states in 2011. We ran across this blog piece in Environmental Protection magazine entitled "Should Legislators Sell Water to Save Water in Oklahoma?" As worn-out water-related infrastructure in many states--from dams and bridges to sewage and drainage systems--continue be underfunded during the recession, we may be seeing more news items like it, especially concerning Western states where water supplies is always an issue. Further, and as the post points out, states like Oklahoma have few happy options. Excerpts:
Oklahoma water leaders are considering various options to not lose the state’s water supply – even mandates ordering the state to sell off water. Sell water to save water is the question. This proposition would make the state money to repair faulty infrastructure, but lose some of the state’s precious natural resources in the process.
In 2011, Oklahoma experienced one of the driest summers since 1921; along with much of the Central United States. The state can’t afford to hustle water to other parts of the nation when it’s already experiencing a water shortage. The potential water buyers would be states experiencing extreme drought, in the same classification as Oklahoma.
Apparently, Oklahoma isn’t the only state that has to face the water shortage reality. Nonetheless, Oklahoma is now stuck in a lose, lose situation with few options. So, should the state implement mandates to sell water to pay for infrastructure repairs that could save water?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Rule 12: Have Fun. If you're a professional, and it's Not Fun, please reevaluate.
Here's how my "boss", an unhappy energetic young Midwesterner, found fun, love, hard work, humility, a little sanity, power, friends and enemies--and kept them all--by practicing law in our nation's capitol. Rule 12 is from the grating but highly correct Rules of Client Service. Anyone can do Rule 12. First, be born good-looking, athletic, and charming into an affluent WASP family that settled here almost four centuries ago. Have family money. Date only twins or actresses who go to Smith. Second, go to school, work hard, make some more money. Third, build your own firm. Fire all but one pessimist. Get a grandiose notion of your targeted client base--and keep them coming back so you don't have to "market". Finally, start up your own "blog", even though you're not at all sure what a "blog" is--but you sure think a "blog" sounds suspiciously show-tunes and at best nerdy and passive-aggressive. Have someone teach you how to "work" the blog. Say anything. Ignite relationship-killing arguments in upstate New York towns you'll never visit; upset inept fellow suits you see every day. Paint older lawyers as Dorks, younger lawyers as Looters. And Do Have Fun.
WAC in 1967 with the Pennington Twins.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2011
"It's over, Muffy. Back to Suffolk. I'll mix the martinis. You pack the good swizzle sticks."
Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You old white people. It is your duty to die.You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats.
--Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets, May 2010
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2011
Law's No Longer Local, Lester: Try a Tennessee Trial Lawyer.
What does it take be a great trial lawyer, anyway?
Nashville's John Day may have the answer. No surprise to us that fellow Midwesterner Day ended up here. Tennessee is the warrior-breeding Volunteer State. It hatches, and attracts, both brawlers and serious students of war. Record numbers of Tennessee men stepped up to fight in the 1812 and Mexican wars. Alvin York, World War I's most decorated American soldier, came from Pall Mall, near the Kentucky border. Like Texas--the only other semi-straight state so far this century--Tennessee is a Real Man's State.
In fact, a recent study by the prestigious Kitzbühel Institute showed that Tennessee male lawyers as an overall group are relatively, well, "masculine" compared to practitioners in other jurisdictions. And Volunteer State guy litigators are far less likely than their counterparts in other American states to: (1) move about the office with a sashay; (2) either talk on phone or type with a lisp (alarmingly on rise these days in "Chicago Land"--this includes Milwaukee and Indianapolis); or (3) wear their Cartier "Halo Scroll" diamond tiaras to work on casual Fridays or Saturday mornings.
Anyway, back to John Day. So John just had to move to Nashville? But hey, no problem. Law is no longer local. Great trial lawyers, litigators, deal people, IP attorneys and pretty anyone in demand works everywhere these days. In 2011, clients are "unbundling" the talent. You find it where it lives. You go get it. Use it. Read either John's fine Day on Torts, or his cover article 3 years ago in the the Tennessee Bar Journal.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2011
Work is Rarely About Workers. It's About Customers, Clients, Buyers, Patients, Consumers.
Let's review, shall we? Where most types of Work are concerned: Clients, Buyers, Customers, Consumers and The Served are First. Companies are Second. Workers (including Management) are Third.
Got that?
It's rarely about The Workers.
Above: Generic Dweebs getting their Customer Thing On.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2011
Hot Legs, Too: The Best Damn Customer Service Blogs & Websites.
Quality Content. Class. "Legs". Solid relationships with customers, clients and buyers are every business's real assets. Great customers are always up for grabs--and they're worth safeguarding 24/7. You do great work for them; they stay.
White collar dweeb-speak calls this a "win-win". We call it "Working". And it's an honor.
You want to make it through good and bad times? Below are blogs, sites and other resources which either are dedicated to or regularly feature useful models, ideas, best practices and tips on effective customer service. Or they talk and write about service like they really do get it--and deeply care about customers, clients and buyers. These sites have endured, too. They have Big Legs.
We owe much to each one of these, many of which were already established when WAC/WAP? started six years ago. Again, we use the term "customer service" broadly here. Certainly we've left out--out of ignorance or inadvertently--some fine sites. So let us know which ones they are.
Since our last update of November 30, 2010 we've added only two sites. Both are by relatively new lawyers: Keith Lee and Eric L. Mayer. Each has a big appetite and matching instinct for the hard Art of the Client:
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Sensitive Litigation Moment: Be There 24/7--or Give Walmart a Shot.
Lord Chief Justice Sir John ("Pompous") Popham, circa 1603
Lawyers aren't special. We're in a service business. We are not royalty. Get used to it. Rule 9: Be There for Clients 24/7. Returning telephone calls promptly and keeping your client "informed" is not client service. Color all that barely adequate. Get a new standard.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2011
Drinking in Marrakech: It Could Make a Blind Man See.
Photos below are by Maryam. You can and should visit her at My Marrakesh. See The Djellabar Bar: Or a Tale of Where to Drink in Marrakech.
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Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2011
Stop talking & writing like a lawyer. It's Pompous & Prissy. Use "people" words instead.
Let's get over ourselves, okay? Doesn't changing legal writing to just clear and simple writing come down to leadership? Setting a better example? Why not buck the traditions 100%--whether it's writing to courts, to clients or to other lawyers--and never use legal jargon again? You know those prissy-pretentious words and phrases expressions, don't you, Wendell? You can do it. Man up. Stop using them. See Writing For Clients--Just Say It.
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Posted by JD Hull at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2011
Here's to you, Self-Esteem Movement: Please stay in your coffin.
When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
--Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911). Dramatist, Librettist, Illustrator.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2011
I've wondered, too: "Why can't flood water get hauled to drought-stricken land?"
Water Transfer Technology, anyone? Clean Streams, anyone? For a year I wrote a bi-monthly column on federal and state clean water issues for a sister publication of the then Texas-based Environmental Protection magazine, in which my firm had published pieces on environmental management, compliance and remediation. Both EP and the compellingly-entitled Water and Wastewater News (in which the column appeared circa 2005-2006) have remained fine caches of news and ideas for environmental pros on clean water, clean air and solid waste issues. So do see this one by Christina Miralla at EP two weeks ago on a common sense subject that requires some daunting economic and technological gymnastics to think about realistically: "Why Can't Flood Water Get Hauled to Drought-Stricken Land?" Me? I've pondered this idea off and on myself since around the time I first got knee-deep in President Nixon's federal Clean Water Act--and as a job requirement had to think generally about anything toxic or non-toxic that moves in, on or over the planet in a "plume". That's just natural, right?
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Mississippi floodwaters in Iowa, 2008.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Steven Paul Jobs (1955-2011)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2011
The Economist on Samsung: "Asia’s new model company".
A new GE or P&G? Maybe so. But we must add a dash of serious if wonderful in-your-face quirk. See "Samsung and its Attractions" in The Economist. Excerpt:
To some, Samsung is the harbinger of a new Asian model of capitalism. It ignores the Western conventional wisdom. It sprawls into dozens of unrelated industries, from microchips to insurance. It is family-controlled and hierarchical, prizes market share over profits and has an opaque and confusing ownership structure.
Yet it is still prodigiously creative, at least in terms of making incremental improvements to other people’s ideas: only IBM earns more patents in America. Having outstripped the Japanese firms it once mimicked, such as Sony, it is rapidly becoming emerging Asia’s version of General Electric, the American conglomerate so beloved of management gurus.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2011
Breaking: Massachusetts bans naming any more male infants "Justin", "Joshua", "Jeremy" or "Brandon".
Governor: "No more poof names." Law goes into effect January 1, 2012. California and New York may follow.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2011
Ile St Louis: Ernest, the French aren't like you and me.
Yes, they have far more class.
--with apologies to the Fitzgerald-Hemingway exchange.
Like their natural enemy, the English, Parisians are wonderful--but neither nation's citizens are openly "friendly". When the English and French encounter Yanks abroad, they just can't get why Americans are so outgoing, or why they would even want to be. Most Americans are openly curious and warm everywhere they go.
Both the English and the French, however, would rather choke to death than ask a question about something they don't know, and they bristle at at the overly-familiar tone they associate with American tourists and businessmen. True, the reserved English are getting better at customer service. But a Parisian retail-level employee is still likely to treat basic customer service as horribly degrading to his or her person-hood: "I know it's my job, I know you aren't like the other Americans, but you are still bothering me, sir."
Despite my own predominately English roots--I've got smaller bits of German, Welsh, Irish and French, and dabs of any of the four can make you hopelessly eccentric and irritating in completely different ways--the French are my still favorite. They are flirtatious and serious, volatile and sturdy, civilized and feral, logical and irrational. But they do teach their children of all social classes that education and being steeped in the best of Western culture is not something like, as Brit author Julian Barnes once suggested in Something to Declare, an optional feature to a car. Art is a necessity, not a luxury. The French are
designed by God to seem as provokingly dissimilar from the British as possible. Catholic, Cartesian, Mediterranean; Machiavellian in politics, Jesuitical in argument, Casanovan in sex; relaxed about pleasure, and treating the arts as central to life, rather than some add-on, like a set of alloy wheels.
So the humanities, ideas and old verities from great men and women now gone are essential for living and enjoying life as a Whole Person. Art isn't just for the rich, the elite or the intellectual. Moreover, the French are not runners and cowards--don't make the mistake of buying into the notion that they shrink from adversity. Throughout most of their history, they've been calculating, competitive, courageous and war-like. They are intelligently patriotic. And they'll beat you with argument, and arms, if they have to. But their real gods are Reason and Art. My sense is that, in the next few decades, the French will manage to save us all from ourselves, as they can be counted on to remind humans of what's important--and who we all really are. Watch them.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2011
The Great Shark Hunt: "When the going gets weird."
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
--"Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl", Rolling Stone #155, February 28, 1974) republished in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (1979) at 49.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)