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May 29, 2011

Doing Duke: John Chambers does Commencement.

Sunday, May 15, 2011. An "R" who admires Bill Clinton. The light bathroom humor worked. Reputed to be a fine fly fisherman, too.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2011

Bat Country: Travel, Work, Rum & Writing.

Booze and cigarettes are essential to good journalism. --Jack Shafer, Slate

During the last Pagan tradition-based Christian drinking season (i.e., Christmas), The Economist's Gulliver at the magazine's Business Travel desk asked: Time for a Tipple? Read it. But don't try some of this stuff at home. And unless you're a pro, don't do any of it alone. Note: In photos below, Messrs. Thompson, a writer, and Acosta, a lawyer, are seen traveling and working circa 1970.

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

May 24, 2011

Those Geniuses You Hired? How's That Working Out For You?

Energy. It's 75 percent of the job. If you haven't got it, just be nice.

--Paul Arden, Saatchi & Saatchi legend, in 2003.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2011

Things to Do In Denver. Like Yesterday.

"Redman" by Peter Toth. 37'. US 34. Loveland, Colorado.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Oliver. D-d-d-d-Dartmouth, Dude.

Holden H. Oliver (1968- ).

Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2011

June 16, 1904.

June 16th will mark the 107th Bloomsday, honoring James Joyce and recreating the events of his novel Ulysses, all of which take place on June 16, 1904 in Dublin. It's celebrated dutifully in Dublin, New York City, Paris and every city, village and hamlet on the planet with pluck, verve, and a spring in its stagger or step.

Joyce and Sylvia Beach at her Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.

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

Rakofsky Bad. Defendant Lawyers, 4th Estate & 1st Amendment Good.

See above for my take on the Rakofsky suit. But let's not foul the nest. JR's been covered. Way too much was written by bloggers on the day of and in the days following his murder case mistrial. Way too much was written when his lawsuit filing broke. Quit piling on. Blogosphere is starting to make Rakofsky as a person look truly interesting--if not brave and good--and make us lawyer-bloggers look Small, Prissy, Idle, Low-Rent & Mean. Not ever the goal of writing about him. Interesting and critical things going on in Middle East, Ireland, U.S. Supreme Court, Spain, Libya, China, Vatican, Utah and Hamilton, Ohio. Maybe do some work for Clients? Law Review article? Read about the Mystery Schools? Get some exercise, maybe? Dwarf-Tossing out of doors? Or indoors? Cross-River Gorilla hunting in Western Africa--but with hand guns? By the way, it's not cool to get sued by anyone--even by a bad actor or a duffer. A good, bad, ugly or even very bad American civil law suit from a defense standpoint is expensive, protracted and tough to shut down. No one ever "wins". Once it happens, you don't talk about it. Once you're served, you don't tell everyone you meet about it. Talking, writing and venting post-suit hits already-raw nerves, fans fires, generates unneeded "evidence", virtually ensures a regime of super-expensive discovery, makes co-defendants turn on each other, and stretches out proceedings and pretrial by-play by months and even years.

Piling On is Low-Rent, Mean-Spirited & Prissy. And Expensive. Move On.

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

Santa Monica Playhouse: Locked and Loaded.

A new play by Todd Susman, extended until June 26. With Paul Linke, Andrew Parks and Terasa Sciortino.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2011

Rapture Music.

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

May 18, 2011

Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 15: Is "Professionalism" a Smokescreen for Bad Lawyering?

Professionalism--like good crops, the flag and motherhood--is indeed hard to criticize. It is also tough to define. Is it always good for clients? Can it even hurt them?

Weenie Alert: It's not about the lawyers anymore. In litigation, and in other contentious projects, does the practice of routinely and without question granting extensions, expanding deadlines, and saying "yes" to an adversary's requests for an accommodation really help clients? Or are such courtesies merely effete and provincial folkways that take the focus off the main event: solving problems for clients as expeditiously as possible? See "Professionalism Revisited: What About the Client?" in San Diego's The Daily Transcript of April 29, 2005. Has anything changed in five years?

Bar association meeting, San Diego. Pick any year.

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

Scott Greenfield: Clients, Bonding & Lawyering.

On the one hand, there's a critical need for trust between lawyer and client. On the other, there's a critical need for detachment. A defendant feels the former.

Over at his celebrated Simple Justice, a Not-For-Weenies venue, do read Scott Greenfield's Too Close For Comfort, preferably before The Rapture obtains.

Above: Greenfield before 2003 industrial accident.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2011

Get Out Of Your Cars And Dance.

Posted by JD Hull at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

Feat Tuesday: I hear you moan, I hear you moan, I hear you moan.

Billy he got so sad, dejected, put on his hat and start to run
Runnin' down the street yellin' at the top of his lungs.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2011

Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 14: Remember arbitration? How was that supposed to work, anyway?

Is there a way to stop feeding the monster? It's clear that both globally and in the U.S., arbitration and "ADR" have defeated the goals of Faster, Cheaper, Better. See, e.g., ABA Journal (April 2010) "International Arbitration Loses Its Grip". Any ideas on how to fix it? We need a system that works for clients--we already know it "works" for outside law firms--in business-to-business disputes. Why not have contract clauses that, regardless of the amount at stake, stipulate to one (1) panelist and require a decision in six (6) months?

Arbitration: Did it get as bad as the disease?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:23 PM | Comments (2)

May 13, 2011

Club Ned Evening Wear: Overheard in Palisades.

"Honey, just wear a black turtleneck--even Ned Beatty looks good in a black turtleneck."

Club Ned: Beatty looks happy and relaxed just days before his first Georgia fishing float-trip to bond with buddies and nature and ending in the small but brain-damaged village of Antry. Seriously, Louisville-born Beatty, 73, is one of America's great talents. Actor's actor. Played a fine Tennessee lawyer in Robert Altman's rule-breaking, genre-crashing "Nashville".

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Friday the 13th: Did You Have a Bad Week?

In old Rome, witches gathered in groups of 12--and a 13th was believed to be the devil. There's also a Norse gods spin on that one. The ancient world also liked executions to take place on Friday. All three are just a tiny sliver of the lore and legend on why Friday the 13th is unlucky in many cultures.

Well, in fact, I did have a bad week.

My co-writer and boss (who really does have a firm employee ID# of 666) was moodier than usual. I ran out of my good Irish whiskey here in the Tyrol by Thursday. Our 2 small children have the flu. And by mistake I threw away a Berlin waitress's phone number on the napkin she gave me. I had no intention of calling the number; however, my wife somehow found the napkin and cross-examined me on it. Expertly. And with feeling.

Today is Friday the 13th. I will not do anything but work. Promise.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

An incomplete person. A negligent citizen. And a drag to have around.

Is the client rep or GC you're going to lunch with a Marshall or Fulbright scholar? Well, do not drag people under 30 along. They think Flaubert is a food, Marx a chain of movie theaters, and Disraeli my second favorite Cream album.

As "bright" and "educated" as they are, the vast majority of the younger hires (Slackoisie, Gen Y, Gen X, Echo Boomers, Looters or whatever we are calling them this week) I've met, known, worked with, or worked against in the last decade--in my firm's shops or in other workplaces--are at best semi-literate. And, yes, semi-literate, the more I think about it, is going a bit too far.

They don't know anything about "The World So Far".

It is not their fault, maybe. I don't care how they got this way. We don't need to probe for reasons or cast blame.

These people just need to change. But me? Nope. I don't need to change to accommodate "them"--any more than I "need" (a) a lobotomy, (b) to watch any reality TV, or (c) to snort solvents and cleaning products.

Newsweek/F. Martin Rami

Put another way, if a toddler climbs up and takes a Big Messy Dump on your dining room table during Easter dinner just before Uncle Harold dips into his pudding, it is not "just different" and therefore deserving of any respect and accommodation. It's also Just Wrong, dude.

White Collar Professional Ignorance--accompanied by Cookie-Cutter Thinking and Cultural Illiteracy--is a progressing American disease. The illness may touch 99 of out 100 new law hires.

Again, I do not need to change. Uncle Harold does not need to change. Neither do the other grossed-out diners.

White Collar Gen Y, in particular, is dumping all over America. The smarter and bolder Slackoisie ones will "change" just to keep up--just as I once needed to re-learn two foreign languages, needed to pass the California bar exam twenty years out of law school, or needed to change my life on a couple of occasions due to my enthusiasms for Scotch and Other People's Womenfolk. But I cannot do it for them.

How do they get "there"? I really don't care how. But it's certainly all out there in front of them. Even if you are young, and are part of the new batch that was never taught to think or lead on its own, you can at least find the tools.

This is America in 2011, Jack. We don't ban books. And you are allowed here to talk about what you learn. Or to disagree with what you've read or heard. Our best educational resources (like books) are mainly either free or cheap.

The ideas: Democracy. What were the Greeks, or Martin Luther, thinking about, anyway? Why do people still talk about them? The world's long transition from an agricultural to industrial economy. Regulating industries. Well, should we? And how much? What did Ralph Nader do? What are the responsibilities (or not) of developed nations' governments. What are the Chinese doing off and on throughout history when no one is looking? The institution of the family has served humans very well. But does marriage make sense anymore? And, just for fun, why is Keith Richards still alive?

Church versus State. You've heard of that one. And the place of organized religion in a world where people who know better will kill--or at least remain very small-minded for their entire life--to support a set of ostensibly harmless and even common sense ideas of an insular Christian or Muslim sect.

What are the Great Books, anyway? How did they change things? If you're a corporate lawyer, do you really need to know anything about a dead guy named Sinclair Lewis?

In the U.S., you can talk to people about these ideas, developments, works, innovators, and authors. You can argue. Recreate the old arguments. Make brand new ones. Whether or not they are established concepts, or institutions, you can challenge them--and have 99.75% odds that no one will throw you in jail. But you need to get the "vocabulary".

Sorry to get "old" on you--but lots of people fought and died all over the world for centuries so you (especially if you're an American) could learn and do all this stuff. And very recently.

We were hoping you'd be a citizen of the world, and maybe be poised to lead a bit, and to do that you need to know something about the history of your new "small" world, this country (Americans tend to isolate themselves so you have to reach way out), and the ideas and events that got everyone this far without literally blowing it all up.

About 30 centuries is what you need to catch up on. The world itself, like America, is actually pretty young. Lots of smart people--both dead and still living--have outlined and distilled a lot of what's happened so far for you. Please find their work. Maybe you can even get started with your favorite search engine.

But I cannot teach anyone on this Earth--or where I work--to have self-respect. Or to appreciate at once both the career value and more critical "quality-of-life" value of an education. Or to prize attaining the hard-won state of "being well-rounded".

I can forget about the expense in hires that do not work out. We'll take that hit. It's always worth it to try. Down through the ages, humans--especially those forged in pain, trauma or struggle--are generally and consistently amazing; they are always worth a gamble. But what comes into my world over and over again in recent years are hardly the Renaissance men and women many people expect of lawyers and young professionals. It's getting worse. No pain, trauma or struggle, of course--all of which could have helped them. No gospel, no gumption, no soul, and no education at all. No book-learning. Or even character-developing.

They are embarrassing, lacking both the vocabulary and bare-bones knowledge of the main threads of Western culture. It's as if they speak "digital" but do not care to learn and speak English. I experienced this last week, and the week before; it will come my way again this week.

Is the GC you're going to lunch with a Marshall, Fulbright or a Rhodes scholar? Do not drag people under 30 along. They think Flaubert is food, Marx a chain of movie theaters, and Disraeli my second favorite Cream album (after "Wheels of Fire").

And knowing these things is more than a social grace. Lawyers analyze and construct arguments. Reading or using, for instance, a legislative history for a bill in Congress or before a state legislature may require background in the American political process and its history, knowledge of past and current American public policy debate, and even appreciation of English and much older (i.e., Roman, Greek, tribal) ideas, traditions, methods and practices. Some examples of the latter are split-sampling in environmental law (English), the notion of popularly electing judges (German tribal and mid-19th century U.S.) and the notion of arbitration (the Ancient World).

Other lawyers and clients--not all, but many--expect younger people to have such knowledge and instincts. Like me.

If you know of any "mutant" exceptions to the syndrome--young lawyers, paralegals, researchers, assistants (I expect everyone in the legal profession to have modicum of cultural sophistication or at least be stretching that way)--have them e-mail me or reach me through the comments (which we won't publish).

Finally, the last chapter--Chapter 6, entitled "No More Culture Warriors"--of The Dumbest Generation (2009), the best-seller by Emory English professor Mark Bauerlein, is the most moving 31 pages I have read about why being steeped in the older and enduring ideas, events and works of the last 2500 years--especially the last 250 years of the American experiment--is required and minimum stuff for educated young people to have deep in their bones, minds and souls.

And so they will never embarrass you at lunch.

I don't agree with everything in Bauerlein's book, but would still have been proud to have written much of it. See these excerpts from Chapter 6:

[I]f you ignore the traditions that ground and ennoble our society, you are an incomplete person and a negligent citizen.

It isn’t funny anymore. The dumbest generation cares little for history books, civic principles, foreign affairs, comparative religions, and serious media and art, and it knows less.

Careening through their formative years, they don’t catch the knowledge bug, and tradition might as well be a foreign word. Other things monopolize their attention—the allure of screen, peer absorption, career goals.

They are latter-day Rip Van Winkles, sleeping through the movements of the culture and events of history, preferring the company of peers to great books and powerful ideas and momentous happenings. From their ranks will emerge few minds knowledgeable and interested enough to study, explain, and dispute the place and meaning of our nation.

(First appeared April 5, 2010)

Posted by JD Hull at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2011

Challenges, twists, prima donnas--and hard work.

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis. --Humphrey Bogart

You think life in law and business is hard? What if all your partners were grandiose, spoiled, drunk, or poised to shoot a wild animal every morning before work? Okay, you say it's a lot like that now. Well, making John Huston's The African Queen was no summer picnic, either. To get a better idea of the kind of talent and guts it takes to make it as a writer or producer in Hollywood, visit Neely Swanson's No Meaner Place: Hollywood writing, ups, downs, more downs, productions, persistence and dreams.

(updated from April 24, 2010 post)

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2011

Redux - Prof. Bruce Antkowiak: "Why Law Schools Must Reform".

Law firms cannot be expected to do 95% of the work of lawyer-building. In that regime, clients suffer the most.

The U.S. Law Degree: As immediately useful as "a Ph.d in Poetry"? Bruce Antkowiak, a storied Pennsylvania defense trial lawyer, ex-DOJ section chief and 1977 Harvard Law grad, is now a full-time law professor at Duquesne University. This op-ed piece, "Law Schools Must Reform", appeared in the January 4, 2011 Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. Antkowiak's article is subtitled: "They need to leave the ivory tower--and teach practical lawyering."

Antkowiak's piece is at once both an important call to arms and, frankly, a modest proposal. In addition to making law firms truly efficient, could we ask law schools to perform even minimally and produce something of value? I.e., What are you folks really accomplishing in those 3 years, anyway? We practitioners don't get it. You are making things not only frustrating--but very very expensive. Clients suffer the most.

Can you help even a little? Step up? Firms will train. But we cannot be expected to do 95% of the work of lawyer-building.

Question: What can schools do to prepare students for the day-to-day world of work and commerce?

Excerpts from Antkowiak:

You would think that law schools would make fundamental changes to their programs in the wake of the job crisis, fearing that law degrees might someday be assessed like a Ph.D. in poetry -- soul-satisfying but potentially impractical. A few have responded dramatically, but most have held fast to the traditional law school model or made superficial changes. Why the resistance?

For many law schools, their institutional identity dictates that they be largely disconnected from the practice of law. This is done (I suppose) in the belief that we "in the academy" will thereby establish ourselves as an intellectual elite worthy of praise for the intricacy of our philosophical analysis.

The crisis in the law job market has not occurred because the world has miraculously become such an inherently just place that lawyers are no longer needed. The cries for justice remain as loud as ever. You can hear them no matter how high your ivory tower may rise.

New Siwash Law Grad: Do Law Schools Keep Getting It Wrong?

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2011

Huxley.

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

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)

May 06, 2011

The Economist: America, bin Laden & killing abroad.

Our take? We are at war; the killing of bin Laden Sunday was a legitimate, straightforward and better-than-usual U.S. military operation. But do see "Assassination: A Messy Business" in yesterday's The Economist. It begins:

Killing quickly in combat, when large numbers of soldiers are fighting according to the laws of war, is sad but legal. Change any of those parameters, and things get tricky. Some lawyers have denounced the killing of Mr bin Laden, unarmed and in his home, as an extra-judicial murder. Others see it as a wholly legitimate military operation.

Every country allows soldiers to use lethal force against a declared enemy in wartime, just as police may, in some circumstances, kill criminals. But America is at war with an organisation, not a country, and though al-Qaeda is not a state it is (by its own account) at war with the United States. Purists argue that the criminal law is the right weapon for defence against terrorists; pragmatists would differ.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (4)

Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 7: The Holy Surprise of Rule 56(d), Fed. R. Civ. P.

Disruptive as Hell: The "early-in-case" Rule 56 motion (note well-dressed Brit GC after taking a bullet here).

(d) When Facts Are Unavailable to the Nonmovant. If a nonmovant shows by affidavit or declaration that, for specified reasons, it cannot present facts essential to justify its opposition, the court may:

(1) defer considering the motion or deny it;
(2) allow time to obtain affidavits or declarations or to take discovery; or
(3) issue any other appropriate order.

If a party opposing the motion shows by affidavit that, for specified reasons, it cannot present facts essential to justify its opposition, the court may:

Another Sensitive Litigation Moment. Trial lawyers know that Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or summary judgment, gives a litigant an opportunity to win on its claims or dispose of the opponent's claims relatively quickly and without trial. Accompanied by sworn affidavits, and most often discovery responses, a Rule 56 motion tries to show that there is no real dispute about key facts and that the movant is entitled to judgment under the law.

If the trial court grants it, the movant wins on those claims.

But what if a summary judgment motion is brought against your client--suddenly and out of the blue--and the local rules (or local folkways and practices) of the district court don't give you much time to develop and prepare an opposition. After all, Rule 56 lets a party who has brought a claim file for summary judgment after 20 days, and defendants can file "at any time".

In contentious, high stakes litigation, a quick summary judgment motion right after the commencement of a lawsuit can be extraordinarily disruptive--no matter how it is resolved by the district court. It will fluster even the most battle-hardened-been-there-seen-that GC or in-house counsel.

And it's an expensive little sideshow, too.

Subdivision (d) of Rule 56, "When Facts Are Unavailable to the Nonmovant", provides a safeguard against premature grants of SJ. Lots of good lawyers seem either to not know about--or to not use--subdivision (d) of Rule 56.

In short, you file your own motion and affidavit--there are weighty sanctions if you misuse the rule, so be careful--stating affidavits by persons with knowledge needed to oppose the motion are "not available", and stating why.

The district court can then (1) deny the request and make you oppose the motion, (2) refuse to grant the motion for SJ OR do what you really want it to do: (3) grant a continuance so that you can develop facts and, better yet, take depositions or conduct other discovery.

Granted, it's a delay-oriented rule, but if used correctly, Rule 56(d) can give you the breathing room and time you need to develop the client's case, and avoid the granting of summary judgment against it.

Note: An ATL reader caught our mistake in failing to recognize the renumbering and rewording of Rule 56(f) to 56(d) by the Advisory Committee. We appreciate it--and the correctly numbered subdivisions should now appear above. The crux of subdivision (f) was carried forward into (d), effective December 1, 2010. Thanks, sir. You are correct if pseudo-anonymous. But we were wrong.

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

May 05, 2011

50 Years of Spaced Out.

Alan Shepard went up on May 5, 1961.

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

Pantheon: Chrissie Hynde.

Midwest-bred rocker Hynde is said to have no fear of anything or anyone. One of the earliest inductees into our Pantheon.

Way to go Ohio: Firestone High School, Akron, Ohio, 1969.

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

May 04, 2011

Cafe de la Mairie, Amour Propre--and Badaude.

If like us you love, and are always missing, Paris, you must too love its waiters--and their "outsize helping of amour propre". Via The Paris Blog do see the short but classic "9 AM, Cafe de la Mairie". It is by Badaude, a writer and artist with a fine window to Paris. And can she draw.

(By Badaude)

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

May 02, 2011

Can-Do Catharsis in America: Bin Laden Killed on Obama Order.

Lafayette Park Flash Mob May 2, 2011. Photo: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Posted by JD Hull at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2011

Redux - Scott Greenfield: Real Rebel. Real Lawyer. Rare Straight-Up Sane.

(From a May 23, 2009 post, "Slackoisie-Fest: Fighting Loserism")

Ben Franklin, Tom Edison and Clarence Darrow root for Greenfield in Doers' Heaven.

--Holden Oliver (2009)

Listen, you creeps, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the filth and the crap. Here is a man who stood up.

--Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver (1976)

Fighting Wankers at Work. Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice rails, too often alone, against The Slackoisie: our Cliff Notes kids, workplace weenies, and new Maynard G. Krebses with a straight-faced argument on the right to be barely adequate at work. This is Gen-Y. You were born after 1978. You demand--with no real bargaining power--that employers buy into "work-life balance". You want a family-life "lifestyle". You call yourself Super-Daddy. Or Concerned Humanist. Or Non-Selfish Sensitive New Age Person. You want The Life--but without The Responsibility.

Some trendy if wimpy U.S. employers are increasingly buying into this. But sometimes "different" is plain bad. Different-ness need not always be accommodated, coddled or worshiped.

Enemy of Looters: Scott Greenfield (photo taken pre-industrial accident)

The truth: you're lazier and more incompetent than WAC?'s old Southern Ohio whiskey-swilling doped-up hound dog "Craps".

Since 1997 at Hull McGuire--the firm for which I co-write this blog, and clerked for last summer--such workers have been referred to openly as the Slackoisie, the 'Slack and (on bad days) "Looters". The firm was alone in its dismay for many years. Then other firms in the U.S. experienced the same problem. No one, it seemed, wanted to talk about it--even as higher-end clients worried increasingly about getting real value from their planners and problem solvers.

But, in Scott Greenfield, last year we finally found a talented and spirited ally. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. He is hero to the quiet legions of builders, planners, inventors and yeoman lawyers who know what problem-solving takes, and what sacrifices are demanded to get things done for clients and customers.

Ben Franklin, Tom Edison and Clarence Darrow root for Greenfield in Doers' Heaven. The Immortals do watch us. They hope that America's shameful, and ill-timed, work-life balance charade will soon die the vampire's death it deserves. Enough is enough, they think; this is not what we Yanks are all about. Get "balance" on your own time, in your own way, or through a less demanding career.

Young lawyers need to learn the tough and hard-learned art of practicing law. Older lawyers need to work hard at teaching them, and serving valued clients.

We serve. Clients and customers are "always"--and they come first. See Scott's "First, You Have To Get The Job". About 30 comments so far.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (4)

Wankfest or Not, It's World History, Jack.

Photo: Clarence House.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)