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August 30, 2012

Burning Man Festival 2012: Day 4.

The festival began in earnest in 1986 with about ten people on San Francisco's Baker Beach. The idea was, in part, to observe and celebrate the summer solstice with an evening bonfire. The event grew quickly and moved to the desert in 1990. Burning Man Festival is now an eagerly-awaited 8-day gathering, romp, art show, living experiment of "radical inclusion" and alternate reality held and experienced each year in Back Rock Desert, Nevada. Interestingly, and to the festival's great credit, each of the 50,000 gushing aficionados and devoted tribesman who do regularly attend describe it a bit differently. This year (August 27 through September 3) our firm is honored, amused and a tad horrified that the entire board of directors of one of our few start-up clients--they are grads of fancy B-schools back East but dress year-round like extras from "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"--are shilling a few ideas of their own at 2012 Burning Man. Good luck, guys.

Posted by JD Hull at 02:49 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2012

And why not?

We love China and, of course, Chinese culture, one of the oldest in the the world: literature, philosophy, music, visual arts, martial arts and cuisine. We, too, covet Yang Le Le, the versatile model and actress.

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

August 27, 2012

In the Movies, and in Real Life, the Chinese are now buying up American assets at a record pace.

The figure is about $8 billion so far this year, mainly in energy, aviation, and entertainment. The previous "record" for Chinese buying was the spree of 2007, totaling roughly $7 billion. See, e.g., in the LA Times "China eagerly buying up American assets", in the Financial Times (via CNN) "Chinese acquisitions in U.S. near record", and the new Warner Bros. fictionalized account of the misfortunes of North Carolina's 14th Congressional District in The Campaign, with Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis and half our mainstream media, all playing themselves.

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

The Trinities: Why "Threes"--with siblings, kids, dogs, cats, women, neighbors, co-workers--are always the most Instructive.

1. Just one (1) is one creature alone.

2. Two (2) means #1 has a Friend or Ally.

3. Three? Three (3) is Politics. And it is politics in its most basic, primal, emotional, methodical, swing-voting, fickle, devious, productive, infinite, uplifting and interesting form.

But dogs and cats are just as much fun to watch--and a lot easier than humans. A lot more.

The Trinity on "Dogmatic Sarcophagus", c. 350 AD, Vatican.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2012

Canadians Get Client Service. Yanks & Brits Go Through Motions.

Clients don't care that you're smart--or that you're nice. So if you're stymied about what Client Service really is, see the Canadian Bar Association's Practice Link and particularly "Client Relations: Creating Loyalty in Your Best Clients", by Susan Van Dyke. Susan's piece cites a Quebec-based study which found

personality (29%), proactivity (18%), and work management skills (16%) were the top three attributes respondents valued. It also found an “irreversible shift of legal services toward an advisory approach,” supported with the following respondent comment:

“Clients are better informed and more demanding. When faced with equal ability, they will opt for a better understanding of their business situation and thoughtful proactivity based on innovative ideas. They are looking for a partner who is ready to get involved in their success, with whom they can develop business solutions. They do not want to deal with the moods of their outside counsel."

One senior corporate counsel interviewed in the study said:

We want to feel they [outside firms] are interested in our business. We are not an interesting legal case. We want a partner to find business solutions along with us.

Comely Ms. Canada: She still rules Western Client Service models.

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

August 25, 2012

Heiresses: And Talented, Too.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Louis-Dreyfus Group, France.

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

August 24, 2012

What I Am Reading When I Should Be Working: London, The Novel, By Edward Rutherfurd.

2,075 years of greatest commercial hub in history.
Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1998. 830 pages.

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

August 20, 2012

Obey-DC-Henry Rollins.

To celebrate D.C. native Henry Rollins and his 50th birthday last year, Obey--Shepard Fairey's empire--created and released two Obey-esque limited edition renderings of Rollins for sale. Here's one of them.

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

August 17, 2012

Redux: Special Projects Groups for Expertise-Imprisoned Firms: Quarterbacks, Point Guards, Project Managers. These are your New Lead Dogs.

Increasing Complexity, Ambiguity and Multi-Practice Issues: The Need for One "Special Projects Group" in Every Larger Law Firm.

No matter what larger corporate law firms want to think, with five or six exceptions--e.g., think perhaps Baker, Kirkland, Skadden, Covington, Williams & Connolly, Boies Schiller--most GCs and CEOs have enormous problems distinguishing one large firm (i.e., 250 lawyers or more) from another. Clients are beginning to see peer law firms as generic. An SPG, done the right way, might make the right law firm stand out--and even do much better work.

Like others, we've written on several occasions and with different twists about the "silos" mentality of law firms in America and Britain serving higher-end corporate clients. And we do think--well, we simply know--that right now is the time for every one of the largest 250 Western law firms to develop, establish, carefully maintain and market to clients one strong Special Projects Group:

No, get over yourselves. If you are a larger firm, the entire operation will never be one SPG. It is our smaller firm's idea--based on the way we've delivered services to clients for over 15 years--and it has three parts. 1. Control whenever you can the kind of clients you serve long-term by researching and targeting only solid companies with savvy management and sophisticated general counsel. Choose your clients. 2. No matter how the work comes to you, be nimble: do the work better, faster and cheaper--but without reducing your “rack” hourly rates. In the end, deliver Value. 3. Operate on the assumption that many projects fall immediately into several practice areas and or even areas which have “no name.” Advise, transact and litigate that way.

Parts 2 and 3 of the idea address a problem Julie McGuire (from an in-house culture) and I (from a larger law firm culture) keep seeing repeatedly over the last 15 years. Many law firms that service large and publicly-trade companies take a fragmented approach to working for clients (as well as to prospecting for them). Lawyers in one specialty can’t or won’t spot issues that should get the attention of lawyers in different specialties that the great client really needs. Rather than being “full service,” the law firm is relegated to “an aggregation of narrow views” (a Carolyn Elefant term). The best clients and law firms on earth suffer from this problem. Some lawyers think of this as the competing “silos” mentality.

Walt Frazier, the best defensive point guard ever.

One possible solution is for larger firms is to (a) formally establish and (b) actively brand a special projects group (SPG). The SPG would be led by two or three lawyers who would be most likely to recognize the need for multi-specialty approaches to novel, complex engagements. They are full-time roving Quarterbacks--or Project Managers. The managers build a different team for each complex project and of course draw upon, whenever possible, lawyers from their own firm. But no law firm has the best of everything; good clients now know this. So SPG managers could in special cases go outside the firm to retain talent from another law or professional services firm.

Think of it as “unbundling” or freeing talent from sources outside the firm. In any case, work by an SPG--the law firm equivalent of special forces--would be done aggressively, quickly and at premium (i.e., higher) lawyer rates or equivalents.

Better Expertise. Apparently, no American or British law firm has yet established an SPG. But other large service companies have. For example, Turner Construction ($8 billion/5,000 employees) has a Special Projects Division with branches in several of its offices dedicated to lucrative but smaller-scale and higher-end design projects. The Division hand picks a different team for each project. Some construction industry folks regard Turner’s Special Project Division as operational and marketing brilliance.

Better Market Profile. Apart from delivering better services, an SPG can help differentiate a law firm from its competitors. No matter what large firm lawyers think, with five or six exceptions (e.g., Baker, Kirkland, Skadden, Covington, Williams & Connolly, Boies Schiller), most GCs and CEOs have enormous problems distinguishing one "large" firm (i.e., 250 lawyers or more) from another. Clients are beginning to see them as generic. An SPG, done the right way, might make the right law firm stand out.

Julie E. McGuire, Visionary.

[Updated 8-17-12]

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

August 14, 2012

Amiens: France has its challenges, too.

It sounds almost American. Go to the reporting at BBC and NBC about ongoing rioting in the northern and racially-mixed city of Amiens. It was apparently triggered by a police stop of a local driver. France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls was jostled and jeered yesterday during a visit. And the new national French leadership has vowed to show its stuff and restore order. From NBC:

Tensions remain high in many French suburbs, where poor job prospects, racial discrimination, a widespread sense of alienation from mainstream society and perceived hostile policing have periodically touched off violence.

Weeks of rioting in 2005, the worst urban unrest in France in 40 years, led to the imposition of a state of emergency by the then center-right government. Incidents involving police provoked disturbances in 2007 and 2010.

The repeat bouts of violence have provoked agonized debate over the state of the grim housing estates that ring many French cities and the integration of millions of poor whites, blacks and North African immigrants into mainstream society.

Amiens earlier today. (Photo: Guillaume Clement/EPA)

Posted by JD Hull at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2012

You gotta love the British press at the Olympics: "A raucous pageant of popular culture".

When did America's Fourth Estate last use "raucous" in a headline? Ah, but Britain, she really did deliver, didn't she? See The Guardian's artful swan song for London's two week-long moment: "London 2012: This closing ceremony was a raucous pageant of popular culture." Excerpt from the piece by Richard Williams:

Jessie J, Tinie Tempah and Taio Cruz performed from moving Rolls-Royce convertibles, like an extended advert for the best of British bling, while Russell Brand sang I Am the Walrus from a psychedelic bus that metamorphosed into a giant transparent octopus from which Fatboy Slim delivered a short DJ set. When the Spice Girls sang from the top of black cabs, the Olympics seemed to have turned into the Motor Show.

Last of all, after the speeches, Rio de Janeiro's preview of 2016 and the extinguishing of Thomas Heatherwick's cauldron, came the surviving members of the Who, closing the Games with the adrenaline shot of My Generation, although the real anthem of London 2012 had undoubtedly been David Bowie's Heroes.

There was no message, and nor did there need to be, except "Wasn't it fun?" and "Aren't we great?" But Damien Hirst's tie-dyed rendering of the union flag, filling the ground on which the world's finest athletes had run and jumped and thrown their way into history, reminded those suspicious of raucous patriotism of how great the union flag suddenly looked when it was ripped out of the hands of the extreme right and wrapped around the shoulders of Jessica Ennis or Mo Farah.

The Pet Shop Boys get down, as it were. (Photo: Julien Behal/PA)

Posted by JD Hull at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2012

Gutsy, Superfluous--or just Awkward? Obama weighs in on BSA rearticulation of policy banning gays.

We'll call it all three--but it's certainly leadership. Well done, sir. As my fellow Eagle Scouts debate whether to give up their awards, President Obama, via spokesman Shin Inouye, appears to condemn BSA's stance banning gay members and leaders (both NBC stories by Miranda Leitsinger), the policy BSA clarified and, in effect, re-announced three weeks ago. Kudos to once-outlier and now-player The Washington Blade, which broke the story. And there is some awkwardness here. The Blade also notes that in a "follow-up email, Inouye said Obama won’t resign or relinquish his position as honorary president of the Boy Scouts as result of this position."

Posted by JD Hull at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

August 07, 2012

Hooters: Personally, I don't like to watch. But apparently there's a nice market for it.

I hope Hooters, the restaurant chain, makes it.

I've only been to a Hooters once, and I can't see its appeal. (Note: At the one a friend took me to in Pittsburgh several years ago the women who worked there hardly rocked my world; they were a tad portly and I would never have flirted with any of them on an airplane or at a party.) I think anything interesting and fun in this world--sex, sports, working, practicing law and life generally--is exciting and valuable to me only if I can participate in it directly or (at a minimum) learn something from it so that I can participate later. So Watching Anything has not cut it for me much. I watch little TV. I don't think strip joints are sexy. And I think porn, in the main, is sad. I love sports, too. I would just rather play them than watch them. There are quite a few athletic things--team sports or solitary--you can do your whole life.

But I loved reading (a form of watching, in this case) a few years back about the reaction my local community had to successful plans to start a Hooters here up on a hill near Interstate 15. Many of the transplanted Midwesterners in San Diego County (that is a big part of the population here) often hate things like Hooters, medical marijuana and anything that might smack of New York, LA, urban multi-culturalism or the often "distasteful" side of commmerce, marketing or the First Amendment. While my own Midwest-based family is a culturally liberal tribe of mainly moderate Republicans, I grew up with and do still like the more reactionary Heartland folks--but they often blow tubes over stuff like Hooters. And it's comical. I am entertained. They generally lose those battles. That, folks, is something I will watch.

Meanwhile, Hooters, the restaurant chain, obviously has been onto something all along--even while I don't get it. It is reevaluating things. See in Time "Hooters’ Big Experiment: New Menu, New Decor and a New Target Audience".

Hooters Plans for The Future.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2012

Paris: Autolib'.

At the always-fetching Paris and Beyond, the creation of Genie, an American expat from Alabama, see "Quai aux Fleurs - Autolib". Genie's photo to the short post is below. Autolib' is a new electric car sharing service in Paris. By the end of this year, Autolib' will have 3,000 all-electric Bolloré Bluecars at about 1,000 parking-charging stations in the city. To learn more about how it works, click here.

Photo: Paris and Beyond

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2012

AU Mediation: Sudan will move South Sudan's oil.

Struck under an African Union mediation, and announced today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the deal reportedly covers transportation, processing and transit of landlocked South Sudan's 350,000-thousand-barrel-a-day oil production through Sudan's pipelines at $9.48/barrel for a term of three-and-a-half years. Some hotly-contested border issues, however, will need to be resolved first. Until South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year, the two countries shared for the most part a unified oil industry. NBC: "South Sudan strikes deal with Sudan to export oil through pipelines".

(Jenny Vaughan/AFP - Getty Images)

AU mediator Thabo Mbeki in Addis Ababa today.

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

NYT: Uganda's disappointing--and expensive--reversal on AIDS progress.

See in Thursday's New York Times "In Uganda, an AIDS Success Story Comes Undone". It begins:

KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s sharp reduction of its AIDS rate has long been hailed as a Cinderella success story, inspiring a wave of aid programs and public health strategies to fight the disease across the developing world.

But as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here on Thursday, the news on AIDS in Uganda was not so bright: A new American-financed survey says that Uganda is one of only two African countries, along with Chad, where AIDS rates are on the rise.

The reversal is particularly disappointing to health experts given the time and attention that have been focused on AIDS here, and the billions of dollars spent.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2012

The Oversoul on Crack: Burning Man is August 27 to September 3. Peace, Love, Absurdity, Art.

Burning Man Festival, September 2, 2011: Black Rock Desert, Nevada (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2012

Pippa Middleton Puts the Big Hurt on Chanel Designer Karl Lagerfeld's Vision.

According to the New York Daily News, and several other sources, the head designer at Chanel doesn't like Pippa Middleton's face. See Karl Lagerfeld blasts Pippa Middleton: 'She should only show her back'. That's not the point here, Karl. We don't care about Pippa Middleton's face. She has other attributes which make us very happy to be alive.

A star is born.

Posted by JD Hull at 04:35 AM | Comments (0)