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June 30, 2016

Free State of Jones

I saw "Free State of Jones" last night. First-rate if not perfect movie. History as it was and is. No demons. No angels. No political scripts followed--or moral hysterics indulged in. No liberals or conservatives. Just humans under enormous pressures, and stretched for the better by real life. Well done.

Newton Knight

Posted by JD Hull at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2016

Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748 -1830)

Posted by JD Hull at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2016

Dude, where's my ABA?

From a comment I made on line yesterday but I thought important enough to put here. Both the American Bar Association and its journal have been a big disappointment. I was once proud of my membership. My law firm once paid for everyone's. It was a given. And there was the excellent "Litigation" magazine out of Texas. I have kept every issue and still read if. But now there is no sane reason to be an ABA member. The remaining reason for membership are the specialty practice groups, many of which are excellent. Those, however, can be and often are already replicated through the hundreds of smaller, competing and often more personally satisfying and more expert local, state, national, international and trans-border lawyer groups which have sprouted up in English-speaking and non-English-speaking jurisdictions in the last 25 years. Even Martindale-Hubbell remains more useful and relevant to day-to-day practice. My enthusiastic alternative suggestion is join the London-based IBA, which will have its annual meeting this year in the US (DC) in September.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2016

Brexit!

Old Blighty voted yesterday to leave the EU. About 52 to 48% spread with 72% of population voting. Scotland and London voted to stay. Wales and northern England voted to leave. My take? Britain is unforgivably selfish for rejecting (1) Collectivism, (2) Mediocrity and (3) Extreme Militant Gene Pool Dilution.

Posted by JD Hull at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2016

Before The Great Neutering: Free Speech Word of the Week is "Stewardess" or "Stew"

Before the Great Neutering, flight attendants were women known as "stewardesses" or "stews". Generally they were young, energetic, attractive and in good physical shape. Not big enough to have their own zip codes. They were kind. And smart, too. They cared about your safety. You could take one to dinner without having NPR or Anita Hill buzzing about it the next day. They looked you in the eye when they talked. They never said tacky things in bed.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2016

Anyone want to share a foxhole with Speaker Ryan?

Anyone want to share a foxhole with Speaker Ryan? I just read that Paul Ryan will not raise money for Donald Trump.

I'm not voting for Trump. Even though I like him a lot. But can you believe the Smallness and Non-Leadership on Rep. Paul Ryan? I worked for the Congress twice. Once for a Senate D. Once for a House R. I get Ryan needs to keep the GOP majority in tact. Part of his job. 434 other House members are up for reelection. But this is unusual. A tardy and lukewarm endorsement? Not aiding the presumptive GOP POTUS candidate & standard-bearer to raise $?

Is it unprecedented? I really don't know. Just wow.

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

June 19, 2016

Quit Apologizing, Don Trump. Right Now? Profiling is Very OK.

My Facebook post morning accompanying the "breaking" Washington Examiner piece Trump:'I hate the concept of profiling,' but we 'have to do it'.

Happy Father's Day. Hate to intrude on it. But this is important no matter what day it is. No one should be apologizing right now for racial profiling. In my view, we are at war. Now. Time for difficult short-term (hopefully) policies and measures. Racial Profiling is Way-OK. It's not right wing; it's not left wing. It's basic survival. We should be aggressive about doing it. Rights suffer in wartime. We at war. Trump should not be apologizing for racial profiling. HRC either. Time to wake up. What more evidence do you need, Campers?

Posted by JD Hull at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2016

On Bullying.

"'Bullying' is natural. Real human beings have Bullying in them. Worry about Bullying only if you don't."

- Holden Oliver, Kitzbuhel, Winter 2015

Posted by JD Hull at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2016

Congratulations, HRC.

You can always tell the winners at the starting gate.

Posted by JD Hull at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2016

Music Before the Great Neutering: MC5, July 19, 1970 Detroit.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2016

Third-Wave Feminism's Sad Swan Song.

An interesting thing about the Backlash Against Feminism? It's fueled by ex-Feminist men like me. Even more interesting? Most Feminists and Social Justice Warriors don't seem to know the backlash is happening. Strange. They must wrongly assume that everyone badly wants the Feminist/SJW forced moral evolution. Because it's somehow "Good".

Germaine Greer in 2013. My kind of Feminist.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2016

Southern District Parable: Slick Lawyer Answers to Lazy Lawyer Interrogatories.

"The Lawyers", 1855, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879)

Written discovery practice shouldn't be a joke. But as business trial lawyers, litigators and in-house counsel know, it is a joke too much of the time. Not that many years ago, in Manhattan's fabled Southern District, a fed-up federal judge had had enough. He threw up his hands during arguments on a motion to compel and referred to answers to interrogatories by one of the two lawyers before him as "slick lawyer answers to lazy lawyer interrogatories".

A wonderful expression. But we do feel his pain. At this blog, we do love, admire and respect written discovery during the pretrial process in American federal courts. If both efficient and creative--and it should be both--written discovery is a way to shorten (not lengthen or extend) the generally unpredictable, expensive discovery process, and get ready for trial on issues that really belong in the case.

In our firm, for a brief period of time, a fundamentally talented second year associate with the makings of a very good trial lawyer worked in our Pittsburgh office, after having spent one year at another firm. One day, he complained to me that we were putting too much thought and effort into a set of interrogatories under Rule 33, Fed. R. Civ. P. So naturally I listened very carefully.

The new hire very patiently, calmly and slowly--so I could digest a great truth he'd discovered--explained to me that the exercise of serving interrogatories and other written discovery upon counsel for plaintiff was a "routine" and primarily "a way for lawyers to bill time so they could make money".

Nothing more, he said. He was certain and even adamant about it, too. Nice guy, smart guy, and I really liked him--I still do. Shortly after that conversation, he left our firm. Did he quit or get fired? It does not matter. But it was a very good development for our clients and us when he left.

Complex and hard-fought civil cases really do turn in large measure on the quality and honesty of the discovery questions and requests, including deposition questions, and the responses to them. And well-thought out and strategically-timed written discovery is the best way there is to prepare great depositions--and get ready for trial.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)