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February 28, 2018
Millennials. Don’t you just love ‘em?
Every time a GenY employee is sacked I get stirrings.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2018
On The Twitters Today...
Good Morning, American Comrade Workers.
America has been in business 229 years.
What specific Ideas are we allowed to discuss today?
What specific Words are we permitted to use?
Who has The List?
Posted by JD Hull at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2018
No. 513 of Things Long Divorced Slightly Amoral American Lawyers Know.
513. If you're the praying sort, all prayers are good enough. No prayer is imperfect.
--Holden Oliver, 1987
Posted by JD Hull at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
Redux: Southern District: “Slick Lawyer Answers to Lazy Lawyer Interrogatories”
"The Lawyers", circa 1855, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879)
Our new associate. Nice guy, smart guy, and I really liked him--I still do. I always make it a point to take his cab whenever I'm in Flint.
Written discovery practice shouldn't be a joke. Not that long ago, in Manhattan's fabled Southern District, a fed-up federal judge, throwing up his hands during arguments by lawyers on a motion to compel discovery responses, referred to certain answers to interrogatories in the dispute as "slick lawyer answers to lazy lawyer interrogatories".
We do feel his pain. Feel free to color this all quite silly, and annoying, if you want--but we love and respect written discovery during the pretrial process in American federal courts.
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 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 Rob Bodine at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2018
#FreeSpeechFriday
My Twitter post this morning and most Friday morinings for the last year:
Good morning American-European comrade workers.
It’s #FreeSpeechFriday.
Today?
Today you won’t be needing (a) an approved Cultural Script or (b) a Politically-Correct Word List for any of your Speech & Ideas.
Have fun with the King’s English.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2018
My Post-Parkland Advice on Gun Regulation.
Whenever I have a business or personal problem I can’t solve? I run it by emotional high school students who hate the President.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2018
The Weird Turn Pro, Jack.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2018
Bloodlines.
Everyone wants to be descended from European Royalty. My ancestors from The British Isles, Germany and Denmark ran naked through the woods chanting and screaming. Freaked out Romans. Not Royalty. But handy in a fight.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2018
Ides of February: Trump Year 2.
It’s 2-15-18.
America has been in business for 229 years. Since 1789.
Which Free Speech & Expression are we allowed to use today?
Who has The List?
Posted by JD Hull at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2018
Samuel Hazo: Poet, Novelist, Playwright. A Man in Full.
Poet-dramatist-novelist, gift of America's Industrial Heartland, always a man in full. Pittsburgh's Sam Hazo writes simple, thoughtful and pregnant prose.
This Part of the World, by Pittsburgh's Samuel Hazo.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2018
Bob Jellison.
Happy Birthday today to Naval aviator, Vietnam war combat pilot, publisher, Democratic Party activist and my good friend @bob_jellison in San Diego. Thank you for your service, Bob. Thank you for always thinking on your own.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2018
‘Til you burn up, Campers. Gene Dwyer’s “She Walks On Gilded Splinters"
New Orleans-based Gene Dwyer is a gifted writer who deserves to be a household name. From Dwyer's website:
Marie Laveau of New Orleans is recognized as one of the most influential women of 19th Century North America. The life and legend of this Voodoo Priestess has been clouded in mystery. Her followers in the American South witnessed her supernatural powers of healing and casting spells prior to the Civil War and then during Reconstruction. Her legend, including her immortality, is even stronger and more complex. Thousands come to her New Orleans mausoleum every year to ask favors and pay homage.
"She Walks On Gilded Splinters" is the never before told story of the life and legend of Marie Laveau. Explore 16th Century Africa and New Orleans. with a riveting opening chapter in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, a watershed day in the American Civil Rights movement. The novel is a unique, intricate murder mystery following retribution for the sins of past generations set against the history and consequences of the slave trade.
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Posted by JD Hull at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)