« October 08, 2006 - October 14, 2006 | Main | October 22, 2006 - October 28, 2006 »
October 21, 2006
The Kid From Brooklyn sounds off on 1st, 14th amendments.
It's here. See his website. Hear his other podcasts. Forget about his language. KFB, or Big Mike, provides a service. He is neither liberal nor conservative. He's just honest, and I wish lawyers all over the world had 1/3 of his courage rather than persisting in hiding behind our cocktail party civility and our prissy, overly-diplomatic facades. KFB may help not only to destroy the epidemic of political correctness--but also prompt lawyers to drop our weasel ways and just say it every once in a while.
Lawyers, as KFB has noted in other posts, need to get over themselves. In America, nearly anyone with a college degree can become a lawyer. And that has happened. Clients and juries are often way smarter than the attorneys involved. Which would be amusing--if it weren't for the fact that most of us aren't even that good at our practice areas, don't care about the profession, and never understood for longer than an hour that clients are the main event. It's all lip service and b.s. Clients and the general public notice it.
All over the world, lawyers have become an insular "club", diminishing in prestige, and with little interest in clients or the public good. The club for many lawyers has become a third-rate bowling alley with watered-down drinks, bad food and a lousy staff. None of us, including the inspiring exceptions, have ever been royalty. Now, it's getting worse. We are quite comfortable with mediocrity in lawyering, a stale and smug provincial culture, and a focus off our clients.
Posted by JD Hull at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
"And a thousand telephones that will not ring..."
That's from Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisted, which Johnny Winter also did--but without that weird police siren. How are GCs really finding firms these days? If your website doesn't hit them right, will that mean no rings? Do they use Google? Carolyn Elefant's new piece at Legal Blog Watch, "Corporate Counsel Using Web Sites and Search Engines to Find Outside Counsel", is fascinating, instructive and loud.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2006
Work-life balance is a dumb-ass issue.
[Note on 3/8/07: Life at the Bar by Julie Brown was a fabulous blog in October and its a fabulous blog now. WAC? just has a different take on the issue.]
There's another good post touching on the "work-life" issue, this one by Julie Brown at Life at the Bar. I'm not an expert, but here's what I know and think about work-life balance for lawyers, especially junior ones:
1. Practicing law is hard and demanding--even for brilliant, diligent and accomplished people. I've said this before. No big deal.
2. If you wanted just a job, you got into the wrong line of work.
3. WLB is "your" problem--not mine. Each one of us creates our own quality of life as we learn to lawyer, keep lawyering and serve clients.
4. If you are a job-hunting student or young lawyer expecting my firm to support a regime of work-life harmony, please try another shop. Your problem. We are happy and well-rounded people who work our asses off. It frightens us and makes us angry that you would ever think practicing law could be easy in the beginning. People twice as smart and as hardworking as you paid huge dues to be able to call himself or herself a "lawyer". Go away.
5. Color me Midwestern. It's privilege to work. It's a privilege to practice law.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2006
Patrick Lamb: Law is a service business.
Like many other corporate lawyers and bloggers, when my friend Chicago trial lawyer Patrick Lamb of In Search Of Perfect Client Service weighs in on an issue, I listen carefully. And being mentioned by Patrick in one of his posts is just a wonderful bonus. See his recent post "Ball And Chain? Key To Freedom?" and his take on how current mobile communication technology (cell phones, Treos, etc.) can serve both (1) clients and (2) "work/life balance". Here are excerpts:
Law is a service business. If you don't want confront the demands created by being in a service business, then find something else to do. But having said that, these mobile [communications] devices allow one to be hiking in the mountains but still accessible for a critical call, as happened to me this summer. Neither my wife nor my kids would have preferred that I be stuck in my office.
Those who complain about having their "off hours" interrupted really are conceding that they would not have been accessible in the first place. Those who put clients in second place are going to find out that they don't have to worry about the problem any more.
Do read Pat's post.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
American Law Prof Blogs: Who's got the juice?
The top 30 are here, courtesy of UC Law's Paul Caron at his respected Tax Prof Blog. Caron collects some of the best law sites published.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Amendments to Trademark Dilution Act becomes law.
On October 8, President Bush signed into law H.R. 683, the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006. The new law overturns the Supreme Court's requirement in the 2003 Moseley case--pitting the "Victoria's Secret" mark against "Victor's Little Secret"--that plaintiffs show "actual dilution" instead of a "likelihood of dilution." "Likelihood" is now enough, and injunctive relief is available before a "famous" mark is harmed. H.R. 683 was intended supposed to clarify the scope of protection afforded to "famous" marks under Section 43(c) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. ยง1125(c). For more, see a great site WAC? has been reading more and more: Legislating IP (an intellectual property law blog).
Posted by JD Hull at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
Altman Weil 2006 GC Survey is here.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:31 AM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2006
The Kid From Brooklyn sounds off on honesty, candor.
Life's short, and diplomacy is over-used/abused. Sometimes we just need to say what we really mean. So if you're not working for the State Department--and maybe even if you are--here's some heart-felt good advice from www.thekidfrombrooklyn.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)
Blawg Review #79 - Tech Law Advisor
Kevin Heller's Tech Law Advisor hosts Blawg Review #79. This is a fine collection of the best recent blawg posts in the best format you'll see.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2006
Ellen Bry: New Judge on Boston Legal
Later this Fall on ABC watch for the elegant Ellen Bry to play a judge in two episodes of Boston Legal. Ellen and I met at a Renaissance Weekend in 2003, and she was impressed that I don't watch television. She doesn't either; when she landed a guest role on TNT's The Closer last year, her LA friends and I had to explain it to her. We've conspired for 3 years, often without screaming at one another. I posted about the talented Ms. Bry back in March. She made me like Los Angeles.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
WAC?'s Usual 'Muscle Boutique' Rant Gains Currency?
From Justin Patten's Human Law, here is "The Shift In Power From The Big To The Small Firm", collecting other good posts. In a nutshell, my firm's experience has been that: for 90% of high-end corporate law work, boutique firms and firms under, say, 150 lawyers are preferred by, not just acceptable to, General Counsel at BigClients.
It's time for lawyers with the right credentials in firms of 150 down to 5 to get off your knees, quit bottom-feeding, chuck both your "niche" market thinking and your work-life balance nonsense (the first 8 to 10 years for associates, and lawyering done right after that, should be hard work for even the gifted), steal the good clients, provide outrageous service and get rich. Yours for the taking.
Hat tip to the omniscient Editor of Blawg Review for noticing.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:46 AM | Comments (0)
House of Lords Ruling Relaxes Brit Libel Laws.
Before lawyering got in the way, WAC? intended to write about an October 11 House of Lords decision which brings UK libel law--in which for centuries the burden has been on the defendant to prove the truth of a defamatory statement--closer to the U.S. actual malice standard. But Bob Ambrogi, collecting other good posts and articles, covered this wonderfully in "U.K. Libel Ruling a 'Resounding Victory'" at Law.com's Legal Blog Watch. The new British standard will protect defendant-journalists in libel cases provided that defamatory items are reported responsibly and in the public interest.
Posted by JD Hull at 05:03 AM | Comments (0)
Germans fight creeping Anglo terms.
Can you blame them? From Berlin-based Hermann the German.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:27 AM | Comments (0)