« April 01, 2007 - April 07, 2007 | Main | April 15, 2007 - April 21, 2007 »

April 14, 2007

Dining in London with Saturday's Charon.

Only a handful of writers have been able to capture the pleasures and pitfalls of breaking bread in their age--of, say, just a simple lunch or dinner. Dining is a ritual humans have enjoyed/suffered through, with others or alone, for centuries. "Lunch" must be explained by each generation--without being boring--and most of the writers who could do this are long dead. However, the erudite Charon QC, a man of the right appetites, and quite alive and kicking in London these days, is an exception. To see what we mean, visit Charon's post "It was time for lunch..." The setting is a Bar and Dining Room, the place Somewhere in London.

Posted by JD Hull at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2007

Justin Patten: The "Iceberg Costs" of Litigation

My firm loves business litigation and trials--and prefers defendants. But some of our clients need to sue. Our rule #1 of litigation and first advice for clients is always (seriously): just don't do it--even if you have the best facts, law and resources. You don't need to put it in writing to your client; you just say it, and you say it more than a few times during the decision-making process leading up to suit. You really have a discussion. See my friend Justin Patten's Memo to Clients on this subject at his well-regarded Human Law site. Justin gets it.

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

"Why China Should Care About The United States..."

That article is here, by Dan Harris at his prolific and truly great China Law Blog, subtitled "China Law for Business". Sometimes Harris just catches fire. This post got 41 comments between March 29 and April 4. CLB is informed, insightful, feisty and often funny. And flat-out uncanny in the number of comments Harris regularly attracts. Someone should slap the guy just to see if he's really okay. But you do it.

Posted by JD Hull at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2007

13 months at Duke: lawyers, pols and money.

I was gambling in Havana/I took a little risk.
Send lawyers, guns and money/Dad get me out of this. (W.Zevon)

Here, from the Associated Press. It's over - and it's not. As a Duke person, one who covered the Civil Rights beat in Durham off and on for a year working on The Chronicle, Duke's student daily (back when student newspapers wrote about such things regularly), I've stayed out of this. But the most astute thing that can be said was already said by someone else anyway--reportedly said yesterday by one of the wrongly accused lacrosse players--to this disturbing effect:

"If the State can do this to you [i.e., us Duke players] even if you have the resources to fight, think of what the State can do to you if you don't."

Posted by JD Hull at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

WAC? loves Baseball Blawg Review #103

Do see Blawg Review this week and Jon Frieden's #103.

Occasionally patriotic, WAC? loves baseball, our national sport. Like the law profession itself, baseball (1) is great fun to play or watch, (2) is way more complex than meets the eye, and (3) features some of the most difficult, funny, demented and inscrutable rogues on the planet.

A bonus: the first opening day ceremonial pitch (in 1910) by an American president was a hurl by my kind of Chief Executive--a portly Cincinnati-bred lawyer's lawyer and former journalist who graduated from WAC?'s law school in 1880 and who spent some time in the humble suburb of Indian Hill, Ohio, where I attended high school and grew up, sort of, mainly, before heading to points East and to DC.

DC area-based Jonathan Frieden, an IP litigator who writes E-Commerce Law, is the host of Blawg Review #103 which, in honor of baseball's opening day, is the "BaseBlawg Review". Fine job by Jon and his interesting blog, which we just discovered. See in particular Jim Hassett's piece on how to qualify new clients. Trust us: Having No Client--and instead working harder and smarter to get the right client--is always better than the Working for the Wrong Client.

Posted by JD Hull at 04:50 AM | Comments (0)