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June 08, 2007
Redux - China and America: Then and Now
We liked the subject of this recent post much--so once again:
Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change. From Seattle-based Dan Harris, at his insightful China Law Blog, see Chinese And American Cultural Differences--La Plus Ca Change.... Learn how the Chinese diplomat Wu Ting-fang--an Asian de Tocqueville eighty years later--viewed America in 1914.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
States question EPA's new New Source Review rule
Led by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, AGs from 16 states have written to EPA in response to a proposed rule on record keeping and public information requirements for coal-burning and other industrial plants that EPA published in March in the Federal Register, according to Environmental Protection. The AGs want a tougher rule--one that
gives power plant operators less discretion to circumvent New Source Review (NSR) enforcement under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The NSR program requires older coal-burning power plants to install modern air pollution controls if they expand their operations and increase emissions. EPA was required to issue the rule in response to a 2005 decision by the D.C. Circuit in an action brought by New York and other states in June of 2005. The court sent back EPA regulations that it believed in effect did not require plants making modifications to track and report their emissions.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2007
So why waste side 2 of your business card?
From Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog, do see What's On The Back Of Your Business Card?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Pope, popemobile "menaced" by friendly German.
The Associated Press reports that the pope was tooling around Rome today with the top down, waving at crowds, and it happened: "Man Tries To Jump In Benedict's 'Popemobile'". The German guy who tried this just wanted to say hey. He--not the pope--was dressed in a pink T-shirt, dark shorts and a beige baseball cap, and wearing sunglasses. The German never made it into the popemobile, and was quickly wrestled to the pavement. Pope Benedict XVI was never in danger, was unharmed and apparently didn't even notice the incident. WAC? waits for Hermann the German to interpret this event properly.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Is Your Firm Telling Your Client The Truth?
Lots if not most of these cases my firm defends waste money, time and resources; they clog up the court system, they are all about the lawyers, and they make business clients (especially non-Americans) think lawyers, judges and the American court system is uncaring, anti-business, self-indulgent, inefficient and flat-out nuts. Lawyers keeping the client in the dark is much to blame.
A premise of this blog (see our first post in 2005) is that lawyers regularly lie to their clients. They lie to even great clients. WAC? believes that the practice of law generally has become disturbingly and cavalierly "lawyer-oriented", rather than "about clients". We think that, increasingly, sophisticated clients, who are often just as savvy if not more savvy about their cases and deals than the lawyers who serve them, have become the equipment in an expensive and wasteful game played by lawyers.
Rather than the word "lie", we could use the more PC or subtle expressions of fudge the truth, fail to disclose or obfuscate. But why use softer terms? Fact: we lawyers have some of the strongest legal, fiduciary and professional duties--in common law, statute and public policy--not only to tell our clients the truth but go out of our way to explain to clients actual events as they happen and what we really think about merits of litigation or transaction on a real-time and ongoing basis. My threshold question is that if I think my client or its general counsel would want to know about an event, or even know merely what I am thinking about (from "good" to "bad" observations and analysis of a project's turns and progress), I tell them. If I don't tell a client what happens and what I think about it, I am lying. It's a hard standard, but it is ours as lawyers.
What do lawyers hide from their clients or lie about? In litigation, it's 4 main things: (1) day-to-day developments which are "bad", not perfect or the client just might not really want to hear (call them
tough phone calls), (2) actual settlement posture (and even actual settlement offers), (3) the general direction, merits and legal terrain of a case which lulls the busy client into thinking everything is just fine or at least not hopeless (in these instances, non-disclosure often occurs because of inadequate research coupled with "drinking the Kool-Aid" about the merits and righteousness of your case) and (4) outright embarrassing screw-ups by outside counsel which should have never happened (in my view, mistakes are the chief offender).
Why do the lies or non-disclosures occur? Three reasons: Greed, where the law firm, perhaps in an engagement involving a one-time-only case, or one-night stand, wants to keep the matter going to make money; Incompetence (of the "clueless"/we-don't-really-know-the-law-or-the-procedures variety); and Screw-ups (again, the chief offender).
How do I know this? It's based on inferences I've drawn and am more than reasonably sure about (say 98% certainty in each instance) in cases and transactions over the past 20 years. And over the past two or three years, I've seen opposing counsel from great, good and mediocre firms apparently go out of their way consistently and painstakingly to do "damage control" to hide their client's real prospects of failing or succeeding in the project, or hide outright screw-ups (some understandable, some not). It has been especially true (maybe 100%) in the instances where my firm has defended in cases brought by firms with a contingency fee arrangement with their plaintiff-client, a medieval practice (often defended on basis of "access to courts", etc.) where the lawyer is king, and clients are treated like chattel and kept in the dark. Lots of these cases my firm defends waste money, time and resources; they clog up the court system, they are all about the lawyers, and they make business clients (especially non-Americans) think lawyers, judges and the whole system is uncaring, anti-business, inefficient and flat-out nuts. And lawyers keeping the client in the dark is much to blame. Clients would discontinue or settle them if they only knew the truth.
The solution? Well, we've got two notions. First, since practicing law is hard, do it the right way, with good research, and thoughtful ongoing case assessment, and keep the client informed of what you are thinking at least once a week.
Second, use this test: Conduct your discussions with opposing counsel as if your client were listening.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2007
Ranking UK Law Schools
Americans love lists of "the best" schools. U.S. News & World Report covers American colleges, including law schools, and Newsweek ranks U.S. high schools. Here's a new one WAC? found over at The TransAtlantic Assembly. The Times (London) and The Guardian (Manchester) have each made 2007 United Kingdom Law School Rankings.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
June 04, 2007
Blawg's Blog from Blawg: Blawg Review #111
Try to keep all this straight--and then maybe say that 10 times real fast. But released today is a first-rate specimen of Blawg Review, The Carnival of Law Bloggers. It's Blawg Review #111, by Bill Gratsch, the creator of the enduring legal weblog clearinghouse launched in 2002 called Blawg, at his Blawg's Blog. If you are new to reading blogs or to blogging, and whether you are a lawyer or not, BR #111 is fine demonstration of the substance, excitement and value of blogging's brave new world.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)