« March 16, 2008 - March 22, 2008 | Main | March 30, 2008 - April 05, 2008 »
March 29, 2008
A house called Dar Rumi
Visit our American friend Maryam in Morocco at My Marrakesh... and another great house she found. Hers is literally one of the best websites or blogs in the world, and hands down the best one out of Africa we've seen: elegant photographs, wistful writing, playfulness, generosity, taste. She has the gift of an eye for life.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:48 AM | Comments (1)
March 28, 2008
Outsourcing: India firms paying better.
At Legal Blog Watch by Carolyn Elefant: "Firm Salaries on the Rise in India".
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Billing: Is London/Paris/Prague a high-priced city, or what?
LAX-bound Dan Hull (under LA sniper fire, he claims) got a link today from similarly peripatetic and warlike Ed. of Blawg Review. See at David Lat's Above the Law "Charging $1,000 an Hour Is For Chumps". Ed's suggested title for our post is "Will Work for US Dollars". Ours is "Breaking: European associates even more overpriced-and-useless than Yank counterparts". View David's chart and decide for yourself.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
Real estate: Got cash? (part 2)
WSJ reports that banks are acquiring foreclosed homes faster than they can sell them off. Via beSpacfic.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
BBC reporter loses it on air.
Our London mentor Charon QC so reports. Journalists, like trial lawyers can be, well, a little high-strung. But we can't blame Charlotte Green. Listen.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2008
No Fooling
Not to put pressure on the guy but next week's Blawg Review host is one of the most talented, erudite and fun bloggers you'll see: George M. Wallace at Declarations and Exclusions.
An association of fools.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Non-U.S. clients, non-U.S. courts--and punitive damages.
Many clients from Europe loathe and avoid U.S. courts, especially state courts. They prefer arbitration panels, even when arbitration itself threatens to be trial-like and lengthy. The expensive and drawn-out American court litigation process and its hefty jury awards--which often include a huge punitive damages component--is feared. And foreign courts, when faced with enforcing American punitive awards, are just as skittish. At the same time, some countries are starting to experiment with punitives, a mutant and now barely recognizable creature of American and English common law. See in yesterday's NYT "Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
Lamb: Where young legal talent may now go.
See this gem by Patrick Lamb we almost missed, and wish we could call our own: "Problems--The Mother's Milk of Innovation" at his In Search of Perfect Client Service. I've seen this pattern for years--but Pat isolates and describes it.
....what's emerging is this paradox: the best and the brightest leave the high priced big law firms in search of an alternative that provides better alternatives. They find it, receive better training and better opportunities to develop, and actually do develop. They develop so much they are actually better and more experienced than their former colleagues, many of whom are still reviewing documents manually, slowly and at great expense to the client.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
Wal-Mart trade dress: satire T-shirts OK.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (3/25): "A Conyers man may continue criticizing Wal-Mart with parodies on T-shirts that compare the retail giant to the Holocaust and al-Qaida terrorists, a federal judge has ruled." Offending CafePress Ts: "I [heart] Wal-ocaust" and "Wal-Qaeda, The Dime Store From Hell."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2008
Kane: Identify and keep the clients you "like".
While our own Holden Oliver's on one of his important-but-demented "I love rock n' roll and hate all things PC" and "alternative lifestyles of the famous" jags, see a great Tom Kane post re: keeping just the clients you want and "like". Rather than self-indulgent and pie-in-the-sky, this principle is both logical and, for corporate lawyers, a must for doing first-rate work. Life's short and practicing law is hard. And bad clients are poison. Rule 1 at WAC? is Represent Only Clients You "Like". See Tom's "Decide on Ideal Clients by Identifying Clients You Don't Want", in one of his most repeated and critical themes.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
"Do childless women make the most productive lawyers?"
Dang. Salon and its new Broadsheet--see the first-rate above piece by Catherine Price--are on a workplace roll. But, uh, "Broadsheet"? Is someone (a woman or two?) at Salon bringing back the expression "broad" to refer to dames? We do like 1930s jive. Or will the American Thought-Speech-and-Correct-Lifestyles squad nix that one quick? Stay tune...
"Answer it. You used the word 'broad', didn't you, Miss?"
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
TechnoLawyer This: Blawg Review #152
"Late--but never lame", former and thankfully now dead FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover always remarked about a quarter horse at Del Mar he and his special friend Clyde Tolson (Johnny and Clyde, Truman Capote once called the pair) used to bet on religiously. And so the slightly late but totally studly and stylish blog of Neil Squillante of the acclaimed TechnoLawyer hosts Blawg Review #152. Last summer TechnoLawyer published BlawgWorld 2007, a first-rate, spiffy and easy-to-use compendium of the best legal weblogs, which TL has continued to update.
Real men read Blawg Review #152.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2008
Should we leave workaholics the hell alone?
WAC? believes that workaholism is not a major disease. If it is, we just love being around sick people. Such unfortunates build and invent things--and change the world. So-inflicted employment candidates with the right credentials may contact our firm. While all the silly hype about working hard has you wondering whether you're sick, do see this Salon piece which asks: Are women to blame for workaholism? It was partly inspired by a recent Boston Globe feature, "Working women, where did we go so wrong?", by Monique Doyle Spencer.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Got cash?
AP: On U.S. housing prices in January 2008, Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index reflects record 11.4 % drop.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Paris Parfait: York, England, and The Inimitable City.
American writer Tara Bradford spends Easter in York and then back to Paris for the real fabric of things.
T. Bradford photo of stone arches at York Minster Cathedral, York, England.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2008
The Trends: Client retention and development.
Customer loyalty is not dead. It's different. See Jim Hassett's five part series at Legal Business Development.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Mediating Internationally: Barcelona's Arbitration Tribunal
Ancient Barcelona, Spain has always been a key commercial center--apart from its gifts to the world of Miró, a tradition of cultural prosperity, and the Sagrada Família church. Listen to the newest IDN interview, No. 19, "The Arbitration Tribunal of Barcelona".
Posted by Brooke Powell at 07:52 AM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2008
Baja Easter
Following our two days in LA, two London lawyer friends and I this weekend are touring what's left of upper Baja California, Mexico, a gritty shrine to bad planning, spoiled Nature, bribery and failed cultures everywhere. Not snobbery--just fact, mixed with a lawyer's prayer for renewal and rebirth. Dudes, got standards?
Posted by JD Hull at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)