« November 23, 2008 - November 29, 2008 | Main | December 07, 2008 - December 13, 2008 »
December 05, 2008
Update: Take this to the ABA polls with you.
Re: the ABA Journal Blawg 100 voting, here are just a few of the blogs we know well and know are first-rate. Sorry if we left anyone out, and we may revise our short list soon.
Do vote for China Law Blog, Canada's FP Legal Post, Simple Justice, TaxProf Blog, Deliberations, and Real Lawyers Have Blogs.
And, even though it's in the same category--"Careers"--as What About Clients?, we strongly urge you to vote for Jordan Furlong's Canada-based Law21 for its outstanding contribution in 2008 (its first year) to the discussion of "what's next" for this profession. On the strength of Jordan's commentary alone, perceptive and often visionary, Law21 deserves your attention and vote.
Jordan Furlong of Law21
Brit Wit. Speaking of non-U.S. sites, two very great London blogs didn't make the ABA Journal "100" list for reasons which may be good ones but presently escape me and about 350,000 others. If there's a way to do write-in votes for the lyrical and erudite Charon QC, and for the dangerously insane but way-fun barrister GeekLawyer, please do that. Both gentlemen burst with fine writing and ideas, do the best podcasts you'll hear, and have been blogging since perhaps the late 1950s. They are each Brit-quirky out the wazoo.
Besides, the Journal should not want GeekLawyer as an enemy. No one does. See, e.g., Blawg Review #166. In early September, on my way to Kent and Zurich, I finally met with him in London, near the Marble Arch, for an hour or so. There is something wrong with him.
Major Class. Finally, there's another "write-in" we should all do for a consistently worthwhile and class U.S. site. It's by a lawyer who can think, feel, live, write, write about writing, and listen to all the music: Ray Ward's Minor Wisdom. Category/award: Best Site by a Lawyer-Renaissance Man Aiming to Make His Life a Work of Art. See also Ray's the (new) legal writer. And visit New Orleans.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
December 04, 2008
Begging for Billions, America and the Bankruptcy Code.
Look, we won't need any more than $38 billion in loans. We made the trip here twice. Washington Post: "Senate Banking Committee Chair Endorses Support for Auto Industry". To Chris Dodd: A significant number of U.S. jobs are linked to the American auto industry. But if (a) you make cars, (b) you screw up and (c) you start making cars that no one really wants to buy because buyers get better value from European and Asian makers, what about seeking protection under Chapter 11 of the Code? Our vote: Ford files, reorganizes, and merges with Chrysler. We could care less what happens to GM--but could GM please immediately sell the GM subsidiary Saab Automobile AB back to Europeans? WAC? lawyers have a thing about funny-looking Swedish road cars before GM got a hold of them in 1990.
File and merge--but free Saab first.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
We got something bipolar for you right here.
Writing well: grace, joy and attitude. At Salon, see "Princess Leia's wild, bipolar adventures", a review by Rebecca Traister of Carrie Fisher's new book, Wishful Drinking, which started out two years ago as an LA theater "seminar" and popular autobiographical one-woman show. Traister: "Fisher is a language obsessive, a nimble verbal acrobat who puns and somersaults around a page with glee."
Who says crazy people can't write?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2008
We knew that.
The U.S. is and has been in a recession.
WASHINGTON (NBC) - The economy fell into recession late last year, according to a panel of economists that is responsible for determining the dates of business cycles.
Monday's declaration by the panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research confirms what many private economists, lawmakers and members of the general public already have assumed and puts an official date on it: A U.S. recession began in December 2007.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2008
Were you ready for Europe's REACH directive?
Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 18 December, 2006.
The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of CHemicals (REACH) is a remarkably comprehensive European Union chemical and environmental regulation. It requires all companies manufacturing or importing everyday chemicals into the European Union in quantities of "one tonne" or more per year to register these substances with a new European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki, Finland. Potential registrants (i.e. manufacturers and importers of chemical substances) must pre-register these substances by today, December 1, 2008, in order to benefit from postponed ‘phase in’ deadlines. REACH is 849 pages long, took 7 years to pass, and has been described as the most complex legislation in the European Union’s history.
The European Chemicals Agency.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Value and more value.
Here’s the really important thing that’s happening right now: the price of legal services is finally becoming uncoupled from the costs lawyers incur to produce it.
See Jordan Furlong's "Decoupling Cost from Price in Legal Services" at his Ottawa-based Law21. Also read just about anything Patrick Lamb, a Chicago trial lawyer, has been writing these days at his In Search of Perfect Client Service.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2008
A China business snapshot.
See The World Bank's December 2008 Quarterly Update. Via China Law Blog.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)