« February 15, 2009 - February 21, 2009 | Main | March 01, 2009 - March 07, 2009 »
February 28, 2009
GeekLawyer is coming to America. Again. (Update)
Weekends are the only times I can write on this thing about important national and world events. We then communicate with our sixteen loyal but isolated non-American readers who want all the skinny on the States in towns like Aldeburgh, England, Mainz, Germany and Tooele, Utah.
During the week, I help my firm make money defending people who are accused for no reason at all of: spilling, copying, making too much money, and suddenly breaking promises with people who suddenly have no money. Many of these business disputes, ironically, have their roots in a law firm making world-class transactional and "just-wrong" advice mistakes which could have been avoided by a smart third year associate on Methaqualones who shows up at work most days; it would be funny except for the expense to their clients.
Best of all, and the most fun, I also make sure that former employees, often highly-paid ones, of some companies wish they had thought twice about getting mad about something my client did. I talk with them for a few hours--well, sometimes two or three days--with a court reporter, people they don't like anymore, and people who work for me, in the room. You can see the lights go on. They learn with me. I feel I am of service. We have windowless rooms for those talks.
Lots of free coffee, though. If Elizabeth or Lauren is at lunch, or gone for the day, or sleeping, or it's the weekend, or Christmas Day, I often serve the coffee myself--always slowly, deliberately and with a head waiter's flourish, and from the left--hopefully while they are reading something they signed back in 1999. I get to sport bow ties for these little talks, but my office said the black cape, hat and eye-patch were a bit much, so I stopped all that. I still wear the spats, though.
All wonderful work, if you can get it--I still can't believe you can get paid for it. So I am reconsidering my lapsed relationship with the Episcopal Church. It reminds me of a couplet in the Celtic prayer-poem "Purple Haze", in which a picaresque left-handed genius named Jimi gets a little grateful himself. Visit Tower Records for a copy.
Seriously, though, here's a major happening, and an extremely controversial one. Apart from monetary strategy to jump-start the economy, President Obama's current foreign policy plans, and the advent of useful new Covey-esque seminars you pay for on "How To Accommodate Young People Born After 1974 At Your Failing Business", the big news in America is that GeekLawyer--who I was unfortunate enough to meet and have 13 Diet Cokes with in Mayfair last September--will again (see Edition #666 of July 1, 2008) host Blawg Review* on March 16.
A friend of mine, an inspired and quite sober Charon QC in London, even crafted a short film about the nervously-anticipated return of a man whom Elkhart, Indiana and many other U.S. venues can do just fine without thank you very much. It's the guy's language. He likes words (all of them), he's British (they are all quirky creatures, but GL has raised High Brit Quirk to a "potty-mouth" if intelligent art form) and so you get the idea (but maybe not; this is off-the-charts stuff, Jack). Charon's sensitive film, a labor of Lud, is below.
*Now edited by a dead guy, apparently, but a minor detail for Americans, like Ed., with moxie and grit.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:44 PM | Comments (1)
February 26, 2009
Recession survival tip (advanced).
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
--HST (1937-2005)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
The Recession as Teacher.
Is this the end of the right to be helpless? Our astral twin, the uncommonly cruel but clear-eyed workaholic boomer apologist, New York's Scott Greenfield, had provocative things to say about, uh, real life, in this post: "Economics 101 (Slackoeisie Version)". What if you are among the "laid-off young", and need to hit the streets, he asks?
If you are fortunate enough to have clients, they will expect you to perform for them in exchange for paying you. This is not a novel concept, no matter how foreign it may seem to you. This was how your old bosses did things, while you were insulated from the harsh business aspect of the practice.
Your clients will call you or come to you with the expectation that you will provide legal services. They will expect your services to be timely, professional and minimally competent. They will not care about your work/life balance, and your need to take a "mental health day" off at the expense of a filing deadline will not be understood or accepted. Clients can be so darned unreasonable.
Some people. The way that guy struts around on his blog.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2009
"Nobody messes with Joe."
Here in Washington, we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort - because nobody messes with Joe.
--The President, February 24, 2009
Vercingetorix Memorial in Alesia, France
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Above The Law has been covering the Recession.
And lately they've been doing it on purpose. To us, Above The Law always has been more than white shoe gossip, or notes from an underground (i.e., The Comments) of hard-working and often frustrated associates beginning to realize that down markets affect them, too. It also reveals attitudes about practicing law, and how younger lawyers are trained (or not trained). Further, over the last few months, we've all seen something else that is both instructive and poignant. Directly or indirectly, and every day, Lat, Mystal, Hill & Co. cover the recession, and employment markets, very well--and with a feel-your-pain empathy laced with humor.
Here's another, and new, reason to visit ATL on markets: "Notes from the Breadline: You Can't Go Back, and You Can't Stand Still", part 4, by "Roxana St. Thomas", a young New York City lawyer who was "terminated" (a phrase she discusses). The first three installments are here. The series began February 10. Query: You live in NYC. How do you feel about Buffalo?
My mother sent me a listing for a job in Buffalo; when I told her that I did not want to think about relocating just yet, and especially not to Buffalo, she seemed hurt. "You wouldn't have to relocate," she said impatiently.
"Buffalo is seven hours away," I told her. "What would I do? Commute?" She looked at me as though I had just declined a piece of homemade pie. "Hmphf," she sniffed. "You know, it pays a lot more than unemployment."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2009
More cross-culture. More writing well.
“The teacher’s son’s classroom” may lack elegance, but is surely better than the roundabout “La salle de classe du fils du professeur.” Similarly “John’s sister’s programme” is more succinct than “El programa de la hermana de Juan”.
Pragmatic German and Nordic languages simply add ‘s’ to denote the genitive: Deutschlands Wetter; Danmarks kong; Sveriges huvudstad; while Romance languages have to resort to a variety of forms...
Heartless marauding northern European cultures may have certain advantages with words: economy, for example. See Richard D. Lewis's article "The Possessive Apostrophe" at his Cross-Culture. Don't get the elegant Mr. Lewis wrong, though. Read the whole thing. It starts with the Birmingham (England) City Council's removal of the possessive apostrophe from street signs. No kidding. Them Brummies.
Birmingham, above, is like Pittsburgh USA--just more pretentious.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Getting to "cross-culture consensus" in international disputes.
The panel will kindly note she's had several seconds to answer. Nothing further. And I will sit down. In international arbitration and mediation, first-language barriers can be the least of the challenges for your client. Consider, too, subtleties like the meaning of the "delayed answer" to a question. In one culture, delay means hesitancy and evasiveness (e.g., to most Westerners); in another, it may denote careful consideration of the question, and a sign of respect to the questioner.
In IDN No. 61, GE's in-house counsel Mike McIlwrath interviews Australian mediator Joanna Kalowski for the second time (see IDN No. 44). Kalowski, who works out of both Australia and Paris, shares how she became a mediator and lessons that come directly from her work. Kalowski has also trained mediators in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Italy, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Their 25-minute discussion, "Public Consensus Across Cultures", just taped on February 13, is part of McIlwrath's award-winning interview series on International Dispute Negotiation sponsored by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, or CPR.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
If you believe in Ed., maybe he won't die.
See Blawg Review #200, in which Ed. meditates on, well, his demise, and the death of Blawg Review. He and his Sherpas have been the idea, force, class and hard work behind the best trading in the global marketplace of legal ideas that anyone has ever seen. He wouldn't up and die on us, like that wonderful demented old hound dog I once had in Ohio, would he? Ed's human, mainly, and therefore a bit cagey and manipulative, too. But so was that dog. Look, just in case, everyone should close their eyes, and with feeling say together "I believe in Ed." or whatever--and maybe he and it will live on. Okay? Or you can host Blawg Review. Do something. He owes WAC? about $20 USD.
Above: Disney's Tinkerbell, who started out pretend life as J.M. Barrie's fairy in 1904.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:47 PM | Comments (2)
Is that an elected state judge in your pocket?
Or you just hugely happy? In The National Law Journal by Marcia Coyle: "Study finds strong relationship between campaign contributions and decisions by state Supreme Court judges". Who would have thought it? You'll see lots of coverage on this issue as the time nears for U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments in the Massey Coal case on March 3.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:59 PM | Comments (2)
February 23, 2009
IP Monitoring and Lobbying: Our Kind of Better Mousetrap.
In or out of DC, a lawyer in a "regulated-industry" practice is often a lobbyist in the broadest sense--you may not like the word, but get over it--if he or she monitors developments in Congress or the federal agencies, even occasionally, and is poised to react to them for clients. Many tax lawyers are a good example. If you aren't one, you may serve clients more effectively if on occasion you are one from time to time. Do check registration requirements to see if they apply to you; much of time, they won't, but don't guess.
It's okay to be "one". You don't need to lapse into stealing, womanizing or hanging around Kelly's Irish Times or The Monocle--although we do recommend The Monocle. At the Queen City's Patent Baristas in southern Ohio, see "Build a Better Mouse Trap" and this site, a new tracker of policy development and legislation in the area of patent reform. Patent Baristas:
The Better Mouse Trap Blog is supposed to track legislative and regulatory developments, highlight member company activity, and deliver filter-free pro-patent reform messages to interested audiences, which seems like an oxymoron. While they have an agenda, we’re certain people will take away what they want.
The BMT Blog is free, too.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)