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April 03, 2009
Celestial: Declarations and Exclusions
We worked hard this week--but did one mandatory non-billable thing. We visited, read and listened to George Wallace's Blawg Review #205, and admired his bonus post for you April fools. Speaking of same, the late Holden Oliver, misanthrope and tragic philanderer, once said that California's erudite Wallace was "the only insurance lawyer living who doesn't remind me of a plant, a rock or a household appliance". Our short form review of #205 should do it: fine, authentic, literate, worldly--and celestial. His Appendix to #205? We'll get to it. Busy here.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2009
Keeping Clients: "Do we really need a memo on that?"
Maybe go to the mirror and practice saying that to your client. Another way to say it:
You know, Elizabeth, this project had been lawyered and memo-ed out the proverbial wazoo. Let's do the research right away. We can get Justin and Brittany to start on it today; they know the legal terrain here. But after we research it, let's just have the [brief/letter/contract] reflect what we conclude. That's where we're headed with this anyway. Let's skip the lengthy legal memorandum.
There are times you don't need to scorch the earth. To save time, money and relationships, just answer the question. Do the research, take a stand, and write it all up in the instrument you are actually going to use anyway.
Stop Feeding the Monster. Skip the 10-, 20- and 35-page memo.
Aside from necessary opinion letters, don't offer to write or write a cover-everyone's-ass and/or comprehensive "all-legal-theories-and-strategies" memorandum unless your in-house lawyer really wants it. And then try to talk her or him out of it.
Part of the job of outside counsel is to guide the in-house--and make him or her be good and look good by saving money and time. If you are in litigation, test out your brilliant ideas and research in a draft brief or another document the client can actually use later on. Skip the 10-, 20- and 35-page memo. Try to make memos you do do be shorter, and reflect the group's cumulative thinking on that issue or project.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The G-20 summit: Venus considers Mars.
It's no surprise that European caution versus U.S. drive toward stimulus strategies is the main theme of President Obama's eight-day trip. The Associated Press notes that "Europeans look to welfare, not stimulus, in crisis". Excerpts:
Across a continent long accustomed to big government and high taxes, many Europeans are counting on generous welfare benefits to shield them from the worst of the meltdown. Others worry that loosening interest rates would lead to devastating inflation.
In the American view, the economic house is on fire, and only quick and decisive action will put out the flames. Europe is not quite as ready to pull the alarm.
For all their talk of coming together at this week's summit of the G-20 economic powers in London, European leaders have been openly skeptical of corporate bailouts and massive U.S.-style stimulus spending.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 02:13 AM | Comments (2)
April 01, 2009
Holden H. Oliver (1968-2009)
WAC? co-writer, former reporter and third-year law student Holden Oliver died Tuesday in Palo Alto at Stanford University Medical Center. A Boston native, and from a family that has lived in eastern Massachusetts for nearly 380 years, Holden graduated with a degree in English (highest honors) from Williams College in 1990. A former reporter for the Kansas City Star in its Washington, D.C. office, he also worked for ten years in the London and Frankfurt bureaus of the New York Times. Holden entered Stanford Law School in 2006, and joined WAC? "out of boredom" while still a student in early 2007. Last year, he was elected to the Managing Board of the Stanford Law Review, and worked in July in Hull McGuire's Pittsburgh office. His death was the result of a kiln explosion in which his ex-girlfriend, a Stanford undergraduate co-ed half his age, was apparently not injured in any respect. If you wish to help us honor Holden's life, his sarcastic uber-WASP prose style, his support of the profession's growing value movement, and his energetic if, frankly, amoral lifestyle, donations can be made in his name to the Nantucket Preservation Trust, the Cosmos Club or Kelly's Irish Times in Washington, D.C.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:49 AM | Comments (3)
March 30, 2009
Wagoner fails Obama test, resigns from General Motors.
It's a big story--and an unusual one. Over 4,000 articles, including this one at WSJ. But no publication is more entitled to report it than The Chronicle, Duke University's 105-year-old student daily.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)
Redux: Lawyering and Overstatement.
Going with Fergus. Here's something you can use, starting today. If you're spectacularly Irish--you guys know who you are--you should also take notes. Then take a year off work just to practice. See at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog "The Only Writing Tip That Really Matters", which quotes William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White's The Elements of Style:
When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.
Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland, housing the Stone of Eloquence.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)