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September 25, 2009
Talk to the China Hand: "China Trademarks--Do You Feel Lucky?"
Read it again. Listen to Dan Harris, no punk, never law cattle, and hands down the most feisty China hand on the planet, at China Law Blog, "Part II: Do You Feel Lucky? Do You?". Seattle-based Harris is a transplanted Hoosier with Moxie--even though he inexplicably sidestepped one-on-one hoops challenges from the undersigned in August 2008, when he was in Seattle. (Speculation: WAC? is older but taller, quicker, meaner, has better jump shot, and shoots with either hand.) But outside of basketball, Dan's the Greater China business king. Talk to the old China hand in a post from last year we love.
"Well, do you, punk?" (Warner Bros.)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2009
Pittsburgh: Lord, Take Me Downtown.
I'm just looking for a way to get into work. The irony of the third G-20 summit? Despite the worldwide plug Pittsburgh is getting, the summit short-term is bad for business in Pittsburgh. For a couple of days, anyway. This proud and enduring old steel town built modern America and much of the world. It has a bustling downtown area built on a narrow concrete peninsula, with fine corporate lawyers, tech start-up employees, bankers and Fortune 500 execs housed in gorgeous buildings, often older gilded age stock built at the turn of the last century. It also has a local economy that peaked circa 1946.
And Pittsburghers? Well, they all want back in the game. Based on the past two decades of admirable re-thinking and reinvention, they will likely get there. Although both geographically and culturally isolated, Western Pennsylvania remains a storied region of characters and character. These are tough and determined people. But right this minute the City is effectively shut down for business. Due to security concerns, today and tomorrow, you can't get down to, ahem, the US Steel Tower to contribute to the restoration of our faltering global economy. Are at least the bars in Southside open?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2009
Today in Calais: French police lose it a little.
Stranger and more violent things have happened on the shore facing Kent over the past 2200 years. But illegal immigration is increasingly a big issue in Europe. Relations between official France and the UK have suffered. See the AP story:
CALAIS, France--French police cleared out then bulldozed a squalid, sprawling forest camp near the northern city of Calais on Tuesday, detaining hundreds of illegal migrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain.
French Immigration Minister Eric Besson, who visited the site known as "the jungle," called it a "base camp for human traffickers" and said he would return the rule of law to the northern French coast.
"The law of the jungle cannot last eternally," Besson said. "A state of law must be re-established in Calais." [more]
Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Real heros: Milan Fashion Week
This month, it may trump American towns as a venue for a meeting.
Posted by Brooke Powell at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2009
Redux: Martindale-Hubbell: Should we all just say no?
Note: The following is from an August 5, 2008 post. Any new takes on this?
Is a Martindale-Hubbell listing worth it anymore?
We're not unhappy with the M-H ratings process; generally speaking, if done responsibly and without in effect requiring the "purchase" of the rating, a credible if imperfect ratings process for the global legal community makes lots of sense. And M-H accomplished that decades ago.* But, in view of other and newer ways for law firms to have visibility and credibility, the price of listings at M-H is now officially a rip-off. Lots of fine lawyers seem to be complaining about it, at least in private, both in the U.S. and non-U.S. It's not that Martindale hasn't tried. See, for example, at Law.com the piece "Martindale-Hubbell Gets a Makeover" (mentioning Avvo, LawLink and Legal OnRamp, as new alternatives for marketing, networking and lawyer ratings).
*Martindale-Hubbell is no joke. It has a fine, time-honored and even classy reputation, and a history of good work and real utility in the profession. Our firm, Hull McGuire, has actively and earnestly participated in the M-H ratings processes for years; we are happy with the ratings our lawyers received. But, in good times or bad times, the current cost to list firm attorneys for any size firm, with or without multiple offices, is prohibitive and should be resisted on principle given other alternatives. It just isn't worth it. We predict that lawyers will bolt in droves in the next 2 years.
Our humble take: as other ways to locate lawyers emerged, M-H never saw the light fast enough, and didn't successfully change or expand its other services to preempt a backlash. It continued to charge big listing fees that everyone complained about for years. More recently (say, the last 3 years), M-H expenses managed to stay in law firm budgets--but exceeded just about everyone's irritation levels. M-H listings now makes no business sense to anyone sane. Only the embarrassingly lame, gimmicky "Super Lawyer" concept could make Martindale look good these days.
Start the revolution?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)