« November 22, 2009 - November 28, 2009 | Main | December 06, 2009 - December 12, 2009 »
December 05, 2009
Dites-le en anglais, s'il vous plait?
French blogs (see lower left of this blog), not that suprisingly, often have stunning designs, photos and graphics, but we'd still like to see more of them in English. And especially ones about law, business and public policy.
To the French: we're sorry we let our French fall into disrepair; you, the curators of all things fine, still teach all how to live and remind us what we should know about the West.
But any Blogs of France in English out there? Doesn't have to be "American" English.
For now we'll continue to make do with an American writer Tara Bradford's wonderful Paris Parfait. While she routinely ignores us--probably because many of us here at WAC? are from the Midwest--her site does make us want (1) to get back to the Hull McGuire island and (2) meet and speak with Maryam, who we discovered in Paris three years ago. We owe Tara a great debt.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (2)
December 02, 2009
The Overstatement.
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.
Do see "The Only Writing Tip That Really Matters", quoting The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, at Evan Schaeffer's The Trial Practice Tips Weblog.
Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland
Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Rule Eight
Over at our annoying but highly correct 12 Rules, Rule Eight is "Think Like the Client--Help Control Costs".
If you really think your firm is "partnering" with a client, then think through and plan client projects as if you were an owner of the client. Your employees have to buy into that, too. But what if you and yours don't or won't buy into it? It means, at best, this: (a) all those "partnering" and "dedicated-to-excellent-client-service" overtures on your website are just more cookie-cutter noises in the usual law firm marketing rhetoric, and (b) your firm's lawyers and employees can count themselves among the usual generic American law cattle who pretend--to themselves and others--that they actually like what they do for a living and even excel at it.
So are you folks even in the right profession? Lawyering is a service career. Lawyers are servants, first. Lawyers are not special. (And in the U.S., where we are a dime a dozen, and the differences in quality among us are immense, lawyers are becoming less and less special every year.) Lawyers are not the main event. Get used to it. Get your employees used to it.
But you can get a higher standard--and enforce it. It's not too late.
Posted by Rob Bodine at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2009
Redux: The GC as Wartime Consigliere.
(From a June 1, 2009 JDH post)
"I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense. "
In May of this year, over at his well-regarded Law Department Management, Rees Morrison, one of the smarter, sager and more experienced lawyer-consultants out there, had asked "Does a General Counsel Make All That Much Difference?" Our two cents is still the same for a working formula for "the right GC." And it's still a no-brainer: Get thee a philosopher-warrior. Be safe, and feel safe, friends.
The Wrong Stuff: Tom Hagen (Paramount Pictures)
And Morrison had gone a bit farther, inspired in part by May's Atlantic piece "Do CEOs Matter?, by Harris Collingwood. A Morrison excerpt:
Other researchers have found that CEO leadership matters relatively less in constrained industries, such as electrical utility industries, than in hotly competitive, fast-changing industries. A similar conclusion probably applies to general counsel: legal/business calls are tougher and more frequent in roiling industries so the top lawyer has more opportunity to make a difference.
(Emphasis added.) Do we ever agree--as did the wonderfully warlike trial lawyer Scott Greenfield, when he picked up on our original post back on June 1 singing the virtues of the "tough-guy" inside counsel--that "GC warriors" are worth their weight in gold bow-ties and silver spats.
Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozo. "I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense." (Paramount Pictures)
As Morrison suggests, it's just a business fact--especially in changing industries--that General Counsel do make a difference. So your corporate client might as well demand the "right" package:
A. She should be broad-gauged, intellectual, scholarly, take-charge, organized, preventive, resourceful--and warlike at heart.
B. Hates war as expensive ("blood" one Godfather character noted, "is a big expense")--but likes, and even revels in, a fight.
C. Tells management what to do--and not a tentative, qualified "what you can do."
Note: See also our May 15 post, "Proctor & Gamble's Lafley: Look to the Meaningful Outside", on the must-read thoughts of A.G. Lafley, P&G's then outgoing CEO, about CEO uniqueness in May's Harvard Business Review. In many respects, you can adapt Lafley's notion--i.e., the most effective top inside lawyers should "look to the outside"--to law departments at great companies.
The Right Stuff: Rees Morrison
Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2009
Southeast Asia: Hari Raya Puasa
At Richard D. Lewis's fine Cross-Culture, see "Malaysia: An 'Open House' Tradition", by Martin Králik, on the Eid al Fitr holiday as practiced in Malay culture. Eid is a three-day celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Excerpts:
Thanks to the staggering growth in Malaysia’s prosperity over the past thirty years, however, the core festival alone has evolved into a lavish, week-long celebration. The follow-up social activities fill up everyone’s calendar for several weeks.
In the morning of the first day of Hari Raya, people ask forgiveness of their parents and siblings for any slights they may have committed or harsh words uttered in the past year.
The Malay psyche is marked by humility and being closely in touch with one’s emotions: the sight of adults kneeling on the floor in front of a parent and weeping openly is not uncommon even among Westernized, UK- and Australia-educated professionals.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)