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April 30, 2010
Sarah Kate Silverman for Congress, or Queen, or Something.
Right now, America needs shock troops. Yanks don't think much on their own anymore. So Sarah's our girl.
The Future is Not for Weenies. Sarah Kate Silverman doesn't have President Obama's no-spine/sand/stones problem; she would man up to Congress. Sarah would just say it. It's not just Obama. Even our best politicians can't say what they feel and think. No-Stones is an epidemic. You can't say anything interesting at work. Even Alpha males are on the outs--we are breeding them out. Our younger workers were brought up on gender neutral role models.
What's up? Are we turning into Canadians and the Junior League?
Keep reading. We'll get to Sarah.
We hope for a different kind of culture revolution. We seek to include different ideas and expressions: old, new, objectionable, dumb-downed, bland, trite, creative, stupid, smart. But let's not leave anyone out. This is America, Jack.
For example, after the Revolution, when politically-correct culture, and other goofy forced-conformity social agendas wane and disappear, you will be able to say what you want.
Okay, anything that puts kids at risk--and about Mothers--will not be fair play. But you will be able to use words like "secretary", "stewardess"--and even "stew", if you've had a few drinks on the plane.
You will have choices.
Sarah Silverman is saucy and attractive. If you don't think that's very important, you're wrong--but you can write us an angry letter, not invite us to parties, or tip off Nina Totenberg and NPR.
If you're a lawyer, you will start using the term "Chinese wall" again. You will be able to swear, and loudly, in the workplace, and start war stories with: "You know, I had this case in the Southern District, back in 1987, when men were men."
After the Revolution, you will be able to flirt, and be playful and even a tad eccentric, at work.
If someone you work with is lazy and disorganized, you will be able to say things like, whoa, that dude Josh "is lazy and disorganized" rather than have to say it's so awesome that Josh is "low profile/independent/a team member requiring minimal face time/empowered by his flexible hour arrangement/a pioneer in work-life balance".
The expression "Not Work-Oriented" will be okay, too.
Using "not work-oriented" rather than "lazy" is also a proven attention-getter. Granted, it's too indirect. It's soft. Sounds a bit PC. But think of it as a transitional term you can employ until people start saying what they mean.
For example, we have used "not work-oriented" frequently in recent years in telephone conversations with people, unknown to us, who check references, of former employees, who we know too well. Saying that your ex-employee Kendall, who had top grades at Dartmouth and Duke Law, and had interviewed well, is "not work-oriented" is easier, faster and frankly more fun than struggling through on the phone with:
Mr. Bloor, it just wasn't a 'fit'. Kendall has many gifts. But we always knew she would flourish more in an alternative work setting where, you know, team members were, uh, not required to do any work per se, or actually perform, or add value. You know what I mean.
After the Revolution, you will also be able to use your real name when you give your opinion in the ether of the Internet.
In fact, anonymity will be banned--and reserved for rape victims, Iranian and Cuban dissidents, Ned Beatty "Deliverance" casualties, and the ballot box at primary and general elections. You will be able to utter all manner of potentially rude, offensive, defamatory and even straight-up tacky things--but you will take responsibility by backing it all up with your real name.
Males will be different. My own offices over the last 5 years has been full of "sweet" and "dainty" males who, frankly, I am a bit nervous about being with at night. They are not gay, even though at first I thought a lot of them were. (It's natural to wonder--so no letters, please.) They are not show-tunes flashy or YMCA-esque or anything. It's just that they are way too "nice".
Way way too nice. Someone did a terrible thing in raising them. They are confused. The don't get what is okay/not okay about being a human being. They don't even swear well. The are not warriors. They are stone-creepy "men".
After the Revolution, we'll get some of the more boorish and traditional--but at least authentic--males back. That would be "nice", too.
More great news: In the New Order of Things, long after PC culture has dissipated and died, the Seas will not turn Red. No One will go to Hell. The Family Unit will not Implode. The Clintons won't Abduct Your Kids.
So....you get the idea. We don't like "PC culture" that much--sane First Amendment people of any political persuasion never do unless to make fun of it--and so we do cherish Sarah Silverman.
Right now, America needs shock troops. Yanks don't think much on their own anymore. We are too bland and nice. Too consensus-driven. So Sarah's our girl.
Besides, Sarah is saucy and attractive. If you don't think that's important, you're wrong--but you can dash off an angry letter, not invite us to parties, or report us to Nina Totenberg and NPR.
Silverman's also a fine comic, writer, actress, musician, and rebel's rebel who never met a taboo she did not like.
While at first blush Silverman's humor may seemed based on stereotypes, she's smart and ironic, not mean, and an unrelenting satirist of life and priorities in America.
Meet Lenny Bruce's adorable grandchild who has escaped from Scarsdale, New Canaan or Shaker Heights and now has a bunch of uncomfortable questions for us all. She's going to ask them, e.g., "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World".
Let's see, what else?
Her sister is a Rabbi. But Jesus is Magic? She's ethnically Jewish--but for years allegedly wore a St. Christopher medal from her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel ("It was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn't burn a hole through my skin, it will protect me...").
She claims ancestry from Hungary, Poland, France and Slovakia. She does not drink. For you snobs, she graduated from a prep school in New Hampshire. She attended NYU. She turns 40 this year.
How about this: Can we run her for Congress in, say, California, New York, or New Hampshire, this year or 2012?
That might help move things along. That would be "nice".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2010
Smaller, Nimbler and Excellent Goes Global.
Maybe you need to get out more? We estimate that worldwide there are now at least 400 international law groups and alliances which count law or accounting firms as members. Some cover or focus on regions (e.g. Latin American, Western Europe, Greater Asia); some specialize (IP and IP enforcement); many take on the whole world (remember the goofy term "full service"), with members in as many as 100 different cities worldwide.
Some, of course, are older, better organized and staffed, or more tightly-knit, than than others. Hull McGuire has participated actively in and used two such groups since 1998, including the IBLC, an alliance based in Salzburg, Austria. IBLC has 100 firms (most of them longstanding) and 1500 professionals.
International groups are nothing new. But they grow in number and usefulness as two things occur: (1) technology continues to level the playing field in the competition for the best clients, and (2) higher-end lawyers form boutiques, boutique "clusters", and firms between 5 and 250 (read: smaller) lawyers to service those clients, often at rates comparable to "large-firm" rates.
No matter what billing regime or model is used--hourly, flat or hybrid--the idea is value. The best thing? As firms "unbundle" their best practice areas to the global markets, sophisticated clients are offered the ultimate menu.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2010
Goldman on Jenkins Hill.
Tuesday's hearing was an attack not only on Goldman but on short selling itself.
--Washington Post
See "Goldman Sachs: What to Make of the Circus?" Securities and corporate governance hand Broc Romanek, a veteran of the SEC's Office of Chief Counsel, and former in-house, has collected some of best coverage of Tuesday's marathon hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, plus some of the better earlier coverage, at his TheCorporateCounsel.net.
Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Pinch us: Key FRCP deadlines changed big-time on December 1, 2009.
The 10-day post-trial deadline is now 28 days. While the work of the Judicial Conference's five Advisory Committees never really stops, big changes to federal court rules, including the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), don't occur that often. The newest amendments are "technical amendments"--but the changes are anything but technical.
FRCP. Rule 6, FRCP, the general "time counting" provision, and post-trial Rules 50, 52, and 59, are among the rules changed. Gone forever in Rule 6 is the much relied-upon (and, for many, much beloved) "11-day rule" in subdivision 6(a) adopted in 1985. It was designed to take the hardship out of 10-day post trial deadlines, i.e., don't count weekends and holidays for deadlines of 10 days or less.
But you no longer even need the 11-day rule that was in subdivision (a) of Rule 6.
In the new provisions, the Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure gave litigants more time (a lot more) to file motions for judgment, or for a new trial, under Rules 50 and 59. Beginning on December 1, the time to file after entry of judgment was 28 days rather than 10 days.
Two years in the making, the changes were signed into law (H.R. 1626) by the President on May 7, 2009, and became effective December 1, 2009. There are also significant changes to some of the time triggers in the appellate, criminal and bankruptcy rules. All are part of the Judicial Conference's "Time-Computation Project".
Sources. The D.C office of Chicago-based Mayer Brown published an advisory to the in-house community on November 30, 2009. It summarizes changes to the civil and appellate rules. See also the April 2009 summary at Smart Rules. The popular Cornell Law School site on the federal rules put up all the FRCP changes by December 1, but is still working on getting the Advisory Committee Notes into it.
The most complete Advisory Committee history and Congressional legislative history of the amendments is still at the federal rulemaking section of the U.S. Courts website.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
The three most significant news items (so far) of April 2010.
1. ABA's Law Practice Management Section rolls out special "diversity strategies" edition of Law Practice Today webzine for April 2010.
2. Matt Damon, Wife Expecting Another Baby. People magazine
3. Vermont Man Reunited with Turtle. NBC
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)