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June 26, 2010
Saturday's Ruthie: The Get-Real New Age.
From a friend of ours in Cambridgeshire. "Introspection will be the watchword of the next decade...people have no money to go out and there is a dawning realisation that our current western lifestyle is unsustainable in the long term. Greed and instant gratification is finally out of fashion. Put your money into new spirituality."
Posted by JD Hull at 11:27 PM | Comments (2)
June 25, 2010
Happy weekend, Teacups.
Bang bang. Any warriors out there? Ambition? Heart? Gospel?
"Who's the hunter, who's the game?" Half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they doubt their own sanity. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare. --HST, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Get off your knees. Lead.
Stop whimpering, groveling, and apologetically asking employees to do their jobs.
Make yours moxie. It's your business, and your rules. Get off your knees. Demand things first of yourself--and then of others. (1) What are you doing this week at your firm? (2) What are your employees doing for you and your partners this week? (3) What did you all do together for customers, buyers and clients?
It's time for lawyers and other service providers to lead. At your shop, refuse to be a slave to lawyer-centric and employees-first popular cultures. Stop whimpering, groveling, and apologetically asking employees to do their jobs. Don't bargain with them. Show them. Lead.
Put customers, buyers and clients first. Let go of the notion that you and other lawyers--your partners, your adversaries, and your competitors--are special and in a special club. You are not special. Clients are special. Make customers, buyers and clients your club. Clients still wait for us to evolve into their trusted partners and advisors. And to lead.
Follow me, stereo jungle child
Love is the kill...your heart's still wild. --P. Smyth
Posted by JD Hull at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
Congress: New financial rules would cover Wall Street to Main Street.
AP: New Financial Reform Package is Comprehensive:
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama declared victory Friday after congressional negotiators reached a dawn agreement on a sweeping overhaul of rules overseeing Wall Street.
Lawmakers shook hands on the compromise legislation at 5:39 a.m. after Obama administration officials helped broker a deal that cracked the last impediment to the bill -- a proposal to force banks to spin off their lucrative derivatives trading business. The legislation touches on an exhaustive range of financial transactions, from a debit card swipe at a supermarket to the most complex securities deals cut in downtown Manhattan.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2010
Another reason to only interview workers age 40 and over.
The Lawyerist asks "Are Unpaid Interns and Law Clerks Illegal?" Rather than sweating this issue, or doing any related non-billable research, we suggest that your firm spend a few hours researching and writing a comprehensive white paper on a possible movement to restore ordeal by water to the trial courts.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2010
Tan, rested, back in the saddle: Will Bob Bork ride Elena Kagan?
Call it a reckoning. See yesterday's Washington Post and this Salon piece: "The Borking of Elena Kagan". Both report that Robert Bork will publicly oppose Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. While Bork, now 83, may or may not have been a morally pretentious weenie, he is mega-talented, a fine legal thinker, and likely would have made a fine Supreme Court justice. In any event, Bork would have been a marked improvement over Clarence Thomas as a touchstone for the right on the most elite court in Western history. Most lawyers of any political persuasion now admit that. "Borking" Bork in 1987 was not one of our finest moments--and yet we continue to insist on over-playing partisan politics with fine judges and solid lawyers in the nomination process. Not one of the better modern traditions of Congress. So let's Not Be Borking anymore--starting with Elena Kagan. Finally, another issue, and it's cultural, at least for this blog. With John Paul Stevens gone, who will wear bow ties?
1987: Bork gets a plug from a former president and the undersigned's ex-Congressman in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:56 PM | Comments (2)
June 20, 2010
Real Brit execs race powerboats.
Man of Kent screws pooch on yacht. “He is having some rare private time with his son”. This morning the New York Times and several thousand other media outlets want to know what Tony Hayward was doing yesterday in a yacht race off England's clear southern blue coast. So do we. More to the point, in a world-wide recession, yachts are out anyway, Tony. Get down with us, bubba.
The Greaseman
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)