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November 11, 2023

Poppies for John McCrae: 11/11/1918 11:00 am

McCrae in 1912

Veterans Day—or Poppy Day in the U.K. and Europe—is always on November 11.

We Americans on Veterans Day honor all U.S. military veterans. However, it was originally only a day set aside by the participating combatant countries to honor the dead of World War I, or The Great War, and to celebrate the Armistice with Germany which had commenced November 11, 1918 at 11:00 am.

Britain and the Commonwealth nations still enthusiastically yet solemnly observe it to honor military veterans who died in the line of duty. The name Poppy Day, and the holiday's moving symbolism you see in British homes and streets today, come from a famous three-stanza poem by Lt. John Alexander McCrae, a Canadian soldier and physician, believed to be written on May 3, 1915. Early in the war, and in his forties, McCrae served as a front-line surgeon, including in the Second Battle of Ypres (April 21-May 25, 1915).

The poem first appeared in Punch in December of 1915, while McCrae was still alive. In early 1918, he died of pneumonia while still commanding a Canadian military hospital in northern France.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--John Alexander McCrae (1872–1918) Poet, physician, Lieutenant Colonel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2023

Feeding the Monster: "Do you really need a Memo on that?"

Can we stop feeding the Monster every time we get the chance? Some legal memos, cases summaries and strategy documents "you can bill for" do seem like winding up without ever really pitching. There are times you don't need to scorch the earth. To save time, money and relationships, just answer the question. Talk everyone out of the Full-Monty.

Do the research, take a stand and, if possible, write it all up in a very short file memo or--even better--in the document you are actually going to use: the pleading, the motion, the response, the letter, the instrument. Even if you don't end up using it, what the draft document "looks like" helps everyone make the next decision, and take the next step. You can still back up critical points with more small discrete memos, showing research and/or thought process.

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. And aside from necessary opinion letters, and really needed formal white papers, 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.

The client's call, of course. But you can lead a little.

OP: October 10, 2010

Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2023

Late November 1963: Daniel Patrick Moynihan

There's no point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought we had a little more time.

--Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then-Assistant Secretary for Labor, a few days after November 22, 1963

Posted by JD Hull at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2023

Hey, Counselor, is that a Popularly-Elected State Court Judge in Your Pocket?

Or just happy to see me?

Judges should not have "constituents." But in most American states, they still do. And there is no way to dress that up.

Election Day Reminder: If you can vote at the polls for a state judiciary candidate today, please don't. Raise your aspirations. Go to the track, play pinball, drink Ripple, watch Gong Show reruns, or visit that "Leather World" alternative lifestyle clothing-and-book store on Route 73 you've always wondered about. From past WAC? posts:

Quick and dirty re: elected state judges and campaign money. See also, That a popularly-elected state judge in your pocket?. We've followed and written a lot on the U.S. Supreme Court case about a popularly elected state supreme court judge, and campaign money recipient, who failed to disqualify himself in arguably suspect circumstances. SCOTUS ruled in June 2009 that a West Virginia judge should indeed have disqualified himself from hearing an appeal of a $50 million jury verdict against an a coal company because its CEO had been a major campaign donor. See slip opinion in Caperton v. Massey Coal Company (June 8, 2009).

The popular election of state judges--permitted in some aspect in a clear majority of the states--gives the appearance of justice being "for sale." Elected judges can be especially "bad" for good clients who do business all over the U.S. and the world. Even when elected judges are "good"--and, to be fair, there are some great ones--state systems of popularly-elected judiciary will never inspire much confidence. Elected jurists who hear and decide business disputes are steeped in a taint.

The point: Judges should not have "constituents," i.e. law firms, and their clients, who make campaign contributions. Right now, in most American states, they do. And there is no way to dress that up.

Generally county-based, American litigation at a state level is already frustratingly local and provincial for "outsider defendants"--businesses from other U.S. states and other nations sued in local state courts--who cannot remove to federal courts, the forums where federal judges can and should protect them from local prejudice.*

American states that still hang on to electoral systems look increasingly provincial, classless, and silly from a global perspective. Merit selection is not perfect--and also poses risks--but it is far better than what most American states currently have in place. It's time for American states to grow up. See our many past posts over the last four years on this subject in our category on the right side of this site: Federal Courts.

*One reason that federal diversity jurisdiction was created in the first place was because of the framers’ concern that prejudices of state judges toward out-of-state persons would unfairly affect outcomes in trial courts. Erwin Griswold, Law and Lawyers in the United States, 65 (Cambridge, Harv. Press 1964). Over 200 years later, our current systems in the states make that local prejudice almost inevitable. See also, the interview by General Electric's Mike McIlwrath in July 2009 of Prof. Geoffrey Hazard of Hastings Law School, who addresses why European business really fear U.S. state courts.

--from a 11.03.09 WAC? post

Posted by JD Hull at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Keats

John Keats (1795-1821) by William Hilton, 1822
Oil on canvass 25” x 20”
National Portrait Gallery, London

Posted by JD Hull at 05:58 AM | Comments (0)