Law And More

Fatal Stamford, CT Fire: Mother Madonna Badger hospitalized after suicide attempt

On Christmas day, Manhattan ad executive Madonna Badger lost her three young children and parents in a fire in Stamford, Connecticut.  Only she and her friend Michael Borcina, who was doing renovations, escaped.  Borcina had put the smoldering embers from the fireplace into a non-metal container and left them near the house.  Fire officials determined those as the cause of the blaze. Since then, the news released the facts that Borcina, a contractor, had two judgments against him for $100,000 and two other complaints filed against him.  He had accompanied Badger to the funeral.

Many asked themselves how Badger could endure this kind of loss, especially since human error caused it.  The NEW YORK POST reports that she could not endure it.  She had tried suicide.  After that she was rushed to the hospital and is now in a safe place.  Her lawyer has made no comment.

This blog wishes this mother strength in her recovery from grief.

U.S. Legal Sector: Will lawyers be answering to business owners, as in Britain, Australia

After the bubble burst in the U.S. legal sector around 2007, Abovethelaw.com's Managing Editor David Lat added to the horror.  He called it: Law was a business, not a profession. 

Few in the U.S. legal sector have accepted how Lat framed the line of work that has been framed with august symbols such as that of SCOTUS and the wisdom of crowds accomplished through the jury system.  After all, it is still in the control of old-line players in a business (hell, it was a always a business and a brutal one of up or out) who are straining to hold on to the world that maybe never existed except in their minds. 

That is one reason why the establishment part of the legal sector, as opposed to upstarts like Jacoby & Myers, is resisting firms from becoming public companies. 

That's not the situation, reports the current issue of THE ECONOMIST, in Australia and more recently Britain.  Businesses can take ownership of some or all of law firms.

That new model has been correlated with higher revenues, as with Slater & Gordon in Australia, which had been the first firm in that nation to go public back in 2007.  Supporters of the model also contend that the pricing of legal services comes down and that benefits the public interest in making law more accessible to Everyman.

Here in the U.S., Jacoby & Meyers is suing New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut for the right to raise outside capital, notes THE ECONOMIST.  As yet, that personal injury law firm has not approached investment bankers. 

Reflect: With law firms owned by businesses, will the new model tolerate hiring newbie JDs at six figures when they have no significant experience practicing law?

Talbots: Did it cast is "safe" spell on female associates?

Were female associates in the legal sector like we professionals in corporate America who had come to feel safe only with Talbots?  There we knew, whatever we purchased, would be mistake-proof. 

Well, then Talbots began experimenting with its brand.  That was how it became a distressed retailer.  I take a look at that for financial information powerhouse Motley Fool. Here you can read all about it.

Ignition Interlock Device: Drunk driving just got lots more expensive

Is money enough of a deterrent to not drink and drive? 

It could be in the 14 states which require the installation of the "ignition interlock device" on your vehicle after a conviction for drunken driving.  It prevents you from starting the car if it "detects" booze.

Okay, you pay a lawyer to help you with the original DUI case.  Then, after that, at least here in Connecticut, you have to cough up, reports Gregory B. Hladky in THE NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE, anywhere from $60 to $150 for the installation of the device.  Then the cost for maintenance is $80 to $110 a month.  It usually stays attached for a year or longer.

In addition, the device isn't perfect.  It could mistake your shaving lotion for booze or even be having a bad day and, well, you're just out of luck because it smells something sinister.

Hillary, we hardly knew ye

Hillary Clinton is at the top of her game, finally. 

After accessing power through her husband, she came into her own as U.S. Secretary of State.  Yes, she did well in the U.S. Senate but manifested her fierce intelligence and cool political persona in her current job.  Now, she is saying, sort of, that her political career is at an end, reports POLITICO.

This could be a tactic to have the Democratic power brokers flock to her and beg her to stay in the game.  In return they would give her whatever she wanted.

But if it's true that she is exiting, then we have to wonder why.  A Baby Boomer, she's relatively young.  T. Boone Pickens lost it all, ranging from his marriage to his nest egg, in his mid 60s.  Then he came back, stronger.  Clint Eastwood, who's around 80, changed in the last 15 years to produce film that are already judged to be classics.  Betty White just celebrated her 80th birthday. Andy Rooney worked until he was 90.  Sure, Hillary might be tired from the global travel, but ambitious people always find second winds.

Time will bring out more facts.  Let's hope Hillary, who has been a role model for Baby Boomers and all women around the world, stays in public service.  If she returns to private law practice she will make a bundle.  Imagine the kind of business she would bring in.

New Haven, CT: LSAT instructor for PowerScore

The pay for this ranges from $35 to $50 an hour for about 8 to 10 hours a week.  The incentive is that it gives you a foot in the door of the growing field of services for preparing to attend professional, graduate, and undergraduate programs.  The field is international.

Here are details and how to apply.

CONNECTICUT LAW TRIBUNE: Opening for Managing Editor

Here in Hartford, Connecticut there is an opening for a full-time Managing Editor for the CONNECTICUT LAW TRIBUNE.  The ad reads that a JD isn't required but it wouldn't hurt.

Hartford, since it's the state capital, has plenty going on.  There is also a lot of diversity in the kind of city, town, or farm land where you want to live. 

Here are details and how to apply.

BigLaw: Online video biggest marketing nut to crack

BigLaw had been behind the curve in adopting social media.  LittleLaw, such as Bill Marler's shop Marler Clark, was out there making hay online, particularly with blogging.

But now that online video has become the most cost-efficient and effective marketing tool, both Big and Little law are probably newbies in getting their arms around this medium.  But they better get up to speed fast since, according to Forrester Research, the odds are that web content with video is 53 times more likely to be the first page of Google than content without video.  And, yes, the research by Forbes and Google found that those C-suite executives law firms need to pitch to are on the web and mobile, often with no middleman doing their surfing and deciding.  After they bump into content they are apt to take action, such as finding out more about the law firm.

The tough marketing nut to crack is making the video compelling or, as the Heath Brothers call it "sticky."  Not easy if the law firm has been traditional in how it puts itself out there.  Visible Measures reports that 44 percent of viewers click off before the end of the first 60 seconds. 

The first step in creating content which attracts and holds interest is to bring 'em in with mankind's primitive craving for a story or narrative.  Law firms can't sell. They have to frame that pitch within a story line, just like journalists do.

Up or Out Organizational Culture: Not so bad if you had somewhere to go

There are those who justify, even champion, the up or out organizational culture.  And they have no problem that one leading value in the environment is fear.  They contend fear can produce unusually great results.

In CNN MONEY, this kind of work setting is deconstructed by Shelley DuBois.  Law is specifically mentioned.  Actually, it's a tradition in BigLaw that those who don't make partner can hang around a while to get their bearings but then have to leave.  That's just the way it is.

That standard procedure was always brutal.  It's the unusual associate who isn't emotionally banged up, sometimes so badly that they can't put a new career path together.  There was only one situation I know of that the rejected calmly went on to a successful second career in journalism. 

It's more brutal now.  There is usually no place to go.  Had you a book of business you could bring to another firm, you would probably have made partner.  Sure you can start your own firm but working in BigLaw doesn't train you to be an entrepreneur. 

With some kinds of management consulting, up and out really means out and going to another well-paying and high status position. 

So, from the get-go, those who enter different lines of work have to figure out if they are emotionally suited to be sucked dry by the seeming villains who operate the game.  After all, there are other games in town.  Right now, none of my clients play vendors against each other.  There's no fear.   We only do our assignments and that's that.

"Criminal Minds" - Seamless web of criminal and non-criminal minds

The brilliance of "Criminal Minds" is the seamless web created between the aberrant thinking of the criminal and the often equally aberrant thinking of the non-criminal, when under stress.

Tonight that was played out in three ways.  There was the serial rapist, turned killer "The Piano Man."  He also had an imitator who was an orderly in a hospital and considered women to be whores.  Then there was the victim Regina who turned out to be almost a killer when she connected the dots about who The Piano Man was.  Her trauma, in turn, broke open Prentiss's memory bank of the whole Doyle pathology, including almost dying from an attack by him.

Watching this continuum of pathology, one wonders if those who deal with the criminal element become affected by it in negative ways.  Had Regina not been raped, she would never have plotted to kidnap, torture, and then kill her attacker.  Had Prentiss not dealt with such twisted criminals she might have never considered having an affair with Doyle to extract information.  In the end, she has been paying for that dearly.

Reflection: Is lawyering an emotionally risky job?  After all, the research about mirror neurons found that we human beings influence each other, cell by cell.