Law And More

Our Daughters Are a Mess: Sue Disney

This is the era when a mother is suing McDonald's because its Happy Meals's toy allegedly encourages children to consume high-calorie food.  So, why not another parent or make that plural, as in a class action suit, sue Disney.  The alleged offense is its constant serving up of fairy tales in which little females are princesses or can earn that pink lifestyle. 

In her book "Cinderella Ate My Daughter,"Peggy Orenstein opines on the possible correlation between the princess syndrome and the mess many daughters are.  We all know the epidemic among young females of eating disorders, low self-esteem, clinical depression, and preoccupation with looks. 

However, we female Baby Boomers who came of age before the supposed Disneyfication of the American culture vividly remember our eating disorders, low self-esteem, clinical depression, and preoccupation with looks.  If Disney becomes a defendant because of the princess syndrome, it can call me as a witness on its behalf.  My hunch is that as long as females yearn to be mothers, there will be angst about lots of things young males don't fret about.

Maybe Chelsea Clinton should have married a lawyer

Daughter of the two most famous lawyers in the world, Chelsea Clinton has become an item of gossip.  Tabloid the NEW YORK POST reports that Chelsea's husband Marc Mezvinsky is no longer at his job at hedge fund G3 Capital.  Instead, he is spending a few months skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That all began before the holidays and his wife visits him every couple of weeks.

We wonder how this time-out is being viewed by Papa and Mama Bear Clinton.  Are they regretting that they didn't bring up their daughter to marry a lawyer, perfect like they are in every way.

Stephen Glass: More great drama from applying to the bar

Stephen Glass, booted from THE NEW REPUBLIC [TNR] for fabricating more than 20 articles, seems to love creating theatre.  There was plenty of drama to go around when his employer et al. discovered the journalistic fraud.  Today, we're reminded of all that in the profile of former TNR head Martin Peretz in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE.  

The piece by Stephen Rodrick points to Peretz's complicated personality by discussing the fact that, although Glass's fraud harmed the publication, Peretz flew out to California and spoke on his behalf.  The hearing, whose contents are sealed, was an appeal by Glass to be admitted to the California Bar.  He had been denied admission because of previous ethical lapses. 

Likely Glass's idea to attend Georgetown Law School and go for a new career path in law played into his love of theatre.  Of course, a state bar association will balk.  Glass could have taken another career path in which he would not have had to pass ethical gatekeepers as a price of entry.

Glass watchers, such as VANITY FAIR, have spotted him working as a paralegal.

Aging Parents: Can they sue offspring for neglect?

The explosion in the numbers of aging around the globe is generating novel thinking about the law.  For example, in China there has been proposed a law requring adult children to visit their aging parents.  If they don't, the parents can sue them, reports Sharon LaFraniere in THE NEW YORK TIMES.  By 2050, it's predicted that one in four Chinese will be 65 or older.  During those visits, the parents probably could persuade their children to contribute to their financial upkeep.

Can this happen in the U.S.?  If entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are weakened, those in Congress could be pressured by their older constituents - who tend to study issues and vote - to provide protections in other ways.  Those could include some kind of law which re-distributes some of the income of their offspring back to them. 

European nations, where there is a low birth rate, might consider such laws to provide an incentive for citizens to have more children.  Recall back in pre-industrial economic times, operating a farm positioned children as assets.

Hildebrandt: 4Q '10 had 1% growth

Essentially Hildebrandt's Peer Monitor Index Report flagged the possibility of things getting better in the legal sector, says AM LAW DAILY. In 4Q of 2010, there was a 1% growth in demand.  That was primarily in litigation, M&A, and even real estate.

But the vulnerability remains for law firms which cannot learn how to position themselves for a buyer's market.  Those who surf the ads on Craigslist are running across myriad help-wanted for big marketing jobs in major law firms.  However, that bulking up in manpower might not be able to turn browsers into buyers or to even attract browsers.  Law firms might still not get it that their old way of pulling in clients - and, yet, it did have a pull force - is less and less effective.  That way, of course, was premium branding, with star players having top billing.

Can they and will they make the shift in mindset that the buyer's market requires?  They can put a toe in the water on that by reading "The Digital Handshake" by Paul Chaney.  The premise of the book is that market has become a conversation.  The first few chapters explain the basics of having a conversation with prospects and clients.  One way but not the only way of doing that is social media. Actually what Chaney says, and he admits it, is nothing new.  Dale Carnegie hammered that out early in the 20th century.  But affluence seemed to make those in professional services forget what they had learned in those Dale Carnegie seminars.

U.S. House: Product Placement by Sleepy's

Freshman members of Congress who have opted to sleep in their offices have it confirmed that this is a shrewd public relations move.  It connotes everything from being there 24/7 for the people to the ethos of frugality.  What's confirming it is the product placement strategy by Sleepy's.

In POLITICO, Patrick Gavin reports that Sleepy's is providing free pillows to any freshman sleeping in the office.  The pillow cases, one side blue and the other red, are bipartisan.

John Sheedy - Apparent Suicide

Therapists call those forces which lead human beings to such emotional suffering and even suicide the "terrorists within." Well, those terrorists within might have again claimed another victim.

In AM LAW DAILY, Brian Baxter reports that John Sheedy, corporate partner at Baker Botts, died in Moscow.  It appears to be a suicide.  He has worked and lived in Moscow for years. He was 53 years old.

Of course, the legal profession is known for its high suicide rate.  However, ever time there's a new one, there's such as sense of shock.  Likely details will come out in bits and pieces about possible reasons why Sheedy took this irreversible step. We will connect the dots because, as financial markets expert Nassim Taleb tells us over and over again: We need an organized narrative to explain our reality. But we really don't have a clue, do we, about this enigma.  

Exorcism: If drunks can be sentenced to AA, why not evil to demon-detox

Drunks and their attorneys are usually so relieved to receive a sentence of twice-a-week meetings at Alcoholics Anonymous that not many raise the legal issues which may be involved.  So, we can assume that those accused of more serious crimes and their lawyers won't kvetch if sentenced to exoricism.  And, who knows, the voodoo could rid the miscreant of some demons.

In the media as well as the film world - "The Rite" - there has been plenty of attention paid to the ancient Roman Catholic rite of exorcism. According to Christina Koningsor in THE ATLANTIC, there are currently 30 priests in the U.S. certified to perform the ritual.  If the process is effective - and most things tend to work the first time - the government could save billions in the cost of corrections and society could be protected.

An enlighted court system might structure a pilot program using exorcism versus other types of sentencing. 

In era of "Dukes v Wal-Mart," Jones Day Adds Two Labor and Employment Lawyers

It's no surprise that Jones Day has added to its Washington D.C. labor and employment practice.  In February, Thomas Jerman will be joining Jones Day as partner and Aparna Joshi as of counsel.  Both come from O'Melveny & Myers, reports Jeff Jeffrey of THE BLOG OF THE LEGAL TIIMES.

After all, this is the era of "Dukes v Wal-Mart," a huge gender discrimination class action lawsuit which could set precedents in employment law. The certification of that class action status is being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile in the last fiscal year the EEOC had received 99,922 charges, up seven percent since the previous year.

This afternoon I conducted an exclusive interview with Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations at the American Association of University Women. The AAUW had announced it was giving financial support to the plaintiffs in "Dukes v Wal-Mart." What had interested some readers about that was the transcending of class lines as a show of solidarity among women.  I will soon be posting that interview.

Law Is Flat

Setting is everything when professionals are practicing their trade.  That's what former Jones Day partner Mark Herrmann is learning as an in-house legal counsel at Aon.  He sums it up best in his Abovethelaw.com column with the sentence:

"At a corporation, law is not king. Or queen, or jack, or ten.  Law is a department."

The corporation is the setting for a business, not the monklike activities of ministering to the actual law in a professional services firm. Love of the law as an entity in itself probably won't get lawyers far or be perceived as useful in the corporation.  But, if we listen to the top players in the legal sector, such as Mickey Pohl, who remains as a partner at Jones Day, we recognize that lawyers who do the actual lawyering will serve their client best and be in demand if they think like business people.

In one of those Jones Day's PRACTICE PERSPECTIVES on product liability, Pohl hammered the need to approach a legal challenge within the context of the well being of the whole business, ranging from stock price to operations of a supply chain.  A trial can be won and the corporation go belly up or lose most of its brand equity.

Looked at from that point of view, law is, well, flat.  So has every other professional service become as clients know what outcomes they want.  For instance, in my field of communications, clients don't want attitudes about pork to change to X percentage positive.  They want to sell more pork.