Law And More

Displaced Lawyers - Beware Your Former Law Firm's Golden Age

Those displaced lawyers tell me with great enthusiasm all about their "alumni club."

Monthly, members meet in person.

Much more frequently they contact each other by phone, email, and social media.

They had been senior associates at BigLaw firms during a Golden Age. Of course, for most law firms, that era is over. 

On a conscious level, they perceive their little club as a must for networking, hearing about employment opportunities in and outside law, and getting the dirt on The Enemies, that is, the partners who terminated them. That illusion can be fun. However, the investment of their time rarely pays off in professional progress.

You don't have been Sigmund Freud to notice this: On other levels, they are trying to hold on to what they have made their own golden age. Since then, there has been no professional experience yielding such status, stimulating work, lucrative compensation and feeling of superiority.

What's obvious is that no member of the alumni club has done a reset. Sure, there are law firm jobs here and corporate compliance jobs there. There are consulting assignments as with condo boards. 

However, no big leap forward. How they recall the past has them hog-tied to a very different world of work. One that is over.

Any executive  coach would recommend that they quit this little club. Membership could be classified as downright toxic.

Note: I observe the same dynamics with the Gulf Oil (now Chevron since being taken over) former managers in public affairs. They're quite an active group, even sponsoring meet-ups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Gulf headquarters had been located.

They were puzzled when I demanded they remove my name from their email lists. To me, that was a sign of their unawareness that every member was stuck in the past and doomed to underachievement.

Non-members went on to progress to the C-suite in other industries. They are creating new kinds of golden ages in their careers.

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

 

Alleged Anti-Semitism in Germany - Unique Suffering of Being Taken for Jewish in Southern Arizona

In researching Southern Arizona as a possible location to relocate from the New York Metro area I never posed this question: How are Jews treated?

That's because I am not Jewish.

After a few months enjoying the lower cost of living in AZ, I accidentally found out that I was "taken for Jewish."

A neighbor was drinking heavily and interrogating me how it had been growing up Jewish. Over and over again he asked (drunks tend to repeat) why Jewish families "push" their kids to succeed. 

Over and over again, I told him that I wasn't Jewish. 

He smirked.

His response: "Sure, try to hide it. I'd do the same thing. But 'everyone' knows you're Jewish."

No, that wasn't the first time that mis-identification had occurred.

I grew up in a partly Jewish area in pre-gentrified Jersey City, New Jersey. My body type is Eastern European. My accent is deep New York. 

The drunk was right. Everyone did assume they knew I was Jewish. Finally I could connect the dots on why I wasn't able to break in socially.

At the 27-month mark, I gave up and relocated to Eastern Ohio. Ironically, it is less expensive than Southern AZ.

The suffering from being discriminated against is unique.  

It can range from not being allowed into the tribe as was the situation in AZ to alleged physical attacks and cyberbullying, as is occurring in Germany.  Here is the media coverage of that. 

The issue the Jews in Germany face is if they should placate, push back especially through litigation and legislation, or relocate. The latter is very difficult. 

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

 

Bixby Knolls Law Firm - Fired Attorney John Mendoza Kills Celebrity Lawyer Major Langer, Self

Maybe it was reality star Donald Trump's charisma which allowed that grim phrase "You're fired" to become entertaining. 

But, anyone who's been terminated knows the experience is horrific.

Uncertainty about the future, loss of income, and the public shame catapult the fired into an abyss of suffering. 

So, the workplace murder/suicide phenomenon is really no surprise post-firing.

That's why security currently escorts the terminated out of the building. Usually, the benefit outplacement is provided. And human resources experts continue to research what are the best practices in how to terminate.

The most recent play-out of the murder/suicide syndrome, reports Daily Mail, is the tragedy at the Bixby Knolls Law Officer in Long Beach California. 

Specialist in Workers Compensation, John Mendoza, 58, had been a partner at Bixby Knolls. According to those the media interviewed, he was a caring, well-liked human being.

Then, last week, managing partner at the firm Major Langer, 75, fired him. Langer is a celebrity lawyer. His clients include Pamela Anderson. 

On Friday, the law firm was enjoying its holiday party. Mendoza shot Langer dead. He also shot another partner Ronald Beck who oversees office operations. He is in stable condition.

His "work" done, Mendoza shot himself dead.

Of course, there will be an investigation by law enforcement about the context in which this workplace-violence incident occurred.

However, what is obvious is that taking away another human being's job must be managed with sensitivity, fairness, and authentic compassion. 

This blog extends sympathy to all those who loved the victims. 

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

 

Crypto-Literacy - Add on Ripple (XRP) Module, Lawyers/Law Students

Crypto-literacy.

That became the financial mandate during 2017.

And, a knowledge niche Robert Ambrogi made clear was necessary for the legal sector. Here is his thought leadership piece.

You bet, law schools such as U of CA at Berkeley are offering courses on this must-now-understand. Here is a briefing on that and more.

Based on blockchain, no surprise, cryptocurrency was the media money story of 2017.

Among those currencies, Ripple (XRP) is the one receiving the fastest growing attention.

Ripple has proved itself in pragmatic contexts. One is the transfer of funds across borders.

Usually that transaction can't be done in real time and is expensive.  Here is Kailey Leinz's coverage in Bloomberg.

In the Bloomberg Television interview, Ripple chief executive officer Brad Garlinghouse noted how that, before Ripple, usually the quickest way to send funds across borders had been to go to JFK Airport and handle the transaction yourself in another nation such as Mexico or London.  

Investors have noticed. Leinz reports:

"Ripple ... has surged 53 percent in the past 24 hours [article dated 12/29/2017] to surpass ethereum and take the title of the world's second-most valuable digital coin by market cap. Ripple's market value rocketed to $86 billion ..."

Threatened are not only individual money-transfer services such as Western Union. In play is the entire global banking infrastructure. 

In addition, cryptocurrencies like Ripple are transforming the world of investing.  When lawyer turned venture capitalist Michael Arrington launched his hedge fund XRP Capital he made this rule: All limited partners had to do their funding via Ripple. Here is my coverage of that launch.

Cryptocurrencies are also providing startups with another funding option. That's through the Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

SEC head Jay Clayton praised that development. But he warned that ICOs will be treated like securities - that is, subject to regulation. Not everyone agrees with Clayton. Here is my article on how this new wild west could be tamed. 

Businesses of all kind want to send the message that, yes, they are crypto-literate - and more.

For example, more of them are including in their communications assignments to me specifications that the implications of blockchain have to be explained. Recently, I researched  white papers and articles on those for industries ranging from career transition to government procurement.

Experiments in blockchain are being conducted by corporations such as IBM and the Royal Bank of Canada. They are transmitting the signal that they are indeed in the loop.

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

Legal Sector in 2018 - DLA Piper, Latham & Watkins Predict Alfred E. Neuman Kind of Year

Is optimism a strategy?

That was the ethos of mid-20th century goofy anti-hero Alfred E. Neuman. His meme was: What me worry? His platform - Mad Magazine - was the prototype for Onion and SNL humor.

DLA Piper's Roger Meltzer and Latham & Watkins' Ora Fisher will find if being bullish is a form of voodoo or white witchcraft.

Their predictions about how their law firms will do in 2018 run counter to what expert watchers such as Citi Private Bank forecast.

Here is what they tell Miriam Rosen at Law.com.

For instance, DLA Piper sees profit growth through M&A as well as international assignments.

For Latham & Watkins the magic will happen through litigation, white collar defense, and cybersecurity.

However, the gurus at Abovethelaw, which obsessively tracks career tracks in law, do not share that magical thinking.

In his discussion of the top legal stories of 2017, ATL lawyer-journalist Joe Patrice observes that porn might make more financial and employment-security sense that studying for the law.

Here is that post. I agree. Only I would limit the porn niche to soft. Otherwise, Patrice's comment could become the meme for career guidance in 2018.

Meanwhile, applications are on an uptick to law schools. Blind faith in higher education seems to still hold on in America.

That began when we Baby Boomers were the first generation to attend college en masse. Had we stopped there we might have ducked the arrested development we would take on during the counterculture.

But, no, in education we trusted and acquired myriad other academic degrees.

When all that education didn't pan out in terms of good jobs, we became The Lost Generation of the 1970s.

We who started out as winners wound up all-time losers, at least until we figured out how to make a good buck in America.

At age 34, the solution for me was a ghostwriting/speechwriting position at Chevron. For others who had pursued academic excellence it has been through testing high enough for jobs in government such as the SSI-processing units. The C students in college, who had stopped the degree stuff with the BA/BS, were our bosses. 

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

 

"Murder on the Orient Express" - Justice, Of Course, Is Very Different than Law

Idealistic 1Ls in law school very quickly learn that they are there to learn about the law. Not justice.

Laypeople get that lesson from watching the original episodes or re-reruns of "Law & Order." Jack McCoy impresses on his staff that they are employed to implement the law. Not to take a crack at justice per se. 

It's "Murder on the Orient Express" which boldly takes up the issue of justice.

In the current version of that classic film, the world-famous detective Hercules Poirot is willing to die for justice.

He asks the 13 on the train, who are all involved in the murder, to kill him. In that way he won't have to report this conspiracy to the police. 

However, he does come up with a less grim solution. He tells the police that a lone assailant bordered the train, killed, and then fled.

The murder victim, Poirot discovers, is the man who murdered a young child in the Armstrong family as part of a kidnapping. The mother and the child she was carrying both wound up dying in premature birth triggered by the trauma. The father commits suicide. Many other lives are ruined. That wreckage also has touched the 13 on the train in profound ways. 

If only the law could cut slack for the broken, the way Poirot did. Maybe it does, only outsiders are not aware of the that.

Rotten Tomatoes gave "Murder on the Orient Express" mediocre ratings. But those interested in the issue of justice would find it useful to take in and reflect on.

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

North Long Beach, CA - Law Firm Murder/Suicide and More

North Long Beach, California law enforcement have classified this fatal violence as workplace related. 

As yet the name of the law firm has not been released. In that upscale neighborhood, there are three of them.

A male who worked there killed one person, shot another who drove himself to the hospital, and then killed himself. Here are the details from Time, in this developing story.

This blog extends sympathy to the relatives of the victims. 

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

Apple's "Upgrade" to iPhone 6 (later 7) - Let the Class-Action Lawsuits Begin

Tort reformers who have pushed back against the class action lawsuit just suffered a major setback.

In the past several years, as we saw with "Dukes v. WalMart," the class action has been taking it on the chin. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court failed to give the litigation class certification.

The argument was that WalMart management was too decentralized to allow creation of gender discrimination policies at the store level. 

Now, plaintiffs in class actions might have a better shot at certification - and victory. This could usher in a new golden age of litigation in the U.S. Since the crash, litigation has been a flat practice in many law firms. 

The lawsuits against Apple could be that game-changer.

The public can begin to think: Hey, the very real threat of class-action lawsuits could prevent alleged misrepresentation like the supposed "upgrade" Apple provided for older versions such as iPhone 6 (then 7).

In reality, the battery slowed down the phone's performance. Some frustrated users wound up purchasing a new version. Such a transaction is expensive. Only last week did Apple make public the reason why users were experiencing the slow-down.

Well, as Celia Ampel reports in the National Law Journal, the class-action lawsuits have begun. Eventually they could be consolidated into a multidistrict one.

In Florida, for example, law firm Podhurst Orseck filed class-action federal litigation. It is similar to that filed against Apple in Illinois and California. 

As Ampel explains:

"The lawsuit alleges the company knew it was rolling out a 'concealed battery-life killer,' but didn't disclose the issue to consumers until last week. The claims include violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and violations of California law [where Apple is based]." 

Podhurst Orseck is an experienced player in multidistrict class counsel.

This consolidated lawsuit can become sufficiently interesting and high profile to educate the public about the innate value of class action litigation. Together, they can go in search of those they can file. Such a mindset could keep business on the right side of the law as well as ethical behavior.

Prediction: This class action could take on the role of Ralph Nader in the 20th century who used the legal system to create new protections for consumers. 

Get a second opinion about your marketing and advocacy communications. No pressure. No charge. Please contact Jane Genova, janegenova374@gmail.com or @genova_jane.

 

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