Law And More

Justice Antonin Scalia's Co-Author

So much of career success depends on who chooses us to work with them. 

So, Bryan A. Garner was a lucky professional. 

As lawyer-journalist Kathryn Rubino reports on Abovethelaw.com, Garner had been Justice Antonin Scalia's co-author on two books. They are:

"Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges"

And, "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts."

Rubino tells us that Garner is a lawyer, teacher and lexicographer. His alma mater is the University of Texas School of Law.

Collaboration with a brandname can be leveraged for the rest of one's career. For decades, my ghostwriting and speechwriting with the Lee Iacocca turnaround team had given me a distinct edge.

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Socially Awkward Lawyers - That Could Be a + for Some

It was 1995. Dan Goleman created the meme of the importance of a high Emotional IQ.

After that, business, including professional services firms, hired executive coaches to boost the leaders' and managers' EI. Convinced by Goleman's seminal book "Emotional Intelligence," I also contracted for so many hours a week with a coach.

That was then.

Soon enough the tech world generated a bunch of socially-challenged billionaires with tons of power and influence. The correlation between EI and career success had to be re-thought.

And so it has been.

In April of this year, Ty Tashiro, Ph.D. (it's in psychology) published a balanced analysis of the professional and social payoffs of being socially in-tune with one's fellow man.

The book is ""Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome." Here you can order it from Amazon. Tashiro has taught at the Universities of Maryland and Minnesota and had previously published best-seller "The Science of Happily Ever After."

There are many ways of defining "socially awkward." Tashiro introduces several in the book.

But the ones professionals are concerned about are any which might impede high functioning in business. That ranges from new business development to obtaining the outcomes clients need. Regarding the latter, the trial lawyer who lacks the social intelligence to persuade a jury isn't going to be in demand. 

Of course, Tashiro describes where being socially awkward can be a +. GeekWorld is one.

Another is the organizational culture of many law firms. It seems to tilt in favor of it, at least at the top layers. At the low end, associates might not last if they don't understand how to win over partners. 

In public affairs, when I had to contact BigLaw partners or in-house counsel for background, they were appropriately aloof. The message sent loud and clear was: My time is valuable, don't waste it. 

In small business matters, when I shopped for an in-person attorney (that was pre-LegalZoom), I looked for the kind consumed by a narrow specialization such as contract law. That's the essence of socially awkwardness: The only sand box played in, at least professionally, is narrow. Nothing outside catches their attention. The fictional model of this is Dr. Spencer Reid on "Criminal Minds." 

However, even the most successful lawyers who have rock-bottom scores in Emotional IQ have to master the fundamentals of, as Dale Carnegie put it, how to make friends and influence people. After all, increasingly they have been put on the front lines of developing new business. That requires something different than monkish concentration on legal strategy and details. There are clients who want to negotiable billing. There are members of the firm who are gathering documents of abuse or discrimination for a lawsuit. You bet, law firm life now requires lawyers to have a flip switch for social skills.

But, overall, in this dog-eat-dog time in capitalism, social skills matter less in many lines of work. Way back when, Arthur Miller predicted that in his seminal play "Death of a Salesman." A smile and a handshake weren't going as far, not any more.

In communications, prospects demand the data about my track record. The relationship? Forget it. Overseeing the account is transactional. The new client wants the process to be in-and-out. But, come to think about it, understanding that shift in how to conduct business in itself requires some level of social intelligence. 

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Saving Our Lawyers - Can Suicide Be (Almost) Eradicated, Like Smallpox

"It was inevitable."

That has long been the meme surrounding suicide. Supposedly, it provided comfort to those left behind - often plagued with guilt.

Just consider the many lawyers we know or know of who have committed suicide. Recall that "suicide cluster" in Kentucky.

The recent joint study by the ABA and Hazelden Ford sort of predicts that play-out in the career of practicing law.

It's no surprise when we click on Abovethelaw and are briefed about the partners who leap from their Manhattan coop windows or shoot themselves in their vacation homes.

Some of us applied that sense of inevitability when we reflected on the recent suicide of Manhattan chiropractor Glenn Scarpelli. We concluded that this professional who was used to the good life simply could not accept the lifestyle he would be left with if faced up to what he called his "financial reality."

I had worked out in the my head that my mother couldn't make it without the husband she had lost 5 years before. Therefore, her suicide was inevitable,

Right?

Maybe not.

Currently, the Zero Suicide mission is challenging that belief. Its aim is to make suicide preventable, reports Simon Usborne in The Atlantic.  The vision is a world without suicide. According to the World Health Organization, in 2015, there had been 788,000 suicides around the world. 

Those in the front lines of the movement such as Steve Mallen, who is based in the U.K.,  are convinced that the signs that someone is considering suicide can be picked up and addressed - before the situation reaches a crisis. To pick those up, of course, requires that the stigma be removed from suicide. If it moves out in the open, then it becomes an approachable subject. 

Mallen is convinced he could have prevented his son's suicide. 

That's the theory. However, invest enough resources in this initiative and zero suicide could become reality. 

So many supposed books have been published on the suicide phenomenon. Those experts range from A. Alvarez, who had been in the loop on Sylvia Plath's suicide, to Kay Jamison, the Johns Hopkins' professor who herself had attempted suicide. But, those of us personally forced to sort out suicide only got cold comfort from all that. Perhaps Zero suicide can generate fresh and actionable insight.

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Jack Welch - 1) Did he bet on the wrong horse, and 2) will that horse be all-time winner at Uber

In Bloomberg, Thomas Black raises this issue: In 2000, did outgoing GE head Jack Welch bet on wrong horse?

If that was the situation, then Welch's legacy has taken yet another hit. 

Some have long contended that Welch hadn't really done much for GE. Its improved financial performance while he was chief executive officer, it is argued, primarily resulted from his slashing of manpower.

Like Lee Iacocca did at Chrylser, Welch eliminated much of middle management and introduced the just-in-time worker as standard. Iacocca was also hailed as a genius of turnarounds. But later, his brand equity dropped to zero. The same could happen to Welch Inc.  

There had also been the controversial divorce from his second wife Jane. When being interviewed by then head of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), Welch contended he "fell in love" with Suzy Wetlaufer. That divorce rocked the business world when Jane fought for all the money she could get. Meanwhile Suzy lost her good job at the HBR. At the time it was hot. For instance, Suzy ran the then-provocative article on leadership and narcissism. 

That brings us to the matter of thought leadership. One wonders if the bundling of Jack & Suzy produced any seminal contributions in that niche.

For example, their column in the old Business Week seemed to me to be lackluster.

The book they published together in 2015 - "The Real Life M.B.A." - ranks 51,074 on Amazon. That is in contrast to Peter Thiel's 2014 book "Zero to One." The venture capitalist's book ranks 1,547 on Amazon. 

The cloud hanging over Welch's legacy currently darkens with the speculation that he made a major mistake choosing Jeffrey Immelt to succeed him, versus Dave Cote. When Immelt oversaw GE, it stagnated. The stock sunk. The passed-over Cote went over to head Honeywell. It grew about 10%. The stock did well. 

It is possible that those who write the history of business will investigate in a detailed objective manner Welch's career. The  findings might not be shocking. More of us are expecting the worst. 

Meanwhile, there are rumors that Immelt might go on to head Uber. There he could thrive, finally. At GE he was struggling to transform the culture into that of a startup. The Immelt brand could become golden. 

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Everything in Your Legal Background Can Be Leveraged - Even When You Did Document Review

The genius of Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech was that he showed how just about everything in one's background can be leveraged for eventual success. His particular bit of that was his knowledge of calligraphy. 

Well, current lawyer-journalist at Abovethelaw Kathryn Rubino has also proved out that wisdom.

On Abovethelaw, she has posted an article titled "This Is Every Lawyer's Worst Discovery Nightmare." Yes, it has the seeds of high-profile commencement address.

In the column she analyses the discovery errors made by Angela Turiano of Bressler, Amery & Ross. The client was Wells Fargo. Yes, they were serious.

Because of Rubino's experience doing document review, she easily fingered how those mistakes could have been prevented. Not that Rubino loved the document review niche. After all, previously she had been an associate in BigLaw. Then came the legal sector crash of 2007. End of that story.

While laboring in the vineyard of doc review, Rubino was also creating a brandname as a journalist. Under the pen name "Alex Rich," she was publishing articles about the line of work on Abovethelaw. Here is the outing of that caper - through which she landed a full-time job at Abovethelaw.

Yes, this is the kind of inspirational saga Rubino can bundle into a commencement address at a T-14 law school. My first choice for that is Yale Law. Meanwhile, she can publish a book titled "Make Your Dots Connect."

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A Suicide in the Family - Juan Thompson, Son of Hunter, Tries to Sort Through Some of That

On February 20, 2005, inventor of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide.

He was 67 years old.

During his life he had produced works of genius such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

He had the rare gift of self-awareness. For instance, he knew he could never work in an office or have a boss.

His buddies ranged from Keith Richards to Ed Bradley.

Eventually, Hunter got worn down by chronic alcoholism, failing health, yet another marriage that wasn't working, too many friends who had died and a growing inability to write.

As he shot himself, in the next room were his son Juan F. Thompson, his daughter-in-law Jennifer and grandson Will. They heard a pop pop pop. No one was sure it had been a gunshot. However, Jennifer had been warning Juan to be watchful of his father. Her instincts picked up trouble.

In the 2016 memoir "Stories I Tell Myself," Juan reflects on his father's death and complicated life. It really wasn't until Juan was himself a father that he realized that raging, manipulative and often cruel man really did love him. Fathers love their children. That's the way it goes.

About the suicide per se, on page 114, Juan says:

"I'm not angry at Hunter very often about his suicide. I am angry, though, that he did not stay around for Will ... I miss my father very much still."

It's been said that suicide is murder. Those killed are the survivors. Their soul is snuffed out. So, one wonders if Hunter's was his final bit of cruelty. An alcoholic since youth, he likely had long lost control over his emotions. He simply acted on them.

This memoir was Juan's attempt to work through his own feelings about his father, especially his death. But that's a tall order. 

We who are part of what's now called "families with the suicide gene" understand that you can assume you have reached an understanding of why parents, siblings and uncles would opt to check out.

Then, you realize you have no handle on what might have gone on in the minds and hearts of those who killed themselves. Also, you wonder if the DNA will also catch up with you. 

Anyone who has had a difficult time with a parent must read "Stories I Tell Myself." It does help shake some of the guilt over not being able to heal the family fractures. 

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Trouble-Makers Become "Rich," At Least As John Waters Defines It

Like Steve Jobs at Stanford, filmmaker John Waters delivered an iconic commencement speech at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Essentially, it was about how to make trouble effectively. 

Those who do will wind up "rich," at least as Waters defines that concept. To him, "rich" means being able to afford not to have to do work for a___holes. In addition, you also often have the option of being able to work for yourself.

In April 2017, that how-to was published in book form. The title of those 71 pages is "Make Trouble." Here you can order it from Amazon.

A piece of learning how to make trouble is, hammers Waters, being able to:

"Ask for the world and pay no mind if you are initially turned down ... All you need is one person to say 'get in,' and off you go."

Embracing rejection as almost irrelevant is a must not only for new graduates struggling for a place in the creative world.

Just about every traditional line of work, ranging from practicing law to my field of ghostwriting, has become a daily rollercoaster of hope and despair. 

Yet, as Waters puts it, all you need is one "yes." That's what you should keep seeking. To do that, you bet, we have to make trouble. That is, not follow the rules the experts make a lot of money creating and imposing on those who don't make trouble. 

"Trouble-makers" are those who pass by the kind of work which leads to being tethered for life laboring for a___holes.

Among the trouble-makers has been Elie Mystal.

Mystal left being an associate in BigLaw for journalism at digital news site Abovethelaw.com. At the time he was in six-figure student loan debt from following the experts who told him to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Today, one of his columns had more than 2K shares.

Toward the end of his commencement speech, Waters asks the graduates to "Make Me Nervous." 

It wasn't until I lost my mind, nest egg and business in 2003, that I made it my mission to make the world nervous. (Here is the e-book on what was the worst of times.)

Yes, immediately I became, as Waters predicted, "rich." And, unlike so many of those chasing after "rich" as in financial wealth, you don't wind up jumping out the window at work, embezzling from the firm or being a functioning drunk.

"Make Trouble" is a wonderful gift for the Class of 2021 as well as for those of us over-65 who are determined to never retire.

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Job Interviews - Approach Them As If They Are FBI Interrogations

A skilled job interviewer seduces the applicant into the open, give-and-take framework of a conversation. That process mirrors the fundamentals of FBI interrogations.

That reality is outed in the 2017 book about the unique experience of having Saddam Hussein as an American prisoner. Written by Will Bardenwerper, "The Prisoner in His Palace" documents how both the FBI guards and the leader who would be executed for human atrocities comported themselves.

Part of all that was the need to interrogate, which the FBI euphemistically refers to as "a conversation with a purpose." It seems the cunning Hussein enjoyed the process. He had a good time revealing what he perceived as his "achievements" and smoothly concealing the information he wasn't willing to give up.

A shrewd job applicant adopts the same control over the interview. Of course, like Hussein, we want to position and package ourselves as being authentic in that conversation. But we also are skillful in gliding away from traps set to eliminate us as possible hires.

The classic case requiring management is when the previous or current job comes up. The interviewer wants the real story why we left it, want to leave it or had gotten the boot. It is a red flag to be evasive. Instead, we leverage all the non-verbal clues such as leaning in and having a relaxed facial expression.

Then we deliver an accurate story about the past, but spun to serve our self-interest. No negatives are allowed.

Even if it's well known the boss is difficult we spin that as providing useful lessons in diverse styles of management.

We were fired, not laid off. We discuss how much we have learned about the best fit for our talent. We applied to this particular job because it is the right fit.

After the interview, we grab a trusted professional to do an audit on what we might have done well and what not so well. There is no one absolute way to ace an interview, just as there is no one absolute way to have a meaningful conversation.

The only universal is: Our performance art improves with practice.

Hussein grew into the role of being a cunning player.

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Those "Criminal Minds" in Real Life - All Too Human

The elite FBI agents on "Criminal Minds" come across as selfless.

They sacrifice personal relationships and actually put their lives on the line to catch the bad guys.

Sure, they have flaws. For instance, Dr. Spencer Reid is low in Emotional Intelligence (EI). But, overall, they represent the best of the human species.

That's the fiction.

The reality is that those in the FBI are all too human, including in the ambition department.

That is recounted in the classic about notorious criminal Whitey Bulger. The book is "Black Mass." Written by Dick Lehr and Gerald O'Neill, it captures an ethos is which strategies and tactics are heavy with FBI personal self interest. 

For example, FBI agent John Connolly ups his status by bagging Bulger as a confidential informant. That transaction is not a "pure" one. Not long after Bulger agreed to be a snitch, he committed his first murder. Cooperating with the FBI didn't transform the miscreant into a player who respected the norms of society.

Of course, if ambition results in the overall greater good it's okay, right. More scum gets collared. The world is a bit safer.

But ambition can also open the door to over-zealous pursuit of supposed law and order. Currently, the convictions of former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara have been questioned. Some, such of inside traders and Sheldon Silver, have been tossed. 

But all this is well known to any 1L. From the get-go in law school the message is: The game is about winning. That's positioned and packaged as pulling out all stops to represent one's client. 

Can human beings in law enforcement and prosecution/defense become more tuned in to old-fashioned tenets of what constitutes "character?" In my personal essay for college back in early 1960s, I had to discuss issues relating the character. At the time, I believed those were important. Now? I just don't know.

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When Pop Culture References Were Verboten in Serious Discourse (Maybe Only Partners Will Remember That)

All social classes enjoyed pop culture.

But "serious people" weren't allowed to take popular culture seriously.

Those "serious people" included college students in Humanities courses, doctoral students writing dissertations, executives in corporations making speeches and publishing books and lawyers arguing cases in court. 

That was then. Actually it wasn't so long ago.

In the early 1980s, scholar Stuart Hall introduced the subject of popular culture in a lecture at the University of Illinois. In The New Yorker, Hua Hsu chronicles that revolution. Essentially it entailed pop culture's being classified and treated as "culture." Hall's lecture opened the door to "cultural studies."

The front lines of that disruption were scholars whose backgrounds were blue collar. They recognized that what they had experienced growing up was indeed culture.

Now, college students take courses studying the aggregate pop culture or bits and pieces such as how women are portrayed in the mass media.

Sure, there are doctoral dissertations on such matters, which at one time weren't considered worth scholarly investigation.

The speeches and articles we wrote for Lee Iacocca during the Chrysler turnaround were jam packed with pop culture references. In addition, Iacocca was the first corporate leader to use the language of the street, such as "coulda" and "shoulda." 

And, even judges use pop culture to make a point in their written opinions. Here, Kathryn Rubino at Abovethelaw.com describes how Ninth Circuit Judge John Owens leveraged a reference to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." That was in his concurrence for the case of "U.S. v. Perez-Silvan."

Is the current challenge for Millennials and Gen Zers to experience and appreciate what used to be classified as "high culture?"

My Millennial clients have neither read nor seen a play by William Shakespeare. To fulfill "that kind of requirement" in college they took an American Studies or Womens Studies course.

No Bach or Beethoven comes through their doors or windows in this 400-unit complex. 

Unless they had gone to art school, many have developed no interest in the visual art movements over the centuries. 

I wonder, though: Had I not invested so many years in academia involved in the study of English Literature and the History of Ideas, would I even care about those artifacts of so-called high culture?

I have a hunch the answer is "no." The characters in "Criminal Minds" and in the film "Manchester By the Sea" are the entities which help me interpret my little world. 

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