Law And More

"Son Of A Gun" - Prison Isn't Cool In Australia, Either

In the Australian film "Son of a Gun," teenager JR is sent to a prison in that nation for a minor offense. His sentence is 6 months. They tell him in intake that if he keeps his nose clean that could be reduced to 3 months. 

Naive, he immediately puts himself at risk by trying to protect an emotionally retarded young inmate. The latter is being bullied by gang members.

Public enemy #1 Brendan Lynch clues JR in: Mind your own business. In exchange for Lynch's wisdom, which boils down to protection, JR will have to help the notorious criminal break out of prison.

What's clear is that this is a deal JR can't refuse. This prison in Australia is filled with violence, as entrenched and brutal as what we hear about in America's lock-ups. No, at least from what's depicted in this film, the Australian approach to incarceration isn't any more progressive than the American one. 

Brendan saves JR from a gang rape and more. We witness a man being tossed over the railing and killed. The blood streams from his head. The emotionally stunted man-child attempts suicide. 

JR is successful in orchestrating the break-out from a helicopter. He ends up rich and gets the girl. But in between intake at prison and that happy ending he hardens into a criminal strategist and sees way too much. In fact, what happened in prison was sort of the Happy Valley compared to what he has to learn to survive after helping Brendan. 

 

Cheyenne Phillips: Her Future Could Be Bright

In the Bonnie and Clyde saga, it's the Bonnie - Cheyenne Phillips - who captures our attention.

In fact, Phillips could attract a good lawyer to settle her legal mess. Given the high profile of the petty-ante crime spree, lawyers might be willing to defend Phillips pro bono or for a very affordable fee. Once that's resolved, her future could be bright.

To begin with she has presence, including physical beauty.

Secondly, although 13, she navigated the world as if she were 19 and people bought into that.

Third, she is an unusual risk-taker. That's a value we admire. That is particularly the situation as the world can't be trusted to stay the same for more than a nanosecond.

Fourth, to the huddled masses yearning to be free, she's a role model of what they could morph into, if they are willing to take the consequences.

Among those chasing her with offers could be marketers of naughty products and services; start-ups which can use her focus and drive; cosmetics companies; modeling agencies; film-makers; book publishers; media outlets which would pay for the story; elite boarding schools which want her as a student to pass on survival skills to the pampered privileged; and therapy centers which could use a made-for-media success story. 

What could derail Phillips' promising career journey is if she is truly a self-destruct. We know them. They are no complex non-conformist like Steve Jobs. Instead they have the genius to screw up everything, right down to a one-car funeral. I hope Phillips can hold it together and not be overtaken by her dark side. She created this big break for herself and should take full advantage of it. 

 

"Whiplash" - Yes, Driven Lawyers, You Can Succeed, Despite Yourself, Sadistic Superiors

'Tis the weekend for compulsive movie-going or binge-watching of episodes of "Breaking Bad." Lawyers who opt for the film "Whiplash"at indie theatres will receive an upbeat takeaway message. And that's they can succeed, despite their destructive drive and sadistic superiors. 

Essentially, the plot tracks an over-the-top ambitious jazz student whose mother abandoned him and his father. The latter started out a writer but defaulted to teaching high school. Of course, the surrounding factors are accelerators to an already scary drive. During the process of going for it the boy Andrew Neiman even drops his lovely girlfriend. 

As usual, there is a key obstacle. That's the malevolent presence of the conductor of a prestigious in-house jazz band Terence Fletcher. No ordinary villain, Terence is complex in his values and Machiavellianisms. So much so that he might be clueless about who he really is. At the end of the film, we don't know if he feels check-mated or is pleased that the boy outwits him and overcomes his own worst self. 

Well, as frequently happens in a tale of chasing the gold, Andrew cracks up. That's after another former student hangs himself. Of course, when this is brought to the school's attention, Terence gets canned. But he is not finished having fun with Andrew, especially since he knows Andrew was the one who testified against him. Those statements were supposed to be confidential. As lawyers know, they so rarely are. 

Yet, it's Andrew's talent which saves it all. He manages to play his way passionately out of a very public trap set by Terence. Likely the unconditional love of his father provides the centering he needs to pull that off. Unlike the son, the father isn't wounded.

Since the event in which he plays like a genius is prestigious, he will probably be noticed by those in jazz who can open doors. He no longer needs Terence. And in the future he will know how to handle other kinds of evil creatures. 

Reflection: One's inner darkness and the forces of outer darkness don't have to do in a lawyer determined to make it big. He or she can do just that. What would help is to have the unconditional love of another human being. One who is solid.

David Boies: The Positioning And Packaging Of "The Interview" As Patriotic Must-See

David Boies has been exhibiting odd behavior lately. When he began representing hacked Sony, he oversaw a mass communication to establishment media like The New York Times. It was an order not to publish hacked material. Just about every legal expert rolled their eyes. Hadn't Boies heard of the First Amendment!

Now, as Joe Patrice brings to our attention on Abovethelaw.com, Boies has been at it again. Patrice takes an excerpt - which you can read here - from Boies' appearance on "Meet the Press." Essentially he positions and packages "The Interview" as a patriotic must-see. Duh. Is the analogy here how we were all supposed to run out shopping and catch a plane post-9/11 to push back against terrorism? 

Boies, like Ted Olson, is in his 70s. But unlike Boies, Olson doesn't seem to be engaged in any puzzling behavior. At least not any that the media have been catching. 

Reflection: Has Boies' brandname led him to become overconfident in the moves he makes to represent his clients?

Rubenstein Communications Represents Sony Pictures

"Sony Pictures Entertainment is leaning on Rubenstein Communications as it faces the unprecedented cyber attack and publication of its internal communications and intellectual property." -  Greg Hazley in Odwyerpr.com. Here is the coverage.

Attacked from all sides, Sony Pictures needs a heavyweight in public relations.

Ironically, though, one of its key problems it caused itself. Through the Boies, Schiller & Flexner law firm it retained, it sent a high-handed letter to brandname media such as The New York Times and Bloomberg that they had no right to continue publishing the hacked email. Many legal experts either dercried that or rolled their eyes since it violated the First Amendments. 

David Boies Represents Sony In Email Hack - Warns Media, They Are "Stolen Information"

Brandname lawyer David Boies has framed the hacked Sony email as "stolen property." Bill Hutchinson at the New York Daily News obtained the warning letter Boies sent to media. 

Essentially it says that Sony does not approve of the media's use of the emails and requests that they destroy them.

Does that mean that the content of some of the emails will no longer be published? Time will tell. Likely media are consulting with their own in-house counsel and the law firms which represent them. 

Scott Rudin, et al. - Why Didn't In-House Lawyers Warn About Email, E-Discovery, Leaks, Hacking?

In-house lawyers worth their salt should have totally terrified executives about the perils of emails. Those emails could be gathered in e-discovery, leaked, or, as with Sony, hacked. Obviously, Scott Rudin hadn't had the jesus scared out of him. 

As USA Today reports, Rudin is doing a mea culpa about how, in his emails, he damned Angelina Jolie with faint praise and leveraged racist comments about Barack Obama. But that should not have been necessary.

Email is not a new communications medium. Over and over again in the business, entertainment and legal media there are detailed accounts of how emails were used as evidence against insider traders, sent by disgruntled associates to Abovethelaw.com or analyzed for trade secrets by foreign competitors.

Should sensitive emails be forbidden in an organization?  That would be a smart move.

On "The Sopranos" when Tony and Uncle Junior had confidential matters to discuss they saved up all that until they met in a medical doctor's office. Then they went off to a private examining room and communicated. 

I'm not important. Yet, somehow I was deposed for four hours regarding a lawsuit tangentially connected to the lead paint litigation. Spread across the conference table were exhibits from emails I had sent and received from law firm Jones Day. Witty remarks I had made in the emails were sliced and diced for what they could have meant. That was several years ago. In-house lawyers should have delivered the message that even joking around in emails is not at all wise. 

If executives have something sensitive to communicate, they better come up with something better than email. 

The Unemployed/Underemployed/Unhappily Employed Lawyer Pickle - Joaquin, River Phoenix Likely Never Considered Law School

Thnk about it: How did you wind up in the pickle you are in? You worked hard to get into law school, you worked hard to graduate, you worked hard to pass the bar, and you worked hard to get and then keep a job. However, do the math. The numbers show that you probably are unemployed, underemployed or unahppily employed. We won't even bring up student loans.

Some people don't get into those professional messes. From the get-go, for example, Joaquin and River Phoenix existed in a bohemian bubble. The focus was on following their natural bent. On the side, as the book "Last Night At The Viper Room" chronicles, they had to sing for their supper. Literally.

What that biography of River Phoenix by Gavin Edwards highlights are the professional advantages of not being boxed into middle-class/upper middle class professional expectations. It wasn't until he was 8 that River started school. When he disagreed with the value system of advertising, his parents saluted his integrity and didn't block his decision not to do any more lucrative commercials. How many of us looked to our parents or other authority figures to help us authentically sort out ambivlance about a professional path? 

Not that an offbeat rearing prevents life's cruel realities. Missing emotional developmental pieces, River turned to substance abuse, dying outside the Viper Room. But, he didn't spend his prime years in law school. 

Not that law school as a goal is bad. Marilyn Monroe considered it. In court, she probably would have an edge. 

However, how many of us, looking back, blossomed during our legal training? Belting out tunes on the streets of Venezuela, the Phoenix kids got down cold what performance art sold and where. That breeds unique confidence. Law school seems hellbent on undercutting belief in oneself. 

Wesleyan U Makes Frats Coed: Can That Prevent "Animal House," U.S. News Drop In Ranking?

A factor in Dartmouth's drop in rank by U.S. News & World Report is its "Animal House" antics. Those rankings mean everything, ranging from the ability to attract top students to success in fundraising.

Since that drop became known and why, every institution of higher learning must be shaking in its boots.

This weekend Rutgers in New Jersey might have joined that list. A female at a frat house - Caitlyn Kovacs - showed signs of "distress" at about 3 A.M. Sunday. Soon after, at the hospital she died. Some suspect alcohol had something to do with that death. An investigation still needs to be conducted. Here is the coverage in USA Today.

So, it's no surprise that Wesleyan University announced that its on-campus or residential frat houses had to become coed during the next three years. There had been two lawsuits regarding alleged rapes in frat houses. Here is the coverage of that development by Elliot Hannon in Slate.

However, females may not serve as a civilizing force in frat life. Traditionally, society relied on females to tame men. That's one reason why marriage between a woman and a man was encouraged. But females are indulging in the same excesses as males. That includes drinking a lot during college. Here is coverage of that.

Some correlate the high number of alleged campus rapes to the increased vulnerability of females who become intoxicated. In another era all social events on campus were overseen by a house mother or administrator. That prevented women from drinking beyond what they could handle. 

Preet Bharara: #23 on Vanity Fair's "The New Establishment" List

For some reason Preet Bharara dropped from #17 last year to #23 this year on Vanity Fair's "The New Establishment" list. That's provided in the October 2014 issue of that glossy magazine. 

Bharara has reached beyond insider trader to bring law and order to both Silicon Valley and Hollywood.  Yes, he's been involved in Bitcoin and hacking.

Closer to home, though, in New York, he has made the Governor Andrew Cuomo his focus. As Vanity Fair, reports, "Earlier this year, Bharara criticized Cuomo's decision t close an ethics commission and took over the investigation himself."