Law And More

House of Clinton - The Fall and Implications for Networks

Yesterday THE ECONOMIST deconstructed The Fall of the House of Clinton.  The central theme is that the Establishment way of influence and power is over or very close to it. 

Hillary didn't know how to tap into, as NYU Internet professor Clay Shirky calls it, "the power of organizing without organizations."  The gal was clueless that networking is no longer what big brandnames are in your Rolodex but rather what digital guerrilla forces you can attract to your cause. E-mail blasts didn't do it, Hillary.

Yale law professor Yochai Benkler predicted that in his 2006 book "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom."  In the 2008 book "Here Comes Everybody," Shirky documents how that's a done deal.  The key players in the lead paint public nuisance litigation, ranging from the lawyers to the Wall Street types, have come together digitally, particularly through this blog and related ones like Todd Sullivan's VALUEPLAYS as well as Internet bulletin boards.

Clearly, influence and power are in play.  Those with the best gut instincts about getting attention on the Inernet will be the new just-in-time movers and shakers.  We will go to them, not folks Inside the Beltway, BigLaw or BigPR to get legislation introduced and passed, disputes resolved, crime reduced, and fresh brandnames created.

June 27th - Who will speak up for Dickie at his sentencing

Master networker Dickie Scruggs is allowed a max of three people to speak on his behalf at his June 27th sentencing hearing.  The date was bumped up from July 2nd, reports John O'Brien in LEGAL NEWSLINE, because Scrugg's lead counsel John Keker has a trial starting in LA on July 1.

Before things heated up, lots of folks were publicly supporting Scruggs.  For instance, they attended his Christmas gala and even John Grisham spoke to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  No, this indictment for attempted bribery of a judge couldn't be true, those who benefited from Scruggs' philanthropy insisted.

Since he has pleaded guilty and will serve some prison time, the media are watching who will address the court about Scruggs' populist causes and tireless work for his alma mater Ole Miss. Could it be that all voices have fallen silent now that All the King's Men have become radioactive?

Nation of self-promoters who are suspicious of promotion - If there's RI Lead Paint III

Advocacy in all its various commercial forms got bashed in the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance trial II. 

There was the expose about the Lead Industries Association [LIA] and how its members allegedly conspired to sell gallons and gallons more of lead paint. Even the Judge found that ridiculous and without evidence.  It got tossed.

Then there was the attack on advertising and promotional devices such as miniature Dutch Boys.  That was supposed to lure innocent children to make their parents rush off the Sherwin-Williams or Glidden and buy up gallons of lead paint.  It didn't make sense that toddlers would have paint on the top of their nag list. 

And then there was the ahead-of-its-time mobile exhibit which toured the country. Upon hearing about that tactic, the jury might could have concluded that these paint companies were way too smart to mess around with a product that was hazardous.  

The plaintiff tried this ploy because, as Tom C. Korologos points out in his opinion-editorial in today's THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, our nation looks "with suspicion on advocacy."  Korologos had operated a federal lobbying firm for 29 years.  But this "suspicion on advocacy" is much broader than lobbying per se. 

Late marketing expert Ted Levitt put in best in his essay "Marketing and Its Discontents."  Levitt outed our ambivalence about putting anything, including ourselves, out there - even though, at that time, we were globally known for our marketing savvy and success.  It was an American corporation Procter & Gamble which invented branding in 1931. No wonder our Founding Fathers had to protect this right to commercial speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution.  My hunch is that these twisted confused ideas about selling and everything else started with the Puritans and Pilgrims.  

In both the actual RI lead paint II and in the more than two years of appeals, many trees have given up their lives so Jones Day's Mickey Pohl, who represents Sherwin-Williams, could argue how the plaintiff violated the defendants' First Amendment rights.  What was wrong about joining a trade association such as the LIA?  The plaintiff introduced logs of which defendant was at what meeting in 1930-something at the LIA.  The plaintiff also decried the toy puppets used to promote certain paint brands.  And, horrors, there was that evil ad about a boy pulling a red wagon painted with one of the defendant's products.

Should there be a RI lead paint III, the defense should have an expert testify why we hate marketing, sales and lobbying, even though we're so good at all three.

Forget Public Nuisance - Litigation Gold Mine in Realities of "Family" Changing Faster than U.S. Institutions

The New Jersey Trial Lawyers Association has a quick and accurate eye for the next big thing.  It's the changing reality of what a family is v. our American institutions. 

Today, Carter Wood reports in Pointoflaw.com that Tommie Ann Gibney he incoming head of this NJ branch of the Trial Lawyers Association "wants to expand potential compensation in wrongful death suits." Gibney wants the courts to recognize that the 21st century family presents new realities. For example, the grandmother who dies of negligence may be the primary caregiver in a household of several generations and diverse genetic origins.  Therefore, it's not enough for survivors to seek damages only for lost income.  That grandmother may have no taxable wages.

We saw this developing during the pet-food contamination outbreak.  Those who had lost pets wanted to sue the pet-food supply chain for many of the same things we sue for when a human loved one dies.  The courts were essentially behind the curve on how pets have morphed from property owned to the emotional equivalent of a spouse or child. 

The smart money should be betting on this shifting notion of: What is a family. Count on lawsuits about what business charges "families" for entrance into a theme park, how organizations provide family leave, and the push for IRS deductions for pet medical expenses.

ABA & Myriad Professional Associations - Not Needed, Not Worth the Dues

We professionals know how to lobby, get the right media attention, and network just fine.  So, why would we pony up all that annual membership dues to professional associations as well as make frequent pilgrimages to their equally expensive events? Less of us are.  Those organizations know that.  And they're in a quandary to justify their existence.

Perhaps that's exactly the reason the American Bar Association is allegedly abusing its power.  According to the opinion-editorial today in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL by Gail Heriot, that's what's happening around the matter of law school diversity. Heriot contends that the ABA snatched away George Mason University's law school accreditation because it perceived the institution was not being adequately aggressive in recruiting minority students.  All that has been straightened out since but at tremendous cost - in recruiting, reputation, and time - to GMU.

Given the influence of that publication, what Heriot asserts is bound to capture the eyeballs of the appropriate powers-that-be.  This is also not the first time the ABA has received negative publicity about putting its nose into issues.  At its annual meeting it voted against mandatory retirement policies at law firms.  Many members resented this intrusion into how their law firms are operated.

However, there is a bigger problem:  These once influential organizations have outlived many of the their original reasons for existing.  The analogy might be the March of Dimes.  Once polio had been eliminated in the U.S., the non-profit had to find a new mission that was equally compelling.  Somehow it did it with birth defects.  I contribute regularly.

But groups like the ABA, too many professional groups aren't doing much for their members that we can't do for ourselves, and often more effectively and more cheaply.  They seem to be attempting to survive through the illusion of having more power than they do, more resources than we're willing to pay for or need, and more sensationalism in their promotions of their lobbying activities, conferences, and votes on matters most of us don't have the time to care about.

Their focus might shift to finding a mission that serves a current purpose, that we are willing to contribute to in money and time, and that we'll bother to travel to in order to become more informed and deeply involved. 

In 2002 was the last time I paid membership dues, and it was steep, to two communications associations.  At both, those who attended were primarily unemployed wage slaves or underemployed consultants.  I felt foolish for schlepping into Manhattan for what I perceived as nothing.  No accident, I started toying with blogging as a tool for networking, personal branding, community-building, research, developing new business, and actual selling.  For five bucks a month to Typepad, all this gets accomplished. Professionally, I've never been doing better.

Employees at Lead Paint Defendants' Companies - Become Ambassador of Justice

"It never comes up, anymore."  The "it" was the lead paint public nuisance litigation.  That was what employees at diverse defendants' companies had been saying to me - until recently. 

Now, the Rhode Island Lead Paint Supreme Court oral arguments will actually happen.  On May 15th the attorneys representing their companies are going to argue what every employee has been thinking for years:  This litigation is unjust, should never have been filed against us, and we ask the Court to undo it.  They are requesting that the verdict from RI II be tossed or a new trial granted.

The particular defendants in this hearing are Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, and Millennium Holdings.  But there are plenty others out there - DuPont, Atlantic Richfield [which will be requesting at that hearing that its acquittal in RI II not be overturned], The Glidden Company, SCM Chemicals and more.  Their employees are also becoming very upset - again.

But upset doesn't generate change.  I know.  I accepted the mission of IT ambassador when I was working for one of those high-tech companies when technology was still viewed as an unfortunate necessity e.g. you had to do your own "typing" now that Wang invented a word processor.  I didn't get paid extra.  I learned plenty about how to reach minds and hearts.  Here are some of the "lobbying" jobs I performed pro bono:

• I did my own research on the future of technology so I could be passionate.

• I joined the company's speaker's bureau, underwent its speech-coaching program, and went out there across the nation on weekends, just talkin'.

• I figured out the points of leverage in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and my own state.  I contacted those political leaders.  I even obtained an audience for myself and my Geek buddy with a state representative.

• For my own byline, without any reference to my employer, I published opinion-editorials, feature articles, hard news and interviews.  Those were pre-blogging days so it wasn't easy to get my work published but I persisted.

• I believed our enlightened point of view would win.  It did.

The power of us the grassroots always trump what the designated over-paid influentials attempt to get done.  The trick is to go from that comfort zone of unhappy victim to agitator.

Lead Paint: Slouching Towards Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is on a lot of our minds.  But for us lead paint watchers it has special six degrees of separation significance. 

In the 57th District in Westmoreland County John W. Boyle won the Dem primary for state senator. So?  Well, there's plenty of import associated with this.

Boyle is also an attorney with the Pittsburgh office of Jones Day, which also employs Mickey Pohl, head counsel for Sherwin-Williams in the lead paint public nuisance litigation.  And Pohl was the former Chairman of the Board of my alma mater Seton Hill in Greensburg, PA., where Boyle's mother JoAnne, my former Freshman Composition professor, is president.  There's more.  I babysat Boyle [John] as well as his five brothers and one sister when I was matriculating at Seton Hill.

I received the first inklings of these six degrees at the Rhode Island Lead Paint Public Nuisance Trial II when Pohl stopped me in the corridor during a court break.  "You're the blogger," he deduced.  Since I knew he was from the Pittsburgh branch of Jones Day we began talking about Pittsburgh, then Greensburg, then Seton Hill, then the Boyles. 

At the time I didn't tell Pohl that the six degrees went even deeper.  Seton Hill's President JoAnne had helped me get a job in the mid 1970s.  It was a position as research assistant for state senator [maybe the same office John Boyle is running for] Jim Kelley in Westmoreland County.  Let's cut to the chase.  Jimbo fired me.  There's a distinct downside to six degrees.  After that, it was never quite the same between JoAnne Boyle and me, at least on this end. 

I wish John Boyle the best in his run for office and his trial work at Jones Day.

All in the Family - The Scruggs, Sopranos, Corleone

The great crime stories, real and fictional, require a family. 

That's exactly what's making the Scruggs saga totally intriguing.  There is a father Dickie and a son Zack. We have all sorts of questions about what struggle, if any, did the son have following the path of the father? We want to believe choice is there. We want an explanation why he took the path he allegedly did. 

I was so disappointed, for example, when Meadow gravitated to wiseguy types. A.J. appeared more and more to be headed also for the family business.  And, the "Godfather" vividly depicted what pushed straight-arrow Michael into crime. It has to make emotional sense and the director achieved that. The backdrop of all the women in the family, at arm's length but really not, lends the tale that morality-play twist.  At the end of Part III, the daughter dies for the collective sins of the family.

So, here we are in the 21st century with that same harsh karma hovering above the Scruggs household.  The mother, like all women in these sorts of things, must know and not know, wants to protect her son and maybe even her husband.  Like Kate in "The Godfather," she probably also feels compelled to sort out how they all crossed that invisible line between being safe and not being able to find safety again. 

How much can the Scruggs' mother influence how her husband will shield the family and, more specifically, the son?  Will she recommend that the husband throw himself on the sword for the sake of the family and the son?  And will any influence she does try to exert strain the marriage?

Crime without pulling in the family seems to be crime without punishment. My hunch is that Dickie Scruggs has reached that space where he is oblivious to what happens to him.  His fight is for the family, the son and the blood on both sides. 

Reflection:  What enriches the civil trial of lead paint in Rhode Island as well as all the politics and power surrounding may well be the family piece.  There are the family ties between Attorney General Patrick Lynch and the head of the state Democratic Party his brother William Lynch.

Recently, the father of both died.  Did that somehow free Patrick to break from the party orthodoxy and support his own presidential candidate? Patrick is making his own tracks as a Super Delegate endorsing Barack Obama. William is sticking with Hillary.  The media refers to Patrick's choice as "flipping."  That's a term we usually apply to betrayals.

Law Schools' Career Center - Too Many Degrees of Separation

"If you are unemployed or under-employed your first stop should be your law school's career office," writes William A. Chamberlain in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.  Chamberlain is Northwestern School of Law Assistant Dean, Law Career Strategy and Advancement.

Of course, Chamberlain is right.  In any job hunt, especially one that hasn't been successful, it's reckless to not try every available resource.  In top-tier schools, jobs - good ones - can come from signing up for interviews at the in-house career center. 

But, unemployed and underemployed JDs tell me that once you're out there on the market a little too long, at least at second- and third-tier schools, the career center is not happy to see you knocking on its door.  More importantly, this was never and will never be the most productive path to a good job.  Basic networking theory explains why.  It's simply too many degrees of separation from the influentials and powers-that-be who know of the jobs and know how to get you an interview.

From Day-One at law school the students who go to land the great summer and permanent jobs are those who have their networking down cold.  They put in the time and energy to cultivate a handful of people who can help them.  If you're at Harvard Law and interested in working in criminal law, one of those people would be Alan Dershowitz. You get into his work group or editing his manuscripts. 

Even in a depression in your industry, that's the bulletproof way to get a shot at the few jobs that do exist.  In the mid-1970s when the academic market for humanities professors tanked, some of my colleagues did land plums such as tenure-track positions at Dartmouth.  While I was studying, they were assisting and socializing with the professors and head of the department.  No way, did I get anything.  You don't, not on your own, at least not at a second-tier school where I matriculated. 

Networking as Job-One, which Bill Clinton knew even as a teenager, extends beyond the academic environment itself.  Law students, just like graduate students in whatever, could be and should be pushing their into part-time and temporary jobs that are relevant to their career paths, especially if that creates what in network theory is called "weak links."  That job could be as simple but as wired in as an evening dispatcher at the police department or a weekend janitor at a correctional facility.  There's a reason the cliche exists that nothing gets you a job as a job.  Your network is broadened.

Chamberlain is on the money: Give your career center pros a shot.  But put the lion's share of your career-building in people closer to the buyers of newbie JDs.

Law Schools' Career Center - Too Many Degrees of Separation

"If you are undemployed or under-employed your first stop should be your law school's career office," writes William A. Chamberlain in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.  Chamberlain is Northwestern School of Law Assistant Dean, Law Career Strategy and Advancement.

Of course, Chamberlain is right.  In any job hunt, especially one that hasn't been successful, it's reckless to not try every available resource.  In top-tier schools, jobs - good ones - can come from signing up for interviews at the in-house career center. 

But, unemployed and underemployed JDs tell me that once you're out there on the market a little too long, at least at second- and third-tier schools, the career center is not happy to see you knocking on its door.  More importantly, this was never and will never be the most productive path to a good job.  Basic networking theory explains why.  It's simply too many degrees of separation from the influentials and powers-that-be who know of the jobs and know how to get you an interview.

From Day-One at law school the students who go to land the great summer and permanent jobs are those who have their networking down cold.  They put in the time and energy to cultivate a handful of people who can help them.  If you're at Harvard Law and interested in working in criminal law, one of those people would be Alan Dershowitz. You get into his work group or editing his manuscripts. 

Even in a depression in your industry, that's the bulletproof way to get a shot at the few jobs that do exist.  In the mid-1970s when the academic market for humanities professors tanked, some of my collegeaues did land plums such as tenure-track positions at Dartmouth.  While I was studying, they were assisting and socializing with the professors and head of the department.  No way, did I get anything.  You don't, not on your own, at least not at a second-tier school where I matriculated. 

Networking as Job-One, which Bill Clinton knew even as a teenager, extends beyond the academic environment itself.  Law students, just like graduate students in whatever, could be and should be pushing their into part-time and temporary jobs that are relevant to their career paths, especially if that creates what in network theory is called "weak links."  That job could be as simple but as wired in as an evening dispatcher at the police department or a weekend janitor at a correctional facility.  There's a reason the cliche exists that nothing gets you a job as a job.  Your network is broadened.

Chamberlain is on the money: Give your career center pros a shot.  But put the lion's share of your career-building in people closer to the buyers of newbie JDs.