Law And More

"Blue Bloods" - Will Hardened Lawyers Lose It If Grampa Henry Dies?

"Blue Bloods,"going into its 8th season, is "The Waltons" of the 21 century.

Like that farm family during The Great Depression and early World War II, "Blue Bloods" depicts close bonds among several generations of one family.  We who lacked or might still lack that kind of group cohesion grab onto all the sharing and support. Given their higher than average rate of mental illness, lawyers might need that warm and fuzzy most of all.

"The Waltons" ran from 1972 to 1981. Its signature was the good-nights the members of the family wished each other at the end of each episode. They were already in bed. For "Blue Bloods" it's the family Sunday dinner.

Hopefully, the creatives producing "Blue Bloods" have prepared a soft landing for audiences if Grandpa - Henry Reagan- dies while the series is still being filmed. He is played by Lou Cariou. His role is to be an ear for his son Francis Reagan who is Police Commissioner. Any advice Gramps provides is done with great brevity.

During "The Waltons," Gramps - Zebulon Tyler Walton - did die. He had been played by social activist Will Geer. We in the audience loved him for both his real life and television roles. It was not easy letting go of him.

On "Blue Bloods," Francis, who goes in public by "Frank," already has endured so much loss. Those included his wife, son and former partner who went into the Tower with him on 9/11. Only recently has Frank seemed on the other side of grief.

Should Frank lose his father, it will be hard not only on him. I wonder how we in the audience, for whom the Reagans have been a surrogate family, will get through that.

I recommend a memorial in New York City to help us cope with the passing of Henry Reagan. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral is just the right setting. The Reagans are proud of being Roman Catholics. Perhaps Pope Francis should be invited to oversee the service.

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Faked Fun - Beware

Among the many entities that have been faked is fun.

That's the problem of this era, not as The Atlantic article by Megan Garber suggests, too much fun. Ever since those misfit Puritans settled in New England, there has been a fear of the lightness of being.

Faked fun, unfortunately, is everywhere.

That includes how many books and articles covering points of law are positioned and packaged. Take, for example, Jeffrey Toobin's book about Patty Hearst "American Heiress: The Wild Saga ..." The contents are pretty boring. I picked it up because I assumed it would be a fun read. Wrong.

In faux legal matters such as the myriad cops and legal television shows it's easy to groan about the faked fun. Classic are the family in-jokes which are sprinkled throughout each episode of "Blue Bloods." Who gives a damn if prosecutor Erin is a lousy driver?

Outside the umbrella of legal per se, there's the growing amount of faked-fun help-wanted ads. The workplaces are not only described as fun places. The applicant must also have a sense of humor. Sometimes the type of humor is specified, as in wry or belly-laugh. Beware. Those are often low-paid sweatshops.

So, where can we find real fun?

The first stop is Abovethelaw.com. For example, yesterday its lawyer-journalist Kathryn Rubino let us in on the fun of virtual law firms taking on BigLaw. Stay at home partners at Culhane Meadows bill clients about half what is traditional. This can unhinge BigLaw the way LegalZoon did SmallLaw and solos. Here is Rubino's article.

Another is to view a White House press conference. Directly. Not through the filters established on SNL. Yesterday's on the proposed TrumpTax was a slap-your-knee funny. How middle-aged white men in good suits ham-handedly dodged questions from media was amazing. The dark humor was rooted in the reality that they just didn't give a sh_t.

The challenge, of course, is to preserve our ability to have fun in public.

There are parts of America stuck in Puritan times.

On a first date, a man asked me: What is the purpose of your life?

Since my family carries the suicides gene, I answered: To stay alive. Then I burst out laughing.

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Anne Peguero & Public Breast-Feeding - Summit Church Should Have Known Law in VA

In Virginia, since 2015, the law has been that it is permitted to breast-feed in public wherever it is legal to be.

For some reason, Summit Church in Springfield was unaware of the law or chose to ignore it.

While attending services, Annie Peguro tried to calm her baby daughter by beginning to breast-feed her. Then she was informed that she would have to leave the setting and go to a private room. There, since the service was being live-streamed, she could also continue to participate in the church activity.

The reason she was asked to breast-feed in private was, the church said, that it would make members of the congregation "uncomfortable."

Peguero, The Washington Post reports, fled Summit Church in shock. Soon enough she make her feelings known via social media. Her lawyer has contacted the church, requesting a change of its policy.

Peguero positions breast-feeding as a normal function. Therefore, goes the thinking, others better get over being uncomfortable with it.

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"Fake" - Multi-Dimensional Tool SuperLawyers Use

Those of us who grew up Catholic got hammered with the belief that there was such an entity as "truth." And that Holy Mother the Church had a monopoly on it.

Then, in sophomore year in college, even a Catholic college like Seton Hill which I attended, the philosophy professor made a shambles of the assumption that "truth," in an absolute sense existed.

The literature professor reinforced that with a line of poetry from Emily Dickinson about telling the truth but telling it slant.

Whole industries, as we experienced in "Mad Men," are built on playing with the supposed truth. Recall the iconic episode about how Don Draper reframed the loss of the Lucky Strike account into a sales pitch for anti-tobacco accounts.

No fool, I stuck to the "truth" that professors and then bosses demanded. In short, I knew to give the "right answer." Success in academia and the workplace depends on primarily on figuring out what the power structure demands to hear. That's the game.

Yet, I made it through crises of all kind by getting smart about how to fake it. The art of faking it is downright necessary for, first, survival and, then, unique forms of achievement.

Not that it always works. Wells Fargo is in the soup for creating fake accounts.

The Trump Administration is losing credibility because of its myriad stances on fake news.

Essentially, most human beings have limits about how much a reality can be slanted to pass as a plausible narrative.

But being creative with what is can be a strategy for success.

Lawyers do that all the time. It's called a "novel approach" to the law.

The legal minds at  Motley Rice made a brandname for themselves by fusing the traditional legal concepts of product liability and public nuisance. The result was and still the state-level lawsuits against the former manufacturers of lead pant.

A key tool in resilience is the ability to spin negatives into material that can we managed. A childhood history of abuse can be positioned and packaged as a platform for early access to problem-solving. Those coming of age in Happy Clappy families might enter college at an emotional disadvantage. They are clueless about how to deal with the tyrannical professor.

And in recovery programs there is the life-saving slogan: Fake it until you make it. That includes behaving in a non-destructive manner until miscreants believe they deserve to live.

Fake is not totally bad. Its value is correlated with how masterful we are in putting together a make-believe.  Steve Jobs labeled that "reality distortion."

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The Virgin Mary - Was She Negligent Mother

The tragedy of Jesus' death on the cross didn't have to happen. This weekend could have been an ordinary spring one full of joy. Not a sadsack one focusing on the inhumanity of men against what they didn't want to hear.

Had his mother Mary pushed Jesus more toward careerism he might not have made such powerful enemies. But, it sure looks like Mary allowed her son to embrace social activism versus establishing himself as a carpenter.

Whatever the time in history, social activism can get its front lines in big trouble. In the Garden of Paradise, Eve yearned to change the rules. Both she and her significant other got kicked out. One of their sons wound up being a murderer.

Mary should have known that. Mothers have unique influence on their children. She could have had a heart-to-heart with Jesus:

"As a family we can work together to make 'Jesus Christ' the most sought-after brandname in the building business. From those revenues, sure, you can help the poor. But, not so fast. First things first. That's the carpentry shop."

It's truly a wonder that the schools of psychotherapy prominent in the early and mid 20th century didn't classify Mary as a bad mother. Her son didn't have to wind up getting executed by the state, they could have argued in a case study.

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The Big Freakout - James Comey's Talk at Boston College Cybersecurity Conference

As you see in this video, at the Boston College conference on cybersecurity, FBI director James Comey said he didn't want to freak us out. But he did exactly that.

He hammered that there is no such entity as "absolute privacy."

Even the contents of our memories of conversations with spouses, clergy and attorneys are not off-bounds. In certain circumstances we could be mandated to disclose all that in court. As Comey put it "there is no place outside judicial reach."

In addition, of course, Comey brought up how in this era of WikiLeaks and other kinds of digital hacking, just about any communication can be retrieved. Then it could be made public.

Although Comey freaked out many, there will also be many who don't believe him. They will have to learn the hard way.

Several years ago, when I was covering the lead paint state lawsuits I'd frequently email a Jones Day attorney for updates. Today I'd probably be texting him.

In the communications I sometimes joked around. Mistake.

When I got caught in crossfire between the defendant and plaintiff, I was deposed.

Spread out on the table were myriad emails. Over and over again the attorney representing the plaintiff grilled me about the "meaning" of what I had considered humor. The ordeal went on for hours.

After that, I simply assumed every kind of communication, including intimate ones, could go public.

Prediction: Come 2018, Edelman's annual trust barometer will probably plunge to unprecedented lows.

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Neil Gorsuch - Youth Makes Him Conservative Wild Card

At first glance, federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch seems to be a Scalia clone. The president nominated him for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is the analysis in Politico.

Like the legal thinkers on the far right he believes in an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. That is, he wants to stick with what the founding fathers intended. (As if that even can be reconstructed. Never mind if it's relevant centuries later.)

He is a strong defender of the right to religious beliefs. For example, he ruled that companies, based on their religion, could withhold medical coverage for contraceptive devices.

And he is committed to the courts deciding legal issues, not regulatory bodies.  The alt-right wants to blow up many existing regulatory entities.

However, what makes him a wild card in terms of his conservatism is his youth. He is only 49 years old.

A big job like being on SCOTUS can change one, especially someone just entering middle age. There is no predicting how having all the responsibility could influence his legal ideology.

It is well known that John Roberts has not proved out to be the chief justice he was "supposed to be." For example, he defended Obamacare. Roberts took on the job in 2005 when he was 50 years old. That's only one year older than Gorsuch. Neither conservatives nor liberals had the right take on what his legal decision-making would be.

The reality is that professionals change and times change. Already, conservatism seems to be fragmenting as a result of Trumpism. Today, at 21st Century Fox, leaders Lachlan and James Murdoch opposed Trump's immigration order. Historically, the company's Fox News unit had been a bastion of far-right ideology.

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Partners/Associates Knocked Out of the Box - Of Course, "Manchester By the Sea" Resonates

Law partners and associates knocked out of the box will experience the pain of recognition in watching the film "Manchester By the Sea."

At the core at the movie "Manchester By the Sea" is a catastrophe.

A drunk young father whose name is Lee fails to put a screen in front of the logs in the fireplace. He makes a run on foot to the convenience store for more beer. As he returns he bears witness to fire consuming his house. Outside, his wife is being restrained from going back inside to save the two toddlers and infant. 

The father is forever changed. As Lee observes years later when he returns to Manchester, "he can't shake it." When the film ends, we see small signs of healing. But, obviously, Lee has been transformed, for better or for worse, by the unthinkable.

During the summer of 2014, St. Philip's Church in Tucson, Arizona, conducted a weekly seminar on all aspects of catastrophe. Those ranged from the scientific definition of the phenomenon to how traditional religions recommend managing it.

Catastrophe, of course, is not new.  The "Book of Job" is an early template of extreme seemingly unmerited suffering.

What is different about catastrophe in the 21st century is that it's, well, become commonplace. So many lost loved ones in 9/11. Check LinkedIn and there it is: Colleagues position themselves as looking for a new opportunity. Plan dinner with an old friend. Oh no, there are signs of memory issues.

As a society, can we become socialized to not dish the platitudes or heap blame on those who have become contemporary versions of biblical Job? Probably not.

At the end of the St. Philip's seminar, we who had experienced catastrophe agreed that afterward we had to leave most of the relationships of the past behind. It would take time, probably lots of it, to find our way back to trust.

In an ebook which had a million downloads - "Geezer Guts" - I recounted how darkness fell in 2003. 

The 14 years which have followed have been a period of stop and start in letting go. I mourn what had been. And my former self.

Likely those most full of platitudes about what occurred and the source of blame are ourselves. Managing catastrophe might be the most formidable rite of passage for adults.

If Don Draper from "Mad Men" were still creating Kodak Carousels, he might be putting together one on how humans fail to bond emotionally, socially and professionally with catastrophe.

The rooms of recovery are full of displaced lawyers who can't or won't look into the face of their catastrophe.

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Drudge Report - Prayer Is Platform for Starting Day Two of Trump Administration

The conservative Drudge Report is providing a "journal" of the first days of the Trump Administration.

Yesterday it headlined with the description of how the new president leveraged Day One for work. It was not all pomp, circumstance and dancing at gala balls.

For day two, the Drudge Report headlines with the president engaging in prayer. The setting was an interfaith prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral. Here is the CNN political coverage Drudge links to.

Essentially what is traditionally called "prayer" is a surrendering of the self to a force greater than our little human plans,  wants and needs. That force has been labeled:

God

The Universe

Higher Power

The Buddha Within

Jesus

Allah

Zeus

Universal Oversoul

There are myriad theories why human beings keep embracing prayer. In America, iconoclast Christopher Hitchens was an outlier.

But the bottom line on prayer, research and experience show, is that it can clear the mind and heart enough so that distressed human beings can be strategic. The classic example is the recommendation in 12-step recovery programs that members turn themselves over to a higher power. That can allow them to think before doing something self-defeating. They are not caught up in the loop of self-will run riot.

Meditation or mindfulness is catching on be it facilitates slowing down the through processes. The outcomes can simulate those in prayer.

Through prayer, the Trump Administration sent the message that it defers to an entity greater than itself. Smart move.

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Trumpism - Is It Based on the Protestant Ethic (Salvation through Hard Work)

The conservative Drudge Report which has been a Trump cheerleader headlines with the news that the new president went right to work. No just dancing around at balls.

That work included two executive orders. One was the vague "to ease the burden of Obamacare." The other was to appoint General James Mattis the Secretary of Defense. Here is the Daily Mail coverage the Drudge Report links to.

At his core, the flamboyant Trump may be a worker bee. That would be no surprise.

From the get-go, America was built on the Protestant Ethic of Work. The Puritans introduced that. And, except for periods of extreme hedonism like the Roaring Twenties, the ethos of Americana was based on the religion of hard work. Screw up? Salvation came not through a clever public relations agent but extreme work.

No coincidence, the Midwest, which was a big Trump supporter, is known for its work ethic. And  it's done with no complaints. Maybe those cold winters imbues that spirit.

Trump could become known as "The Working President." There might be few recreational functions. His schedule of events could revolve primarily around getting things done.

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