Law And More

Fox Mole Joe Muto: That was fun, now it's done, and it doesn't seem worth it

When he was pulling his madcap antics of reporting for gossip tabloid Gawker.com on the goings on at Fox News, Joe Muto seemed to be having a lot of fun.  To some naive communications folks he might have been a role model for taking on and down The Man. After all, at the time he was an employee of Fox News.

The fun is done.  As TV NEWSER reports:

"Fox News mole Joe Muto entered a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs this afternoon, pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges." 

Court. Handcuffs. A guilty plea.  One wonders if Muto considers the fun worth it. He is paying a $1,000 fine.  The $5,000 he earned doing a whistle-blowing column for Gawker has been donated to a good cause. He is serving 10 days of community service and putting in 100 hours of community service at a nonprofit.  His book about Fox News comes out in a few weeks.  One wonders if the image of this handcuffed boy-man is the kind which sells books.  And, he is going to have trouble for a while getting work comparable to what he had had at Fox.

Obviously the guys at News Corp, parent of Fox News, don't fool around. They brought out the tank to deliver the message not to mess with them.  Roger Ailes, head of Fox, won't be trifled with. This fun gone terribly wrong will deter other potential madcaps from partnering with a gossip rag like Gawker.

Mother's Day & Skyler White from "Breaking Bad" - Will Hank have children removed?

Will this Mother's Day be the last Skyler White will spend with her children on "Breaking Bad?" 

Clearly she had been endangering their welfare in participating in covering up husband Walter's drug-making activities.  When Gus was alive he did threaten to off the baby.  Walter continues to have lots of enemies and competitors.

Hank is onto Walter so when the final season of "Breaking Bad" begins this summer he will probably connect the dots on Skyler's involvement.  That could mean that he could have the two children removed from the home for whatever reason, simply to protect them as madman Walter and greedy Skyler invite in danger.  If the kids go, then Skyler could well turn on Walter, killing him before Hank has to bring him into custody.

The question pulling in viewers is not if Walter will get his but how.

"Mad Men" - Mirrors what's happening in legal sector

Sterling Cooper, the fictional ad agency on "Mad Men," is beginning to go through the wrenching kinds of changes which are now part of the legal sector.

Last night's episode featured the push of some partners at Sterling Cooper to bring the agency through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).  That would make them rich, at least by 1968 standards.  That highlighting of the business of making ads contrasts with Don Draper's mission to make good ads. He is holding on to the agency as a platform for creativity, not one for engineering wealth.  Someone even comments on the show that Don's not interested in money.  Because his focus is on creativity per se he comes up with fresh approach for the Chevy account.

One wonders if Don will be lose his power in a niche which is becoming increasingly like a business.  Those in the agency like Roger and Pete who think business can marginalize him.  As we know, lawyers who want to just do their jobs in a professional manner are in peril in the legal sector.  That's no longer enough.  They also have to show a certain amount of billable hours and a book of new business they brought in and kept.

"Mad Men" brilliantly captures this tension between the business and what being a professional in it used to be.

Gender: Why sue when females can just cry in public in business, like Ann Curry

Maybe it is a vestige of the medieval code of chivalry.  Maybe there is just something in the male wiring that can't process female tears.  Whatever.  When a woman cries in public in a business setting, the world takes careful note.  Then there are consequences, intended and unintended.  For females considering suing about a perceived injustice in the workplace, crying might be a more effective alternate.   Tort reformers such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce might recommend The Tears Game-Changer.

In the influential THE NEW YORK TIMES Magazine, we encounter yet one more time the account of how Ann Curry cried on her last day of "Today."  Since then, "Today" has not been on the winning side of the ratings war.  A few of those hot ones flowing down one's face might accomplish for her what all the males' Machiavellian movements haven't. 

Admittedly, it's difficult for both females and males to accept the old-fashioned notion that tears, well shed, can be so powerful. Back in the day when there were still full-time jobs in corporate, I was scheduled to meet with the powers-that-be about a grievance I had.  My mentor gave one simple command, "Cry." Damn it, I couldn't do it. The meeting did not go my way.

Reputation Rehabilitation: Easier for politicos than lawyers

Former elected leaders Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford, reports POLITICO, are trying for comebacks. They will probably pull those off.  It is simply easier for politicos to make it back than it is for disgraced lawyers.

Politics requires the ability to raise money and get votes.  End of story.  If the politico who has fallen from grace can do that than that's that.  However, in the field of law, where so many lawyers are getting nailed for embezzlement or not paying their taxes, a license is involved. 

Getting that license in the first place demanded evidence of high character.  For example, former NEW REPUBLIC journalist Stephen Glass, who was found to make up stories, wasn't admitted to the bar in New York or California.  He is appealing the second turn-down.  Those following that chronicle wonder why in the world he studied for law when he knew that in order to practice it he would have to be admitted to the bar.

Disgraced lawyers, especially those who serve prison time, could come back in another line of work.  The classic example of that was former Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon Chuck Colson who received his law degree from George Washington University.  In prison he found spirituality and went on to become a famous religious evangelist.

Given the 24/7 media cycle and the fierce competition for traffic, likes, shares, comments, and tweets, a professional's misdeeds or even stupid moves become public property quickly. That's the new normal.  So, another bit of emerging new normal has been the art of reputation rehabilitation.  The rules for that are different for each line of work.

"Breaking Bad" - Spin-off may be lawyer show

The world may be getting another lawyer show.  It would star Bob Odenkirk as Walter White's shady lawyer Saul Goodman.  That would be a possible spin-off from "Breaking Bad," reports NEW YORK Magazine.

What that means, of course, is that Goodman won't be offed this summer in the last season of "Breaking Bad."  As what will happen to White, all bets are off.  Hank could gun him down.  White could commit suicide.  Skyler could kill him. Or White could hightail it out of the U.S. and be a fugitive.

Sterling Cooper: As dysfunctional workplaces go, much more interesting that BigLaw

Face it. Before the wellness ethos took hold successful men, like Don Draper of "Mad Men," who smoked seemed sexy, interesting, and worth getting to know better.  Since the series, which starts up again this Sunday, is set at the end of the 1960s, Draper will continue to smoke and continue to demand our attention. 

As THE NEW YORK TIMES points out, although the series is going into its sixth season, it's still hot.  The ad agency Sterling Cooper, as dysfunctional organizations go, fascinates us who have done our time in crazy professional services firms.  The characters are far more compelling than the ones we have met up with in BigLaw.  That's probably why most programming about law firms tends to peter out quickly.  "Boston Law," which promised so much, let us down so soon.  "The Good Wife" is struggling.

The bunch at "Mad Men" are fascinating in that the creative industries tend to attract those who get what they want in ways that makes us obsessively analyze them.  Lawyers usually don't have the dimensions of inner brooding which Draper has, the deep lack of self esteem of Joan who is now finally getting the chance to lean in as a partner in Sterling Cooper, the push of Peggy who has overcome her blue-collar ethnic roots, and the grandiose notions of Meagan who is hell-bent on being a star.

Lawyers seem to be crazy in ways more dull than those creatives manifest.

Adam Lanza: Was he victim of "If it bleeds, it leads" media mindset?

That notion of a "nose for news" now means the ability to see and report on the story which will get the most traffic, shares, likes, and retweets.  Everyone in the media knows that kind of story will involve some tragedy such as a mass murder.  That's just the way it is.  Not that that is completely new since there has always been an adage in the news business that "If it bleeds, it leads."

The media provided Newtown, Connecticut mass killer Adam Lanza plenty of material about mass murders.  THE STAMFORD ADVOCATE confirms that he compulsively consumed the details of those massacres.  Had the media not given the killers so much attention would mixed-up kid Lanza have still hatched the idea for Sandy Hook Elementary School?

Given First Amendment guarantees of free speech, this is not a legal question. It is an ethical one.

Reinventing Law: Leveraging predictive analytics as an edge

The new sandbox players in the legal sector will dominate is predictive analytics.  They will leverage that to get the edge.  In their marketing communications they will simply say - that will be enough - that they have developed proprietary predictive analytics to assess the success odds of a case strategy as well as key tactics; calculate the amount of damages to put on the table for a settlement; and to select members of juries.

No surprise, reports AM LAW DAILY, the Reinventing Law conference took place in Silicon Valley.  In New York or Washington D.C. the settings might have mitigated against the presentation of radical thinking about how to make the business of law more productive and cost efficient.  Manhattan's mindset is money and D.C.'s is power.  To put the legal sector on a survival track requires a willingness to accept BigData as a major part of the solution.

Already BigData is reconfiguring the business of lobbying and how trading decisions are made.  For example, one startup is focusing on improving the assumptions and speeding up the ability to produce information in predictive analytics for institutional investors.  If that happens, hedge funds could have a second golden age.

Unemployment Blues: Snap out of it

If someone 67 years old can get a job, you can too.  ABC News was fascinated with this phenomenon and did an interview. 

Watch here and renew your resolve to find work.