Law And More

JD, with a side of porn - soft of course

Just about the only thing which takes brains that's selling today is creating and delivering soft porn.   This is somewhat an overstatement of what Gawker's Hamilton Nolan sums up as the dismal state of making a living in journalism. Incidentally, Nolan and readers who respond note that it's gotten even more dismal since unhappy JDs stormed the field and found, no newsflash, no Eden. 

It was the mention of soft porn which set off the global storm of interest in "Christian Expressions LLC v janegenova.com." I had opined that there was now something about Communion Dresses which seemed to scream erotic.  How I pushed back, on my three blogs as well as Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.com, when Christian Expressions rattled its legal saber has gotten me new business.  In addition, it has provided a whole new pitch formula to develop new business: Genova Writing, Coaching and More helps you, your clients push back - Low-cost, high-reach, self-replicating.

The rosy future of soft porn will be shaped, as is every other industry, by community standards.  That's where JDs can find strong, ongoing business.  The best and brightest in our economy, including Ivy League students and graduates, are pursuing careers and self-employment in soft porn.  You won't have an idiot for a client. 

Let us, school children, prisoners, Mickey D customers eat ammonia

THE NEW YORK TIMES reporter Michael Moss delivers what could be the game-changing blow to BigBeef, government agencies in the food loop, and companies which sell that American icon the hamburger.

In today's article "Company's [Beef Products Inc.] Record on Beef Treatment Questioned," Moss outs how ammonia injected into beef was allowed to pass as a bullet-proof preventive for E-Coli and Salmonella.  Because this was assumed the company doing the injecting - Beef Products - was allowed to go its merry way during a national food-borne disease epidemic.  As Moss tells us:

"Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company's ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli 'to an undetectable level.'  They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products."

Of course, that assumption was not correct.  Meanwhile they let us eat ammonia that wasn't protecting us against those killer bacteria.  The "us" include schoolchildren in the federal lunch program, prisoners [now that's a nice class action suit prisoners can file], and customers of Mickey D, Burger King and other fast-food chains. 

Moss doesn't say this.  I do: Everyone seems to be very very afraid of BigBeef. 

Amy Schulman would have been game-changer if BigPharma were still hot

The day before a major holiday weekend is not the best of placements for your news. But that's the space Amy Schulman gets for her campaign to "change all the rules" of billing.   Her company Pfizer is using flat fees, reports Amy Miller in CORPORATE COUNSEL.  So?  

This would have caused considerable buzz if BigPharma were still hot.  It isn't.  Google is.  Apple is. They can be game-changers.  

It's irrelevant also that this general counsel is, says Miller, "getting what she wants [in terms of reduced fees.] Firms are so eager for a chunk of Pfizer's huge legal docket that Schulman can make offers they can't refuse."  They can't refuse because defense firms are starving for work.  They will continue to starve because the BigLawsuit era seems over. It's telling that a major fish in those waters Mark Herrmann left his practice at Jones Day and starts with Aon.  Yeah, a shift to insurance and away from BigLaw and BigPharma. 

Sure, Pfizer, like the rest of BigPharma, has plenty of product-liability legal work.  But is it interesting?  Does it create powerful brandnames in defense law?

Come on, do ambitious lawyers want to develop their reputations in those continual failure-to-warn complaints?  Don't the next maverick Mike Nilans want in on employment lawsuits, which are taking on the front-line issues of capitalism.  They are the ones who will be getting the ink and not before a holiday weekend, the traditional and Internet talk shows, and the contracts to write the legal analogue to Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan."  Incidentally, Nilan's firm Halleland is immersed in employment law.  Product liability is, like, so lead paint.

The Last Boss: Robert Morgenthau

The Boss, as in old-line political boss, makes the trains run on time and keeps your son-in-law working.  I grew up in the Boss politics of Hudson County, New Jersey.  I never had a problem with its results or efficiency.  I left Jersey City, NJ at 18 because I had no stomach for its style: Bullying and crude.

Perhaps now the state and local economies would fare better if The Boss returned.  But the public is not too receptive to that.  Most are not mourning the going of Last Boss Robert Morgenthau.  He has been said to have been the model for TV's loved "Law & Order."  And, it's been rumored, he never mixed a chance to stir the pot in order to control outcomes.  This is the end of an era, and it could be overdue. 

1 for "Criminal Minds" - The lawyer whose feelings got hurt

This could be a combo platter of the reduced business in law firms and of an ego that already had its problems.  The result, after a "Criminal Minds" type investigation, could be prison and loss of a law license.  More likely, my gut tells me, it'll be one of those lawyer suicides staged a la Willy Loman so that the world will take account. 

Yesterday, as I spoke to the powers-that-be at Tarrant Company on the West Coast - e.g. Rick Mok - I repeated a number of times: If the evidence points in the direction of this lawyer, you bet, I will file charges.  Like every vendor who has been allegedly played with, I'm angry.  If there is an arrest, I will blast the story over the web.  If there is a trial - unlikely - I will fly out to cover it, of course on my own dime.  Weeks ago I had mailed them the check I had received and the envelope it had come in.  Yeah, I know my CSI.

The story began, as an increasing number of bizarre situations are, on Craigslist.  A Manhattan attorney put in a help-wanted for a ghostwriter.  I replied.  He replied back.  His plan, which he articulated with great confidence, was to produce a book on a certain niche topic [Menschen tracht und Gott Lacht].  He would sell it for $70 at seminars he gave on the subject.  The attendees would be lawyers needing Continuing Education Credits.  During our first phone call  - and this should have been the red flag - he noted that his book would reflect the best aspects of famous authors on subjects of how we think, decide and so on.  The last two people who started out their journey to publishing a book in that manner never made it there.

I stayed in the process.  Exact same mistake the character in my novel does and winds up murdered. The next step , before we decided to work together or not, was his emailing me hundreds of pages which he had already written about the subject.  Perhaps much of it could be salvaged and recycled into a book.  Popped eyes, and a plunging to the floor jaw. I only needed to print out one document.  No focused thought, extreme wordiness, no value created in the over-crowded book market. 

"Are you bipolar?'  That's exactly what I asked him when he rang me up to find out how much more than he had sent me would I need.  He wasn't listening when I informed him he didn't have a book, never mind a marketable one.  There was no way to end this but to brutally inform that he was wasting his money and hope hiring me as a ghostwriter.  There was no book there.  He seemed incapable of producing a book working with me.   I hung up.  Within minutes, he called back.  Second mistake: Continuing the conversation.  Incidentally, he was clueless how he would get this $70-in-retail book published and marketed.

I stayed in a bit longer, which is way too long.  Finally, I just dropped him - gently I thought.  And for good.  Wrong.  In these situations, you indicate in writing that if the person contacts us again it will be treated as harassment. 

I sense he did not go gently into the night.  He was supposed to pay me, had we worked together, $3500 monthly for a year.  A few weeks later I received a check for $3500 paid by Tarrant.  The check was in an envelope, with the sender's address manually written in as someone in the state of Washington, and postmarked Atlanta, Georgia.  There was no note as to why I was receiving this money.

Of course I went to my bank, Bank of America, to find out if the check was valid.  "We doubt that since there was no letter. Call the company."  I called the company.  It had no record of issuing the check.  However, it had been through some financial transactions which might have required a law firm with securities expertise.  Those lawyers usually can cut checks.  This particular lawyer's specialty was, or so he told me, securities law. 

He was - if he's still there - new at his law firm.  I wonder what happened at the job before that one.  Legal work regarding securities has been down in the Manhattan area.  I provided Mr. Mok at Tarrant with the name and contact information for what I perceive to be a person of interest.

Lesson 1: Go with your gut.  Yes, this whole enchilada has been traumatic.  Most of it could have been avoided had I just trusted my instincts about this very nervous guy.

Lesson 2: Never ever ever again read or answer any help-wanted on Craigslist. 

ATL.com hasn't linked to me in forever: This and other weighty legal matters

Those who stopped with bachelor degrees are the ones making the big big bucks.  We who pursued higher degrees are and will remain in deep trouble, preventing our creating, protecting and growing wealth.  Our tragic flaw is that we acquired the habit of thinking.  We think, therefore we waste our youth, middle age and young old age saddled with this addiction.

For example, it seems forever that Abovethelaw.com linked to my posts.  Not that this has any correlation to my earning power.  After all, its readers are in a negative economic state, likely to worsen in the field of law which is shrinking.  That fading of jobs and even contract work such as document reviews will accelerate as technical developments continue and clients demand less human, more automation and standardization.

Yet, I have labored over the possible causal factors, ignoring both the paid assignments on the desk and the the need to target new clients.  What I've come up with are these hunches:

• My specific post advocating the Catholic Church be sued for public nuisance and my general criticism of that institution may have alienated gatekeeper Elie Mystal. He's a Catholic.  It might also have alienated the next level such as David Lat who might be trying to recruit advertisers associated with the Catholic Church.

• The tabloid is moving away from career trend stories [after all, even the laid-off tire of lay-off coverage] to substantive matters of law.  Simultaneously, I am moving in the opposite direction. I left Harvard Law School because I didn't/don't cotton to the law part of the legal system.  For four years I gave that the old college try and came to fear and loathe every new case going to the U.S. Supreme Court.  My passion is power tales such as the re-emergence of state rights and the influence of the state attorneys general.

• The boys and the 1 girl at ATL perceive me as the geezer I am.  No country for old ladies.

• The boys and 1 girl at ATL have become intoxicated with power.  It's fun to ignore submissions, especially from hopeless OCDs like myself..

Other weighty legal matters which have prevented me attending to paid work and hustling for more include:

• Does boil-the-hard drive famous plaintiff Aaron Charney hate law firm life?  I have a sense he does. 

• Does perfect-business-model Jones Day have dark employment-policy secrets and is it just more effective than other law firms in discouraging leaking and gossiping?

• Will Robert Shapiro, co-founder of LegalZoom, appear on "Larry King" and announce that Richard Susskind was on the money and there is no longer money in traditional law firm careers. 

• Has the old-guard such as Philip Howard, the masses at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Motley Rice, in-house corporate lawyers, and deans at law schools embraced that they have to change or die?

• When will it be 90% safe to eat raw cookie dough?  That will have to directed to Bill Marler, who has somehow managed to bypass a love affair with the mind and jump into action on emerging trends, e.g. China's mutating legal system as it enters the global supply chain.

This dumped from my thinking chambers, I have made room for more and perhaps deeper lines of thought tomorrow.  I must continue improving my mind.  That's what it's all about, isn't it.

Providence, RI P-Town 2.0 - David Cicilline can do that and more

Let's get right to it.  This is a plea for money.  The Cicilline Committee [info@cicilline.com] is asking for Everyman and Everywoman to pitch in what they can, to the max of $1000.  You can make that contribution here.  It will help keep Providence, Rhode Island mayor David Cicilline in office and in transforming that area into one of those Creative Class hubs which economic development expert Richard Florida views as the future of urban areas. Providence could create more wealth per person than Boston or New York City.

My private vision for Providence is that it evolve into the affordable, less arrogant P-Town.  All the infrastructure elements are there in Providence:  The arts, the university as intellectual engine, a self-loving gay community, seasoned political leaders, high-tech know-how, access to the ocean, convenient mass transit, a quaint downtown, and relatively low cost of living. P-Town 2.0 would be a pull force for upscale real estate complexes, tourism, high-tech entrepreneurs, culture festivals, boutiques ranging from professional services to off-beat clothing.

That's the kind of place where I want to relocate my communications business as it becomes increasingly less dependent on New York City.  While live-blogging the lead paint trial and its aftermath I would come and go but always leaving my heart in Providence.

Forget becoming partner or even hanging on to a job

If you're female and conservative, all that angst is behind you.  The very good news is political strategist Karl Rove is available, again.  This man of many faces just got divorced.  For the right woman, this could be quite a catch.

Should we sue ourselves? Lawsuits can be wonderful for business

Today we hear that Gawker founder Nick Denton is getting sued.  This should bring even more advertisers and traffic to his successful site. 

When Abovethelaw.com got sued by a testy law professor, the blogosphere went into such overdrive that the suit was dropped within a day.  Great publicity for both ATL and its medium, that is the blogosphere.  The ham-handed attempt at a suit also reinforced ATL's cult identity.

And here's hoping that the threat from Christians Expressions to review its legal options against me Download Communiondress will continue to enhance my branding as a communications maverick and, along the way, sell my novel.  After all, the public relations world has enough plain-vanilla shops.

The tort reformers stay away from the reality that lawsuits have a unique voodoo.  They tend to help out the defendants in the spots they need helping out.  Think Sherwin-Williams during the lead paint public nuisance.  During my interviews with employees, there was a clear sense of fierce cohesiveness.  Yeah, damn the plaintiff bar, full global expansion ahead.

The benefits of being sued seem to have a magical ROI.  I wonder: Are some organizations and individuals staging suits simply to derive the business benefits? 

"Christian Expressions LLC v JaneGenova.com" - Another Digital Test Case?

Digital communications remains the wild west, especially in legal matters.  As I document in this white paper, those with beefs against bloggers usually don't gain anything, at least not positive Download Digitaldefamationcopy. 

Those taking umbrage at the tone or content of a blog often make themselves objects of ridicule for having seemingly thin skin and for seemingly not understanding or taking seriously First Amendment Rights.  In THE NEW YORK TIMES, Larry Dorman opined, "Few things can inflict the damage of comic ridicule."  In addition, they call enormous attention to what's on the blog by their very objection.  Controversy sells, much better than neutral or even positive spin.

So, I perceive it as sadly naive that Janice Lennon, owner of Christian Expressions LLC, would send this email to me Download Communiondress.  Ms. Lennon's communications is in response to my post on my syndicated blog http://janegenova.com, which is also distributed by Amazon.com's Kindle.   That post is an ironic opinion piece on First Communion Dresses.  In that digital opinion-editorial I link to myfirstcommunion.com, the web site for Christian Expressions LLC. 

Ms. Lennon notes, "I was quite disturbed to read your comparison to our first communion site to 'soft porn.'  Not only is this slanderous [But is it indeed "slanderous," in our legal system which honors the First Amendment]  to our company, but also to the reputation of our young models on our web site."  She requests "that you immediately remove our link and product descriptions from your web site."  She states, " ... we will defend it with all legal options."

I welcome Ms. Lennon's "all legal options." I am not removing my opinion or the mode in which I illustrate it.  Meanwhile, I will leverage this high-profile situation to call attention to my ironic novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich."  It focuses on Catholicism specifically but, more generally, all religions.