Law And More

David Geffen Influential - Right to be so vain

David Geffen may or may not be the mystery person sung about in "You're So Vain."  But he has every right to be so vain, at least according to GAME CHANGE, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. 

The guy has real influence, that extends beyond Hollywood.  It was when Maureen Dowd quoted him in her THE NEW YORK TIMES column about dumping the Clintons and supporting Barack Obama that the fire really started under Obama as electable.  What amazed Dowd is that Geffen had the guts to do this. Unlike so many others, he was not afraid of the Clinton push-back.  And sure enough, what the nation witnessed was that the Clinton machine could be stopped. 

Thanks to GAME CHANGE and the rumor that he was the one who was "so vain," Geffen might get more attention in the media.

Age Discrimination: 85-yr-old sues because replaced by 75-yr-old

The judge tossed the case.  There's no word if the plaintiff will appeal. 

Mildred Block, 85 years old, sued her employer Aramark.  The alleged cause was that the company replaced her in her booth selling beer at Shea Stadium with a 75 year old, reports Jennifer Millman in NBC NEW YORK.  Block wasn't fired.  She was given another site to sell beer. However, she contended the tips weren't as good as they had been at her first site.  Millman mentions there had been customer mumblings that Block wasn't serving them quickly enough.  Block blames that on her younger assistant.

Age discrimination lawsuits and complaints to the EEOC are becoming increasingly common as the populations ages and wants to keep working and the workforce becomes more assertive.

In spring my book OVER-50: HOW WE KEEP WORKING will be published.  Here are the Preface, Introduction and Table of Contents Download Over50prefaceintrotoc. 

Timing is everything

When he returned from the political wilderness, current New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo showed he had grown up.  Grown ups know that timing is everything.  Wisely, Cuomo delayed any announcement of running for the Governor's job.  The dust first has to settle after the incumbent said he was not seeking the office.

Repackaging for non-legal career: 8th in series LEVERAGE

David Arrick had been laid off from his Wall Street law firm.  The job he had lined up in Dubai fell through.  What he knew was business and, from his days as a personal trainer to males, the male psyche.  He leveraged that into his thriving enterprise Butch Bakery, which has been covered in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  The product is the macho cupcake.  

Best-seller trend author Daniel Pink seems to have leveraged his analytical and verbal skills from law-school days to produce A WHOLE NEW MIND and his latest DRIVE.  And criminal lawyer Robert Shapiro knew consumers, therefore could co-found web service LegalZoom.

These three lawyers's transitions demonstrate that the odds of a successful change are higher when we apply what we have from the past to create a fresh career path.  There is usually no need to try to totally reinvent the wheel.

Then why do some lawyers set up to do that and neglect checking out what knowledge and skills are transferable?  From talking with lawyers I have found that too many are trying to flee the shock that their first career path didn't work out as planned.  They want to leave the past behind.  Others just haven't grown up or, what former lawyer turned psychotherapist Will Meyerhofer would describe as not learning to take care of themselves.  Consequently they aren't self-protective enough to boost the chances of success by applying professional knows.  Then there are the serial degree-getters.  They are hell-bent on another degree in an entirely new field such as ministry.

When I made my career transition in 2003, you bet I dragged along whatever I could what had served me well in my first two careers.

Empathy Fatigue: 8.8 Quake

In DRIVE, Daniel Pink discusses three reasons why lawyers tend to be miserable. They are that pessimism is an occupational hazard, law is a zero-sum game, and attorneys usually have tremendous responsibility but not much decision-making.  I want to add a fourth: They see people as they are. 

And how we are is just equipped to operate our own small universe of problems.  That's why empathy fatigue can occur so quickly.  With the 8.8 earthquake in Chile, so soon after Haiti, I am not up emotionally to commiserating with the current victims and all the possible victims along the Pacific.  There may be extraordinary individuals who can do that.  Bill Clinton really does seem able to feel everyone's pain. 

This event is a tragedy.  But I can not open my heart big.

Excessive leaking & gossiping scream law-firm dysfunctional culture

All that drama recorded in Abovethelaw.com and Bitterlawyer.com screams the dysfunctionality of the current law-firm culture.  Daily, both sites communicate the leaks and the gossip coming from tipsters at BigLaw.  Sure, a moderate amount of leaking and participation in the grapevine is healthy.  As we communications pros know, both serve as bonding mechanisms and release valves.  Often management may be manipulating those forces in order to trial-balloon a policy or exhaust mob emotion before an official announcement.  The power-brokers Inside the Beltway do that all the time.

However, when those activities become excessive, leaders might want to explore how and why the organizational culture is feeding the momentum.  Forbidding them will, of course, only trigger a surge, plus maybe some lawsuits and defections of talent. 

In healthy cultures, that is those with a normal level of aberrant behavior, the majority focus on the tasks.  The miscreants and muckrakers are in the minority.  In fact, they may be isolated and even punished by the majority.  When the workforce was gung-ho during the Chrysler Iacocca-led turnaround, we unmasked the agitators to the powers-that-be.  They were blackballed not only internally but when they went hunting for jobs outside.  A loyal workforce can be a priceless asset.

Those Age-Discrimination Suits: The plot thickens in this one

Whether we're the EEOC, a plaintiff/defense attorney, or over-50 ourselves, our eyes are on those age-discrimination complaints.  This one, filed against law firm Crowell & Moring, adds a new wrinkle to the usual.  The complaint alleged firing after 18 years with the firm because of age.

As Jeff Jeffrey reports in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, the lawyer for 54-years old plaintiff Mona Saunders filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss the suit.  That right wasn't the lawyer's responded the judge.  The suit had moved from state to federal court.  The U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Coleen Kollar-Kotelly stated, notes Jeffrey:

"a plaintiff may dismiss an action by filing a voluntary notice of dismissal only if the opposing party has not served either an answer or a motion for summary judgment."

The law firm had filed its answer in August. 

My book OVER-50: HOW WE KEEP WORKING will be published in the spring.

Following the Model: Dewey & LeBoeuf has increase on equity-partner profit, with revenue decline

Dewey & LeBoeuf stuck with the cost-efficiency model and, like other law firms which did, had an increase in profit, on a decline in revenue.  In 2009, it had cut equity partner headcount 10 percent, reports THE AMERICAN LAWYER.  For that year, it "saw a dramatic drop in gross revenue while profits per equity partner move up 3.4 percent."

Breaking with Model: Debevoise & Plimpton has decline in revenue & profit

The post-cost efficiency model for law firms has been an increase in profit on a decline in revenue.  That added cost control frequently came through reductions-in-staff.  Debevoise Plimpton hasn't fallen into line.  Unlike many other firms, it did not cut headcount.  Both its profit and, for the second year in a row, its revenue have declined.

In THE AMERICAN LAWYER, Nate Raymond reports that for 2009 the law firm's "Revenue declined to $667.9 million, while profits per partner fell 16 percent to $1.87 million.  The declines came amid a downturn in corporate work and the completion of some large matters in its litigation practices, namely the internal investigation of Siemens AG."

Extreme Tolerance for the "Other" - That seems to be the law

When it comes to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], the model seems to be extreme tolerance for the beliefs and behavior of the "Other." 

The latest organization to get into the soup with the EEOC is Abercrombie & Fitch.  The alleged violation is mandating that a Muslim female was fired after she refused to remove her head scarf.  Previously, reports Amanda Bronstad of THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, that business had settled with the EEOC for $50 million in 2004 for "resolving racial discrimination claims over its hiring and recruiting practices and its marketing 'look' which predominately featured white men and women."

Clearly, A&F should have known better than to allegedly play fast and loose with the the "Other's" religious code of conduct.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a complaint with the EEOC last Wednesday on behalf of a 19-year-old stockroom employee.  Allegedly she had been informed that she could wear her head scarf on-the-job as long as it was white, gray, or navy blue.  Then, Bronstad notes, a district manager came into the store, observed the head scarf, and through channels ordered it not worn at work.  The employee refused to comply and was terminated.

Count on this to make "60 Minutes."  What a hit to the A&F brandname and perhaps sales, if a boycott ensues, which it could.