Law And More

WASP Establishment

Any ethnic of a certain age has had a WASP sting.  You never forget it.  And you never forgive.

In her CAREERIST column Vivia Chen discusses the demise of the WASP Establishment in law.   I imagine that their reign of manners was not pretty. 

But it had to be tame compared to their one-time dominance in elite universities' departments of English Literature.  Because of government mispredicting a desperate need for humanities professors, I wound up in one of those WASP nests.  Brutal. 

The next worst experience was living in the Greenwich, Connecticut area, which I recount in my novel THE FAT GUY FROM GREENWICH. 

The third worst was being a short hypomanic female in a Southern-based WASP corporation like Gulf Oil in the late 1970s.

On the other hand, it wasn't all that hot being among the Roman Catholic Establishment either when their authority and credibility were at their peak.  The only difference between WASP and Catholic institutions was the lack or presence of a crucifix. 

Christopher Hitchens - How many plaintiff lawyers have contacted him?

He said that he had tried to quit smoking cigarettes but couldn't.  Now celebrity author Christopher Hitchens announced he has cancer of the esophagus and will be undergoing chemotherapy. 

Plaintiff lawyers with a track record in tobacco litigation likely have been contacting him.  One only wonders how many and if Hitchens will get religion about the alleged perils of cigarettes and file a suit as a statement.   This guy has never been one to turn his back on a cause.

LPO: The $50 vs $400 hour

Do the math.  That's going to decide the legal-process outsourcing [LPO] debate.  THE ECONOMIST presents those numbers.  Here they are:

• Drafting contracts and legal memos in Gurgaon, India runs at $50 an hour.  In a U.S. law firm, it runs about $400 an hour.

• While U.S. law firm business is downsizing, the LPO one in India is growing and expected to total about $1.1 billion by 2014, from $146 million in 2006.

• While some U.S. law firms are folding as a result of the recession or merging, LPOs have surged in number from 50 in 2005 to 140 today.

THE ECONOMIST notes that the smart money is buying shares of the LPO enterprises such as Integreon and CPA Global.

John, Elizabeth, Rielle, Andrew: Soap with no end date

The remarkable soap that the Edwards's scandal has become just keeps running.  There is no end to the episodes being written every week.  The latest is that John is depicted as a sad barhopper.  Elizabeth presents herself on "Today" today as a woman with no regrets.  Rielle is suing Andrew Young for the profits from his expose THE POLITICIAN.  [Is she still nursing that kid?]  And Andrew parachutes into talk shows whenever new developments happen.

More remarkable: All the players seem to relish their parts.  A good time seems to be had by all.

Nashville, TN - TENNESSEAN has opening for reporter on federal/state courts

If you're in Tennessee and interested in a journalism career, the TENNESSEAN is looking for a reporter for both federal and state courts.  They want someone who knows their way around the territory.

Here are the details and how to apply.

Somehow this doesn't seem like Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh I remember working in at Gulf Oil was not the kind of "creative-class" environment I would describe as "sassy and edgy."  But, in his interview with CAREERIST's Vivia Chen, K&L Gates chair Peter Kalis certainly makes his part of the scene come across that way.  It sounds more Seattle than Pittsburgh which also seemed to be more midwest than east coast.  Kalis also captures an ethos more high-tech than law firmish.  For its 2000 lawyers, the Pittsburgh branch of K&L Gates is the largest.  So, I have to assume that the culture Kalis tells us exists in Pittsburgh is, more or less, representative of the law firm.

Calling law a "contact sport," Kalis posits that it's necessary for lawyers "to be intellectually nimble and confident."  He wants "formidable."  Not "malleable." 

Those job applicants who ask the tough questions about how the firm has changed over the years and how effective it's been adapting to shifting realities get his attention.  What turns him off is the self-absorbed.  He claims he can pick up on that disposition by their body language and the fact that they make themselves the hero of the story.  [My talk at the New York State Bar, which has been published in VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY, focuses on the the theme: we are our stories Download NYSBAtalkinVITALSPEECHESOFDAY.]

Also in Pittsburgh, as most of us know, is the very different Jones Day.  The players like Mickey Pohl and Laura Ellsworth are familiar to us from the lead paint public nuisance litigation. 

I have to wonder if K&L Gates and Jones Day attract very different kinds of clients.  Or, does an organizational culture have little to do with business development?  Will clients go to a firm because of its track record in certain forms of litigation, the stars, and the strategy it suggests to prospects? 

It would be fascinating to observe the two firms compete for the same piece of business.  In addition to being the contact sport Kalis refers to law as, it's also theatre.  What kind of performance art would both firms stage?

Beyond practicing law: From shock to solution

After the folks at Abovethelaw.com et al. have blasted the message of law as a downsizing field for about two years, finally it's being heard.  The shock has given way to solution.

That's obvious in the tone and concrete career paths recommended by Katherine Frink-Hamlett in THE NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL. President of Frink-Hamlett Legal Solutions, she describes how a JD can be leveraged to positions or entrepreneurial enterprises doing procurement, that is activities involved in the supply chain; handling compliance for heavily regulated entities such as insurance companies; and being part of administration in a law firm, e.g. handling diversity.

By going into detail regarding what these opportunities require in terms of mindset, knowledge, and skills and how they play out in daily work, Frink-Hamlett breaks JDs open to truly approaching earning a living in diverse ways.  Now, any JDs worth their three years of analysis and synthesis can make the jump to considering career paths in:

• Marketing for law firms.  They know the kinds of services being offered.  Then they have to bone up on marketing and sales.  A few books and maybe a hands-on marketing/sales seminar with Dale Carnegie should do it.  When my traditional business niche collapsed, I did just that.  The ROI on my eight-weeks of training with Dale Carnegie leader Michael Francoeur [West Hartford, CT, Western/Central MA] plus some one-on-one coaching continues in this volatile economy.

• Communicating about regulatory/legislative issues.  Jobs like this are housed in public relations firms, which eventually pay well.  A seasoned PR issue manager can earn in the $300,000 category.  Hanging out a shingle in PR is possible and probable.  Also there's that road to K Street as a lobbyist. That's major money and a gold-plated network that can be used to obtain even better opportunities.

• Journalism.  Initially this doesn't pay what an associate job with BigLaw does.  But the way of investigating and framing subject matter is transferable to many fields.

• Sales.  Check out Mediabistro.com and Craigslist.com.  There are plenty of jobs pitching various legal products and services.  Learn how products and services come to be and you could be the next creator of a service like LegalZoom.

• For-profit training and education.  After all, you got the academic game down cold. Although the career value of higher education is being questioned in America, both here and around the world the demand increases.  That means rising demand for preparation for standardized tests such as LSAT, online education, and administration of all those for-profit schools.  If you excelled in languages, there is also hands-on instruction of ESL and overseeing those programs.  Remember English is not only the language of business but also science. Do a literature search on globalization of higher education.  Your eyes will pop at the emerging kinds of jobs as well as entrepreneurial possibilities.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.  Now, that you got the mindset for thinking beyond associate slots, you can probably come up with much better and more lucrative ways to apply all that expensive education.

Globalization: Did law school prepare you for that?

Probably only 40% of recent law-school graduates believe that their institution prepared them for globalization. 

That would include the awareness of the role international supply chains are playing in the practice of law in the U.S.  Think process management firms in India.  It would also include the growing interest in best practices aka most cost-efficient yet fair in legal systems around the world.   For example, litigation in the UK uses an investment model through which others can purchases shares of the lawsuit.  In itself, that could discourage suits without merit.  Parts of that approach are being tried in the U.S.

The 40% hunch comes from a study by IBM's Institute for Business Values of more than 3600 students in more than 40 countries.  That survey, reports Emmanuel Ogala in NEXT, found that only four out of 10 students assessed that their education had addressed the realities of globalization.  That's less than half. 

Law schools which don't take into account globalization can be at a branding disadvantage.  Increasingly, academic institutions, found marketing professor Van R. Wood, are being evaluated in terms of their global orientation and footprint around the world.  That has always been the case for the more prestigious universities.

Daughter sues father for breach of contract in tuition payments, wins

Those in the loop on this one contend, reports Christian Nolan in THE CONNECTICUT LAW TRIBUNE, that the lawsuit is and will probably be rare.  I don't agree.  The daughter's win in New Haven, Connecticut Superior Court for breach of contract against her father for not paying her college tuition bills could encourage many other type suits.  After all, college is a must for the job market and child-parent hostility never ends as a rite of passage.

Dana Soderberg, a child of divorce, had her father Howard Soderberg sign a contract to ensure that he would, says Nolan, "pay her college tuition until she was 25, along with other school expenses such as texbooks, and her car insurance."  She was attendeding and did graduate from Southern Connecticut University.  The father held up his part of the contract until her senior year.  The daughter filed suit.  The father represented himself.  Although pro se litigation is becoming more mainstream, other parents in this situation might think twice before not getting professional counsel. 

Damages totaled $47,000.  That included the loan, interest, attorney fees and missed car insurance payments.  The daughter's lawyer does not anticipate the defendant will appeal.

US SC turns down Vatican appeal

The Roman Catholic Church, not here in the U.S. and not over there in the Vatican, does not have good luck with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Three times, the Diocese of Bridgeport in Connecticut went to the U.S. SC to appeal the ruling that the media such as THE NEW YORK TIMES had the right to access the discovery documents sealed as part of the settlement of the clergy sex abuse litigation.  Three times the U.S. SC said no.  A Superior Court in CT confirmed that ruling.  The documents were unsealed last December but there were no big surprises.  More there was outrage that some of the higher-ups who allegedly covered up the misdeeds still held positions of authority.  Meanwhile, since then, more allegations of clergy sex abuse have been filed both in Connecticut and other parts of the U.S.

Again and more recently, the U.S. SC has said no to the Roman Catholic Church in "John V. Doe v. Holy See."  This time it was to the Vatican, which has been sued in the U.S. in association with clergy sex abuse.  The Vatican perceives that suit as a publicity stunt.  The U.S. SC is taking it more seriously than that.  The suit was originally filed in 2002.

The Vatican's legal strategy has been to contend that U.S. priests were not "employees" of the Vatican.  Therefore, the Vatican could not be held legally accountable for their behavior.  The U.S. SC did not cotton to that legal argument which also is built on the position that the Roman Catholic Church is decentralized.  Authority resides in the individual parish. As a result, the Vatican, it claimed, had no direct jurisdiction over the clergy who allegedly molested youth.

This standoff between the Vatican and the U.S. justice system could wind up disclosing more about the inner workings of this religion than any of its higher-ups want known.  In an interview with AP's Rachel Zoll, Jeff Anderson, attorney representing the plaintiff, said "I have known for 25 years that all road leads to Rome.  This is the beginning for us of a new journey, a uniquely difficult odyssey."

The case will go to trial in an Oregon district court .