Law And More

Obama + Christie: When 2 lawyers put their heads together during national disaster

Lady Luck looked down at the Northeast Corridor from above the storm clouds.  She decided there was enough ugliness and stopped the presidential campaign dead in its tracks.  Barack Obama was going to win and that was that.

But he had to put in the performance art, like the politico walk through storm-destroyed New Jersey with its governor Chris Christie.  Both lawyers mugged solidarity.  The media played up the sad state of the state.  Conservative Christie knew he would get the money he needed from this liberal president to make the flood waters and downed trees disappear.  And all would be good.

There are unique kinds of resolutions only talented lawyers can put together. 

 

Partners, Associates, Law Students, Displaced Lawyers: Yes, you can be Scott Turow 2.0, advises Lee Gutkind

Succeeding as a lawyer or on a career path outside the legal sector now requires extraordinary performance.  Partners, associates, law students, and displaced lawyers know that. 

That's why they aggressively ask their executive coaches, shamans assigned to them at some law firms, search firm contacts, and their professors and mentors: How do I get the edge? 

One way is to harness, reconfigure, and then leverage your verbal skills as well as attention to detail.  No surprise, in this era of specialists there is an expert in just that.  He's Lee Gutkind, dubbed by VANITY FAIR as the "godfather of creative nonfiction."  His most recent book is "You Can't Make This Stuff Up." 

That makes the count more than 25 books that he has written or edited on creative nonfiction.  Gutkind has appeared on programs ranging from "Good Morning America" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."  I asked Gutkind to share his thinking on how just about any lawyer can create a niche as high profile and lucrative as that of Scott Turow.  He graciously agreed to pen this bylined guest piece as an exclusive for Law and More.

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Yes, You Can Be Scott Turow 2.0 

Submitted as an exclusive to Law and More by Lee Gutkind

Lawyers are verbal and articulate. They pay attention to every detail.  That's what makes them so successful.  So too with writers - except that they go one vital step further and focus on the elements of narrative - what we call "creative nonfiction."

When pitching a complex service to a client, don't just tell them what you think or what you can do.  Be cinematic and show them.  Demonstrate with a case history, an illustration, a story that they can see, feel, and have empathy with.

Research shows that people remember information longer and are more likely to be persuaded when ideas are presented in narrative or story.

What's in a story? First and foremost real people, facing serious problems.  In life and in the law, there's always something at stake.  Present characters vividly, just like lawyer and literary writer Scott Turow would, describe the challenges they are facing and the possibilities of succeeding.  But don't give away the store.  Create suspense so that your prospective client will want to hear what you are suggesting or what you have accomplished.

Then show how you and only you can provide the service and the answer.

There's mystery in every great true story - and then there's the resolution.  When stories are well told you create a client hungry for an answer - your answer.  The resolution of your story can be the point of sale.

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 Lee Gutkind is currently a professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communications at Arizona State University.  He provides workshops on how to leverage the mindset and tactics of creative nonfiction for marketing and closing sales.  You can reach him at leegutkind@gmail.com. 

 

Paul Ceglia: No Winklevoss

The case looked sweet to eight rounds of lawyers.  Here could be yet another Winklevoss claim that current Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg defrauded an early partner.  Paul Ceglia claimed that and eight lawyers bellied up to the bar to represent him. 

The problem has been that Ceglia allegedly faked the agreement which was supposed to be the evidence, reports TECH CRUNCH.  The alleged scam was detected by technology.  Now, instead of a windfall like the multi millions Winklevoss received, he has been accused of two kinds of fraud: wire and mail.

His eighth lawyer Dean Boland has approached the court, requesting that he can withdraw from representing Ceglia.  Seven other lawyers had already dropped out.

 

Suffering: Sandy pushed UWS nanny off the front pages (including discussion of insanity defense)

Without Sandy, the front pages of the legal and general media would have been full of details of what would have been the ongoing story of the UWS (Upper West Side) Nanny.  Some will recall she allegedly murdered two young children while the stay-at-home mother was out with the third child. 

Before Sandy the last bit of information the media posted was that she had come to and asked about her own family.  Should Sandy have been a no-show, criminal lawyers would have been interviewed about the possibility that her defense would be the insanity plea. Then there could have been a widespread discussion about what that defense really is and how it might differ from state to state.

But Sandy did happen.  The suffering, as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL captures, is intense.   That story will dominate in the media until a more horrific entity, act of god or man-made, occurs.

"Does v Boies Schiller" - Paul Wolf claims alleged fraud

Of course, when a brandname law firm is sued, it will make news.  So, filed yesterday, "Does v Boies Schiller did make the news. 

As Zoe Tillman reports in THE BLOG OF THE LEGAL TIMES, solo lawyer Paul Wolf is suing that law firm "for fraud, tortuous interference with contractual relations, legal malpractice, negligence, invasion of privacy, and anti-competitive practices."  Another reason it has for attracting media attention is because the underlying case involves Chiquita Brands International's alleged activities in Columbia.

Here you can read the 89-page complaint.  In essence, Wolf alleges that Boies Schiller deceived his clients into signing up with it regarding their representation in the wrongful death and other cases in Columbia against Chiquita Brands.  The latter is accused of supporting paramilitary violence in Columbia.

Boies Schiller says there is no merit to the allegations.  It asserts that Wolf had requested from the firm improper payments.

As this complaint makes its way through the legal system, we will be all ears.

"Judge, I Just Couldn't Endure One More Minute with His Spectrum Autism Disorder"

We R all geeks.  Or at least pose as such.  That means we boast about our Spectrum Autism Disorder.  In NEW YORK Magazine, Benjamin Wallace chronicles how that is the in disease among the influentials in society.  Most of the victims have diagnosed themselves as having the poor social/motor skills associated with spectrum autism disorder.  So, they figure that gets them off the hook nicely for having to be a decent human being, a responsive spouse, and the father who coaches baseball.

That may indeed work.  However, it could also get them murdered by those who don't perceive it as a disease but rather a crime against humanity.  Sooner than later, we will be reading in THE NEW YORK POST about the wife who murdered the socially inept husband who didn't even have the basic coordination to be a satisfying sexual companion.  Her lawyer is using the defense that she just snapped, much like Mary Winkler did with her unfeeling preacher husband.  That widow could get off.  Come to think of it, so might an employee who offs the boss who has been saying inappropriate things for 20 years.

W/o Gallup polling: We will have to speedread reality for ourselves

What a novel idea: Speedreading reality, on our own.  That's what we are now forced to do.  As POLITICO reports, for the second day in a row, Gallup has suspended its daily tracking which it then interprets and releases as polls.

Maybe I will go out into the courtyard of the 1400 unit complex where I live in New Haven, Connecticut and start conversations about the presidential candidates with the residents.  I may just wind up with a more accurate feel for public opinion about a lot of things, including the likely winner next week, than I would have derived from poring over Gallup polls.

Lawyers Who Made It: Re-thinking life by the sea

One reward for becoming a successful lawyer has been a life by the sea.  There was the waterfront property for weekends.  Nice place to entertain clients and prospects and invite them to use.  There was the boat.  There might also be the financial resources to buy up other waterfront property as an investment.  Ah, the good life.

Now, after Sandy, lawyers might be re-thinking what really is a reward and what might well be the burden of angst.  Currently, prices are low for real estate in Spain. Lawyers might consider investing in getaways there, very far from the sea.

Sandy: Primarily a business story, in capitalist America

From the get-go, Sandy was primarily a business story.  The concern was if flooding of downtown Manhattan would knock out the infrastructure  necessary to keep the financial community operating and subway system able to transport folks to their jobs. Sure, there were heroic and sustained efforts to protect human life.  But, the bottom line, to borrow a term from the world of commerce, was dollars and cents.

Fitting for a big business story, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL is making its digital edition WSJ.COM free today.  This is a public service.  Thank you, News Corp chief executive officer Rupert Murdoch.

Sandy: Burying the dead

Every society has its code about burying its dead.  Sandy has made that more difficult - and painful - for a global family in New Jersey.

On Sunday, October 21st, the only child of German-born Marianne and Horst Kremer died.  Her name was Selena Kremer, born in Columbia, and a world traveler.  At age 33 she was taking the first serious steps in her career.  Since she was alone when she died, while walking down the stairs of her apartment in Dover, New Jersey, no one knows what happens.  Apparently she fell.  Artistic, beautiful, and high in emotional intelligence, Selena had made her mark everywhere she lived.

Because family and friends were scattered around the globe, parents Marianne and Horst scheduled the wake at a funeral home based at the New Jersey shore for this evening.  The burial was supposed to take place tomorrow morning in Ocean County, an area surrounded by the sea.  Sandy presents another source of disruption to this extended family that hadn't been expected.  Atlantic City is already under water and the Garden State Parkway has been closed due to flooding. 

This blog and its readers have the Kremer family in our thoughts.  We also have in our hearts all the others whose suffering has been compounded by this insane act of nature.