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CT Law Tribune, Hartford, CT - Reporter

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Legal Blogs - They're Not Only Niche, They're Personal

"You should think of a blog as a niche magazine." - Kevin O'Keefe, "How Effective Is A Law Blog For The Entire Law Firm?" in Abovethelaw.com, January 28, 2015. Here is the article.

Because blogs are niche entities, expert about that medium Kevin O'Keefe recommends that lawyers in a law firm each have his or her own blog. A general law blog, containing posts about diverse issues in law, would turn off readers. They come to a blog for narrow or niche subject matter.

In addition to being niche vehicles, blogs are personal. They're not white papers. Therefore, from the get-go, the blog should embody the lawyer's personality, values, unique way of presenting and supporting a point of view and rhetorical style. 

Over time, the lawyer's voice might change. Everything else is changing. Readers will probably welcome that shift. After all, they are living out that change in real time. That the lawyer is picking up on it will strengthen the bonds with the audience.

 

McDonald's & BigLaw - The (similar) Pickles They're In

The McDonald's Crash will go down in history as happening in the year 2015. Its leader Don Thompson was ousted, which was akin to John Akers' being ousted from IBM in the early 1990s. Yeah, a big bang, by any way you measure it.

In Bloomberg Business Week, Susan Berfield looks at some of went wrong at McDonald's. At the top of the list she fingers the reverence for the "system" or the McDonald's way of doing things. Sounds a lot like how IBM had been. Remember the IBM Way.

Also, it sounds a lot like what triggered BigLaw's Crash in 2007, which most law firms haven't recovered from. There too the "system" or the way BigLaw did things was almost a religion. It hasn't changed much.

Highly paid first-year associates, who know very little about practicing law, are still hired annually. The power of partners still dominates. The billable hour still lives.

Both McDonald's and BigLaw ignored the sea change in the marketplace. When Thompson took over, every aspect of the business was under attack. That was 2.5 years ago and the changes introduced were incremental. Casual dining Panera became more and more attractive. And there wasn't that much of a price differential. We love the soup and Panera provides the recipe online.

BigLaw essentially also went the incremental route. That took the form of focusing on cost efficiency. Expenses were cut but they kept creeping up any way. Radical change was needed at most firms to re-start growth. A handful are doing well. The rest, unless they find a merger partner, could disappear. 

The system is so entrenched at McDonald's that the question bouncing around the media is if it can get its mojo back. The same question is bouncing around among management experts about BigLaw. One or both may surprise us. But I doubt it. 

On-Demand Economy - We're Ambivalent (That's An Understatement)

" ... a host of lawsuits [e.g. against Uber, Lyft, Handy and CrowdFlower], protests and forums organized by and for [on-demand] workers suggest that many flexible laborers feel less enthusiastic about the new model of work." - Lauren Weber and Rachel Emma Silverman in "On-Demand Workers: 'We Are Not Robots'" in The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2015. Here is the article (sub. req.) 

Just as when the Internet became a fact of life in commercial and personal relations, the on-demand economy will begin generating court verdicts about what's against the law. The wild-west or anything-goes ethos will be tamed.

As you well know, going if not gone are the days when posters on Facebook could assume that they could say anything and everything. Gone eventually will be the era when all too many of us on-demand workers are at the mercy of those who outsource the assignments. But that, of course, won't be soon enough.

There are, though, signs of progress. For example, as the WSJ reports, in response to a class-action lawsuit by on-demand workers about compensation against CrowdFlower, a "California district judge rejected its [settlement] offer in December, indicating the company didn't go far enough in compensating workers." 

Until the law catches up with the growing free-agent economy, however, we will continue to be ambivalent. On the one hand, just as contract document reviewer Alex Rich blogs on Abovethelaw.com, we recognize we are fortunate to have assignments. We all know those who continue to search for a traditional full-time position and have had to give up their apartments. There are fewer and fewer of those kinds of work situations. Chasing them can mean a ticket on the Homeless Express. 

In addition, some of us value the flexibility and the option to turn down work we don't want to. Both flexibility and the ability to say "no" are rare in the conventional workplace. The full-time employees in Fry's Supermarket here in conservative Arizona were chatting about family leave today. They recognize it's a legal right but the tone indicated they wondered how the powers-that-be will perceive employees who take it. 

On the other hand, we on-demand workers are continually hustling. It is Job #1 to land the assignments. Lots of folks are competing. When eLance (which has section for legal-service providers) posts a decent-paying assignment in communications, very quickly there are more than 25 bids. Likewise on Outsource.com, where you play to pay. A six-month subscription with Outsource.com costs about $130. The opportunity which pays more than $500 will immediately have about 15 bids, each of which "costs" the bidder seven to nine of the 30 credits alloted each of the six months of the subscription.

Job #2 is negotiating the terms and conditions. Good luck finding a fit with an organization which will pay a living wage. Given the gluts in fields like law and writing, there has been tremendous wage deflation. 

Job #3 is ensuring timely payment. What helps is having a middleman, such as eLance, doing the collecting. The client has to deposit the payment due in escrow.

If there's no middleman, then free agents have to develop a sixth sense about which organizations are planning from the get-go to stiff the worker. The best policy is to stick with known entities. Sure, that limits the playing field but it beats the soul-crushing experience of not being paid.

And, Job #4 is emotionally and financially weathering those times when demand is down. The holidays and periods of bad weather have proved to be horrific. Early this week, my communications boutique was slow. There were no bites about possible assignments from the snowy New York Metro area. That's where the money is. Only this evening things started picking up on the East Coast.

Of course, we free agents are not out here without concrete help. There is the New York Freelancer's Union. At the turn of the century, Mediabistro.com was founded with the mission to provide low-cost medical and dental insurance, courses, assignment leads and a virtual place to hang out for freelancers in communications. There will be much more of that. 

But the bottom line is that the courts, along with regulatory agencies, will be empowing on-demand workers to earn a decent living with dignity and less angst. Until then, we can expect the same kind of harried existence Everyman and Everywoman experienced during the First Industrial Revolution. Charles Dickens chronicled those hard times. On a bad day, you might read some of his novels. 

 

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Juan Monteverde: Faruqi & Faruqi Partner/Rainmaker Leverages "Too Drunk" Defense

"Embattled Faruqi & Faruqi LLP partner Juan Monteverde took the witness stand in New York federal court Monday to deny allegations that he sexually assaulted an associate after a holiday party in 2011, telling jurors he was too drunk at the time to 'consummate the act.'" - Max Stendahl in "Faruqi Atty Tells Jury He Was Too Drunk To Perform," Law360, January 26, 2015. Here is the article (sub. req.)

Does it hurt a law partner's reputation or personal brand to admit in a public forum such as the courtroom that he became so intoxicated that, well, sex was impossible? Time will tell. 

No matter how the jury rules in this sexual harassment trial, however, the brands of the firm Faruqi & Faruqi, rainmaker Juan Monteverde, and plaintiff Alexandra Marchuk have been bruised. The issue is if they have been blown up into a billion pieces which can't be put together again.

This is exactly why organizations and individuals are increasingly avoiding litigation. Discovery, followed by a trial, jury or bench, opens the door to all sorts of negative information being disclosed. 

Can Monteverde enter a restuarant, a client conference room, a beauty contest to pitch his firm's services, a negotiating table, or a courtroom on behalf of clients without anticipating snickers. All the world loves data about sexual performance or the lack of it. 

 

Uber - U.S. Senator Al Franken Sends 2nd Letter About Privacy Concerns

Not satisfied with the response to his December letter to Uber about privacy, U.S. Senator Al Franken sent a second one. 

As Cat Zakrzewski reports in TechCrunch, the letter to Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick primarily focused on the privacy of customer data. 

One major issue has been why Uber retains customers' data after they cancel an account. After the numerous scandals about Uber, customers ended their accounts on principle. Now they are wondering what Uber is doing with their data and with whom may the company be sharing it. 

In addition, Franken asked if current customers can control the sharing of data about them. 

Kleptomnesia Or Accidental Plagiarism - No Nancy Drew Mystery

Is it really all that easy and excusable to borrow someone's intellectual property and not realize we are doing so?

Maybe that's the new party line to defend the growing practice of sucking up memes, word coinages, sentences, paragraphs and music lyrics and not attributing them to the source. 

In New York Magazine, Melissa Dahl presents that defense by Adam Grant, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton's School. He has labeled this behavior "kleptomnesia." And he acknowledges the coinage was first put out there by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert. 

But to me, a former contract employee in loss prevention, this sounds like the petty thieves attempting to leave the store with merchandise they didn't pay for. Most acted shocked when apprehended. The generic statement was that they had mindlessly picked up the item, placed in a pocket or purse and simply forgot doing so. Clearly, this was no Nancy Drew mystery that I had to solve. It was arrogance, poorly masked as forgetfulness.

Perhaps then, I am jaded. Also, I am a crusader to expose and end theft of ideas and content. For example, a high-traffic tax blog reprinted content from this site and others such as Abovethelaw.com without attribution. Among its advertisers was The Economist. I notifed those advertisers. 

Very quickly the tax blog posted the source for each post. Of course, I felt a sense of victory. No one should accept what is stealing. Everyone should take action. Rarely are careers ruined when the miscreants are uncovered. But I really don't care. Laboring in the trenches of loss prevention hardens us regarding the foibles of mankind. 

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