Law And More

Respect in the Recruitment Process - Time for a Public Policy

Tone-deaf.

That's the best way to describe the recruitment policies of an established organization dealing with economic development.

I had applied for a contract position rewriting content. Quickly I received a response. I had been selected to create sample content. That would be paid. 

And that was the good part. 

Now for the bad part.

I was explicitly informed that several applicants, including myself, had been chosen to downsize a policy-heavy document. I assume that in addition to word reduction it should be made engaging. The one applicant whom, they judged, was the best writer would be contracted to work with them on a long-term basis. The rest would be throw-backs. 

Insulting?

That's what I thought.

The powers that be at that organization could have simply indicated there was a paid trial assignment. That would have made good business sense.

After I thought about all that and wound up not participating I recalled slaving in my pre-teen days in the contests to name Lassie's puppies. That had been a popular Sunday night series on network television.

Back then the contest was a useful exercise for children to understand the concept of competition. The adults in the family agreed with that and gladly provided the 2-cent stamps to mail the entries.

No, I never did win the prize: 1 of Lassie's puppies. But I salute the producers of "Lassie" for socializing children to the realities beyond the farm where Lassie lived. With my relatives who worked in sophisticated Manhattan I analyzed what my entries might have lacked. The reverse engineering came up with the need for me to be more creative in the choice of names but still remain within the box of warm and fuzzy dogville. 

Now, I am simply puzzled why a reputable organization would lack respect for communications talent. The more enlightened approach would be to simply position and package the competitive element as a necessary screening whatever.

Can those who create public policy make this happen? 

Takeaway: Don't continue with a process that treats professionals like children. 

Hope: Public policies will mandate gig workers be treated with respect. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

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Legal Marketing - Maybe Skip Holiday Reflections for Sales Pitches

There is a school of thought which champions sustained reinforcement of a stock marketing message. The classic example of that had been Ford's slogan that quality was job #1. 

Then there is another line of marketing strategy which pushes continuous disruption. Every minute social media should be showcasing yet another insight about the product, service, good cause, or political candidate.

My experience favors frequent experimentation and always A/B testing.

It is interesting to take a look at Bob Dilenschneider's long-term formulaic leverage of multiple-purpose holiday greetings. For the last several years they have been published on Odwyerpr.com.

This thanksgiving the odds are that we can anticipate a message from Dilenschneider about what we Americans should be grateful for.

Likely the job  creation statistics will be cited. There will probably be no mention that more and more Americans recognize that they can no longer afford to live here.

Not only retirees on fixed incomes are becoming expats. The young and middle aged are researching where they can get jobs or start businesses overseas. 

Several of my clients have already relocated to Mexico. They spotted a cute cottage I can purchase and join them in a more affordable lifestyle. 

Dilenschneider founded the boutique public affairs firm The Dilenschneider Group, based in Manhattan and Chicago. Historically he has had brandname clients, ranging from GE to Lou Dobbs. In itself, a prestigious client list is a new-business-development magnet. That is especially the situation in professional services such as law. 

However, on Glassdoor, anonymous employee assessments give the agency a sustained 1 rating out of possible 5. One wonders if it matters to current clients or prospects what the "help" thinks.

After all, capitalism seems to be at a raw stage. Compared to now, the times Charles Dickens chronicled seem fairly tame. Currently, the Scrooge type doesn't seem to go in search of salvation.

Given the extreme stress involved in earning a living today, my hunch is that more of us want to left alone on holidays. All holidays.

We don't welcome being instructed on what we should be feeling or doing.

Recently, in fact, I took my cushion and fled a Buddhist meditation group filled with oughts. There seemed a replay of the ethos of absolutes which is embedded in Roman Catholicism. 

Reflection: This Thanksgiving I will be grateful for the usual: That I managed to outsmart the family suicide gene. Here I am alive, dancing on planet earth longer than any member of my extended family. In addition, I will be grateful to the businesses and non-profits which use my communications and coaching services. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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Stacey Radin's Suicide By Hanging - Lawyers, Be Aware of CopyCat Phenomenon

Extreme success. A New Yorker. Middle-Aged. And, struggling with clinical depression.

Lawyers, if that profile fits you, your colleagues, and/or your loved ones, then recognize that these are The Hanging Times.

In New York City, there has been the third hanging.

High-profile clinical psychologist, best-selling author of "Brave Girls," and animal-rights activist Stacey Radin took her life yesterday. It was by hanging, just like the recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Both Spade and Bourdain were middle-aged.

Radin was 52. She reportedly battled clinical depression. Here are more details from The New York Post. 

There seems to be a copycat phenomenon in play. Hanging is a relatively  slow, painful way to die. Also, it's not usual for women to take that route of self-deliverance.

According to the website Lost All Hope, suicide by hanging:

Is effective (leads to death) only 89.5% of the time. That means that a botched job could result in permanent brain or physical injury. In contrast, a gun shot to the head is effective 99%.

The process requires 7 minutes. Those can be a period of both physical (difficulty breathing) and mental (reflection on one's life) agony. In contrast, death by a gun requires only 1.7 minutes.

On a scale of 100, the amount of distress is in the 25.5% slot. When using a gun, that's at 5.5.

Clearly, the method of suicide can provide one of the dots on what might have been the mood at the time this decision was made.

Was the person so lacking in hope at that moment that the act was one of impulse? The mindset could have been: I can't take this one more minute. There's a way I can hang myself right here. In a support group, I have heard that line of thinking often.

Was the person full of self-loathing? In clinical depression there is a tendency to turn on oneself. 

And, was the act, in its theatricality, a kind of rebuke to others? There is the thinking that all suicide is homicide. Those committing it are sending a message to those whom they perceive let them down.

A member of my nuclear family left an unfilled bottle of blood pressure medication on the kitchen table. My sister found her in the nearby bedroom dead of a massive heart attack. Some interpreted that as a passive suicide - and act of rage.

Lawyers in all locations, not only New York City, have to recognize the pull power of the hanging ethos in these chaotic times. It is difficult to hold on to anything - a nest egg in a portfolio. a high-powered job, looks when hitting middle age, trust in relationships, and a doable plan for semi-retirement or retirement.

Recently, I asked a 53-year-old colleague who sensed he was going to be forced out of a job, if he planned to kill himself. Maybe because he was stunned, he answered "yes." I made the appointment for him with a cognitive therapist who specializes in displaced professionals. And, as a coach I am helping him navigate the search for how to make a living. He was on the money: He had been forced out. He blamed both his age and that his boss had been fired. 

Full Disclosure: I have been clinically depressed since age 11. What I have observed is that the mood can become so dark that it shifts into psychosis. It took relocating from the New York Metro area for me to finally get the upper hand in battling this monster. OF COURSE, I had sought out many traditional modes of treatment. I could teach a course at Harvard Medical School on all that and more. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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Halloween - BigLaw Has To Lobby To Keep This Holiday Family-Free

Celebrating Halloween has become a big-spending day.

Think $9 billion.

And, about $480 million of that will be ponied up, no pun intended, for our pets' costumes.

Likely our animal companions will be invited to multiple parties. Hosting them will be vets, pet supply retailers, and property managers for residential rentals. Here are more financial details from the New York Post.

My hunch about why Halloween has evolved into the holiday to throw ourselves into is that it's family-free. At least for now.

And, so far, there probably aren't traumatic memories of Halloweens marred by dad throwing the turkey against the wall. 

Yes, the long season of Family Horrors kicks off on Thanksgiving. Then there's Christmas. Next Easter. In between are birthdays, graduations, weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Family members are forever. 

The most recent funeral I was involved with I ran into a brother-in-law whom I hadn't spoken to for a decade and two nephews who should have known who I was but didn't. Folks from the old neighborhood, who had been "like family," brought up, of course, my weight. Since age five, it has always been my weight which has been the issue with family and the family-like. 

There must be a temptation for businesses such as special events firms to transform Halloween as it is now into a family-centric one.

They will create packages for entertaining  families of up to 20 on this holiday. The odds are animal companions will not be welcome. Halloween will be rebranded as a heart-warming extension of Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

BigLaw firms increasingly have gotten into the federal lobbying niche. The Jones Days and DLA Pipers can take on preventing Halloween from becoming a family holiday pro bono. Unfortunately, I predict corporations will push hard for making it a family affair. The newly conservative U.S. Supreme Court will probably allow that.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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"Alpha" - Healing After the U.S. Senate Brutality

There is that old saying in Washington D.C. - If you want a friend, get a dog.

Well, the 2018 film "Alpha" posits how the wolf evolved into dog as man's best friend. The account is fictional. 

The setting is prehistoric times.

A teenage boy is separated from his tribe during the hunt. A wolf is separated from his pack. Both are wounded. They wind up saving each other's lives, over and over again. And forming a deep friendship. The wolf becomes part of the tribe. 

The narrative provides a healing after the U.S. Senate brutality. We can at least believe in the human-animal bond. if nothing else. 

The values of the tribe are geared toward survival in tough terrain. So, there's also plenty of brutality there. For example, the young boys who do not pass their rite of passage test are beaten by members of the tribe. The chief won't accept his son's reluctance to kill, at least not early in the film. And the animals which are pursued in the hunt are driven off a cliff to their deaths. 

Sure, there is a little bit of progress on the tribe's learning curve but not much. The takeaway is, yes, get yourself a dog if you want a friend. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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Broken Families & Extreme Violence - The Watts' Household, Now the Torabi Horror

It was Tolstoy who talked about unhappy families. 

Now, that concept seems way too tame.

The media outlets continually report about broken families in which violence is the common mode of communication. That's how the members transmit messages.

Today, that violence took the form of a suicide of the father.

That was following the charges filed against the mother for an alleged horrific beating given to one twin. He - Kian - is in critical condition in a New York City hospital. The other twin - a girl named Elaina - has been found dead in a basement. 

Drugs might have set this tragedy in play. Allegedly the father got the mother, a law school dropout, hooked.

The father - Mohammad Torabi - jumped to his death from the roof of the Renaissance New York Hotel today. His body was found on the third floor. 

The mother - Tina Torabi - is in the midst of serious criminal problems. Here are more details from the tabloid the New York Post. 

This kind of scenario has become increasingly common.

The one most in the public's mind are the murders of the wife, the unborn baby, and two young female children in the Watts' household. The father, a suspect, had been on suicide watch in jail. 

In Americana, the family is perceived as a revered social system. That is one of the reasons many anticipate the new justice on the U.S. Supreme Court - Brett Kavanaugh - will be successful in blowing up "Roe v. Wade." 

The Roman Catholic Church, in its heyday, reinforced that image of the good family. A motto back in the old days had been: The family that prays together stays together.

Nightly, on our knees, my immigrant family did the rosary. However, that ritual didn't keep it together. Five members committed suicide. Of course, back then, those deaths were made to appear not like self-deliverance. All were permitted to be buried in Catholic sacred ground.

And, painter Norman Rockwell provided graphic props to the gospel of family joy such as the iconic Thanksgiving dinner. 

When will supporters of family finally get out the message that such a social unit is difficult to manage - and grow up in? That might release some of the extreme expectations about what life inside a family is supposed to be. 

Perhaps there should be a GoFundMe site for hiring a top public relations agency to position and package the meme: Families are fragile entities. Treat each and every member with care and respect. Were care and respect missing in the Torabi's and Watts' households? 

Full Disclosure: Once I could make my own living, I created a family of rescue cats and dogs. Clinically depressed since age 11, I could hang on by accepting their love. A wonderful film with that theme is "Alpha." 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Halloween 2018 - 5 Best Costumes for Law Students

Life happens in moments.

Right now, these moments seem good for many law students.

There is a turnaround, finally, in the legal sector, even in litigation. Some never thought that possible after 6,000 lawyers lost their jobs in 2009.

Enrollments are up in law schools. At Arizona State that up is 35%.

The starting salary is $190k in a growing number of large law firms.

The law has been the driving force in ousting alleged sexual predators from entertainment, media, prep schools, universities, and more.

With so much turnover of legal talent in the Trump Administration, there could be a shot at a job. 

So, Halloween parties at law schools should be euphoric events in 2018. Hope is high for both a lucrative career and making a difference. 

Here are the 5 best choices in costumes.

Nitin Nohria Mask. Hahaha.

The Wall Street Journal tells the world that the M.B.A. degree is no longer perceived as golden. Applications have been down for four consecutive years, even at elite programs such as Harvard, where Nohria is dean. 

Remember when the M.B.A. was the ticket. And the JD was positioned and packaged as a solid credential for a Uber driver. 

Button-hole the Nohria simulation, explaining why you opted for the JD, not the M.B.A.

Can of Lead Paint. The U.S. Supreme Court has shelved, with no definite date for un-shelving, the schedule to review the conviction of Sherwin-Williams, et al. in the California Santa Clara class action lead paint public nuisance bench trial.

The CA appeals court upheld the conviction. The CA Supreme Court refused to review it.

You would have to have taken a stupid pill to not anticipate that other municipalities could file lawsuits loosely modeled on the CA one. Lots of work for prosecutors as well as plaintiff lawyers pitching in on a contingency basis and defense firms. 

Public nuisance is also a sturdy platform for lawsuits in energy and pharmaceuticals (think opioids).

A Dog. Some suffering from arrested development continue to search for affection. They won't find it as a lawyer. Likely not as human being, either. That whole illusion of love, begun in the Medieval Ages, is so impossible in the digital one. I know. I was a copywriter for a dating service in Canada. The option is to become a dog. We will rush into burning buildings and in front of cars to save our dogs. 

Elie Mystal. Head of Abovethelaw.com, Mystal is the role model for not being stressed by conventional concerns.

For Mystal, they ranged from $150k in student loan debt to the decision to leave BigLaw with no soft landing. For baby boomers like myself he is the analogue of our mascot Alfred E. Neuman. His meme was: What, Me Worry?

Currently, Mystal is a media celebrity. 

SEO Firm Which Produces Significant Results at Affordable Fees. That will get a good laugh. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Engagement Goes to the Dogs - Finance Sues for Return of $100K Engagement Ring

The relationship between Ryan Strasser, associate at Troutman Sanders, and Sarah Jones Dickens, unemployed, seemed to sour when three dogs became part of it.

Strasser had adopted two dogs. Dickens already had one. Where they co-habituated became cramped. So chronicles MarketWatch.

The two split up 11 months after becoming engaged to marry. 

Not at all an unusual story, is it.

Why it has made national business and as well as legal news is that Dickens refused to return the engagement ring. It originally cost about $100k. Now its market value is about $125k. She also refuses to return the two dogs to her former soulmate.

Strasser, who took out a personal loan at 5.95% annual interest, has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington D.C. for return of the ring. In that venue, the "gift" only becomes complete when the wedding ceremony is performed.

This is also major news because the complaint is full of personal details about the nature of the relationship and how it began and continued to unravel. Some refer to the tone as that of a soap opera.

While the nation might be amused, Strasser might not have the last laugh. After all, he is a lawyer in a brandname law firm.

This personalizing of a lawsuit can reflect badly on not only him as lawyer but also his firm.

After all, clients go to brandname law firms for solutions for serious problems. Do they want to know that a "clown" is employed there and might be assigned to their account?

Sure, Strasser might be enraged - and deeply hurt. However, in filing this kind of lawsuit, the joke could be on him for years. And, he might not have any shot at partner status at Troutman Sanders.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission. Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Closely Watched Portfolios - Not Necessary for Those Who Are Never Retiring

The new game among media outlets, financial planners, and those real estate developers who put up retirement complexes is this: Scare the dickens out of those who assume they have to retire.

The latest move in that game is to discuss the possibility of the ending of the bull market. Here is the article in MarketWatch.

Well, no one rejoices at the possibility of a plunge in the value of assets in a portfolio. But that doesn't constitute a financial catastrophe for those of us who got it that we don't have to retire. Not now. Not when we hit 65. Not ever.

As we pile on the years, usually we look forward to downshifting. That is, we transition to jobs and operating businesses which don't demand such grueling hours and which don't impose such emotional pressures. 

One Manhattan vice president I had coached navigated a shift to relocating to Idaho. There he learned dog grooming. For about seven months he worked as an employee in someone else's grooming salon. Then, he invested in a mobile unit to bring grooming to customers' homes. The weekly hours he puts in have downsized from 90 to 50. In addition, no longer are chief executive officers screaming at him.

Part of the fun of downshifting is that aging professionals can try out many different kinds of work as well as their own business startups. Here, free to click on and read, is my book on that  Download Outwitting ageism. And, that old saying is on the money: A job gets you a job - usually a much better one.

Takeaway: Don't let anyone frighten you about running out of money. Working prevents that. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission. Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Reverse-Aging Process (NAD) Could Bring Windfall to Divorce Lawyers, Provide Unhappy Lawyers with Shot at Second Career

Essentially this anti-aging process involves reprogramming cells. The cost could be peanuts. 

Then, poof.

Big chunks of aging disappear. Biological age could be rolled back almost a quarter of a century. 

Harvard professor David Sinclair, along with University of New South Wales researchers, discovered the approach. The projection is that it could be available by 2020. That can extend the human life span to 150. And most of that we can use to earn income. Goodbye worrying about saving for "retirement." Maybe that whole concept will go the way of the Selectric typewriter. 

Charlie Coe in the Daily Mail reports:

"The science behind the new technique involves the molecule nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), which plays a role in generating energy in the human body. The chemical is already used as a supplement for treating Parkinson's disease and fighting jet lag." 

The implications are huge.

Financial planners will have to throw away the standard sales pitch about the urgent need to start saving for retirement in high school. 

Career training schools, ranging from certifying long distance truck driving to coding, will be a high growth industry.

At age 65, which will be the new 40, lawyers weary of knocking heads with other lawyers, can retrain for a whole fresh career such as a software engineer. No longer would they publish a chronicle of their discontent on Abovethelaw.com. 

Empty nest housewives can start their first career. 

Journalists laid off when The Village Voice recently shut down can live their blue-collar fantasy of becoming plumbers. 

Rare will be the marriage which can endure over a 100 years. So, the divorce rate could reach 100%. Any which had survived 100 years will probably be saluted by Al Roker on the "Today" show. Along the way, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) will become a global health epidemic. 

A new kind of therapy will have to emerge to end festering feuds.

Just as William Shakespeare portrayed, the human heart is capable of embedding hate and locking it in. And, all the while, we perceive ourselves, just like King Lear on the heath, as more sinned against than sinning. 

But, come on, a century+ is too long to nurture a grudge. I will have to sign up for that conflict-resolution to lift from my heart the extreme antipathy against former college classmate Kathleen Huebner.

Meanwhile, the rage, yes, is Shakespearean.  

Money?

Back in our youth, our mascot from Mad Magazine Alfred E. Neuman used to observe life and shrug: What, Me Worry. That will also become our signature phrase about money.

Lose everything? We have decades to earn it back. 

Not earn as much as we have come to believe we are capable of? At what is now age 70 we can get serious about building wealth. 

And, the odds are great that many of us will use those long years to push the envelope and wind up in prison. That could become as common a rite of passage as getting our first dog has been. On whatever social media is the platform post-2020, we proudly will post photos of ourselves in our orange jump suit. Naughty Us.

Most importantly, added years and renewed energy provide the opportunity to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. In my career coaching of those over-50, frequently what's keeping them stuck in the past is regret. Here is my recent book on moving beyond that, free to download.

Communications Strategy/Services and Career Coaching. Special areas of expertise include professionals over-50 and students applying to degree programs in higher education.

 

Complimentary initial consultation. Sliding scale fees. Contact Jane Genova for an appointment janegenova374@gmail.com.