Law And More

Bullying the 65+ - One for Congress

Somehow we made it through multiple economic downturns, including the whopper of 2008.

We did what it took to accommodate a workplace gone tech.

Many of us came from under debt.

Yet, some economists and many financial planners have been labeling us "Brand Dumb."

Come 65, announces the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, 40% of us who are middle class will tumble into poverty. Read all about it in MarketWatch. 

That assumes we're relying primarily on Social Security. After we receive our 2.8% boost in the monthly payment, the average benefit will be $1,461.

Annually, that will total $17,532. Well, the supposed experts concede, that puts us way over the official government threshold of $12,060 for poverty.

However, the experts reply with this: Even at $17,532, many of us will be living in poverty.

But, will we? Or, more to the point, are we?

There are plenty of those in America 65 and over whom I coached who are living a fulfilling middle class life on their Social Security. They are doing that because they made it their personal finance business to adjust and keep adjusting to cost of living realities. 

For example, they knew to sell the family home when the real estate market was near the top. No, many of them haven't been caught in what could be another housing bust, especially in the northeast.

They shed a few tears about leaving all they knew but did the deed: They relocated from high priced locales to much lower priced ones such as Sierra Vista, Arizona, and Youngstown, Ohio. Renting isn't cheap but they know how to shop around in Landlord Nation. 

That's reality number-one.

Reality number-two is that not too many of us are winging it on Social Security, alone.

As The New York Times reports, more than half of us plan to or are already working beyond 65. Some have no intention of retiring at all.

In fact, the two age groups - 65 to 74 and 75 and older - have the fastest rate of growth in the U.S. labor market. That's why I have been a busy career coach for those over-50 who are determined to continue to earn income from work. The aging recognize that full retirement was their dad's and mom's game. A career path may end at age 65. Working rarely does in the current time.

No, we're not dumb. 

And, collectively, we should send this collective message to the economists and financial planners: We won't be bullied into assuming we played it all wrong during our peak working years.

Then and now there were problems. Often big ones, such as the collapse of our industry or medical bills.

But, we have emerged as The Scrambling Generation. Here is my guide, free to download, on how to make a buck, no matter what  Download Outwitting ageism.

And here is my e-book, also free to download, on how to keep finding the exit out of our comfort zone. 

Meanwhile, Congress should be investigating the tactics by professionals trying to establish reputations for brilliance or developing new business - at our expense. You bet, I will testify.

Coaching and Thought Leadership Ghostwriting about Issues Associated with Aging.

Complimentary consultation, sliding scale fees. Please contact Jane Genova at janegenova374@gamil.com.

The Jell-O "Curse" - Bill Cosby as Spokesperson Was Least of It

Public relations representatives and marketing communications experts warn clients about the downside of human spokespeople and influencers. 

The human kind, as opposed to a made-up mascot, can get involved in all sorts of scandals.

The classic example had been Bill Cosby. America's Dad had been the face of Jell-O.

However, that actually was a small part of the "curse" which has plagued Jell-O.

In the new book "Jell-O Girls: A Family History," Allie Rowbottom chronicles how the purchase of the Jell-O patent in 1899 had brought down extreme suffering to her family. 

It had been her great-great-great uncle who bought the patent for $450. Twenty-six years later it was sold for $67 million.

Along with the wealth that created for her family in LeRoy, New York, there has been a sustained history of premature deaths, suicide, alcoholism, drug use, sexual abuse, mental illness, and a predisposition to cancer. In connecting the dots, Rowbottom theorizes that the boredom generated by privilege helped bring the family down. 

It was Allie's mother Mary who began a memoir about the curse. But she died relatively young from cancer before getting all that organized. So, Allie took that up as a mission.

When a child Allie's mother had been sexually molested by teenage friends of her brother, raped by a cousin, essentially ignored by her parents, and did lose her own mother to cancer when very young. Later she suffered from hysteria, had bouts of drug use and alcoholism, spent time in a psychiatric facility, and was betrayed by her husband.

As Allie tells it, Jell-O has also inflicted a cultural curse on America. After World War II, its commercials reinforced the role of women as stay-at-home housewife and caretaker. Serving creative versions of Jell-O was positioned and packaged as helping those women be perfect in that role.

Later, low-calorie Jell-O was part of the ethos of extreme body consciousness by females. Allie herself got caught up in that and had to receive treatment for an eating disorder. 

In addition, the one-time corporate home for Jell-O - General Foods - also became cursed in complacency. After Philip Morris purchased it to diversify into food, eventually The General, as it was called, was gutted. Later the parts of it which were marketable were merged with Kraft. 

Of course, this isn't the only chronicle of the peril of wealth. In fact, with all the recent suicides in BigLaw, one might wonder if there is any correlation between the high compensation and self-destructiveness. 

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

 

Legal Sector - Predictions for 2019

For the legal sector and businesses associated with it (such as law schools) 2018 was the Year of the Comeback. 

But, that was then. 

The ambitious, those just starting out, the sidelined, and the game-changers are focused on what could play out in 2019. Speculating, of course, is all for fun. Those who pretend to do that with any authority are delusional, fraudulent, or just plain arrogant. 

Here are some hunches. 

• Nearly 80 and after having a bumpy 2018, superlawyer David Boies will phase out of the leadership of the firm he started Boies Schiller Flexner.  Employees might rejoice. On Glassdoor, they give the law firm a rating of 2.9 out of a possible 5.
• The correction in the stock market, along with a global economic slowdown, will precipitate actual and stealth layoffs in the law firms. It's unlikely it will be a repeat of 2009 when 6,000 lawyers were put on the street. But, it could be a shocker to those settling in to the illusion that better times are here to stay. Darkness could fall fast, with DEF notices sent to new hires to delay their start day. Recall how, on Abovethelaw, Elie Mystal chronicled that carnage. In the worst-case scenarios, some of those jobs will be cancelled. Those assuming they had a job will have to scramble to find work, any kind.
• The FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement will continue to catch fire. That's being promoted by an anonymous player in BigLaw on @fine_independence. Law.com took a look at that stunner of a development in a profession known for conspicuous consumption. 
• Some reform of the dysfunctional firm culture will finally happen. High profile suicides such as of Gabe MacConaill has pushed this issue into can't-be-ignored territory. Here is a Law.com podcast in which former lawyer turned psychotherapist Will Meyerhofer explains the ugly underbelly of clinical depression. In his Manhattan practice he treats many lawyers. 
• More businesses will opt for M&A to survive and scale, providing lots of work for transactional lawyers.
• The lead paint public nuisance class action litigation will get traction, again. In 2018, SCOTUS, despite Jones Day's insight about its inner working, refused to review the conviction of the defendants in the Santa Clara, California litigation. Already two Pennsylvania counties have filed lawsuits against Sherwin-Williams. The litigation, which some feared would become The Next Tobacco, died down after the Rhode Island Supreme Court tossed the case. Now, yes, it could evolve into The Next Tobacco. All eyes will observe the moves Jones Day makes on behalf of Sherwin-Williams.
• With the Democrats in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the media will cover lots of opining from brandname practicing lawyers and law professors about impeachment. It's an opportunity for those who can bypass platitudes to make a name for themselves.

Lawyers and law students who want individual readings about what the future might hold for them should ask around for a reputable clairvoyant. After Wizard George, based at Angelica of the Angels in Salem, Massachusetts, died, I had to search about 18 months for a seer I could trust. 

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

 

On @fine_freedom, BigLaw Attorney Champions FIRE (financial independence, retire early)

The frugal ideology of FIRE (financial independence, retire early) has seeped into the corridors of a Manhattan BigLaw firm.

The attorney endorsing FIRE remains anonymous.

The missionary's views come to us through the twitter account @fine_freedom - and an interview with Law.com. 

Like many followers of FIRE, this professional is not unhappy with working in general or with the line of work chosen as a career path.

Instead, there is a recognition that the money made - in this situation big money - shouldn't be wasted. Also, through radical saving it's possible to gain control over the terms and conditions of one's career. Those include when to leave it for whatever. This attorney might downshift financially to working at a non-profit. 

@fine_freedom is critical of the big spenders in BigLaw. However, they are not unique. Conspicuous consumption is epidemic at the middle and top rungs of the food chain. Actually, it's almost necessary.

In settings such as the Gold Coast of Connecticut, professionals (and therefore their children) are judged on the location and size of their houses, the brands of their clothes, whether the offspring attend private or public school, model and year of their cars, where the second home is, and club memberships. 

Not maintaining that lifestyle can wind up penalizing a career. Information, notices of job openings, and referrals don't come one's way. Instead there can be a scary isolation. 

One disbarred lawyer I coached for a career change assessed that he embezzled to simply keep up with the spending that he was expected to do. That included having on his payroll in-laws his wife demanded he hire. When The Great Recession hit his real estate niche business hard he didn't lay off the help. Instead he stole. 

Today it's too late for him to embrace FIRE. He lives off Social Security and the profits of the small music tutoring business I helped him establish. But he takes pride in describing his new lifestyle as "minimalism." And he sadly smirks recounting how he spent $10,000 joining a network from which he never derived any business. 

On the other hand, a 62-year-old lawyer I coached to land another good job, despite her age, has no intention of cutting back on her spending. She positions and packages that non-FIRE ethos as compensation for a difficult childhood. 

Reflection: Could a version of FIRE have helped prevent the suicide of bankruptcy lawyer Gabe MacConaill? 

Coaching and Thought Leadership Ghostwriting about Issues Associated with Aging.

Complimentary consultation, sliding scale fees. Please contact Jane Genova at janegenova374@gamil.com.

 

Chris Watts - So Trite, There Was Another Woman

In "Dateline" fashion, the world speculated about the motivation involved in Chris Watts' murder of his pregnant wife and two small daughters?

Was it something oddball, like a male lover?

Did the looming birth of a third child put too much pressure on him?

Were financial troubles emerging again?

What the Daily Mail reports is something more trite: another woman. For two months before the murders Watts had been having an affair with Nichol Kessinger. She had assumed he was divorced.

Her comments to law enforcement provide insight, though, into the personality of this man who recently took a plea in order to avoid the death penalty. 

After the murder, when he told the police his family was missing, he texted his lover in an unemotional manner. Psychologists will now have a ball applying a variety of labels to him. Is he a borderline personality? A sociopath? Or, just a plain-vanilla cad?

The Watts' triple homicide confirms the "Dateline" meme that it is usually the husband who did it. 

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

 

 

Dartmouth - Alleged Professor Version of "Animal House"

Recently, ivy league academic institutions, such as Yale, have been sued by students, current and past, alleging sexual misconduct. 

However, the $70 million lawsuit filed today against the trustees at Dartmouth College is, well, in a unique category.

What the seven female students contend about three professors mirrors the ethos of film "Animal House." Here are all the juicy details from Daily Mail. 

The alleged misdeeds are by three professors who had retired from the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences. They are Todd Heatherton, William Kelley, and Paul Whalen.

The lawsuit claims the college opted for retirement, not punishment for the three. Moreover, it is claimed that the college allegedly covered up inappropriate and what might be found to have been criminal behavior. In addition to the lawsuit, the New Hampshire Attorney General is conducting a criminal investigation. 

The high-jinx allegedly included rapes, use of cocaine in the classroom, hot tub parties in professors' homes, encouragement of heavy consumption of alcohol, leering, groping, and sexting. 

Among the plaintiffs are Kristina Rapuano and Vassiki Chauhan who claimed they had been raped. 

The lawsuit - "Kristina Rapuano, et al. v. Trustees of Darmouth College" - has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. It is a class action one and requests a jury trial. Here is a copy of the complaint. 

Of course, this brings bad publicity to the ivy league institution.

But the odds are against its having any impact on the number of applications for admission. Blind faith in higher education continues and the more prestigious the college or university the more fervent the belief. This is the unofficial religion of America, dating way back to when the Puritans established Harvard in 1636.

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

$400k Bonuses, Jones Day, and the Peter Thiel Saga

Sure, Jones Day paid bonuses up to $400k to the 11 former U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) clerks.

And, sure, that has become a story in itself, and, according to Tony Mauro at Law.com, not an entirely positive one.

But, likely Jones Day doesn't give a damn. When The Washington Post broke the story that one of its partners Don McGahn was representing the Make America Great Again campaign, planet earth went off its axis. Jones Day didn't seem to blink. 

Some question what Jones Day and other law firms are buying with those large bonuses and is it worth it.

Jones Day has hired 47 former SCOTUS clerks since 2102. But, even with all that, it couldn't get its client Sherwin-Williams a review by SCOTUS of its conviction for creating a public nuisance through lead paint in Santa Clara, California.

Now, Sherwin-Williams, along with the other defendants which had been convicted in that bench trial, will have to pay multi-millions in abatement fees. In addition, the door is wide open for the filing of similar lawsuits in other counties and states. Here is Forbes on that. So much for the return on an investment. Client Sherwin-Williams could become the setting for the play-out of the next type of tobacco or asbestos litigation. Nice job, Jones Day.

In addition to the issue if former SCOTUS clerks are worth the big bonuses is the question if such a monetary reward boxes them into a career path that could be unduly limited. 

In his bestselling book "Zero to One," multi-billionaire Peter Thiel recounts how he applied for and was turned down for two SCOTUS clerkships. At the time, the Stanford University JD was beyond devastated. Now, he seems to smirk.

Without being pushed off that career path, he probably wouldn't have gone on to co-found PayPal and more. Incidentally, as Mauro points out, the SCOTUS chief justice only earns $267k annually and associate justices $235k. 

Meanwhile, with his much larger earnings, Thiel has had as much or more influence as SCOTUS. That included funding the "Hogan v. Gawker" breakthrough litigation. In addition, he financially supports conservative ideology. In photo ops he was sitting right there, near U.S. president Donald Trump.

Can the bonus game be blown up? Clients can do that by refusing to do business with law firms participating in the payout. The slogan can be: Remember Sherwin-Williams.

 

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

 

Roy Kim, 58 - 8th NYC Taxi Driver to Commit Suicide Since November 2017

Another standard way of making a good living, if you work very hard, is being blown up by technology.

That's driving a taxi in New York City.

Those willing to put in the long hours could manage to make that leap into the middle class, including buying a house and sending their children to college. 

That was then.

For the past few years traditional taxi drivers in NYC have been sliding our from living the American Dream into poverty, no matter how many hours they cruise looking for fares.

The cause is the competition from the tech enabled ride-sharing players Uber and Lyft. Those drivers don't have to make the financial commitment of traditional players. And the regulations aren't the same. 

So far, government hasn't helped much.

Among the Uber/Lyft Effects have been the suicides of 8 taxi drivers since last November.

The most recent has been Roy Kim, 58. Recently he had invested about $500k into purchasing a medallion. Afterward was financial nothingness. Plagued with debt, on November 5, 2018, he hung himself. Here are more details from the media.

The taxi business isn't the only one undone by technology.

Just consider all the print journalists who can't get their footing in a digital era. More tech displacement will come, of course.

Some are labeling that the 4th Industrial Revolution: Work being reconfigured by artificial intelligence (AI).

Solutions such as Universal Basic Income are being piloted. However, overall, government doesn't seem up to guiding human beings through the transition.

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

That Laser-Like Focus on Outcomes - Smirk, Smirk

Success usually comes in through some back door. Not from careful planning of goals and then methodically tracking them.

The same goes for happiness.

That's why it would be a useful experiment for law firms, lawyers, and law students not to set goals this New Year.

Instead, just commit to be totally engaged in your little life. Or, if you are a partner, your outsized life. 

Essentially that's the thinking embedded in the 2016 book "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?" Here 2018 is almost over and the book continues to rank high on Amazon: 5,537. 

Its author is University of Texas business school marketing professor Raj Raghunathan. His observations are counterintuitive. The one which is the major stunner is that focusing on goals will not necessarily:

• Generate success
• Bring happiness. 

It's such as shocker because from the get-go our mindset is trained for the goal-orientation box.

We are to identify goals and continually measure progress being made.

The lack of adequate progress demands course correction. Yeah, hire an executive coach. Or, if you are a corporation, bring in McKinsey. 

Those not playing in that sandbox will be labeled losers - that is, until they become our bosses or billionaires. And, unlike most of the goal-setters, they don't wind up depressed and preoccupied with suicidal ideation.

Raj provides the analogy of how children master their little worlds and simultaneously experience joy. They don't approach the cardboard box just unpacked in a move, determine that by sitting in it they will develop skills in X or Y, and then monitor achieving all that. Instead, they simply totally engage with the box. Recall that we all learned in developmental psychology how rapidly children get a hang of how to navigate their universes.

It's that same childlike wonderment that frequently characterizes those entrepreneurs who will make it big, lawyers who are in demand, and nobodies who become influencers in social media.

In contrast are those pain-in-the-ass plodders who keep measuring their supposed progress. When they wind up stuck, which is almost to be expected, we can't suppress the smirk.

The classic example of a non-goal-setter who bumped into amazing success, along with a happy family life, is Abovethelaw's editor-in-chief Elie Mystal.

Probably he didn't start out that way. After all, it takes careful planning to get into and complete Harvard undergraduate and Harvard Law School. That he did do.

Then, it turned out that he hated his practicing law. That's when he had to stop doing what he was told he ought to be doing. He knocked around, working at this and that. 

Along the way, he tried out for a journalism job at Abovethelaw. Effortlessly he made it to the top of that food chain. He also has become a prominent commentator in other media outlets. And he's the loudest voice on the internet combatting racial discrimination. 

Takeaway: Engage, with all your mind and heart. Don't plan outcomes. Success and happiness then will come to you. 

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

Planet Lead Paint - Shift from Advocacy to (Big) Money

When I was blogging the iconic Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance class action trial, the formal public relations focused on advocacy. That was November 1, 2005 until February 22, 2006. 

The defendants promoted public policies such that the landlords were responsible for making the residue of lead paint safe. Another was that federal and state initiatives had already addressed most of the hazard.

The plaintiff and the child activists supporting them argued that children were not safe where they should be: their own homes.

When I interviewed jurors after the verdict went against three of the defendants, including Sherwin-Williams, one woman hammered that stance. She felt so strongly that children must be safe where they live. 

Years later, the RI Supreme Court threw the whole case out. 

That was then.

More recently, both the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the conviction of the defendants, including Sherwin-Williams, in the west coast version of a lead paint public nuisance class action lawsuit.

As expected, that has opened the door to other municipalities and plaintiff lawyers working on contingency filing similar lawsuits. Currently two have been filed in counties in eastern Pennsylvania. Here are details. More are anticipated, not only in PA but in other states.

This time the rhetoric, on both sides, seems to have a lot to do with money.

For instance Jones Day, representing Sherwin-Williams, contends that lawyers are motivating county officials to file the lawsuits because of the contingency fees. Those can reach one-third of the verdict or settlement. Here those statements, part of Sherwin-Williams' lawsuit to halt those two PA lawsuits, are quoted in Forbes. 

Meanwhile, municipalities can certainly use the lead-paint abatement funds from litigation to fix that problem in older stock housing. Otherwise, homelessness can increase, which can hurt the economy of those counties. In San Francisco, the homelessness situation has discouraged conferences from choosing that city. 

Money will become even more prominent if there is an international economic recession. Today, a headline in The Wall Street Journal reads: Global economic slowdown deepens. That, the article goes on to assert, can put U.S. robust growth at risk. The current stock market is hurting the portfolios of too many. 

As for money and the lead paint defendants, such as Sherwin-Williams, they will require a great deal of it for legal expenses as well as verdicts against them and any settlements. Currently Sherwin-Williams is among the CA trial losers which has to collectively pony up $400 million. 

Those public relations firms officially handling the positioning and packaging of the lead paint defendants will have to transcend platitudes. Money as money has a crass image. 

This is Phase Three of the lead paint public nuisance class action litigation. Together the lawyers and the public affairs experts have to prevent it from mutating into "Another Tobacco" or "Another Asbestos." Yes, the courts of law and the courts of public opinion intersect. 

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.