Law And More

Gordon Caplan - Will He Walk the Path of Nixon Administration "Evil Genius" Lawyer Chuck Colson?

In Law.com, Ropes & Grey attorney Joshua Levy, who represented Gordon Caplan, says this: It's too soon for him to consider what could be The Next. 

The primary reason for that is it wasn't until last Thursday that Caplan found out his sentence for ponying up $75k to modify his daughter's responses on ACT. It was only then that he found out that he would only have to serve a month in jail.

Given the number of professionals who went to bat for him for a light sentence, he will probably have plenty of help in putting together his future. Also, many are rooting for his having a strong comeback.

After all, Caplan didn't come across as a bad man.

Essentially, to the court he portrayed himself as a family man under a lot of pressure. Who cannot identify with that?

Overall there was tension at home.

He was being hounded by those services claiming to catapult youth into elite universities.

And, of course, he wanted to help his child receive a good start in a highly competitive world.

And, those of us who attend some version of the Baptist Church have empathy for his misguided decision to turn to fraud.

A major belief of that religion is mankind's universal sinfulness.

Yes, that mindset is quite Shakespearean. According to that iconic dramatist, human beings are "cankered in the grain."

Last night at a bible service at Heritage Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio, the pastor Daniel L. Ellis, Sr. debunked the notion that any person can reach a spiritual state of non-sinfulness. He also questioned the practice in the Roman Catholic Church of "canonizing" human beings as having been "saints" while they lived on planet earth.

Bluntly put, sinners can never be saints, at least not before they do the time travel to eternity. 

That doctrine of inherent sinfulness, derived from the King James Bible, frees the congregation from having to chase after perfectionism.

Unlike in some other religious and spiritual approaches, members can relax in their humanity. As I experienced the service last evening, no one was, as the saying goes, "tightly wound."

Of course, there are the embittered and the envious who have no compassion for Caplan. They fail to get it that he is Everyman. For Everyman (and Everywoman), there is always the danger of tumbling into the darkness.

It was when "evil genius" lawyer in the Nixon Administration Chuck Colson was stumbling in the darkness that he found his Next. It was to minister to the spiritual needs of convicts and their families. That began when he was in prison. When he died, the media didn't hail him as a saint. Instead, they praised his ability to transform his disgrace into a platform for doing good. 

Adversity can be a gift for Caplan. Of course, he can waste that gift.

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

Daniel, Manhattan Corporate Lawyer Earning $270K, Planning FIRE at Age 39

He eats rice and beans.

During winter he puts on layers so that he doesn't have to turn on the heat.

He sticks with one well-worn suit.

And, he lives in New Jersey to duck New York taxes.

That's how Daniel, 36, a Manhattan corporate lawyer earning $270k annually, is planning to do a FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) in three years.

Already he has socked away $400k. His story is featured in BusinessInsider.

Some who follow the FIRE movement might assess $400k as hardly enough to fund 40 or more years of early retirement. That's even if Daniel adds on a couple of hundred thousand in the next three years.

The skeptics are, in some ways, on the money. Media outlets have covered examples of FIREs which didn't pan out - at least not as expected.

Of course, there are the simple situations in which the funds ran out.

One woman found it was too complex to manage the rental property she used to fund early retirement. It was back to work. Incidentally, in general, the Federal Reserve documents, one-third of retirees return to working for income.

Or, the funds simply disappeared.

A crypto investor's computer had been hacked and her funds stolen. She had not used the "cold wallet" to protect her funds. You bet, she had to high-tail it back to the grind.

Then there are the divorces. In just about every instance, not just a FIRE arrangement, they siphon off major chunks of money. In a FIRE, usually both parties have to return to working.

There are also non-monetary reasons for backing off a FIRE. Classic is the loss of professional identity. To get to the point of being able to retire early, the entire focus was on building wealth. No attention was given to What Next. Emotionally the retiree is stranded.

Daniel could bump into any or all of these obstacles.

On the other hand, he might manage his FIRE to be a Forever.

Likely, he will have to maintain frugality or, as it is now called, "minimalism."

In addition, he will have to put together another identity. That could be through another career path. FIRE can mean leaving what has come to be experienced as the rat race and doing something more enjoyable and less stressful. Or, he can immerse himself in volunteer efforts. There is always the possibility of extreme pleasure. 

Lawyers toying with the FIRE option should know that such radical saving as Daniel is doing is not necessary.

Another path is through side hustles, while holding on to their lawyering work.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kevin Ha, 32, manages to fit in 13 side hustles a month. As MarketWatch reports, they range from delivering food to walking dogs. No surprise, he has paid off his student loans. If he grows weary of lawyering he had opened himself to many other options, including a FIRE.

Overall, even those who went for a FIRE and had to circle back usually don't regret the experiment. They learned plenty about money as well as themselves. 

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Botham Jean's Murder - His Brother Brandt Jean Begins the Healing Process

Forgiveness is the first step in healing.

And the brother of murder victim Botham Jean - Brandt Jean - began that process. Here are all the details from the New York Post. 

Essentially, it was all about the symbolism of a hug.

In court today at the sentencing of convicted murderer Amber Guyger (10 years, w chance of parole after 5), Brandt asked the judge's permission to hug his brother's killer.

Unthinkable? Not in the heart and soul of Brandt.

Permission had been granted.

The embrace between the two suffering human beings could become as iconic as some of the optics from the gospels of Jesus Christ. It was that prophet who sought to end the revenge ethos of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Instead, there was the message of the unifying power of forgiveness.

This healing could be set in play both for the man who lost a brother and the woman who, as the prosecutor hammered, made "unreasonable decisions." Guyger has at least 5 years to acquire wisdom. 

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

" ... depression is a chronic disease that may ultimately prove fatal ..." - Jill Harper, M.D. in The New York Times

In The New York Times Jill Harper M.D. classifies clinical depression as a chronic disease.

She provides the analogy of cancer.

Yes, like cancer, it could go into remission. Some remain depression-free.

And, yes, like cancer, it also could go out of remission.

Her husband's depression, which had triggered a serious suicide attempt, went into remission for two decades. Then it went out of remission. He took his own life. 

This perspective of depression as a chronic condition can be helpful to lawyers. As it is well known, lawyers have a higher rate of psychiatric conditions such as depression than do those in the general population. 

Lawyers may or may not receive treatment. More often they self-medicate through substance abuse and other self-defeating tactics such as the excitement of embezzling. 

If they do receive treatment and later they find themselves slipping back into the darkness they might blame themselves. The cure should have held on, it is assumed. They must have done something wrong. The self-blame can worsen the mood disorder. 

It should be liberating to embrace that relapses back into depression can be part of the disease pattern. Instead of castigating themselves or being in denial, lawyers can give themselves permission to seek out help - yet again. 

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

All the President's Lawyers - Will There Be Slouching toward Salvation as with Nixon Administration's Chuck Colson

Salvation is the American Way.

Unlike England, which the oddball Puritans fled for a new start, from the get-go this nation has been the platform for redemption. All kinds. Spiritual, emotional, financial, and professional. 

So, the odds are that among all the president's lawyers there can be at least one who seeks to do a cleanse. The classic template for that was the "evil genius" lawyer from the Nixon Administration Chuck Colson. 

Even before he was incarcerated, he had begun that journey.

Where that pilgrimage away from manipulation led him was to minister to the spiritual needs of others who had also wound up in his kind of pickle. By time he died, Colson had reinvented himself into a model of selfless service. 

In this new phase of Watching the Trump Administration - Possible Impeachment - eyeballs will scan for the first steps on the way to purification among the legal talent.

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

Lawyers, Law Students - So, What the Hell Is Your Therapist Writing about You?

Research documents that, yes, psychotherapy can be effective for some conditions. Among them is clinical depression.

Lawyers who are clients confide that they find about eight sessions with a psychotherapist, along with medication, have played a part in their emotional bouncing-back. They would recommend that treatment to others.

Being overwhelmed by the status quo in the workplace, as the new book "Dying For a Paycheck" by Jeffrey Pfeffer documents, is not unique to the legal sector.

"I love what I do," goes the dominant meme. "But, how I have to do is killing me." Or, triggering medical problems and substance abuse. 

One of its major current challenges which is determining the future of psychotherapy, though,  (along with its high price) is its branding.

Perception is, well, everything. Game-changers, ranging from Steve Jobs to Donald Trump, proved that out.

The controversy surrounding the psychotherapy brand isn't new, of course.

Way back on September 29, 2013, the influential The New York Times published an article about psychotherapy's image challenges.

Around the same time, Laura K. Kerr, Ph.D. hammered the lack of transparency in psychotherapy as eroding the brand. Here is her article. 

In that thought leadership piece, Kerr observes:

" ... in the mental health field, experts aren't always perceived as transparent, and consumers have become more self-reliant, including conducting their own research through the Internet on what ails them."

This concern about transparency goes beyond the individual in treatment.

Institutions paying some or all of the bill, ranging from employers to insurance companies, also need to know more about approaches and outcomes. This push for data and evidence about outcomes is happening in a growing number of  industries. Even in the creative field of public relations, clients demand more accountability about results. Among the tools in public relations has been the AirPR software.

Back to the level of the individual consumer ...

In the early 1970s, an era of blind faith in psychotherapy (at least in some circles), I began three years of treatment at the University of Michigan Psychology Clinic and then the psychiatric outpatient facility at the University of Michigan Medical Center.

The therapist was then graduate student David W. Harder.

Harder had gone on to become a full professor in the Department of Psychology at the Tufts University. A few years ago he retired.

Post the Michigan shrink job, when I was an entrepreneur struggling with the values of careerism I again turned to Harder for psychotherapy. Along the way I requested access to his clinical notes about my treatment. I was sensing the fit between therapist and consumer was not productive.

Harder refused to provide the notes.

I had matriculated at Harvard Law School so, of course, I thought: lawyer. Since 2005, I have been a syndicated legal blogger.

I ponied up the fee to have a lawyer in Greenwich, Connecticut request the notes.

Actually, I was not surprised.

Reading them confirmed that, no, the fit was not for me. The tone and the content of the clinical reporting on my treatment did not align with my criteria for the therapeutic relationship. Even back in the 1970s I had a hunch Harder and I were not communicating. But psychotherapy had become the religion of so many educated at that time. Who was I to question the high priest?

What I recommend to those playing with the possibility of psychotherapy includes:

• First, request a complimentary introductory session with a therapist. Assess if you are being heard - or being communicated to from a hardened school of psychology.
• After a few sessions, request a copy of the clinical notes. If they are not turned over, that might represent a red flag. Use your lawyer credentials to shake those notes loose.
• Go over those notes with someone you trust and who cares about you.
• If you continue with this therapist, request the notes on an ongoing basis. Relationships, like everything else, can change.
• Experiment with self-help tactics such as meditation, exercise, and simply taking breaks from work.
• Consult with others on your "recovery" team, such as your medical doctor, coach, 12-step sponsor, and close friend when it might be time to terminate psychotherapy.

Earning a living currently requires outsmarting the forces which seem tilted against workers. To do that demands being sound in mind and body. Psychotherapy could be a tool which gives a coping edge.

But everything about the process must be transparent. Voodoo is what we have fun with when we reach out to a psychic in Salem, Massachusetts. That experience is shaped by hocus-pocus. 

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Michelle Carter - Represents Third Rail When Emotionally at a Bottom

No surprise, Michelle Carter's attempt for early release from her 15-month sentence for involuntary manslaughter failed. Here are more details from Law and Crime. 

Essentially what Carter did was, with words communicated through texting, encouraged the emotionally bottoming out Conrad Roy III to commit suicide. In a sense she can be thought of as that deadly third rail that just about any human being can touch during despair or by accident when distracted by internal chaos.

How many have been so near that third rail or known someone in that pickle.

Of course then, her verbal behavior, which her lawyers attempted to defend through the First Amendment, is something lots of people have given lots of thought to.

With suicide a national epidemic, more of us are getting that call, text, email, or in-person visit. The human being contacting us doesn't have to be a close friend.

Given their state of emotional upheaval, it could be an acquaintance. They are not discerning to whom they reach out.

Our human response is extreme care. It was the milk of human kindness, novelist Charles Dickens wrote, which got ordinary folks through the desperate circumstances of the Industrial Age. That's exactly why the bad guys in Dickens' fictional world are depicted as so bad.

Usually caring or the milk of human kindness gives those slouching toward the third rail what they need to shoulder on for another day. Likely we couldn't live with ourselves if we didn't pull out of ourselves everything that was needed in that particular emergency.

You bet, we perceive what Carter did as the unforgivable sin. There are not many of those but that is among them.

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Yelling, Crying, Singing, Ball-Bouncing Children Not a Public Nuisance, Say Toledo, OH Police

Maybe it is a new kind of war: Those over-50 w/o grandchildren and those with them. Maybe the law just hasn't caught up to the realities of apartment living. Or, it could be that America is no country for children.

Whatever. I anticipate individual and class-action lawsuits contending children in a residential complex have been a public nuisance.

This could become as much a legal trend as gender discrimination litigation against employers such as major law firms. In 2015, neighbors of a California family with an alleged disruptive child sued, contending that behavior constituted a public nuisance. Here is the coverage.

Here is my story.

For three hours last night, from about 5 P.M. to 8 P.M., the middle-aged woman and her two grandchildren were playing some form of dodge ball on the lawn outside her apartment in a West Toledo, Ohio residential complex.  The children didn't live there. The development is totally one-bedroom, not the kind configured for families.

Her apartment is two doors down from my apartment. But the yelling, crying, singing, and ball-bouncing made it right into my window. I was focusing on a client assignment, along with taking business-oriented calls. Yes, I have been blessed with plenty of communications projects. 

I asked the woman if the children could play elsewhere. She said "no."

I put a call into the Toledo police. 

An expert on public nuisance, I explained to the two officers, one female/one male, that I assessed the situation as possibly constituting a public nuisance. I was not concerned about being a good neighbor. My focus was on the law per se.

That area of the lawn was common ground. I noted it had not been designated as a play one. The police responded that, on the other hand, there was no sign that it was not a play area. 

Long story short, the assessment from law enforcement was that children were just being children. There was no law against that as long as that wasn't taking place during late hours.

The story did not have a happy ending. If this kind of behavior happened in the future, there was nothing I could do about it.

Could there be the need for a future law on children - that they can only just be children in certain areas? Those do not include densely populated apartment complexes configured for adults living without children. 

In Oro Valley, Arizona, where there is a boom in senior-only housing, there are strict rules about grandchildren-visiting. Those cover everything from how long the visit can take place to where the children are allowed on the facility. It might prevent feuds among neighbors if that kind of policy-making be leveraged in all kinds of housing.

The premier branding some residential complexes, for home ownership and rentals, could acquire could be their rules about children just being children. You bet, I am on the look-out for that kind of living situation. I am willing to pay more for that arrangement.

Not getting results from your marketing communications? Complimentary consultation – janegenova374@gmail.com.

Election 2024 - Every Reason to Run for U.S. President

Hold the smirks, enemies of Bill de Blasio. 

Yes, the New York City mayor has announced today that he is ending his run for the U.S. presidency. Here are the details from BusinessInsider. 

Some may utter: Good riddance.

But, that's a small part of the dynamic of launching a run for U.S. president or any high-level elective office. 

For one, it is predictable that the first line of de Blasio obituary in establishment media such as The Economist and The New York Times will remind the world that here had once been a candidate for U.S. president. That's big. After all, the families of most other humans who pass on to what we don't know have to pony up money for an obit in the local media.

In addition, de Blasio will be the media's list for interviews about Election 2020. If he is smart, he will fashion thought leadership type commentary.

Also, there is the horse-trading that can be done. Some of those still standing who appear in the next Democratic debate will likely receive the residue of de Blasio's campaign resources. Given how that process operates, they will owe him. That improves his future professional prospects in whatever.

Takeaway: For Election 2024, consider throwing in your hat. It could be a significant career-enhancer.

Not getting results from your marketing communications? Complimentary consultation – janegenova374@gmail.com.

Aging As the New Orphans - Lawyers Replace Family

In November 2003, my younger sister Anne Murga-Ring and I became estranged. I was 58, at the time: young old. 

But even then I got it: I was w/o family, at least the nuclear kind. Parents and older sister had died. Relationships with cousins and their children, always frayed, had split their seams. I felt unhinged. After all, the ethnic ethos in America is All in the Family.

Now, experts on aging confirm that my distress was appropriate. They warn that navigating aging can be more difficult w/o family. Increasingly, more of us are winding up just that way: flying solo and often flying blind.

What's coming up is the 16th anniversary of that estrangement. In my thinking and in how I conduct my personal and professional affairs plenty has changed since then. 

Let's cut to the chase. What I have discovered is that a satisfying secure life can be put together while getting older w/o any family members. 

This is what I know:

• Actress Betty White, who has become advocate for older Americans, has hammered that aging isn't for sissies. This stage of a life represents as challenging a rite of passage as transitioning from formal education to the world of work. Therefore, I had to and continually still have t0 invest time and attention in figuring out what are the obstacles and opportunities in no longer being young. The number-one problem was denial. The major advantage was breaking open to forms of satisfaction beyond a career.
• Estate planning doesn't mean creating an inheritance for siblings. My beneficiary is an animal cause.
• Lawyers can be contracted to handle every detail. That ranges from whether to pull the plug to closing down all matters after I die. Sure, there's a fee. But there is also always a kind of fee in the complex maze of family relationships. 
• Holidays can represent startups. Mine has been to use them to see the USA in my Chevrolet. That need not be expensive. Discount Motel 6 takes dogs free. LOV, my four-legged son, enjoys the holidays as much as I do.
• Developing a small circle of trusted allies is mandatory. They provide early warning systems of what is going wrong. During the past two years that network has included a millennial. She flagged me that I had to end my preoccupation with money. I had "enough." And enough is enough. In the book "Making Toast," Roger Rosenblatt pointed out how little we really need later in life. 
• For those of us still determined to keep working, an executive coach is useful. From mine I "needed permission" to turn down assignments I didn't sense were a fit. Sure, I have down cold the Pareto Rule (80% of revenue comes for 20% of clients). But the residual insecure parts of me still required permission.

Not that getting older has been a wonderful "growth" experience. However, the process took on the quality of an adventure when I got the hang of transcending my own comfort zones. Here, free to download, is my book on all that. 

As my communications clients were observing how I was mastering aging, w/o family, they asked me to assist them. Where they especially found guidance useful was the professional identity piece. They wondered: How could they play better the cards they still held and how could they manage to get different ones? Yes, it's possible to be a Late Bloomer. Look at Betty White, Clint Eastwood, et al.

I have added over-50 coaching to the menu of services I offer.

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on aging.  

 

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.