Law And More

Chipped Paint - The Crime-Stopping Theory which, Unlike Broken Windows, Could Pan Out

Crime, economic development, and a community's sense of well-being.

Anyone who has lived in a neighborhood on the decline gets the association of that with chipped paint on the houses.

It's obvious.

That piggybacks on the earlier crime-stopping theory of broken windows. But, unlike that theory, this one could really pan out. That's because it's more grassroots. And it is rooted in how people nest.

Community leaders can pilot programs to fix that chipped paint to reduce crime and,on the way, also probably achieve lots of economic progress.

Last weekend I returned to my old neighborhood in the Wilkinsburg section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania metro area. In the early 1980s, I had owned a duplex on Marlboro Avenue. 

No, I didn't encounter broken windows. One property did have boarded up windows. What unhinged me was so many houses had chipped paint. That's so fixable. Instead of going to underdeveloped economies to do good, the well-meaning can volunteer to fix the chipped-paint situation. 

The architecture of the houses in Wilkinburg, as in most of Pittsburgh metro, is beautiful. Those houses are worth saving. But they might not endure if there is a perception of the neighborhood as being a target for crime. Chipped paint can create such a perception. Since I am in the public relations industry, I know perception is everything. 

In the amazing turnaround of old-line city Jersey City, New Jersey, mayor Steve Fulop has focused on reducing crime. Most recently he has installed more video cameras.

But, what if he experimented with a program to fix up the exteriors of houses with chipped paint? I had grown up in Jersey City. There remain sections of that gentrified urban area which still have plenty of housing with chipped paint - and high crime. 

Leaders who get in front of chipped paint could emerge as community superheroes. Do that and the economic developers will come.  Also, saving old housing is totally eco.

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Branding, Investing & Political Campaigning - Bring on Ice Cream Cone Meme

Institutions, such as the British royalty, corporations, and individuals now have to factor eco into their brand management.

The focus on the impacts of climate change has ceased to be a fringe movement.

Money is (almost) everything. And the investment world already is paying attention to how to build, preserve, and scale wealth as temperatures on land and sea rise. A severe 2019 hurricane season will reinforce that. Expect Election 2020 to bundle in eco matters. 

No surprise, tabloid The Sun castigates Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for traveling in a private jet. Media knows what it is doing. Timing is everything. Shade has already been thrown on the royals because of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein association. For future travel, the royals should go commercial - and coach. Their future is in play. 

Obviously, strategists in public relations, marketing, and politics have to include the eco implications of all their clients' mindsets and actual behavior. That can't be positioned and packaged as a force fit. 

For example, the fast food industry will be compelled to disrupt their distribution system.

No longer will all those paper cups and food wrappers be tolerated. Expect worldwide boycotts.

Instead they will have to go to the drawing board and invent the analogue of the ice-cream cone for the no-waste, no trash way for serving and consuming food.

Politicos can make it their core messaging at state fairs to down plenty of ice cream cones. 

The ice cream cone can become the universal symbol of eco hope.

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

Lawyers, Law Students with Suicidal Ideation - Soon, You Will Be Able to Dial "988" for Immediate Help

Lawyers and law students are no strangers to suicidal ideation. And, unfortunately there are those in the legal sector who didn't stop there. Among the tragic deaths was that of Gabriel MacConaill.

A new kind of help will be on the way. The FCC reported earlier this week that it has received an overwhelmingly positive response to its study about implementing a three-digit number for a suicide hotline. That would be "988." It would replace the 10-digit 800-273-8258. Here is that report.

A law last year mandated that initiative be studied. FCC head Ajit Pai said, given the feedback, he would make the "988" suicide hotline a reality. During the past two decades, suicides in half the states have increased by more than 30%. 

Human beings in extreme distress might be able to remember "988" and use it. After all, just about everyone has a mobile phone which is with them at all time. They might not have been able to remember a 10-digit number. 

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

JD Class of 2019 - Suiting Up for the Office (in hand me down)

The second-hand movement has surfaced from the underground to startups like RealReal and established retailers such as J.C. Penney.

So, no, members of the JD Class of 2019, it won't ding your personal brand to be seen entering one of those retailers selling used attire. And, if you bump into some amazing bargains for suits and dresses online for powerful brands you might be able to gush about that in the office. 

That also means competition for Goodwill, which used to own the territory. You bet, everything changes. 

Goodwill had been top dog. That was back in the time when those hit hard by The Great Recession woke to the option of buying gently used whatever. That ranged from clothes to end tables.

In 2016, when I relocated from the 122-degree temperatures of the southwest to the midwest freeze I purchased coats, sweaters, gloves, and wool hats at the Austintown, Ohio Goodwill. While shopping I also found about 60% of what I needed to furnish the large-sized apartment which is typical of the midwest but not the southwest. 

In The Wall Street Journal, Suzanne Kaplan reports how not buying new has become mainstream. Saving money is part of that. But a new wrinkle to hand me downs (which I grew up with in the 1950s in a tenement in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey) is that it's eco-friendly. The merchandise is being recycled. Also, there is a recognition of the value in a non throw away ethos. 

What the woke have known for years is that brands appropriate for professional attire are in second-hand retail. The trick is to be willing to travel to affluent locations and do that often. For example, before telecommuting was okay in my industry, I had to call in person on prospects in Manhattan. So, I made it my business to monitor regularly the merchandise in consignment stores in affluent parts of Connecticut. 

Eventually telecommuting made it possible to relocate out of the pricey New York Metro area. But, hey, you still need professional attire for meetings of the American Marketing Association or the local chamber of commerce. In the southwest I journeyed to upscale northern locations. Here in OH I know not to bother hoping for finds in old urban areas.

Another part of the game is to establish a word of mouth network both inside the stores and among acquaintances. They will flag you about what just came in. 

Second-hand cool probably will become a dominant meme. Those shopping non-used will be censured. Goodwill will have to up its game. It could embrace online shopping and provide low-cost convenient delivery service for furniture.

And you might suggest to your law office that it champion buying used. That's in the public interest. Eliminating paper never caught on but this eco trend might. 

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

Suicide, The Social Disease - Struggling to Understand Nine NYPD Suicides in 2019

This evening in Queens, a 56-year-old police officer was the ninth in the NYPD to take his life in 2019. He had served the public for about 20 years. As yet, his name has not been released. 

Yesterday in the early morning, in Yonkers, Johnny Rios took his own life.

Both deaths were the result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. 

As the NYPD struggles with this suicide crisis, those of us who have had suicides occur in our background understand that the mindset to solve problems by suicide might be contagious.

Johns Hopkins professor Kay Jamison discusses this theory in her iconic book on suicide "Night Falls Fast." Jamison herself made a serious attempt at suicide. When she outed herself in the healthcare community, many were critical of her. Interesting how even those in the supposed helping professions can't emotionally or socially handle suicide. 

If those in our lives have taken that irreversible step, the act no longer seems unthinkable - at least, not to us. In addition, we also recognize our own vulnerability to figure we can manage things "efficiently" in that manner. 

Several members on the Eastern European side of my family chose to not go on living. Intuitively, I got how darkly they had viewed life on planet earth. I sensed they had lost their hold on the possibility that they could change what was. That feeling was not totally foreign to me.

When I was an unhinged freshman in a Pennsylvania college away from my hometown, I had heard that a former high school classmate had hung himself. It was in his college dorm in Manhattan. So many were shocked. I wasn't.

Maybe I carry a family suicide gene. I felt enormous empathy for him. My hunch is that he had a same-sex encounter and in 1963 that was tough to absorb. In addition, I did wonder how much longer I "could take it" in my current situation at my college.  Suicide was not entirely ruled out. 

Researchers such as Marco Iacoboni document that we are social beings. We influence each other cell by cell. What facilitates that are our "mirror neurons." 

Those who need to be distracted from suicidal ideation have to find positive folks to hang around with. Sure, they have problems - maybe a lot of them. But they are determined to survive and maybe even thrive. 

In my emotional support group, I picked up a weird vibration from a millennial who seemed to have everything going her way. I distanced myself. No, I wasn't surprised to hear at a meeting that she had committed suicide. 

Those who care about anyone stuck in darkness have to nudge him or her into a hope zone. 

This blog passes on positive thoughts to the families, friends, and colleagues of the nine officers who made the decision to end their lives. 

"Nonlawyers" in Law Firms - Is a High Adaptability Quotient the (sick) Solution?

Read the anonymous postings on Glassdoor by staff at law firms and the usual is: We are treated as less-than.

For example, on the Cravath Glassdoor site, here are two anonymous staff opinions:

"Lawyers are rude and treat admins like they are slaves."

"Associates yell at paralegals."

Those jobs, ranging from IT specialist to marketing expert, frequently put the "nonlawyer" out of the loop socially and in terms of big benefits. The very term "nonlawyer," used in a law firm to describe their roles, tells the story of the stigma associated with being a staff member.

Now, what's coming out is that those nonlawyers also suffer many of the same stresses as the lawyers.

In addition there have been mental illness woes, including suicides.

In an article on the subject for Law, Dylan Jackson discusses the suicides of Doug Johnson and Ian Turvill. As a recent survey found, 36% of law firms don't offer the same mental health assistance programs to the nonlawyers as they do the lawyers. 

What's no surprise is that staff, just as with lawyers, get it that they better keep any clinical depression or anxiety under wraps.

Any sign of what is traditionally called "mental illness" probably would be interpreted as vulnerability. That's blood in the water. The sharks swim by. At the very least, the staff member loses credibility in the firm. Worse, the job could go poof. Of course, there could also be and have been suicides.

Since Puritan days, work has been the unofficial religion of America. That's been called the "Protestant Ethic." Not measuring up 100% at work can be perceived as a "mortal sin." Sinners merit severe punishment, right?

Solutions, though, aren't easy.

Actually a Catch-22 usually exists. And that is not only in law firms.

In much of professional life, having mental illness become a public issue can suck the mobility out of a career. So, sure someone might recognize the need for treatment but simultaneously fear entering that loop. Suppose the boss' spouse spots the chief marketing officer sitting in the therapist's waiting room? Not good. So, the conclusion could be: Hey, keep the hell away from all kinds of treatment.

Unfortunately, if the world economy slips into a serious recession, the pressure will ramp up even more. So will the fear of job loss. It isn't rocket science to anticipate more suicides among law firm staff as well as other professionals. That's tragic since appropriate treatment can address common forms of mental illness such as clinical depression and suicidal ideation.

A book for our pressure-cooker times is "Dying for a Paycheck." It's by Stanford Graduate Business School professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. It fingers extreme stress as a global problem in the workplace. Suicides occur as the ability to cope unravels. Here the book can be ordered from Amazon. 

A growing phenomenon is the new kind of stress emerging as aging workers struggle to remain in the labor market. Maybe they can't afford to retire. And/or, they recognize that, given the Protestant Ethic, they become invisible the day they give up the official title. Meanwhile, age bias pushes up against them. 

The good news on that one is that those who have a high Adaptability Quotient can continue to be marketable. Part of the ability to adapt, though, is that, as with many nonlawyers, they may be treated as "less than." The reality is: Learn to live with the age-bias stigma or not keep working. Yes, you might earn less. But, hey, you're working. 

Reflection: Nonlawyers, such as marketing coordinators, whom I have done assignments for and seem to be thriving simply embrace what is. They have adapted to maybe what shouldn't exist but does. A lousy solution but it seems to be panning out. No wonder AQ is being championed as the critical success skill currently. Not pretty. But that's the way it is.

In 2014, I adapted to the reality that I had aged out of the New York Metro market. After my relocation I grossed more but did find it necessary to bill less for each assignment. Ironically, I was treated better. That was a wonderful side effect of adapting to the brutal bias of aging. 

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

Experience Caps, Price Point, The Dilenschneider Group's Championing Deep Expertise

In the age-discrimination lawsuit "Kleber v. Carefusion Corp" the plaintiff contended age bias in hiring came via an experience cap.

The Carefusion help-wanted was structured to require 3 to 7 years of work experience as a lawyer. No more than that.

Here is a copy of the complaint.

Dale Kleber, age 58 at the time, had plenty more experience than that. However, he still applied for the position. Eventually, Carefusion hired a 29 year old applicant.

The question arose: Was an experience cap leveraged as a stealth tool to discourage the aging from applying for certain jobs?

Well, Kleber's specific challenge didn't pan out.

As Bloomberg Law reports, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the plaintiff.

Here is a copy of that decision.

The Seventh Circuit, 8 to 4, stated that experience caps didn't constitute a type of disparate impact theory. That is, it wasn't a form of seemingly neutral policy that operated as a type of bias against a protected class.

However, some experts warned employers there could be more Kleber-like experience cap lawsuits. Likely, there will be.

Meanwhile, more and more help-wanted specify experience caps and those Google Forms applicants fill out as part of the job search process explicitly ask the number of years working in X or Y niche. That could be managing Price Per Click (PPC) advertising.

Pragmatism rules that applicants would size up what the "right" number of years is and then play in that very specific sandbox. Yes, redo the past to fit with the present.

Otherwise, there may be no access to the toys in that sandbox, ranging from a weekly pay check to benefits. 

But, the present is not so much about raw age bias, is it. 

Instead it's more about price point. Unless a business has a clear and powerful point of differentiation, it can be caught in competing via price. The best briefing on that is "Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim. Here it can be ordered from Amazon.

To keep the price-to-the-consumer/B-to-B market low, employers seek out workers with just enough experience to do the task well so that they can be paid as low compensation as possible.

The new college graduate who had an internship at a marketing firm specializing with PPC would look a lot more attractive to the budget of the employer than an applicant with 6 years experience. Sure, the newbie will probably fly the coop after 2 years but those 2 years could be very profitable for the business.

More and more help-wanted ads indicate that new college graduates are preferred. Since the 90-yar-old could just be graduating college, that phrasing gets employers off the hook on age bias.

In addition, there has emerged a new human resources model - Burn & Earn. It is described in "Disrupted" by Dan Lyons. Here that hilarious book can be ordered from Amazon. Essentially the game is about bringing in a bunch of enthusiastic newbies, training them to do A but not B, make a bundle, and expect them to keep exiting. Repeat. 

Interesting, though, there is a business, based in Manhattan and Chicago, which seems to champion deep expertise. That's the public affairs firm The Dilenschneider Group. On its website it has a section listing its major players and their years of experience. Here you can click it open.

Listed, for example, are:

•  Fred Bona - 40 years
•  Bob Dilenschneider - 30 years
•  Art Gormley - 30 years.

In the fast-moving world of communications, that's counter-trend.

After all, the sandbox, more and more in a digital universe, is custom-made for digital natives. Clients and prospects know the importance of everything from online influencers to local search engine optimization (SEO). So the new toys in the sandbox include everything from help paying off student loans to free food. 

The question is if businesses such as The Dilenschneider Group which position and package long years of experience as a plus have created the unique edge? Or, are they at a new kind of disadvantage? More importantly, does that give the business leverage with price point? 

As those issues are being duked out in the court of law, the hunt for work, and business branding, as early as the age 40 those needing income are finding doors slammed shut because of bias. Here is the article I published on that. If there is a severe economic downturn, that could worsen, of course. Because of their relatively high compensation, the aging usually have a target on their backs. 

Here is my book, free to click open, on how to navigate around all that Download Outwitting ageism. And here, also free, is one on being able to change. Addiction to any comfort zone can mean professional death. 

Full Disclosure: In my early 40s, Corporate America purged itself of middle-aged middle managers. I had to reimage myself as an entrepreneur. Having gotten the hang of how to change, I plan to stay working 60 hours a week until I am 80. Then, I will re-evaluate.

Readers are invited to submit thoughtful commentaries on this issue. Please include content, identity of author, photo, and contact information. Appropriate articles, up to 700 words, will be posted on Law and More. Please send to janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Showtime's "The Loudest Voice in the Room" - Gretchen's Lawsuit Becomes Public, Roger Begins Unraveling

It's a wrap this Sunday, with the 7th and last episode of Showtime's "The Loudest Voice in the Room."

Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit becomes public. Roger Ailes begins to disintegrate. The brass debates if it will be necessary to push Roger out in order to save Fox News. As we already know, that was the decision they made.

As we come to the end of this long saga about a heavily flawed genius, some of us wonder if there were those around who could have saved Roger from himself.

For example, he had as his personal public relations advisor Bob Dilenschneider. Based right in Manhattan as head of The Dilenschneider Group, Bob could have taken on the role of a Greek Chorus, warning Roger of the limits to power. Bob himself had published two books on power. So, yes, he knew the peril embedded in that force field. 

There were also Rupert Murdoch & Sons. They had the power to push Roger back from total self-destruction. But, obviously, they didn't exert their power over this employee until it was too late. By time Roger found it necessary to resign he was finished, at least at Fox. 

There had been rumors that he was considering, once his non-compete provision was over, setting up a conservative television network to take on Fox. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel was supposedly in the loop on that one. However, would the public tune in? 

Will this Showtime series make other players aware of their own myopia? Could it prevent catastrophic downfalls? Anyone with thoughts on that is welcome to submit a commentary for this blog. Please email to janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Silicon Valley: Time Travel Back to Old-Fashioned

The new story in Silicon Valley is an old-fashioned one.

The focus is on ethics. 

It's because of ethics, reports April Glaser in Slate, that students at Stanford are pushing back on tech companies ranging from Palantir to Facebook. 

For example, SLAP (Students for the Liberation of All People) at Stanford protests that Palantir provides the software that ICE uses. And Stanford's C+Social Group encourages students to do internships at nonprofits versus the tech giants. 

It's not a new story that new graduates in elite universities such as Stanford have been turning down job offers at allegedly ethics challenged corporations such as Facebook.

What is new is that iGen, the age group now in higher education, increasingly is disenchanted with BigTech. It seems that Google's founding mantra - Do No Evil - hasn't played out that way.

Rather than a White Knight riding in to solve the problems on planet earth, BigTech is being viewed as adding to them or creating new ones. 

What could be developing is a return to a time when values like good character mattered.

In the era of the Baby Boomers, when we submitted our personal essays for admission to college we had to describe how we managed an ethical challenge. Lack of good character, such as a negative recommendation from a teacher about personal ethics, could knock one out of the box for everything from attending college to being hired for a part-time job. 

Reform of BigTech could come not from regulators or lawsuits but the ethical revolution among members of iGen. 

Lawyers More Lonely Than Other Professionals - 5 Tactics Back into Friendship Loop (but all slow)

The lack of common ground isn't just in politics in America.

In more and more aspects of life there also is less and less common space.

That's what Matthew Walther observes in his article on loneliness in The Week. That puts the odds against finding other human beings we can become friends with. The crisis of loneliness deepens.

The ABA reports that 61% of lawyers placed higher than average on the loneliness scale. And, lawyers are more lonely than those in other professions.

But, that can't all be accounted for by the emotional hardening that goes along with practicing law and pushing to develop new business. Those just starting on in their lives are also caught in the loneliness web. According to YouGov, 30% of U.S. millennials say they are lonely and 20% contend they have no friends.

What it's come to, notes Walther, is that we "pretend pets are people." (Should law firms have dogs roaming the corridors and assign who will walk the canines on what days and what hours?)

So, let's look at what used to be common space and is no more. Here are 5 examples I find useful to focus on and why they have disappeared:

•  Home. Walther hammers that raising a family is no longer affordable. Those connections have gone the way of the low-IQ phone. More of us live alone. But, sure, it had been possible to make friends even when single. Remember how Mary Richards and Rhoda, both in their own apartments, developed a deep relationship. Now, after all the stress from the whatever, we singles are not reaching out. Meanwhile, we are trapped in an i-world of messaging, movies, and games. 
• College. Forget it. As Yale professor Deresiewicz captures in "Excellent Sheep," higher education, especially at the top of the food chain, has become a competitive arena for high grades. Chasing after them makes the time-consuming process of developing friendships unlikely. Also, the postings of all the other students on Instagram are a source of feeling less-than. Best to steer clear of the whole people thing. 
•  Work. Who isn't after our job? And there are simply many more rats eager to gain favor with superiors by carrying tales about us. Maybe this saga is true, maybe it isn't. In northeast Ohio a millennial claims the reason she was fired was because she confided in a co-worker her battle with clinical depression and anxiety.
•  The store. No one goes there any more, not even for groceries, which are delivered.
•  Church. Gallup documents that membership in a religious organization is down to 50%. From 1937 through the late 1970s it was at 70+%.  

However, if we are determined not to be so so lonely, we can explore where common space can be. Here is what I have discovered is promising during the 63 months I have struggled to find companionship since I uprooted from the New York Metro area:

•  Gyms. Both those stand-alone ones and the in-house fitness centers in residential complexes are wide open to socializing. If we are cautious and don't push too hard too soon to move the gymbuddyness to the next level we could wind up with a few people to talk with. 
•  Recovery meetings. The friendship, or as it is called the "fellowship," is the key driver in attending regularly.  It's like the good old days, with folks inviting us to go out for coffee or have fun at pig roasts by the lake.
•  Wellness groups, ranging from yoga to meditation. People feel they are doing the right thing and are more receptive to welcome those also pursuing healthy goals.
• Pet parks. I have witnessed romances blossom as the canines tend to bring people together. Here a tail wags, there a tail wags. Soon we are not alone. 
•  Goodwill and consignment stores. Traditional retail is out. But hunting in-person for steep bargains has become a national hobby. In that space it's easy to get conversations going which often move on to human beings sharing their stories. This is suitable for law students and seniors in college waiting to hear back from the law schools they applied to. 

However, even with these tactics, expect a slow journey to being back in a friendship loop. Interacting is, well, counter-trend. The trend is i-immersion., along with extreme work. Name one very successful lawyer you know who emerges from the I-world and legal tasks and opens himself or herself to in-person human interaction with peers. The client/prospect stuff is a whole different matter, of course.

Reflection: Friendship requires effort. Being a lawyer might just leave no energy over for that sort of thing. 

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