Law And More

Middle-Aged Lawyers: If You're Still Cutting Back on Sleep, You Could Be Increasing Risk of Dementia

Head researcher Dr. Severine Sabin at the University of Paris is careful in positioning and packaging the findings of a sleep study, reports The Guardian. Her study is published in Nature Communications.

Sabin doesn't indicate that for the middle-aged less than six hours of sleep nightly causes dementia. What she does state is that it can increase the odds of developing dementia about 30%. She does add that sleep loss in itself could be an early symptom of that kind of cognitive impairment. 

Since all-nighters as well as simply going without seven hours are typical among lawyers, they should pay special attention to these findings. 

Although the functions of sleep are not completely understood what is known is this: It clears the brain of what's being referred to as "toxic waste." Mom was right when she reassured her troubled child that everything would seem better "after a good night's sleep."

It's interesting to wonder that if a law firm mandates a workload and deadlines which require a sustained pattern of loss of sleep and the middle-aged lawyers develop dementia, could the family file a lawsuit? 

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Law Firms Loop in with Clients' Values - Dawning of the ESG Era

Capitalism is softening, finally.

More and more corporations are going on record that their values transcend the bottom line. This is sometimes referred to as "The Triple Bottom Line."

It truly could be the coming of the ESG Era - that is, factored in are stakeholders such as employees, vendors, communities, planet earth and overall governance. Nerd Wallet provides an introduction to ESG investing. 

Part of that macro movement are micro initiatives such as Utah's Regulatory Sandbox. The big news in that is the launch of Law on Call, owned by non-lawyers. It makes legal services more accessible and affordable. That can be perceived as a threat to the traditional delivery of legal services in America. Providers ranging from BigLaw to solos could be affected.

Of course, venturing into social values is risky. That's what corporations such as Coca-Cola have discovered.

So, it's predictable, as Law.com reports, that law firms would loop into this corporate embrace of values which might be controversial. Some have already developed ESG practices. The focus of them is to help guide corporate clients through the maze of the legal, financial, public relations and political issues associated with a broadening of the stakeholder base. 

Blooomberg reports that PwC predicts that 60% of mutual funds will be ESG by 2025.

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One for "Dateline" (and James Patterson): William, Harry - Kevin, Randall - Jane Genova, Anne Murga-Ring

The Queen has ordered that Princes William and Harry be separated behind Prince Philip's coffin. Therefore, it doesn't seem like the two brothers have made much progress in resolving the conflicts which have divided them. 

And there is hardly enough research on sibling rivalry to help those who want to help the brothers patch things up. "Dateline" should make it a mission to scout up stories about sibling-based crimes. All that deconstruction of the-husband-did-it has gotten old. And James Patterson owes us a mystery on sibling-on-sibling wrongdoing.

This week on "This Is Us," brothers Kevin and Randall did verbal combat. An added dimension to the shadow over their relationship is race. Kevin is white. Randall, who was adopted, is black. By the end of the episode, some of the tension had been defused. But it's doubtful the two will become close again.

I'm equally pessimisstic about the 18-year fissure with the last of my family members: my sister Anne Murga-Ring. Our last conversation had been November 2003. And the last update I had about her was several months ago through her former husband Victor Murga.

I never met her current husband Scott Ring. That's sad. He had been the publisher of the Jersey Journal, the platform for news in Anne's and my hometown Jersey City, New Jersey. My childhood fantasy had been to write for that newspaper. Instead I went the way of Don Draper on "Mad Men" and looped into marketing communications. 

It's unfortunate that many therapists don't focus on our siblings. The backgrounding is usually done based on parents. However, most of our growing-up is through interactions with those siblings. After parents die, siblings represent the only vestige of what we traditionally consider "family."

With so much social change disrupting American life, our whole notion of family could become undone. Siblings could be acknowledged as a potentially dark force.

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Climate Change - Research on Reproductive Organs Might Be Tipping Point in Acceptance

"Greta Thunberg joke-tweets that worry over smaller penises will finally get more people to join climate movement" - Rachel Koning Beals, MarketWatch, March 26, 2021

With 4.9 million Twitter followers, Thunberg has influence. What she is broadcasting on her Twitter platform is the research of Dr. Shanna Swan.

In her book "Count Down" Swan presents her findings that the chemical phthalates is associated with shrinking penises and reduced sperm count. That chemical is used in making plastic more flexible. And plastics are among the most controversial factors in the debate over climate change. Swan is based at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

In addition to this information, what could move the dial on the acceptance of the reality of climate change is the extreme weather this past winter. Even here near the border of Mexico there had been severe cold and snow. 

The Biden Administration could leverage these developments in implementing policies and initiating lawsuits which address climate change.

But that path is not linear. For instance, two days ago, Bloomberg Law pointed out that the law firm close to the Biden Administration - Paul Weiss - regularly represents Exxon. Most recently that was when Exxon had been accused by New York state law of spreading misinformation about climate change.  

Not only politics, but also business makes for strange bedfellows. The culture of Paul Weiss is liberal. But its list of clients is not. 

However that could bite it in the rear, just as that did David Boise at Boies and Schiller.

It was Boies' taking on the Harvey Weinstein defense and how he did it which set in play his downward trajectory. The New Yorker published the details of all that. Later it was Boies' dual role with startup Theranos. As Alan Dershowitz hammered in his book "Guilt by Accusation," that could represent a conflict of interest. Boies was both on the board of directors and represented founder Elizabeth Holmes. At the end of August she goes on trial for allegedly misleading investors and consumers.

Yes, law firms also have their tipping points.

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Robert Aaron Long - Unfortunately, Another Star May Have Been Born

There is that pull between a free press which is a competitive business and the need not to glamorize crime. 

The story will be published, likely in all its horrific detail. But there will be lip service paid to the concept of journalistic restraint. After all, no one wants to return to the era of "yellow journalism."

So, the story of alleged murderer Robert Aaron Long is and will be big news. 

It's crude but reality to position and package this as: A star has been born. Anyone who had watched enough episodes of "Criminal Minds" has a hunch that Long might be enjoying the attention he is getting. Indulging in psychobabble it could be conjected that gaining celebrity could have been an unconscious or conscious motive. 

No way would the media outlets be persuaded for the overall public good to not cover sensationalistic crimes of this type. In that coverage, the alleged miscreant would play a central role. Yes, the public has a right to know. And, business demands it. 

However, it's not unthinkable that in these violent times a new code of ethics could be negotiated between the media and law enforcement to limit coverage. A different type of sandbox could be created to play in. Perhaps through a lottery one media center would be assigned the entire story. Then the suspect's face would not, to use the cliche, be all over the news. 

Sure, experts in criminology and experts in mental illness could develop case studies. But the code of ethics would deter using the devices of what is called as "narrative nonfiction." The mission of science would be served. The objective could not be to create a best-seller.

Those who perceive themselves as having nothing to lose could connect the dots and decide they have an identity and fame to gain. All they gotta do is go out there and unleash carnage.

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Manson Mass Murder Phenomenon and Other Atrocities - Maybe They Will Never Be Understood

Prosecutors, psychologists/psychiatrists, sociologists, clergy, artists and journalists keep providing theories explaining the events of 1969. Those were the brutal murders committed by the Manson family. 

Among them is journalist/clinical social worker Nikki Meredith. In 2018, she published "The Mason Women and Me: Monsters, Morality, and Murder."

Over and over again, Meredith admits that she can't understand how mostly middle class females could shift from relatively normal lifestyles to that of the cult-like ways of the Mason family. And commit mass murders without empathy. It is contended that one of those females - Leslie Van Houten - didn't experience understanding of the wrong she had done until five years afterwards. 

In her book Meredith presents much research, expert opinion and speculation put out there by diverse sources. Those takes range from the Milgram "shock" experiment to broken mirror neurons. There is also a review of the old-theory theory of "snapping." Similar work has been done and continues to be done to attempt to make sense of the Nazi murders of millions of Jews.

But, as Meredith admits, none of these really does the job of helping society get its head around those man-made horrors or provide effective solutions to prevent them in the future. In 2021, much of the world, including parts of the U.S., seems on fire with cruelty. Much of it is deadly. 

Could some of the push-back against science right now reflect the reality that there are mysteries and that they may not be understood, at least for the present time and maybe not ever? 

Sure, human beings seem to like their theories. Those folks range from the uneducated residents of the old neighborhood to the university professor lecturing in class. 

That illusion of certainity, by an individual or a group, can bring a sense of safety. If they avoid ABC, X won't happen. Yes, that seems like a form of delusion. It could be. Society might need it. However, it could be unjust for authority, be it in the form of a prosecution or a parole board, to use them in decision-making.

The psychiatric term for such a collective wrong assumption is "folie a famille."

Reflection: In one school of zen, the mantra is: Clear thinking, don't know. 

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"U.S. v. Elizabeth Holmes" - Will That Be the Legacy of George Shultz

When "U.S. v. Elizabeth Holmes" goes to trial later this year, neither side will be able to call George Shultz to testify. That former member of Theranos board of directors has died, at age 100. 

Among his service for U.S. Presidential Administrations George Shultz had been Richard Nixon's Secretary of Labor and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State. 

But when the trial gets underway, the legacy of this famed economist could be his role overseeing the startup which allegedly bilked investors, endangered consumers, hoodwinked business and played media.

His own grandson Tyler Shultz, who was employed at Theranos, blew the whistle on the supposed breakthrough technology of facilitating blood-testing with a finger-prick. When doing testing of the equipment he observed that errors were being discarded. He had brought that to the attention of the executives and was reprimanded. Eventually he reported what was seemingly going on to regulators. That stance triggered a rift with his famous grandfather. 

One issue has been: Why was that board seemingly so trusting of what Holmes was contending about the technology? Another member had been Henry Kissinger. Both on the board and representing Holmes had been David Boies of Boies Schiller. In his book "Guilty by Accusation," lawyer Alan Dershowitz fingered Boies' dual role as an alleged conflict of interest. Currently, Boies' service on behalf of Theranos and Holmes is throwing shade on his and the law-firm brand. Throughout 2020 and continuing into 2021, Boies Schiller has experienced talent flight. 

Post the whistleblowing by Tyler, the whole thing began becoming undone. Another force doing in Theranos had been the coverage by The Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou who also questioned if the touted technology existed. In 2018, Carreyrou published "Bad Blood," which remains ranked high on Amazon (12,073).

The market value of Theranos plummeted from $9 billion to $800 million. Holmes' personal wealth nosedived from $4.5 billion to zero. 

The trial, whose actual scheduling is dependent on what COVID-19 is doing, could provide big-time courtroom theatre. Laid bare could be how an attractive charismatic bright woman duped so many. Count on myriad media commentaries on the need for skepticism by boards of directors.

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Opioids - McKinsey Reported to be Near Settlement with State Attorneys General

"McKinsey is in superior discussions with a number of US states’ attorneys-general to pay tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} to settle civil claims about its position in advising drug corporations held chargeable for the nation’s opioid epidemic." News World Express, January 28, 2021. 

Sources report that the consulting company will not admit wrongdoing or legal responsibility. Essentially, this initiative has been taken to prevent civil litigation by the states attorneys-general. 

The Wall Street Journal notes:

"The talks come amid the release of court filings in recent months detailing recommendations McKinsey made to Purdue on how to aggressively boost sales of its OxyContin painkiller at a time the country was reeling from opioid addiction and deaths."

That information had been made public. Therefore, it could have affected the McKinsey brand. 

Meanwhile, though, one of the drug companies - Purdue - has admitted that it conspired with doctors to sell medications without any necessary medical function. 

This opioid issue isn't the only shade thrown on the consulting firm's global image. In 2018, Reuters reported, for example, that competitor AlixPartners sued McKinsey. The plaintiff contended that the way McKinsey operated concealed a conflict of interest with U.S. bankruptcy judges in order to win new business.

Last year, in the influential The Atlantic, Daniel Markovits published a major article arguing that McKinsey has destroyed the middle class. 

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Legal Marijuana & Life Insurance (whether you can get it and at what rate)

"Though it’s increasingly legal, marijuana can still raise red flags for life insurance companies. While some insurers don’t mind covering you if you use pot, others will charge you higher rates or deny your application outright." - Eric Goldschein, MarketWatch (originally in NerdWallet), January 25, 2021.

Currently, the medical use of marijuana is legal in 36 states and for recreational purposes in 15, as well as Washington D.C. About 22.2 million indicate they use it monthly.

But legalization and the mainstreaming of the substance can be almost irrelevant right now with how the insurance industry assesses its risk factors. If you already have a life insurance policy and use marijuana, you are already locked in. This doesn't have to concern you. At least not at the present time. 

If you are applying for life insurance, then you will likely have to research how different insurance companies view that and what are their fees. This has become an additional factor they evaluate when making the decision to provide life insurance and at what price. The major others include health, occupation and hobbies. Sometimes a medical exam is required. During it, there could be a blood test which can pick up the presence of marijuana.

Some companies are not open to insuring anyone who uses marijuana, either for medical and/or recreational reasons, no matter how infrequently.

Others focus on why and how often. If the reason is medical, of course, they want to know more than that. The frequency of use is a core issue. If you are a daily user you probably will be rejected. Many companies classify usage as analogous to tobacco - that is, a negative for health. Because the substance has been illegal for so long there is not yet a lot of research on its impacts on human health. 

MarketWatch provides the example of a 30-year-old man in excellent health applying for a $500,000 30-year term life insurance policy. If he never uses marijuana, the monthly rate is $30. If he does six times a week, the rate shoots up to $166.

In some circles there may be a kind of euphoria about legalization. However, the insurance industry, as do many other constituencies, still associates stigma to use. On a career path, it could throw shade on a professional brand. 

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21st Century Barbarians at the Gate

Axios has an "Off the Rails" section.

In it, two hours ago, it posted a segment about conspiracy theorists and the Trump Administration. The title is "Barbarians at the Oval." Here you can read it.

In the 20th century, many of us classified as "Barbarians at the Gate" the corporate cost-efficiency experts who eliminated our jobs in middle management. In our 40s (which is "old" in America) we became the generation of Accidental Entrepreneurs. Staples created a lucrative new category by serving our small-business office needs. 

Post-Trump, the next kind of barbarians could be the overloads of technology who make the human being irrelevant. Already, there is the potential to reproduce human consciousness. Mankind's "inner life," which had been explored by artists since the beginning of civilization, will be the subject of Artificial Intelligence. No one will care what went through the mind of Homer on his epic journey. 

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