Law And More

A Most Horrible Week Ends with a High, Along with Speculation about What Elon Musk Is Up To

Maybe one factor making this a most awful week is that Mercury is in Retrograde.

That phenomenon, which kicked in on May 10th and will last until June 2nd, consists of a time when communication and so many other human activities get mixed up. The email never reaches X and there are serious business consequences. You don't check the gas monitor and you run out of gas just outside Douglas, Arizona, in the desert. Just after you blew too much on dinner an unexpected bill comes in.

In 2022, Mercury Retrograde, which usually occurs three times annually, happens four.

So, we have some explanation for why this week went off the rails. 

But it is ending with the Dow Jones up 466.36. Could that be a trend? 

That's a positive.

We also have been treated to the opportunity to speculate wildly what Elon Musk might be up to.

Recently he tweeted that he is putting the Twitter takeover on-hold. He wants to investigate the extent of fake accouts. Or so he says. Then he was back to tweeting. This time he noted that he was still committed to the Twitter deal. So, what is this very rich man up to? Is he using the power and influence from his money to have some fun? Is he concerned about the monetary potential of Twitter? Is he fearful it won't be approved by the FTC and he will appear foolish?

Much for the media types to pontificate about this weekend.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

"Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore" - Of Course, the US Government Could Use a Ministry Of Magic

The good versus evil meme plays out over control of the Ministry of Magic. That's the delightful plot and setting for the latest sequel in the "Fantastic Beasts" film series. This one has the subtitle "Secrets of Dumbledore."

The good side is represented by Albus Dumbledore and the evil one by Gellert Grindelwald. What hangs this all together is the need to protect the mystical creature Qilin which can see into souls and foresee the future. Meanwhile Grindelwald has conjured up a fraudulent version of the Qilin. 

Magic, of course, is the way problems are solved and opportunities are seized in the film. Those on the Dumbledore team use white magic. Those on Grindelwald's the toxic kind.

But, white magic wins, thanks to the ability to get the Qilin to the election to select what leader is pure of heart. Along the way the displays of fanastic whatevers, including the beasts, are amazing. And, like a Shakespearean comedy, the film ends with a wedding. All's well that ends well. 

Perhaps the US government would be able to reestablish hope if it established a Ministry of Magic. It would symbolize extreme possibility. In the 21st century we have already been through:

The Terrorist Attack of 9/11,  followed by an economic downturn

The Deep Recession of  2008 -2009

COVID

Political Polarization 

A War in Europe

Wild Inflation

An Even Wilder Stock Market

A Possible Recession

What's been called "occulture" or a belief in other dimensions of knowing and experiencing has been catching fire. Timing is almost everything. And the timing may be just right for the Biden Administration to authorize the creation of the Ministry of Magic.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com

Ghislaine Maxwell - Poor Little Rich Girl Will Be Sentenced to Up to 55 Years in June 2022

"British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday lost a bid to overturn her December 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges, paving the way for her to be sentenced to decades in prison." - Reuters Legal, April 29, 2022

What Judge Alison Nathan decided was that three counts had been supported by testimony and evidence. The juror who did not disclose sex abuse during childhood was ruled to have been impartial.

But Judge Nathan did remove two counts. As a result, the upper limits of Maxwell's sentence will be 55 years. Because of the removal, 10 years have been lopped off. The sentencing will be in June 2022.

Meanwhile, in some circles there is sympathy for Maxell. Her larger than life father media tycoon Robert Maxwell was reportedly a cruel man. Women tend to marry their fathers. Maxwell could have been attracted to the darkness in Jeffrey Epstein. That could have cast a spell on her.

Also, after her father's mysterious death it had been reported she lacked wealth. Epstein had it. It is likely she couldn't make it emotionally and socially without the big money. So, the solution was gaining access to what the rich refer to as the "real money" by aligning with Espstein. She had been convicted of conspiring with him to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls for sexual abuse. 

Of course, the line of thinking is psychobabble. It's become unfashionable to put people on the couch. When critics tried to do that to Donald Trump they were largely ignored. What had been popular and relevant were thought leadership op-eds about political rhetoric and the mood of the nation. 

But the empathy with Maxwell can be sticky, especially with those of us who had been co-dependent with monsters. That happens all the time, unfortunately. 

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Harvard: Did it deserve that shabby treatment in "The Social Network?"

The Harvard mystique apparently was still dominant in 2003, the time in which "The Social Network" was set.  Within that ethos aristocrats like Winklevoss twins, new barbarians such as Larry Summers, and brilliant kids with chips on their shoulder like Mark Zuckerberg could all pull what they needed from the Harvard brandname and move on.

That sort of thing happens all the time, be it a prestige law firm or a hedge fund that has a good run.  The world is made up of hustlers, smooth and crass.

The question "The Social Network" leaves us with is: did Harvard deserve the awful treatment it received? I have a hunch the answer is yes.  The place was a caricature of elite higher education when I attended its school of law in the mid 1980s.  It seems no change happened over the years.

Let's start at the ending.  When as an older student [think early 40s] with a former successful career in communications I decided to flee law as a 1L, some BigFoot wouldn't allow me to. She insisted I meet with a committee. I ignored her the first time.  The second time I firmly told her I was leaving and that was that.  She sent me a letter stating that I might have an emotional problem.   Does surrendering the possible prestige of a Harvard degree, along with the all-nighters and internal angst, mean one is emotionally challenged.  At the time I wasn't a writer so, no, I didn't write about it.

During the time I matriculated at Harvard Law School, in criminal law class an oddball medical doctor insisted the professor address her as "doctor."  He continually refused.  Every time she requested the title be used, the Winklevoss kind hissed.  Was it that she was an outsider that she couldn't get respect or is everyone supposed to play inferior to the Harvard brand?

The contracts professor did the same performance art from the same script he had for decades.  Stale?  Surely, there had to be emerging trends in the field that could have been incorporated.

And, of course, everyone, except me, felt blessed to be there.  I experienced that moment of clarity that I was a working class kid who got far with my brain and push but, maybe Harvard had been right, was stuck as a victim of arrested development.  I had hungered for the stamp of approval, got it, and was still a mess. Yeah, like Zuckerberg, an asshole. 

More or less, I remained an asshole until I was 58. Here is my sad story which has a happy ending Download Geezerguts.

Frontal Enhancement Underwear: For the partner associates want to honour

Time for associates to be thinking about the holidays and what little token can show the respect and admiration they have for partners.  Luck is with them.

British clothing retailer Marks & Spencer now sells frontal enhancement underwear. The brandname is Bodymax.  According to U.S. Gawker's Jeff Neuman, the brand can make the crown jewels appear 38 percent bigger.

Had partners saved one's job in the Cutting Times of 2009, then associates can also throw in another line of underwear sold by Marks & Spencer. It makes the rear end really strut its stuff.

Since lawyers are detail oriented, here is a diagram Neuman provides of these innovative miracle products.

$750K in Student Loans: The Amazing Rachel Yould

Through her intelligence, charisma, and physical attractiveness, Rachel Yould had been able to cast spells on people, ranging from college professors to domestic-violence activists who supported her in her claims of abuse by her father.  Along the way, including by obtaining a second social security number, she accumulated about $750,000 in student loans which were not used primarily for education. 

Today, reports Jeffrey Toobin in a major article in THE NEW YORKER, the amazing Rachel Yould is serving 57 months in a federal prison and has been ordered to make restitution for the student loans. She is 38.

Although her career as a student didn't include law school, her brilliance seemed to allow her to game all aspects of the system.  By legally positioning herself as an abuse victim, she could not only gain a second social security number which allowed her to keep borrowing from student-loan funds.  She also attracted a support system which followed her right into the courtroom on the side of the defense.

There's more.  She probably sensed the ambiguity of her father's relationship to her.  Since he often relapsed into active alcoholism, which often causes blackouts or total memory losses, neither he nor anyone else could argue conclusively against her claims of abuse.  This identity or cause would tend to dilute the reality that she might be a simple fraudster clever about playing the student-loan game.

From Toobin's account, Judge Sedwick  really didn't seem to treat as relevant the abuse contentions.  His focus was on the fraud.  And like all of us, he was interested in why her path had diverged from the normally successful one it could have been.  Judge Sedwick's theory is that her intelligence allowed her to attempt to bypass the rules. 

Had Yould been a serial killer, this wonderful story might be the plot line for "Criminal Minds."

Tony Curtis [1925-2010]: Patron Saint for JDs

What's the voodoo that makes one professional failure able to bounce back and exceed anyone's expectations and prevents another from regaining control of a career?

Optimism.  That's what those who analyze comebacks might say, at least based on the upward, downward, and sustained upward trajectories of Tony Curtis.  He died today, at age 85, after a career in lightweight and serious acting and painting.  His canvasses often sold for $20,000 each.

Like too many lawyers he had his run-ins with alcohol and drugs.  Then he got it that those substances, as Ken Ritter reports in HUFFINGTON POST, made him "unavailable" for career challenges.  That slide into darkness was triggered by the kind of shifts many lawyers are experiencing: a niche dries up.  Beginning to age, Curtis could not get those parts as a heart throb.  Also his soul yearned for his talent to be taken seriously.  So, he changed.  He had the optimism to believe that all that painful effort could lead to a positive outcome.

Here is the address I delivered at the New York State Bar Association on career transition, which has been published in VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY Download Rainmaking.

"How did it happen?" Hilary Smith talks about being bipolar

The grueling profession of practicing law seems to be a socially accepted career path for bipolars.  Just consider the number of serial all-nighters. 

Finally, there is a book for bipolars that makes for almost trashy reading.  It's by bipolar Hilary Smith and it's called: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: Everything you ever wanted to know about bipolar but were too freaked out to ask.  With brilliance, personal experience, research and wit Smith takes this baffling condition out of the clinical literature and positions and packages it so that we bipolars will be open to its contents.

That's rare.  Even the most well meaning among us bipolars like Johns Hopkins University professor Kay Redfield Jamison makes the whole enchilada seem pretty scary.  Also, experts like Jamison don't provide commonsense practical ways we can navigate through the day at work following insomnia or racing/slowing thoughts.  Smith does.  For example, on page 115, she has Ten Ways You Can Say Yes To Something Without Losing Face."   All of them prevent needless confrontations.

There's more.  The tone of the book is realistic.  Bipolars are not depicted as special or carrying the burden of genius.  Instead, says Smith, we should just consider our lives as a game that is faster and harder than it is for others. 

Of course there are those bipolars who want to consider their condition an edge, a type of way to create added value for their employers and clients.  They might be right on the money.  But Smith wouldn't encourage that kind of mindset.  It could be a symptom of the classic grandiosity among bipolars.

Everyone Pray for Hitchens Day

Well he isn't suing them. At least not for now.  I might.  I believe in the voodoo of other people's prayers.  They can cast a spell, one I find unwelcome and might try to prove illegal.

Christopher Hitchens had decided to simply pass on attending the Everyone Pray for Hitchens Day and not to do anything about it.  His take is that it might make others feel better to pray for him so let it be. 

However, if those prayers do start affecting his field of force he might consider filing a complaint to stop them.  Hitchens, who is dying of cancer, published GOD IS NOT GREAT. 

Lawyers & Journalists: We know the heart is a lonely hunter

It's voodoo.  Good lawyers and good journalists are alike.  They can cast spells on human beings.  They have that gift because they know that the heart is a lonely hunter, that human beings hunger for connection.

The challenge is that each human being is different.  That's where emotional intelligence [EI] comes in. [Here's my eBook on EI which you can download free Download CUsersjasneDocumentsjg.]  The more EI lawyers and journalists have the more time they invest in learning about the person or persons, as in a jury or a panel to interview. 

For example, the lawyer representing Motley Rice - Luis Manuel Alcalde - read my blogs before he deposed me yesterday in New Haven, Connecticut.  He went beyond e-mail to talk with me, human voice to human voice.  At the site of the deposition, he spotted me in the Business Center and chatted.  Nice touch. 

Step by step he built a bridge to travel from his position of law, not a warm and fuzzy, to a presence in my life.  Skilled in understanding this strategy of connecting, I was prepared to navigate beyond his best EI.  However, I was not hostile, which I could have been.  That was often as much as a good lawyer could aim for.

In journalism, we become equally adept at being able to enter someone's space.  The most effective strategy is plain-vanilla listening.  Community is fading.  That's why people are tending to blabber on and on, whether it 's in the elevator in their residence or office or at their 12-step meeting.  When they pick up that someone is actually paying attention to what they're saying, they break open.

Not far behind listening is remembering details.  As old as a Dale Carnegie introductory seminar, this is all about demonstrating a genuine interest in another human being.  Our body language should communicate that longing to know more about that person.

And the closer is finding out what we can do for them.  Often they won't say what they want.  If we can figure it out and deliver on it, we have a source for life.

Interestingly, on "Mad Men," Peggy Olson, who isn't a lawyer or journalist but a copywriter, is learning her way into the human heart.