Great minds think alike -- about compensation models for law firms.

I came away from Liane Jackson's ABA Journal article, $10K prize-winning hackathon team dreams up new compensation model for law firms, doing a happy dance:  not just because I liked the ideas put forth by the winner but also because I've been writing about this issue for a while, both by myself and with co-author Randy Gordon (see Nancy B. Rapoport, 'Nudging Better Lawyer Behavior: Using Default Rules and Incentives to Change Behavior in Law Firms, 4 St. Mary's J. of L. Ethics & Malp. 42 (2014) and Randy D. Gordon & Nancy B. Rapoport, Virtuous Billing, 15 Nevada L.J. 698 (2015)).  The short version?  People do the activities that their organizations reward.  If you don't like the behavior, take a good look at your reward structure.

A good reason to be proud of the University of Houston Law Center (10th anniversary of doing something very good).

See here.

Impressive op-ed from the FBI Director.

He's right.  See here.

One of the best days of my life--my trip to Bogotá.

Two days ago, I had the great honor of giving two talks on behalf of the Superintendencia de Sociedades in Bogotá (more info about the talks here) at the request of the wonderful* Superintendent Francisco Reyes.  Superintendent Reyes hosted a seminar in the morning (organized by the talented Diana Silva), and he also hosted a talk in the afternoon.  I was able to visit with members of the bench and bar and heads of companies after the morning's presentations, and the questions that they asked after my talk made the experience even better.

The trip had its funny moments:  I was a little tired that day, having missed my connection to Bogotá by five minutes (United did a lot of maintenance on the plane that was picking us up in Las Vegas--a lot of maintenance), so I hung out in Houston for nine extra hours and arrived in Bogota at 5 a.m. on the day of the presentations.  Maybe the sleep deprivation is a good excuse for what happened in the afternoon:  when I was giving the second presentation, I didn't notice the earthquake** that everyone else in the room noticed quite readily.  When the audience got up and walked out of the room after about 2/3 of my presentation, I thought:  "Wow--this talk is not going well...."  (Years of living in San Francisco, and I didn't feel an earthquake???)  The building evacuation was orderly, with everyone knowing where to go and everyone quickly accounted for by floor.***  After the "all clear," I gave an abbreviated rest of the talk.  The classic part?  I'd asked, earlier that day, if Bogotá had earthquakes.  Bravo for life's little ironies.

Bogotá has some wonderful museums, and I was able to see the Gold Museum, which was flat-out amazing, and tour Plaza de Bolívar.  So with the experience of meeting great people, being able to visit again with Superintendent Reyes, having a chance to tour a bit of Bogotá, eating two memorable meals, and enjoying everyone's friendliness (and their ability to talk in fluent English, given that I have yet to learn Spanish),**** I can say that my trip was one of the best I've ever had.  I'm still floating on air (as you can probably tell from this post).




____________________
* And multi-talented:  he is also a very gifted musician.
** Yes, it was a 6.6 quake, but its center wasn't in Bogota, so the news media wasn't quite, um, accurate in its reporting of the earthquake experience in town.  Some buildings were affected, though, but not ours.  Ours was built to withstand a quake, and it did.
*** We could learn something from their emergency procedure training.  Ours is typically not as well organized.
**** And a chance to hear Superintendent Reyes play keyboards and drums.

Passing of a legal ethics giant: Monroe Freedman.

What an amazing person.  Hat tip to The Faculty Lounge for this sad but important news.

More Enron-ization of rankings.

As TaxProf Blog reports (here), UMKC has had an outside audit (here) to uncover rankings shenanigans.  What should we learn from examples like this one?  The same thing we should've learned decades ago: people respond to incentives.  For the best examples of perverse incentives, see this Freakonomics post.

Wishing my beloved Marine Corps a very happy birthday today.

Happy 239th birthday, Marines!

My article on incentives and default rules in law firms is out at last!

See here.

Two of my newest favorite things, both from my buddy Walter Effross.

Walter always finds me interesting and valuable things to read (and now I can thank you publicly, Walter!)--and here are two of my favorites.  One's a commencement address, and the other is a story about how the Rolling Stones refused to boycott Israel.  Both involve a discussion of courage.  (And, for what it's worth, both stories illustrate the power of standing for something bigger than yourself, rather than the cowardice of lobbing anonymous hateful comments across the Internet.)

R.I.P., Bob Faiss.

See here, here, here, and here.  Bob was a giant in his field and a true gentleman.  I will miss him.

Life lessons for all of us--from the Navy SEALS and TaxProf Blog.

See here.  Worth reading all the way through.

UNLV's Psychology and Lawyering Conference webcasts are posted.

Here's the site, and here's our panel's session. 

The Akron Law Review ethics symposium issue is out.

See here.  I was there for the symposium, and it was wonderful from start to finish.  My article, The Client Who Did Too Much, is here.

An update for editors everywhere.

From my buddy Kathleen Lyon, some thoughts about editing (here) in response to my frustrated screed (here). 

Mixed thoughts about this post on Above the Law.

I do get what Above the Law is saying here, and I also take the point of Anonymous's comment about my screed against bad law review editing, but I've also seen the difficulty that some law students have in transitioning from college to professional school.  There has to be a good way to teach them that the little things matter.

And I'm now, after 20+ years on the job, at the point at which I require those who write papers for me to execute this affidavit.

Am I a curmudgeon?  Yep.  Do I think that some clear expectations might help students become more professional?  I sure hope so.

UPDATE (2/11/14):  Thanks, Above the Law, for including me in your non-sequiturs yesterday!

Shameless self-promotion--ABA Webinar edition....

See here.  Ever since Enron fell, I've been fascinated with the issue of why people do, well, what they do.  This webinar is an offshoot of my study of this area, although I'm speaking for only about 10 mins or so of the whole thing.

Good practice pointers from Bankruptcy Judge Michael Williamson.

Here, courtesy of the NACTT.

Some thoughts on anti-Semitism.

This New York Times article on anti-Semitism brought back some painful memories.  Growing up in the Bible Belt meant that I met more people than I'd have liked who really did believe that the Jews killed Jesus and that Jews were devils.  Yes, I heard "show me your [devil's] horns--I know you have them."  Yes, I was beaten up regularly (until I learned how to defend myself) for being Jewish.  Yes, even my "friends" would say unkind things about my religion.  The fact that anti-Semitism hasn't declined, and may in fact be on the rise again, is horrifying to me.  But kids learn what their elders teach them, and--like every other type of prejudice--knowing that one of their friends is Jewish, or gay, or otherwise "different" from them may not be enough to help erase all of those years of teaching that "others" are evil.

Our latest book, Law Firm Job Survival Manual, is out now!

We're happy with it, and we hope that you will be, too.  You can get it here, and our blog accompanying the book is here. 

Some great new tools by my buddy Walter Effross.

Here and here.  I think they're both "must reads" for law bloggers.  Bravo, Walter!