A tale of two abuses.

OK, look at Joe Nocera's column in yesterday's New York Times (here) ("Biggest Fish Face Little Risk of Being Caught"), and then look at Gretchen Morgenson's column today (here) ("Waiting Seven Years for Two Answers"). My own conclusion is that there's no downside risk to overreaching in ways that hurt consumers.  (Mozilo, no jail time? Wells Fargo Bank, with three different stories about the reasons behind its inability to demonstrate proof of holding a note on a house?)  Of course things aren't going to change.  Not until there's some real, personal, honest-to-goodness, scary consequences for executives who tolerate obscenely bad behavior.  And I'm not counting on there being any, unless Elizabeth Warren's Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection actually figures out a way to get the incentives for (1) punishing bad behavior and (2) allowing innovation right.  If anyone can, she can; but I'm not sure it's possible.  

And I come back to the same question, time and again:  where are the boards?  How do those independent directors get the information that they need to ensure that their officers are behaving appropriately? And how do those directors fight the urge to get along by playing along?

The GWU law students were exceptionally funny this year.

Warning:  adult language.  But see here.  And a hat tip to one of our students, Jason Lather, for letting me know about it.

And some funny stuff from my buddy Rod Fong....

Rod sent me these sayings:*

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles , U.C.L.A.

The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.

The batteries were given out free of charge.

A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

A will is a dead giveaway.

If you don't pay your exorcist, you can get repossessed.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Acupuncture: a jab well done.

Thanks, Rod!

*Rod wants y'all to know that he didn't write these.  They've been passed along to him, and he's passed them along to me.

Shout-out to the Faculty Lounge blog.

I always like reading that blog, and today's gave me an honest-to-goodness spit-take.  I love Malcolm Gladwell's books, and we were delighted when he agreed to let us reprint one of his articles in our second Enron book.  That being said, this post cracked me up (here).  In particular, check out the design for "Slurp."

For you corporate law students out there....

My buddy, Professor Walter Effross, has come up with a list called Suggestions for Law Students: 101 Assets, Activities, and Approaches for Students in Business Associations/Corporations Courses.  It's a must-read!

Some rules to live by, forwarded to me by Dad.

Here's what my dad forwarded to me recently.  I loved them.

16 Rules To Live By
By Bob Parsons, Founder & CEO of GoDaddy.com

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."

2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn't have an opportunity.

3. When you're ready to quit, you're closer than you think. There's an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: "The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of "undefined consequences." My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, "Well, Robert, if it doesn't work, they can't eat you."

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, "As you think, so shall you be."

6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don't look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7.  Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8.  Be quick to decide. Remember what General George S. Patton said: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow."

9.  Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don't know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven't examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you're doing as anyone else, provided that what you're doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn't fair. You make your own breaks. You'll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14.   Solve your own problems. You'll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you'll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: "You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others." There's also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: "A wise man keeps his own counsel."

15. Don't take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There's always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you're really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: "We're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time!"

Heroes don't like to be called "whistle-blowers."

In today's New York Times Gretchen Morgenson column, she describes the travails and eventually victory of former Countrywide exec Michael Winston (here).  Winston sounds like exactly the sort of stand-up guy I'd want running my company (if I had one).  Like other heroes who have called shenanigans on their company's blatant misdeeds, he probably would prefer just to say he did his job.  Thanks to my former jobs, I've met a few other heroes of this ilk.  (See here, here, and -- although I didn't meet her in person, she did agree to let us excerpt a few of her bio chapters in our second Enron book -- here.)  Except for Cynthia Cooper's publicist, who does identify her as a whistle-blower, most of these heroes equate "whistle-blowing" with "snitching."  They just call what they did "being ethical."  And that's why they're my heroes.

From my buddy George Connelly:

A list of paraprosdokians, from my friend George:

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax.

1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

2. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

3. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

4. If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. Evening news is where they begin with "Good evening," and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops.  On my desk, I have a work station.

10. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

11. Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.  (This one's doubly true for our two cats.)

12. I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted pay checks.

13. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "In an emergency, notify:" I put "Doctor."

14. I didn't say it was your fault; I said I was blaming you.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

16. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

17. The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

18. Hospitality: Making your guests feel like they're at home, even if you wish they were.

19. I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.  (That one's credited to Kevin James.)

20. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

21. I always take life with a grain of salt, plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.

22. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

23. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

24. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

George has a sense of humor that I love.  Thanks, George!

A nice salute to Judge Steen, on his retirement.

See here.  I didn't know Charlie Fielder (the second part of the post), but it's clear that he made many lives better.

Judge Steen's one of my fave folks--and he definitely made the world better on his job's watch.

Tim Canova's point about the budget crisis.

My buddy Tim Canova writes very interesting things, and here's his latest op-ed on the national budget crisis (here).

Two examples of why my dentist ROCKS.

 See here....

and here....








Not only is Sam Savage a great dentist, but he and his staff are some of the nicest people around.

A nice salute to a very talented CRO--William Snyder.

See here.  I've seen his work in person (twice) and read about his work in other, equally high-profile matters.  He's absolutely at the top of his game, and I have a great deal of respect for him.  To read more about him, see here.

On days like this, it's hard to be a proud Texan.

See here.  We need to rectify this, and pronto.

A professor to watch.

I really like Michelle Harner's work (for an example, see here--the Legal Ethics Forum just highlighted it).  Her combination of experience as a former law partner and her work analyzing the behavior of various players in chapter 11 makes her one of my "must reads."

Good for you, Harvard Law Review!

See here.

More on Brent Newton's article about law faculties.

Over at TaxProf Blog, Paul Caron has highlighted some juicy quotes from Brent Newton's article (you can download it here) about whether law professors are qualified to teach law (here).  The article, and the post, remind me of this article (here).

Update on the Samsung printer.

After I sent a letter to the Samsung America headquarters asking for compensation for the hour of computer guru time it took to get my printer up and running, Lisa from the President's Office called.  Suffice it to say I'm compensated.

Bragging on my Professional Responsibility students.

So I'm teaching Professional Responsibility again this semester, and I'm doing it primarily through "law firm" presentations:  groups of law students who have to present the day's material in a way that provides coverage and encourages class participation.

Students have used movie clips, television shows, and games (including a rousing game of "Jeopardy," in which one of the categories was "What Would Rapoport Do?"--every day's presentation has been extremely good.  What makes me particularly happy about each of the presentations is that the students are learning that they can teach themselves the law.  That's a skill they'll need throughout their careers.

So:  we've covered in class the notion that whether someone is a client depends on whether that person reasonably believes that she is a client.  I've joked before that lawyers should wear shirts that have "I am not your lawyer" on the front and "This is not legal advice" on the back.

But I never expected one of the law firms to take me so literally:

Meet Kristin Gifford, Cheryl Grames, Anna Clark, and Chelsey Bosworth.  I expect that they will add entrepreneurship to their legal skills after graduation.

Nevada's budget, as seen through the eyes of the UNLV/Brookings Mountain West study.

See here for some very sensible advice.

Samsung--SERIOUSLY?

 I'm thinking that perhaps Samsung doesn't QUITE understand why I don't feel so welcomed.

A happy customer service story.

I bought the Samsung-From-Hell printer from an Amazon "storefront" company, "FastFriendlyService.com." The service at this store is one of the very best I've ever seen.

One of the customer service representatives has sent me some possibilities for getting the darn printer to work wirelessly, and I'm going to try those instructions later today.  Thanks, FastFriendlyService!

And a lovely op-ed from Danny Tarkanian.

See here.  And this suggestion dovetails nicely with the Van Niel mortgage proposal.

A story that will break your heart.

See here.

One of the reasons that I love Scott Adams's work.

See here.

Four takes on the financial crisis, and why I agree with Joe Nocera and Frank Partnoy.

Here are three different takes:  one in the WSJ from Bill Thomas, Keith Hennessey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin (here), one in the WSJ from Holman Jenkins, Jr. (here), one from Joe Nocera in yesterday's NYT (here), and one from Frank Partnoy in today's NYT (here).

Look, everyone's right in pointing out that the crisis had nuanced causes.  That's not rocket science.  (I have ways of proving that statement--we have a friend who is an actual rocket scientist, and I can always ask him.)

But here's Nocera's bottom line, written in his inimitable style:

In pushing the idea that the crisis was avoidable, Mr. Angelides is also trying to make an additional point: if we just do it better next time, we will avoid the next crisis. I’m all for holding the bad actors accountable, and to the extent the F.C.I.C. has done that, I tip my hat. But mass delusions, alas, are part of the human condition, and no report, no matter how scathing, is going to change that.
And thus the question really isn’t whether it will happen again. It’s when. 

That's exactly the point we made in our second Enron book (available here).  Until we all recognize that humans are hard-wired to make certain cognitive mistakes, we will keep looking for nuanced causes that, ultimately, are irrelevant.  That's why I liked Jenkins's point that, unless we figure out incentives that will keep people from doing what humans do best (those darn cognitive errors), we'll see the problem repeat itself.  And why do I like Frank Partnoy's point?  Because he's seen the Wall Street world from the inside and knows whereof he writes.  When Frank points out how partisan politics skewed the Financial Crisis report, I listen.

Dear Samsung: So far, you owe me $1200, and the computer person isn't even here yet.

I bought a Samsung CLP-310w this week because my last attempt at a wireless printer resulted in paper jams whenever more than 2 sheets were loaded (the HP LaserJet Pro P1102w).

Samsung reps--yes, that would be over 2 hours of conversations with Samsung reps to date--agree that there's a problem with the Samsung software and Mac OS 10.6.6.  But they don't seem to have a way to fix it.  I hope that HotLink Data does.  Typically, the folks at HotLink Data can fix anything.

Samsung did, however, suggest that I hook it up directly to my router and computer.

Apparently, Samsung and I disagree about what "wireless" means.

UPDATE:  I sent this blog post to Samsung, and here's what Samsung said this morning:

Thank you for contacting Samsung Electronics.

We understand that you need drivers for Mac OS 10.6.6. for the printer.

We are sorry to inform you that as of now we do not have drivers ready for Mac OS 10.6.6. however, our
developers are designing the drivers for Mac OS 10.6.6. As of now the drivers available are for Mac OS 10.3 ~
10.6.
We are providing you with the link for the print drivers for Mac OS 10.3 ~ 10.6.
http://goo.gl/4iH4B.

Yep, you figured it out before Samsung did.  That's the very same software that Samsung's Customer Service has already asked me to download three times. 

My life this week.

See here and here.  And, mind you, I like my dentist a lot.  He and his staff are all wonderful:  friendly, talented, and professional.  I just wish I had perfect teeth and that I was not a wuss about dentistry.

Best line my dentist used this week:

Me:  "I'm going to need Mr. Nose [laughing gas, a/k/a nitrous oxide."
Dentist:  "OK."
Me:  "I can't get addicted to this stuff, right?"
Dentist:  "Do you have a scuba tank at home?"
Me:  "Nope."
Dentist:  "Then you should be just fine."

Now you know one of the reasons I like him.

A tale of two customer service approaches, part 2.

So I'm picking up friends at the airport, and I must have written the time of arrival down incorrectly.  The airline had a flight coming in from the appropriate place at the time I'd written down, but my friends weren't on that flight.  The flight number I'd written down was coming from a place nowhere near my friends' location, and it showed an arrival time of about 90 minutes later.

I went to the lost luggage office of the airline, explained my predicament, and asked the person behind the desk to help me locate my friends.  She told me that she could neither confirm whether my friends were on the earlier flight nor could she confirm whether they were on the later flight.  So I called the airline and finally reached a human, who was nice enough to confirm that my friends were on the later flight, even though the location associated with that flight seemed off to me.

Guess which route (no pun intended) I'll take in the future to find out this type of information?

A tale of two customer service approaches, part 1.

So earlier this week, I needed two large FedEx boxes to ship some dresses to a reseller (Artrhythms.com).  I went to FedEx store #A--no large boxes, although the counter serviceperson offered to sell me two boxes to ship the dresses.  I suggested that, perhaps, because his FedEx store was out of boxes, he might want to find some for me rather than charge me for other materials.

He did, and he sent me to FedEx store #B.  This store bent over backwards to be helpful:  found me the boxes, helped me ship them, gave me additional supplies, and--throughout it all--everyone behind the counter was professional, with lovely senses of humor.

Guess which store I'll use from now on?

More insight into the mortgage mess, and a story about a lawyer who helped pro bono.

See Joe Nocera's column today (here).  And I love his turn of phrase:  the "Heisenberg Journalism Principle" strikes just the right tone for folks who know the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Another voice talking about the Las Vegas mortgage mess.

At breakfast this morning, I read Scott Dickensheets's column (here), and I really liked his take on the moral issues inherent in considering whether to walk away on an underwater mortgage.  His points add to the reasons why I like the Van Niel mortgage proposal (see here). 

Jon Macey had a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

See here.  I've been a Jon Macey fan for years, so when he writes about the SEC's bloopers, I read what he has to say.

David Skeel is right--Congress should give states the ability to file for bankruptcy.

See David's editorial here.  I just ordered his latest book (here); should be good reading.

Bravo to John Jay Douglass!

My former colleague, John Jay Douglass (here), passed along the news that he's retiring from law teaching.  I have mixed feelings--happy that he and his wife, Papoose, can spend more time together, and sad that his career in academia's ending.  As you can tell from even the brief description on the University of Houston Law Center's page above, he's educated not only law students but also district attorneys and other already-graduated professionals.

Here's to you, JJD!  I think the world of you!

A salute to Deana, the Yosemite Ranger.

Jeff and I went to Yosemite recently, and we went up to Badger Pass to go cross-country skiing.  On the first day that we were up at Badger Pass, we were lucky enough to get a lesson with Deana, a Yosemite Park Ranger.  Not only did Deana give us an incredibly fun lesson, she taught us a variety of moves, many of which came in quite handy on our second trip to Badger Pass.

Day 1:  fresh powder, very little ice on the trails.
Day 2:  ice, ice, ice.

Thank you, Deana, for reminding both of us that we love this sport, even though we're still rank beginners!

And, if you love Yosemite as much as we do, you might consider joining the Yosemite Conservancy (here).

On today's holiday, an inspirational story about a lawyer who worked with Dr. King.

Thanks to NPR for the story (here).

A shout-out thank you to Joseph McDaniel!

Thanks for saying such nice things about me (here) on your blog (here)!  And Jeff (my hubby) and I are doing a second book in the Survival Manual series:  Law Firm Survival Guide.  Would love people's suggestions--and be on the lookout this spring for a survey from us....

A reminder about the requirement that fees must be reasonable before a bankruptcy court will authorize their payment.

Blaire Cahn has done a lovely write-up at Weil's Bankruptcy Blog (here) of the Ninth Circuit's recent opinion in Montana Department of Revenue  v. Duncan, No. 09-36062, 2010 WL 4903952 (9th Cir. Dec. 2, 2010).

Having done my fair share of fee reviews--and I enjoy fee examining work!--I think that the main issue for attorneys seeking payment from estate funds is a question of judgment.  It's hard, when someone is in the middle of a case, to take the time to ask, "Should I be doing this work?," especially when clients want 100% top-notch work at all times.  But that judgment--at the time someone has to make the go/no-go decision on billing for something--is crucial.

I think that the most rewarding part of fee examining work is having the luxury to call up a professional, if I have a question about the bill, and talk through whether the work (or the expense) was reasonable.  Sometimes, the professional explains why some hinky looking number was actually reasonable, and then I don't have a problem with it and can forward it on, quite happily, to the court for a final decision.  Sometimes, though, the work or expense really can't be considered reasonable.  (My favorite example:  billing the cost of a man's shirt to the estate, on the theory that there was an unexpected overnight visit.)  The job of a fee examiner is to help the court determine reasonableness, because the court makes that ultimate call.

The tough part about reasonableness is the danger of hindsight bias.  I look for "reasonable at the time that the decision to bill/expense something is made"--not for "unreasonable several months later, in retrospect." Hindsight bias really shouldn't complicate the review.

In the end, it's all about using judgment (and then hoping that the court agrees with you).  For more of my take on fees, see here.

Best speech using behavioral economics that you've never heard.

My buddy Steve Sather, the author of A Texas Bankruptcy Lawyer's Blog, sent me this link to a speech at the Ass'n of American Law Schools that Annelise Riles was going to give, had she been able to make it to the meeting.  Her speech is posted on the Credit Slips blog (here).  Her talk would have addressed how we might actually use regulation to change behavior, rather than (my editorial comment here) pretending that we know how to do that.  Great stuff!

A hat-tip to Lowering the Bar for this classic Canadian legal opinion.

I love reading Lowering the Bar (here), and this article (here) -- about the divorce of a couple from hell -- is a good example of why this blog is a must-read for me.  Two other good examples are here and here.

Details on how the Van Niel mortgage proposal would work.

Here's how the Van Niel mortgage proposal would work.

Banks with borrowers who are underwater but current on their loans should offer the following deal to those borrowers:

(1)  The bank reduces the interest rate on the mortgage to a lower rate (at a rate at least equal to what the folks who have defaulted are being offered, thanks to the bailout). 

(2)  The bank agrees that, for every "X" years that the borrowers remain current on their loans and live in the house (no "spec" properties--just actual homestead-type homes), the bank will reduce the outstanding principal amount of the loan by "Y" dollars. 

(3)  The borrowers, in exchange for the principal reduction and reduced interest rate mortgage agree that if, they sell the house within "Z" years, they will give any profits made on that sale to the bank.  (The potential profit gives the bank an incentive to "deal"-- if house prices improve, it might recoup at least a portion of its lost interest on the reduced interest mortgage and principal reduction.)

Example:  House is bought for $300,000; it has a $210,000 mortgage @ 6% for 30 years; borrowers put 30% down on the house.  House is now worth $125,000, and the balance due on the mortgage is $200,000.  (Welcome to Las Vegas.)

Bank agrees to reduce the interest rate by 1% (revised rate is 5%) AND to reduce the principal on the note by $5,000 per year for 5 years.  At closing,  the house is valued at $125,000 and the mortgage is $195,000 @ 5% for 30 years.

After year 1, mortgage is paid down to $192,123.04 (less $5,000 = $187,123.04).

After year 2, mortgage is paid down to $184,177.59 (less $5,000 = $179,177.59).

After year 3, mortgage is paid down to $176,165.50 (less $5,000 = $171,165.50).

After year 4, mortgage is paid down to $168,089.17 (less $5,000 = $163,089.17).

If the borrower sells the house in the first five years for any reason, the bank gets any profit made by the sale.  At end of a 5-year period, the house may still be worth $125,000 (maybe the value increases--or maybe the borrower is in Las Vegas, so the "floor" on house prices keeps falling--sigh), but the principal on the mortgage has been reduced to a much more manageable  $163,089.17.   

The homeowner is significantly closer to breaking even, and has much less incentive to hand the keys back to the bank and simply walk away. 

One more advantage:  the bank doesn't have to write down the value of the home in one big lump--unlike a foreclosure or short sale. 

Using future bailout money, if any, to buy down the mortgages of underwater homeowners who are current on their mortgages is as least as productive a use of the money as is giving the bailout money to delinquent NINJA homeowners who have no chance of keeping their houses in the long run.

Over time, everyone wins: the banks won't own the underwater houses because the homeowners will have an incentive to stay in the houses (without feeling like dummies for honoring their obligations) and housing prices won't continue to plummet because there will be fewer neighborhoods with massive foreclosures.

And now you know that part of the reason that I married Jeff Van Niel is that he's very, very smart.

Two great mortgage op-eds in today's New York Times

Read Bethany McLean's perspective on 30-year mortgages here, and Alex Perriello's solution to our current crisis in underwater mortgage's here.  Alex's solution is eerily similar to the Van Niel mortgage solution (here), which I've been touting for over a year now, and not just because I'm married to the Van Niel in question.

Update (1/7/11):  see here for how that proposal might work in practice.

Here's some nice news on 1/1/11....

Thanks, Dr. Management, Ph.D. blog, for listing me as a top business blog (here)!

From my buddy Marc Stern, a link to a great lawyer-y holiday card.

See here.  Bravo to Manatt, and thanks, Marc!

Yep. I was a chump.

See here.  This TaxProf Blog post points out how much creative accounting folderol goes into reporting employment stats of law schools to U.S. News. 

As I've said before (see here), lying on these questionnaires isn't much different from the "earnings management" that went on at Enron and the other like-minded companies.  Refusing to lie puts schools at a huge disadvantage, but lying just results in a race to the bottom in accuracy while pursuing a race to the top in "100% employed" reports.

Yet another good bankruptcy blog.

See here.  It's going on my Google home page, along with those other bankruptcy blogs (here).

Update:  Two more interesting bankruptcy law blogs:  the Charleston Bankruptcy Blog (here) and the Bankruptcy Law Network (here).  

A tale of two customer service approaches.

In today's Business Day section of the New York Times, there's one story about how Disney is able to reduce the frustration level of people who are waiting in lines at the parks (here) and another story about how difficult it is for the airlines to cope with all of the headaches about having to cancel flights during bad weather (here).

Disney has incentives to keep its guests happy.  Happy guests buy more souvenirs, come back to the parks, and tell their friends about their experiences there.

Airlines, on the other hand, have that new legislation -- the law that requires them to pay fines for staying on the tarmac for too many hours -- and their thin profit margins, which combine to reduce their ability (or desire?) to figure out how to reroute stranded customers when all flights are already filled to capacity.

Maybe it's a combination of company culture and outside incentives, but the juxtaposition of the two approaches is telling.  Disney wants to make people enjoy their time in its parks; airlines want to keep their costs low.

Shame on you, Pat Buchanan.

I always hesitate to read Pat Buchanan's columns, because I know that I'll end up with a eye-twitch from his invective.  On the other hand, I skim them because I want to know what people whose views differ from mine are thinking.  (Sometimes, their points can change my mind; sometimes, they can't.  But I like to keep an open mind.)

But today's column, "The Marines: Sacrificed for San Francisco values," took the cake, and not in a good "I-like-cake" way.  You can read this claptrap here.

First off, Mr. Buchanan, don't use my beloved Marines for your own nefarious purposes.  Sure, there were some Marines who opposed "don't ask, don't tell," and sure, people can disagree about DADT.  Other people, though, think that a person's sexuality has no bearing on his or her ability to serve.  Remember the high-profile change of heart that Colin Powell had about DADT (here)?

Here's the line in your op-ed that drove me nuts:  "Can anyone believe that mixing small-town and rural 18-, 19- and 20-year-old Christian kids, aspiring Marines, in with men sexually attracted to them is not going to cause hellish problems?"  Seriously????

If you really believe that homosexuality is a sin, that's your right.  But, then, be consistent.  Condemn all of the other sins that can occur in the military, too.  What about military personnel having affairs?  If adultery is a sin, where's your outrage about that behavior among opposite-sex military personnel?  And if you're upset about the potential sexual harassment, where's your indignation about opposite-sex harassment--or haven't you been paying attention to those reports over the years?  

To me, many of the arguments that people made about DADT smacked of the same logic that opposed integration in the military:  "It's too much."  "The nation's values disagree."  "Soldiers and Marines shouldn't be distracted by having to share quarters with people of other races."  Integration worked out pretty well, didn't it?

Oh, and don't assume that only the liberals rejoiced when DADT was repealed.  I support a strong military.  I think that this nation would be better off if we had some sort of compulsory service (military or public works) after high school--in part because I believe that we owe our country some payback for the benefits that we get and in part because I think that we're better off when we mix together people who might not normally meet each other.  (And I feel ashamed that I didn't serve.)  I think that the military can provide a wonderful career--and I'm delighted that, now, schools should be able to let the military recruit on campus because the recruiters can sign the anti-discrimination pledge.  

And I worry about the deficit.  I like the free-market (although, to be fair, I don't always trust that it works), and I don't think that "more regulation" is necessarily the best answer to our problems.  I don't think that everyone belongs in college.  I worry about too-high taxes.  So, no, I'm not a knee-jerk liberal.

What I am is a person who loves her same-sex friends, who has worked with gay and lesbian colleagues for her entire life, and who fears that the military was irretrievably weakened by jettisoning talented people because of their sexuality.

Shame on you, Mr. Buchanan, for assuming that homosexuals in the military will be some sort of bad influence on those small-town kids.  Some people in the military will be bad influences, but most won't be.  Blind prejudice, on the other hand, doesn't help our country at all.

Beware the unintended consequences of bad incentives.

What do these stories have in common?  From the Wall Street Journal (written by Liz Rappaport and Michael Rapoport--distant relations at best), "Ernst Accused of Lehman Whitewash" (here); from the New York Times and David Streitfeld, "Homes at Risk, and No Help From Lawyers" (here); and from John Stossel, "Uncle Sam Will Help You Buy an Alpaca" (here).

Each of these stories has the same subtext:  people behave according to the incentives that reward them.

If it is true that Ernst facilitated the bad accounting at Lehman (let's wait and see, but I wouldn't be particularly surprised), my guess is that the facilitation was due to the twin incentives of (1) rewards for pleasing clients (remember Enron?) and (2) no rewards for calling shenanigans on accounting tricks that--at the very least--violate the spirit of accounting rules, if not the technical wording of those rules.  (For the basic advice to avoid all actions that can be explained by, "Well, technically, it's ok," see the paper that Colin Marks and I wrote for the Fordham Law Review, "The Corporate Lawyer's Role in a Contemporary Democracy," which you can download here.)

Want to prohibit fraudsters from preying on distressed homeowners?  California tried, by enacting a law that prohibits lawyers from being paid for doing loan modifications until the modifications are approved.  Good for California for trying to squeeze out those businesses that took the modification money and ran, before getting their clients the modifications.  But give California a big "oops" for not exempting legitimate lawyers who just can't afford to float the entire fees for a process that might take years to complete (and which could be discharged in bankruptcy if, after the modification, the client still needs to restructure debt).

And those alpaca subsidies?  Tax credits can be great ways to shape behavior but, well, they shape behavior.  All regulation shapes behavior--again, by providing incentives or disincentives.  Much of regulation is important:  criminal penalties, pollution standards, food and drug standards, etc.  But lawmakers need to understand that regulation can create unintended behavior as well and to think hard about what might go wrong with a poorly written or ill-conceived regulation.  For example, rage at the bizarrely high pay for poor-performing executives and the revolving door for inattentive board members has created a backlash of irritation at all high salaries.  (Well, maybe not the high salaries of athletes, but the high salaries of non-athlete businesspeople.)  Redistribution of wealth from all high-earners to more low-earners wouldn't be the correct response to that rage.  (I still remember enjoying Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, which is actually available--yay!--here.)  Again, cutting too wide a swath will create more off-target incentives.

People are hard-wired to behave in certain ways.  If we're going to create incentives for behavior--and we will always create some incentives--we need to try to think those incentives all the way through.

And, for you computer geeks out there, something my cousin Nathaniel found:

Here.

OK, I might be biased, but...

Here's my vote for the best university holiday card ever:  here.  Happy holidays to all, and GO, OWLS!

New bankruptcy blog in Nevada.

See the link here.  I know Brian, and I'm really impressed with his work.  This blog should be great.

And if you want some other good bankruptcy and bankruptcy related blogs, to round out your collection, see:

WSJ:  Bankruptcy Beat (here).
Credit Slips (here).
A Texas Bankruptcy Lawyer's Blog (here).
A Clean Slate: The Bankruptcy Law Blog (here).

Best lesson taken from Madoff fiasco.

See Michael Kubin's opinion piece in the New York Times (here).

Shout-out to Greg Duhl for some of his latest articles.

Greg Duhl gave me a heads-up about two of his latest articles, Divided Loyalties: The Attorney's Role in Bankruptcy Reaffirmations (available here) and Social Networking and Workers' Compensation: Law at the Crossroads (co-authored with Jaclyn Millner) (available here).

I've been enjoying both of them--although I haven't yet seen The Social Network, the ethics issues surrounding social networking have begun to catch my eye, and based on some pro bono work I've done, the ethics issues in consumer bankruptcy cases are huge.

Thanks, Greg!

Customer service warning for ballroom dancers: AVOID "www.dancerschoiceonline.com"

I ordered three pairs of shoes in mid-November.  On 11/18, the company informed me that one of the three pairs was out of stock, and that my refund would be "coming."  It's 12/4.  No refund yet.

One pair of shoes didn't fit.  It took six emails -- SIX -- to find out that returns went to the shoe manufacturer, not to Dancers' Choice.

The email response is spotty, painfully slow, and woefully incomplete.

No matter the temptation, stay away from this company.  It's got some of the worst customer service I've seen in a long time.

Radisson at LAX: best of times, worst of times (apologies to Dickens)

So I really like the California Star Ball--it's a fun competition with very generous scholarship money.  I also like the front desk staff of the Radisson @ LAX:  they're gracious and helpful, as is the bell desk and the BREAKFAST staff at the restaurant there. 

But seriously--the food service at lunch and dinner (and at the bar) is woefully short of decent.  30-45 minutes for a simple meal in an uncrowded room?  30-40 minutes for take-out?

Example:  last night, we finished dancing at around 9, and we wanted to get a to-go order at the restaurant so we could watch the rest of the competition.  (We tried seeing what was pre-made at the bar.  The pre-made case was completely bare.)  So we waited 5 minutes at the maître d’s station, only to be told that we should order take-out at the bar.  (Lunch takeout is at the maître d’s station.)  So we went to the bar.  After watching someone rinse wine glasses for another 5 minutes, we asked about how we could get a fast meal to go.  We explained that we just wanted to order the meal that would take the least time to prepare.  The person behind the bar (not the bartender, but someone else with a Radisson badge) snapped that anything would take 30-40 minutes.

Anything?  Sliced tomatoes with mozzarella would take 30-40 minutes?  A plain salad would take 30-40 minutes?

Yep.

Thank goodness for my roommate, who had the patience to stay.  I left, and Angela shared her meal (salad and fries) with me, after waiting 30 minutes for that order herself.

It's a shame that a basically nice hotel can have such a split personality when it comes to the restaurant.  I spoke to the hotel management, who told me that the restaurant isn't owned by the same people who own the hotel.  I also spoke to the restaurant's morning manager, who was (as always) very nice.  Everyone explained that no one had complained before.  Seriously?  No one?  Not even the person I'd seen complaining on Friday?

Here's the thing, Radisson:  I plan to make sure that I post a link to this comment on a lot of travel rating websites.  That old rule about customer service applies to me, too.  Do well, and I'll tell at least ten people.  Do poorly, and I'll make sure to tell many more people.

A fresh take on voting on Dancing With The Stars

I love DWTS, and I always have.  (I was able to go to a semi-final one year, thanks to my buddy Arnold Peter, who represents BBC America, among other clients).  And thanks to my buddy Jack Ayer, I can forward to you this NYT essay on how the voting really works (see here). 

Isn't it nice to understand arithmetic sometimes?

My newest guilty pleasure.

This blog:  here.

More evidence that law firms are looking at alternative ways of billing clients.

See here.

Best insurance agent--ever.

Recently, I had to make an insurance claim, and our agent, Perry Olson, did an exceptional job of dealing with some sticky issues of customer service (problems with a third-party appraiser).  We've had some good insurance agents before, but I have never seen customer service like Perry's.  He's wonderful!

Happy 235th birthday, Marines!

How many organizations do you know where you can count on the steadfastness of an entire group?  Where every member is trained to think of the honor of the members who came before him?  Where every member is trained to roll up his sleeves, "embrace the suck," and get the work done?

I know of one.

Happy birthday, Marines!

Rice University: still a bargain.

See here and here.

Stop it. Stop demonizing the other side.

It's a few days until Election Day, and I'm already cranky:  every time our home phone rings (a sure sign that the caller doesn't know us--our friends use our cell phone numbers to reach us), I've been answering it with "if this is a political call, please hang up now."  I'm tired of being asked for whom I've voted. 

But I'm far more tired of hearing both political parties call each other names.  I'm not "stupid" if I vote for someone you detest.  You're not stupid for voting for someone I detest.  We should realize that smart, goodhearted people can disagree without being disagreeable. 

Demonizing people for their thoughts is a bad way to go, and it betrays the foundations on which our country was founded.  Cut it out.

The New Yorker: GREAT magazine; HORRIBLE web customer service.

I keep trying to fix a login problem at The New Yorker's website.  The site now keeps putting me into infinite loop.  I love the articles in this magazine, but I cannot abide the lack of useful help that the website provides when there are login problems.

AARGH!

Brava, Michelle Rhee!

Still a fan.  See here.

Best disclaimer ever.

See here.  For the disclaimer that's a close second, see here.

Thanks, everyone!

I sure appreciate being in this group!

That McGowan-Burk article I mentioned is highlighted in the latest ABA Journal.

Just more proof that this article is both very good and very important.  See here for the ABA Journal link, and see here for my earlier post.

Michelle Rhee is my hero.

See here.

Thanks, Hank's!

We just got back home after a wonderful dinner at Hank's.  Delicious food, attentive staff, and a lovely surprise dessert.  All in all, a great evening.  Thanks, Hank's!

A great op-ed by Sharon Davies of Ohio State.

See here.  Brava, Sharon!

For those of you who like law review irony.

See here.  I especially liked the section on the right to bare claws, although the part about herd derivative suits was also classic.

Why our students at Boyd rock, part n.

See this post at the Law School Survival Manual blog (here).

New "good read" article.

My buddy Bernie Burk and his co-author, David McGowan, have just posted an article on SSRN (here):  Big But Brittle: Economic Perspectives on the Future of the Law Firm in the New Economy.  It's going to be published in the Columbia Business Law Review. 

I've read the piece (of course), and I think that Bernie and David make some really important points about how BigLaw firms are likely to evolve. 

Here's the abstract:

This Article addresses the deceptively simple questions why, up to the onset of the recent recession, law firms continued to grow at the rapid rate and in the unusual configuration that they have exhibited for over 40 years; and whether lawyers, clients, law students and law schools should expect familiar trends to reassert themselves as the economy improves. We show that the copious academic theorizing addressing these questions (focusing on such notions as diversification, asset specificity, “tournament” theory, and reputational and agency-cost concerns at the level of the firm as a whole) has proved ineffective at explaining or predicting actual events to date, and thus offers little guidance for the future.

We suggest two perspectives that appear more consistent with the available empirical evidence, and thus more likely to predict future trends. The first perspective shows that the core members of a professional service firm can mutually increase the value of one another’s connections and reputation in a manner that can increase the mutual gain with the size of the core group, and thus stimulate firm growth and help bind the firm together – though only somewhat loosely – as it grows. This perspective is new to the literature on law-firm economics, and helps explain why law firms have long continued to get larger despite ordinary diseconomies of scale, though with a certain brittleness reflected in the lateral mobility common in this day and age. The second perspective brings long-established economic principles concerning technological innovation and transaction costs to bear in the context of the elite law firm, where they have been largely overlooked in the commentary to date. We argue that reductions in particular transaction costs and in the cost of certain key inputs are helpful in explaining a number of the trends in the staffing and pricing of legal services documented in recent years.

We apply these perspectives to derive a range of predictions for law firms and law schools in the years to come. We conclude that, despite rumors of the “Death of Big Law,” the large firm is here to stay, but in an evolving configuration with profound implications for practicing and aspiring lawyers, as well as the law schools that prepare them for the increasingly competitive and increasingly global markets for their services.

Don't take their (or my) word for it.  Read it for yourself.

Another suggestion for dealing with the housing crisis.

See this New York Times op-ed (here).  We have to figure out some way to give banks an incentive to help the folks who can pay their mortgages but who are so underwater that they feel like shnooks for continuing to make payments.  Although I still favor the Van Niel proposal (see here), this one's not a bad start, either.

It's a good day at the Van Niel-Rapoport household.

See here.

Focus, shareholders. FOCUS.

Yesterday's New York Times story on directors who presided over corporate failures being snapped up as directors by other companies (see here) did exactly what the authors (Susanne Craig and Peter Lattman) intended.  It frustrated the heck out of me. 

Yes, we should kick out C-level officers who plunder companies.  That's a no-brainer.  But we should also hold directors accountable when they should have known that something was going dreadfully wrong on their watch.   (Remember Andy Fastow's personal profit on deals with--well, against--Enron?  That was board-approved.)

Shareholders need to pay attention to who's running their company and who's monitoring those who are running their company.  And if the directors aren't doing what they should to watch over the CEOs, CFOs, and the like, shareholders should replace them.

See? Clients want to push for fees calculated other than by the billable hour.

See here.  (Hat tip to my buddy Walter Effross.)  Law firms are thinking about how to stay profitable while figuring out new ways to value their services (good), but they may not have realized how much the legal landscape has changed (bad).

We're talking about a paradigm shift.  Lawyers are supposed to make a decent living, but if they're hoping for perpetual multimillion-dollar draws, they have (as Mom used to say) "another think coming."

Aspen will give you a taste of Law School Survival Manual by posting one free chapter.

And we think that the chapter's a doozy--it's on how to prepare for exams.  See here for the link to Aspen1L.

A nice feather in Boyd School of Law's cap.

One of the things I love about Boyd is how engaged our faculty is in research.  Now Brian Leiter has a post that recognizes how we're doing (see here).  It's also nice to see Ohio State in that list--not at all surprising, but nice nonetheless.

Thanks, Brian!

Another good column on the housing crisis.

I always look forward to the Sunday columns by Gretchen Morgenson (see the latest one here).

More shameless self-promotion.

Click here for a podcast that gives advice to law students, and click here for a post that links the podcast to our Law School Survival Manual.

Thank you, Faculty Lounge & Laura Appleman!

Woke up today to this review of the Law School Survival Manual over at The Faculty Lounge (here).   Thanks, Laura!  You made my day!

Another good column on Nevada's budget crisis.

I look forward to John L. Smith's columns in the Review-Journal, and today's column is no exception (see here).  Let's face it:  imposing taxes on tourists isn't working well for us, because there is a price point at which tourists will choose another vacation location, rather than paying through the nose for lodging.  Imposing higher taxes on food is more broad-based, but it's going to fall disproportionately on the poorest among us, who look to stretch every penny of their budgets.

Mining, on the other hand, probably hasn't reached its price point for taxes.  A couple of observations:  (1) the minerals are here, so as long as the mining companies want to mine here, they're captive; and (2) I'll bet that there are other businesses that aren't at the price point for leaving the state or laying off their employees.  That second point is tricky, because raising taxes on businesses across the board will hurt those smaller businesses with razor-thin profit margins.  And we don't want to go around killing more businesses.  They're dying left and right already.

We need more broad-based taxes, but let's try to levy them on sources that have a solid profit margin (so that the businesses are still left with a hefty profit), rather than on people and business that are struggling to survive.  Maybe it's time for a state luxury tax?

Shameless self-promotion here: LexisNexis Top 25 Business Law Blogs voting begins now....

When I came back from class this afternoon, I saw this email:

Dear Nancy:

Each year, LexisNexis honors a select group of blogs that set the online standard for a given industry. I’m pleased to notify you that Nancy Rappaport Blogspot [sic, but I'm still flattered] is one of the nominated candidates for the LexisNexis Top 25 Business Law Blogs of 2010, featured on the LexisNexis Corporate & Securities Law Community and the LexisNexis UCC, Commercial Contracts & Business Law Community.

We are inviting the business law community to comment on our list of nominees. If you’d like to request that readers support your nomination, please ask them to comment on the announcement post at either of the following links:

Top 25 Business Law Blogs 2010 – Corporate & Securities Law Community

Top 25 Business Law Blogs 2010 – UCC, Commercial Contracts & Business Law Community

To submit a comment, log on to your free web center account. If you haven’t previously registered, you can do so on the Corporate & Securities Law Community or the UCC, Commercial Contracts & Business Law Community. Registration is free and does not result in sales contacts. The comment box is at the very bottom of the page.  The comment period for nominations ends on October 8, 2010.

Congratulations on your nomination. 

So, because it would be just lovely if this blog were to be included as a top-25 blog (even though all of the blogs are interesting, and many of them are remarkably good), if you have the ability to vote for my blog, please consider doing just that.  Thanks!

UPDATE:  As my buddy Brian Goldberg pointed out to me, the blog's been nominated, and now it's a matter of talking it up (if you're comfortable doing that) on the various LexisNexis communities.  Thanks!

SECOND UPDATE:  In order to post a comment to talk up a blog, register for one of the communities and click on this link (here) or this one (here).   In addition to voting for my own (think Hillel), I also voted for
The Corporate Library Blog,
Race to the Bottom,
The Conglomerate,
WSJ Law Blog, and
Credit Slips.

Best explanation of what Nevada needs to do to turn the state's economy around--EVER.

See here.  The whole "we don't have to raise taxes to fix the state's economy" problem brings to mind my favorite speech that Michael Douglas gives as President Andrew Shepherd in The American President (see here):

President Andrew Shepherd: For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character. . . .  America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free". . . .  We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. . . .
[pauses]
President Andrew Shepherd: I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer, and I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job. Well, that ends right now. . . .  We've got serious problems, and we need serious people, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I *am* the President.

It's time for our candidates to step up to the plate.  Stop going for the votes, and start thinking seriously about how to fix Nevada's economy.  I know that you don't have the scriptwriter of The American President there to make your words powerful, but let's see if you can show that you're serious about your responsibilities to Nevada's citizens.

Why I like Steven Horsford.

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone apologizes for them or takes responsibility for them.  When Senate Majority Leader sent out a fundraising letter that linked access to donations, the public was outraged (well, at least the part of the public that thought that donations didn't create access was outraged).  But Horsford then apologized (see here) and refused to blame anyone on his staff for the original decision to send the fundraising letter (see here). 

Personally, I like leaders who own up to mistakes and don't sacrifice staffers for them.  So my opinion of Horsford has gone up, not down.

Give the banks a monetary incentive to do the right thing.

Guilt doesn't work.  Shame doesn't work.  Threats don't work.  "Affordable homes" programs don't work (see here and here for some examples).  What might work to get banks to agree to modify mortgages quickly and reasonably?

The first thing to realize is that banks are businesses.  Some might not be run very well, but they're businesses.  And businesses respond best to financial incentives. 

I've blogged about some possible incentives before (see here).  Give the banks a reason to write down the principal due on underwater mortgages, perhaps by agreeing to take any profit above that write-down if the house sells in the five years after the write-down.  The homeowner gets a lower principal balance that's more in line with the real value of the house.  The bank gets any upside for a reasonable time after the modification, if housing prices rebound.

Of course, we'd also have to deal with the accounting and tax implications of such a change.  Banks don't have an incentive to write down the value of these underwater homes; without either a positive (benefit) or negative (penalties) incentives, banks are engaging in behavior designed to inflate the value of their collateral.  Too many banks are foreclosing but not selling homes, in part because selling would set a real value at odds with the book value.  Not only are the banks not selling the foreclosed homes, but they aren't keeping up the property or the payments on the HOA dues (see here).  Banks are dragging out short sales beyond all economic reason.  Unless we figure out a way to provide financial incentives to get banks to behave better, all of the shame and guilt and anger in the world won't get them to change.

Hey, I've never been the subject of a rap video....

See here.  At least not to my knowledge....  Hat tip to my buddy Eric Van Horn.

Larry Temkin changed my life, too.

One of my favorite professors from Rice University, Larry Temkin, now teaches at Rutgers.  The Rutgers home page is featuring a salute to Larry (here) for the next two weeks. Although I hated to see Larry leave Rice, I was happy to see him courted by the best philosophy program in the country.  (Oh, and Harvard courted him, too.)

What made Larry so good, in addition to his obvious desire to get his students excited about using their brains, was his ability to tease out--even from shy folks like me (and yes, I was shy!) a willingness to sink our teeth into difficult material.  He didn't teach down to us, not even once.  And like anyone else who's at the top of his game, his talent made us want to be better students.  He was vibrant in class, engaging outside class, and downright inspiring.  I can still see him bounding into class each day (and "bounding" is the correct word), ready to get the discussion started.  Best of all, he put the lie to the fiction that really great teachers can't be great scholars as well.  He was superb in both arenas, and he made everything look effortless, even though it wasn't effortless at all.  Rutgers is very lucky to have him.

And while I'm thanking Larry for his remarkable contribution to my education, I should thank some other Rice profs as well.  (I owe Bob Weisberg, Tom Jackson, and Jack Friedenthal, among others, thanks for my education at Stanford Law School, too, but that's a post for another time.)

Larry, along with folks like Baruch Brody (here), Dennis Huston (here), David Lane (here), Hank Hudspeth (here), and Harold Hyman (here), kept Rice's promise to provide an excellent undergraduate education.

Baruch Brody did give me a scare during my first semester, though.  I'm from a small town in deep East Texas, and although my parents were from "up north" (New York and Toronto), I had never heard a rich Brooklyn accent before.  I spent the first month of Dr. Brody's lectures wondering what he was saying and hoping that I didn't flunk his course.  After I was able to translate his accent into "Texan," I figured out that I was getting what he was saying, after all.

Dennis Huston taught me that good professors could cuss up a blue streak without shifting our focus away from the material at hand.  I took every course that he taught, and I'm still a member of his unofficial fan club.

David Lane turned me into a statistics geek, to our mutual amazement.  He even let me take some graduate-level courses in statistics while I was an undergrad.  Through him, too, I got to design my honors thesis on the effect of time of day on teaching performance, which is my own personal explanation for why my students fall asleep in class when I teach in the 3-4:30 slot.

Hank Hudspeth, who was kind enough to hire me for my first summer law job, was demanding without being demeaning, and he modeled how a true gentleman behaves.  When I worked for his firm in the summer of (gasp!) 1983, I saw his commitment to professionalism first-hand and began to model my own professional life after his.  I wish I could find his book, A Baker's Dozen of Torts, somewhere, because I lost my copy and I sure loved that book.

Harold Hyman scared me to death at Rice.  He had an imposing presence and a booming voice, and his face reminded me of a real-life Sam the Eagle.  He's also the first person I told about my getting into Stanford, and I remember him coming out from behind his desk to congratulate me.  When Jeff & I came back to Houston in 2000, Harold and Ferne became our fast friends.

All of these folks contributed to my love of learning (which actually started with my mom and dad--there were more books in our house, and more time spent reading them, than I ever noticed in any of my friends' homes).  I owe them big.

Scott Bovitz ROCKS! (As does the Bovitz-Spitzer law firm....)

So I'm bugging my friends for some samples of stay relief motions to effect setoffs and for samples of objections to exemptions, and Scott Bovitz (one stylin' dude, BTW--see here) calls me to direct me to his portal (here).  That portal has all sorts of handy-dandy links, like the one to his law firm (here), which in turn led me to some form links for the Central District of California.  Thanks, Scott!

And, for the rest of my buddies who might have some such forms (hint, hint, folks like Marc, Billy, and others....), please let me know if you have some exemplars I can use.  I'm doing a pro bono representation of a creditor (Stop laughing! Creditors need love, too!), and I could use the help.  Thanks!

Shout-outs for new law professors

Thanks to my buddy Tim Zinnecker for mentioning the advice I've given to "newbie" law profs (see here), and kudos to my buddy Jeff Lipshaw (and his co-authors, Brandon Denning and Marcia McCormick) for their forthcoming ABA book, Becoming a Law Professor: A Candidate's Guide (see here).  Brian Leiter mentioned this book on his blog today (see here). 

I'd call today a good day for law professors.

Newest guilty pleasure: everything "Jen Lancaster-y"

First, I picked up Bitter is the New Black.  Loved it.  Then I went straight to a Jen Lancaster trifecta:  Bright Lights, Big Ass; Such a Pretty Fat (with the world's best descriptions of working out w/trainers; and, like her, I too now have my own "strongs," thanks to my own trainer--our buddy Jeff Monroe); and Pretty in Plaid.  Loved 'em.  Now I'm reading My Fair Lazy and the Jen Lancaster blog, Jennsylvania.  I really like her snarky sense of humor and her way with descriptions. 

I know, I know.  Law professors are supposed to read highfalutin things in the summer.   Nope.  At least, not me.  Yes, I read stuff for the articles/books I'm doing; yes, I read other people's articles, especially when I've been asked to do a tenure review.  But for fun, I read things that take me out of my normal routine.

Now, back to my fun summer reads.  If you want to follow down the Jen Lancaster path, start w/Bitter is the New Black and go from there.

Billing judgment matters.

As I was reading this morning's Above the Law post about a federal court cutting legal fees because the law firm requesting fees failed to use good "billing judgment" (see here), I felt particularly vindicated by the Court's discussion of reasonableness.  I've been focusing on issues about legal fees lately (see here), and I think that it's much easier to rack up high fees and expenses when you're assuming that someone other than your client will be footing the bill.

Check out this language from the Court's opinion, which you can download here, thanks (again) to Above the Law:

The Court recognizes that the work performed on researching, drafting, and arguing the preliminary injunction motion provided important roadmap for Plaintiff with respect to its strategy in pursuing this litigation. However, spending almost 420 hours, which equates to almost 53 full work days7, on drafting and defending a preliminary injunction motion is unreasonable in light of Plaintiff’s counsel’s familiarity with the disputed issues. For the same reasons, spending approximately 50 hours on drafting and revising 11-page supplemental declarations and expending significant number of hours on post-Complaint research and preparation appear unreasonable to the Court.

(Opinion at 16.)  The opinion continues with a reduction, not just of fees, but of expenses as well:

Having considered the invoices submitted by Plaintiff and objections raised by Defendant, the Court finds that some of the expenses incurred by these Signature personnel were unnecessary and unreasonable. For example, it is difficult for the Court to believe, and Plaintiff does not explain how, that the faxing or internet charges incurred at the Westin, frequent “entertainment” charges in addition to meals, numerous first class plane tickets, limousine rides or pick-up service to and from the airport, and approximately $400 nightly stays at Hyatt were necessary and reasonable costs related to this litigation when cheaper more reasonable options were at the witnesses’ disposal. 

(Opinion at 36.)

When a lawyer speaks directly with a client about a high bill, there's that moment when the client is likely to ask about the reasons behind some of the charges.  When a lawyer doesn't have to look the client in the eye, so to speak, it's easier to lose track of what a "reasonable" fee or expense should be.

Reason number n why Andy Morriss and Bill Henderson rock.

Over at the Legal Profession Blog, Bill Henderson has posted an explanation of what it would take for Stanford Law School to overtake Yale in the U.S. News rankings (see here).  In this post, Bill explains that he and Andy Morriss create an annual simulation model of those rankings, and that this model has helped them figure out what Stanford would have to do in order to become #1 in the rankings.  The price tag for becoming #1?  Somewhere between $350 million and $1.8 billion.

Bill's conclusion?  No one could say it better:

The legal profession, especially our students, have some big problems at the moment.  And society's are even larger.  The best law school is one that prepares its students to solve these problems.  This requires a careful balance of innovative teaching and scholarship.  The U.S. News rankings don't capture these metrics.  In fact, they obscure them and create incentives for truly destructive behavior.  By and large the deans are trapped.  From my own perspective, I don't think even one law school in the US News Tier 1 has reached even 10% of its potential to educate and solve problems.  Too many one-professor silos.  Too much ego.

I am sorry to moralize.  But someone needed to say it.  Let's focus on some problems worth solving.  At the end of the day, it will be worth it.

Bill, I'm glad you said it.  BRAVO.