Bill Henderson is right--again.

See his latest op-ed on the changes in law practice economics and business models here.

Some thoughts on reasonable attorney fees.

The juxtaposition of two articles this morning caught my eye.  This morning's Wall Street Journal's article, The Law Firm Business Model Is Dying, reminded me of Big But Brittle, the must-read article by Bernie Burk & Dave McGowan.  (Bernie & Dave's article is much better at discussing the nuances of the changes affecting BigLaw; the WSJ piece is just about lawyer deregulation.)  The other is a New York Times Dealbook piece by Andrew Ross Sorkin:  Madoff Case Is Paying Off for Trustee ($850 an Hour).  Here's the quote in that article that caught my eye:

In a particularly caustic exchange in court last year, Judge Rakoff, upon seeing a group of lawyers enter the courtroom on behalf of the trustee, said: “Can I ask a question, which is, since the trustee’s fees come out of the funds that otherwise would be available for other purposes, why are there four attorneys from the trustee here in court today?”

When the lead lawyer responded that he might need to consult with his colleagues during his argument, Judge Rakoff shot back sarcastically: “If it turns out you give your argument without needing to consult with them, of course, you and your firm won’t charge for their appearance today.”

The lawyer replied: “I, your Honor, am not going to make any promises.”

The fact that these two pieces came out today is just a coincidence, but the backstory on both is that lawyers who assume that their way of doing business will continue indefinitely are in for a shock.

In terms of the Madoff case, I'm a firm believer that Irving Pickard is doing a good job and is worth his hourly rate.  Not every legal theory will work when applied to a particular set of facts, but he's doing his best to get some significant recovery for Madoff's victims. 

But Judge Rakoff is right, too:  just because a law firm can bring several people to a hearing doesn't mean that it should.  The problem of "staffing balance" is the tension between representing a fiduciary (and the concomitant desire to leave no stone unturned, in order to fulfill the fiduciary's duties) and the question of who ends up paying the bills for that representation.  The more diffuse the responsibility is for paying those bills, the less opportunity there is for the client to say, "let's do this but no more than this."

The problem is particularly acute in large chapter 11 bankruptcies, but that's not the only situation in which the problem occurs.  (See here and here for some of my thoughts on staffing balance.)

We train lawyers to be risk-averse.  Risk-averse people are prone to making sure that all of their bases are covered.  That means that lawyers will want to bring everyone to a hearing who might possibly have something to contribute, "just in case."  But with new technologies around to let lawyers call in to hearings, or to be on cell-phone standby, there are ways to trim those bills.  If the lawyers would be willing to move to those technologies but for court rules that interfere (such as prohibiting cell phones in courtrooms), then courts need to rethink their rules.  And if the lawyers are behaving responsibly about who they bring to hearings, then I can see giving them the benefit of the doubt in close cases.

But the most important thing is for the lawyers to communicate their reasons for their staffing choices to the court.  Waiting until a court starts making comments in public about the staffing choices creates the risk that a court will find those staffing choices unreasonable per se. 

There are a couple of ways to communicate staffing choices to the court.  One is explicit:  "Your Honor, with me today is Attorney X (who will cover [single issue]), Attorney Y (who will cover [different issue]), and Attorney Z (who is responsible for helping me with today's overall hearing because [reason])."  Another is by setting benchmarks in advance, with rebuttable presumptions about how many attorneys should be billing for a given task.

Communication is key.  Without such communication, lawyers will be judged in hindsight about the reasonableness of their actions. Whether the client is paying close attention to the bills or is merely an amalgam of interests that--by definition--will not pay close attention to the bills, there are too many pressures on the practice of law to let law firms bill without explaining their staffing choices to someone (the client or the court).

Remembering Ron Bliss.

On this Memorial Day, we all have particular people we remember.  Jeff and I remember Ron Bliss, as well as other friends who served. 

We still miss dinners with Ron and Charlene--great conversations, great wine, lots of laughter.

Charlene, our thoughts are with you today.

An important opinion piece for Memorial Day.

Tom Manion's piece in the Wall Street Journal (here) is exceptionally moving, and it's a must-read for Memorial Day.

We quite literally can never repay the debt that we owe our troops.  But we owe it to them to recognize their bravery and sacrifice, not just on Memorial Day, but every day.

A new chapter.

Yesterday afternoon, UNLV's President announced that John White, our law school's dean, would be UNLV's next provost.  We will be doing a dean search this coming year, but in the meantime, I'll be our school's Interim Dean, with the transition happening mid-summer.  Here's what I sent to our community: 

Dear Boyd Community,

I know that we all wish Dean White well in his new position as UNLV's next Executive Vice President and Provost.  He has done many wonderful things for our school:  preserving our financial stability during one of the worst recessions in history, adding talented faculty and staff members to our already strong ranks, and helping to guide us through a rethinking of our first-year curriculum. 

I'm happy to be serving as Interim Dean as we search for our next permanent dean.  We are at a pivotal point in legal education.  Legal practice has changed dramatically, and we are not likely to see a return to the old approaches to practicing law.  Our students will be looking to us to help them find a way to adapt to this "new normal."  We need to continue to provide our students with the right mix of analytical and communication skills, a deep understanding of substantive law, and an ability to use law as one way--but not the only way--to solve complicated problems.  We also need to think creatively about how to adapt our strengths in this changing environment.

This year will be busy for us.  In addition to the dean search, we'll have the ABA site inspection and will embark on our next strategic plan.  For us to be able to make informed decisions, we'll need to do a fair amount of research on legal education and the practice of law.  The good news is that we have a strong and growing alumni base and a significant amount of goodwill in the legal community.  I'm sure that we will be able to tap the knowledge of our friends near and far to help us in our decision-making.

It's an honor for me to serve our school in this capacity.  We have a remarkable school, filled with talented, engaged, and collegial people.  Here's to preserving the best of what we have and finding even more ways to be outstanding.

It is an honor, and I think of Boyd as a very special (strong school and collegial environment) place. 

Funny column to start the week.

From today's WSJ (here).

Grab-bag of great essays.

See Augusten Burroughs's WSJ piece, How to Live Unhappily Ever After (here); this one on When the Troops Were Very Young (here); and the book review of "If You Were Only White" (here). 

Woof out for Kaitlin!

Our friends Tommy and Dee-Dee have a wonderful granddaughter named Kaitlin.  Kaitlin is facing a serious medical condition with grace and bravery.  If you'd like to send all three of them some good vibes, please click here to upload a picture of your pet "woofing" for Kaitlin.

Here are some of ours: 

If you look closely at the top one, you'll see how we bribed the girls to stay still for a little bit.

R.I.P., Judge Paskay.

A remarkable man.  I'll miss him. 

Do I really expect some law schools to close in the next few years? Yes. Yes, I do.

In this cross-post on our Law School Survival Manual blog, I attempt to clarify that--although the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy is bleak--it's not quite as bad as I glibly said it was on the Bloomberg Law podcast.  But it is bad, and something has to give.  As I indicated in my most recent essay about legal education (here), some schools aren't going to be able to justify their continued existence.  Even some very good schools are tightening their belts (see here).

And the job market for most lawyers is shrinking, not expanding.  Check out this Dealbook Q&A (here) with Michael Trotter.  His predictions are sobering.

When you combine the trends in law jobs with the increasing cost of attending law school (check out one of my favorite blogs, The Legal Whiteboard)--and you combine those two things with the fact that most student loans are non-dischargeable--you get a lot of law deans who are facing a lot of sleepless nights.  Law professors should also be nervous, because tenure won't protect them from being laid off when their law schools close. 

It's time to rethink what we mean when we talk about legal education.  That's a complex subject, but it's crucial that law professors have honest, non-turfy, non-pointy-headed-academic discussions about what we're doing and what we should be doing.

Oh, and my Buck Rogers reference in the interview?  That's from one of my favorite movies, The Right Stuff.  Here's the quote (from the imdb.com site):

Gordon Cooper: You boys know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.
Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. 

Yep.  No tuition, no school.  No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Probably not a relative,* but a really cool guy. RIP, Bernard Rapoport.

Here's the New York Times obituary of Bernard Rapoport.


*Of course, theoretically, all Rapoports are related....

Congrats to my buddy Sherri Wattenbarger!

This article tickled the heck out of me.

Especially the observations about academia--see here.

More shameless self-promotion: my article on fees in chapter 11 cases is out.

You can download it here.

I loved the blog The Legal Whiteboard even before . . .

Jeff Lipshaw so kindly posted about my latest piece (here).  Thanks, Jeff!

Shameless self-promotion: my most recent article about legal education.

Available at SSRN (here).

Titanic.

It will be 100 years ago this coming weekend, and there are so many news stories about Titanic that I hardly know where to begin.  But we can start here, here, here, and here.

Wow.

Hear the interview of a Titanic survivor here.

R.I.P. Gary Hartman

I just heard about Gary Hartman's passing (here) and my heart goes out to Susan and the rest of his family and friends. 

Gary was one of the first people I met at UHLC, and what I loved most about him was his ability to tell me the truth, even when he knew I wasn't going to like hearing it.  He cared passionately about the school and his colleagues. 

He was especially good during emergencies.  In the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison, when Houston was hard-hit and our law school was among the hardest-hit, he was there, on the ground, making sure that things were working and solving the problems that come with every natural disaster.  But for the work of Gary and a few others, not only would we not have had a physical site for the school but we would also not have had a way of communicating with each other.  Many people might have been discouraged to the point of giving up, but Gary used his creativity and his wicked sense of humor (the obituary says that better than I ever could) to keep up morale and give us perspective.

Deans have very few people whom they can trust, and few in whom they can confide.  Gary was a trusted confidante.  For those who knew him, their lives were the better for it.  R.I.P., Gary.

Blaming the wrong person.

As I'm reading this story, I'm getting deja vu.  Some students at U Conn's law school somehow believe that the soon-to-be-former dean caused a drop in U Conn's rankings.  How, exactly, would he have done that?  Let's guess:

1.  He called up future employers and told them not to hire U Conn graduates.
2.  He told his dean of admissions to pick some applicants on the basis of things other than UGPA and LSAT.
3.  He conspired with the 779 other people receiving the academic reputation survey to make sure that U Conn was not rated as highly as, say, Yale.  He also made sure that everyone who received the USNWR survey actually returned it.
4.  Ditto with the judges, lawyers, and law firms ranking the schools.
5.  And he cratered the economy, which dried up budgets and donations as if they were so many plums in direct sun in Death Valley.

The problem with the rankings is that deans have horrible choices--and very little power.  They could lie about their statistics.  They could make choices solely designed to maximize their USNWR rankings, without regard to any other effect those choices could have on the school.   Or they can work with their team to run the best school possible with the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and budgets that they have or could reasonably be expected to get.

If reputation is 40% of the score, then deans also have to wrestle with the halo effect, which will give some schools more of a bump than they might otherwise deserve.  ("School X must be better than School Y, because School X has been ranked more highly than School Y for years.")  Deans also have to wrestle with the fact that the other 194 schools being ranked aren't staying static, either. 

So when I read about Dean Paul stepping down, I think that he's being scapegoated.  U Conn students, remember this:  at some point, each of you may be in a position with a lot of responsibility but not a lot of power to effect change.  You'll be blamed for things that are not your fault.  And you'll feel just as frustrated as Dean Paul feels now.

Some very intelligent comments about public discourse.

See Jon Ralston's opinion (here) and David Brooks's opinion (here).

The news article that a lawyer does not want to see when she's having her morning coffee.

See here.  Shades of Arthur Andersen's shredding scandal.  Having a rogue manager (assuming that's what happened) shred documents, counter to attorney instructions, is one of a lawyer's worst nightmares.

Yet another reason why my buddy Bernie Burk is cool (and funny).

See here.

Kvelling about the review of Randy Gordon's book.

One of my buddies, Randy Gordon, has just gotten a really nice review of his really good book called Rehumanizing Law: A Theory of Law and Democracy.  The review in Harvard Law Review said, in part:

Not only does Rehumanizing Law provide an insightful analysis of narrative both within and without the law, but the book, which is peppered with discussions and excerpts of famous cases, poems, novels, and plays, also often proves amusing, enriching, and entertaining.

Not only is Randy a double-Ph.D., but he's an exceptionally good lawyer, too.  Now you know why I'm kvelling.

Playing through the pain.

Great essay in the Wall Street Journal (here).

Bloomberg Law on the 10 greatest legal movie lines.

See here.  I feel very self-actualized.  I use nine of these movies when I talk about lawyers in pop culture, and I use five of the same clips that Bloomberg Law used.  Enjoy.

A hearty congrats to Omar Alaniz!

My buddy Eric Van Horn just sent me links to Omar's latest honor (see here and here).  Omar has just been given the ABA Young Lawyers Division National Outstanding Young Lawyer Award.

Totally deserving, Omar!  BRAVO!

Who can't love an op-ed piece about corporate greed that refers to Nozick?

See the Financial Times piece by John Kay here.

New York Times has a nice salute to John Glenn.

See here.  I'd love to see us return to that feeling of possibility that NASA inspired:  that we would work hard to place a human in a place so far away that it was just a ball of reflected light in the night sky.  Bravo, NASA, and thank you, John Glenn.

Just another example of my buddy Jeff Silver's coolness factor.

See here.

Dear Programmers of Customer Service Lines:

I have now spent a collective 47 minutes on two different companies' customer service lines, and I have some suggestions for you.

1.  Come up with a way to get me to a human in under five minutes.  If you do not, then rest assured that I will press the numerical equivalent of "unconscionably bad" on the customer service survey that you ask me to answer after the call.

2.  Get me to the right place on your menu with clear directions.  Don't send me into a cascading progression of people who have no idea what I need to do.  If you get this step wrong, rest assured that I will press the numerical equivalent of "unconscionably bad" on the customer service survey that you ask me to answer after the call.

3. Give me some way of reaching someone live before cycling into an endless loop of announcements.  If you do not, then rest assured that I will press the numerical equivalent of "unconscionably bad" on the customer service survey that you ask me to answer after the call.

4.  After I evaluate your customer service, do not call me back to find out what you did wrong and leave me a message with a general phone number and no extension to reach a specific person.  If you get this step wrong, rest assured that I will blog about how annoyed I am. And I will name names.

I'm talking to you, ING, and I'm also talking to you, Ohio State HR.

Brent Newton's newest article.

The always interesting Brent Newton has just posted this article (here) about legal education.  Although I don't agree with everything he's said, he sure has moved the discussion forward (and made it more fun to discuss).  It's a must-read.

In other news, Penn State's law review took my forthcoming piece on legal education, so as soon as it's published, I'll post a link to it.

UPDATE:  Bill Henderson's comments about the article are here, and Bill's always another "must read" of mine.

Funny correspondence.

My buddy Joey Maldonado clued me in to this response to a cease-and-desist letter (here).  Classic.

Lesson?  Sometimes asking nicely is a better idea than sending a "stop it" letter.

IP people: BUY THIS BOOK!

My colleague Marketa Trimble just published her dissertation with Oxford University Press (here).  Not only does this book embody her accomplishment for her SECOND doctoral degree, it puts her at the forefront of transnational IP issues.  (And she's nice!) 

This book belongs in your office if you're an IP person.  Enjoy!

Some good ideas about the mortgage crisis.

See here and here.

Classic--and true.

From today's WSJ:  Jason Gay's 27 Rules of Conquering the Gym (here).

Reason number "n+1" why Dan Rodriguez is so cool.

See here (hat tip to Brian Leiter) and here.

Shameless and greedy request.

If you have time and the inclination, could you please click here and "like" this picture?  It's not the most flattering for us, but if we get the most "likes," then I get five free entries in this year's comp.  Many thanks!

Why I could be a good director of a public company.

Today's WSJ offers some thoughts on why there aren't more female directors (here).  As I say over at one of my other blogs (here), there are some frustrating implications of that issue.  But here's why I might be useful to some companies:

1. I've actually run two organizations.  They were both educational institutions (I served as the dean of two law schools, the University of Nebraska College of Law and the University of Houston Law Center), not for-profit public companies, but I do have more than an inkling of the challenges facing companies that have to juggle changes in demand and tight workforce restrictions.)
2. I study the behavior of organizations.  OK, I'm usually studying them because they're dysfunctional, but still, I am paying attention to how humans behave in organizations.
3. I study ethics.
4. I understand companies that have to operate in tough financial circumstances.  That doesn't mean that I'm interested only in companies that have filed or are considering filing for bankruptcy protection, but it's fair to say that I could be useful for those types of companies.*

So if you know a company that's looking for more women, and you're comfortable suggesting me as a candidate, I'm interested in talking.

* Of course, if Disney's board ever comes calling, I've loved that company since, well, I was a kid.

R.I.P. Larry Ribstein.

Saw Brian Leiter's blog this morning (here) and was saddened to hear about Larry's passing.  Not only was he exceptionally smart and creative, but he seemed like a very nice person.  I'll miss reading his work, and my heart goes out to his friends and family.

Customer service feedback of the day.

How many of you have seen Matilda at the Algonquin?

Whether you have or haven't, check out this N.Y. Times story on Matilda's new limitations on roaming (here). 

I read the story to Shadow, who simply sniffed and wandered off.  Grace, on the other hand, didn't even pause to hear the news.

Got to love an essay called "Happy Hanukkah, Marines!"

It's in the Wall Street Journal (here).  Semper Fi and gut yontiff!

Bloomberg Law podcast on bankruptcy ethics.

Here.  Thanks to Bill Rochelle and Lee Pacchia for inviting me to do one of their podcasts.

Newest guilty pleasure.

Courtesy of my buddy Turtle Brennen (here).

BRAVO TO SCOTT CHASE!!!

My buddy Scott Chase just received recognition for his dedicated community service.  Here's the announcement from the DAYL Foundation.  Scott's being awarded this year's DAYL Foundation and DAYL Foundation Fellows' Award of Excellence for his extensive volunteer service.  CONGRATULATIONS!

AMENDMENT:  Harriet Miers is the keynote speaker.  Scott's the sole recipient of the award.

WSJ's "Report on the Recent Piggybanking Crisis"

Here.  Classic.

My hobby.

Thanks to Sergei Shapoval (Sergei's Dance Studio), I get to do things like this:  

 

Danny Sokol finds the best Chanukah songs this year.

See here.  CLASSIC.

We don't learn. Maybe we can't.

Today's WSJ article about the Olympus scandal (here) proves that we haven't learned anything, really, about avoiding corporate scandals.  Why?  Here are some possibilities:

__ People are inherently evil. 

Nah.  There are good people, and there are evil people.  But most of us fall somewhere in the middle, and it's the situations that we find ourselves in that will push us toward either good behavior or bad behavior.  So I have to reject that gloomy "people are just evil" explanation.

__ Smart people think that they can fix mistakes by covering them up.

Yep.  Ever since Watergate, we've known that the mistakes aren't nearly as bad for us as the cover-ups are, but we keep making the same "let's cover things up" mistake.  Heck, Vegas and other gaming centers are based on the idea that folks will chase their losses until they win again (and they usually don't win again).  But smart people keep thinking that they can outsmart the system, and that they won't get caught.  Will we learn from our mistakes? 

Based on the empirical data, I'm thinking that we won't.  (But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try.)

My bucket list, or why I want to win $250,000 in a lottery.

Everyone has a bucket list.   On mine?
__ Swimming with sharks?  Yep.  (Thanks to the Georgia Aquarium.)
__ Seeing a great white shark?  Missed it by two weeks, and still enjoyed our trip to the Monterey Aquarium.
__ Going down to Titanic in a submersible?  Doesn't look likely.  Today's New York Times story (here) prices the final year of trips at almost $60,000 each.  Nevada doesn't have a lottery; I'm no good at video poker or any other type of gaming; and no one's volunteering to sponsor a trip for me, so I have a feeling that this bucket-list trip is out of my league.  Well, at least there's the Big Piece in Luxor's Titanic exhibit.  That'll have to do.

Yep, Enron's bankruptcy began 10 years ago.

See Loren Steffy's column here for a good perspective.

Jack Ayer is right about (among other things) cell phones and cats.

See here.

Shameless groveling for free dance competition entries.

The folks who own the Vegas Open Dance Challenge are having a photo contest, and the pic with the most likes on it gets some free entries.

So I'm shamelessly asking all of my friends (and their friends) to please click on this link here and "like" my picture.  Thanks so much!

Enron in retrospective.

BBC Radio 5 Live's Wake Up To Money asked me a bit about Enron, 10 years later (interview starts around minute 27:30), or click here.

My Dad and my buddy Gus Schill pointed me to the Houston Chronicle's Enron retrospective:  see here, here, and Fuel Fix's compilation, here.  Some of my takes are here, here (Colin Marks and I wrote this one), here, and here.  And the books that Bala Dharan, Jeff (yep, my Jeff) Van Niel, and I did:  here and here.

Short version of my take on things, 10 years later?  Two things:  those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and humans don't seem to be able to learn from history, at least where their own cognition is concerned.

*SNORK* (the sound of snorting laughter)

See here. Hat tips to Brazen and Tenured and The Faculty Lounge.

Why giving up my Droid X was worth over a thousand dollars to me.

I thought I was smart. I thought I was a rebel. I thought that I could avoid going all-in on Apple products. I thought that having a phone that linked to my Gmail account and all of its contacts would be cool and convenient.


Nope.


I had a Droid X for all of six months before I had a hissy fit yesterday. The Droid had just gotten on my last nerve.


Oh, there were signs. Like any bad relationship, there were signs. Lotus Notes didn't like Droids. Installing Lotus Notes took over an hour, and after I updated my Droid OS, Lotus Notes went on the fritz. Not even the best minds at UNLV's Office of Information Technology (and trust me, there are very smart people working at OIT) could figure out what was wrong. I almost gave up right there, but I stuck with my Droid.


I stuck with my Droid even though its autocorrect feature would go haywire from time to time. I stuck with my Droid even though its browser was slow. I stuck with my Droid even though Android Market didn't have as many cool apps.


I was stubborn.  So what changed my mind? Sheer, boundless stupidity.


I don't know why the Droid X stopped getting Gmail (its raison d'être, after all, right?) and started giving me messages telling me that Google (yes, Google) didn't have a trusted security certificate. I did a Google search (on my iMac) to find out what the various Gmail errors meant, and I saw page after page listing the newest Gmail/Droid X errors. 


Strike one.


When I called Verizon Wireless, the tech rep told me that there were no such problems.


Strike two.


Then he told me that I'd have to do a hard reset, which would mean having to reinstall everything, including Lotus Notes.


Strike three.


So I called around and found one Apple store that had a few iPhone 4s models remaining. I hightailed it over there and got the phone. 


Because I'd had the Droid for under a year, I had to pay full price (gasp!) for a 64GB iPhone 4s, but here's the thing:  the in-store setup, including a humongous contact list transfer, took around 15 minutes, and the OIT Lotus Notes setup (including downloading the Lotus Notes app) took around 10 minutes. Canceling my second phone line at Verizon took about 10 minutes and cost me $280, but I'll save $40/month by not having a second phone line.


And let's face it: the iPhone's just better. Its keyboard is easier to use. Its autocorrect feature is pretty smart. The phone feels better in my hand. And Siri? Ah, Siri has the right amount of competence and whimsy.



So what will I do with the Droid X now? Let's just say that there's a 230-gr. hollow-point with the Droid's name on it, and one happy husband who's been trying to find a way to lure me to the shooting range.

We found it. Wait for the video.

Newest "guilty pleasure" blog--update.

See here.  Hat tip to Brian Leiter.

UPDATE:  From my buddy George Connelly:  In my humble opinion, the "feel good" aspects of lower and higher education have created at least 2 generations of students who do not know how to spell, punctuate, or write.  And so long as grade inflation exists in the schools, that will continue.

From the sharp eyes of my buddy Bruce Quinn.

Bruce forwarded this article on cat agility (here) to me today. Am now reading the article to Grace and Shadow, who don't seem to have any competitive bones in their bodies.

Congress gave medals to four of my heroes.

See here.  Then read Homer Hickam's op-ed (here). 

Why I love Steve Lubben's work, part n.

See his two recent Dealbook columns, linked in this post at Credit Slips.

Why military veterans make great students.

See today's New York Times story here.

A very smart bit of advice for college football fans.

See here.  Hat tip to Scott Unger.

GoDaddy's 236th birthday tribute to the Marines, and a list of a few of my favorite former Marines.

GoDaddy (which I use) has just impressed me even more (here).  And here's a listing of some of my favorite former Marines (in addition to Jeff Van Niel, Jon Van Niel, and George Van Niel):

• Racehorse Haynes
• Joe Reynolds
• Harold Hyman
• David Polyansky
• Joe Jamail

Thank you all for your amazing service to our country, and for all the ways that you bring honor to everything that you do.

Poignant articles on the housing crisis.

In today's New York Times (here).

Happy birthday to my beloved Marine Corps!

What can I say?  I have friends in pretty much every branch of the service (although I have no Coast Guard friends yet), and I'm in awe of how they put themselves on the line every single day, without even asking us for simple thanks.

And I love, absolutely love, the Marine Corps.  The Corps was founded on 10 November 1775.  My husband's a former Marine.  My father-in-law is a former Marine.  My brother-in-law is a former Marine.*

Every single day, I read about someone who's fairly young and who has stepped up to the plate, either on foreign soil or here at home.  I marvel at their ability to lead by example.  So:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARINES! 


* My sister-in-law retired not terribly long ago from the Air Force, and Jeff's late mother was in the Army.  I married into a wonderful military family.

Giving kudos (and buying ice cream) for 'fessing up to mistakes.

I've been meaning to post a link to this New York Times story about how to encourage learning from mistakes (here) for a while.  The gist is that it's better to bring mistakes out into the open and treat them as a learning opportunity (by having the mistake-maker buy ice cream for everyone) than it is to yell at the mistake-maker in private.  I love that idea.  It lessens the angst from having made a mistake and acknowledges the mistake in a positive way.

Dear Ulta.com:

If you're going to send me a $15 gift card to make up for messing up a prior order, perhaps that gift card should actually work on a subsequent order.  Epic (mini)fail.

Here's to contractions.

Loved John Kang's post over at The Faculty Lounge (here).  I've been known to yank (invited) pieces from journals when they mess too much with my writing style.  We seem to have been giving law students the notion that only stuffy writing is good writing.  We need to remind them that clear writing is good writing, and that one doesn't have to be overly formal to be a good writer.  My point when I yank an article is that the editors' names aren't going on the author byline, and that I've earned the right to write in my own voice.*

So here's to John Kang's piece!

* Am I a diva?  Yes.  Yes, I am.  But at least I'm a self-aware diva.

Let's keep watching the Gupta insider trading case.

Today's Wall Street Journal describes the nuanced issues in this case (here).

My take?  As long as boards are composed of people who frequently work with each other and who have more similarities than differences, there's no one there equipped to ask "why are we doing this?"  Without someone asking the questions, there's no reason for boards to change behavior.

Welcome back, Jack the Norwegian Forest Cat!

See here.

Enron rap--a new classic.

Hat tip to Jackie Benson (who happens to be exceptionally smart, talented, and fun to know) and Above the Law.  You can listen to it here.  Click on Daniel Sokol's blog (here) for the text of the full rap.

Thank you, LexisNexis (and voters)!

Here's the full announcement and list of honorees.  I love a lot of the blogs on this list (and on the original list), and I'm very grateful to be included.

To vote for the Top Business Law Blog of the Year, click here.  You've got to be registered to vote.  If you haven't previously registered, follow this link to create a new registration or use your sign in credentials from your favorite social media site.   Once you are logged in, you can then VOTE by checking the box next to your favorite Business Law blog then submitting the results. Voting ends on November 5, 2011.

Thanks again!

Brian Leiter has it exactly right when it comes to faculty credentials.

See here.

Newest guilty pleasure: Draw a Stickman.

See here.  Stay with it a while.

Yes, sometimes I stay awake worrying about this issue.

See today's WSJ (here).

An amazing experience.

Thank you for this once-in-a-lifetime experience (here), Georgia Aquarium!

A don't-miss read over at The Faculty Lounge.

My buddy Bernie Burk's take (here) on the latest job news in yesterday's WSJ (here).  Given that I've just filed a court document bemoaning law firms' decisions to try to bill summer associate time in bankruptcy cases w/o a good explanation, and given that I'm going to talk about fees in bankruptcy this coming Thursday, this topic is near and dear to my heart.

Joe Nocera, Starbucks, Kickstarter, and us.

This morning's New York Times brought another great Joe Nocera column (here).  Starbucks's chairman is trying to develop a microfinance option for Starbucks customers, much like the Kickstarter site does for artists.  It's a great idea.  Count me in.

Great way to start the morning.

Hilarious.

Protests only make sense when they stand for something specific.

The current "occupy" protests remind me a lot of that great line in Network:  "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!"  But I find myself increasingly frustrated by the tenor of the protests, and not just because some of them have an anti-Semitic tenor.  (Financial protests that blame the Jews?  Shocker.) 

Of course, we're frustrated about the current economic climate.  We have friends and neighbors who are suffering from unemployment or, if they have jobs, they're facing reduced benefits and the risk of layoffs.  We have friends and neighbors who have lost homes or who are at risk of losing their homes.  We have friends and neighbors who can't afford their prescription medicines.  We see the pain in their eyes.

But where are the specific solutions in those "occupy" protests?  The great protests of the past involved specifics:  desegregation, an end to discrimination, equal rights. 

One of my favorite movies (yep, written by Aaron Sorkin) has this line:  "We've got serious problems, and we need serious people."  Hanging out in a group without having some notion of what action that group wants to take (or whether any of the proposals make sense) isn't a serious solution to a serious problem.  I'm with David Brooks on this one:  oversimplying the problem as 99 vs. 1 gets us nowhere (here).

Story of (former) lawyer's chutzpah.

See here.  I couldn't make up behavior like this if I tried.

See? I'm not the only one with a double life.

Here.  But how does she find dresses for $1,800? 

As if there weren't already a million reasons to read The Faculty Lounge.

Here's another one--Bernie Burk's going to blog there!

Shameless plug.

Each year, LexisNexis honors a select group of blogs that set the online standard for a given industry. I’ve just been told that this blog is one of the nominated candidates for the Top 25 Business Law Blogs of 2011, featured on the LexisNexis Corporate & Securities Community. (YAY!) If you're comfortable commenting about my blog (and there are TONS of great blogs on the site, so you could comment on a lot of 'em), then please click here.  Thanks! 

Congrats to my buddy Jennifer Carr!

Jennifer's paper, Providing Effective Feedback, was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for Law Educator: Courses, Materials & Teaching eJournal.  Yay, Jennifer! 

Failure can be a very, very good thing.

See here.

Hey, two of my Kickstarter projects are in the New York Times.

See here.  Special shout-outs to CheyAnna and the jellyfish tank.

Good job, Marines!

Today's New York Times reports that the Marines are now actively recruiting gays and lesbians (here).  My favorite paragraph of the story:

The Marines were the service most opposed to ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but they were the only one of five invited branches of the military to turn up with their recruiting table and chin-up bar at the center Tuesday morning. Although Marines pride themselves on being the most testosterone-fueled of the services, they also ferociously promote their view of themselves as the best. With the law now changed, the Marines appear determined to prove that they will be better than the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard in recruiting gay, lesbian and bisexual service members. 

Way to go, USMC!

The Noble-Martello family ROCKS.

See here.  We've been lucky enough to know them for a long time (but refuse to say how MANY years), and each of them is talent personified--and nice.  Yay in particular to Amelia!

Great post by Steve Lubben over at Credit Slips on venue & fees.

See here.

This blog tickles me.

Profanity alert, but see here.  Hat-tip to Above the Law.

I figured out this picture on Target's website.

The "(wink)" is for

• We don't have anything in stock.
• We've lost one of your orders.
• We're not going to send you your other order.
• Our customer service won't help.
• We don't freaking care if you're angry.

Seriously, what were the odds?

So I'm reading the Sunday paper (having gotten up early to drop a friend off at the airport), and I see this title in the local paper's Business section:  Deep in the Heart of Nevada.  (Online, the title is Jobs, weather have some Texans coming to Las Vegas--see here.)

I read this paragraph and then mopped up my spit-take:

"The town where we're from has a Walmart, a McDonald's and a couple of Mexican restaurants. It has a little shopping center with a Big Lots and a Dollar General. That's it," said Shannon Fleming, 28, who moved here with husband, Kevin, 33, and 7-year-old daughter, Amaya, from Orange, Texas, in early 2010.

Orange, Texas?  Um, that's where I'm from.  Hey, Flemings?  Welcome to Las Vegas!  We totally understand your point.

But just to be fair:  Houston is still a wonderful city.

The perfect juxtaposition of two articles today on the death penalty.

See here and here.  There are few things in life of which I'm unshakably sure.  The love of certain family members and friends is one such thing; the belief that there is such a thing as right and wrong (although I'm not always sure that it's possible to figure out which is which) is another; and the concept that humans make mistakes in judgment is a third.  So the idea that no one has ever been wrongfully executed is just plain foreign to me.

Personally, I like my leaders with a little more self-doubt and humility.

I've started a second blog (well, a third one, really).

Jeff and I have a blog for our Law School Survival Manual (here), and today, I started a blog called Corporate Scandal Watch (here).  (We've also reserved a blog for Law Firm Survival Manual for when it comes out, but that's a while away.)

Corporate Scandal Watch has a whopping single post for now, but thanks to our economy and human nature, there will be more.

Thank you, Cpl. Meyer.

See here.  Thanks, to, go to Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez and Capt. Swenson, among many others.

On this day in 1962.

When and where did JFK say this?  "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." 

Rice University, 9/12/62.

Ralston on 9/11.

I really liked Jon Ralston's column today (here).

What I want in a President (or a Senator, or a Congressperson).

One of the op-eds that I read this morning (here) got me thinking about what I want in a candidate for national office.*  I'm part of that vast center, neither too liberal nor too conservative.  I've toyed with both parties over the years, but the parties I knew growing up bear no relationship to the acrimonious and sanctimonious parties of today.  If politicians were still in kindergarten, they'd all be given "doesn't play well with others" grades.  But at least if they were in kindergarten, we could hope that they'd grow out of that problem.

So what do I want?  Here are the markers for my ideal candidate:

1. They're smart.  Smart people can learn things, and they're open to questioning their assumptions.  People with high IQs who aren't open to questioning their assumptions aren't smart.
2. They know their limitations.  Dirty Harry was right:  "A man's got to know his limitations."**  Not only should they know their limitations, they should surround themselves with people whose strengths fit precisely where the candidate's limitations are.  I worked for a Republican 9th Circuit judge.  We had very few things in common.  (Let's see:  we both went to law school.  We were both carbon-based life forms.  Later in life, I was a dean; he'd been a dean before working for the federal government.  That's about it.)  He liked choosing at least one law clerk whose ideas differed markedly from his, so that, as he put it, he could make sure that his decisions made sense.  He wanted me to poke holes in his analysis, and he rewarded me for doing so.  He was willing to buck his own predilections to get the law right.  Given that many of the more liberal judges back then weren't nearly as intellectually honest as he was, I was impressed by his dedication to justice.  
3. They don't believe their own hype.  People in power are surrounded by lackeys.  The level of kissing-up to which they're subjected is almost unlimited.  Being told that one is brilliant, handsome/beautiful, and wise every minute will tend to affect one's self-image.  It takes strength to realize that, like everyone else, they're humans with no superpowers.  I want my public servants to have some humility.
4. They're willing to walk away from the job rather than pander.  This one's tough.  I know that it's impossible to govern without being elected.  But with the extremists in both parties pushing for candidates and politicians to move farther left or farther right, as the case may be, at some point, the candidate or politician has to say, "enough."  Spending too much time campaigning at the cost of investing that time in governing doesn't impress me.

I don't know if we'll get candidates that meet my criteria.  I'd love to see them, but I doubt that the people who really could fit even this list of four qualities are going to take time from their productive lives to run.  We sure could use them, though.
_______________
* Of course, I'd like to see these same things in candidates for state and local offices, too.
**http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070355/quotes.