Tag Archive: Personal Thoughts

New Fellow of the COLPM

The College of Law Practice Management met this past week to welcome 18 new inductees as Fellows of the College. Carolyn Elefant, one of the inductees, is shown here with Ed who was pleased to support her entry into the College.

 


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Does the ABA have a copyright on its opinions?

The ABA likes to believe that its ethics opinions carry the weight of law. If that be the case, and if ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating the law, how can one know the law if it’s not disclosed?  That would be like saying that 35 miles per hour is the maximum speed limit, but not telling anyone about the limit. In fact, speed limits are written into the Vehicle Code and posted on the streets. Shouldn’t there be the same disclosure required of the ABA?

By attempting to copyright its opinions, and thereby restricting their distribution, it seems the ABA doesn’t think so. But, then, I guess the ABA is "super" law.  See more. 

 


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Language is Everything

For growth and expansion, there are two philosophies:

               Trail your growth (conservative), or

               Hire for the future (confident and assertive)

For troubled times, there are two philosophies:

               Slow to hire

               Quick to fire

 Lawyers should do only two things:

               Market for new business:

                              Only they know if they want to represent the prospect

                              Only they know if they’re competent to handle the matter

               Lawyering

                              Only the lawyer is licensed by the state to practice

All else can and should be handled by others


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Pizza Shop Owner Talk About Entitlement

In a recent display of enthusiasm, pizza shop owner, Scott Van Duzer, gave President Obama a bear hug when the President visited his shop on a Florida campaign tour. The visit and the ensuing bear hug provided quite a spectacle. After all, how could the secret service have permitted this? But, both the owner and the President seemed to enjoy the moment. 

What impressed me more was the interview of the shop owner. He said, in response to a question about whether he feels that Obama has let the country down, “The bottom line is this: I own a small business. I take accountability for my business. I’m not looking to blame the government. And if people had the same mentality of taking care of their own businesses instead of looking to blame somebody when things are a little bad—just tightening things up and doing the best they can—I think we’d be better off that way, too. The whole world is not in a good place right now, and I’m not looking to blame someone. I think that’s the problem. We’re looking more so to blame him for our misfortunes.” 

In other words, we’re not “entitled” to a particular way of life; we have to work to achieve our success; and we are accountable to ourselves … neither the government nor anyone else has “done it to us.”  Blaming someone else merely allows us to feel like a victim.  We do have power and control over our own lives to a far greater degree than we admit.

By analogy, in a show the other day, Katie Courac talked to two teenagers who were bullied. Their common characteristic was that they refused to feel like a victim. They remained upright and confronted their attackers. Their stories provided an interesting perspective

Can we use help? Absolutely. Do we need rules of the road to assure that we have a level playing field? I believe so, but that’s my bias. Should the government provide us with help? Before you answer this question, read the Time Magazine article by Jeremy Styron to understand how the government actually is in our daily lives, more than we know, more than we care to admit, providing us with material assistance just to get through our normal day’s routine. 

But, without the accountability to ourselves, without rules that apply to all, equally, we go nowhere. Thank you, Mr. Pizza Shop Owner, for putting entrepreneurship and small business in the proper perspective.



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What kind of lawyer are you?

Oftentimes, especially in the family law environment (but also in other matters), our emotions control us to the point of ignoring reality. We seek to hurt the other party to the litigation through our attorneys. And, far too often, our attorneys are willing accomplices.

As the attorney, what control do you have over your client? Do you perceive yourself as the master of the ship, or the mouthpiece … do you consider yourself the advocate for the best interests of your client or the alter ego of your client.

Marlo Van Oorschot, as an outstanding family lawyer in Southern California, this week puts another spin on this question, asking whether you’re a surgeon or a gangster.


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9-11-01 A Remembrance

On this date, 11 years ago, many of our readers suffered losses, both personal and physical. From these losses, a number of my clients gathered with me over the following two years to create Disaster Preparedness & Recovery Planning for Law Firms,  intended to deal in the future with catastrophes such as this to become and stay prepared for the future. 

This note is just a moment to pause to give remembrance for those losses, to express the solidarity of our readers and to provide mutual support in time of need.

 


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Fact checkers are needed

Fact checking should be the backbone of every lawyer. I’m wondering why so many politicians, many of whom are lawyers, fail to fact check, or if they do fact check, fail to tell the full truth in their assertions.

Below is a list of "fact checkers" concerning recent assertions by politicians. Knowing that no political group is immune from "truth" distortions, we’ll see what the Dem list looks like after their convention. We’ll see if the distortions/lies are about the same issues.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/…arter-comments/

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert…small-dumb-lies

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-575036…ain;contentBody

http://www.care2.com/causes/top-5-worst-li…-ryan-told.html

http://globalgrind.com/news/paul-ryan-rnc-…ntion-lies-list

Clint Eastwood says lawyers shouldn’t be president in reference to Obama, but Romney is a lawyer as well. And as a profession, lawyers have made the greatest contribution to this country. It’s truly sad when we as voters cannot rely as factual what is being said and then focus on the issues and values of each perspective. Can we get back to what is truly important?


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