First the blog, then the web site, and finally the book. Jeremy Blachman has quite an operation!
Law firms, and especially large law firms, are very strange places. Combine driven, intelligent (mostly), eccentric people, big egos, big money, competition for partnership among associates and for share of income among partners, clients pressures, competition between firms, greed, …. I could go on. Having worked at three of these institutions (the-firm-formally-known-as Hale and Dorr, the-firm-formally-known-as-Howrey & Simon,and the firm still known as Choate, Hall & Stewart), I am not totally unfamiliar with them. Now, Jeremy Blachman, long-time author of the Anonymous Lawyer blog (which is very mordant and a bit humorous if taken in small bites), has written a soon-to-be released book, The Anonymous Lawyer.
In the manner of these things, the book is being promoted at an elaborate (and I do mean elaborate) web site which you can view by clicking here. In fact, I hope half as much work went into the book as went into the web site.
This is very funny stuff (the web site; I can’t comment on the book). Sadly, the picture it paints is one that many practitioners will find strikes uncomfortably close to home.
When a popular blogger/law firm associate gets fired by her firm, in this case mega-firm Reed Smith, she doesn’t just go gentle into that good night, as so many thousands of associates have done before her. Or silently, for that matter. Denise Howell, author of the popular Bag and Baggage blog (and coiner of the term “blawg”), discusses her experiences, motherhood, and her opportunities here.
Business Litigation Session. The July 17, 2006 issue of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has an article suggesting that some attorneys are agreeing in contracts that claims arising from those contracts must be filed in the Suffolk County Business Litigation Session (BLS). The article reports that Judge Allan Van Gestel, the presiding judge of the session, recently made public comments that, assuming the conditions and requirements of the session are satisfied, such clauses are likely to be enforced.
This certainly adds a new option to the forum selection issue, and, given some of the difficulties and hazards of litigating outside of the BLS, should be seriously considered by lawyers negotiating business agreements that fall within the rules permitting cases to be heard in that venue. For more details on those requirements, see here and here.
I’ve debated with myself whether to post this video of Joe Jamail, the Texas lawyer who won a 10 billion dollar verdict in the infamous (in the 1980s) Penzoil v. Texaco case. Of course, my colleagues, trouble makers that they are, encouraged me to publish this.
The background of this case, which was a cause celebre of major proportions at the time, is discussed here.
Old Joe got a whopping $1 billion contingent fee out of this case (which settled for $3 billion), resulting in much of the University of Texas Law School being beholden to him.
In any event, its a long way from the trenches of pre-trial discovery to the glory of a multi-billion dollar settlement. The miracles of the Internet now bring us a videotaped deposition by Mr. Jamail in this case. In most states, this deposition would result in court sanctions all around, but in Texas in the early ’80s, this kind of conduct seems to have been acceptable. Maybe it still is.
Up here in Boston, it would be pretty rare to see something like this. We’re very polite and circumspect here. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Probably good.
Jamail, whose back is to the camera (you can only see his left hand), is deposing an expert witness. The Texaco lawyers appear to be defending. Unfortunately, everyone is off camera except for the witness.
Lawyers: please don’t show this to your clients or expert witnesses when they ask you what a deposition is like.
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, held in London on June 22, 1897, was one of the grandest fetes the world has ever seen: 46,000 troops and 11 colonial prime ministers arrived from the four corners of the earth to pay homage to their sovereign. The event was as much a celebration of Victoria’s 60 years on the throne as it was of Britain’s superpower status. In 1897, Queen Victoria ruled over a quarter of the world’s population and a fifth of its territory, all connected by the latest marvel of British technology, the telegraph, and patrolled by the Royal Navy, which was larger than the next two navies put together. “The world took note,” says the historian Karl Meyer. The New York Times gushed: “We are a part … of the Greater Britain which seems so plainly destined to dominate this planet’.”
Click here to continue reading this Newsweek article, entitled “How Long Will America Lead the World?”
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