Chuck Newton

British Snobbery?

Either I do not get it, or rich Brits do not get it.  I have always found something profoundly humorous even in their serious efforts.  Reality is not one of their strong points.

Now this is rich.  Literally.  According to the Daily Mail, Prince Charles has converted his Aston Martin to run on English wine.

It was a little reminiscent to me years ago when I learned that Sir Paul McCartney filled his tub with Perrier bottled water to take a bath.

I guess it might be possible for wine-powered engines to help reduce the carbon footprint, but a gallon of wine is going to cost more than the price of gas.  Worse, if this caught on, a bottle of wine at the store would greatly increase due to competition for fuel.

With all of that fame and wealth, you would really thing the Royal Family could do something more productive and, well, not so silly.

I can see the gas stations now.  Instead of regular unleaded, premium, and super premium, the station will offer red, white and blush.  And, there will be some snob at the station yelling, "  WE ARE NOT FILLING UP WITH MERLOT!!"

Reasons To Go Paperless

Sam Glover over at Solo Small Tech has a good video listing the main reason he has gone paperless and how it has benefited him.  I found this video through a link and post provided by Rick Georges at Future Lawyer.

Three (four, really) good reasons to go paperless from Sam Glover on Vimeo.

Balance And Fortune Cookie Wisdom

We came home early from the Lake Highland area of the Texas Hill Country because my wife became ill.  Not from the area but from some bug she picked up.  Having not gone shopping, my youngest daughter, P.J., and I went to get some Chinese food for lunch before we went grocery shopping.  Her fortune cookie read - Balance is more than simply not falling over.

Now I usually find fortune cookies quaint at best.  I certainly would not plan my life around them.  After all, I remember when I was young that someone came out with misfortune cookies.  But, this fortune I thought was apropos.

And, here is why.  Work-life balance in the practice of law is more than your ability to stay on the high wire for a longer period of time.  It is not your ability to just survive while working through the commute and in the office tower, and away from those other things and people that are important to you.  It is more than not falling on your face.  It is the art of reaching a state of placidness, tranquility, serenity or, I guess, a calmness in life.  It is the point at which you can find untroubledness.

Kids.  Family. Work.  Obligations.  You spend so much time at work, or going to work, or coming home from work, that you feel remorseful for not spending time with your family.  After all, caring for them is more than money.  And, if you do not get that there is something loose.  Then, if you are spending so much time with your family you suffer from a sense of delinquency for neglecting your work.  Throw your parents, your church, your hobbies into this mix and you can and do feel moments of blame, reprehension, dereliction, sin, wickedness and shame.  Oh, you might keep it all bottled up inside, but we have all been there and we know.

Then your actions cause you to feel neglected too, and you sometimes then act out in ways that are truly hurtful, deleterious and baneful.  You sleep with your staff or colleague.  You gain too much weight.  You lose too much weight.  You gamble.  You smoke.  You spend money unwisely on luxury cars and boats and offices and junkets and things in general that do not benefit anybody buy you.  You go boot over tea kettle in debt.  The vices are many and plentiful, but they all emanate from what is really a lack of balance.

But, somehow you think it is all okay.  You think all-in-all your life is in balance because you are still standing.  You have not fallen over.  You are moving forward fast, but your legs are keeping up.  You fail to see, however, that you are getting further and further away from those that should truly matter.  Yes, you are still standing, but where is the balance in that.

At some point some lawyers cannot let go of this life, revolutionize their practices, and work toward a more perfect balance for a lot of reasons.  Denial is part of it.  Superstition plays a big part.  They have not fallen on their face doing what they are doing, so they cannot change.  They have just grown accustom to being destructive.  They have simply grown use to the venom.  It makes them sick, but they no longer have a fear of it because death or complete paralysis is not longer immediate.

Sticks And Stones Might Break By Bones, But Words Will Never ... (Oops)

Social media I would think has pretty much killed this little saying.

Of course words hurt.  Some of them can really cut.  There are a bunch of words that can really sting.  The bottom line is that words matter.  Sure, sticks and stones can cause physical pain, but psychological pain ... now that is something that saying does not address.

I know that I am good at stabbing at people with words.  I know in the past I have been capable of taking a veritable chainsaw of contentious squabble after some party on the other side of a lawsuit.  Often times it becomes too easy to fall into the Jason Voorhees of aminadversion.  Dicing, boning, gashing, cubing, mincing, gashing, axing, and knocking your way into what you think is slick and canny scriptural or graphic ambuscade.

And, you can darn well believe that it does cause some degree of pain, distress, anguish, irritation and unhappiness to those at which it is aimed.  Maybe that is the only goal.

From what I have learned, however, this does not win lawsuits and it does not achieve marketing objectives.  In short, semantic bushwhack might very well make you feel better about yourself, but it does not bring very many clients through your front door, and it does not win you many lawsuits.  In short, it might be a personal plum, but it does not bring in very much money.

Oh, but you say such things make your clients happy.  Right.  Clients, however, are only happy in the moment with the belief that you appeared to have lacerated or traumatized their foe.  Clients in the final analysis are bean counters.  Math overtakes emotion at some point in their analysis, and in the end all they are going to care about is the money you put on or took off the table depending on if you are representing the plaintiff or defendant.

Now, stating a series of actual facts that meet the elements for recovery or which appeals to potential clients as they have the same problem, is not a personal attack.

As to attacks, however, I can tell you what I have learned.  Judges see them as you do not have a legitimate case or defense so you have to resort to pounding the table.  Juries are easily offended by these stunts.  Potential clients want to see what you stand for, and not what you stand against.

In the end, it is easier to stand back and criticize someone or something than it is to put your own beliefs forward.  But, the more profitable ground will lay in your own beliefs and not in your hate or despise.

To young or new attorneys, especially, take it from an old fool.  Learn well to state and make your case, an to tell potential clients how you can help them, learn to sell yourself and your position, and leave the thwacking alone.

Everybody Can Take Part In Pretending To Take Part In The Presidential Election

I like The Onion because this has the look and feel, and shallowness, of the morning shows.

How In The Hell Did We Get To This Point - This Is Simply Not A Good Day For The Plaintiff's Bar

Good grief!  Dickie Scruggs gets 5 years in prison for trying to bribe a judge.

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who became one of the wealthiest civil lawsuit attorneys in the country by taking on tobacco, asbestos and insurance companies, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for conspiring to bribe a judge.  He gained fame in the 1990s by using a corporate insider against tobacco companies in lawsuits that resulted in a $206 billion settlement.  He nearly fainted as the judge scolded him for his conduct, and people in the courtroom gasped as he swayed side to side.

He was fined $250,000 and given 5 years after telling the Court.,"I could not be more ashamed of where I am today, mixed up in a judicial bribery scheme.  I have disappointed everyone in my life."

Scruggs was indicted in November along with his son and a law partner after an associate wore a wire for the FBI and secretly recorded conversations about the bribe plan. Prosecutors said he wanted a favorable ruling in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Hurricane Katrina insurance cases.

He initially denied wrongdoing in the bribery attempt case. But in March, Scruggs and former law partner Sidney Backstrom pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey with $50,000.

The Judge said that after reviewing evidence, including the secretly recorded conversations, "it made me think perhaps this was not the first time you did this because you did it so easily. And there is evidence before the court that you have done it before."  And, in fact, prosecutors are looking into another alleged bribery conspiracy in which Scruggs is accused of trying to influence a different judge in a dispute over legal fees from asbestos cases. Scruggs' former defense attorney has pleaded guilty in that case and is cooperating with investigators.

In my experience, when you hear or see a trial lawyer whose seems to make it all seem too easy, there is something behind it.

From the standpoint of the Bar and the judiciary, this is extremely bad.  We have to be able to believe that the judiciary is fair and impartial.  People by the nature of winning and losing already are prone to believe it is not.  This just confirms for people that it is not.  As well, too many people -- and corporations and insurance companies -- already desire to hire attorneys that are not honest.  I understand it is a matter of degree, but there are already too many attorneys that have gotten to comfortable with gaming and in being shifty.

The Good News Of Gas Prices

Do Not Buy Into The Zapper

I am leaving for the weekend, and so you will not hear much from me.  However, I wanted to leave you with this little something.  Sometimes we all buy into the new dream zapper when we ought to know better.  Leave the expensive stuff alone -- expensive homes, expensive cars, expensive tech, expensive overhead, expensive habits -- and stick with the dream catcher.

(Hey, I look like that guy).

"Interesting"

I was speaking with an attorney that I knew scorned my position in a case, or at least had no intellectual interest in my position.  Every single time I stated my position or one of my points to her she would respond by saying, "interesting".

It really started to chap my ass.  After all, I was serious about this lawsuit, I had research my position very carefully, I had drafted my complaint in time line fashion explaining my position every step of the way.

So, why exactly was I chapped?

Maybe it was the tenor of her voice, but let us just face facts.  She was not stating that my points were "interesting" because they were exciting or because they held on to her attention or curiosity.  They were not arousing a feeling of interest.  It was not because she felt my arguments were captivating, or stimulating, or intriguing in some way.  She was not repeating the word "interesting" ad nauseam because she had a thirst for knowledge.

No, she was parroting the term over and over in such a nauseating fashion because she meant just the opposite of what she was saying.  She was repeating the word "interesting" in the urban sense to mean that I was raising points or arguments in which she had absolutely no interest.  She was using it not to show an interest, but to demonstrate her indifference to what I was saying.

What she was really communicating was that I was boring her, God forbid.  What I was saying was ho-hum, tiresome, dull, or tedious.   It was really the use of the professional version of "talk to the hand".  It was almost juvenile or puerile.  This attorney had only been out of law school for less than a year.  Maybe it just reflected what was left of her adolescent insecurity.  I do not know, but I can tell you that I found it to be a jejune response.

How do you deal with a problem like this - a lawyer that is still a tad immature for the job she has found.  Someone who does not have much intellectual curiosity.  Apart from just saying something indelicate, such as "I'm sorry, am I boring you", I think you just hang up and move forward.  Then when her client is chewing a a large judgment it must pay they can hear her continually say "interesting".

When You Assume You Make An Ass Out Of You And Me

I like stealing material from Tom Kane at Legal Marketing Blog because he is just smarter than me, but I still like to impress.  He is better at capsuling a group of thoughts or ideas that are important to remember and implement.  He is better at scouring the Internet to bring you what is truly important.  He has now brought you Trey Ryder's 11 deadly assumptions that can ruin all of your best laid plans for procuring paying clients.  They are:

1. Clients and prospects know what services I provide;
2. Referral sources will send me all the clients I need;
3. When clients or potential clients have a question, they’ll call;
4. My marketing materials don’t need my photo;
5. Interacting often with prospects is a waste of time;
6. Prospects will remember what I tell them, so I shouldn’t repeat myself;
7. Business clients and prospects understand legal jargon;
8. Certain marketing methods don’t work like they use to;
9. The more complicated my message, the more clients will feel they need my services;
10. Graphics in ads are less important than the message; and
11. People understand that I’m busy when I don’t return phone calls promptly.