Chuck Newton

THE BIGGEST QUARTERLY PROFIT IN UNITED STATES HISTORY!

Does not that headline really say enough?

Exxon Mobile Corp reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion.

It is the largest quarterly profit really in World history.

But, what is really the icing on the cake is that these gargantuan earnings fell short of Wall Streets expectations and so despite this embarrassment of wealth, the company's stock actually fell on this news.  It does leave one to ponder just how freakin' detached Wall Street really is from everyday America where they find the largest profits ever, and an obscene amount of money for just a three month period of time, is a disappointment.  In other words, the American people were raped but, doggonit, Exxon just did not rape us enough.

It is important to note that almost every dime of this money came out of our pockets.  It is jeopardizing our futures, especially for commuters, both financially and environmentally.

The sad thing?  I have an Exxon Mobile card.

I Am A Flaming Liberal But This Is Just Plain Stupid!

Maybe you should make that a flamed broiled liberal.  But, this news upsets me.

As you might have heard, Los Angeles has placed a ban on fast food establishment in its poor areas.

Do not get me wrong.  We all eat too much of this junk.  We -- especially me and Roger Moore for that matter -- are too damn fat.  But, this is just crazy.

Upper class people can eat at Chili's but poorer people who cannot afford a $10 hamburger cannot eat at McDonald's.  Brilliant.

First, upper class people do not do things that are bad for themselves?  Come on.

Second, this is not the way to handle an obesity problem.  We are not communist who believe we can dictate to (as opposed to educate and reason with) people.  This is a personal freedom issue.

With this, Los Angeles is no better than the Republicans who thought the way to stop bankruptcy filings was to ban people from filing bankruptcy.  Or, to way to stop malpractice claims was not to do more to prevent malpractice, but make it impossible for people to sue doctors who unnecessarily harm them.

You have to think what is next.  Mandatory birth control?  Why not mandate a specific diet and the limit the number of calories a person eats each day.  Have the food police follow them and arrest them when they sneak an extra beagle.  I have the perfect name for this elite unit - The Food Taliban.

We cannot manage to restrict cigarettes, hard liquor, and other harmful vices, but we can limit access to a hamburger.

Mississippi has tried to legislate abortion clinics out of existence in the state using ordinances such as these.  The same people who are upset with this support such a thing as banning fast food establishments?

I remember years ago reading of a new community in Florida that wanted to limit the number of lawyers it had, so it prohibited lawyers from buying houses in its community.  The more legislative version of "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyer", which I think was the communities first choice.  The federal courts, as I recall, told them to stop it.

What is the next step, to limit cakes, pies and puddings within the city limits of Los Angeles, or at least for the poor people.  Because when they run out of bread we would not want them to eat cake.

As badly as we need universal health insurance and government protections, this is the exact crazy ass stuff the scares the bejesus out of sane people -- knowing there are government officials that will take their zeal too damn far.

It looks like the California Restaurant Association is going to mount a legal challenge.  Once again, we can only hope the courts will save us from our government.

Thank you Los Angeles for showing people why they cannot trust a more liberal set of policies.

Bar Exam Time - It Will Drive You Insane

YUK!!  I do not know anybody that really liked the bar exam.  But, many of those of us who are a little better established now forget that we are in the middle of bar exam season.  (Or, maybe we just do not want to remember -- post traumatic stress and all of that).

In Texas the bar exam is three days long.  In some states it is shorter.  This does not include the so-called "ethics exam" in which the right answer to every question is give the money back and resign from the case.  In most states you either start with or you end with the dreaded multistate exam.  That test was administered nationwide on Tuesday of this week.  In Texas, test takers are just completing their second day of the exam -- the much better, "I can bluff my way through" essay portion of the exam.  Tomorrow comes procedure and evidence.

To me, the procedure and evidence portions were the hardest.  First, it is rouge memorization.  Thee is no bluffing and close does not count.  That is not good thing to come up on the third day of what is already an exhausting and mind bending trip.  Second, it is hard to deal with memorized facts when you do not even understand how or why they are really applied in real life.  For me math was the same way.  In school I had so much trouble with geometry and algebra because nobody in school really shows you, and you have no basis to know, how you really apply these it in life.  If you understood the building trade, for example, you would appreciate geometry and physics a little better, understand their importance, and I think memorization would be more beneficial.  Procedure and evidence are pretty much the same.  You can talk about an answer is due in Texas on the Monday following the expiration of 20 days, not counting the day it was served, provided that date does not fall on a recognized holiday in Texas, like the opening of deer hunting season.  (Well, deer hunting season is not technically a recognized holiday, but for all intents and purposes it ought to be because you try finding a lawyer in his or her office in East Texas at that time, much less get something answered).  However, until the rule affects what you do, and you have a chance to apply it, it is not easy to retain it or apply it in a testing environment.

As for the essay portion in Texas, I took the test too long ago to remember much.  I remember being stunned, however, by a question on the second day as to where and how you perfect a security interest in bull sperm in Texas so as to protect one's interest as against other later obtained loans.  All I can really tell you as to the essay portion of the Texas Bar Exam, I wrote a lot of new law that day.

The Houston Chronicle reported on the ongoing Texas Bar Exam.  3,000 people at six sites across Texas are taking the exam this week. "If you don't pass it, you can't be a lawyer,'' said Leslie Schweinle, a 27-year-old South Texas College of Law graduate who is taking the test this week. "You can't practice, so your law degree is basically useless.''  Very well put, I would say, and this illustrates why we who have passed the exam equally frown on the whole event.

Those getting ready for the bar exam basically go into lock down mode.  You had might as well be in prison.  No calls.  No emails.  No friends.  No me time.  Regulated as to when you get up and go to bed.  No fun really because even if you do try to relax for a while you fret you are blowing your future.

The people leaving the multistate portion also complained about writer's cramp.  I remember as well my right hand thumb and first finger being so sore the night after the exam.

Most of the test takers will kick back after the exam ends Thursday.  But, in Texas at least, the stress just builds for months waiting on results.

Nope, I do not envy these kids.  I do not envy them at all.

 

Elon University School Of Law

There are new choices for those wanting to attend law school every day, and this is especially so in North Carolina.

I recently posted about Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Now, it is time to highlight Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The two newly approved law schools are about 100 miles apart - about a hour and a half drive from each other - but in some ways they are radically different schools.  Charlotte Law is not associated with any university and is a for-profit school.  It is part of the InfiLaw System.  Elon Law is part of a private, not-for-profit liberal arts university founded in 1889 by what is now known as the United Church of Christ.

What was known as Elon College became Elon University on June 1, 2001.  Its historic 575 acre campus has been designated a botanical garden. The Fisk Guide to Colleges ranks Elon one of the 28 "best buys" in private universities.  The student body as a whole is just over 4,900 undergraduates and 517 graduate students from 46 states.

Elon Law occupies a former downtown public library building away from Elon University's campus.  The school spent over $10 million renovating the 84,000 square foot facility to suit its needs.  Downtown Greensboro serves as the hub of the judicial system in central North Carolina, with major courts and law firms all located within a few blocks of the law school. The Federal District Court, Federal Bankruptcy Court, Guilford County courthouses and City of Greensboro municipal offices are located here, and the new Federal Courthouse will be built downtown as well.

Established in 2006, the law school just received provisional accreditation from the ABA in June, 2008.  This is vitally important because this means that Elon Law graduates can take the bar exam and practice in any state in the nation.

The inaugural class of the Elon law had 115 students.  104 new students entered in the fall of 2007.  The law school plans to have a maximum of 325 students by its 3008 entering class.

The tuition for the 2007-2008 school year was $27,500, which is a lot, but it is not as high as many private law schools.  The school does provide some scholarships to offset this tuition.

If you are interested in attending law school, you might wish to give Elon Law a look.

Ella Sings "Georgia On My Mind"

It is a beautiful sunny day in The Woodlands.  Looking out of my window, it is hard to stay focused on work.  So, I am trying to fight through the urge not to work, and I am listening to Ella.

Voicemail Is Dead!

Michael Arrington and The Greatest American Lawyer are right.  Voicemail is at least on the precipice overlooking its grave, at least in the business environment.  I do not think it will take much of a push to send it over the edge.

As Michel Arrington states in his article on TechCrunch:

"Typical voicemail messages today include things like 'Please don’t leave me a voicemail, I rarely listen to them. Please just email me at [email protected]' Many people don’t bother setting up their voicemail accounts at all. Then there’s my favorite method, the one I use personally - let the message box get full and then don’t empty it. Caller ID still tells me who called, and I can simply call them back.

How many times have you called someone back and said 'I saw that you called but didn’t listen to the voicemail yet, Is it anything urgent?'

Senders often feel guilty for leaving voicemails, too. And to make sure you get the message, quite often people will follow up with a text message - 'Just left you a VM, it’s important' - just so you know it’s there".

As a practical matter, I probably have 90% fewer voicemail messages than as short as a couple of years ago.  This has freed up so much time and has increased my productivity.

Now that I have set up a virtual PBX with an extension, I no longer get those junk voicemail recordings.  Yes, I am a small business person (figuratively and literally speaking).  No, I do not need your crappy insurance coverage.  I do not want a free estimate of anything.  Hmmm, I think you are wrong.  My extended warranty is not up.  Not receiving these messages alone helps as voicemail has become as big of junk mail repository as the mailbox.

A strange thing happened in this regard that I think helped changed the habits of lawyers calling me.  I thought initially it was a disaster.  I went to have my number ported from Vonage, which turned out to be a nightmare.  (DO NOT USE VONAGE).  The short story is that for a while I could get voicemail messages, but a call did not ring through.  It was obvious because the phone number would not ring.  It just instantly went to voicemail.  It last a lot longer than expected.  Did I lose business?  I do not think so.  Most everybody that could not reach me immediately just sent me an email.  And, that pattern has held with those I communicate with on a regular basis.

It helps that my new auto attendant first provides my callers the best ways to reach me - email and my blogsite.  Then it provides them my extension.  Most calls are diverted.  And now, if I get a voicemail, it is emailed to me so I can just open it from my email as an MP3 wherever I am.

These days most clients and prospective clients email me as well.  I email them back.  It certainly beats voicemail and playing phone tag.  It is just -- well -- productive to use email and texting, and it is unproductive to deal with voicemail.  It is a pain.

As for its death.  Maybe I exaggerate.  But, like snail mail and the fax machines before it, voicemail is becoming of very little value.

This Ain't Cuil

It is pronounced "cool", and it is the new Internet search engine of Anna Patterson. 

Her last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.  She now thinks she has invented an even better search engine with Cuil.  She claims its search index spans 120 billion Web pages, more than Google.  Google disagrees.

I am not so sure about cruil.  I got online this morning and typed in my specialty, automatic stay violation, and at first it came up blank.  I changed it around some and it did find a number of sources, but the time it took to load pages, OMG.

It might grow on me I guess, but I do not like the dark intro screen (it looks more like Google's evil twin); I do not like the logo. I do not like the layout; it certainly did not list my blog or any post within the first 6 pages I looked at and I am the most prolific writing on the subject online in the country; and in the end it did not seem to this simpleton that it offered anything more than my favorite brand - Google.

Cuil is a name that is suppose to come from the Irish background of one of its founders.  That is good enough, but then why all of the black, gray and blue.  Hell, throw up some green, or a shamrock or two.

Maybe they should have named it "Cruil" and in cruel.  But, then, again, what do I know.

After getting inquiries about Cuil, Google asserted on its blog Friday that it regularly scans through 1 trillion unique Web links. But Google said it doesn't index them all because they either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. The posting didn't quantify the size of Google's index.

By the way, I could not find where Cruil had a blog to announce anything.  I have looked at the launching of a lot of products and services of late and they all seem to start off with a blog.  Not here.  Not that I could find.

Look, I understand the argument that the site just launched and it will add things like blogs searches, blog readers and the like.  But for some things, this is almost like going to a new hamburger joint on the opening day only to have them tell you that they will be adding hamburger patties later after they get more established.

A search index's scope is important because information, pictures and content can't be found unless they're stored in a database. But Cuil believes it will outshine Google in several other ways, including its method for identifying and displaying pertinent results.

Rather than trying to mimic Google's method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil's technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil's results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil's results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

The problem with the magazine like approach is that I want to scan quickly through results.  I do not want to read a magazine.  Google makes the actual task I am looking for easier and, hence, more enjoyable.

Cuil is also hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users' search histories or surfing patterns.  This is something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs, and in this Cuil might be onto something.

Cuil is just the latest in a long line of Google challengers, including  startups like Teoma (whose technology became the backbone of Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft.

Each of these startups has a much better design or interface than does the Darth Vader quality of the Cuil site.

Even after investing hundreds of millions of dollars on search, both Microsoft and Yahoo Inc. have been losing ground to Google. Through May, Google held a 62 percent share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21 percent and Microsoft at 8.5 percent, according to comScore Inc.

Google has become so synonymous with Internet search that it may no longer matter how good Cuil or any other challenger is, said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner.  "Search has become as much about branding as anything else," Weiner said. "I doubt (Cuil) will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night."

Google welcomed Cuil to the fray with its usual mantra about its rivals. "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space," Watson said. "It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."

Self Helpless

I understand that this is SEP (someone else's problem), but I have spoken or communicated with a number of lawyers lately that just cannot seem to get out of their house, out of their office, on the phone, on the net, or anywhere else to get their practice off the ground.

They are, in short, being self helpless.  Maybe it is the summer heat, the fact that, due to vacations, that nobody is around to which you can present yourself, your ideas or your practice area.  But otherwise this is a loathsome condition of somebody that is unable to deal with life.  Like one of my teenage boys on summer break, just sitting around a neglected room with bad hair and a bad attitude.  It is really time to get up there.

So, I get a call, or an email, requesting advice on what to do.  Well, I have a lot of ideas I suppose. Some are good.  Some are not so good.  Some will work in your situation and some will not.  Some will fit your personality and some will not.  I understand that I am a sounding board.  I appreciate the opportunity.  It is just that I do not know what to tell you about self helplessness.

Looky here!  Summer stinks in many ways to open a new practice, unless you are a real estate attorney.  This is especially true if you operate in a consumer related area.  The divorce is not going to happen until they get through fighting through the vaca.  The bankruptcy is not going to happen until the rent money is gone.  Wills?  They can do that anytime, they think.  Personal injury might be good because devastating accidents can happen anytime.  But, this is also the time for you to be priming the pump so when the practice areas pick up come the end of August you are ready.  You do not need to be making contacts for the first time when case referrals are hitting their zenith.  You have got to get your name out there now.

Nobody knows more than me how hard it is to put yourself out there in front of people.  Nobody wants rejection.  Nobody wants to feel like they are spinning their wheels.  Nobody likes to be judged outside of Court by their peers and others.  You feel like you are under prepared, you are undeserving, you have little to offer, you are too fat, you are too skinny, you are too short, you are too small, your only suite has dog hair on it.  I KNOW!  I GET IT!  I HAVE BEEN THERE!  GET OVER IT!  QUIT BEING SO SELF CONSCIOUS!  STOP BEING SO SELF HELPLESS!

The time is now.  That is not a ra ra speech.  That is a fact.  It takes lead time to get clients referred, in the door, retained and paid.  So, do not start when you are out of time.

Here is my last bit of advice.  You need to quit worrying about when, where, why and how, and just be yourself -- whether that is good, bad or indifferent.  You do not have to know everything.  You do not have to have a new suit.  You do not need to know exactly how you will approach a new case.  Ninety percent of success is just showing up they say, and it is true.  Besides, nobody really faces much outright rejection.  You just might not get a referral.  You might have to follow up more often with someone.

I have been at this a long time.  I cannot remember when someone has slammed a door in my face.  I have walked away from some very pleasant conversations knowing all the same that I was not going to get a referral from that person.  That is fine.  I just move on down the road and make a note to follow up with him or her later.  Relationships change.  Besides, if you cannot get a referral, maybe you can get some free advice from the person down the road.

The bottom line is that if people do not know you are out there, they are not going to refer.  If they know you are out there, but you are not top of their mind, they are not going to refer much.  If they know you are out there, but do not have a good feel about what you do, or the type of cases you want, they are likely to pass even though they would like to help.

So, get to brushing that bad hair, put on the best outfit you have and get out there and meet and greet.  And, remember, just be yourself.

I Feel Like I Have Not Accomplsihed Squat

Randy Pauscher has died.  Below is his "last lecture".  Funny and smart.  Today, as I have been trying to mask the fact that I am strangely ill today, ticking off my wife who does not like symptoms, and trying to get past it, I watched this video and thought (1) I do not have real problems, and (2) I have not accomplished squat in my first 50 years.  So, I have committed the two cardinal sins of sloth and envy in the same day.  That is enough. I guess I will go to bed and repent.  The video is worth watching, however.

For Your Weekend - Michael Bublé - Feeling Good