SBM Blog

Memorial Day 2012

Last year, I used the hero closest to my heart as the basis for a Memorial Day post. Today, please do not miss the story of the first black Marines, who are to be being honored this summer with presentation of a Congressional Gold Medal. Their numbers including Alfred Walker, the patriarch of a remarkable and beautiful Michigan family.

On LSAT Cultural Bias

From an interview with Stephen Harris, a former LSAT question-writer and author of Mastering Logic Games in LSAT BLOG: ACE THE LSAT:

By any reasonable measure, it seems to me, the LSAT tests generally relevant skills in a manner that rarely prevents students who are likely to perform well in law school from gaining admission to some school or other. But bias in this pejorative sense is more like crime – you can never eliminate it, only combat it, especially since the standards by which inappropriate bias is judged are subject to dispute and undergoing constant change as a result of larger cultural conversations.

As for socioeconomic bias specifically, undoubtedly LSAT performance is correlated with socioeconomic status; life expectancy, quality of health care and education, and virtually everything else that people think is good is correlated with socioeconomic status. It would be really surprising if LSAT scores weren’t. But it seems to me that the problem with LSAT bias in this sense isn’t the LSAT per se as much as these other factors, and I doubt that there is an LSAT-specific remedy for this issue.

Objection to Objections

The Lawyerist has a good short post reminding us why it's generally better just to gnash our teeth in trial rather than object. Key problem:

When you object, the jury has no idea why you don’t think they can hear this evidence. Then, they don’t get to hear the discussion of whether the evidence should come in. So, what is the only conclusion they can reach about your objection? You fear the result of the question being answered, so you are attempting to hide the truth.

Every time you object, you lose in one fashion or another. Even if you win, (objection sustained) you lose (you are a sneaky lawyer hiding the truth). And if you lose, (objection over-ruled) you lose three times: 1) sneaky lawyer tries to hide truth; 2) sneaky lawyer fails; 3) this evidence must be really important.)

The jury hates these evidentiary time-outs. They want to get on with it. So, as Josh pointed out, anticipate evidentiary issues in advance and handle them in limine. You should strive to avoid needing to object by knowing in advance what’s in and what’s out. If you do that, you shouldn’t find yourself needing to object as to admissibility during trial very often.

"No Law Against Stupidity"

SBM Blog will not be commenting as a rule on the Carnival of Oversimplification that is the political campaign season, but as a lawyer it's hard not to muse at least a little on the pronouncement "there's no law against stupidity" in response to the J.P. Morgan trading loss fiasco. Fact is, legislators throughout history have tried to create incentives against behavior that society agrees, for the moment at least, is stupid. Granted, those laws may be based on bad assumptions and thus may themselves be stupid, but at least some of the laws (bans on driving while intoxicated, for example) qualify as a defensible response to stupid human behavior.  More importantly, the law strives to hold folks accountable when their stupid behavior harms others. I don't know whether the Volcker Rule would have prevented the J.P Morgan mess or whether more stringent regulation is a good idea, but it does seem important that the public realize that sometimes the law is a better response to human stupidity than a fatalistic attitude of "stupid happens."

Blue Book Malapropisms

Monroe Freedman at Legal Ethics Forum generously shares his cache:

• The lawyer should be sanctioned for his impunity.
• Lawyers are required to conduct themselves with turpitude at all times.
• Judges should avoid even the appearance of impartiality.
• A judge has an absolute duty to maintain an appearance of impropriety.
• The lawyer’s movement was substantial and in no way frivolous.
• The competing concerns that undermine any good legal rule are (1) fairness (justice), (2) clarity, and (3) economic efficiency.
• Defendant’s actions were a flamboyant violation of the duty of loyalty.

Readers, surely you have some gems to contribute. May I add my own favorite quotation from my decade with the Michigan Legislature?  "We have total unanimous agreement among almost all the members of this committee."

A Checklist For Law Firm Survival

LegalOnRamp's Paul Lippe, author of the ABA's The New Normal column, predicts 10 of the 250 AmLaw firms will go the way of Dewey & LeBouef by the end of 2013, and offers a 12-item checklist for firm health, that includes this intriguing observation (emphasis added):

Does compensation make enough sense that it can be defended? Many of the smartest people I know, like Bruce MacEwen and Ed Reeser, have written that a 20-1 compensation ratios between partners—as was the case at Dewey, MacEwen notes—make cultural glue impossible. I respect that argument, but the fact is there are lots of high-performing organizations (Broadway shows, Internet start-ups) with large disparities in compensation. But those disparities are well-understood, and they are accepted when things are working. If the law firm thinks paying one partner 20 times more than another makes sense, it has to be fairly transparent and consistent about it. Certainly you can’t act like all partners are created equal, and then treat some as more equal than others. And obviously if the people in the executive committee pay themselves unfairly, it will be a problem.

Things You Should Know About: The Birwood Wall

 

Say you're a lawyer in Michigan?  If you don't already know about the Birwood Wall, you need to read this, now.

Michigan Lawyer-Mothers Rock – Pass It On

Happy Mothers Day, everyone.  Time to celebrate or remember the mothers who helped us become lawyers.  Carrying on a tradition SBM Blog started last Fathers Day, we salute mothers of Michigan lawyers and recognize the mother-lawyers who produced more Michigan lawyers.  Given the growing ranks of women lawyers in Michigan, we realize that this is just a small sample.  If we missed you, let us know!

• Marjorie Basile and Andrew Basile
• Patty Boyle and David and Jason Pernick
• Maura Corrigan and Daniel Grano
• Judy Cunningham and Jacob Cunningham
• Barbara Hackett and Carol Hackett Garagiola
• Diane Hathaway, Ryan Hathaway, and Dana Hathaway
• Linda Hallmark and Jessica Hallmark
• Jean King and Nancy King
• Kathleen Lewis and Aaron Lewis
• Susan Paletz, Amanda Paletz, and Matthew Paletz
• Florence Schoenherr, Kim Cahill, and Dana Warnez
• Zoe Schuitmaker and Tonya Schuitmaker
• Susan Weinberg and David Weinberg
• Janet Welch and Andrew Harwel
• Pauline Woll, Jessica Woll, and Allison Woll Parr
• Etta Zivian, Robert Zivian, and Sara Zivian Zwickl

For you lawyer-moms who are still raising your children, it turns out there's a veritable cottage industry of lawyer-moms writing blogs about being lawyer-moms. Just for example, PT Law Mom, Motherly Law, Law Mom Blog, Attorney Diaries, Blue Suit Mom, Mommy Blawg, But I Do Have A Law Degree, and Attorney At Mom.  Keep up the good work.

What The Meltdown Of A Law Firm Looks Like For Partners And Retirees

In the latest story about the travails of the recently-venerable global law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, the New York Times says that for partners, losing their jobs "may be the least of their worries":

They are likely to lose the money they were required to invest in the firm. They could lose their pensions. They may have to give back money they have already been paid. And even if creditors eventually agree to accept a small portion of what they are owed, the partners may owe taxes on the forgiven debt.

Current and recently-departed partners are being advised to consult personal bankruptcy attorneys. Information about former firm chairman Morton A. Pierce, who resigned last week, illustrates the magnitude of the problem. According to the Times story, his resignation letter informed the firm that it owes him $61 million.

Meanwhile, retirees are facing the painful reality that the majority of their pensions are unfunded, that is, that the pensions have been paid out of revenues that no longer exist. And the plight of longtime assistants and administrative staff should not be forgotten.

For the intensely interested, WSJ Law Blog has a graphic showing where the Dewey partners have gone.

WSJ: Ladies, Lose Your Power Suits

If you take your fashion tips from the Wall Street Journal (and who doesn't, really?), you won't want to miss "The New Elements of Boss Style," which declares the end of the power suit and offers exciting alternatives, such as tangerine Katherine Hepburn pants, flowered skirts, and striped pumps.  The article says that First Lady and "pedigreed lawyer" Michelle Obama's fashion choices have influenced the liberalization of professional attire, but fails to point out that the First Lady is not making court appearances in her J. Crew twin sets.

Don't miss the interactive graphic or the comments, such as this one:

$2815 for a jacket that looks like it was a leftover from The Emerald City. Oh Dorothy, you are not in Kansas. If I saw any of the four women I would assume they were either Avon sales or Kept.