Beyond Disaster Recovery
August 31, 2005 | Filed Under Organization, In the News
You can’t bear to watch the coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But you can’t turn it off, either.
The first thing we are taught to do is to pull out our disaster recovery plan, notify key people, and set up our command center. We either convene at our corporate headquarters or at a company facility some 150 miles away. In the case of businesses in the Gulf Coast area, the HQ may no longer exist, or you can’t get to it, and you probably can’t get anywhere else, either. But you already would have found out that you can’t call anyone anyway. Even the first response authorities are having trouble communicating.
Some businesses, including a law firm profiled here, are making plans for a long-term relocation to Baton Rouge because of the storm. One law firm was lucky in finding that client records were safe. DuPont is dealing with a chemical plant that suffered a direct hit (and was days earlier found to be the source of a toxic tort claim).
The ABA is pledging to help, and says it will have a listing of resources from FEMA on it’s website “in the coming days.” Well, I’ll save them the effort. The FEMA information page is right here.
I’m increasing my Monday donation to the American Red Cross, but even that seems a drop in the bucket.
Rather than provide links to “helpful disaster recovery resources,” it seems more appropriate to state the obvious. Few predicted this level of devastation. They knew it was a risk (you live near the ocean in the South, after all), and thought they had safeguards (e.g., the levees and escape routes), but if anyone told people how bad it could really be, few would have believed it.
The paradigm hasn’t shifted, it was washed away.
When there is looting in the streets, what’s a business to do? And whom does the Governor normally call out to restore order? Correct. And where are they? Exactly.
Katrina Waves Off KPMG
August 29, 2005 | Filed Under In the News
I was halfway through a post on the $456 million settlement between the federal government and big-whatever accounting firm KPMG. I wondered whether the feds had a good case (the underlying advice has not been found illegal) or just a bludgeon in the form of a threat of a corporate indictment.
Then news broke of Hurricane Katrina building to a potential killer category 5 storm. The post-mortem on KPMG can wait.
Google has a homepage link to news updated in real time. NPR also has a dedicated page (listen to the “environment” story when it becomes available). A hurricane tracker is provided by MSNBC.
You can help jump-start relief efforts by donating online to the American Red Cross (I tried it and it works).
One of the first legal weblogs I started reading was Ernest Svenson’s Ernie the Attorney. A New Orleans resident, Mr. Svenson is doing his best to ride out Katrina and live-blog the process as technology permits.
I’m keeping Ernie, his family and everyone in the Gulf Coast area in my thoughts.
Update (Monday PM): As to Katrina; it was a killer; the devastation and flooding are horrible. If power and other utilities are out for weeks, it will be extraordinarily difficult for people trying to put their lives back together. Ernie is OK and has mobile-phone weblog updates; perhaps as long as his battery lasts.
In the comparatively mundane world of alleged tax fraud, the feds announced indictments against eight former KPMG employees (and a former outside counsel)–four of the KPMG group are lawyers.
Sex and the City (of London)
August 26, 2005 | Filed Under In the News
It’s late summer–who really wants to read about the latest developments in an obscure area of the law?
So today we will uncover a different sort of treatise, Fish Sunday Thinking.
The UK legal world is apparently all atwitter over this book, allegedly written by a young lawyer at an unnamed Top 50 law firm. According to British newspaper The Independent:
The sexual antics and misbehaviour of some of the City’s richest lawyers are uncovered in a novel that threatens to scandalise the legal profession.
Binge-drinking, bullying and licentious corporate bonding sessions are all explicitly recounted by the author, a 27-year-old solicitor who claims his book is based on events that took place at one of London’s biggest law firms.
The Times Online explains the book’s title as reflecting “the dread of returning to work after the weekend.” It further states that the author, “Alex Gilmore, ” has kept his real name secret in order to “protect his lucrative job as a legal beagle and pay his mortgage.”
Hmm. Sounds familiar.
The Times Online goes on to compare the mystery about the author to one occuring earlier this year over a book written by an anonymous London prostitute. Proving once again that the law makes strange bedfellows.
I am skeptical, since this tale sounds more like a caricature of large law firm life than a true memoir. The author may also have had reason to fictionalize events to avoid legal action later if his “identity” is exposed.
What also comes to mind is the hubbub over the “Anonymous Lawyer,” who turned out to be a 3L at Harvard Law, explained here by Evan Schaeffer. Many people, including law firm associates who should know better, thought it had too much of an insider’s tone to be fiction. But it was believable because it was well written, not because it was true. As the author, Jeremy Blachman explained to the New York Times:
“I wanted to see if I could post as a hiring partner and be believable,” he said . . . “I thought it would last for a week.”
“I was just writing satire,” he added. “The stories I’m telling, to me, feel so outlandish. In a way I’ve been disappointed that I’ve been able to pull it off. I’ve painted a picture based on a few months of observation and the worst things I saw, heard about or could imagine about law firms, and experienced lawyers are chiming in, saying, `This is exactly what it feels like.’ ”
An honest depiction of life in a large law firm would probably end up on the remainder table outside Borders, perhaps titled “Law Monday Reality.”
Update (28 Aug 05): It looks like Alex Gilmore’s 15-minutes-of-fame may be up. UK law site Roll on Friday reports on the wayward lad’s identity. A picture and bio are here. The Times Online has further details. As I speculated on Friday, the paper states that the young solicitor is now invoking more of a “novel” than a “memoir” character to Fish Sunday Thinking:
But, in a change of tune, he now insists that the book was the product of his imagination and an entirely fictional work.
Hope he received a large advance (and hasn’t spent all of it). Thanks to one of the eagle-eyed editors at the Blawg Review for the tip.
A Legal Leadership Six-Pack
August 24, 2005 | Filed Under Managing
Which six leadership styles do you use?
Consultants Hay Group have released a study that sought to determine which of six leadership styles (directive, visionary, affiliative, participative, pacesetting and coaching) are most effective.
Instead of using laboratory animals, the study involved asking associates in a “top global law firm” about the effectiveness of certain firm partners (one hopes it was anonymous). In addition, Hay looked at such metrics as revenue, client satisfaction and substantive legal skills.
Not surprisingly, the associates preferred leadership that emphasized coaching to edicts from a driven “pacesetter.” A helpful diagram is provided showing the study results.
According to the study summary:
The outstanding lawyers also used styles that research has shown are more effective in driving performance over time. They were more visionary, providing their teams much needed perspective and context while reinforcing the firm’s values. They were also twice as participative, engaging associates and peers in critical discussions and decisions. And they were effective coaches, providing long-term development and mentoring.
“The best partners were far less likely than their peers to be pacesetters — perfectionists who set unattainable goals, micromanage, and have a hard time letting go of tasks that would be better handled by associates…”
I think I worked for a pacesetter once, but that’s not what I called him at the time.
For more information and help on developing the right mix of leadership skills, contact Hay.
Harvard Working Knowledge examines a related issue recently–how to help “superstars” work in a team environment and not create chaos in the process.
By the way, what’s the difference between law firm associates and laboratory animals? The animals get regular meals and exercise…
Monday Morning Quarterbacks
August 22, 2005 | Filed Under Managing, In the News
Starting Friday afternoon when news of the $253 million Merck Vioxx verdict hit the wires, the press feeding frenzy started. The intrepid reporters at law.com were on it, not once but twice. Other great coverage is available from Tom Kirkendall and Larry Ribstein.
Lawyers are lining up at the Lotto window world-wide, including the UK and Australia.
Merck trotted out GC Kenneth Frazier in a press release, where he gamely said:
“We believe that we have strong points to raise on appeal and are hopeful that the appeals process will correct the verdict,” […] “Our appeal is about fundamental rights to a fair trial.”
More on the actors in this drama here. Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier is clearly very good; if you have access to the WSJ site, check out this video of him in action (link courtesy of the Conglomerate). It shows how he finessed the issue of causation, which was supposed to make this case stronger for Merck than others in the pipeline.
The New York Times captured the courtroom dynamic well:
The case in Angelton pitted a team led by Mr. Lanier, a part-time Baptist preacher considered one of the top trial lawyers in the United States, against a small army of lawyers for Merck that included lawyers from two large corporate law firms, Williams & Connolly and Fulbright & Jaworski.
There will be much analysis, and perhaps even a bit of fault-finding and finger-pointing. Most done by people who have never had to take a bundle of facts given to them and put on a defense in a wrongful death claim. As a lawyer, there is a big difference in who is sitting next to you–a grieving widow with her neighbors close by in the jury box, or the nameless representative of the Big Pharma that (allegedly) caused the death of her husband.
While dissecting the trial is interesting, this case may have been lost long before it started. Once Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market, in a move they probably thought would be strategically sound (and perhaps even publicly praised), every word written or spoken about Vioxx was put under a different microscope than Merck was familiar with. People who do drug research are focused on finding cures and enhancing treatments, not writing exhibits for their depositions.
While Merck will appeal and probably has a good argument under Texas law that the punitive damages were excessive, other Vioxx plaintiffs’ attorneys will read Mr. Lanier’s transcript like a textbook.
And you can bet that the CEOs and GCs of most pharmaceutical companies are having a dialogue this morning on how to balance the upside of a good drug with the risks of one that goes sideways on them. Do you give attorneys in your legal department white coats, place them in the lab, and have them look over the shoulders of researchers?
Lost in all this is the fact that Vioxx worked, and worked well. I know people who are desperate for it to go back on the market, as it was the only medication that made their pain bearable and a mobile life livable. They would gladly take the (slight) increased risk of stroke or heart attack, for the chance to be able to get out of bed in the morning.
It may have even helped parishioners in a certain Texas church dance in the aisles on long-forgotten Sunday mornings.
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