In associate evaluations at Blawgletter’s law firm this year, any variation of attention to detail signaled promotion and a nice bonus. Inefficiency implied trouble. Efficient attention to detail thus spelled lawyerly success, at least at Blawgletter’s firm.
How does a business trial lawyer find the right balance between mastery of details and efficiency?
In Blink
Yesterday, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, suggested a way to expedite legal proceedings for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Paying clients should fire the detainees’ lawyers, many of them from major U.S. law firms.
Huh?
Mr. Stimson implied that law firms’ pro bono work for detainees reflects
Statue outside FTC headquarters in Washington, DC
Lisa Watson sued Philip Morris in Arkansas state court for advertising "light" cigarettes as low in tar and nicotine. The tobacco titan removed Ms. Watson’s case to federal court, arguing that its advertisements complied with federal regulations and that the company therefore "act[ed] under a federal officer" for
Blawgletter just came across a working paper about a favorite subject — Statistics on Modern Private International Cartels, 1990-2005. The authors, John M. Connor and C. Gustav Helmers, wrote the paper for Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics. Go here to read the paper for your own self.
Professor Connor and Ph.D. candidate Helmers
Blawgletter made a guess yesterday — that Steve Jobs welcomes publicity over a Cisco lawsuit to protect its iPhone trademark because the story diverts attention from Jobs’s role in the Apple options-backdating scandal. Apparently the WSJ didn’t get the memo.
At the head of its iconic "What’s News" column, the online WSJ leads today with
Norman and Genevieve Broussard today won a $2.5 million punitive damages verdict in their federal lawsuit against State Farm Fire & Casualty, The Washington Post reports. State Farm refused to pay under the Broussards’ homeowner policy for damage from Hurricane Katrina, claiming that rising water instead of wind destroyed the couple’s domicile in South
The ferment regarding Apple Inc. came to mind this afternoon as Blawgletter sampled the appellate opiniosphere. One decision stood out because its name recalls another kind of apple, the Fuji. The case — Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, Nos. 04-1618 & 05-1274 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 11, 2007) — upheld findings
Steve Jobs and John
Chambers of Cisco
An Apple spokesperson describes as "silly" the lawsuit that Cisco filed yesterday against Apple for using Cisco’s iPhone® trademark. Blawgletter doubts Apple’s characterization but also wonders whether Apple CEO Steve Jobs really minds the publicity so much.
Jobs’s unveiling of the "iPhone" on January 9 nudged articles
A new press release discloses that Cisco sued Apple over — guess what — the "iPhone" name. Per the release, Cisco registered "iPhone" as a trademark in 2000.
Apple unveiled its new iPhone to great fanfare yesterday.
The press release goes on:
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked
Words matter. Just ask Frank Luntz.
But before we get to Dr. Luntz, go right now to the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. There you will see a "Top Story" about a "general warming trend" nationally and worldwide. NOAA reports that "the rate of warming has accelerated over the past 30 years