Blawgletter's old friend Bryan Garner has taken to writing for the ABA Journal. We love his monthly column, "Bryan Garner on Words".
If you've ever sampled Bryan's oeuvre — which ranges from Making Your Case (with Justice Antonin Scalia) and Black's Law Dictionary to Rules of Golf in Plain English – you may have deduced that
The head of CME Group — the Chicago Mercantile Exchange – writes for the today's WSJ op-ed page:
In 2008, Harvard sent 28% of its graduating class to firms where they would become bankers, traders or investors. By 2010, Harvard was sending just 17% of its graduating class. Yale graduates entering the finance business fell
Blawgletter spent half a day this week on a Windy City panel — lawyers and law firm Chief Pricing Officers — that talked about the “Anatomy of a Fixed-Fee Negotiation”.
We learned that firms have funny names for not charging by the hour. Sobriquets ranged from “alternative” fee arrangements to “appropriate”, “tailored”, and “preferred” ones.
Does a law firm have a duty in tort to squeal on management to the board of directors?
Not in Illinois, the Seventh Circuit ruled last week. Peterson v. Winston & Strawn, LLP, No. 12-3512, slip op. at 4-5 (7th Cir. Sept. 6, 2013) (affirming dismissal of malpractice complaint).
The panel also cited its doubts that
I’m a self-made man. I think I’ll get some help next time.
Dell argued that it could keep robo-calling a woman's mobile phone with robo-messages about her Dell debt until Hell Froze Over.
The fact that she'd withdrawn her consent (from a Happier Time, no doubt – one that involved getting boxes full of neat computer stuff) didn't matter to the Dellsters.
"Hell hasn't frozen over yet", their
On the first day of a recent patent infringement trial, the wise judge asked Blawgletter and a lawyer for the other side why the case hadn't settled. "Testosterone?", someone said.
That friendly back-and-forth reminded us of something else that seemed to come from the glands rather than the brain. It took the form of a long tit-for-tat
He is what Wall Street is all about, and it scared me.
Evelyn Linares, member of jury that found Fabrice Tourre guilty of six counts of federal securities fraud for selling an exotic debt investment without disclosing that the man who put it together expected it to fail spectacularly.
The Third Circuit "respectfully disagree[s]" with the conclusion of the Tenth Circuit that corporations have a right under the first amendment to the free exercise of religion. Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sec'y of Health & Human Svcs., No. 13-1144, slip op. at 20 n.7 (3d Cir. July 26, 2013) (citing Hobby Lobby Stores,
Blawgletter really likes Russell Baker, a writer who for decades wrote a very funny "Observer" column for The New York Times. One column that we like to mention dealt with how bitter and ugly people get about abortion rights. Baker said he didn't like the subject and didn't relish questions asking his views