According to his website, Larry Miller, Jr., Esquire, "knows a thing or two about achieving success." He's the author of a book entitled "SUCCESS In Your Career and Personal Life - A How-to Guide." This glow in the dark page turner teaches "the secrets to success the successful people know but won't seem to tell you." Try saying that ten times fast.
I, for one, am going to skip the book. According to his website, the path to success seems clear. First, you wow them with finger pointing and pie charts. If they don't like that, you introduce them to your special friend, Mr. Baseball Bat.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Small Shop Web Flop
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Things Lawyer Like – Publishing Articles
Ever wondered “How ERISA Can Make You Scream Like a Baby,” need “Ways to Separate the Forrest From the Trees When Dealing with Structured Debt Asset Classes,” or wanted to understand “The State of the State of the Art of Defense in the Ninth Circuit”? You can bet your last share of Citibank that a lawyer has written an article on one of these topics.
Across the board, lawyers feel pressure to make names for themselves. This need is rooted in the concept that honest to goodness “lawyering” has traditionally meant hanging out your own shingle and blazing your own trail. Since most lawyers today practice under someone else’s shingle, they have limited opportunities to distinguish themselves. Faced with this dilemma, lawyers turn to one source of self-promotion – publishing an article.
The aspiring lawyer learns in his or her second year of law school that publishing is the path to prominence. Writing a journal article, especially a law review piece, will allow a law student to soar through interviews with the confidence that comes with the safety net of talking about a mind-numbingly complex and probably completely irrelevant piece of legal scholarship. When the practicing lawyer churns out a publication, a link can be added to that lawyer’s online biography to immediately add the perception of authority and standing in a particular field; perception because the article may never be read.
You see, one consequence of the sheer volume of articles published by the legal profession is the reality that nobody has time to read the finished products. Instead, the lawyer’s publication, regardless of its worth, immediately becomes a bio booster with limited consequences. Try to slip speaking Portuguese as a hobby on your resume and you can bet you will be called out, but put a citation to an article you wrote on your bio and you are almost certain to avoid scrutiny. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and write something...anything…and start building your shingle.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Partner Doppelganger
If Greenber Traurig partner Israel I. Sanchez had
a doppelganger, it would be...
professional golfer, Phil Mickelson.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
“Highest Court in the Land” Home to Worst Basketball on Earth
With NCAA March Madness in full swing, Litination decided to take a trip to check out the legendary pick-up basketball games that are played in the Supreme Court gym. After two hours of observation, we are disappointed to report what many have suspected; the level of play is absolutely terrible. The gym located directly above the Supreme Court’s chamber was nicknamed the “Highest Court in the Land” by a witty, but painfully annoying clerk for Justice Rehnquist in the late 1970s. Regardless of its name, however, stories about the basketball that is played on this court are best left unpublished.
For years, the Court has been picking staff and clerks without any regard for athleticism. As a result, games typically start out with the goal of playing until one team scores eleven and end with an agreement that seven will do. Since “shooting for teams” is always a struggle, teams are usually divided up by just taking the first five people to tie their shoes.
The terrible play can also be attributed to Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While Ginsburg has been sidelined from playing due to her recent battles with pancreatic cancer, her presence is still felt in every game. Since the Court’s 1992 decision in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, which held schools failing to comply with Title IX could be sued for compensatory and punitive damages, Ginsburg has demanded that each pick-up game include two women. As a result, a female staffer who has never even played basketball before is automatically part of each game. According to rumor, there is an unwritten rule that if Samuel Alito plays, then only one woman is required to meet the “Ginsburg rule.”
While the press has indicated that President Obama is looking for a place for a consistent pick-up game, most of the people at the “Highest Court in the Land” are pretty sure he’s not going to choose the Supreme Court. “I’m a huge Obama fan,” huffed a Souter clerk when we reached him cleaning his mouth guard in the water fountain, “but I would be horrified if he came up here for a game. He might be a former law professor, but he could lose some faith in our judiciary system.” There is also general concern that Obama might use the opportunity to take out some leftover frustration from the inauguration on Chief Justice Roberts.
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