enter tha office

Am I the last person in the world to discover the wonders of Herbert Kornfeld, accounts receivable supervisor?

when good parties go bad

 
This man is, in his other life, a senior vice-president at a major corporation, which I will not name. He was tending bar for us and remained sober throughout the event. He is also, in his other life, bald as a billiard ball. 

tuppence a bag?

Okay, this one was almost too weird even for me.

"A Torrance, Calif., lawyer found operating on a pigeon that he had sedated with vodka was arrested after animal control officers, acting on a tip from PETA, raided his house and discovered some 300 living and dead birds inside. Health officials declared Gerard Redmond Enright Jr.'s home unfit for humans. "I'm wearing a mask. That says it all," said the head of the local animal control department. Enright says he devoted his life to saving the birds and often walked with one of them to a local Starbucks."

According to the article, the pigeon he walked to Starbucks was named "Twister."

my daily dharma

Give us this day our Daily Dharma. I get an email snippet sent to me by the magazine Tricyle each morning (well, okay, sometimes they send it in the afternoon). It's just a tiny fragment of Buddhist wisdom, best handled, in my experience, in small doses. Some of the stuff leaves me cold, some of it is truly inspired.

Here is an except from one of the latter category, taken from Muso Kokushi's Dream Conversations:

"It is illogical to face the present only as an object of enjoyment or tolerance, neglecting to use it as the opportunity to create the future."

on the road again?

I think a lot about what it means to be a trial lawyer. It's been on my mind particularly as I finish up a solid month of waiting for a decision in my last trial. I'm a little defensive still, about a comment made to me that I tried cases because I couldn't settle them. Well, that statement is true as far as it goes but it's incomplete. I am quite capable of settling cases, having settled two while I have been waiting for that decision. Not all my cases, however, settle. This might mean that I am somehow unskilled as a negotiator. It might also mean that I am willing to accept cases that are impossible to settle. I know some folks who have about a 100% settlement rate on their cases, but they select their clients differently than I do. That doesn't make them superior negotiators, but it may make them superior client screeners.

Shifting gears here. Being in trial is something like touring with a band when it comes to self-care. Yep, I'm a "small-muscle athlete," with my lips and my typing muscles the primary muscles of use. Hah.

what were they thinking?

I noticed today that I share an elevator bank in my Very Tall Building with a law firm named (in part) "Grimm Payne." I am not making this up. Really, those two names in the firm ought to have been separated as far as possible.