Lawyers

LAWYER OF THE YEAR | PATRICK FITZGERALD

Relentless man on a mission

 

By Leigh Jones

Staff reporter

December 19, 2005

 

 

No one else in 2005 roiled politics inside the Beltway and the media that feed on it like the prosecutor from Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald.

 

As special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice, Fitzgerald has taken on some of the most influential people in the world by trying to uncover who in Washington divulged to the press the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

 

The list is long on powerful politicians, lawyers and journalists that his continuing investigation has touched so far. But the matter also encompasses the very reasons for the war in Iraq that has cost about 2,150 American lives, while at the same time striking at the heart of freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution.

 

For those reasons, Fitzgerald is The National Law Journal's 2005 Lawyer of the Year.

 

At 44, Fitzgerald is, to some, exacting and thorough. To others, he is perhaps obsessive and relentless. But it is this attention to detail and his formidable memory that many observers say make him a tough and level-headed adversary.

 

"He doesn't take unfair advantage of the fact that he's smart," Frederick Cohn said. A criminal defense attorney, Cohn represented one of four men convicted of conspiring to bomb the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. Fitzgerald prosecuted the case as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he worked for 13 years before becoming the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in 2001.

 

"If I were someone who was a bad guy, I would not want him on my trail," Cohn said.

 

Fitzgerald earned recognition as a meticulous and sometimes single-minded prosecutor while working for the Southern District of New York. There, he served as chief of the organized crime/ terrorism unit. Besides the embassy terrorism trial, he handled the prosecution of 12 defendants charged with conspiring to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993. He also prosecuted the Gambino crime family, charged with drug trafficking and murder, among other things.

 

But it is his role in the CIA leak investigation that has brought Fitzgerald the most attention. Appointed in 2003 by James Comey, then the deputy U.S. attorney general, Fitzgerald has the task of determining whether senior officials in the Bush administration violated the Intelligence Protection Act of 1982.

 

His mission is to uncover how Plame's name appeared in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.

 

Bush detractors charge that the administration leaked her name in response to an opinion piece by Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, published in the New York Times that was critical of the administration's reasons for entering the war in Iraq.

 

The ongoing investigation has snowballed, gathering in its path top administration officials and well-known journalists, one of whom, the New York Times' Judith Miller, spent 85 days in jail for violating a subpoena to reveal her source.

 

So far, Fitzgerald has indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. And Fitzgerald is presenting evidence to a new grand jury, which could lead to charges against others, including Karl Rove, top advisor to President George W. Bush.

 

The attorney for Rove, Robert Luskin with Patton Boggs in Washington, declined to comment for this article. Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, did not return a phone call.

 

Afflicted with 'tunnel vision'

 

Despite the dogged determination that has characterized Fitzgerald's investigation, he is a mild-mannered, regular fellow, say those who know him well.

 

"He's a plain-spoken, boy-next-door kind of guy," said Karen Seymour, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. Seymour is a former federal prosecutor who led the government's obstruction case against Martha Stewart and worked with Fitzgerald in New York.

 

He has the ability to take complicated issues and facts and convey them in plain language that connects with jurors, she said. But beneath that average Joe demeanor is a "brilliant strategist" with a "quick wit," she said.

 

It may be difficult to find those who would criticize the man himself, but it is not difficult to find those who take issue with the leak investigation.

 

First Amendment attorney Bruce Sanford said that Fitzgerald, whom he has met, has the typical "tunnel vision of a prosecutor," one who believes that anyone "deserves to be in jail for one thing or another." But he is also an "appealing and accomplished" man, Sanford said.

 

The investigation itself, however, is the result of "classic bureaucratic infighting" and a waste of taxpayer money, he said.

 

Sanford, a partner in Baker & Hostetler's Washington office, has represented several television networks, magazines and publishing houses, and has called for a national shield law to protect reporters from having to reveal sources.

 

He questions whether anyone connected to the Plame matter has actually violated the Intelligence Protection Act of 1982, since the law is narrowly drawn to protect free speech. In addition, that issue has become muddled in the politics surrounding the inquiry, he said.

 

"It has become confused with whether people like the Bush administration, whether they approve of our reasons for entering Iraq and what should be done about the war," Sanford said.

 

The Conrad Black case

 

Besides handling the leak investigation, Fitzgerald, as the U.S. attorney in Chicago, earlier this year brought fraud charges against Conrad Black, accusing the former publishing executive at Hollinger International and three of its other executives of illegally diverting almost $84 million from the sale of the company's newspapers and other publications. Fitzgerald announced four new charges against Black last week: racketeering, obstruction of justice, money laundering and wire fraud.

 

Also this year, Fitzgerald's office charged two Chicago executives in a widespread corruption scandal with fraudulently rigging the hiring and promotion of favored job applicants by conducting false employment interviews and falsifying application scores.

 

Jack Carriglio, immediate past president of the Federal Bar Association's Chicago chapter and a partner at Meckler Bulger & Tilson, said that Fitzgerald is "highly regarded" among attorneys in the Chicago community. He added that in March Fitzgerald "spoke privately" to bar association lawyers who gathered after the murders of the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.

 

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Fitzgerald is the son of Irish immigrants. His father worked as a doorman in Manhattan. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College with a degree in economics and mathematics, and he received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1985.

 

After law school, he practiced for three years as an associate at Christy & Viener in New York, which in 1999 merged with Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn.

 

Fitzgerald then went to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Four years ago, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed his nomination as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, where he manages a staff of more than 160 attorneys. He has not married.

 

Fitzgerald, famously press shy, is known to keep cool under pressure. Dean Polales, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago who served as counsel to Fitzgerald until last February, said that his former boss is positively "mellow."

 

"Even in the pressure-cooker situations, I have never seen him get upset. I've never seen him bark at anyone," said Polales, who now practices white-collar criminal defense with Chicago's Ungaretti & Harris. Fitzgerald's patience will continue to be tested, it seems, as the leak investigation marks its second anniversary this month.

 

Fitzgerald would not comment for this article. More information:

 

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1134727510888

The national law journal, lawyer of the year , 2005,  Rodrigo González  Fernández, lawyerschile.blogspot.com, Santiago, Chile

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From The Chicago tribune Will execution move the debate? The case of Stanley Tookie Williams, who was killed by lethal injection Tuesday, rallied foes and advocates of the death penaltyBy Maurice Possley and Steve MillsTribune staff reportersPublished December 13, 2005, 2:42 AM CST LOS ANGELES -- Of the more than 1,000 people executed in this country since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the case of Stanley Tookie Williams is one of only a few that have emerged as touchstones in the national debate over the ultimate punishment.Early Tuesday, Williams was executed by lethal injection at California's San Quentin prison, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected two last-minute bids for clemency. On Monday, Schwarzenegger had argued that Williams' failure to express remorse for four 1979 murders showed he was not rehabilitated.Whether Williams' execution ultimately moves the death penalty debate is a matter of debate itself.Public support for the death penalty has dropped in the past 25 years as 122 inmates have been exonerated and set free from Death Rows. At the same time, the machinery of execution has slowed.In these most public of cases, questions are posed in varying ways: Is this case a question of innocence? Is it a matter of rehabilitation and, consequently, mercy? Or is it the continuing question of the propriety of capital punishment?Think of Gary Graham and Karla Faye Tucker (both executed in Texas), Mumia Abu-Jamal (who obtained a new sentencing hearing this year in Pennsylvania) and more recently, Robin Lovitt (commuted last month to life in prison in Virginia).Assessing the legacy of these cases is difficult, particularly when they seem to have a relatively short public shelf life.The most recent Gallup poll, taken in October, shows that support nationally for the death penalty has dropped from as high as 80 percent in 1994 to 64 percent, though it has remained steady for the past three years.According to the poll, that support dips to 56 percent if the alternative is life in prison without parole.Death sentences have dropped too. The Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, reports that the number of death sentences imposed has fallen from a high of more than 300 annually in the 1990s to 144 in 2003.At the same time, the number of executions has fallen from a high of 98 in 1999 to 59 in 2004. Williams was the 59th this year.And in the past year, the specter of wrongful executions was raised by the Tribune and the Houston Chronicle, whose investigations strongly suggested that Texas executed innocent men--Cameron Todd Willingham and Ruben Cantu.Williams' is the latest in a series of recent capital cases that have captured the attention of the public and the media. His case focused primarily on his rehabilitation, though his attorneys contended at the 11th hour that they had found three jailhouse witnesses who claimed Williams was framed.In the end, death penalty advocates and opponents alike will likely point to his case as supporting their positions. As a former leader of the notorious Crips street gang, he was convicted of four murders. While in prison, he wrote children's books with anti-gang themes and denounced violence.A commutation likely would have fueled the anti-death penalty movement more than his execution will bolster those who support capital punishment, said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore., and vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.Marquis, a noted death penalty supporter, said individual cases rarely lead to significant change. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's recent commutation of Lovitt's sentence came and went with little controversy.Rallying point for opponentsAt the same time, though, Lawrence Marshall, founder of Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions and now a professor at Stanford Law School in California, said, "Clearly, here in California, this [Williams'] case has engendered a tremendous amount of passion and has created an anti-death penalty movement that is more vocal than ever."The question is what's going to happen to that," he said. "Will this be part of a series of events that triggers more scrutiny and questions, or will it be perceived as a defeat with people going back to their homes to forget about it? It is too soon to tell." Much like Williams' case, the lead-up to the executions in Texas of Tucker and Graham stirred great controversy.Marquis compared Williams' case to that of Abu-Jamal, the Pennsylvania Death Row inmate who attracted celebrity supporters. After a court granted Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing, the case swiftly "fell off the radar," he said. If the Williams case has any impact, Marquis said, it will be that, for a short time at least, the death penalty became a topic of discussion. "The Tookie Williams execution is being used as a vehicle to discuss the death penalty, which is not an altogether bad thing," Marquis said. "Through the fog of all the rhetoric, some good issues are being discussed." To Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center, Williams' bid for clemency was a test case in an effort to determine which way the capital punishment debate is headed--though reading the trend is far from simple. Conflicting signals For example, Congress is threatening to break up the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has long been seen as one of the most liberal federal appeals courts in the nation. In addition, lawmakers are considering the Streamlined Procedures Act, which would limit convicted inmates' ability to take their appeals to federal court. At the same time, the California Senate created a commission to study the death penalty system there and deliver a report by the end of 2007. "It used to be that the way Texas goes, there goes the death penalty," Dieter said. "But maybe now it will be California. This could signal California having quite a few executions." David Dow, a death penalty lawyer who runs the Texas Innocence Network, offered another view, predicting the spike in the death penalty debate would subside until another high-profile case comes into focus. He noted that just two weeks ago, the nation's 1,000th execution made headlines. "But in the two weeks after number 1,000, there were two more executions that nobody paid attention to," he said. Had Schwarzenegger spared Williams, it might have provided cover for other governors--especially Republicans who traditionally have been outspoken supporters of the death penalty--to grant clemency. But sometimes a governor's decision has little long-lasting impact. In 1996, then-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar commuted the death sentence of Guinevere Garcia, even though Garcia demanded to be put to death, in what was largely perceived as Edgar's reluctance to sign a death warrant for a woman. Edgar's action was only a footnote when Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in Illinois in 2000 and emptied Death Row with a mass commutation in 2003. "Sure, the level of attention [the Williams case] is receiving is not going to last," Dieter said. "But it will have an effect. You may not remember the name, but it may give a hint on the death penalty's direction." Steve Mills reported from Los Angeles and Maurice Possley from Chicago

EXTREME JOBS

Este artículo lo traigo a propósito de un amigo Abogado Marcelo Montero I , que tiene especiales opiniones al respecto . Lo voy a invitar a opinar sobre este especial tema, porque el conoce la realidad Chilena y la de los Estados Unidos muy bien. Esperamos que sus compromisos académicos y profesionales se lo permita, pero aprovecharemos el verano para preocuparnos de ver la realidad Chilena en particular James Waldroop, who codeveloped CareerLeader, the interactive career-assessment program used by more than 240 MBA programs and corporations, says work-hours inflation is growing, not just in the United States but globally. Last summer, he says, the newspapers in Madrid were ablaze with reports of the demise of the siesta, as Spanish workers scrambled to keep up with their E.U. counterparts. In Germany, workers at Siemens grudgingly agreed to an extension of their workweek to 40 hours. The French government is contemplating lengthening the 35-hour workweek established in 1998. In Japan, there were 160 official cases of "karoshi," or "death from overwork," in fiscal 2002, and another 43 people committed suicide because of overwork. Extreme jobs are a problem when they're staffed by workers who aren't necessarily stoked by the spine-tingling thrill of a shift in interest rates, or jazzed by the chance to restructure a call center in Omaha. In the United States, both consulting firms and investment banks lose a significant number of their young associates -- particularly women -- to the unrelenting toil of the job. The career Web site Vault.com says that 55% of consultants and 30% of investment bankers quit after five years. "The sheer demands of the job burn people out," Bishop says. "Or they leave when there's been a shock to the system -- a new baby comes along, or they want to devote time to a relationship." While there are still reports that long hours are part of a hazing ritual (one young analyst at Merrill Lynch recalls a supervisor saying, "When we ask you to work on Christmas Day, it's not that we're being mean. It's just building character"), most firms deny an attempt to wash out the less committed. "Sure, there's a natural selection process," says Melanie Karbe, a partner at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in San Francisco. "But I don't think it's a Darwinistic approach to see who survives. People will understand whether they really enjoy this and want to do this. We do not say, 'Let's be as brutal as we can, especially at the associate level.' " Still, some experts think business-service firms in particular are caught in a predicament of their own creation. "When you're charging huge amounts of money, companies want you to dance to their tune, not yours," says Waldroop, whose own firm, Peregrine Partners, works with Fortune 50 corporations. "Frankly, consulting firms and I-banks have built up these expectations. In the 1950s, they didn't operate like this." Stewart Friedman, who runs the Work/ Life Integration Project at the Wharton School, says he's seeing more students and workers who are looking for career tracks that don't require such sacrifices. "The problem is that there are certain unquestioned assumptions about what's required to be successful," he says. "And for every one of those people telling you 'I gotta do the 24-7-365-BlackBerry-travel-around-the-world deal,' I'm willing to bet a lot of money I could help them figure out ways of creating boundaries that could reduce some of that demand." But even Friedman concedes that among the folks who live to work -- the ones he calls "happy workaholics" -- such strategies are irrelevant. And don't try telling them that long hours and high stress will ultimately make them sick. "There are studies that look at the impact of weekly work hours on health, and two that link it to heart disease," says Paul Spector, professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of South Florida. "But here's the kicker: In order to pay the price, it has to be a job where you're forced to work hours that you don't want to." In other words, if you like what you're doing, there's no physical risk. "The data suggest that people who are doing it because they want to are perfectly fine," says Spector. David Clark, 35, has one of those glamour jobs that make people say, "Where do I sign up?" As VP of global marketing partnerships for MTV, he travels constantly, following the music scene around the planet. In late January in his Times Square office, he was frenetically working to turn the MTV Asia Awards in Bangkok into a tsunami relief event and mapping the launch of the network's 100th channel, in Africa, in the spring. Clark knows he's lucky. He also knows how easily his job can suck the hours out of his week, a realization that's become more acute since the birth of his baby, Nicholas, 18 months ago. "Since our son's been born, it's become more difficult," he says. "I'm still figuring it out." Because Clark is "the global guy" at MTV, there are few hours in his day when some part of the world is not clamoring for attention. He wakes up at 6:30 a.m. to the alarm on his BlackBerry and spends half an hour answering the 30 to 40 messages that have piled up, before he even gets out of bed. His little son can already mimic Daddy's BlackBerry thumb dance. After a few calls to clients in far-flung time zones, he heads to the office where the barrage doesn't die down until late afternoon, when there's a brief pause as Asia goes to bed and Europe goes home to dinner. Still, by 4 p.m. one day, he had 578 unread messages clogging his inbox, and Latin America was desperately trying to get his attention by phone. In the evenings, he says, he tries to get home for an hour with his son, and then it's back on the phone and email until he collapses into bed at midnight. That's when he's not in Singapore or Rio. Curiously, instead of reducing the need for travel, all this connectivity has actually increased it, he says: "My theory is that there comes a time in any project where you just need to be face-to-face." Clark logs about 200,000 miles a year. But while he loves the travel and the challenge of doing global deals, he worries about the effect it will have on his nonwork life. "Some of the older managers have warned me that if you're not careful, these all-consuming jobs can ruin your family," he says. Still, "there are plenty of people who would love to have this job. They're knocking on the door all the time. So that's motivating." At least Clark has a family. Until recently, John Bishop -- tall, smart, good-looking, and making an enviable salary -- had trouble finding time for even a date. "I had a huge network of friends at Wharton. That's shrunk," he says, ruefully. "My friends say I'm much more difficult to reach now. I pull out of things at the last minute; I've canceled vacations, family time, dates. When you're single and trying to start a relationship, nobody understands that." Bishop tries to lay the groundwork upfront, warning women that his job is unpredictable and unlikely to get better. "Somebody with a 9-to-5 job and a needy personality would never work for me," he says. Fortunately, he has recently reconnected with a former girlfriend who's now a medical resident in Boston with equally ridiculous hours. But it's the next step -- having a family -- that seems to be the point at which extreme jobs often become unsustainable. "I don't have any concept of how I could do this if I were a parent," says Avery Baker, the Hilfiger exec. "That's why it's enjoyable for us to have such an extreme life now, because we both know it won't always be this way." Even workers who think they can handle the demands often find the trade-offs not worth the price. After trying to handle her job at consulting firm DiamondCluster International for two years following the birth of her son, Andrea Kampine, 35, recently left for a company that required less travel. "In the end, I decided I needed to see my family every day," she says. "Life doesn't get easier the more senior you get in consulting. I looked out on the horizon and didn't see a point where constant travel would be okay for me." Some organizations are taking steps to keep workers like Kampine. Karbe says Booz Allen has put a lot of effort into retention and making jobs less onerous. "The industry has begun to evolve," she says. "There's a recognition that you're not necessarily just losing the underperformers; you're losing your good people." Now, she says, managers are evaluated based partially on their ability to create work-life balance on their teams. "You cannot burn teams," Karbe says. "We do not tolerate it. That didn't exist 10 years ago." The Human Capital Institute's Schweyer thinks more companies will have to find a way to reconcile draconian work demands with real-life needs. "The unsustainability is what companies have to prepare for," he says. "They've been able to put it off because the economy and the labor market have been weak for the past five years. But what happens if we get back to the point like in the late '90s, when the job seeker was in control? There will be a retention crisis." But Bishop, who recruits for Citigroup at Wharton, isn't convinced. "Even if people leave, there's so much demand for people wanting to get into the system, it doesn't really matter. They can always find more." And Tse says the question is beside the point. Periodically, she says, she toys with the idea of giving it all up to study music at a conservatory in Florence. But she can't quite bring herself to step away. "If you're doing something you love, and you're great at it, life can't be better." Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer. Ver más en Consultajuridica.blogspot.com Saludos Rodrigo González fernández

FROM TOM PETERS

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dispatches from the new world of work

TP's Healthcare Twenty-seven/December 2005

In preparation for a healthcare client conference call, I hastily jotted down this list of my more or less "beliefs" about healthcare (no particular order, not in order of importance—but main points are BOLD):

1. Fully utilize Physician's Assistants to do routine work in a timely fashion. ("Doc in a Kiosk" at Wal*Mart is great!)
2. Maximize Outpatient Services!
3. Short hospital stays work!
4. Support home care to the max. (E.g., "Declaration of Independents"—Beacon Hill/Boston)
5. STOP THE 100K+ NEEDLESS DEATHS—much/most of the "quality stuff" is eminently fixable. (Don Berwick for President! AHA for Hall of Shame!) (Strong, vicious insurer incentives!!!)
6. FLIP HC 177 DEGREES TO EMPHASIZE PREVENTION & WELLNESS. ("Steps" are being taken but not enough. Med schools: Awful! Insurers: Little better. Support for appropriate-proven alternative therapies is an important part.) (HUGE INCENTIVES FOR EFFECTIVE WELLNESS-PREVENTION PROGRAMS-MEASURABLE SUCCESSES.)
7. "Boomers" will determine HC's (very different?) future. (They are from a different & demanding planet compared to yesterday's Oldsters.)
8. "Focus on Women." (It's my generic—and correct—rallying cry, and it applies to HC in spades, women-as-patients-with different-woes-than-men; women-as-HC decision makers at the "consumer"—and commercial—level.)
9. "Patient/Consumer-driven" may be a buzz phrase bandied about all to easily ... but it is true. (And changes the game.)
10. Reduce incentives for unnecessary tests. (Malpractice caps would help, though the issue is complex. Insurers-HMOs doing so-so on this.)
11. OUTCOME-BASED MEDICINE IS A MUST! (There is a long, long way to go!) (Measure until you're blue in the face!)
12. Science-based medicine is a terrific idea!! (Many-most "therapies" unproven scientifically, uneven in application when proven.)
13. Over the next 5-25 years, the Life Sciences Revolution will make the likes of the "info revolution" look like small beer. (Get ready.)
14. Radical increase in "best practices" utilization—inculcate in Med school!
15. Med school "revolution" imperative—outcome-based medicine, abiding emphasis on Wellness & Prevention, etc.
16. Get info to Patients! (HIPAA mostly good.—"I wanna see my records!") (Detailed hospital-by-hospital, disease-by-disease, doc-by-doc success records a must—despite controversy.)
17. Upgrade IS-IT in the entire system, starting with acute-care institutions. (Current grade: D-.) (Winners include: Indiana Heart Hospital; Inova Fairfax Heart Institute.)
18. Healtheon WebMD-like (if it had worked) mega-, integrated-info network will-should emerge. (A healthcare Google+?)
19. MOVE HEAVEN & EARTH TO IMPLEMENT ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS. NOW.
20. By hook or by crook, something approximating basic universal care, starting with kids—50 state partial experiments is a help; some are quite far along. ("Market-based" as much as possible—but this is far from a "perfect market.")
21. Deal with the enormous HMO "I want my doc" perception problem. (Fact: MARCUS WELBY, STATISTICALLY, AIN'T THAT GREAT A HEALER IN TODAY'S "HIGH SCIENCE" WORLD! Incidentally, same perception problem re Congress, schools. "My Congressman is great, Congress has 434 other crook-clowns." "My kids' school is good, the system is awful.") · Blitzkrieg of Patient/Customer/Citizen education (e.g., re "outcomes-based HC," "Get the most for your HC dollar"). (Corporate cuts should motivate this.) · "Healing-centric" care supported. (E.g., Planetree model—reduces future problems.) · Emphasize front-to-back "customer care" practices—cuts waaaaay down on malpractice claims among other things. · Specialization in acute care works wonders, regardless of howls! (E.g., Shouldice/hernia repair.) · Shorten the FDA approval process. (Tom, age 63, wants the good new stuff and will accept associated risk; so will most boomers-geezers.) · DON'T MESS AROUND WITH H5N1/AVIAN FLU! Tom Peters posted this today. SINCERELY YOURS

1. RODRIGO GONZALEZ FENANDEZ, CONSULTAJURIDICA.BLOGSPOT.COM

LAWYERING VS. LOBBYING

Lawyering vs. Lobbying As the ethically-challenged ex-lawmakers Bill Shoemakers, Wally Kunickis, Gary Georges, Chuck Chvalas and Brian Burkes turned Wisconsin into Illinois North with their pay-to-play campaign strategies, here is a nugget from our big-city neighbors that has some merit.As a business model, it would seem logical for law firms to bring non-attorneys in-house to generate new business or compliment existing business. And because law firms market the attorney-client privilege as a bonus of doing business with them, versus a lobby-shop, where there are no standards of practice or ethical guidelines (other than the paper tiger of a state Ethics Board), it also seems more up-and-up to retain a law firm.On the surface, everything appears kosher. Yet, as society becomes ever-more litigious, I suspect it becomes exponentially more difficult to work both ends of the equation; the slow slog of lawyers processing motions and digesting case history, versus the more desirable (from a corporate viewpoint) process of drafting a bill or an amendment and lobbying legislative leadership or committee chairmen to fast-track relief. (In Wisconsin, see All Sums legislation)Neither lawyering nor lobbying are inherently evil professions. The process needs both.But the process also needs an infusion of better judgment and Winston & Strawn may be setting a new, old, trend that will migrate to Wisconsin.Winston & Strawn halts lobbyingHeaded by ex-Gov. Thompson, firm's growth led to conflicts-----The law firm that former Gov. James Thompson built into a lobbying powerhouse in Springfield has quietly gone out of that line of work, a casualty of changing ethics laws and its own growth as a worldwide corporate litigator. Loop-based Winston & Strawn LLP shut down its lobbying practice this summer after the firm's two main Springfield hands, John Nicolay and Timothy Dart, left the firm to set up their own lobbying practice.They were the only two left in an office that once had six attorneys lobbying for big-name clients such as Philip Morris USA and Illinois doctors' insurance interests. The action follows Mr. Thompson's decision early in 2004 to cease his own lobbying activities. Under a new state ethics law that took effect then, Mr. Thompson had to cease lobbying if his wife, Jayne, was to continue to chair the board of the Chicago Public Library, which is partially funded by the state.FRIENDLY SPLITBoth Messrs. Thompson and Nicolay say their split was amicable but necessary, given Winston & Strawn's rapid growth into an international firm with offices serving lucrative corporate clients around the world."We'd bring in clients, and we couldn't take them," says Mr. Nicolay. "We got tired of having a conflict (of interest) with some (Winston & Strawn) guy in London or New York that we'd never met."Indeed, Springfield lobbying increasingly is the domain of boutique firms, such as Chicago's Nicolay & Dart, which don't carry the conflict issues or the overhead of litigation behemoths."When you have the costs, the freight, that major law firms do, it makes it much harder to compete," says lobbyist Andrew Raucci, who left a Chicago law firm and struck out on his own several years ago. Unlike lawyers who have to worry about billable hours, "I can be in Springfield all the time," says Mr. Raucci, who charges clients a flat fee, rather than an hourly rate.Mr. Thompson, who will send prospective lobbying clients to Nicolay & Dart, says he misses "the interaction with the legislative folks" that lobbying provided.But the four-term former governor noted that under the law, he still can advise clients on legislative strategy. And he continues to rub shoulders with lawmakers on occasion."I still see them," Mr. Thompson says. "I just can't lobby them." For more information : http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2005/09/lawyering-vs-lobbying.html Saludos Rodrigo González Fernández, lawyerschile.blogspot.com

More Law Firms Launc

More Law Firms Launching Blogs
There’s a nice roundup of which law firms are blogging on page 50 of the November/December issue of Law Firm Inc. (unfortunately it’s not online).  The article interviews the people behind five leading law firm blogs, and mentions a few others to boot:

1. Davis Wright Tremaine: Privacy and Security Law Blog, interview with Associate Lance Koonce in New York.


2. Holland & Hart: Health Care Law Blog, interview with Gregory Piche, Partner


3. McGlinchy Stafford: CAFA Law Blog (Class Action Fairness Act), interview with Anthony Rollo, Partner


4. Stark & Stark: The New Jersey Law Blog, interview with Richard DeLuca, Director of Business Development. The firm also publishes the Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog.


5. Preston Gates & Ellis, Electronic Discovery Law, interview with David Bowerman, Senior Business Development Manager  (for an in-depth story on this blog, read “How a Blog Changed the Way Preston Gates Communicates” online at http://www.pmforumusa.com/pages/magazine.asp?Action=DrawArticle&ArticleID=184.


6. Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, 6 blogs including the Antitrust Law blog.


7. Kean Miller Hawthorn D’Armond, McCowan & Jarman, Louisiana State Law blog.


8. McNees Wallace & Nurick, Pennsylvania Health Law blog.

These precedents can be persuasive with reluctant partners when you’re trying to get your firm to launch a blog.  According to Blawg.org there are 1,144 law firm or lawyer blogs in 199 categories.
More information  from Larry Bodin :
http://legalmarketing.typepad.com/blog/
From Legal marketing , sincerely your Rodrigo  González  Fernández  lawyerschile.blogspot.com

Malpractice by Drug

Malpractice by Drug Industry

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Submitted by Dan Gillmor on Tue, 12/13/2005 - 12:08pm.
Today's Wall Street Journal has a long story entitled At Medical Journals, Writers Paid by Industry Play Big Role. Quotes:
Many of the articles that appear in scientific journals under the bylines of prominent academics are actually written by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies. These seemingly objective articles, which doctors around the world use to guide their care of patients, are often part of a marketing campaign by companies to promote a product or play up the condition it treats.
Now questions about the practice are mounting as medical journals face unprecedented scrutiny of their role as gatekeeper for scientific information. Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that a 2000 article it published highlighting the advantages of Merck & Co.'s Vioxx painkiller omitted information about heart attacks among patients taking the drug. The journal has said the deletions were made by someone working from a Merck computer. Merck says the heart attacks happened after the study's cutoff date and it did nothing wrong.
If the medical journals want to be taken seriously in the future, they'll have to do something about this sleazy behavior. If they don't, let's hope that new publications arise to offer honest medical journalism.

Dan Gillmor's blog

Dan Gilmor is one of the best blogs in USA, sincerely tours Rodrigo González Fernandez, consultajuridica.blogspot.com

OLA RYNGE

Is personal branding all about work? When looking on the Internet for personal branding, the most hits you will get is about applying for jobs, how to build a career etc. But can quitting your job be a step forward to your personal brand?For me, the answer is without a doubt, yes. The personal brand is about being who you are, not about being your work.The reason for me not writing a lot lately is because I have decided to do just that, leaving the company that I am the co-founder of. That is not an easy decision, but I feel that my role in the company has developed into something that I have hard identifying myself with. The decision is taken and now I feel great about it. Ok, a little insecure about the future, but inspired to start something new, building my brand by acting as me, privately as well as professionally.October is my last month at Saligus. I want to thank all the stakeholders for my time at the company, and I wish you all the best of luck! OLA RYNGE ES ONE OF THE BEST OF WORLD IN PERSONAL BRANDING you can find more information: http://ola.rynge.net/blog/ Best regards Rodrigo González Fernández, consultajuridica.blogspot.com. mentorchile.blogspot.com

RECURSO DE AMPARO ECONOMICO

Oportunidad: abogados , estudiantes , jueces , profesores de derecho LIBRO “RECURSO DE AMPARO ECONOMICO” AUTOR: RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ Págs.: 181 CON NOCIONES DE LA LIBERTAD ECONÓMICA Y LIBERTAD DE EMPRENDER… EDITORIAL CONGRESO Santiago – Chile Ø En Editorial Jurídica de Chile ( Andrés Bello) Ø Librerías Andrés Bello Ø Librería La Ley y otras librerías Jurídicas.

RAISING THE BAR: Even Top Lawyers Fail California Exam Former Stanford Law Dean, Becomes Latest Victim; A Mayor Tries Four Times By JAMES BANDLER and NATHAN KOPPEL Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 5, 2005; Page A1 Kathleen Sullivan is a noted constitutional scholar who has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Until recently, she was dean of Stanford Law School. In legal circles, she has been talked about as a potential Democratic nominee for the Supreme Court. But Ms. Sullivan recently became the latest prominent victim of California's notoriously difficult bar exam. Last month, the state sent out the results of its July test to 8,343 aspiring and already-practicing lawyers. More than half failed -- including Ms. Sullivan. Although she is licensed to practice law in New York and Massachusetts, Ms. Sullivan was taking the California exam for the first time after joining a Los Angeles-based firm as an appellate specialist. The California bar exam has created misery for thousands of aspiring and practicing lawyers. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown passed on his second try, while former Gov. Pete Wilson needed four attempts. The recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio R. Villaraigosa, never did pass the bar after failing four times. But it's unusual for the exam to claim a top-notch constitutional lawyer at the peak of her game. "She is a rock star," says William Urquhart, who last year recruited Ms. Sullivan to join his firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges LLP. "Practically every lawyer in the U.S. knows who Kathleen Sullivan is." If anyone should have passed, Mr. Urquhart says, it is Ms. Sullivan. "The problem is not with Kathleen Sullivan, it is with the person who drafted the exam or the person who graded it." Ms. Sullivan, 50 years old, did not return phone and email messages seeking comment. Her firm said she wasn't reachable over the weekend because she was at a remote location. Mr. Urquhart says he does not know Ms. Sullivan's score, but knows she spent little time preparing because she was inundated with work for the firm and Stanford Law School, where she now runs the school's constitutional law center. Ms. Sullivan plans to take the test again, according to Mr. Urquhart. "She'll prepare more next time," he says. "My advice to her is that she should look at 15 bar questions and 15 sample, perfect answers. That is all she'll need to pass." The California test, by all accounts, is tough. It lasts three days, as compared with two or 2�-day exams in most states. Only one state -- Delaware -- has a higher minimum passing score. According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, just 44% of those taking the California bar in 2004 passed the exam, the lowest percentage in the country, versus a national average of 64%. Like many professions, lawyers are regulated by the states, and nearly every state requires passage of a bar exam for attorneys to practice law. Some states grant reciprocity to out-of-state lawyers. California does not; to be licensed in the state, one must pass the California bar exam. This July's version of the California test aimed at lawyers licensed in other states -- like Ms. Sullivan -- claimed an unusually high percentage of victims. The two-day test, which is identical to the longer exam but omits a long multiple-choice section, had just a 28% passage rate in July, an astoundingly low figure that state bar officials are at a loss to explain. Out-of-state lawyers can take the full three-day exam if they choose. Critics say the test is capricious, unreliable and a poor measure of future lawyering skills. Some also complain that California's system serves to protect the state's lawyers by excluding competition from out-of-state attorneys. There has been some loosening of the rules. California adopted rules last year permitting certain classes of lawyers to practice in the state without having to take the bar. Gayle Murphy, the senior executive for admissions for the State Bar of California, says that the purpose of the bar exam is to protect the public, not to restrain competition. Great efforts are taken to make sure exam grading is fair, including use of multiple graders, she says. The exam includes six essays and two written performance tests. Each written part is assigned a separate grader. Test-takers who are close to the passing line are assigned nine more graders, so a borderline exam will have as many as 17 graders. One reason for California's high failure rate, Ms. Murphy says, is that graduates of unaccredited and correspondence law schools are allowed in California to take the test. California's pass rate for ABA-approved schools is in line with those of other states, Ms. Murphy says. She says a possible reason for failures by practicing lawyers is that they simply don't have enough time to put in the requisite studying hours. Attending a premier law school doesn't guarantee success: former Gov. Wilson got his law degree from Berkeley, while former Gov. Brown went to Yale. Aundrea Newsome, an attorney in Hermosa Beach, Calif., who passed the July test, limited her prep time to two months, but she worked eight to 10 hours a day, every day, during that stretch. "That is standard," she says. "You make a deal with the devil and give up two months of your life to pass." Ms. Newsome, who graduated from the University of Southern California Law School in May, says preparing for the exam requires studying so many different legal fields, including such arcane topics as 18th-century criminal common law, that practical knowledge or even mastery of several legal subjects is not enough. Robert Pfister, who was already licensed in Indiana, Connecticut and New York, also found the experience grueling. After the first morning of the exam, "you feel like your hand will fall off from writing so much," says Mr. Pfister, an associate with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP who passed the July exam in California. "After the second day, you just want to go home and sleep. But then you have to come back for a third day." Mr. Pfister, who handles securities-fraud cases and had been practicing law for about four years before taking the California bar, recalls one question where he was asked to parse the law that would apply to a disabled child who was seeking to move to a housing complex. "You can be the greatest personal-injury lawyer in the country, or mergers and acquisitions lawyer," he says. "But the stuff they give you is often some area of law you haven't dealt with." Former Gov. Wilson describes his need to take the bar exam four times as "frustrating." He blames his difficulties on his penmanship, which he says was not messy, but very slow. "To put it in the simplest terms, if I had not learned to type, I would never have passed it," says Mr. Wilson. A spokesman for former Gov. Brown, who is currently mayor of Oakland, Calif., says several of his classmates from Yale also failed the exam, some of whom went on to be judges and prominent lawyers. A native of New York City, Ms. Sullivan has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a law degree from Harvard University. She taught at both Stanford and Harvard before becoming dean of Stanford's law school in 1999. The author of a leading constitutional-law casebook, Ms. Sullivan has argued several cases before the Supreme Court. Earlier this spring, the nation's highest court ruled in favor of one of her clients, a California winegrowers' group, striking down state laws that restricted direct sales from vineyards to consumers. Last year, after announcing she would step down from her Stanford post, Ms. Sullivan joined the Silicon Valley office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart to head a new appellate practice. Ms. Sullivan is unlikely to need as many attempts as Maxcy Dean Filer, who may hold the California bar endurance record, having passed in 1991 after 47 unsuccessful tries. The Compton, Calif., man, who says he'll practice any kind of law that "comes through the door -- except probate and bankruptcy," says he always tried to psych himself up before taking the test by repeating, "I didn't fail the bar, the bar failed me." Este post me lo envía el profesor y abogado Marcelo Montero I que es también ex alumno de la Universidad de Stanford y profesor en la Universidad Diego Portales Saludos Rodrigo González Fernández , consultajuridica.blogspot.com

Business acceleration - Asking the right questions

Business acceleration - Asking the right questions In planning for next year, ask yourself the following questions: 1. What are the two most important business outcomes we are working to achieve in the next six months? 2. What behaviors will be necessary in order to increase the chances we will achieve those desired business outcomes? 3. Whom do we need to influence in order to get both the desired behaviors and the desired business results? 4. How will we influence these people? 5. Who will specifically provide the influence to the various individuals? (Courtesy of Dan Coughlin, corporate & career catalyst) If you want help in answering these questions, see our classic guide (called the "Bible of running a law practice"), Attorney & Law Firm Guide to The Business of Law, 2nd ed. (Pub. ABA 2002). Ed.Poll, has a very good blog where we can learn a lot, sincerely tours, Rodrigo González Fernández, consultajuridica.blogspot.com lawyerschile.blogspot.com

From Chinese Law Pro

From Chinese Law Prof Blog A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network
Miren las importancia que tienen los blogs China law Prof.Blog . Chile tiene un TLC con China y que ¿sabemos de las leyes Chinas? ¿Hay abogados chilenos preparándose en materias legales Chinas?
Bueno acá les anticipo de lo que se  hace en USA al respecto, saquemos conclusiones y ejemplos: ( perdonen que les presente en Inglés, pero es buenos que practiquemos inglés, nos va a servir mucho )
China Law Prof Blog blocked in China again
Oops, I did it again, apparently. Something in a previous posting - was it my daring expose of the Beijing company selling lunar real estate? - has attracted the attention of the security authorities and the blocking now seems not intermittent, but permanent and complete. If anyone is reading this in China, please let me know.
December 2, 2005 in News - Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Illinois in China
Here's the latest from the Dec. 2005-Jan. 2006 Dean's newsletter at the University of Illinois College of Law:
Seven College of Law faculty members will travel to Guangzhou, China from December 3-11 to attend a conference entitled "The Role of Law in Economic Development -- Implications for China in the World," co-sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law and the Law Faculty of Sun Yat-sen University. Those attending the conference include Professors William Davey, Tom Ginsburg, Jay Kesan, Larry Ribstein, Larry Solum, Charles Tabb, and Cynthia Williams. The relationship between law and economic development has been one of the central concerns of modern social theory and legal scholarship, and is of increasing importance to policy-makers in national governments and multilateral development institutions. It is also a critical issue for China's future, as China seeks continued economic growth while assigning a greater role to law and the legal system in underpinning that growth. The conference is being held as part of Sun Yat Sen University's celebration of the centennial of legal studies in Guangdong.
December 2, 2005 in News - Miscellaneous, People and Institutions | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, December 1, 2005
Chinese law research projects approved by Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Justice recently issued the 2005 list of ministry-level legal research projects approved for funding. A quick review shows that the term 和谐 (hexie: harmony), associated with Hu Jintao's leadership, appears in the title of seven of the 134 approved projects. In the list of 94 projects approved in 2003 (I couldn't find the 2004 list on line), the term does not appear at all.
December 1, 2005 in News - Chinese Law | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Friday, November 25, 2005
Asian Law Institute conference, Shanghai, 25-26 May 2006
The Asian Law Institute, a consortium of Asian law faculties operating out of the National University of Singapore, will have its third conference on 25-26 May 2006 in Shanghai at the East China University of Politics and Law. The theme of the conference is "The Development of Law in Asia: Convergence versus Divergence?"
Full details available here.
November 25, 2005 in Conferences | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Beijing court abolishes sanctions for overturned decisions
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate-Level People's Court recently announced that it was doing away with the system of disciplining judges on the basis of overturned decisions. Under that system, if a certain number of decisions were revised or overturned on appeal (or presumably on retrial pursuant to judicial supervision as well), the judge would receive sanctions in the form of benefit cuts or demerits. This system, commonly practiced in the Chinese courts, has been criticized by many on the grounds that (1) it leads judges to clear their decisions with superior courts beforehand, often through non-transparent means that in effect jeopardize the meaningfulness of an appeal, and (2) that it leads judges to pressure the parties unduly to accept a "mediated" settlement, from which (being theoretically voluntary) there is no appeal. Superior court judges, being only human, may also be reluctant in a close case to overturn a judgment when it will bring sanctions on the head of a fellow judge. Finally, of course, the system rests on a questionable premise: that there are no close cases, and that one "wrong" judgment is just as bad as another.
In order to avoid these perverse incentives, the No. 1 Intermediate Court has decided to replace a disciplinary system based on outcomes with a system based on process: the judge's behavior. Thus, judges are henceforth to be rewarded or disciplined based on their conduct of trials, not on whether the judgment is overturned or not.
Web reference:

1. ChinaLawInfo report (in Chinese)

November 23, 2005 in News - Chinese Law | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
He Weifang
Periodically I would like to post short biographies of people in the Chinese law community (both the people in China who in a sense make Chinese law and the people outside who study it). Today's entry is He Weifang (贺卫方), a professor of law at Peking University's Faculty of Law.
The bio, compiled by China Law Digest, can be found here．
November 22, 2005 in People and Institutions | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, November 21, 2005
And you thought "to die of rage" was just an expression
The expression "to die of anger" (气死) is very common in Chinese (or maybe just among the Chinese people I know). It has now received official sanction as a cause of action in tort. The Worker's Daily (工人日报) reported in its Oct. 24, 2005 issue about a case in which a husband successfully sued a company for having caused the death of his wife in this way. In July, 2002, his wife and several other workers had confronted a senior official at the company about back wages they were owed. The official apparently said rather dismissively, "I can't do anything about it; go to the government or go to court." At this, the wife began foaming at the mouth and fell senseless to the ground.
The cause of death was ascertained to be cerebral hemorrhage triggered by the argument over wages. The husband brought suit in January, 2005. In its judgment, the court found that the company official had been too harsh in his tone (语言有些生硬) and had caused the victim's death; it found for the husband against the company.
Interestingly, nobody seems to have noticed that the statute of limitations for this action had long since run. The general limitation is two years under Art. 135 of the General Principles of Civil Law, and under Art. 136 it's one year for actions for personal injury.
Web references:

1. Worker's Daily report (in Chinese)


2. English-language digest in China News Digest

November 21, 2005 in News - Chinese Law | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Latest issue of China Law Digest now available
The October issue of China Law Digest (Vol. 1, No. 8) is now available on line here.
November 20, 2005 in Publications | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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RECENT POSTS & ARCHIVES
TOPICAL & CHRONOLOGICAL ARCHIVES

1. China Law Prof Blog blocked in China again


2. Illinois in China


3. Chinese law research projects approved by Ministry of Justice


4. Asian Law Institute conference, Shanghai, 25-26 May 2006


5. Beijing court abolishes sanctions for overturned decisions


6. He Weifang


7. And you thought "to die of rage" was just an expression


8. Latest issue of China Law Digest now available


9. Antitrust law in China


10. Chinese Law Prof Blog intermittently blocked again in China

 Fron The Chinese Law Prof Blog A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network
Sincerely yours, Rodrigo González Fernández, lawyerschile.blogspot.com

From Business Law P

From  Business Law Prof Blog
A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network
Business Law Professors Square Off Over Sarbanes-Oxley
Joseph Nocera's column in today NYT (Business Section),  "For All Its Cost, Sarbanes Law is Working," was a typical Nocera effort to declare.  He takes a controversial topic, breezes over the claims for and against and declares.  He has done, for example, a column on Donaldson as head of the SEC, declaring that he did a good job.  In his column he quotes two law professors, William J. Carney and Steven Bainbridge, on the law "unintended consequences and quotes Harvey J. Goldschmid:  "There is no question it has been a great piece of legislation, and anybody who says otherwise is talking like a darn fool."  Ouch, Goldschmid was on the SEC when the SOX was put into place and had an important hand in the implementing rules. Well, lots of folks are talking like fools.
There are two parts of the argument that are hard to deny.  First, Congress intended the legislation to clean up the corporation scandals of 2002.  A primary part of its purpose was to fix auditing; auditors had misbehaved.  The primary effect of the legislation has been to enrich auditors.  Auditors have more important positions inside companies and must do more;  audit fees have skyrocketed.  So a profession misbehaves, Congress writes legislation to discipline them and the profession profits big time -- what a great country.  We should we suspicious of any legislation that has this effect.    Second,  of course the legislation has benefits, the question is the cost of the benefits.  Nocera quotes CEOs saying that they learned some things about their companies from Section 404 internal controls audits.  Nocera uses these CEO revelations, in the final analysis, to say the legislation works.  Pretty shallow stuff.  An argument like this could justify any number of very silly disclosure rules.  [Make all companies run environmental bore hole tests on every acres of land every year or so;  some CEOs will learn something.]  All companies must do Section 404 audits and some will learn a bit that they would otherwise not know --but many (most?)companies, making a business decision on information, would not do them if not forced to -- the total information gains from the 404 audits do not exceed the total costs of the rules.   The continuing exemption for small companies (and the discussion of the exemption) is where the rule's true problems are revealed for all to see.
From Business Law Prof Blog
A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network  Best regards, Rodrigo González Fernandez lawyerschile.blogspot.com

BLOGS BY LAW PROFESS

BLOGS BY LAW PROFESSORS FOR LAW PROFESSORSLaw Professor Blogs is a network of web logs ("blogs") designed from the ground-up to assist law professors in their scholarship and teaching. Each site focuses on a particular area of law and combines both (1) regularly-updated permanent resources and links, and (2) daily news and information of interest to law professors. Our editors are leading scholars and teachers who are committed to providing the web destination for law professors in their fields.
What Law Professor Blogs Are
The permanent resources & links and daily news & information are designed to collect in one place materials helpful to law professors in their scholarship and teaching:
Permanent Resources and Links:

1. A list of all the law professors in the field, with links to their personal web pages, along with a list of recent lateral moves, entry level hires, and visiting appointments


2. A list of casebooks and other materials, with links to the books on the publisher's web site


3. Links to working papers on SSRN, colloquia, and specialized law reviews


4. Links to professional organizations for faculty (AALS section, ABA section, etc.)


5. Links to think tanks, U.S., state & foreign law sources, publishers, and other web sites of interest

Daily News and Information:

1. Upcoming colloquia, conferences, and meetings


2. Abstracts of working papers and recently-published scholarship


3. Book reviews


4. Career moves


5. Other items of interest to faculty writing and teaching in the area

What Law Professor Blogs Are NotOur blogs are not a collection of personal ruminations about the Presidential campaign, the war in Iraq, or what the editor had for dinner last night. Neither do our editors offer their personal views on every policy issue in the news or every new court decision. We leave that terrain to the many existing blogs with that mission. Instead, our editors focus their efforts, in both the permanent resources & links and daily news & information, on the scholarly and teaching needs of law professors. Our hope is that law professors will visit the Law Professor Blog in their area (or areas) as part of their daily routine.
Future Law Professor BlogsIn our start-up phase, we are continuously adding new Law Professor Blogs in various areas of law. If you would be interested in serving as editor of a blog, or if you would like to receive an email announcement as new blogs come on-line, please email us.
Paul L. CaronPublisher & Editor-in-Chief
More information http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/
I recommend the lawprofessorsblog all the legal profession people in Chile , sincerely yours,  Rodrigo González Fernández. Lawyerschile.blogspot.com

ABA Committee on Res

ABA Committee on Research About the Future of the Legal Profession
Final Report: Overview
The Committee on Research About the Future of the Legal Profession, chaired by Robert J. Grey Jr. of Richmond, Va., spent the past two years working on issues related to the future of the legal profession.&nbps; During FY2000-2001, the Committee focused its efforts on developing a report on the current state of the profession to serve as a platform to examine the challenges and opportunities of change and how the legal profession can and should define its own future.  The Committee issued an interim report in 2001.
In its second year, the Committee worked with legal futurist Stuart A. Forsyth to envision the preferred future of the legal profession and to determine action steps that would foster that future.  That report was presented to the ABA Board of Governors at its August meeting in Washington, D.C. The 2002 report consists of the following components:

1. Overview (this document)


2. Diary of the Last Lawyer (alternative future scenario) in both text and audio Read the Diary | Listen to the Diary (Requires free RealAudio player)


3. ABA Journal eReports from the future •   September 27, 2016 (603K; (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)) •   October 4, 2016 (614K; (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)) •   October 11, 2016 (623K; (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader))


4. Interview with U.S. President in 2016 (preferred future scenario) (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)


5. Action steps in both text and slides Action Steps in Adobe Acrobat PDF (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader) | Action Steps slides (HTML format)


6. Committee process (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)


7. Committee members, consultant and staff

More information: http://www.abanet.org/lawfutures/report2002/
Sincerely yours Rodrigo González Fernández,  lawyerschile.blogspot.com

THE HERALD TRIBUNE

THE HERALD TRIBUNE

Harris In The Clear?
Although public polls continue to show her as a clear underdog versus Sen. Bill Nelson and her fund-raising has been below par, Katherine Harris may still find herself without a Republican challenger as she seeks her party nomination for the 2006 Senate race.The National Republican Senatorial Committee isn't coming out strong behind her yet, but this week a spokesman for the group told me there is no active recruitment effort going on right now, despite a political buzz that says there is another push to get Florida House Speaker Allan Bense into the race. Last night on WEDU's Florida This Week, I was on with a group of political insiders in Tampa whom all assumed Harris would become the party's nominee. The bottom line, according to Republican watchers, is that no one is confident they can beat Harris without spending a ton of money. If they succeeded they'd be low on cash heading into a battle with Nelson, who already has about $7 million in the bank and is sure to have a lot more by the time a Republican primary battle would end in early September. The prospects of trying to beat a sitting incumbent with just about two months of campaign time after a possibly vicious and expensive primary doesn't appeal to many seasoned political watchers.If Harris posts a big fund-raising total at the end of this month, she'll go a long way in further shutting down talk of a primary battle. A $2 million total would certainly do it, according to most observers. If she posts less than $1 million, Harris will find a new push to get her out of the race. The importance of the money, and the message it can send is clearly not lost on Harris. She's aggressively raising money. She's had at least a pair of fund-raising events this week, and isn't expected to slow her pace. She has another event she's lining up in Tallahassee this week coming up. Plus, she tells the Insider that both Mel Martinez and Jeb Bush are going to come on board soon. Neither has said so publicly, but Harris said both have agreed to help her raise cash.Bottom line? It's crunch time for Harris.

More information:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?CATEGORY=BLOG01
Sincerely yours Rodrigo González Fernández, lawyerschile.blogspot.com   blogeningles.blogspot.com