- Need a Last-Minute Gift? Can't
Decide What to Order? No
Problem—Give a Billable
Hour Gift Certificate
- Feature Article: Are You
Busy—or Productive?
- Stu's Views
- Greetings From TBH: Lawyers in
Love Greeting Cards, For the Lawyer
You Love
- Cartoons by Dan
- Congratulations to the Winner
of the Funniest Legal Video on the
Web Contest
- Special Book Excerpt: Mindless
Repetition, Anyone?
- Lawtoons
- Song of the Month: Bring Your
Case Here to Me
- Cartoon: Juris Comic
- Poeticus Lex: Waiting for the
Dough
|
|
Need a
Last-Minute Gift? Can't Decide What
to Order? No Problem—Give a
Billable Hour Gift Certificate
|
Between emergency hearings and filing
deadlines, you may be too swamped to think
very far ahead when it comes to buying gifts
for your colleagues, friends and family
members. Or maybe you just don't know what to
get for the lawyer who has everything.
Billable Hour Company Gift certificates are
the perfect solution when you just can't find
the right gift or you're short on time.
You can purchase a Billable Hour Company
Gift Certificate in any amount (minimum
$10).Unlike some gift cards, gift
certificates from The Billable Hour Company
never expire, and there are no hidden fees
that erode the value of the gift
certificate.
When you purchase a gift certificate, the
recipient receives an e-mail with your
personal message, a unique gift certificate
identification number, and instructions
about how to redeem the gift certificate.
You automatically receive a copy of this
e-mail.
If you prefer to print the gift certificate
and deliver it by hand, you can have the
gift certificate e-mailed to you instead.
You can even have the gift certificate
mailed to the recipient.
Gift certificates are valid on all of our
gift items. However, they are not valid in
our card store.
To order a Billable Hour Company Gift
Certificate, go to
www.TheBillableHour.com/xcart/giftcert.php
Are You
Busy—or Productive?
by Julie Fleming Brown
|
One of the most important pieces of
coaching rests in illuminating distinctions.
I have several favorites that come up in the
course of a great many coaching engagements:
reaction vs. response, hearing vs. listening,
assertion vs. assessment, interesting vs.
purposeful, and so on. One distinction is
particularly relevant to effective action:
busy vs. productive. My favorite definition
of busy is "full of or characterized
by activity." Another definition of
busy (often used as in a pattern or
design, but still relevant here) is
"cluttered with detail to the point of being
distracting." Hmmmmmm. Productive is, of
course, derived from the verb to
produce, and my favorite definitions
of to produce are "to create by physical or
mental effort" and "to bring into existence;
give rise to; cause."
As I've written before, I think we live in
a culture that embraces busyness and has
made it a virtue to be busy. And yet, I'm
taken by the idea that being busy can mean
being "cluttered with detail." I've
certainly found myself there: researching
something that's of tangential relevance to
what I'm doing, so that at the end of the
day I've worked hard all day long and
accomplished . . . well . . . not much. But
it's an easy trap to slip into, because it
feels good to be busy.
I once had a conversation with a colleague
about billing. He said that he'd spent an
entire hour staring out of his office
window and thinking about a case, and he
came up with an approach and strategy that
simplified a difficult issue, one that
substantially increased the client's
chances of success. His conundrum? How to
bill for time spent staring and
thinking—as well as how to find
more of that time and how to protect it
since he didn't appear to be "busy" but he
was in fact very productive.
The law actually recognizes this
distinction in billing rates. A 1st or 2nd
year associate is billed at a lower rate
than a more senior associate or partner
because (among other reasons) experience
teaches a lawyer how to use her time most
productively; the work accomplished in an
hour by a senior associate is almost
certainly more useful (i.e., more
productive) than that accomplished in the
same hour by a new associate. And yet, both
may appear to be equally busy.
When someone describes working a lot
without getting the results he wants, I
often suggest he ask, "Am I busy, or am I
productive?" The question is an adjunct of
the Quadrant II time/priority management
system that Stephen Covey teaches, and it
takes that system to the next level because
the question makes manifest the danger of
working on an important task without being
productive.
This question is particularly appropriate
for practice/career management issues. For
example, in the course of a job search, is
it busy or productive to spend hours
reading ads on a job board? The answer
likely depends on the board and on whether
there's follow-up to an ad of interest.
It's also appropriate in substantive
practice at times, to question whether
certain activities are productive or
whether they're just generating work. So,
consider devoting a few minutes today to
checking over your task list, or to
reflecting on how you spent your time last
week, and ask: "Am I busy, or am I
productive?"
Julie Fleming Brown provides
professional and personal coaching for
lawyers on topics such as client and
professional development, job searches,
career transitions, and work/life balance.
She is also certified to provide the DISC®
assessment. Please visit http://www.LifeAtTheBar.com/
for more information and to arrange a
complimentary coaching exploration session.
To get your free Life at the Bar Survival
Kit, go to http://www.lifeatthebar.com/MenuSignUp.htm
©Stu Rees. All rights
reserved.
Suggested inside text: Thank goodness we
found each other. Happy Valentine's Day,
Darling!
Like this cartoon? Send it to
friends, clients or colleagues on greeting
cards. To order, visit The Billable Hour Card
Store.
Did you Know that Stu also
licenses his artwork for use in
newsletters, presentations, print
publications and on websites? He even
offers special rates for student and
teacher use.
You can also purchase original artwork and
custom prints (framed or unframed) from
Stu.
Timesheet readers get 15% off
all licensing orders,
original artwork and custom prints (use
coupon code BILLHOUR). Visit www.Stus.com for more
information on licensing this cartoon, or
one of the hundreds of other images Stu
offers. For more information on original
artwork and custom prints, click here.
|
Lawyers in
Love Greeting Cards, For the Lawyer
You Love
|
Like this cartoon? Send it to friends,
clients or colleagues on greeting cards. To
order, visit The Billable Hour Card
Store.
Suzan Charlton is a professional
cartoonist who is rumored to practice
insurance coverage law as a hobby for a
major Washington D.C. law firm. Her
cartoons cover a wide range of law-related
topics, from law school grades to law firm
romance.
Last February, we
launched our Layers in Love greeting
card line. The line is the product
of our partnership with LawyersinLove.com—the
only online matchmaking site catering
expressly to the interests and busy
schedules of lawyers, law students, and
legal professionals. Where else but at
The Billable Hour Card Store can you
find cards like this:
Suggested inside text: Yesterday you
really got on my nerves
Suggested inside text: Then I don't
want to be rightful
To really lay on the legal
lovin', pair one of these unique cards
with a watch from one of our Lawyers in
Love Sets.
©Dan Rosandich. All
rights reserved.
Like this cartoon? Send it to
friends, clients or colleagues on
greeting cards. To order, visit
The Billable Hour
Card Store.
|
Video
of the Month: It's a Tie
Between My Cousin Vinny and The
Brothers Larry
|
The competition was tough, but the
highest-rated videos over at The Video Venue
during this past month were
"Cross-examination of Sam Tipton"
from one of the best-loved lawyer
movies, My Cousin Vinny, and
the absolutely spot-on commercial
parody, simply titled "Lawyers," by
The Brothers Larry:
Rounding out the top three is a
48-second gem from Charles Schultz's
Peanuts entitled "Contracts."
To watch more of the funniest
law-related videos from all over the
web, join us at The Video Venue!
|
Congratulations
to the Winner of the Funniest
Legal Video on the Web
Contest
|
Congratulations to Video Venue
community member Eastontario, the
winner of the Funniest Legal Video on
the Web Contest. He (or she) won a
$50 Billable Hour Company Gift
Certificate for reviewing and
commenting on some of the hilarious
videos at TVV. We chose
Eastontario at random from among all
of our community members.
Remember, we need
you to help keep TVV
fresh by submitting your favorite
law-related videos. You can suggest a
video that's already posted to the
web, upload a video, or even record a
webcam video. After you submit a
video, we will review it for content
and quality. If we approve the video,
it will be posted to TVV.
Special Book
Excerpt: Mindless Repetition,
Anyone?
by Adam Freedman
|
Truth be told, "the party of the
first part" is hardly the most
antiquated bit of boilerplate
floating around these days. Insurance
contracts, for example, routinely use
the word witnesseth,
which is merely an Old English form
of the verb "to witness," as in "this
policy witnesseth that . . ." Many
leases also use that word, as seen in
the opening line, "Witnesseth: the
lessor agrees to lease said property,
etc., etc. " Loyola law professor and
plain-language advocate Peter Tiersma
describes witnesseth as "a totemic
signal that roughly means 'This is a
legal contract; the following are its
terms.'"
Not to deny that there is something
fun and whimsical about throwing
around Old English phrases. Just
saying "witnesseth" is enough to
summon up images of feudal lords,
jousting, and great steins of beer
delivered by lusty serving wenches.
But on the whole, such fantasies are
best indulged at your local
Renaissance Faire. Witnesseth serves
absolutely no purpose in today's
contracts. Even if you update it to
"witnesses" or "witness" it still
adds nothing to the lease or
insurance policy.
Similarly useless is the statement
found at the end of many boilerplate
affidavits (sworn
statements): Further affiant
sayeth
naught—naught
being an archaic term for "nothing."
Since these words are always at the
end of an affidavit, it is not as
though they clarify some ambiguity.
Anybody who gets to the end of the
document will know exactly when you
have nothing more to sayeth.
About half the time, lawyers
mistakenly use the word "not" instead
of "naught." Literally, the phrase
"further affiant sayeth not" means
"the affiant has one more thing to
say: not," which would leave the
affidavit with a strange hint of
negation. The fact that no court in
the land cares whether you write
"naught" or "not" demonstrates that
the phrase is pure surplusage and
should just be left out entirely.
Why do some contracts have the word
indenture at the
top? It is because in ancient times
certain contracts would be executed
in two copies, each with matching
notches or indentations at the top of
the page. At a later time, the edges
of the two pages could be brought
together to show that they were part
of the same agreement. "Indenture"
and "indentation" both come from the
Latin dentatus (having
teeth), an etymology that nicely
evokes the image of the serrated
documents. These days, however, the
word serves no purpose as an
indenture is never actually indented,
even when there are multiple copies.
Now we have photocopiers.
The printing press exacerbated the
law's natural tendency to preserve
old phrases. Almost as soon as
Gutenberg's first Bible rolled off
the press (1455), English lawyers
were putting together
formbooks, that is,
collections of sample contracts,
pleadings, and other documents that
had already passed muster with some
court or another. Provided that one
copied the form verbatim, no sporting
judge could object. Formbooks
continue to thrive to this
day—even though the "books"
may be CDs or downloadable
files—in a language
reminiscent of Henry VIII.
The only lasting benefit of the
formbooks—and the
boilerplate they contain—is
that they afford an almost
archaeological cross-section of the
history of legal language. From the
Old English period (pre-1100), as
we've seen, there are such delicious
leftovers as witnesseth and sayeth.
Much more prevalent are the vestiges
of the Middle English period (roughly
1100-1500). This was the language's
formative age, when Oxford and
Cambridge were founded and Chaucer
wrote The Canterbury Tales.
The spirit of the day was one of
experimentation. Lawyers and other
literate folk enjoyed nothing
better—or so it seems to us
today—than inventing new
words by putting together two or more
old ones, such as the very
legal-sounding
notwithstanding. To
this generation we owe the profusion
of where- words in
legal documents: whereas,
wherefore, and
whereunder, for example,
which can still be found in legal
boilerplate, as well as some
interesting forms that did not
survive: wherehence,
whereafterward, and
wheretil. Of similar vintage
are the here- words:
herein, hereunder,
and so on.
The spellings of these words have
been updated to conform to modern
conventions. In the Middle Ages,
spelling was a free-for-all; one
writer could spell the same word
several different ways in the course
of a single document. A word like
where had wildly inconsistent
spellings in medieval England,
including hwaer,
huer, quare,
gwhare, hwore, and
even whore.
The odd invocation to be found at the
beginning of many legal documents,
including bonds and powers of
attorney, Know all men by
these presents, also comes
from this period. The phrase
these presents does
not refer to gifts, but is a
translation of the Latin presens
scriptum ("this writing"). As
with witnesseth, the function of
"these presents" is purely
ritualistic: "Look out—here
comes a legal document!"
Not all Latin was translated into
English. Even more than today,
medieval lawyers used Latin for all
kinds of documents. The scribes
developed a system of abbreviating
legal Latin known as "court hand."
The system was ingenious; rather too
ingenious, in fact, since the meaning
behind some of the abbreviations was
forgotten entirely. This is true of
the abbreviation ss.
These two little letters appear at
the beginning of virtually every
affidavit filed in the United States
despite the fact that nobody knows
for certain what they stand for.
Seriously: "ss" is sometimes said to
be short for scilicet ("one
may know"); other suggestions include
subscripsi, sans,
sacerdotes,
sanctissimus, Spiritus
Sanctus, and sunt.
Black's Law Dictionary will
only go so far as to say that it is
"supposed to be a contraction of
'scilicet.'" And yet, no
self-respecting lawyer will draft an
affidavit without it.
Members of the Precision School cling
to Old and Middle English expressions
as though they were life preservers
in a sea of ambiguity. In one
journal, a retired lawyer defended
the phrase "I hereby
certify, rather than plain old "I
certify" because the hereby
clarifies "I, right now, by this
document, certify, etc." He then
conceded that when a document says "I
certify," there can hardly be any
ambiguity as to the "right now, by
this document" part. Still, said the
lawyer, "it never hurts to emphasize
this fact." And, he added, words such
as hereby and
herein are
valuable—even if they are
not precise—because they
"demand the respect of the reader."
None of this holds water. The whole
kit and caboodle of Olde English
expressions smacks of needless
pedantry. One suspects that people
who use words like heretofore are the
sort of people who say "I intend to
perambulate to an adjacent hostelry
for a frosty libation" instead of
"I'm going to the corner for a beer."
Excerpted from the book The Party of the
First Part: The Curious World of
Legalese by Adam Freedman.
©2007 by Adam Freedman. Reprinted by
arrangement with Henry Holt and
Company, L.L.C.
Lawtoons
by Suzan Charlton, Esq.
|
click here to
enlarge (large file; please be
patient)
©Suzan Charlton.
All rights reserved.
|
Song of the
Month: Bring Your Case Here to
Me
by Bob Noone & the Well Hung
Jury
|
 .
Available on
Second Helping of Chicken Suit for the
Lawyer's Soul
Don't know much about property
Estate planning is a mystery
Don't know much about search and
seizure
Heck, I slept through Criminal Procedure.
But I have a nice TV ad
And I must say, I don't look half bad
So won't you please bring your case here to
me.
Never understood federal taxation
Or driving under intoxication
Never litigate a slip and fall
Heck, I hardly see a courtroom at all.
But I do wear nice Gucci suits
And I can make us both lots of loot
So won't you please bring your case here to
me.
Now, I don't claim to be a legal
eagle
Like some ads on TV.
But maybe by stretchin' the truth just a
little,
You would bring your case here to me.
All the codes and the statute books,
I never give 'em a second look.
Criminal law is so easy for me
All my clients enter guilty pleas.
Truly I hate litigation,
But it's my only occupation,
So won't you please bring your case here to
me.
If you like my truth in advertising,
Then my last request won't be
surprising,
Please . . . bring your case here to me!
Just one of the hilarious songs on
To view Juris Comic,
click here
Poeticus
Lex: Waiting for the Dough
by Fred C. Russcol, Esq.
|
In theory, when funds go by
wire,
They travel like a house afire,
Just as one would think they might,
Going at the speed of light,
Without a second's thought or care,
The money goes from here to
there.
But when a closing's in real life,
Wiring funds engenders strife,
Since funds that long ago left
here
Have somehow seemed to disappear;
One bank says the funds were sent,
But no one knows just where they
went-
The other wire room flatly states
The money hasn't reached its gates.
Irate lawyers and angry clients,
Stumped by fiscal transfer science,
Simply have to sit and wait
And then, perhaps, recriminate,
Until repeated calls bear fruit:
The second bank's received the loot!
Then docs are hastily exchanged,
And folks depart as if deranged,
Pledging that in years to come,
They never will again succumb
To the agonizing wait
That wiring funds will oft create.
And yet, when next a chance presents,
They ignore each shred of sense,
Forgetting anguished pledges made
When prior wired assets strayed;
Competent, successful men
Assume it won't occur again:
Just what Murphy's Law requires
When crucial funds are sent by wires.
Fred C. Russcol, Esq. is Of Counsel to
Castro & Remer, P.C. in White Plains,
New York. This poem was originally printed
in the Westchester Bar Journal and is
reprinted with the permission of the
Westchester County Bar Association.
|
