Your Cleanest Dirty Shirt
Hmm. CNN was
chattering in the background when I heard the very
smart, very astute Mohamed El-Erian
explain
the reason why investors continue to purchase US
bonds even though the United States’ credit rating
was downgraded recently. He called it “Your Cleanest
Dirty Shirt” which is akin to something along the
lines of “where else can they go?”. Here is the
explanation:
You are on a business trip. It is extended longer than
you anticipated and you are out of clean shirts. What
to do? You wear your cleanest dirty shirt.
So, how does this work in the legal profession? Well,
for one thing, that client that is determined to win
everything may end up without a shirt if s/he persists
in a winner take all strategy. By convincing your
client that s/he may have to wear the cleanest dirty
shirt, i.e., that newly maligned word “compromise”,
your client may not win everything, but will come out
of the process with a shirt on his or her back. It may
not smell right, but wearing your cleanest dirty shirt
is the smart thing to do.
Spectacularly Stupid Statements
I’ve been out of law
school so long that I really do not know what’s going
on in those Ivory Towers. My friend,
Chuck
Newton, by contrast,
really pays attention to such things. He has one
daughter, fresh out of law school and a newly minted
attorney, and two other children about to enter law
school. Chuck could probably tell you the cost of
tuition for every law school in the country and its
bar pass rate. I’ll defer to him on such matters as
getting the best bang for your buck on the law
school scene.
What I do know a little about is creating your own
opportunity. I know that Chuck agrees with me here. He
has written extensively on the subject. Lawyers just
cannot expect to hang a shingle, or build that better
mouse trap or whatever, and have their dance card
filled for all eternity. It just doesn’t work that way.
Whether you are building a law practice, trying to hang
onto a job, or just living your life, its always a
constant struggle to create that next opportunity and
assumptions can be dangerous, especially if you think
you deserve success simply because you showed up at the
party.
For example, I have a childhood friend. Many years ago
she went through a divorce and suddenly found herself
the single mother of two young children. One night,
while listening to her woe over glasses of wine she
blurted out, “remember when we were growing up and we
were told that we would get married and be taken care
of for the rest of our lives?” As gently as I could, I
told her that no I didn’t remember that. Secretly, what
I remember being told was that even if I did marry
someone who could support me, something could happen.
Like — he might get hit by a bus and I’d have to
support myself, I’d have to support my husband and our
family, and I’d have to pay all my husband’s medical
bills. In other words, my parents wanted me to be
prepared for any eventuality.
Dear (Contact First Name)
Last week I received
an email from an organization which is trying to sell
its certification program to e-discovery lawyers. This
may or may not be a good idea. I really don’t know
enough about it to form an opinion.
What I do know is that most lawyers are desperate to
sell their services. They glob onto just about
anything. New SEO experts, dress-for-success
consultants, law specialty boot camps, and
certifications in areas of the law that did not exist
five years ago.
On the other hand, maybe I am just a tad cynical. It’s
not just airport security screeners that are invasive:
Fairly recently, a prospective attorney-client asked to
see a copy of my law school transcripts from
twenty-eight years ago. Without skipping beat, I told
her that my work product spoke for itself; she could
read my writing samples, she could talk with my
attorney-clients, but I wasn’t going to produce my law
school transcripts, especially since I would have to
order them from my law school as I no longer have a
copy. Needless to say, the conversation ended quickly
after my refusal to produce.
There is a fine line, however, between being too
personal and not personal enough.
For example, take that email from the organization
trying to sell its certification program. It was
addressed to “Dear (Contact First Name)”. Not the most
effective marketing strategy, especially from an
organization touting itself as on the cutting edge of
anything having to do with electronic communication.
The bottom line is (I just started reusing that phrase
from my 1970s B-school days), if you are going to
market your services, whether it is an email blast or a
face-to-face contact, get the person’s name correct, or
don’t use a name at all. You can always refer to
another lawyer as “Counselor”, a prospective client as
“Neighbor”, or as John McCain, and now Mitt Romney
addresses audiences, “My Friends”.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What It Means To Me
During last year’s
State of Union Address, a congressman shouts out, “you
lie”, while the president of the United States is
speaking. More than one-half of a political party
refuse to accept the president as a legitimate
president because, contrary to all reason, they are
convinced that he was not born on American soil. And
now, the opposition is prepared to destroy the world’s
economy simply because it thinks it can use that to
score points in the next election cycle. Something is
profoundly wrong.
Have these people become unhinged because President
Obama is a person of color? I don’t think so.
I remember long before anyone ever heard of Monica
Lewinsky the bumper stickers in California’s Central
Valley, “Impeach Clinton — Better Yet, Get a Rope”.
Given our history of political assassinations, it
turned my stomach.
This is a far cry from the way I was raised.
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, my
immediate family took my paternal grandparents out to
dinner every Sunday afternoon. It was before the advent
of freeways and superhighways and the oneway drive to
their home from ours was almost two hours.
My grandmother kept a very orderly house. For example,
the magazines on her coffee table were kept in
alphabetical order and sorted according to date. I used
to sit in her living room, fantasizing in Oscar Madison
fashion, of picking them up and throwing them against
the wall. Of course, I didn’t. It was their house. My
grandfather, a barber, worked six days a week, twelve
hours a day, for fifty years; I understood that they
had earned the right to live a structured life even
though I wanted to wear flowers in my hair.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandparent’s
bedroom. It was very small, so there wasn’t a whole lot
of room for furniture.
They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!
If you did not come of
age during the 1960s, you will not remember this
two week hit
by the
artist known as Napoleon XIV, nor will you remember
the flip side, "!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC
er'yehT", which was the song recorded backwards, or
the sequel by Josephine XV, “I’m Glad They Took You Away,
Ha-Haaa!”. Quel dommage!
I point this out, not because it has anything to do
with the practice of law, at least I don’t think it
does, but because I just had a flash from the past.
Time to stop watching the news!
