Food For Thought: Don’t Work Hard, Work Efficiently

Working hard* seems to be the easy, quick remedy to combat the ever growing tasks we face at home and work. It sounds incredulous to tell someone not to “work hard”. However, simply working hard(er) neither promotes innovation nor does it make efficient use of time spent working (present and future).

As a programmer, working hard is analogous to brute force coding. By brute force coding, I do not mean banging my keyboard on my desk until something works. What I mean is: I have a project/requirement and I am going to write my code until that requirement is fulfilled regardless of method and without any planning or design. What I would have developed is a block of code that has fulfilled my one requirement, and, likely nothing else. My code is neither easy to debug nor is it reusable for future projects/requirements. I may have to write that same block of code again, with slight modifications, next week.

My challenge to you: when faced with the next big project or large workload, do not work hard, work efficiently (Google “working efficiently” to find tips on how to work efficiently).

*Working hard and not efficiently will most likely lead to desk rage (please see info-graphic below)

Virtual Law Practice CALI-Style

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is offering a FREE online course called Topics in Digital Law Practice.  Taught by North Carolina-based attorney Stephanie L. Kimbro, the first session took place on Friday, February 10, 2012.  You can view the video and slides at http://tdlp.classcaster.net/

Two copies of Ms. Kimbro’s book Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online are available in the LLTC’s collection.  Kimbro also blogs at the Virtual Law Practice.

Weekend Reading/ Viewing: The Lincoln Lawyer

The Lincoln Lawyer is the highly charged story of criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller and his battles within the Los Angeles court system.   While the movie has yet to appear on any 25-Greatest-Legal-Movies-Evah lists, I contend that LL could be a strong candidate for inclusion on future lists despite the dog-eared adage that “the book is always better than the movie.”

In the book, author Michael Connelly paints protagonist Mickey Haller as a free-wheeling, free-dealing criminal defense attorney who, rather than pay overhead for a fixed office space,  does business out of the back of his late-model Lincoln Town car.  His standard run-of-the-mill clients are petty thugs, drug dealers, and prostitutes.  The action heats up when Haller agrees to defend a rich young man from Beverly Hills charged with attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault and battery.

The son of legal legend Michael Haller, Mick is a creature born and bred to the L.A. Superior Court and former-police-beat-reporter-turned-novelist Connelly doesn’t disappoint readers, providing a vivid insider look at the City of Angels.  As his protoganist tears up Highway 5, oiling the wheels of the American criminal justice system, Connelly’s writing is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler which is unsurprising since he decided to become a mystery writer upon discovering Chandler’s works while studying at the University of Florida.

Trivia sidebar:  About 10 years after moving to the West Coast, Connelly literally followed in the footsteps of Chandler’s hard-boiled PI Philip Marlowe by renting the unit in High Tower Apartments where the famous character lived in The Long Goodbye.  Director Robert Altman also filmed portions of The Long Goodbye in the same location.

While the movie takes liberty with the written word, The Lincoln Lawyer succeeds as a film due to its ability to convey the book’s nuances within the hour and a half allotted by director Brad Furman.  The film excises a great deal of the material relevant to the intricacies of legal profession, but the star-studded cast, featuring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy, and Michael Peña, meshes well, keeping the audience engaged in each character’s role as the script’s plotlines converge.  Their collective performance is offset by a slick soundtrack and terse dialogue that evokes the drama and action inherent to high-stakes cases in the courtroom.

The Law Library & Technology Center is proud to count both the print and film versions of The Lincoln Lawyer among its holdings.  The book is shelved at PS3553.O51165 L56 2005 in the Law and Popular Culture Collection (2nd Floor) while the DVD resides at PN1997.2 .L553656 2011 in the Media Collection.  The Sherman Library also offers additional formats of this title, such as audiorecordings on CD-ROM and Blu-Ray as well as the other five books in the Mickey Haller series.

You can also watch Michael Connelly and Matthew McConaughey talk about both works while on the set of The Lincoln Lawyer via the author’s official website.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

New Year, New Law Librarian of Congress

Welcome to 2012!  Today marks the start of David Mao’s tenure as the Law Librarian of Congress.  Appointed Deputy Law Librarian of Congress in May 2010, Mr. Mao has served as a key member of the Law Library’s leadership team and managed the Law Library’s global legal research portfolio, including the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN). He succeeds Roberta Schaffer, the 22nd Law Librarian of Congress.

The news regarding the transition was posted by Andrew Weber who has been the Legislative Information Systems Manager at the Law Library of Congress since June 2004.  An active blogger at In Custodia Legis, Weber also supplied the text of January 2011 interview in which Mr. Mao expressed his thoughts regarding the responsibilities of the Law Librarian of Congress and described the career path he chose, which should prove to be inspirational reading for law and library school students alike who are considering becoming law librarians.

Your Law School’s Ranking? Not as Important as You Think!

Law
school success, as measured by grades, is more important for lawyers’
career success and satisfaction than the ranking of the law school they
attended, according to a recent study reported by the ABA Journal’s blog.

The study was encouraging news for lower-tier law schools and their students. The ABA article said:

[T]he
salary boost for achieving high grades more than makes up for the
salary depreciation associated with attending a lower-ranked school. The
study also found that lawyers who left law school with the lowest
grades felt the least secure about their jobs.

The authors of the study, “The Secret of My Success: How Status, Prestige and School Performance Shape Legal Careers,” summarize how its findings contradict “conventional wisdom”:

The
consistent theme we find throughout this analysis is that performance
in law school–as measured by law school grades–is the most important
predictor of career success. It is decisively more important than law
school "eliteness." Socioeconomic factors play a critical role in
shaping the pool from which law students are drawn, but little or no
discernible role in shaping post-graduate careers. Since the dominant
conventional wisdom says that law school prestige is all-important, and
since students who "trade-up" in school prestige generally take a hit to
their school performance, we think prospective students are getting the
wrong message. (p. 2)

Those
of you who chose law schools to be closer to home, or because you
wanted more practical preparation for practice (a demonstrated strength
of NSU's), feel good about your choice! You're likely to be more
satisfied with your law school, and over a lifetime, you may well do
better.

The
yet-to-be-published study is by Richard Sander (UCLA Law) and Jane
Yakowitz (Brooklyn Law). It looked at beliefs about the effects of the
ranking of the students’ law school, grades in law school, and societal
position. It then reviewed the literature and statistics on the effects
of these three variables on lawyer career success. It also compared the
effects of the factors using a regression model.

Million Dollar Advocates Forum

Winning a million dollar verdict will qualify a lawyer to join this exclusive trial advocacy group. $$$

- By: Robert Hudson

They’re gonna find out who’s naughty and nice

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners will be checking the Facebook and other social networking sites of bar applicants who:

•  are required to establish, under 3-13(d) of the Rules of the Supreme Court Relating to Admissions to the Bar, that they have been rehabilitated from prior conduct adversely affecting their character and fitness for admission to the bar, to ensure that they display no malice or ill feeling towards those who initiated the proceeding against them;
• have a history of substance abuse or dependency;
• have “significant candor concerns;”
• have a history of unauthorized practice of law allegations;
• present the possibility of having held themselves out as attorneys; or
• have been involved with an organization advocating the overthrow of the government.

Read the whole story in The Florida Bar News.

- By: Deborah McGovern

FreelanceLaw.com

Still in beta, FreelanceLaw.com is "A national database of freelance attorneys, paralegals, and other legal professionals, offering their services to law firms on an independent contractor basis."  It was founded by San Diego lawyer Melody A. Kramer, and reports over 1000 beta testers among freelance attorneys and law firms. The site is offering free introductory webinars on August 5 and 6. Thanks to Joe Hodnicki's Law Librarian Blog post.

Can’t Find a Job? How Does Agency Administrator Sound?

Despite the chilling news about the lack of jobs in academia in our current hard times, it appears that there are still opportunities for legal academics.  This article in The National Law Journal  details the nomination of JD’s with academic cred for various positions in the new administration, including deputy secretary of the Department of Labor, deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, head of the Department of Homeland Securities’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

- By: Deborah McGovern

Looking for a “Plum” Job? Check This Out!

The 2008 Plum Book, which lists federal government positions appointed by the President, is now available online via GPOAccess.  Officially know as the United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, this publication is compiled every four years, following the Presidential election. 

These are the major categories of positions, listed on p. iii:
• Executive Schedule and salary-equivalent positions paid at the rates established for levels I through V of the Executive Schedule;
• Senior Executive Service (SES) ‘‘General’’ positions;
• Senior Foreign Service positions;
• Schedule C positions excepted from the competitive service by the President, or by the Director, Office of Personnel Management, because of the confidential or policy-determining nature of the position duties;
and
• Other positions at the GS–14 and above level excepted from the competitive civil service by law because of the confidential or policy-determining nature of the position duties.

Even if you're not looking to try for a Presidential appointment, the Plum Book provides a wealth of information about those positions!