Category: legal practice

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legal practice

Online California MCLE

Three years ago, I completed my California MCLE requirements through LACBA’s CLE-in-a-box program. Basically, for the current non-member price of $249, you will receive a box of CDs containing 25 hours CLE courses to be completed at your convenience. For quite a bit more, you can get these same courses pre-loaded on an Apple iPod Nano or an Apple iPod Shuffle.

This time around, I’m trying MCLEZ’s California Super Bundle Promotion for $99. MCLEZ offers 25 hours of California MCLE credit via online audio and video programs. The programs play through a standard flash-based player that is compatible with both Macs and PCs.

Categories
legal practice

Top Five Law Firm Layoff Quotes

Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but what about foresight? The Legal Intelligencer published an article in August of 2007 wondering whether associate layoffs were imminent. Well, we already know that answer now. However, let’s look at some gems from 2007.

  1. “I would be surprised if there was any kind of a wave of layoffs.”
  2. “[Y]ou just don’t let go of [M&A] talent in a downturn.”
  3. “[L]ayoffs going on in the financial side of the world…could, however, result in more, not less, work for at least the immediate future.”
  4. “Rather than … a burst of a bubble, we’re hoping for a soft landing.”
  5. “[S]hort of a ‘meltdown of the global economy,’ firms aren’t going to face layoffs.

Ah, what a different world we lived in 2 years ago. I particularly love the one about “short of a ‘meltdown in the global economy'” which is exactly what occurred. I mean talk about being 100% ironically right. So, what does this all mean? It’s pretty difficult to predict an environment different from the one we are currently in. At some point, the economy will emerge from this slump and we’ll look back at the people prognosticating more gloom-and-doom and wonder why they were so wrong.

Categories
criminal law legal practice

Boycotting Big Law

Last week, Federal News Radio interviewed Cully Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs regarding the Guantanamo detention center.

In Guantanamo Bay: Five Years Later, Secretary Stimson names the major law firms in this country representing the alleged terrorists held in Guantanamo (about 3:23 into the interview) and questions whether CEOs should continue to retain such firms since the 9/11 terrorist attacks represented a direct hit to Corporate America’s bottom line.

Here is Secretary Stimson’s blacklist: