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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/te...?emc=eta1&_r=0

this is not the most hollow win I've ever seen, it's beyond that. it's like the part that should empty in a hollow win is filled by poison.

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More important: were the judges wearing those silly wigs?

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Well, they did better than I would have given them. I think it's kind of silly that one can patent a rectangle. Of course, everything I know about intellectual property law may be summed in that second sentence.

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Awesome ruling against the FBI - http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...00-3965054.php .

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Iwant to make sure I have thje procedural history right: writer files FOIA statements; FBI jerks him off for a while; wter files suit to force disclosure and court orders same. The $470K is a recovery of attorney's fees and not damages, right?

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Your understanding is correct.

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Correct - mostly prevailing party. Took the citizen/journalist that much to make the FBI follow the law.

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Without a record, I would be speculating, but if the same tactic was used in court, I would have awarded the same amount again in Rule 11 sanctions.

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I note Bryan Cave got a good chunk of this. Good for them. That ought to encourage a couple more similar cases.

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I cannot comment as my firm represents the US Government on very important high tech matters.

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Kind of tough to watch that ship sail away, especially when it is so low in the water, huh?

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I'm not sure you can do that, but don't let that stop you, vis-á-vis the FBI. Those guys are sanctimonious assholes whose souls have been twisted into pretzels by the ability to lie for the good of America. Being a professional liar will fuck up your moral compass with a quickness.

And to any "Special Agents" reading this, yeah, I'm talking about you.

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what about "change agents?"

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I wish I could say I saw it coming -- I thought it was my firm.

Because they have journalists who cover them, so a writer from TNR can start with the reporting other people have done.

Law firm dynamics were surely very, very different before partners learned what they could be making at other law firms and started jumping around.

And the irony of discussing that on this board is not lost on me.

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my first big law seemed a very nice place to be a partner. the partners weren't told what other partners billed, nor their books, so they could hardly in fight. there was a guy with a corner office who had basically written Mi. condo law 20 years before, had enormous billings and got the corner. then the field turned into commodity. when I was there he sat in that corner office doing nothing. he billed 800 hours (we were just starting to learn what others did).

point is, mid 80s things were friendly!

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One of the great things about having departed Biglaw for a boutique is that I have to work pretty hard to get myself to really care about the pending demise of these places. I mean, the problem isn't that the lives of the Biglaw partners are bleak and miserly because they need to make iBanker amounts or that they're failing to reproduce themselves and so populate the world with more baby reptiles. The problems are that Biglaw increasingly sucks at providing quality legal services because they are more focused on their own needs than their clients'; and that Biglaw's main need is the soak clients by ginning unnecessary or fabricated hours constantly.

There is always a simple option for a good lawyer - find some compatriots, do some good work, treat clients fairly, and money that is really pretty damn good by any reasonable standards, though perhaps not enough to average $1.5M ppp. All these whiners are choosing the life they complain about.

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there were people at my last biglaw that saw themselves as parallel to me, and they would talk about doing this, but most of them get unhappy at one BL and jump to another, too chicken to try and make it. They somehow fail to realize 1) they have now quit several BL firms, and found them repugnant, and 2) even if the boutique crashes and burns, every BL would hire them (patent being a field marketable to these hell holes) so there is no real risk

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It's not just law. Commoditization is savaging professionals in every industry. The bean counters rule all, and they are unbeatable because, what's the argument against them? There is no rational near term argument against a ruthless rush to optimal efficiency. The only argument is a long term one: That sooner or later, nobody will be able to afford what's being produced so damn efficiently. And nobody in a position to make a difference has ever given a fuck about the long term.

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It took me a while to realize it. But, several years out now, I can't help but laugh at the whining.

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I was at the annual outside counsel meeting for my biggest client, and their outside counsel laison was explaining that document review should never been done by a lawyer, and typically should be done somewhere like India.

All I could do was think of how many more years adder has until he can retire.

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All but a handful of people I know are working two professional jobs per household to afford what is relatively* a upper-middle class lifestyle that my parents managed on one salary. When the first 40% of the smaller salary is going to childcare expenses (and convenience foods etc.), many of us are just treading water from a 1980 SoL on one salary. People in my office who started 25 years before me had vacation homes on one salary.

*In absolute terms it's hard to say whether a 2013 household with broadband and four monthly cell phone bills is middle class since the middle class household of 1980 would regard it as more than luxurious — it would be an unattainable marvel.

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I would say that this person has no idea what they are talking about, at least with respect to cases that involve real stakes. I've seen firms and clients take that sort of attitude toward documents, and I've seen how it can cripple them in the ability to wrangle evidence to support their arguments.

I worked on a fairly high stakes case with Howrey representing the other party to the deal. As far as we could tell, there were 8 Howrey partners on the case and two associates. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the actual documentary evidence (that proved successful) came out of our doc review, which was supervised by actual lawyers. Maybe you don't need lawyers doing the first review, but sending it to India to be supervised by people who don't know the case is significantly handicapping your case.

But of course, there is no reason why you need to pay a 30% or more premium to have your case handled on a coast either.

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It feels that way, but it isn't true. You're consuming significantly more and better quality stuff than your equivalents in 1980 were. Cell phone and broadband, obviously, but also vastly higher quality cars, more fresh food (assuming you do that), better restaurants, higher quality and larger homes, etc.

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bwaHAHAHAHAHAHA

ETA I do take your point as to the rest.

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Not sure if we can attach files anymore, but this passes as appropriate in my office, so there's something to be said about Biglaw--they have standards.

http://s8.postimg.org/4l7n34805/IMAG0294.jpg

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If you set aside the revenue side of the equation for your typical family and just look at the expenses, what is more expensive than it was in 1980? In an area like the one you live in, I would imagine that housing has gotten progressively more expensive since WWII. For a long time after the war, you could throw up suburban housing all over the place, so scarcity wasn't a problem. Now you can't do that, and everyone pays more and more for the land (as opposed to the buildings on it).

The obvious answer is to build denser housing, but local zoning prevents that. So instead you see bungalows torn down to build monster houses -- but both are single-family houses.

I hope you appreciate my efforts to turn this conversation to local land use law.

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Everything's relative. Broadband and cell phones are cheap necessities of the modern age. The presence of gadgets (and the false suggestion cheap tech innovation is its own unique form of wealth) doesn't undo the fact that the breadwinner in that household is getting crushed by the "middle class squeeze."

Wall Street assholes love the argument that quality of life measured by things like cable, a washer/dryer in the home, and car ownership is proof financialization has brought society immense riches. Fuck these people. Seriously. Seat them on the horn of that brass bull outside the NYSE and twist them on it until their eyes bleed. Wealth isn't cheap shit on credit. Wealth is freedom, and freedom derives from having cash in your pocket with which you can choose your own path, rather than be another debt serf in hoc, ultimately, to Wall Street.

All this said, I am not against the financial sector fucking people over, or turning them into debt serfs. If you can be duped, tough shit on you. But what I am very much against, and everyone ought to be, is sophistry. And the argument the middle class is better off now because Jackass Bank will loan them enough, at 13%, compounded monthly, to have a "professional grade" outdoor grill, or surround sound system, than they were when they weren't living paycheck to paycheck, is fucking bullshit. Steal if you like, but be fucking honest about it.

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Perhaps your home is not higher quality and larger, but I'm fairly certain the average home is.

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There are vastly fewer >5 acre lots these days.

Of the things we consume today, the one that I think has significantly increased intrinsic value and improved the quality of life across the board is healthcare. Our healthcare is vastly better than it used to be. Of course, post-supersize-me, we need all the help we can get.

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You forgot a key part of the argument, so I fixed this sentence. Do you still agree with the rest?

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Hm. You think so? I kind of don't. I guess I don't think there were ever many, and I think the sprawl of suburbia probably actually created more. But that's a guess.

At least around here, the lots for older suburbs are actually smaller than new ones, with much, much smaller houses on them.

But I didn't say the land around homes was larger and better quality. I said the houses were larger and better quality.

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Yet freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Quite the contradiction!

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Atticus's straw man with a vacation home didn't pay cash for it, that was on credit too.

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Kristofferson. Never was an artist so overrated.

(And such a poor man's Sam Elliott.)

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Nor was it "cheap shit." He could afford expensive shit on credit.

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I'm an ass man. You aren't buying that. Nature either gifted it, or it didn't.

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You are obviously not a homeowner.

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I'm a condo owner. My building was built in 1985. It is certainly larger and better quality than condo buildings built before then. Both because of improvements in building codes and because it was built as a luxury building and has been maintained that way.

But that's not the point. We're comparing the housing stock in existence in 1980 to that built since 1980. In what ways do you think my statement is untrue?

I don't think there is any doubt that houses have gotten bigger, on average. And, lo!, lookie here. Census data showing that the mean and median size of new single family homes has gone up over time, both up about 50% between 1973 and 2010.

Now quality is a tricky thing. On the one hand, there might be less brick and stone and other stuff that feels sturdy and heavy. And of course there's the annoyance the new stuff doesn't seem to last as long.

But those new homes have more features (things like more bathrooms per bedroom, and, of course, air conditioning which didn't used to be universal), improved safety and code standards, especially when it comes to plumbing and electric, bigger garages, gas or electric heat instead of fuel oil or coal (going way back), and all kinds of stuff.

Seriously, do you people never visit the neighborhoods built in the 40s, 50s and 60s?

ETA: I'll grant you that modern subdivisions can be soulless and lacking in other ways, but the houses are bigger and better quality than their equivalents from earlier periods.

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I'll bet you enjoy eating at the Olive Garden.

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Sounds delightful.