Woodworth & Frisella

After a hellish move, we are back – well almost back.

Phone service will be reinstated this afternoon. Jim Hogan from Computer Help 2 U worked like a dog on Saturday to get us wired, plugged in and up and running. My nieces Paige and Laurel and my nephew Josh showed up about 2:00 AM on Saturday and pitched right in to help clear out the mess. Just stacking the boxes and bagging the paper felt like a gift from above. My eternal thanks for their generosity. The movers – ACLASS Moving were great too. If you are relocating in central MA, I highly recommend Phillip Thomas and his gang. They were careful, efficient, and had a sense of humor, something I value highly.

So now it is a matter of settling into our new digs.

They are light and modern and I can see the birds and trees from my window. And we are staying here for a long time.

I’m in the process of moving my office. The moving date was November 4th until yesterday when the broker called and said I had to be out October 27th. I conditioned the closing date on an extra week where I would occupy the old and new offices. Apparently the buyers did not get the message.

So Amy and I are cranking, day and night to get it done. I’ll be without Internet until at least the weekend. Blogging will resume next week.

Our mediation turned out very well. I was pleased with the mediator, the case we put on, and the result.

I’ve written before that I am a big fan of mediation. I serve as a mediator on cases on occasion so that is no surprise. If you are not familiar with the process, it generally involves two sides sitting down and crafting their own solution to the pending case. Most cases are about money (as the one we mediated yesterday was) but there is also room for very creative and innovative solutions. A good mediator is a Godsend. And yesterday we had a very good mediator who I would use again.

The mediation was booked through JAMS which specializes in complex business mediation.

The day was harrowing in the beginning. The traffic into town was worse than normal and our 1.5 hour commute took 2.5 hours making us late. I do not do late well. I had to wave an extra $20 in front of a parking attendant to get him to let my car into his full lot. That part was fun. I’d never done that before.

Generally in a mediation you start out with everyone in a big room together and each side makes a statement about what their case is about. We were attempting to compel the defendant to pay on a contract it said we breached. Our position was that no breach occurred and the issue involved the defendant’s own ability to use the product we sold them.

Once both sides explain their position the parties break into two different rooms and the mediator goes back and forth between the parties in an attempt to get them to come to an agreement. While the mediator is talking to the other side, each side retools their position, second guesses where the other side is going and tries to figure out where to go next. Sometimes it is fairly apparent where it is going to end up, and in this case the mediator motioned what he thought the ultimate number would be, when we started. Getting there is a different story of course.

Getting there can be a log slog. And it was yesterday. But we made it and it is done.

If you are reading here please forgive my silence, and expect it to continue for a few more days. We have weather here with a capital “W”.

After 9 days of pelting rain I found water in my office yesterday. I quickly bought a Wet-vac and have gotten it all out, but I still have some clean-up to attend to. I’ve been hampered by 2 related power outages today, and other stuff I need to attend to.

On top of that I have a very important mediation scheduled for Tuesday and have been re-reading depositions and generally doing other stuff to get prepared. So Tomorrow and Tuesday look bad for blogging, and I suppose it could morph into Wednesday.

I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Today is my sister’s real birthday. I called her at 8:00 AM and reminded her. It’s best to be the little sister when you start getting over the hill.

We are busy busy busy so blogging is taking a back seat for today anyway. I’ll try to get back to it in earnest tomorrow.

I spent a few hours yesterday trying to put my thoughts down about this article on class action suits. A power failure this morning (probably due to all the rain we are having) washed away my attempt, which was far from done.

The article talks about Silica litigation and how an aggressive defense discovered upon investigation, the plaintiffs in these cases were often the same plaintiff’s in asbestos litigation, and that at least some of the doctors signing off on these plaintiffs manufactured the bad diagnosis in exchange for money.

This raises a lot of issues about prior class action litigation. Have we been bankrupting companies and enriching lawyers with no evidence? I can’t quite decide who is more to blame – the plaintiff lawyers for sending out invitations by mail to prospective plaintiffs with no apparent follow-up, or the defense lawyers for not bothering to check them out.

It’s a subject I hope to get back to as time permits.

On a different note the following comment was left on this blog this morning:

In the last 48 hours, I keep reading that the Government is pushing a major effort to close down websites and blogs with “questionable” content.

If true, from a legal or political perspective what is the motive?

I have to admit to not following this crackdown or being aware that it was happening. This article gives some history of the Supreme Court I know it when I see it obscenity decision outlined in Miller v California in 1973.

As for motive – perhaps the idea is to rally the base. I’m the base, and this sort of attack on private life doesn’t rally me. OTOH a recent decision in Oregon now makes it legal to show live sex acts in your local bar, so who knows where we are headed?

The New York Times published an article by Jonathan Glater today about lawyers who blog.

Inside every lawyer, it is said, there is a brilliant writer, held back by professional ambition or by fear of failure. Nowhere is that truism more evident than in the explosion of online blogs by, for and about lawyers.

Scott Turow, quoted in the article says “it’s all [about the] words”.

Lawyers are talkers, that’s for sure. We can’t fight battles with our fists so we fight them with our wits.

OTOH John Hindraker thinks it’s more about the battle:

“Most people’s personalities are such that they don’t really like conflict and are shy about putting arguments and opinions out in public where they’re going to be attacked,” he said. “Obviously lawyers do that all the time.”

And most of us like it.

Finally, Denise M. Howell who is credited with coining the term “blawg” suggests:

“…blogs demystified the law without costing outrageous sums; led to more open, frequent and occasionally informed discussions of politics, law and occasionally morality; and helped forge links between practicing lawyers, law professors, law students and the real world.”

I agree with Ms. Howell’s assessment as well, recognizing that lawyers generally have to refrain from talking about the cases they are working on, which is what propels us to talk about politics and other lawyer’s litigation.

I like blogging for many of the same reasons I like the law. I like the law’s boundaries and structure, and the playing field that each case creates. Within that playing field there are endless possibilities for solving problems, win/win solutions or Coliseum type battles. The opposing team changes with nearly every challenge, and most battles go on for far too long, but long enough to understand and assess your opponent, his case, and the pressure points. The real fun is getting to the solution.

Blogging rarely ends with a solution. For me, blogging is more analogous to having a conversation with yourself or your colleagues about where you are in a matter, where you hope to end up and how you are going to get there. The words are the vehicle, the battle is looming, and the process is unraveling. It’s a great way to figure out where the meat of the matter lies.